For King and Country - Conquer the world in a online real-time strategy game (MMORTS)

What crew should I buy?
Before you can use your ships, you need a crew for them. You get a crew by first buying them in the harbour and then putting them on your ship by going to "My Ship" and then to "Personal Crew". Don't forget this second step, otherwise your crew will be idle on shore while you sail out with an empty ship.

Gun Crews
Each gun crew can handle 2 of your guns. Because in a fight you can only use one side of your ship, in practise 1 Gun Crew per 4 guns is enough. If you get attacked by 2 or more ships you'll use the guns on both sides of your ship and need more gun Crew in this case.
You also might want some extra in case some get injured in the fight.
In the "My ships" menu you will find notes at the bottom of the page for each ship based on currently embarked crew. Gunner Accuracy (GAcc) is a statistic for each gunner on your ship that measures the chance each gunner will hit the main target. This chance may vary depending on the state of the hull of the target.

Sailors
Sailors make your ship harder to hit and makes it easier to hit your opponent. In principle, the more you have the better, but their usefulness decreases if you have too many. In the "My ships" menu you will find notes at the bottom of the page for each ship based on currently embarked crew. Sailor Value (SVal) is the value used to determine the ability of each sailor in to help in manuvering the ship. You will also note a total SVal amount for the ship at the bottom of the page. The higher this value, the harder it is for your opponent(s) to hit this ship.

Marines
Marines are excellent fighters in boarding fights. You can sometimes choose to board the enemy ship to capture it and become the new owner of that ship if you win. In fights like these, marines are very usefull. If you just use gunnery to sink your opponent (which is wise in training against forts), marines are useless.

Officers (Captains/Lieutenants)
You can hire extra officers. They can take over the command if you get injured in a fight. Ships that end up without officers (players or this type of officers) can not receive orders in a battle.
Captains can also be used to command ships for which your rank is too low. If you are a Lieutenant but would like to command a brig, you can use this crew member to command the ship in your place and make yourself a 2nd commander on the ship.

Support crew (Surgeons/Carpenters/Sailmakers)
The repair/heal your ship and crew. They can be used manually once per tick, if they were on board of the ship before the tick. If they perform an action, like boarding a ship or getting healed they can't use their special action that tick.

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What ammo should I buy?
In the Armory, you can buy ammunition for your guns. If you don't have any, your ships won't fire in battle, so keep a close eye on your stocks. If you just buy a ship it doesn't have ammunition so one of the first actions you need to do after your ship is ready is to buy ammunition for it.

You buy ammunition for the ship you are on, so get on the ship you need ammo for and then go to the harbour to buy.

Powder
You need powder to fire your guns. Regardless of the type of balls, you also need 1/10th item of powder for every shot.

Cannonballs
These are for destroying hulls/sinking ships. In training battles that is what you want to do because it's the easiest way to win.

Grape shot
These are for injuring or killing enemy crew. They are more effective after the hull has been damaged a little. Use these to clear the deck before boarding.

Chain shot
These are to destroy the sails and thus reducing the speed of your opponent. This increase the chance you will hit him. It's especially usefull before boarding, to make the chance on getting alongside bigger.

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I'm Embarked on a ship, why can't I move?
If instead of the travel button, there is the message "You are embarked on a ship" you are embarked as a passenger on a ship. A passenger can't give traveling orders. You can leave a ship by going to the harbour and finding the ship you are on.

You can see the ship you are embarked on by going to the My Ship page through the left menu. If you own this ship you can make yourself a commander there so that you can give orders.

If you are a land officer, all you can do is wait till you are where you are brought.

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How many moves do you need to travel at sea?
At sea, the wind is an important factor in how fast you can travel.

The stronger the wind, the less moves you need
If you move against the wind direction you need more moves. This is worse for some ships than it is for others. How much a ship is affected by the wind direction is reflected by the weatherliness of your ship (search your ship type in the FAQ navy reference guide to see your weatherliness)
Moving against a strong wind may be harder than moving against a weak wind. Moving against a storm can result in crazy move costs of over 50 moves.
Leaving or entering a harbour always costs 1 move.
You can see in the destination dropbox how many moves are needed. All moves in the same direction will cost the same as long as the wind doesn't change.

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Which Ship should I build?
In the shipyard, you can build ships. It takes a certain amount of ticks (ticks occur each 30 mins at :00 and :30) to complete after you gave the order to build. Once you started building you can't get a refund, so be careful what you order.

When choosing your ship, you have to check whether you are ranked high enough to command it. Some ships can be commanded by a Lieutenant, like Schooners and Cutters, but some require Commanders or even Post Captains.
Each ship has a minimum rank required of the commander. If you don't have this rank you can hire a Post Captain in the harbour to command it for you, or ask another player of higher rank and become 2nd commander of your ship instead of captain.

Transports can transfer land armies across the sea. They are very important in wartimes, but not meant for fighting other ships/forts.

Some ships are not weather-dependent. Galleys for example can move in all directions with all windspeeds at approximately the same speed. You can see how a ship is influenced by the wind by the features "wind dependency" (how move speed is affected by the speed of the wind) and "weatherliness" (how easy it is to move against the wind with this type of ship).

Which ships can you buy where:
Ships of the Line can be built only in large cities while frigates can only be built in medium and large cities. There are some ships that appear only as special ships of countries. They can only be built in harbours of that country. It's possible to go to a port of another country to build a ship there, but at twice the regular price.

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What is the lookout report?
The lookout report shows which ships are in the squares bordering your square. You can see the ship type, the number of guns and the location. The last number is the speed of these ships, which is important for blockades.

You also see which ships are involved in a battle and which are blockading. Ships that block your way can be attacked through the lookout. They have to be defeated before you can enter their square.

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What is my hometown?
Each ship has a hometown. This is the place you return to if your ship is defeated in battle (but not destroyed). It is also the place the ships move to that are captured by your ship. If you don't have a hometown, your captured ships remain at sea.

You can set the hometown in each harbour you are in. To do this you must be on the ship you want to set the hometown of and click the button "Make hometown" in the city centre or on the my ship page. If your hometown is captured, you have to pick a new one.

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How many ships can I own?

Soldiers can build 4 ships, Knights and Dukes 5. Every player can also build one transport ship(transport or war galleon) on top of the normal
allowance. Extra transports do count as normal ships. The maximum number of ships any player(soldier, knight or duke) can own is 5 plus 1 transport or wargalleon.

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What do the Repair/Heal buttons do?
The repair/heal buttons are a shortcut to use your surgeons, carpenters and sailmakers. "H" stands for repair hull, "C" for heal crew and "S" for repair sails.

If the buttons are greyed out, it means that you either don't have the necessary crew member, or this crew member can't heal any more this tick (embarked this tick, or already did his special action), or there is no work for him.

This button always uses the highest skilled available crew member necessary for perfoming that action. If you have more and want to choose which is used, you have to click on the ship details and pick this crew member by hand.

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What are FP?
FP/fleet points are points you get by doing things things for your country.
They are decisive in determining which post captains get an admiral rank. With equal FP, the player with the highest XP comes first.

How do I get FP?
Fleet Points(FP) are now equal to Sea Battle Points(SBP) gained in a battle, but FP is reset when your country dies. Admiral promotion will be decided purely on FP, so no minimal FP and no distinction on CM levels. The FP medal will be removed.

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What are Merchant ships for?

Being a merchant is a quick and easy way to get started with navy. You apply for a merchant ship here, which must be moved to a random destination somewhere on the map. The larger the distance, the more money you will receive when you reach the destination. Merchant ships are not built, but need to wait 1 tick to be loaded with cargo. The ship dissapears when it reaches its destination city. You should either make sure you have other ships with you or build a new ship in this city.

Convoys can be used to lead groups of ships, even if you do not have a high rank yet. These convoys can not be used to attack, only to move ships in groups. This can be very useful when you own multiple merchant ships that need to go in more or less the same direction. It is also possible to let other players from your country take your ships along in their fleet. In this case the owner and the player who sailed the ship will share the profits when the ship reaches its destination.

Part of the profits from merchant ships will be taken as tax (50%) and will be distributed at the end of the day among all the army and navy players of your country. This will happen a little after 06:00 game time.

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Can I play with the pirates?
As a duke or knight, you can be a pirate, but this is a lot harder than playing for a country, and you will miss some of the game features. Beginning players are advised to play for a normal country.

As a pirate:

You can't have an army character, only navy
You can attack every country, but everyone can also attack you
You can't attack pirates, also not the non-player pirates.
You can't become admiral
You will be able to enter all harbours, but they are all foreign so you have to pay double for everything
You can only build the following pirate ships, excluding the 38 gun frigate
You can't buy good crew, can't buy marines and can't buy support crew (carpenters/sailmakers/surgeons)
Your pvp points will be divided by 3, people attacking you get no pvp points and you don't get pvp points when defending.
You start as a lieutenant rather than a midshipman
Pirates can build a special ship in each continent: Xebecs in Europe, Galleys in Africa, War Junks in Asia and Clippers in America.
You can get money from captured merchant ships by bringing them to their destination, but only 25% of the total revenue.

You can't join as a pirate if you are coming from a defeated country. You must start completely from the beginning to become a pirate.

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Where does my Commander go if my ship is sunk at sea?

Your Commander will return to the last port where you disembarked from a ship directly onto land. The last port you did that in will be where your commander returns to if your ship is sunk at sea in battle or storm.

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How do fleets work?

Fleets can be used to group ships so that they can attack together or be moved together. There are two types of fleets:

Squadrons
Squadrons can be used for attacking other ships/fleets. A squadron can contain up to 5 military ships. The leader of a squadron must have at least the rank of Sr Post Captain. Non-military ships like Transports, Merchants or Whalers can not be part of squadrons, but war Galleons can be. Each ship in a squadron must have a captain (either a player or a hired post-captain) before the squadron can leave a harbor. Once at sea they can move even if one of the ships loses its captain.

Convoys
Convoys can only be used to move ships as a group and to let them protect each other from enemies. Convoys can not attack. Convoys can contain up to 8 ships of any type. They can be led by anyone who is captain of a ship, so even a midshipman on a Merchant can create a convoy. Convoys can not perform blockades, and when passing an enemy blockade their strength is halved to represent their weaker organization. Ships in a convoy do not need to have a captain to leave harbors.

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Why does the cost of my merchants change?
The cost of a new merchant depends on the percentage of merchants that you have delivered. Selling merchants or losing them in battle makes new merchants more expensive when you get a delivery percentage of less than 50%. Likewise if you have a very high delivery percentage and have delivered a lot of merchants, the cost of new merchants decreases.

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How many crew members can I hire?

The number of crew members you can hire depends mostly on your rank.

Midshipmen can hire 30 crew
Lieutenants can hire 60 crew
Commanders can hire 90 crew
etc, increasing 30 each rank. Commodore is a separate rank, so if you are Sr Post Captain you can hire more crew by raising a fleet.

This limit is only enforced when buying crew, so if your limit gets lower (for example when you go from Commodore to Sr Post or when you lose an admiral rank) you do not lose the extra crew you may have bought.

There are two other ways to get more crew:

Support the site by buying a duke or knight account: Knights can hire 10% more crew and Dukes can hire 20% more.
Refer people to KnC. If a player registers using your referral link (can be found in the city centre screen) and becomes an active player your crew allowance is increase by 5. A player is considered active when he first enters the headquarters in his country.

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How dangerous are storms?
Storms can potentially sink your ships, but not in an entirely arbitrary way. If you know the risks it's still possible to get to sea in a Gale and a Storm.

The storm effects are calculated on every tick there is a storm (taking the weather for the next 30 minutes), and also every time a ship moves in a storm.

First of all, you always get damage to your hull and sails if the wind-speed is above 2.0.
The higher the wind-speed, the more damage you will take.

Damage to your sails is always relative to your speed so Schooners will take more sail damage than Transports because they have more. You also get exponentially more damage when the wind-speed is higher. In a Gale (up to a wind-speed of 2.9) the damage is merely an annoyance, in a violent storm you will lose all your sails in a few moves.
Damage to hull is absolute, so ships with a lot of hull will be relatively less affected than small ships. This reflects that heavier ships were usually more resistant to storms. In a Gale (2.0) you will have only a few points damage per move, in a storm that might be around 40-60 points.

Once your sails get below 50% your speed is hampered and you run the risk of getting caught up by a wave, falling sideways and getting the next wave on the side, sinking your ship instantly. This is more likely to happen the more damage your sails have and the stronger the wind.
In a Gale of strength 2, the sink chances are:
50% sails: 0%
40% sails: 2.5%
30% sails: 5%
20% sails: 7.5 %
10% sails: 10%
0% sails: 12.5%
In a storm of strength 3, these chances are doubled, and of strength 4, doubled again.

In a storm of strength 3, you can still move at least 4 or 5 squares if you started out with full sails.

There is also a chance of a fleet disbanding because of the storm. This chance is given by: 2^wind-speed, but only effective for wind-speeds higher than 2.0.
(8% for gales, 16% for storms etc)

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How do I get started with a ship

To get started you have to buy a ship (or join as Lieutenant under another commander, but we'll explain here the case where you will be captain).

First of all, pay attention to the commander rank. Each ship has a minimum rank requirement for the captain, which you can find in the reference guide. Don't buy a Ship of the Line if you are only a Commander since you won't be able to command it.

Each ship needs a captain of at least the commanding rank (higher is allowed) and can have up to 2 lieutenants or midshipmen as 2nd commanders. They can do everything the captain can. The 2nd commanders can't be captains/commanders themselves. So there is no way for a commander to be on a ship of the line since he is too low to be the captain and too high to be 2nd commander.

A ship has a price and a build time. The price must be paid in advance and then it will take a number of ticks to complete your ship. If the city is captured while your ship is being build, your ship is moved to a new city. If you forgot the city your ship is built in you can see this in any other shipyard. Above the ships being built, there will be a line saying in which cities your ships are being built.

Once you have your ship you can embark on it in the harbour. After you embarked you are only a passenger. You have to go to "My ship" to make yourself a commanding officer. Lieutenants or captains who wish to serve on your ship should join it as a passenger and ask you to promote them to commanding officer this way. Once they are commanding officer they have all powers over your ship.

Before you leave the harbour you need to do 2 more things:

Buy ammunition. You can do this in the harbour. For every 10 shots you need 1 keg of powder. You also need cannonballs/grape shot/chain balls depending on your preference. It's usually wise to have all of them with you. Do not buy too much, since it increases the risk on explosion but don't buy too little either if you're planning a long trip.
Get a crew. If you hire crew in the harbour they become your personal followers. They are NOT automatically put on your ship yet. You have to do this manually in the "my ship" page. You can employ your crew on ships you own or command. It's possible that Lieutenants on your ship supply the crew.
The better the skill of the crew, the better they fight/sail/shoot.

Now you have a battle-ready ship and can go hunting for pirates/villages/enemies.

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How does the weather influence sailing
There is a wind speed and direction that holds for a whole continent, and can be seen under the city or sea picture.

Ships generally sail slower in the direction of the wind, but some ships types can do it more easily than others. This is reflected in the weatherliness of the ship. The higher this value, the less it costs to move in the direction of the wind. Moving half-wind or from the wind makes no difference in the speed.

The 2nd aspect of the wind is its speed. The stronger the blow, the faster sailing ships go, which is represented in lower move costs. With strong winds, sailing towards the wind is harder though, so when the wind-speed increases you may find that the move costs in the direction towards the wind also increases! Ships with a low wind dependency are less influenced by the wind speed.

In case of storms, there is the additional danger of taking damage to your sails or even hull. Going to sea in a Violent storm is generally not wise.

Ships that are (partially) propelled by oars are hardly influenced by the weather, other ships (like the Ship of the Line) should pay a lot of attention to the wind in order not to get stuck somewhere you don't want to be.

Every tick there is a 25% chance of the wind radically changing strength and direction and a 75% chance of a small change in the strength.

When the wind changes, the direction is chosen randomly. The wind speed is also chosen randomly with unequal chances:
5% chance to have a Calm (speed*0.3)
10% chance to have a Light Breeze (speed*0.7)
40% chance to have a Moderate Breeze (speed*1.0)
25% chance to have a Strong Breeze (speed*1.5)
15% chance to have a Gale (speed*2.0, light danger)
4% chance to have a Storm (speed*3.0, moderate danger)
1% chance to have a Violent Storm (speed*4.0, grave danger)

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What is my countries crew bonus?
The crew bonus is a bonus on the skill of new crew members. If a regular "good" crew has skill 60 when you just buy him, but your country has +5 crew bonus, he will have a skill of 65.

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How do transports work
Ships with transport ability can carry army officers across the sea.
Each ship can carry 1 army, it doesn't matter how many officers are in that army. So it can carry a main army or just a single officer.

Army officers can embark/disembark in the harbour. They can attack cities from the sea, with a 20% penalty on top of the normal bonuses, so it's probably not wise to attack with your main army from a ship.

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How do fleets work?
The ranks of Commodore and higher are fleet commanders. They can start a fleet in the "my ship" page. Once they started a fleet, other ships can join them, up to a maximum of 5 ships. The fleet commander can appoint other commanding officers in the fleet who act as fleet commanders. They will have all the rights to move and fight with the fleet.

A fleet fights all its battles together, also training and attacking other ships (of course taking into account the value of the whole fleet). Fleets are not disbanded after an attack.

Fleet are disbanded after a lost attack and have a chance to disband when sailing in storms.

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Can I enter cities that do not belong to my country?
Yes, you can go into any city that your country is not at war with. You can wait for your ships to be repaired there, and you can buy ammo, hire crew and buy ships at twice the normal cost. Crew hired in other cities gets the skill bonus from the country this city belongs to, so if your country would normally get +5 bonus on the skill of new crew, but you are in a city from a country with -5, you get -5 bonus. That works the other way around too of course.

You can also build the special ship type of that country, and not the one from your country.

When you are in a city from another country you can NOT:
go to the headquarters
go to the castle page
go to the academy

and you are also not allowed to take army officers in such city. If they would be on your transport, you will be denied access.

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what do I do when my ship is in a city my country is in war with ?
You can only enter harbours of a country you are not in war with. When you left one of your ships in a foreign harbour and your country get war with this country you have two options:

Wait until the ware timed out
Sell your ship

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How do I earn gold/xp?
Gold you can earn in several ways:

Your regular income. Every tick you get your commanders wage - the cost of your personal crew
Selling ships. You can sell ships for a part of the build price.
Sinking enemies. For every ship sunk in battle the side that sunk it receives a gold bonus from the country. This is divided first equally per participating ship and then not so equally among the officers on that ship (shares relative to the rank of the commander, with midshipman being 1, lieutenant 2 etc.) The owner of the ship counts as Post Captain (5) even if he is not on board.

XP is awarded to officers participating in a victorious battle. You get more xp for defeating stronger opponents and especially for opponents relatively stronger compared with your own ship/fleet. You get an average 5 times as many xp for beating ships of enemy nations than you get for "training" battles.

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Why can't I build all ship types?

Some ship types are standard, but some only appear as special ships from countries. Each country has 1 special ship type (that can be a variation on one of the regular types). You can build special ships from another country if you go to their cities, but you will have to pay twice the normal price for them.

Apart from this, the smaller shipyards can't build the big ships.
Ships of the Line can only be built in large cities.
Frigates and War Galleons can only be built in large and medium cities.

Every country can build the regular ships:
64 gun Ship of the Line
32 gun Frigate
Corvette
Brig
Schooner
Cutter
Transport

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Can I hire an unlimited number of crew members?
No, there is a limit on the number (not on the wage like in the army part of the game) of crew members you can hire. This number depends on your rank:

Midshipman: 30 crew members
Lieutenant: 60 crew members
Commander: 90 crew members
and so on, increasing by 30 every rank.

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How many moves do I get?
Every tick (30 minutes) your ship gets his speed / 100 in moves. Each square is one move and you can't move diagonally. (If you have more ships, they all get their own moves).

Your commander also gets moves, 1 every tick (30 minutes) to move over land.

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Can I move to a square with enemy ships?
You can move to any sea square, to attack an enemy you must get to the same square where he is and then attack. You can see ships on the squares around you but not attack them.

The exception are blockades, discussed elsewhere in the FAQ.

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Can I earn money with ships I own?
Yes, you can earn money with your ships even if you don't command them yourself.
For every army officer moved by your ship you get 200 gold per square. The exception is officers who have gold for less than 48 ticks, they don't pay (to prevent people in the main from getting bankrupt by this)

You also get money when your ships destroys an enemy ship. Your share will be equal to that of a post captain.

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What does "(-/1)" means behind a crew member?
Behind each crew member stands how often he can be healed/or heal this tick. The number before the "/" is the number of times he can himself heal/repair. There is a "-" if the crewmember isn't a surgeon,carpenter or sailmaker. The second number is the number of times this crew member can be healed by a surgeon.

These numbers increase by 1 each tick, till a maximum of 4. Only the first number can't increase above 1 when the owner of the crew has a non-paying account.

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