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GAME GUIDE

Prestige Industry Licensing

Prestige gates, sector licences, ownership capacity, permit fees and licence upgrades.

What is the Prestige Industry Licensing System?

Industry Licensing is the long-term progression layer for powerful property sectors. Houses, apartments, local retail, restaurants, cafés and places of worship form the open starter economy; every other purchasable category requires the right Prestige level and an active sector licence.

Prestige 1 unlocks commercial properties (offices, supermarkets, markets and shopping centres) and managed car parks.
Prestige 2 unlocks industrial sites and warehouses, plus hotels, cinemas, pubs, nightclubs and other entertainment venues.
Prestige 3 unlocks major venues such as stadiums and the rail sector.
Prestige 4 unlocks airports and aviation.
Prestige 5 unlocks landmarks and globally important heritage assets.
On desktop or Chromebook, press All game areas → Run operations → Licences. On a phone or tablet, press More → Run operations → Licences. The page heading is Licence Office.
The World economy status banner says whether licensing is active or only Armed for the next global reset. When it is armed, every rule is visible but BUY LICENCE remains unavailable and regulated purchases are not blocked yet.
When active, each sector card shows its required Prestige, properties included, current tier, Owned, Capacity, Permit, next-tier price and any unmet requirement.
Licence and license mean the same feature. The game uses the British spelling Licence Office on its buttons and screens.

How do licence tiers and capacity work?

Every regulated sector has five licence tiers. A tier limits how many assets in that sector you may own or commit to through active bids and offers.

Commercial, Parking and Industrial capacity each grows through 3, 10, 25, 60 and 150 assets.
Hospitality & Entertainment capacity grows through 2, 6, 15, 40 and 100 assets.
Major Venue and Rail capacity each grows through 1, 3, 8, 20 and 50 assets. Heritage grows through 1, 3, 5, 12 and 30.
Aviation begins with one airport, then grows to 2, 5, 10 and 25.
Active auction reservations and property offers use capacity so it cannot be oversold.
To upgrade a licence, first fill the current capacity and raise that sector's average property upgrade to the displayed operating standard.
The required average is Level 1 for Tier 2, Level 2 for Tier 3, Level 3 for Tier 4 and Level 4 for Tier 5. The Licence Office shows the live average to one decimal place.
A property counts in the sector shown by its Licence Office card. A bid or offer can make the card full even before ownership transfers.

Exactly how do I buy or upgrade an industry licence?

Open the Licence Office, find the sector you want and use the action at the bottom of that sector card. The server checks Prestige, operating progress and Available cash before taking payment.

On desktop or Chromebook press All game areas → Run operations → Licences. On phone or tablet press More → Run operations → Licences.
Find the correct named sector: Commercial Property Operator, Parking Network Operator, Industrial Operator, Hospitality & Entertainment Operator, Major Venue Operator, Rail Operator, Aviation Operator or Heritage Custodian.
For a first licence, reach the Prestige printed above the sector and press BUY LICENCE. If the button says REQUIRES PRESTIGE, that Prestige level must be completed first.
For a later tier, fill the current Capacity and raise the sector's average property upgrade to the level printed under NEXT LICENCE TIER, then press UPGRADE TO TIER followed by its number.
ACTIVATES AFTER GLOBAL RESET means the whole licensing economy is not active yet. OPERATING STANDARD NOT MET means capacity or average upgrade is unfinished. NOT ENOUGH CASH uses Available cash, so reserved bid or offer money cannot pay.
A successful purchase changes the card to the new tier, deducts the displayed game-cash price, creates a permanent Licence purchase Ledger entry and sends an in-game notification.
Commercial tiers cost £15m, £45m, £140m, £450m and £1.5bn. Parking costs £10m, £30m, £100m, £350m and £1.2bn. Industrial costs £15m, £35m, £100m, £300m and £1bn.
Hospitality & Entertainment costs £20m, £60m, £180m, £600m and £2bn. Major Venue costs £40m, £110m, £350m, £1.2bn and £4bn. Rail costs £75m, £200m, £650m, £2.2bn and £7.5bn.
Aviation costs £250m, £750m, £2.5bn, £8bn and £25bn. Heritage costs £500m, £1.5bn, £5bn, £15bn and £50bn.

What is an industry purchase permit?

A permit is a one-time additional game cost paid whenever a regulated property changes hands. It is separate from the property price and is shown before money is committed.

Commercial permits are 5.5% of the purchase price; parking and industrial 5%; hospitality and entertainment 6.5%; major venue 7.5%; rail 10%; aviation 12.5%; heritage 15%.
The total property price plus permit is checked for direct purchases, offers and auctions.
Auction and offer reservations hold the permit as well as the price, so reserved cash remains honest.
Property purchase and permit each receive their own permanent ledger entry.
The Permit percentage shown in the Licence Office is charged on every regulated direct purchase, accepted player offer and settled auction. It does not consume an extra capacity place.
If the full property price plus permit is not available, the acquisition cannot complete. The confirmation or market record shows the permit before money is committed.

Do licences survive Prestige and Legacy Runs?

Yes. Once you buy an industry licence, both the licence and its current tier permanently survive every ordinary Prestige and Legacy Run. You never have to buy or upgrade that licence again just because you Prestiged. Only a deliberately destructive Fresh Start or owner-approved global reset clears licences.

Prestige releases properties, restarts cash and objectives, but it does not delete, downgrade or charge again for any purchased licence.
Legacy Runs follow the same permanent rule: every owned sector licence keeps exactly the tier it had before the run.
The Prestige transaction checks licence ownership and tiers before completing. If they cannot all be preserved, the entire Prestige is stopped and rolled back.
The licensing system can be deployed without affecting the current world.
Only an owner-approved global reset activates the gates and regulated property rebalance.
An administrator emergency pause disables gates and permit fees without altering ownership.
A one-time integrity repair releases properties that bypassed an active gate, refunds honest purchase and current-ownership upgrade spending, and removes progression inherited from an earlier owner or reset.

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GAME GUIDE

Getting started

Create an account, choose a launch district and make your first purchase.

Account and first login

Every player begins with £NaN in fictional game currency and no properties. Registration requires a unique username, email, password, age confirmation and acceptance of the game terms.

The displayed currency symbol follows the player's detected country by default. Agent lets the player choose a different display currency or return to Automatic. Amounts are not converted: everyone still plays in one equal internal game economy.
The game is server-authoritative: the browser never creates money or ownership.
Sessions persist securely. Main economy routes require authentication.
The game works in a normal browser and can be installed as a PWA.

First Empire Sprint and suggested districts

New players begin with £NaN and receive three personalised, quieter launch districts. The First Empire Sprint then guides one clear action at a time: buy a property, bank earnings, upgrade it and grow to three properties.

Select a suggestion to jump to building-level zoom and begin discovery.
Suggestions are optional. Search, pan or use GPS to start anywhere else.
The first four objectives award £110,000 in total: £25,000, £10,000, £25,000 and £50,000.
Your first upgrade is half price during the opening week, and newly purchased properties have a 24-hour maintenance shield.
Fresh Start and Prestige both return the player to this launch choice.
A restart releases every property and clears its upgrade level, maintenance reserve balance, service conversion and parking warden. Old operating assets cannot carry into the new empire.

Your first property

Zoom in until mapped buildings appear, tap one marked as unclaimed, review its fictional value, income and costs, then acquire it with game cash.

Yellow means unclaimed, turquoise means yours, blue means another player and pink means a declared rival.
A purchase is atomic: two players can never own the same property.
Use View on map or Empire quick travel to return to a holding.

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GAME GUIDE

Complete How To & FAQ

A complete, screen-by-screen manual for every playable system, action, reward, risk and account control.

How do I start playing?

Register, open World, choose a suggested launch district or search anywhere, zoom to building level and tap a yellow property you can afford.

Your first objective always shows one useful next step.
Use Show Me when you want the map to highlight a suitable target.
Turquoise properties are yours, blue properties belong to another player and pink identifies a declared rival.

What does every main screen do?

The bottom navigation on phones and command sidebar on larger screens provide the same core destinations. Your current screen is highlighted.

World is the live shared map for searching, scanning, buying, quick travel, transport movement, services and rival targeting.
Empire contains cash and net-worth totals, contracts, territory, collections, every holding, upgrades, selling, bills and maintenance.
Market contains personal Daily Deals, the revealed Worldwide Drop, hidden Wildcard, auctions, player offers and the Deal Room.
Players searches usernames, manages friends and rivalries, and opens other players’ public holdings on the map.
Agent contains profile, currency choice, theme, account information, Fresh Start, Prestige, content reporting, updates and administrator access where permitted.
On phones, press More to open the Game Directory. Its four collapsed groups are Build your empire, Run operations, Progress & records, and Community & account; tap a group to reveal its areas.
Goals opens the single guided objective, its exact requirement, reward, achievements and Show Me map action.
On desktop, Leaderboards and Ledger remain directly visible in the command sidebar.

Where is every game feature and which button opens it?

On desktop and Chromebook, press All game areas in the left command sidebar. On a phone or tablet, press More in the bottom navigation. This opens the Game Directory; choose a collapsed group, then press the named area.

Build your empire → World map opens property discovery and buying. On the map, tap a building to open its property card; use Search place or coordinates to move somewhere specific and Quick Travel to step through owned properties.
Build your empire → Empire opens owned holdings, upgrades, maintenance and bills. Search for a holding, expand its street group and press View on map to return to that exact property.
Build your empire → Market opens Daily Deals, Worldwide Drop, Wildcard, auctions, sent and received property offers, and the Deal Room.
Build your empire → Treasure hunts opens a live hunt. Press Choose a search area to move to the map, then follow the current hunt instructions.
Run operations → Contracts Centre opens Housing, Police and Fire contract types. Choose the type tab at the top, then use the action shown for an available or active contract.
Run operations → Airports & flights opens Flight control. Choose an owned departure airport, destination, departure time, service type and ticket price, review the quote, then press Schedule & pay running cost.
Run operations → Trains opens Train control. Choose an owned station, reachable main city, departure time, service type and ticket price, review the quote, then press Schedule & pay running cost.
Run operations → Venues opens Venue control for hotels, cinemas, pubs, nightclubs, stadiums and car parks. Choose the venue selector first; the visible controls then match that venue type.
Run operations → Licences opens the Agent Licence Office for regulated sector capacity, requirements and licence upgrades.
Buses are retired and do not appear in the current Game Directory. Airports and railway stations are the playable transport operations.
Progress & records → Progression opens Prestige, Legacy and Fresh Start controls. Read the displayed requirements before pressing Prestige or Fresh Start because both release the current empire under their stated rules.
Progress & records → Prestige cards opens the card collection. Card income bonuses apply automatically; there is no equip or trading button.
Progress & records → Badges & cosmetics opens earned badges, the favourite badge and the three-badge public showcase.
Progress & records → Leaderboards opens global and regional rankings. Treasury ledger opens every permanent balance change and its View on map links.
Community & account → Companies opens Company creation, joining, requests, private chat, changing daily and weekly goals, contribution paydays and the Company leaderboard.
Community & account → Players opens username search, public profiles, friends and rivalries. Agent profile opens your identity and account overview.
Community & account → Cosmetic store, Referrals and Supporters open their named collections or programmes. These do not change ordinary property ownership rules.
Community & account → Settings opens currency, time zone, accessibility and Discord linking. Press Link Discord · Get £250,000 when no Discord account is connected, or Change Discord Account when one is already linked.
Community & account → Support opens the staff help form and screenshot attachment. Wiki & how to opens the complete searchable guide and update history.
The Current goal button at the top of the Game Directory opens the next guided objective, its progress and reward. Press Show Me inside the goal when the game can take you to the relevant place.
Some areas are introduced later by the Career Guide. A locked area says Introduced later by your Career Guide; open Current goal and complete the shown steps rather than looking for a hidden unlock button.

How do I use every World map control?

Drag to pan, pinch or use +/− to zoom, rotate with a two-finger twist or supported mouse gesture, and tap the compass to restore north.

Search accepts countries, cities, postcodes, streets, addresses and named landmarks; choose a result to fly there.
The location control requests approximate GPS permission and moves the map to the device location without publishing it to other players.
Quick Travel uses the arrows to visit each owned property. Use the minus button to minimise it without losing your place; tap its small left-side tab to restore it.
On phones, Quick Travel automatically moves above the full house-loading status while a district is being prepared. Both cards can be minimised into separate left-side tabs and restored at any time.
The service-view control shows only your own police and fire coverage.
Aeroplanes remain visible at wider regional and world zooms. Trains appear only on closer local maps so they never crowd the world view.
Property symbols and outlines supplement colour so ownership states are still understandable without relying on colour alone.

Exactly how do I buy a property?

On World, zoom until individual eligible buildings are coloured, tap an unclaimed one, check its fictional game value, purchase price, hourly income and upkeep, then press Acquire Property once.

The button shows a working state while the server processes the request.
The server rechecks ownership, price and available cash inside one database transaction.
If another player wins the race, you are not charged and the card refreshes to their ownership.
A successful purchase creates a ledger entry, ownership-history record, transaction record and shared map update.
Businesses attached to their normal building are one purchase. Market stalls and businesses inside malls, airports or stations are deliberate tenant properties.

What can I buy and how do property types differ?

Eligible mapped houses, apartments, shops, offices, hospitality, entertainment, industrial, parking, transport and landmark properties use category-specific fictional income, costs, rarity and valuation.

Homes produce rent with residential expenses and property tax.
Ordinary businesses produce profit with business expenses and business rates.
Car parks run continuously: set one hourly price, then actual occupancy, non-payers, local footfall and net results settle each completed hour.
Hotels, cinemas, pubs, nightclubs and stadiums keep passive income and unlock Venue Control activities.
Airports and railway stations unlock scheduled services, reputation, facilities, partnerships and passenger footfall.
Nationally and internationally recognised landmarks use high rarity and end-game valuations.
Places of worship can receive a shared fictional faith and name after purchase; the edited identity is visible to every player.

What do the small markers on my properties mean?

The compact labels beneath a holding explain every permanent choice, renovation discovery, temporary bonus, territory effect or operating warning currently changing that property. The symbol at the start identifies the marker family.

⌖ Address or Mapped location — the approximate OpenStreetMap-derived location. Coordinates appear when a usable street address is unavailable; this never identifies a resident.
Upgrade name and 0/5 to 5/5 — the property’s permanent improvement tier. Higher tiers increase profit and reliability; 5/5 is the maximum.
Net/hr — current hourly income after ordinary running costs and active modifiers. Reliability shows breakdown resistance, while condition shows current physical state.
◆ Specialisation — an operating style chosen at Level 2. Its revenue and running-cost effects remain active for that ownership run; selling or resetting the property clears it for the next owner.
✦ Renovation discovery — a feature automatically uncovered when the property reaches Level 2. It can change income, running costs and fictional valuation for that ownership run.
⇆ Passenger footfall — a temporary income bonus created by successful player-operated airport or railway services affecting the local area. The displayed percentage is the active boost.
⚡ City event — a temporary city-wide boost for the property categories named by that event. It expires at the end of the displayed event period.
≡ Street control — an income bonus earned by owning at least three properties on the same mapped street. It starts at 5%, rises by 2% for each additional holding and caps at 15%.
◎ Neighbourhood control — a 10% income bonus earned when ten owned properties share the same mapped neighbourhood.
TENANT — this business sits inside an owned market, mall, airport or railway station and pays the displayed share of positive profit to a different site owner.
LANDLORD SITE — this market, mall, airport or railway station has separately owned tenant businesses that can pay it automatic rent.
⏸ PROFIT PAUSED — this property has an overdue fictional tax or business-rate charge. Clear the bill to restart positive profit.
⚠ Problem or repair marker — an unresolved fault is reducing demand or income and may become more expensive if ignored.
ORDINARY, NOTABLE, HISTORIC, ICONIC and WORLD FAMOUS are rarity labels. They describe the asset’s game tier and help drive fictional valuation and collection progress.

How do properties owned together boost income?

Owning properties together can increase their passive income in three separate ways: Street control rewards holdings on the same mapped street, Neighbourhood control rewards a larger group in the same mapped neighbourhood, and the portfolio-size multiplier rewards the total size of your whole empire. These bonuses apply automatically; houses do not need to be joined, paired or put into a rental contract.

Houses and other properties owned together on the same mapped street boost their normal income through Street control. Own at least 3 there to receive +5%, then +2% for each additional property on that street, capped at +15%.
Houses and other properties owned together in the same mapped neighbourhood receive a further +10% Neighbourhood control income bonus once 10 qualify. A property can receive both Street and Neighbourhood control.
Owning more houses or other properties anywhere also raises the separate Combined earnings multiplier for ordinary income-producing properties: 1.10× at 1–3, 1.15× at 4–8, 1.20× at 9–20, 1.25× at 21–40 and 1.30× at 41 or more.
For houses, these group bonuses increase the normal passive rental revenue. Tenant Viewing Rush remains an optional additional contract reward and is not required to activate Street or Neighbourhood control.
Open Empire and look for the ≡ Street control or ◎ Neighbourhood control marker on a property card. Only properties whose mapped street or neighbourhood names match count towards that local group.

What are all the different boosts in Own the Map?

Boost is a general word for several separate systems. Some permanently improve one property, some apply automatically across a category or portfolio, some reward owning mapped locations together, and others are temporary events or local footfall effects. The name and marker on the property card identify which one is active; a question about a specific boost should be answered from that system rather than from Global Events.

Property development — upgrades permanently improve a property's normal economics; Level 2 also unlocks a chosen specialisation and reveals one automatic renovation discovery with its own income, cost and valuation effects.
Territory — Street control boosts qualifying properties by +5% from 3 on one mapped street, then +2% per extra holding up to +15%. Neighbourhood control adds +10% from 10 in one mapped neighbourhood.
Portfolio and Prestige — the portfolio-size multiplier rises from 1.10× to 1.30× as total holdings grow. Every completed Prestige level separately adds a permanent 7.5%, up to 75% at Prestige 10.
Prestige cards — collected cards automatically add their displayed percentage to every owned property in the matching category; duplicate copies stack. The Mythical World Deed adds 10% to all property income per copy.
Local activity — completed flights, train services and successful venue activities can create temporary passenger or visitor footfall payments and hourly-income effects for eligible nearby properties.
City events — a temporary daily city effect boosts only its named property categories. The ⚡ marker and event name appear on qualifying property cards until it ends.
Global and Company events — owner-scheduled, time-limited multipliers affect only the system named in the live banner. They may target property settlements, contract rewards, Company goal progress or Company payday pools.
Contracts, treasure, login rewards and referrals can provide additional cash rewards, but they are not automatically passive-property multipliers. Police and Fire buildings also provide services rather than ordinary property income.

Referral programme and invite rewards

Open Agent → Invite friends to copy your permanent invite link. A friend joining through it receives an extra £100,000 game-cash welcome bonus; this is added by the game and never taken from another player.

The inviter's £100,000 qualification reward unlocks only after the referred account is at least seven days old, owns five properties and records two hours of active play.
Qualification starts a 30-day sponsor period. The inviter receives a separate game-funded 2% of the recruit's positive passive property profit while the recruit keeps 100% of their own earnings.
Only ordinary property earnings count. Daily rewards, gifts, admin grants, Deal Room results, treasure, auctions, sales and referral rewards are excluded.
Sponsor share is capped at £1,000,000 per referred player. The Invite friends page shows qualification progress and total rewards.
Each account can have only one referrer and that link cannot be changed later. Self-referrals and duplicate controlled accounts are prohibited and can have rewards removed.

Fair play, bots and account pumping

Own the Map protects its fictional economy with server-side validation, progression gates, rolling limits, atomic transactions and staff-visible anomaly reviews. Automation, feeder accounts and controlling multiple accounts to manufacture rewards are not permitted.

The browser cannot create cash, ownership, cards, Company progress or completed contracts. The server recalculates each result from permanent game records.
Company cash paydays require an account at least seven days old, two tracked active play hours, at least 24 hours in that Company and meaningful contribution. Suspended or deleted accounts cannot receive a payday.
Only accepted property deals count toward Company offer goals. Cancelled, rejected and expired offers score nothing, and the same property can count only once in a rotation.
Company cash and card transfers never create progress. With three or more eligible contributors, one account is capped at 35% of the payday.
Card trading has been retired completely. Cards stay with the account that earned them, removing card laundering, feeder transfers and card-for-cash pumping routes.
Referral sponsor rewards require seven account days, five currently owned properties and two tracked active play hours. The recruit keeps the immediate welcome bonus regardless.
If the referrer and recruit use the exact same recorded game-client identifier, sponsor payments are held for staff review. A legitimate shared-device case can be approved; the game does not automatically suspend either player.
High-risk actions have request limits. Treasury Guardian separately reports repeated property resale loops and extreme economy-action bursts for staff investigation.
Attempts to evade limits by rotating accounts, devices or connections can lead to rewards being withheld or removed and accounts being suspended after review.

How do property specialisations work, and why should I choose one?

A specialisation is a free operating strategy that unlocks when an owned property reaches Level 2. There is normally no gameplay advantage to leaving an eligible property unspecialised: every option improves revenue and a cost-saving option can also reduce running costs. The reason to wait is only to compare the three choices carefully, because the choice cannot be changed during that ownership run.

On desktop or Chromebook, press All game areas → Build your empire → Empire. On a phone or tablet, press More → Build your empire → Empire. Find the owned property, upgrade it to Level 2, expand Choose permanent specialisation and select one of the three options.
Choosing a specialisation costs no cash. It applies automatically to that property's hourly figures, and the ◆ marker plus the chosen name appear on its property card.
Why would I not choose one? There is no short-term cash penalty and an eligible, normally profitable property is better specialised than blank. You might delay only while deciding between steadier net profit from lower costs and a larger gross-income boost with higher costs.
The three choices depend on the property type. Homes, restaurants, car parks and hotels have their own choices; other business properties use the Value operator, Premium brand and Experience-led choices.
The percentages modify revenue and running costs separately, not net profit directly. For example, +24% revenue and +13% running costs means both displayed figures rise; compare the resulting net yield rather than subtracting 13 from 24.
A choice is locked for the current ownership run and cannot be swapped. Selling the property, returning it to the game, Prestige, Fresh Start or a global ownership reset ends that run and clears the specialisation for the next owner.
Police and Fire district-service buildings cannot be specialised. Converting an ordinary specialised property to a service building replaces its normal property-income role.
To apply one option to several compatible holdings, select eligible properties from the same Empire street group and use APPLY ONE SPECIALISATION TO when the shared choice is shown.
Premium rental — home revenue +18%; running costs +7%.
Family rental — home revenue +9%; running costs −6%.
Short-stay letting — home revenue +24%; running costs +13%.
Fast casual — restaurant revenue +14%; running costs −3%.
Fine dining — restaurant revenue +26%; running costs +14%.
Live dining — restaurant revenue +22%; running costs +9%.
Budget parking — parking revenue +10%; running costs −7%.
Premium parking — parking revenue +21%; running costs +5%.
Transfer hub — parking revenue +27%; running costs +12%.
Business hotel — hotel revenue +15%; running costs +2%.
Luxury hotel — hotel revenue +28%; running costs +14%.
Destination resort — hotel revenue +24%; running costs +9%.
Value operator — other business revenue +9%; running costs −7%.
Premium brand — other business revenue +22%; running costs +10%.
Experience-led — other business revenue +26%; running costs +14%.

How do renovation discoveries work?

The first upgrade that takes an owned property to Level 2 automatically reveals one renovation discovery. It is a free extra result of the upgrade: the player does not choose it, and the server determines it consistently from that property for the current ownership run.

Upgrade an owned property to Level 2 from its Next upgrade panel. The RENOVATION DISCOVERY celebration names the result, and the ✦ marker then appears on the property card.
A discovery modifies income, running costs and fictional valuation automatically. There is no separate Claim, Equip or Choose button.
The discovery stays for the rest of the current ownership run. Selling, returning the property, Prestige, Fresh Start or a global ownership reset clears it before the next owner begins.
Hidden extra space — income +9%, running costs +1% and fictional valuation +5%.
Historic feature — income +6%, no running-cost change and fictional valuation +9%.
Improved transport link — income +11%, running costs +2% and fictional valuation +4%.
Efficient systems — income +3%, running costs −12% and fictional valuation +3%.
Valuable licence — income +14%, running costs +5% and fictional valuation +6%.

What does every ⚡ city-event marker mean?

A city does not always have an event. When one is active, only its listed property categories receive the temporary revenue boost.

City festival — entertainment, cinemas, restaurants, cafés, pubs, hotels and car parks receive +20% revenue.
Shopping rush — retail, supermarkets and car parks receive +18% revenue.
Tourist season — hotels, landmarks, entertainment and places of worship receive +22% revenue.
Business expo — offices, hotels, restaurants and car parks receive +17% revenue.
Event markers disappear when the event ends; losing the marker is not a fault or permanent reduction.

How do live global and Company boost events work?

The game owner can schedule a temporary server event for one named system. The event description, multiplier and end time appear in the LIVE GLOBAL EVENT or LIVE COMPANY EVENT banner while it is active; the server applies the boost automatically to qualifying actions inside that time window.

A global Property income event multiplies positive property settlement income. Housing contract and Police & Fire events instead multiply only the named claimed bonus rewards.
Company goal-progress and Company payday-pool events are separate Company-scoped effects. They do not multiply ordinary personal property income unless a separate global property event also exists.
Overlapping boosts add only their amount above 1× and the combined result is capped at 3×. For example, two 1.5× boosts produce 2×, not 2.25×.
The server checks the action or settlement time, not whether the browser was open when the event began. There is no Claim boost button.
The banner can be dismissed without disabling the event. Open the relevant property, Contracts Centre or Companies area to use the boosted system before the displayed ending time.
Global and Company boosts are independent from city events, treasure hunts, Prestige cards and administrator Global Treats. The banner always names exactly what the multiplier affects.
Every scheduled event has a fixed start and end, is audit logged and may also be announced in Discord. Paused, cancelled or completed events provide no further boost.

Why can’t I see or buy buildings?

Individual properties appear at building-level zoom after their small map cells have been processed. A gentle grey shimmer means that cell is still loading.

Zoom in farther and allow the bounded scan to finish.
Some OpenStreetMap areas have incomplete building data.
When OpenStreetMap supplies a building outline and one or more business labels attached to it, every representation opens the same game property, price and owner. You never buy the structure and its occupant separately.
Markets and shopping malls are landlord estates. Their mapped stalls and businesses are separate tenant properties which pay 8% market rent or 12% mall rent from positive profit when another player owns the site.
An airport purchase includes its mapped passenger terminals. Terminals are campus components and are not sold separately.
Separately mapped businesses inside airports and railway stations remain independently ownable and pay 15% airport rent or 10% station rent from positive profit.
Roads, rivers, labels and unsupported map objects cannot be bought.
If a mapped eligible building remains missing, move the map slightly or try the area again later.

How do earnings and the treasury work?

Your treasury animates live and the server banks accrued profit and costs automatically. There is no Collect Earnings button because no manual collection is required.

Offline earnings continue at 100% of normal positive net profit for up to 24 hours. Ordinary bills are not generated while the app is closed and time passing can never withdraw money from the main treasury.
Every authoritative balance change creates an append-only ledger entry.
Purchases, bids and upgrades use the server balance, never the animated client estimate.
Reserved auction and offer cash is still yours but cannot be spent twice.

What can I do when I run out of Available cash?

When Available cash reaches zero, Treasury Recovery presents existing active ways to rebuild without creating a loan, paid shortcut or free-money claim.

Properties continue under their normal income rules, so positive net earnings can rebuild the treasury automatically.
If Contracts are unlocked and you own property, Run active contracts opens tenant work and any eligible Police or Fire response for bonus earnings.
If a Treasure Hunt is live, clue help costs no treasury cash and a successful find can pay its configured reward.
Complete the current goal opens Career Guide progress so you can claim a guided reward that is already ready.
Review your Empire lets you manage bills or deliberately sell an asset when you own one.
The panel appears once per browser session while cash is exhausted and can be closed. It never borrows money or silently changes the wallet.

How does the early-game progression work?

The opening of an empire is designed to be forgiving: build a base, learn the map and make your first decisions before the full management challenge begins.

New accounts start with £NaN in fictional game cash, and personal Daily Drops favour genuinely affordable nearby opportunities.
Your first property upgrade within seven days costs 50% less. It increases profit and noticeably improves reliability.
For the first 24 hours, ordinary property tax and business-rate bills do not appear and maintenance risk is heavily reduced.
The current portfolio-size multiplier starts at 1.10× for 1–3 properties and rises gradually as the empire expands. It does not fall simply because the account is no longer new.
Completed objectives are not paid silently: open Current goal, then press Claim beside each ready reward. Claimed rewards are recorded in your ledger once only.

Do new players receive a 4× earnings multiplier?

No. The old reusable 4× Empire Momentum rule is not part of the current economy. It was removed because a developed account could sell down to three premium properties, regain the starter multiplier and earn more than a properly expanded empire.

A current new empire with 1–3 properties receives the same 1.10× portfolio-size multiplier used by every account at that size. It rises to 1.15× at 4–8 properties, 1.20× at 9–20, 1.25× at 21–40 and 1.30× at 41 or more.
New-player help now comes from £NaN starting cash, affordable personal Daily Drops, 24 hours without ordinary tax or business-rate bills, greatly reduced early maintenance risk and a 50%-off first upgrade within seven days.
Prestige remains separate and permanent: each completed level adds 7.5%, capped at level 10. The displayed Combined earnings multiplier is portfolio-size multiplier × Prestige multiplier.
If an account currently displays a 4× Empire Momentum or new-player multiplier, refresh the game. If 4× remains, report it to Support because it is stale or incorrect display data, not an active earning rule.
Historic ledger entries remain valid: removing the old rule changes future calculations and does not silently rewrite genuine past transactions.

What does every figure on the Empire screen mean?

Empire is the authoritative summary of what you own, what it produces and which parts of your cash are currently committed. Its live animation is a display of server-calculated earnings, not a second balance.

Available cash — your full wallet balance minus active auction bids and property offers. Reserved money is still yours but cannot be spent twice.
Net worth — your full wallet balance, including reserved cash, plus the current fictional value of owned assets. The separate Maintenance Reserve is not included.
Gross hourly income — positive property revenue before ordinary running costs and current penalties are removed.
Running costs — the combined hourly upkeep of the portfolio, including active service-building budgets. Open the running-cost breakdown for street and area totals.
Boosted net income — current gross income minus running costs, after active property, territory, event and progression modifiers. A negative figure is shown in red.
Empire momentum — the temporary progression multiplier earned through active expansion. It can fall when its conditions expire.
Prestige earnings boost — the permanent capped percentage earned from completed prestige levels.
Combined earnings multiplier — the portfolio-size scale multiplied by the permanent prestige multiplier. It is already included in Boosted net income and is not a separate payment.
Properties — the number of currently owned shared-world assets, including any converted police or fire buildings.
Reserved cash — your money held against leading auction bids or pending property offers. Open its breakdown to see exactly where every reservation is committed.
Fictional valuation — the combined in-game valuation of the portfolio. It is not a real property estimate and is not automatically spendable cash.
Outstanding charges — unpaid fictional tax, business-rate or operating bills. A due bill affects only its linked property and never silently removes repair money.
Active problems — properties or managed venues currently needing inspection or repair. Open Repairs & Maintenance for the complete action queue.
Maintenance reserve — optional protected funds built from a player-chosen 1–20% of future positive property earnings. It can pay affordable minor repairs and, if enabled, eligible bills; it never takes unexpected money from Available cash and unused funds can be withdrawn at any time.

Why do my treasury, hourly income, profile and ranking figures look different?

The figures describe different parts of the same server-authoritative economy and can also be snapshots taken a few seconds apart. Use this reconciliation before reporting a missing-payment problem.

Available cash = full wallet balance − active auction and property-offer reservations. Reserved cash is still in the wallet and still counts towards net worth.
Net worth = full wallet balance + current fictional value of owned properties. The optional Maintenance Reserve is a separate protected pot and is not counted in net worth.
Boosted net income is the current hourly forecast after property income, running costs, upgrades, condition, problems, bills, service buildings, portfolio scale and prestige have all been applied.
The portfolio-size part of Combined earnings multiplier is 1.10× for 1–3 properties, 1.15× for 4–8, 1.20× for 9–20, 1.25× for 21–40 and 1.30× for 41 or more. With no property it is 1.00×.
Each completed Prestige level adds a permanent 7.5% multiplier, capped at level 10. Combined multiplier = portfolio-size multiplier × prestige multiplier, and it is already included in Boosted net income.
If Maintenance Reserve contributions are enabled, the chosen percentage of positive hourly earnings enters that reserve instead of the main treasury. Your treasury therefore grows more slowly than Boosted net income while the protected reserve grows by the difference.
Earnings settle from server timestamps. A ranking, public profile, Empire page and ledger opened at different moments may briefly show different snapshots, but they all use the same calculation when refreshed.
Prestige and Fresh Start begin a new economy cycle, but old append-only ledger entries remain visible as account history. Staff can reconcile the current cycle separately from all-time history.
Staff have a read-only Full player economy audit under Admin → Players → player profile. It checks wallet against ledger, reserved cash against active commitments, the current reset/prestige cycle, property value, hourly projection and recent entries.
When contacting Support, include the player name, the two figures being compared, the screen names and the approximate time. A screenshot of only one figure is not enough to prove money is missing.

If the game refreshes less often, is my money or ownership still live?

Yes. Player actions refresh the relevant screen immediately, while the treasury animates smoothly between authoritative server snapshots. Slower background checks only replace needless requests for data that has not changed.

Purchases, repairs, upgrades, bids, offers and rewards still ask the server for an immediate result.
The database remains authoritative, so an old browser view can never overwrite current ownership or money.
Auctions, offers and shared map state retain visible-screen safety refreshes in case an event is missed.
Planes and trains move locally between occasional shared-world snapshots instead of contacting the server for every animation step.
Returning to a hidden tab causes current data to be checked again.
Timestamp-based earnings remain exact and retain the same offline cap; the one-second treasury animation never creates money.

Why did my hourly income fall or pause?

Income can fall because of operating costs, service-building budgets, maintenance issues, unpaid charges, district incidents or an ended temporary bonus.

Open Empire → Repairs & Maintenance for urgent problems.
Pay property tax or business rates to resume the affected property’s profit.
Police and fire properties intentionally earn £0 and consume a district budget.
Your total balance can only go below zero through authoritative costs and debt rules, never a display timer.

Are these real property prices or returns?

No. Every value, rent, profit, fare, tax and cost is fictional and balanced for gameplay.

Game ownership gives no rights over the real location.
Valuation uses category, footprint, rarity, density and game-region factors.
No real resident, tenant or financial-investment data is used.

How do I find and manage a property I own?

Open Empire, search by name, address, street, city or category, then expand its street group.

Sort by cheapest upgrade, profit, value or name.
View on map jumps directly to the property.
The purple quick-travel strip moves through holdings without reopening Empire.

How do the new property cards work?

World and Empire use the same responsive property-command design. Value-tier artwork identifies the scale of the asset, while the important live figures and everyday actions remain usable on phones, tablets, Chromebooks and desktop screens.

The header shows the mapped asset, fictional value tier, ownership, upgrade level and condition. Artwork changes with property value but never changes its income or rarity.
Income, upkeep and net yield are grouped together so the real hourly result is visible before taking an action.
If another upgrade is available, the next-upgrade panel shows its price and projected benefit with an Upgrade action. A maximum-level property shows Elite instead of a dead upgrade button.
Automatic card bonuses show the total category-wide income boost and the contributing card stacks. Cards apply automatically and do not use property slots.
House cards link to Tenant Viewing Rush. Eligible ordinary properties offer a compact Police or Fire conversion row, while venues and transport hubs keep their own dedicated controls.
Police and Fire conversion opens a guided comparison with footprint eligibility, coverage preview and the normal-income trade-off before anything is confirmed.
Sale and 24-hour auction actions are kept inside Owner options so destructive controls do not crowd the main card.
On narrow screens the sheet scrolls vertically, keeps touch targets readable and avoids horizontal overflow; no management action is removed because of screen size or zoom.

How do I check where my money went?

Open Ledger to see every permanent balance change. Entries linked to a property show its name and mapped address with a direct View on Map action.

Purchases, upgrades, repairs, taxes and other property spending link to the exact shared-world asset.
Rewards or account-wide adjustments are labelled Not property-specific.
The balance shown on each line is the authoritative balance immediately after that transaction.
Ledger entries cannot be edited or removed by the player.

When should I upgrade?

Developing an owned property is deliberately more profitable than buying another comparable Standard property. The intended rhythm is buy, upgrade as far as cash safely allows, then expand again.

Open an owned property from World or Empire, find Next upgrade and press Upgrade to review the price and projected improvement before confirming.
The card shows cash remaining before you confirm.
Every next-tier panel shows its projected net increase, operating-cost saving, payback time and fault-risk reduction.
There are five permanent levels and no hidden level beyond Elite.
Refitted through Elite raise base revenue to 1.35×, 1.85×, 2.55×, 3.5× and 4.8× while progressively cutting operating costs. Elite also cuts effective maintenance chance by more than 90% compared with Standard.

How do taxes, business rates and operating costs work?

Residential property tax, business rates and parking levies form one rolling fictional invoice. Every line names the affected property, and the same unpaid property line can never be added twice.

A new account has 24 bill-free hours. A newly purchased property must also be owned for a full 24 hours before it can add its first line on a later active local day, so a purchase never produces an instant bill.
If the invoice is still unpaid and another newly acquired eligible property becomes billable, that property adds one new line. Existing unpaid property lines are not repeated, so the invoice grows only for genuinely new billable properties.
The invoice advances at most once on each local day in which you actively open the game. Closing the game freezes its stage: no background bill creation, ageing or treasury deduction.
Bill values are based mainly on a short amount of the property's normal profit, not its potentially enormous fictional valuation.
The stages are Issued, Reminder, Overdue, Serious and Profit paused. Issued and Reminder have no profit penalty; Overdue reduces only that property's profit by 25%, Serious by 50%, and Profit paused by 100%.
Pay entire invoice clears every displayed ordinary line in one server-authoritative action. You may also pay individual property lines.
If the shared world is briefly busy, Pay All retries once automatically with the same protected request key, so it cannot pay or charge twice.
A failed payment now leaves the bills visible and explains whether to retry instead of showing an unexplained server error.
An unpaid line never drains the rest of the empire and money is never silently removed from Available cash.
The optional reserve can automatically pay affordable invoice lines from its separate balance; it never takes unexpected money from Available cash.
Hourly upkeep, staff, utilities, maintenance and service budgets are already included in the displayed net hourly result.
Empire shows gross hourly income, total running costs and net income separately; expand Running-cost breakdown for city or mapped-area totals, or inspect a collapsed street for its subtotal.
Reserved offer or auction money cannot be used to pay bills until released.
Every payment is permanently visible in Ledger and can be opened back to its property.

What happens if I ignore maintenance or bills?

A maintenance problem can reduce only its own property’s profit. It never takes repair money automatically or drains the rest of the empire. Unpaid property tax or business rates separately pause only the affected property.

A flashing spanner appears only when maintenance needs action.
Its maintenance view groups every affected property, venue, airport and railway station into one clear action queue. Opening the queue starts a 60-minute grace period for ordinary property problems before normal escalation.
Hotel, cinema, pub, nightclub, stadium and car-park operational faults appear in the same queue with their demand penalty and exact repair price.
Problems found while you are away remain at Warning until inspected. Their affected property earns 15% less, but they cannot escalate overnight.
Warning, Overdue, Serious and Critical reduce that property’s income by 15%, 35%, 65% and 100%. Critical stops that property only.
Repair prices are roughly 3, 7, 14 or 24 hours of that property's normal profit, rather than a percentage of its potentially huge valuation.
Repair All applies a 12.5% management discount to ordinary property and venue repairs together.
The first ten level 0–1 properties retain a three-problem daily ceiling. Each further ten undeveloped properties can add one possible problem, up to ten; level 2–5 properties do not increase the ceiling.
Offline loss on an affected property is capped by stage at 10%, 20%, 35% or 50%, so neglect matters without ever withdrawing treasury cash.
The optional Maintenance Reserve redirects a player-chosen 1–20% of future positive property earnings into a separate balance. It automatically handles affordable Warning repairs and can optionally pay eligible property bills without touching Available cash; unused reserve funds can be withdrawn whenever you choose.
Temporary problems do not permanently destroy or remove a property.
Every owned property receives one deterministic maintenance check per game day; upgrading reduces, but never entirely removes, breakdown risk.

How do I buy from or sell to another player?

Open a rival property to send a custom offer, or bid through Market when it is auctioned. Owners can list a 24-hour auction from Empire.

Offer and bid money is reserved until the interaction ends.
Market shows the exact asset, mapped address and View on map action on both received and sent offers before you respond.
Accepting an offer transfers money and ownership atomically.
Selling to the game is immediate but deliberately pays less than player resale may achieve.

What are all the auction and offer rules?

Auctions are timed shared listings; custom offers are direct proposals to a specific owner. Both reserve the buyer’s money so it cannot be spent elsewhere.

Own the Map starts three or four game-hosted auctions per day. They begin 40% below the normal acquisition cost and have no player seller.
You cannot bid on your own property or bid more than available unreserved cash.
A new highest bid reserves that amount and releases the previous bidder’s reservation.
Ended auctions settle atomically in the background even when every player is offline.
An owner can accept or reject a custom offer; the buyer can cancel while it is still pending.
Accepted transfers cannot charge twice or transfer a property twice.
A live auction with a bid must finish; game buyback cannot bypass the bidder.

How does the Deal Room work?

The Deal Room is an optional fast-risk game using fictional available cash. Choose a stake and risk tier, then receive an immediate server-generated outcome.

Cautious, Ambitious and Moonshot tiers increase both possible upside and loss risk.
The mathematical edge favours the game, so it is not a guaranteed way to fund a desired property.
Daily play and stake limits prevent unlimited rapid losses or farming.
There is no real-money wager, cash-out or transferable financial value.
Every result and balance change is written to the permanent ledger.

How do daily rewards, contracts, treats and celebrations work?

Daily login rewards, completed contracts, guided objectives and administrator-issued Global Treats are separate claimable rewards.

The daily reward opens as its own large seven-day claim screen, separate from the notification inbox. It rises from £5,000 on day one to £100,000 on day seven, then continues at the configured maximum streak.
A daily reward is protected by one permanent ledger key per player and local calendar day in the time zone selected under Agent → Account, currency & time zone. Slow connections and repeated taps cannot award it twice; a completed claim closes the screen when the server confirms the existing entry.
Three daily and three weekly contracts rotate and only pay after their requirement is complete and Claim is pressed. Successful actions refresh contract progress immediately; a specialisation also creates a notification confirming that it was recorded.
Owned houses also have optional Tenant Viewing Rush contracts in the Contracts Centre and on their map and Empire property cards. Choose a preparation plan, use two checks across three anonymous applicants, then balance the displayed acceptance chance against the possible bonus.
There is no daily contract limit. You may run one house contract at a time; a successful tenancy lasts about ten minutes, while a failed or abandoned viewing has a short two-minute recovery.
After signing, the active contract follows you around the game. A compact desktop and mobile tracker shows the countdown and opens a decision drawer without taking you away from the area you are playing.
One or two optional tenant moments arrive during a tenancy and wait until you return. Ignoring them is neutral; safe, investigative and bold responses can change only the optional contract bonus.
Players may enable device alerts for tenant moments. The in-game tracker and waiting-message badge remain the main source of truth if browser notifications are unavailable or blocked.
House contracts are always additional earnings. Rejection or an early tenant departure never pauses, reduces or replaces the house's standard passive income; it only changes the separate temporary contract bonus.
Police and fire stations offer separate six-minute emergency dispatches. You can run one police call and one fire call alongside your one housing contract, using the type tabs at the top of the Contracts Centre.
Emergency calls let you select a station, incident and response risk. A halfway scene update offers another decision; failure changes only the optional dispatch bonus and never weakens standard district protection or property income.
If the rotation changes before you press Claim, a completed reward remains in Empire as a Rollover Claim for 48 hours.
An offer contract counts only after the server reserves the offered cash, creates the shared offer and notifies the owner. The rival-property panel confirms delivery or explains why it failed.
Guided-objective cash and achievement rewards are server-awarded once when completion is verified. The game separately checks the permanent ledger and automatically restores an objective payment if an older completion record exists without its full reward.
A Global Treat is a one-time server message and claim available to eligible accounts until its displayed expiry.
Positive actions may show a celebration, but animations never create money and may use an equipped cosmetic effect.
Celebration cosmetics are bounded decorative effects behind the confirmation card, so the action name and reward information always remain readable.
A confirmed player bug report earns a one-time £250,000 bug-fixer bounty only when staff marks the fixed report Resolved. Investigating, dismissed and duplicate reports do not pay.

Exactly how do I claim the seven-day login reward?

The daily login reward opens as a separate seven-day reward screen when the current local game day has an available claim. Press CLAIM DAY followed by the displayed streak number; the server adds it to the treasury once and closes the screen after confirmation.

The sequence begins at £5,000 on Day 1 and rises to £100,000 on Day 7, then continues using the configured maximum-streak reward.
The calendar day follows the time zone selected under Agent → Account, currency & time zone, not the device clock alone. Change the setting there if the day boundary is wrong.
Postponing or closing the screen does not claim or delete the reward. It may return while that reward remains eligible.
One permanent ledger key protects every player and local calendar day. Repeated taps, refreshes, another device or a slow response cannot award the same day twice.
If the ledger already contains the day's reward, the server returns that existing claim and the screen closes without adding another payment.
This login reward is separate from Daily contracts, Company daily goals, Global Treats, hunts and objective rewards.

Exactly how do Housing contracts and Tenant Viewing Rush work?

Housing contracts are optional active bonus work on top of a house's normal income. Open All game areas or More → Run operations → Contracts Centre → Housing, or press Open Tenant Viewing Rush on an eligible house card.

Choose an eligible owned house, select a preparation plan, then review three anonymous applicants. You have two checks, so decide which facts are most useful rather than revealing everything.
Applicant reliability and care affect the possible result. Choose the applicant, review the displayed acceptance chance and potential bonus, then select the Safe, Balanced or Aggressive signing approach.
A successful tenancy runs for about ten minutes. One or two optional tenant moments can appear while it is active; open the tracker and choose a safe, investigative or bold response. Ignoring a moment is neutral.
When the tenancy finishes, open the Housing tab or tracker and collect the displayed bonus. The server records the result and payment in the ledger.
You can run one Housing contract at a time with no daily contract limit. A failed or abandoned viewing uses a short two-minute recovery before another can begin.
Normal house income always continues. A rejection, risky choice or early departure changes only the extra contract reward and never removes passive property earnings.
The compact active-contract tracker follows you around the game. Device notifications are optional; the in-game tracker remains the source of truth.

Exactly how do Police and Fire & Rescue contracts work?

A converted district service can run six-minute emergency calls for additional rewards. Open All game areas or More → Run operations → Contracts Centre, then choose Police or Fire & Rescue at the top.

Choose the eligible station and available incident, compare the displayed risk and reward, then choose Cautious, Balanced or Rapid response and dispatch the unit or crew.
You may run one Police call and one Fire & Rescue call at the same time, and both can run alongside one Housing contract.
Halfway through the response, the tracker marks a decision waiting. Open it and choose Back-up, Assess or Commit; that choice and server-side chance affect only the optional reward.
Press VIEW RESPONSE ON MAP to frame the station and incident. The correct police car or fire engine travels toward the scene; the server clock continues across screens, refreshes and devices.
When the call says BONUS READY, return to its contract tab and collect the reward. A failed call pays according to its result but never weakens normal district protection.
Police and Fire service buildings already sacrifice their ordinary property income and consume the displayed district budget. Dispatch work does not add another permanent protection cost.
No emergency decision can remove ownership, damage a station or reduce its standard coverage. Operational faults and hostile district actions are separate systems.

Exactly how do Daily and Weekly contracts work?

Open All game areas or More → Run operations → Contracts Centre, then press Daily & weekly. The tab shows three Daily and three Weekly goals with their live progress, target and game-cash reward.

Qualifying server-authoritative actions update progress automatically. The goal card names the action required and shows its current amount against the target.
When a card is complete, press CLAIM REWARD. A completed goal does not pay merely because its progress bar reached the end.
Daily and Weekly contracts are personal. They are separate from the three daily and three weekly Company goals and do not require Company membership.
The selected time zone under Agent → Account, currency & time zone controls the player's local contract cycle where the screen specifies a local day.
If a rotation changes after completion but before Claim, the earned item remains available in Empire as a ROLLOVER CLAIM for 48 hours.
Repeated requests cannot pay a contract twice. The claim and permanent ledger entry are completed together by the server.
Contracts are optional repeatable goals and do not replace the one-at-a-time Career Guide objective shown under Goals.

How does the notification bell work?

The bell exists only while there is something actionable or unread. Tap it to open one quiet inbox instead of receiving automatic walls of popups.

View opens the correct destination for offers, friends, rivalries, transport, repairs, updates, badges and cosmetics.
Clear removes an ordinary message; Clear All marks stored messages read and hides postponable reminders for the current session.
Clearing a cosmetic message never removes the unlocked cosmetic from the Cosmetic Locker.
Postponing a daily reward or Global Treat does not claim or delete it; it can return in a later session while still eligible.
The separate flashing spanner appears only when a property currently needs repair.
A Support message opens its exact conversation. Staff can deliberately request a response when an important question remains unanswered; that one request opens the inbox as a focused popup and is limited to once per conversation every 30 minutes.

How do police, fire and attacks work?

Convert an owned property into an Outpost or a stronger footprint-based service tier. It stops earning normal income and protects properties inside its radius.

Only your own blue, red and purple coverage borders are visible to you.
Larger buildings unlock stronger protection and wider coverage.
Airports, railway stations, hotels, cinemas, pubs, nightclubs, stadiums and car parks keep their dedicated operation and cannot become a service building.
District actions are temporary, limited daily and never steal ownership.
New players have three days of protection. Every pair of players receives a three-day two-way truce after an action.
Victims receive a further short recovery shield, while attackers temporarily sacrifice some of their own positive profit.

What does a district service cost and protect?

A converted police or fire property sacrifices its normal profit and consumes an hourly percentage of the protected district’s positive profit. Higher tiers require larger footprints and provide wider, stronger coverage.

Outpost works at any eligible building size; Community, District and Elite tiers require progressively larger mapped footprints.
Protection can approach but not exceed the configured 95% cap.
Protected neighbouring owners pay the displayed small automatic service contribution.
Neighbours cannot attack their provider unless they opt out and complete the cooldown.
Police and fire vehicles patrol visible OpenStreetMap roads only while on screen; their route animation never decides protection.
During an emergency dispatch, View Response on Map frames the station and incident and shows the correct police car or fire engine travelling toward the scene. Its progress continues across refreshes and devices because the server keeps the dispatch clock.

How do airports and train stations make money?

Own a mapped transport hub, open its control room, choose a destination, departure window and fare, then pay the operating cost up front.

High fares and short sales windows increase the chance of an empty service.
Airports and railway stations each receive their own daily scheduling allowance.
Trains only offer destinations reachable through a bundled mapped-track network.
Everyone sees active player and game-operated vehicles on the shared map.

What should I know before scheduling transport?

The quote shows known running cost and a broad demand indication, while the exact passenger total stays hidden until departure so aggressive pricing remains risky.

Very high ticket prices can produce very high margins but may fill few or no seats.
A short booking window increases uncertainty; a longer window gives demand more time to form.
Each additional owned hub grants its own daily scheduling allowance.
Automatic services are low-cost and low-reward; manual services provide the larger upside.
Completed passenger services earn reputation, create nearby footfall and may strengthen a valid local partnership.
Operational faults reduce performance until repaired and cannot be dismissed by keeping the browser closed.

How do hotels, car parks and activity venues work?

Own a hotel, cinema, pub, nightclub, stadium or car park, then open Venue Control from its map card or Empire. Hotels and entertainment use booking calendars; car parks instead operate continuously every hour.

While you are online, each hotel automatically runs two cautious bookings per day for dependable low-level income.
Use the other eight hotel slots manually to set room prices and pursue better profits at greater risk.
The forecast shows a broad occupancy band, but final demand remains hidden until completion.
Cinemas, pubs, clubs and stadiums each have their own themed activity ladder.
A mapped stadium and all grandstands enclosed by it are one venue purchase; stands never become separate houses.
Successful activities earn reputation and unlock prestigious higher-risk choices.
Named facility upgrades unlock more ambitious hotel packages and improve capacity, reliability and local reach.
Nearby eligible properties share immediate footfall and receive a temporary profit boost.
Car parks run continuously by the hour with one chosen live price. They have no booking slots or repeated session scheduling; completed hours reveal occupancy, non-payers, wages and net result.

How do local partnerships and footfall work?

Eligible venues and transport hubs can connect nearby owned properties to share visitor or passenger activity. Every partnership must be within ten miles of the selected origin.

Your own nearby property connects immediately; another owner receives an accept-or-decline request.
Either owner can end an active venue connection with Disconnect in Venue Control; the other owner is notified.
Existing partnerships beyond the ten-mile limit are disconnected.
Facility and reputation progress determine available partnership slots.
Completed activities can grant eligible neighbours an immediate payment and temporary hourly boost.
Market, mall, airport and station tenant rent is a separate landlord mechanic and does not consume a partnership slot.

How do markets, malls, airports and stations collect tenant rent?

Only designated landlord sites collect a percentage of positive tenant-business profit. This models owning a market site, mall or transport concourse without merging genuinely separate tenant businesses.

A market owner receives 8% from separately owned mapped stalls.
A shopping-mall owner receives 12% from separately owned internal businesses.
An airport includes its terminal buildings in the airport purchase, while separately mapped concourse businesses pay 15% rent.
A railway-station owner receives 10% from separately mapped station businesses.
No rent is taken when the site and tenant have the same owner, or when the tenant has no positive profit.

How do Daily Deals, Worldwide Drops and Wildcards differ?

Daily Deals are personalised around your empire. A Worldwide Drop reveals a genuinely worldwide property. A Wildcard hides the property and location until purchase in exchange for a larger discount.

Each player receives a separately generated daily rotation that stays fixed for that player until it expires.
Deals expire and rotate every 24 hours.
A Wildcard property is registered before purchase, so its ownership remains safe and unique.
Worldwide and Wildcard properties randomly choose among the least-used eligible countries for that day, so a heavily scanned country cannot dominate everybody’s cards.
Countries are used evenly before repeats, and simultaneous player requests are allocated one at a time.
The picker avoids cities already used for another player’s global drops that day wherever the registered world pool permits it.
If the map source has no city name, geographic separation prevents several nearby anonymous buildings becoming repeated global picks.
When several global regions are available, the system prefers one away from the player’s main portfolio.
If a temporary connection or server problem prevents the rotation loading, Market shows a Try Again control instead of leaving an endless spinner.

What should I do next?

Open Goals for the current guided objective, or open the Contracts Centre for repeatable house work and your daily and weekly contract rewards.

Only one main objective is presented at a time.
Completed objectives become permanent achievements.
Collections, rankings and territory bonuses provide longer-term targets.

How do streets, collections, events and rankings give me goals?

Owning concentrated property groups and varied categories creates optional progress beyond the guided objective.

Three or more qualifying properties on one street can establish street control and its displayed income bonus.
Neighbourhood and geography totals track expansion across cities and countries.
Collections reward category goals such as houses, hospitality, parking, airports and landmarks.
Temporary city events visibly boost matching properties for their server-defined duration.
Leaderboards compare authoritative net worth, property count, net income, geography and registered in-game control.

How do badges, sets and cosmetics work?

Achievements award collectible badges. You can select a favourite, build a three-badge public showcase and complete themed sets to unlock purely visual cosmetics.

Open Agent → Badges, then switch between the Badge Cabinet and Cosmetic Locker.
Locked cosmetics still show a miniature preview and the badge-set progress required to earn them.
Equip profile titles, frames, property styles, transport liveries, venue marquees or celebration effects from the Locker.
Premium theme packs also create a public empire banner and framed avatar on player profiles and leaderboards. Other players see the equipped visual identity, never any private account information.
Theme owners can submit one custom profile picture in Theme Store. It remains private until an administrator approves it; declined pictures include feedback and can be replaced.
Cosmetics never change income, risk, reputation, protection, demand or ranking.
Prestige preserves the collection; Fresh Start deliberately clears it.

What is the difference between Fresh Start and Prestige?

Fresh Start erases progression without a bonus. Prestige is a demanding late-game reset that releases your properties and grants a permanent earnings multiplier.

Both require deliberate confirmation and safely close conflicting offers, bids and services.
Daily reward integrity is retained so resetting cannot create repeated claims.
Prestige preserves earned achievements; Fresh Start removes them.

Can I play on mobile, tablet and desktop?

Yes. Own the Map is responsive, works as a normal secure website, can be installed to a home screen as a PWA and has an optional dedicated Windows client.

Portrait phones use bottom navigation and touch-friendly panels.
Landscape phones and tablets use compact layouts that preserve map space.
Windows players can use Download for Windows on the landing page or Agent. It opens the same account and shared world rather than creating a separate save.
Windows app version 0.2.0 and later checks for new releases in the background. Open Agent → Account & settings → Windows app updates to check manually, download an update or restart when it is ready.
The original Windows app version 0.1.0 needs one final manual installer. Its in-game one-time upgrade prompt installs 0.2.0; all later app updates can then be completed from inside the game.
Android players can press Install on Android on the landing page or Agent. Chrome shows the native install prompt when available; otherwise use Chrome’s three-dot menu and choose Install app or Add to Home screen.
The Windows client is optional. Browser players receive the complete game and can continue without downloading it.
The Windows app requires an internet connection because ownership, money and multiplayer state remain server-authoritative.
If an installed version looks stale, close it fully and reopen it while online to receive the latest safe assets.

Where are account, legal, admin and update controls?

Agent is a compact hub with focused pages for Support, Account & Settings, Progression, Badges, Players, Wiki, Game Updates and installation. Administrators also receive a direct Control Centre shortcut.

Log out from Agent or the desktop account area.
Every new release appears in the notification inbox and permanent release archive.
Connected Discord servers can receive each new release automatically in their configured changelog channel. Server managers control their local setup, while the protected global Toro controller can run bot commands across every connected server.
Use Report a Bug for gameplay, money, account, display or map problems. It securely attaches the page, device, screen size and last viewed map position.
Use Support to start a private conversation with staff, reply to a question about a report and attach a PNG, JPEG or WebP screenshot when evidence is needed.

How do currency, time zone, light mode and diagnostics settings work?

Open Agent → Account & settings. These controls change presentation, local reset timing and optional support diagnostics; they do not give an economy advantage.

Choose your currency symbol and press Save Currency. Automatic uses the current country; a manual choice overrides location detection on every device. This changes display only and never converts balances or changes the shared economy.
Choose your time zone and press Save Time Zone, or press Use This Device to use the browser's detected zone. Daily rewards, personal property drops, contracts and routine charges reset at local midnight in this saved zone.
Shared world events and treasure hunts keep their announced global times rather than moving with one player's time zone.
The Light/Dark control changes only your interface appearance and is separate from premium Theme Store packs.
Location diagnostics records connection and device information for support and security. GPS is sent only if browser permission is granted; switch Allow GPS location diagnostics off to stop future GPS submissions.
Turning GPS diagnostics off does not erase protected support or security records that already exist. Contact Support for a privacy or account-data question.

How do I contact Support, reply and attach a screenshot?

Open Agent → Support for a private in-game inbox. Start a New support message, choose the closest category, explain the issue and optionally attach evidence.

Support categories are Gameplay, Map, Account, Display, Billing, Suggestion and Other. The subject accepts 4–120 characters and a message accepts up to 4,000.
Optional screenshots may be JPEG, PNG or WebP. They remain attached to the private conversation rather than appearing on a public profile.
Staff replies appear in the same thread and trigger the notification bell. Open the conversation, type under Reply and press Send Reply.
A Resolved conversation shows Ticket Closed and no longer accepts replies; start a New Support Message if a different or continuing issue needs help.
A support conversation and a formal bug report are related but different: use the bug form when you can describe repeatable broken behaviour, and Support for questions, account help or a private discussion.

Exactly how do I report a game or map bug?

Open Agent → Support, expand Report a New Bug and send the form directly to the administrator. Give one clear problem per report and explain what you expected versus what happened.

Choose Gameplay or money, Map or missing buildings, Account, Layout or display, or Something else. A short title needs 5–100 characters and the description needs 10–2,000.
Location/property and repeat steps are optional but make the issue easier to reproduce. The page, route, viewport and last viewed map coordinates are attached automatically.
An optional JPEG, PNG or WebP screenshot may be up to 5 MB and is visible only to administrators.
A sent report returns a reference. Staff may open a linked Support conversation to ask questions or explain the result.
If a report identifies a confirmed bug that is fixed, resolving it awards that reporter the one-time £250,000 bug-fixer bounty for that report.
For incorrect real-world map facts, report the game problem and, if you have verifiable local knowledge, optionally correct OpenStreetMap. Never copy Google Maps or other copyrighted map data.

How do Steam sign-in and account linking work?

Steam linking is performed inside the Steam desktop edition because the secure Steam identity ticket comes from the running Steam client. A normal browser cannot create that ticket.

Launch Own The Map from your Steam Library, open Agent and use Link Steam Account. If the button says to launch from Steam, the current browser or desktop session is not connected to Steam.
Existing players link Steam to their current Own the Map account rather than making a second save. New Steam players use Create account once to accept the terms and age confirmation.
After linking, the Steam identity can be used for sign-in and eligible Steam Wallet supporter passes in the Steam edition.
Property ownership, cash, licences, Prestige, cards and progression remain the same server account. Prestige cards stay entirely in-game and never enter a Steam inventory.
If Steam linking is unavailable, continue using the same account in the browser and try again only from an authorised Steam Library build; linking is not required to play the browser game.

What can an administrator help with?

Administrators can investigate shared-world data and financial history without rewriting the append-only record.

They can inspect a player’s balance, reserved cash, exact ledger and property-linked spending.
A specific erroneous debit can receive a guarded one-time refund while the original entry remains visible.
Admins can grant or remove test currency, release property, reset one account, reprocess map cells and trigger bounded jobs.
Global Treats can attach a message and one-time claim to every eligible account.
Player bug reports appear in a protected queue with diagnostic details, direct map links, investigation status and resolution notes.
A report can open a linked two-way support conversation. Staff can request more information, the player can reply with a screenshot, and both sides retain the complete message history.
When staff dismiss a report, they can send the reason directly to the reporter; the player receives it in Support and can reply instead of seeing a silent status change.
A report imported from the configured Discord bug forum stays linked: thread comments enter the in-game Support history, while staff replies and status changes made in Admin are posted back into that Discord thread.
A report can include a private screenshot. Only administrators can view it, and deleting the completed report removes the screenshot while recording the deletion in the audit log.
Every administrative mutation creates an audit record; the rare global reset requires explicit safeguards.

What should I do if an action appears stuck or the installed app looks old?

Wait for the button’s working state to finish and avoid repeated tapping. Protected financial and property actions automatically retry brief shared-world database collisions without duplicating the action.

If a safe busy message appears, wait a moment and retry once.
Purchases, bids, Deal Room plays, venue activities and upgrades, repairs, bill payments and district-service changes use protected request keys or transaction safeguards so a retry cannot charge twice.
Check the notification inbox or Ledger before repeating a purchase, repair or reward claim.
For a stale installed PWA, fully close it, reopen while online and allow the latest assets to load.
If a map cell remains blank after a completed scan, move slightly, zoom in again and use Agent → Report a Bug with the location if it persists.
Report an incorrect name, category or mapped property through Agent; include the property ID when available.

⌖

GAME GUIDE

World map and discovery

How worldwide exploration, OpenStreetMap buildings and shared ownership work.

The Vector World map

Own the Map uses one shared Vector World map. Mapped buildings appear directly from the vector archive, then the game paints shared ownership and activity as authoritative data arrives. There is no separate Classic map to switch to.

Buildings appear before their ownership information finishes syncing, so you can keep moving while colours and property cards catch up.
If the Vector map reconnects, refresh the page. Your shared-world ownership, money and activities are unchanged.
The old Classic-map loading and scanning panel is not used by the Vector World map.

Building scanning and fast property loading

Own the Map does not preload every building on Earth. At building zoom, the Vector World loads lightweight mapped-building summaries first, paints sparse live ownership separately and fetches the complete financial and management record only for the property you select.

The map can become interactive before every property card detail is ready; tapping a building opens its shell immediately while the selected live record is secured.
Only buildings currently being registered receive the subtle grey shimmer.
The Houses are still loading status follows authoritative cell progress and clears after the final area is prepared, including when a background recovery refresh finishes the scan.
The loading card opens fully whenever a new scan starts. Use its minus button to minimise it into a left-side Loading tab, then tap that tab to restore the full progress card.
Unregistered provider buildings use a subdued grey backdrop so dense cities remain readable; yellow, turquoise, blue, pink and purple are reserved for authoritative game-property states.
Only one authoritative selectable footprint and one ownership paint are rendered for each asset. Car parks remain flat ground surfaces; genuine buildings may use 3D height.
Unchanged map features are recognised without expensive rewrites, allowing dense new districts to finish in bounded batches.
Cached building summaries appear immediately while unprocessed cells continue in bounded batches. Opening one property no longer waits for full details for the whole visible district.
Empty cells are cached so players do not repeatedly trigger the same provider work.
Map information may be incomplete or outdated; the game never claims every physical building is present.

Names and addresses

Where OpenStreetMap supplies a building name, house number or street, the game displays it. If those tags are absent, the property card shows its city and exact mapped coordinates.

Private resident information is not imported or displayed.
Fictional shared venue names are visibly marked as game content.
Inappropriate game names can be reported from Agent.

Correcting the real map

OpenStreetMap is a separate volunteer-maintained project. If a real building, address or place is factually wrong and you can verify the correction, create a free OpenStreetMap account, find the location and press Edit.

Use the built-in editor walkthrough and change only real-world facts supported by local knowledge, a survey or imagery permitted by OpenStreetMap.
Never copy details from Google Maps or another copyrighted map.
Write a clear changeset comment describing what you corrected before uploading.
OpenStreetMap changes may take time to reach Own the Map and do not directly alter virtual ownership, balances or game history.
Use Agent → Report a Bug as well when a correction is urgent for gameplay.

One shared ownership state

Every registered property exists once. Once a player buys it, all other players see the same owner. Live updates refresh visible purchases, bids and transfers, with polling as a fallback.

The PostgreSQL database is authoritative even when live updates disconnect.
Ownership history is retained after sales, auctions, resets and prestige.
Released properties become available for other players to acquire.

▦

GAME GUIDE

Properties and management

Property types, income, upgrades, bills, repairs and selling.

Purchasable property types

Eligible mapped assets include houses, apartments, shops, cafés, restaurants, pubs, hotels, offices, warehouses, industry, supermarkets, cinemas, entertainment, parking, landmarks, places of worship, airports and railway stations.

Houses primarily return rent; businesses return operating profit.
Parking and entertainment are high earners with category-specific expenses and risks.
Famous landmarks use end-game valuations and deliberately slower progression.
Roads, rivers, ordinary labels and personal information are not purchasable.

Income and offline earnings

Income is calculated from timestamps on the server, not a browser timer. Active play earns at the full rate; longer offline periods earn 100% of positive net profit and remain capped at 24 hours. Earnings bank automatically while the treasury display updates live. Closing the game never creates an automatic treasury withdrawal; an overdue bill pauses live profit from only that property and leaves a small protected offline yield until it is paid.

The first 5 minutes after the last settlement retain the full rate, so brief reloads or connection changes are not punished.
Operating losses and service-building costs consume passive revenue only; they can pause profit at £0 but never withdraw saved treasury cash.
Revenue uses property category, upgrades, condition, events and active penalties.
Expenses, service costs and neighbour-service fees are deducted from generated revenue authoritatively, with treasury cash protected from passive losses.
Treasury Guardian audits every player about every two days. It safely refunds a confirmed system discrepancy once, records it in the Ledger and leaves ordinary player spending untouched.
Treasury Guardian is a low-priority single-flight audit: only one copy can run at once, and it yields database capacity to login, maps and normal game actions.
If a wallet does not reconcile but the cause is not provable, the checker flags it for administrator review instead of guessing or silently changing money.
The Economy Exploit Guard immediately alerts staff when the same property is sold and reacquired repeatedly, and also scans recent financial actions for unusual bursts. An alert starts an investigation; it does not automatically punish the player or alter their balance.
Early Empire Momentum accelerates small portfolios, then tapers as the empire grows.
No Collect Earnings press is required; automatic settlement remains authoritative.

Upgrades

Normal income properties have 5 worthwhile upgrade levels: Refitted, Automated, Reinforced, Premium and Elite.

Every unclaimed property is Standard level 0. Upgrade levels, specialisations and renovation discoveries belong only to the current ownership run and are removed when that ownership ends.
Every upgrade increases revenue and property valuation, and every tier is balanced to repay at least 35% faster than buying another comparable undeveloped property.
Revenue reaches 1.35×, 1.85×, 2.55×, 3.5× and 4.8× base across the five tiers.
Automation reduces operating costs by 5%, 10%, 16%, 23% and 30%, while reliability sharply reduces random breakdown frequency.
Upgrade panels show the projected net gain, hourly cost saving, approximate payback and fault-risk change before money is spent.
The Empire page can sort holdings by cheapest available upgrade.
On a street with several properties, select matching assets at the same current level to see one combined upgrade cost and improve them from one control.
The same selection can apply one common permanent specialisation when every selected property is at the same level and supports that choice.
Police and fire buildings stop earning and cannot use normal property upgrades.

Repairs, inspections and maintenance reserve

Random property and venue problems are designed as manageable profit interruptions, not surprise treasury deductions. Each problem affects only its own asset and all repair buttons show their exact server price.

Open the flashing spanner or Empire maintenance queue, inspect the affected property and choose its priced Repair action; Repair All resolves the full affordable queue together.
Warning reduces that asset's income by 15% and costs about three hours of its normal property profit to repair.
Overdue reduces income by 35% and costs about seven hours of normal property profit.
Serious reduces income by 65% and costs about fourteen hours of normal property profit.
Critical stops only that property’s earnings and costs about twenty-four hours of normal property profit.
An offline discovery remains at Warning and shows Inspection required. Its 60-minute grace period and escalation clock begin only after the player opens maintenance.
The first ten level 0–1 holdings keep a three-problem daily ceiling. The ceiling rises by one per additional ten undeveloped holdings, capped at ten, while level 2–5 properties add no management exposure.
Offline maintenance penalties on an affected property are capped at 10% for Warning, 20% for Overdue, 35% for Serious and 50% for Critical.
Operational faults at hotels and other playable venues reduce activity demand until repaired. They appear beside property problems in Empire, the spanner count and the notification inbox.
Repair All applies a 12.5% management discount and atomically resolves both ordinary property problems and venue faults included in the queue.
Enable the optional reserve to redirect 5% of future property income. It pays affordable Warning repairs automatically, never draws from main cash, and reports reserve balance, costs avoided, automatic repairs and protected holdings.
The same reserve also handles affordable venue and transport faults; multiple automatic repairs appear as one expandable notification group rather than a wall of popups.
A durable daily marker ensures every owned property is checked once, without duplicate rolls when the worker retries.

How do I set, pause, withdraw or use the Maintenance Reserve?

Open Empire → Repairs & Maintenance and find Maintenance & bill reserve. It is a separate optional safety fund funded only from the percentage of future positive property earnings that you choose.

Press Choose Reserve % or Change Reserve, enter a whole percentage from 1–20 and save. Enter 0% to pause future contributions without deleting the balance already held.
Affordable Warning repairs for ordinary properties, venues and transport can be paid automatically from the reserve. It never takes repair money from Available cash.
Press Auto-pay Bills to let the reserve pay affordable property bills, or Pause Auto Bills to stop that behaviour. Automatic bill payment is unavailable while reserve contributions are disabled.
Press Withdraw Reserve, enter any valid amount currently held, or choose Use Full Reserve, then Withdraw to Cash. The money moves back to Available cash and creates an authoritative transaction.
The panel reports reserve balance, costs avoided, automatic repairs, automatic bills and protected holdings. Reserve cash is not counted as Available cash until withdrawn.
Repair All remains a manual action with its 12.5% management discount; the automatic reserve handles affordable minor problems as they arise.

Taxes, rates and the rolling invoice

Property tax, business rates and parking levies are fictional game bills collected into one clear statement. The amount is driven mainly by normal property profit rather than fictional market value.

Open Empire and the Bills section, then pay one named property line or choose Pay entire invoice to clear every affordable displayed line.
Each eligible property may have only one unpaid ordinary line. Buying more properties can add new lines after their 24-hour protection expires, but an existing unpaid line is never duplicated.
The statement progresses only once per active day in your selected time zone. It does not age while the app is closed.
Issued and Reminder have no penalty. Overdue reduces the linked property's positive profit by 25%, Serious by 50%, and the final stage pauses only that property.
Pay a line or clear the entire statement. Paying restores that property's full future profitability.
Available cash is never automatically reduced. Optional reserve auto-pay can use only money deliberately held in the separate reserve.
These mechanics do not represent real tax calculations.

Selling a property

An owner may list a 24-hour player auction or sell back to the game immediately at a deliberate loss.

Game buyback returns 50% of acquisition and retained improvement basis before unpaid deductions. Player auctions may achieve a better result but are not guaranteed to sell.
Only upgrades you paid for during your current ownership count toward your buyback basis. Improvements made by an earlier owner can never be claimed again.
A game buyback is always capped below your current ownership investment, so repeatedly buying and returning the same property cannot create money.
A property with a player bid must complete its auction.
Player offers and auction settlement transfer ownership atomically.

◇

GAME GUIDE

Market and risk

Auctions, custom offers, property drops and the Deal Room.

Auctions

Players can list owned property, bid with reserved funds and receive atomic settlement when the auction ends.

The highest bid is reserved and cannot be spent elsewhere.
Outbid players have their reservation released.
Players cannot bid on their own property or spend more than available cash.

Custom player offers

Open another player’s property and make a custom purchase offer. The cash is reserved until the owner accepts, declines, the offer expires or you cancel it.

Every offer interaction creates a notification.
The owner can open the exact offered asset on the shared map before accepting or declining.
Accepted offers settle money and ownership in one transaction.
The first custom-offer objective pays a substantial strategist reward.

Daily property drops

Daily drops are unique to each player and normally favour places near their existing empire. A revealed Worldwide Drop can be anywhere; a heavily discounted Wildcard hides its identity until purchase.

Common deals save 5–12%, good deals 13–20%, rare deals 21–30%.
Exceptional deals can reach 40% but are deliberately uncommon.
Wildcard properties are already registered, avoiding a purchase-time map scan.
Worldwide and Wildcard locations are independently randomised for each player, saved for the day and balanced across countries before repeats.

Deal Room

The Deal Room offers fast, entirely fictional risk plays using game cash. Its odds favour the game, and higher potential returns carry a meaningful chance of loss.

Outcomes settle immediately on the server.
Daily attempts and stake limits prevent unlimited play.
There is no real-money purchase, cash-out or financial product.

✦

GAME GUIDE

Police, fire and district actions

Coverage tiers, patrols, protection fees and temporary attacks.

Converting and fortifying a service building

Any eligible owned property can become a police or fire Outpost. Larger mapped footprints unlock wider and stronger tiers. The property stops normal income while it is a service, but its owner may later return it to its original use.

Outpost (OUTPOST): 50% protection, 250m radius, 3% budget, any size.
Community (COMMUNITY): 70% protection, 500m radius, 5% budget, needs 250m².
District (DISTRICT): 84% protection, 1,000m radius, 10% budget, needs 750m².
Elite (ELITE): 95% protection, 1,600m radius, 18% budget, needs 2,000m².
Select a tier to see its exact dashed gold coverage border on the map before confirming police or fire.
Fortifying an active service upgrades protection to 100% and expands its maximum coverage radius by 25%.
Each incoming attack damages fortified defence by 10%. Protection and the live coverage circle shrink with integrity until the owner pays to repair them.
Returning a service to its original use removes its coverage, fees and patrols and restores the property’s normal earnings.

Coverage, map key and patrols

Open Services & Vehicles on the World map for one readable key: police coverage is blue, fire is red, overlap is purple and parking-warden coverage is gold and dashed. Only your own district borders are shown.

On phones, Services & Vehicles automatically hides while a property panel is open so names, values and management actions remain unobstructed. Close the property to reopen the map key.
Coverage circles use current server-authoritative radius. They expand immediately after fortification, shrink after attack damage and return to full size after repair.
Patrols persist through map movement and choose different routes over time.
Vehicles animate only on screen to protect mobile performance.
Where are my vehicles? reports whether your patrols are in view, off-screen, need a closer street-level zoom or are still building routes from the loaded OpenStreetMap roads.
If a vehicle is active but not visible, open its property, use View on map, turn Service View on and zoom to street level while its route loads.
Protected neighbours pay a small automatic contribution.

District actions

Temporary district actions unlock at 8 properties and are limited to 3 per day. They can reduce rival income but never steal or permanently destroy a property.

The second action costs more; the third is deliberately very expensive.
Police or fire protection can block a matching incident.
New accounts have 3 days of protection. Launching an action ends that protection early.
After either player attacks the other, both accounts enter a 72-hour two-way truce.
Victims remain immune to all further district actions for 2 hours after their incident ends.
Attack crews require 30 minutes between deployments.
While crews are occupied, the attacker's positive property profit is reduced by 15%, 25%, 40% for their first, second and third daily actions. A blocked action still applies this cost.
A protected neighbour must opt out and wait 24 hours before attacking its provider.
Every press shows processing and a clear server result.

✈

GAME GUIDE

Airports and railways

Own transport hubs, schedule services and watch the shared world move.

Airport operations

Each owned airport supports ten player-scheduled flights per day. Choose destination, departure time and ticket price; operating cost is paid when scheduled. Airports have a modest dependable baseline, while flights, reputation, facilities, tenants and partnerships create their main profit.

High fares and short booking windows create a real empty-flight risk.
Two conservative automatic flights can be scheduled while the owner is logged in.
Game-owned and player aircraft are visible worldwide across map zooms.
Tap or click any aircraft to open its live flight card. It shows flight number, operator, origin, destination, departure and landing times, aircraft type and how full it is.
Game-operated cargo flights show tonnes carried and the cargo manifest rather than pretending the aircraft contains passengers.
The Founders Fleet permanently names fifteen game-operated aircraft after the original testers. Tap a dedicated aircraft to see who it honours; the recognition survives Prestige, Fresh Start and global resets.
Unclaimed airports cost at least £5,000,000 game cash and normally 15% of fictional value, preventing a major hub from paying for itself through passive income in a few hours.

Railway operations

Purchasable railway stations support passenger services to configured main-city stations over mapped railway lines. The network now covers Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Singapore, with additional country packs prepared as verified rail data is added.

Each owned station unlocks ten scheduled services per day.
Fares, departure windows, passenger demand and operating cost use the same risk principles as airports.
Trains follow cached OpenStreetMap rail geometry rather than travelling in straight lines.
Player and game-owned trains are visible to everyone when the map is zoomed into a local area.
Tap or click any moving train to see its service number, operator, route, departure and arrival times, train type, passenger load and current journey progress.
Trains disappear at regional and world zoom. Only aeroplanes remain visible across the wide world view.
A station serving an airport remains a railway station and is labelled explicitly—for example, Schiphol Airport railway station—so it cannot be confused with the separately purchasable airport.
Singapore stations now connect Woodlands, Jurong East, City Hall, HarbourFront, Tampines and Punggol over the official URA rail-line dataset.
New regions are released as bounded, cached rail packs so trains never fake a route over roads, fields or oceans.

Why were buses removed?

The experimental bus system has been retired. OpenStreetMap bus stands frequently overlap nearby building footprints, which could make a tap open the wrong property. Removing the bus layer keeps property selection clear and reliable.

Bus stops, stands and stations no longer appear as purchasable game properties.
No new bus routes can be created and buses no longer appear on the shared map.
Historical ownership, transactions and ledger entries are retained so retiring the feature cannot damage player accounts.
Airports and railway operations are unchanged.

Hub reputation and upgrades

Every owned airport and railway station starts as a Local hub and earns reputation when completed services carry passengers. Reputation progresses through Regional, National, International and World Gateway tiers.

Five facility upgrades increase capacity, reliability, operating efficiency, partnership slots and local catchment.
Higher reputation unlocks more specialised service types and increases passenger demand.
Facility upgrades cost game cash and become progressively more expensive.
A hub retains its progress while the same player owns it; a new owner starts their own operation.

Passenger footfall and local effects

A completed flight or train service creates a one-hour passenger effect around its origin hub. Eligible nearby properties receive a temporary income bonus and their owners share an immediate footfall payment.

Airports favour hotels, parking, hospitality, retail, entertainment and logistics.
Stations favour offices, retail, cafés, pubs, parking, hotels and entertainment.
The effect becomes wider and stronger as the hub develops.
Empire property cards clearly label an active Passenger Footfall bonus.

Transport partnerships

Use a hub control room to connect eligible nearby properties. Your own connection activates immediately; another player receives a request they can accept or decline.

Every transport partnership must be within 10 miles; candidates are ordered closest first for the selected hub.
Airport and railway requests are collapsed into one Transport Partnership Inbox with individual responses and Decline all.
Partner properties receive a stronger share of passenger footfall.
Reputation and facility upgrades unlock additional partnership slots.
A station partnered with an airport can unlock Airport Express services.
Partnership interactions create player notifications.

Service types and transport problems

Different service types trade demand, capacity, cost and reputation. Premium and luxury choices have higher upside but can be much less forgiving.

Flights include Budget, Standard, Business, Holiday Charter and Premium International.
Trains include Local, Regional, Intercity Express, Event Special, Airport Express and Luxury.
Temporary runway, baggage, platform or signalling failures reduce demand until repaired.
Upgrades increase reliability and make operational problems less likely.

◆

GAME GUIDE

Hotels, parking and activity venues

Run bookings, continuous parking and events, build reputation, upgrade facilities and create local footfall.

Opening Venue Control

Every owned hotel, cinema, pub, nightclub, stadium and car park has a dedicated operations link on its World map card and in Empire. Venue Control manages all of these properties in one responsive screen.

Select a venue, activity, public event name, start time and price.
The operating cost is paid immediately and cannot be recovered if demand is poor.
Each category has a daily activity limit to prevent unlimited rapid farming.
Hotels, car parks and dedicated venues cannot be converted into police or fire stations.

Hotel manager and seven-day calendar

Every hotel has ten booking slots per day across a proper seven-day calendar. Its automatic manager keeps the property active at a cautious level, while manual decisions provide the real profit opportunity.

The manager creates up to two low-risk starter bookings per hotel and game day, but only while the owner is logged in.
Automatic bookings use modest room pricing and favour reliability over maximum returns.
The remaining eight slots can be scheduled manually at a chosen date, time and room or package price.
Manual bookings can use premium packages and higher prices for far greater profit, but weak demand can create a loss.
Calendar cards clearly distinguish automatic manager bookings from manual bookings.

Pricing, forecasts and hidden demand

Before confirming a manual booking, Hotel Control shows a deliberately broad occupancy confidence band. It helps with planning without revealing the final answer.

Exact guest demand is calculated and retained on the server; the browser never receives it before completion.
Higher prices increase the best possible return but reduce demand and can leave rooms empty.
Longer booking windows make demand steadier; rushed departures are more volatile.
The quote shows operating cost, break-even occupancy and best possible result before you commit.
The final occupancy, revenue, profit and reputation are revealed when the booking settles.

Hotel facilities and reputation

Hotel upgrades are named operational facilities rather than anonymous levels. Better facilities unlock new package types and improve what the hotel can achieve.

Mapped hotel use takes priority over a generic building outline, so a hotel tagged as apartments or commercial by the map source still receives Hotel Control.
World property cards invalidate their cached building type after a source correction, so World and Empire stay consistent.
The ladder is Standard Rooms, Refurbished Rooms, Conference & Events, Restaurant & Bar, Spa & Leisure and Luxury Suites.
Packages that need a facility remain visibly locked until that upgrade is completed.
Hotel reputation progresses through Local Guesthouse, Trusted Hotel, City Favourite, Luxury Destination and World-Famous Resort.
Fourteen booking types cover stays, tours, conferences, weddings, dinners, conventions, retreats, premieres, championship hospitality and celebrity takeovers.
The exact booking types are Weekend Escape, Family Break, Business Stay, Last-minute Rooms, Coach Tour Allocation, Business Conference, Wedding Package, Awards Dinner, Gaming Convention, Music Afterparty, Luxury Spa Retreat, Film Premiere Stay, Championship Hospitality and Celebrity Hotel Takeover.
Temporary hotel incidents reduce demand until repaired; upgrades improve reliability.

Continuous car-park operations

Car parks are hands-off hourly businesses, not scheduled venue activities. Choose one live hourly price and the server settles actual vehicles, non-payers, wages and net revenue after every completed hour.

There are no booking slots and no need to keep scheduling commuter sessions.
Time of day changes real demand: commuting, shopping, evenings and quiet overnight hours behave differently.
Higher prices can produce a better return per paying driver, but excessive prices can leave nearly every space empty.
Future occupancy is never shown. The historical graph contains completed results only, preserving the pricing gamble.
The World Parking Clock compares every owned facility using simulated local time, local daypart, current price and recent closed-hour occupancy, making sites that may need attention easy to spot.
Hover or tap a completed graph point to inspect its price, occupancy, non-payers and net result.
Facilities progress through barriers, smart payment, CCTV and lighting, EV charging, pre-booking and shuttle services, and premium valet.
Basic facilities can lose a sizable share of vehicles to non-payment; every facility upgrade makes that risk smaller.
Nearby connected airports, stations, hotels, stadiums, cinemas, pubs, clubs, cafés and retail create additional local footfall.
Barrier, payment, lighting, surface or security failures reduce demand until repaired.

Parking wardens and coverage

A paid parking warden can protect a network of nearby owned car parks. Their gold dashed 3km patrol area is visible before hiring, and their gold warden van is identified in the Services & Vehicles map key.

Hiring costs £15,000 in game cash and the warden receives a £28 hourly wage.
The wage is shared across the covered car parks rather than charged in full to every site.
A covered car park has its remaining non-payment rate reduced by roughly 80%.
Use Preview area before hiring to inspect the coverage circle on the World map.
The map key reports how many wardens are visible in the current area or tells you that they are operating elsewhere.
Buying another car park inside the 3km district adds it to that warden automatically and refreshes the live route immediately.
Patrols use the OpenStreetMap-compatible road lines loaded on screen, travel between all covered car parks and return to their base.
The warden vehicle travels between covered car parks and pauses at each location to inspect tickets.
Dismiss the warden from Car-park Operations to stop future wages; non-payment risk then returns.

Private venue management names

Owners can give any playable venue a private management name from Venue Control. This is especially useful when several car parks or venues share the same generic map name.

Open Venue Control, choose the property, type a name under Private management name and press Save name.
The private label appears in your own venue selector and control heading while the original mapped name remains visible underneath.
Other players never see the label and the public world-map name does not change.
Clear the field and save to remove the label.
Private labels do not transfer with a sale; a new owner starts with the original mapped name.

How do I rename or repurpose a place of worship?

An owner can give an owned place-of-worship property a shared fictional use and public game name. Unlike a private Venue Control label, this identity is visible to every player everywhere in the shared world.

Open the owned place of worship on World and find Rename & Repurpose Venue. It is available only to the current owner of a property categorised as Place of Worship.
Choose Church, Mosque, Synagogue, Temple, Multifaith Centre, Community Hall or Create custom faith, then enter a shared base name and press Confirm Shared Change.
For a standard use the game shows the final public name with its use label; a custom-faith choice uses the entered shared name. The preview shows the exact final name before confirmation.
The base name must be 3–70 characters and may use letters, numbers, spaces and ordinary punctuation.
The fictional repurpose fee is 2% of the property's game valuation, with a minimum of £25,000 and maximum of £5,000,000. The exact cost is shown before confirmation and recorded in the Ledger.
The change does not alter the real-world place, OpenStreetMap or property ownership. The original source name is preserved internally.
Shared names are reportable. Use Support if a public venue identity is misleading, abusive or otherwise breaks the game rules.

Cinema, pub, nightclub and stadium activities

Each venue category has a distinct activity ladder rather than behaving like a renamed house.

Cinemas run blockbusters, family matinees, indie premieres, midnight horror and gala premieres.
Pubs run quiz nights, live music, match screenings, food festivals and headline gigs.
Nightclubs run student nights, resident DJs, themed parties, VIP nights and superclub events.
Stadiums run league matches, cup ties, local derbies, stadium concerts and international showcases.
The stadium outline and every mapped grandstand resolve to the same shared venue, combined value and owner.

Reputation, upgrades and risk

Completed activities award reputation from Local Favourite through City Hotspot, Regional Draw, National Venue and World Stage. Higher tiers unlock premium activities and improve demand.

Five facility upgrades improve capacity, reliability, operating efficiency and local reach.
High prices increase maximum profit but can produce zero attendance.
Short promotion windows make attendance more volatile.
Operational problems reduce demand until their visible repair cost is paid.

Partnerships and district effects

Successful venues pull visitors into their surrounding area. Eligible nearby hotels, hospitality, parking, retail and transport properties share a footfall payment and temporary hourly-profit boost.

Every venue partnership must be within 10 miles; candidates from distant venues elsewhere in your empire are excluded.
Venue reputation and upgrades widen the catchment.
Active local partnerships are shown in Hotel Control and receive 1.75× the normal visitor-footfall share.
Your own partnership activates immediately; another player receives an accept-or-decline notification.
Incoming requests are collapsed into one Partnership Inbox with individual responses and Decline all; new suggestions are limited to the twelve closest valid properties.
Hotel guests create stronger surrounding spend than an ordinary venue visitor.
Venue activities settle in bounded background jobs even when the owner leaves the page.

◈

GAME GUIDE

Players, friends and rankings

Find people, inspect empires, build rivalries and compete.

Finding other players

The Players area searches usernames, shows public portfolios and lets you jump directly between another player’s properties.

Friend requests, acceptances, rivalries, offers and attacks create notifications.
Friends make it easier to organise voluntary rivalries and friendly map wars.
Public property cards show mapped location, value, level and condition.

How do player-owned Companies work?

Open Companies from All game areas to found or join a player-run property cooperative. Every Company receives three changing daily goals and three larger weekly goals, a private operations chat and its own place on the Company leaderboard.

A normal player Company can hold between 2 and 25 members. The verified Own the Map Official Company supports up to 250 members and is permanently led by the game owner.
The official Company is clearly marked throughout the game, stays open to the wider community and receives 115% flagship shared prize pools. Rewards still depend on each member’s verified contribution.
Open Companies accept players immediately; Approval required sends a request to the CEO; Invite only accepts CEO invitations; Closed stops all new joining.
Company progress comes from normal server-authoritative purchases, upgrades, positive income, housing contracts, Police and Fire responses, Deal Room rounds and accepted property deals.
Moving cash or cards between accounts never creates Company progress.
Personal properties, wallets and cards stay individually owned. A Company cannot withdraw a member’s money or take ownership of property.

How are Company daily and weekly goals scaled?

Company targets are generated from a snapshot rather than changing while players work. Daily goals reset at 00:00 UTC; weekly goals snapshot the roster at 00:00 UTC every Monday and remain fixed until the following Monday.

The weekly snapshot locks the members, collective progression, target sizes and reward pools used for that rotation.
Someone joining after the snapshot can contribute immediately but does not make the existing targets harder.
Someone leaving cannot erase contributions already recorded during the cycle.
A protected midnight background job creates the next rotations automatically. Opening Companies also safely restores a missing rotation without changing the boundary roster.
Goal choices rotate deterministically from eligible game systems, so a Company without Police or Fire operations is not assigned an impossible emergency target.

How are Company prizes and leaderboard points divided?

A completed daily or weekly set creates individual paydays using verified contribution. Company ranking points measure completed team goals and are separate from spendable game cash.

20% of the payday supports members who made a meaningful contribution, 70% follows each member’s contribution points and 10% rewards members who helped every objective type in the completed set.
In a Company with at least three qualifying contributors, one player cannot receive more than 35% of the total payday.
A minimum contribution prevents an idle or token-action account from taking the participation share.
Cash paydays require a seven-day-old account, two active play hours and at least 24 hours of Company membership. Players can still contribute before they become payout-eligible.
Earned paydays remain attached to the player even if they later leave or are removed. The CEO cannot remove members while a completed set is awaiting settlement.
The Company leaderboard awards 100 points for a completed daily objective and 500 for a completed weekly objective. Raw Company wealth and member count do not directly score.

What can a Company CEO control?

The CEO manages Company identity, joining and member safety. Real economic and progress multipliers remain owner-admin controls so a CEO cannot create an unfair leaderboard or payday advantage.

The CEO can change the name, description, joining policy and size limit; invite players; approve or reject requests; kick members; issue or remove Company bans; and transfer the CEO role.
The CEO must transfer leadership before leaving. A Company ban affects only that Company.
Company chat refreshes while open and supports pinned plans, CEO message removal, timed member mutes and player reports.
Messages are rate-limited and only current members can read the private channel.
The CEO can coordinate or highlight a goal in chat but cannot set cash multipliers, increase prizes or modify authoritative contribution records.

How do the leaderboards work?

Own the Map has four main world boards because no single number can fairly describe both a long-term player and the empire they own today.

Lifetime Legacy measures permanent career progress. It combines the highest Prestige level ever reached, distinct properties ever owned and unique objectives completed.
Empire Power ranks the current server-authoritative net worth of the empire owned now. It can fall after Prestige because the released properties are no longer part of the current empire.
Prestige ranks current Prestige level first. At the same level, the player with greater progress towards the next level ranks higher; Lifetime Legacy then breaks any remaining tie.
This Season is a separate monthly points race for properties acquired, objectives completed and Prestige levels reached during that UTC calendar month.
Leaderboard points are ranking scores, not game cash. They cannot be spent and do not alter treasury balance, property income or the permanent Prestige earnings boost.
The current Empire figure and permanent Legacy score are intentionally different. Public profiles show both so a recently Prestiged player does not lose recognition for their previous progress.
Results come from the authoritative server and are shared-cached for up to 60 seconds. The game checks again every two minutes while the leaderboard is open, so a very recent action may take a short time to appear.

How are Lifetime Legacy points calculated?

Lifetime Legacy is the permanent career leaderboard. Add the Prestige milestone points, 10 points for every distinct property ever owned and 150 points for every unique objective achievement.

Formula: Prestige milestone points + (distinct lifetime properties × 10) + (unique objective achievements × 150).
Prestige milestone points are: Level 0 = 0; Level 1 = 1,000; Level 2 = 2,500; Level 3 = 5,000; Level 4 = 9,000; Level 5 = 15,000; Level 6 = 23,000; Level 7 = 33,000; Level 8 = 45,000; Level 9 = 60,000; Level 10 = 78,000.
Example: highest Prestige 2 gives 2,500 points, 40 distinct lifetime properties give 400 and 8 unique objectives give 1,200. Lifetime Legacy = 4,100 points.
A property counts once per player for life. Selling it, losing it, buying it back or acquiring it through another route cannot award its 10 points again.
A completed objective counts once by its unique objective key. Replayed or duplicate reward records do not create extra Legacy points.
Prestiging does not erase Lifetime Legacy. The higher milestone replaces the previous Prestige milestone; the milestones are not added together.
If two players have the same Legacy score, current Prestige level breaks the tie, followed by current net worth.

How are This Season points calculated?

This Season is a fresh monthly competition. It begins at 00:00 UTC on the first day of each calendar month and scores only qualifying progress made during that month.

Formula: (distinct properties acquired this month × 100) + (unique objectives completed this month × 500) + (Prestige levels reached this month × 2,500).
Example: 6 distinct new properties give 600 points, 2 objectives give 1,000 and 1 Prestige gives 2,500. This Season score = 4,100 points.
The same property counts only once in a season, even if it changes hands and returns to the same player during that month.
Only unique objectives count. Repeated claims or duplicated records cannot produce extra season points.
A Prestige is counted when that new level is reached during the current month. Reaching the same level again cannot be farmed for more points.
The monthly reset affects only This Season. Lifetime Legacy, badges, Prestige history and permanent progression remain intact.

✦

GAME GUIDE

Community, Beta and cosmetics

Join the community, understand the Beta programme, ask the Wiki bot and customise your public identity.

How does the Own the Map Beta programme work?

Beta World is a separate testing version of Own the Map for approved testers. It uses the same account identity as Live Early Access, but its progression, economy and player activity are completely isolated so testing cannot damage the live game.

Live World is the stable Early Access game with permanent player progression. Beta World is clearly labelled throughout its interface and exists only to test changes before they are considered for Live.
Beta has its own database, economy, properties, contracts, cards, Companies, rankings and player progression. Nothing earned, bought, sold, claimed or lost in Beta changes Live World.
A player's Live profile remains exactly where they left it while they use Beta. Returning to Live resumes that existing Live progression.
A first visit to Beta creates a fresh Beta profile. Beta data may be changed, rolled back or completely reset whenever a test requires it.
Real-money purchases are disabled in Beta. Supporter purchases and other paid transactions must be completed in Live World.
The owner controls whether Beta is Closed, Staff only, Invite only or Open to every player. A maintenance gate can temporarily stop new player switches.
Being a Beta tester is not an early-access reward and gives no competitive benefit in Live. Its purpose is to find problems and improve changes before release.
The public Wiki explains the Beta programme and how to use it, but deliberately does not list, hint at or speculate about unreleased features currently being tested.
The optional Beta programme does not make Own the Map Version 1.0. Version 1.0 remains reserved for the eventual full release.

How do I join or apply for Beta World?

Beta admission is controlled by the game owner. Check Agent → Account & settings → World version: that card shows the current public availability and whether your own account can enter.

Closed means ordinary players cannot enter. Staff only means only authorised game staff can enter. Invite only means the owner must add the individual player to the tester roster. Open means every signed-in player may enter.
There is no public Beta application form unless the owner separately announces that applications are being accepted. Do not send passwords, access keys or private account information to anyone offering Beta access.
When applications or a recruitment round are available, the official in-game notice, Wiki or official Discord announcement will state where to apply. Silence does not mean applications are open.
An invitation is attached to the existing Own the Map account; it does not require a second Live account and cannot be transferred to another player.
If Beta is Open or the account has been accepted, a LIVE / BETA switch appears persistently in the desktop navigation and phone or tablet header. The full control also appears in Agent → Account & settings.
If the switch is missing, open Account & settings to read the exact status. The likely reasons are that Beta is closed, the account has not been invited, Staff-only mode is active or maintenance is in progress.
Revoked access prevents a new switch into Beta. It never deletes or changes the player's Live profile.
Use in-game Support for an access error on an account that has already been officially accepted. Support cannot promise an invitation or disclose the private tester roster.

How do I switch between Live and Beta, and what happens to my progress?

An eligible tester can move between Worlds from the LIVE / BETA switch or from Agent → Account & settings → World version. The switch changes the game environment, not the ownership of the account.

Press BETA and accept the warning to enter Beta. Press LIVE from Beta to return. Accepted testers keep the switch, including while they are inside Beta, so they can always return to Live.
Switching uses a short-lived encrypted one-use handoff. It does not send the player's password to the other World and an expired or already-used handoff must be restarted from the World switch.
Cash, reserved money, properties, upgrades, licences, cards, contracts, Companies, goals, badges, rankings and market activity do not copy in either direction.
Beta begins as separate progression and may be reset without notice. A reset in Beta never resets Live.
The Beta banner and Beta-coloured navigation remain visible so a player can always tell which World is open before making a game action.
Browser tabs can remain signed in to different Worlds because each World uses its own address and session. Always check the LIVE or BETA label before acting.
If switching fails, return to the World that is already open and try the switch again. Do not paste a handoff address or token into chat or Support.

What can be shared about unreleased Beta features?

The public Wiki and Ask Wiki bot can explain Beta access, switching, safety and separate progression. They do not reveal, guess, confirm or summarise features that have not been publicly announced for Live.

Asking what is currently in Beta, what secret feature is being tested or what will release next does not give the bot permission to disclose it.
The bot must answer that unreleased Beta details are not public unless the owner has explicitly added those details to a public release note or Wiki article.
The bot receives no Beta source code, private roadmap, tester chat, hidden patch notes or confidential testing data and must never infer them from a question.
Testers should report a problem through the testing route announced with their access or through private in-game Support. Include the Beta label, device, screen and reproduction steps without posting secrets publicly.
Public release notes become the authority only after the owner publishes them. A rumour, screenshot, player comment or AI guess is not an official announcement.
Any extra tester sharing rules announced for a particular test still apply. The public guide does not invent an NDA or claim that every Beta detail is public.

How do I join and link the Own the Map Discord?

Open Agent and press Join Discord to enter the official community at discord.gg/28cnfWRaCC. Joining the server and linking an account are separate: after joining, open Agent → Account & settings and choose Link Discord account using the same Discord identity.

Linking awards a one-time £250,000 fictional game-cash bonus. It is limited to one reward per game account and one per Discord identity, including if either account is later changed or unlinked.
The permanent Join Discord card is near the top of Agent and the same community link appears beside the Discord controls in Account & settings.
The Player role and protected community channels unlock only after the Discord account is linked to a real Own the Map player account.
Run /link or press Verify & unlock in the Discord start-here channel after linking if the role has not appeared yet.
The bot regularly reconciles linked roles, so a temporary Discord delay does not change game access, money or ownership.
Founding Tester and Bug Hunter roles are assigned only when the linked game account has the matching permanent record. Optional interests can be selected with /roles.
Discord roles never grant game administration. Owner, administrator and moderator permissions remain protected by the game server.
If the wrong Discord account was connected, use in-game Support rather than creating a second game account.

How do I ask the Discord Wiki bot a question?

Ask any game question in the official Ask Wiki channel. The bot searches the same complete guide shown inside Own the Map and always links the Wiki source it used.

A server controller chooses the automatic Ask Wiki text channel with the optional ask_wiki field in /setup. Write any game topic or question there normally without mentioning the bot or using a command.
Use /ask followed by a question in any Discord server where the Own the Map bot is installed.
Questions beginning with How are matched by both the action and the game feature involved, then returned as clear numbered steps rather than only a description of the feature.
A broad question is not forced into the first vaguely related article. The bot asks a short choice-based question, remembers the original subject for 20 minutes and can ask again more narrowly until the intended feature is clear.
One message can contain several questions. The bot separates up to four clear question clauses, answers each verified part under its own label and asks for clarification only on any part that remains ambiguous.
A later message can introduce another question without erasing the recent conversation. The bot retains the last six user-and-bot turns across topic changes so pronouns and short follow-ups can still be resolved.
How and Where questions combine the matched verified article with the current live Game Directory catalogue, including the real desktop and mobile route and allow-listed visible action labels.
A Groq-hosted open-weight model can turn those verified sources into direct conversational instructions. It never receives raw game code, database access, credentials, Discord identifiers, email, precise property locations, property names, device records, support conversations or private Company chat.
The dedicated Ask Wiki channel accepts ordinary messages without a slash command or bot mention. A lightweight conversational route distinguishes game help from harmless banter; casual comments receive a brief natural reply, while game questions continue through the verified Wiki and live-game context path.
When wording asks about my account, a linked player may also supply a short read-only snapshot containing only Prestige, Legacy, Career Guide step, daily streak and time zone; available and reserved game cash; property category totals and average upgrade; repair and bill counts; card and badge totals; service and active-contract status; Company role; Maintenance Reserve; and licence tier, capacity and operating progress.
The linked snapshot belongs only to the Discord asker and is read fresh from the authoritative game database for every personal question; personal figures are not cached. The bot cannot inspect another player's private state, and the AI has no tool or permission to buy, sell, upgrade, claim, transfer, moderate or otherwise change the game.
If Discord is not linked, the bot answers from general verified sources first and suggests More or All game areas → Settings → Link Discord · Get £250,000 for more specific personal help.
Every AI-assisted answer is labelled. Repeated Wiki-only questions are cached for six hours, while answers using live or linked player state are never cached. Generation is limited to five requests a minute and 150 a day by default, and the normal non-AI Wiki answer remains available whenever Groq is unavailable, uncertain or at its limit.
A matched answer includes a short explanation, useful points and a direct link to the full searchable Wiki article.
If no exact article can be confirmed, the bot does not invent a rule. It first asks a focused clarification; if the verified guide still cannot answer after narrowing, it links the exact Wiki search and in-game Support instead.
Helpful and Wrong answer controls provide feedback. Account-specific disputes still belong in private in-game Support.

What live game information can the Ask Wiki bot use?

Ask Wiki uses a protected read-only context service maintained by the Own the Map server. It is designed to explain the current interface and diagnose the linked asker's visible progression without giving the external AI direct access to the application or database.

Every How or Where question can receive the relevant current Game Directory area, desktop path, mobile and tablet path, route and allow-listed visible actions from the same catalogue used to build the in-game directory.
Questions about current status can receive the deployed release, whether Industry Licensing is active or armed, current server time and active scheduled global or Company boost names, effects, multipliers and end times.
Personal context is included only when the wording asks about the asker's own state and that Discord identity is linked. The packet contains summary counts and progression—not identifiers, messages, exact locations or hidden data.
Questions about the asker's reserve use a deterministic server reply instead of AI wording. It separately reports Maintenance & bill reserve, cash reserved for bids or offers, and Available cash with a fresh capture time, preventing the balances from being confused or rewritten.
The server constructs the packet and the AI can only read it for that answer. The AI cannot execute code, call economy endpoints, alter data or choose what fields to retrieve.
Answers state whether they used the verified Wiki, current live game state or the asker's linked live game state. A full Wiki link remains attached.
An unlinked player receives the ordinary answer plus a linking suggestion. Linking awards the existing protected one-time £250,000 fictional game-cash bonus under its anti-duplication rules.
For ownership disputes, missing payments, moderation or anything requiring staff judgement, use private in-game Support; the public Ask Wiki bot does not receive those records.

How do I set the Ask Wiki and Server Status channels in Discord?

An authorised server controller runs /setup and selects the existing changelog, gifts, bug forum and suggestions channels. The optional ask_wiki and server_status fields configure the Ask Wiki channel and Server Status channel without rebuilding or renaming the server.

ask_wiki must be a normal text channel. Once selected, every ordinary player message in that channel is treated as a Wiki question.
server_status must be a normal text channel. The bot publishes one persistent service-status panel there and edits it instead of repeatedly posting new messages.
Running /setup again updates the selected destinations. Leaving an optional field empty keeps its existing configuration unchanged.
The bot needs View Channel, Send Messages, Read Message History and Embed Links in the selected text channels.
Use /status to privately confirm every configured channel and the current status mode.
Channel setup does not grant players game roles or administration and does not rearrange unrelated Discord channels or roles.

How do I show that the game server is Online, Updating or Offline?

The configured Discord Server Status channel shows whether the Own the Map game server is Online, Updating or Offline. In Automatic mode the bot checks the live game service and refreshes the same status panel every minute.

Run /set-server-status state:Updating before planned work and optionally add a short public note explaining the update.
Use state:Offline only when the service should be shown unavailable manually.
Return to state:Automatic after maintenance. The bot then shows Online when the live endpoint responds and Offline when it does not.
The /game-status command reports the same current service state on demand.
A manual Updating or Offline state remains in force until an authorised controller changes it; automatic health checks do not overwrite that deliberate notice.
The status panel reports availability only. It never alters the game server, player data, balances or active sessions.

What are the supporter memberships?

Supporter memberships fund continued development and award public recognition and cosmetics. They do not increase game income, purchase odds, protection, ranking points or ownership power.

Map Supporter is £4.99 per month: exclusive badge, Supporters Wall listing, supporter profile flair, private Discord access and recognition that survives global game resets.
Gold Supporter is £12.99 per month: every Map Supporter benefit plus an animated gold public name, Gold badge, named game aircraft and featured Supporters Wall card.
Map Legend is £49.99 per month: every Gold benefit plus an animated Legend identity, a named fictional Legend Island residence, highest Supporters Wall placement and one of twelve active Legend places.
The public supporter page explains the current plans before joining. Discord must be linked to make membership recognition and server access automatic.
In the Steam edition, eligible tiers can be bought as a one-time 30-day Steam Wallet pass. It does not renew automatically; buying another pass extends remaining Steam-pass time, and Check Steam Purchase can confirm a delayed overlay approval.
Membership recognition is cosmetic. All property, cash, Prestige and leaderboard rules remain server-authoritative and equal for non-supporters.

Where can I see supporter recognition?

Open Agent → Supporters Wall to see active supporters, featured Gold supporters, Map Legends and the entrance to fictional Legend Island.

Supporter badges appear in the Badge Cabinet and can be used in public showcases.
Gold and Legend display treatments appear on public profiles and supported rankings, so other players can recognise the supporter.
Named supporter aircraft use the normal shared-world flight system and can be inspected like other clickable planes.
Recognition survives a global game reset because it belongs to the supporter account rather than the resettable property economy.
If an active membership is missing, confirm Discord is linked and contact Support with the Discord username and membership tier.

What is Legend Island?

Legend Island is a fictional map overlay with twelve shoreline residences reserved for active Map Legends. It is a recognition feature, not real land or property ownership.

Visit it from Agent → Supporters Wall or search for Legend Island in the world map.
Each active Legend receives a numbered residence that staff can give an approved public house name.
The island, houses and names are fictional game content and provide no rights over any real-world place.
Legend Island does not generate spendable income, count towards Prestige or alter competitive leaderboards.
Only twelve active Legend places exist at once; the Supporters Wall shows the current occupants.

How do premium theme packs work?

Theme packs restyle the game for the player who equips them. Open Agent → Theme Store to preview owned and available packs in light and dark mode before changing the active theme.

A complete theme can change page backgrounds, cards, panels, buttons, navigation, map roads and the ownership palette while preserving clear gameplay states.
Map colours remain distinct for unclaimed, yours, other players, rivals and auctions even when the palette changes.
Equipping a theme changes only your interface. It never changes another player's private display or the authoritative map data.
Public-facing parts such as an equipped profile banner, avatar frame or leaderboard treatment may be visible to other players.
Themes are cosmetic only: they do not affect income, discounts, risk, licences, Prestige, hunts or property availability.
If a button loses contrast, switch theme mode or report the exact screen through Support so the accessibility styling can be corrected.

How do custom profile pictures and approval work?

A player who owns an eligible premium theme can submit a custom profile picture from Theme Store, crop it inside the game and preview the exact public area before submitting it for staff approval.

The crop preview shows the area that will remain visible in public circular or framed avatars.
A new upload remains private while pending. The existing approved avatar stays public until staff approves the replacement.
Administrators may approve or decline inappropriate, misleading or unsafe images and can attach feedback.
A declined image can be replaced with a new submission. Approval does not grant any gameplay advantage.
Use Report a Bug if cropping or upload controls do not work on a particular phone, tablet or Windows app.

★

GAME GUIDE

Objectives, contracts and prestige

Guided goals, achievements, collections, resets and long-term levels.

Career Guide and progressive feature unlocks

New players learn Own the Map through a short Career Guide that introduces one useful system at a time. The guide works alongside the First Empire Sprint and permanent objectives rather than replacing them.

The opening route teaches the map, first purchase, first upgrade and a balanced three-property foundation before introducing the Market.
Contracts unlock after the foundation lesson. Police and Fire conversion appears after the player reaches five properties, followed by Companies and community features.
Prestige, later industries and collectible cards are explained only when the player actually reaches their requirements.
Locked game-directory tiles always explain that the Career Guide will introduce them; core map, Empire, treasury, settings, support and Wiki access remain available.
Each feature arrives with a short explanation, a direct Open button and a saved server-authoritative milestone. The compact Career Guide can be reopened at any time.
Experienced players may deliberately unlock the full directory. Accounts that existed before the Career Guide keep their existing access and are not forced through beginner lessons.
When available cash reaches zero, Treasury Recovery suggests existing active routes such as contracts, live hunts, claimable goals and Empire management. It creates no loan, purchase or free money.
On phones and tablets, tutorials use scrollable bottom sheets, the treasury truncates safely, and the live Hunt card is removed in favour of the direct Hunt navigation tab. Medium screens use a minimisable Hunt dock.

Objectives and achievements

The guided objective route now follows the complete game progression from a first ordinary property through every Prestige-gated industry. Tap Goals to see the current chapter, exact completion steps, live progress and reward. Show Me opens or highlights the correct unlocked part of the game.

Only one objective is active at a time. The early chapters teach buying, automatic earnings, upgrading, ordinary businesses, street ownership, district services, city expansion and preparation for Prestige 1.
After each Prestige, the guide first helps you rebuild an ordinary-property base, then directs you to the Licence Office before asking you to acquire a regulated asset.
Prestige 1 introduces Commercial and Parking licences; Prestige 2 introduces Industrial and Hospitality; Prestige 3 introduces Major Venues and Rail; Prestige 4 introduces Aviation; Prestige 5 introduces Heritage landmarks.
An industry objective cannot appear before the exact Prestige and licence used by the server purchase rules. Hotels and entertainment activities therefore cannot appear before Prestige 2, for example.
Offers, rival actions and other player-dependent activities remain optional achievements and contracts. They cannot block the main learning route.
Existing earned badges and paid objective rewards are preserved. The guide selects the first unfinished step in the new sequence and never pays an already-paid reward again.
City objectives have no minimum property value: any owned property in a genuinely different city can count.
If OpenStreetMap omitted a city label, geographically separate mapped areas are inferred instead of silently counting as nowhere.
Daily and weekly contracts provide rotating optional goals.

Badge Cabinet and sets

Badges form a permanent collection separate from the one-at-a-time guided objectives. Open Badges from Agent or the game navigation to see every visible set, locked progress, earned dates and the achievements closest to completion.

Badge progress is calculated from authoritative game records and existing accomplishments are awarded retroactively.
Choose one favourite badge and up to three showcase badges for your public player profile.
Rarity runs from Common through Mythic; hidden badges keep their condition secret until earned.
Core sets cover property, hospitality, entertainment, transport, community, exploration and multiplayer play.

What is every badge and how do I earn it?

This catalogue is generated from the same current badge definitions used by the game. Each visible badge is listed with its rarity and exact earning condition; progress in the Badge Cabinet comes from authoritative records.

Property Tycoon: First Deed (Common) — Own your first mapped property.; Block Builder (Uncommon) — Own 10 properties.; Portfolio 25 (Rare) — Own 25 properties.; Regional Power (Epic) — Own 50 properties.; Century Club (Legendary) — Own 100 properties at once.; Prestige Founder (Mythic) — Complete your first Prestige.
Hospitality: First Guest (Common) — Complete one venue activity.; Hotel Operator (Uncommon) — Own a hotel.; Venue Regular (Rare) — Complete 10 venue activities.; Hospitality Group (Epic) — Own five hotels or venues.; Destination Brand (Legendary) — Complete 50 venue activities.
Entertainment: Showtime (Common) — Own a cinema, pub, nightclub or stadium.; Full House (Uncommon) — Complete five entertainment activities.; Night Economy (Rare) — Own five entertainment venues.; Headline Act (Epic) — Complete 25 venue activities.; World Stage (Legendary) — Own 15 entertainment venues.
Transport: First Departure (Common) — Complete one flight or train service.; Station Master (Uncommon) — Own a railway station.; Airport Operator (Rare) — Own an airport.; Network Builder (Epic) — Own five transport hubs.; Global Gateway (Legendary) — Complete 100 passenger services.
Community Builder: Watch Started (Common) — Operate a police station.; Fire Cover (Uncommon) — Operate a fire station.; Street Keeper (Rare) — Own five houses on one named street.; District Guardian (Epic) — Operate five service buildings.; Civic Network (Legendary) — Operate 15 service buildings.
Explorer: City Hopper (Common) — Own property in three cities.; Border Crosser (Uncommon) — Own property in two countries.; Five City Flag (Rare) — Own property in five cities.; World Portfolio (Legendary) — Own property in 10 countries.
Multiplayer: First Connection (Common) — Make your first in-game friend.; Deal Maker (Rare) — Make five custom property offers.; Friendly Rival (Epic) — Launch three district actions.
Founders: Founding Player (Legendary) — Joined Own the Map during Early Access.
Founders Fleet: Founders Fleet (Mythic) — An Own the Map aircraft was named in your honour for helping test the shared world.
Founding Summer 2026: Summer Builder 2026 (Epic) — Own 25 properties during the founding summer.; Shared World Pioneer (Legendary) — Own property while the community registers 10,000 world buildings.
Annual 2026: 2026 Investor (Epic) — Build a 10-property empire during 2026.
Supporters: Map Supporter (Rare) — Supports the continued development of Own the Map.; Gold Supporter (Legendary) — Premium supporter recognition linked through Discord.; Map Legend (Mythic) — One of Own the Map's most recognised supporters.
Treasure Hunter: World Explorer (Legendary) — Complete a worldwide treasure hunt.; New Year Pathfinder (Epic) — Complete a New Year treasure hunt.; Heart of the Map (Epic) — Complete a Valentine's treasure hunt.; Lantern Pathfinder (Epic) — Complete a Lunar New Year treasure hunt.; Spring Pathfinder (Rare) — Complete a spring treasure hunt.; Easter Pathfinder (Epic) — Complete an Easter treasure hunt.; Eid Pathfinder (Epic) — Complete an Eid treasure hunt.; Summer Pathfinder (Rare) — Complete a summer treasure hunt.; Halloween Pathfinder (Epic) — Complete a Halloween treasure hunt.; Bonfire Pathfinder (Epic) — Complete a Bonfire Night treasure hunt.; Festival of Light Pathfinder (Epic) — Complete a Diwali treasure hunt.; Christmas Pathfinder (Legendary) — Complete a Christmas treasure hunt.
Secrets: hidden badges deliberately keep their real name and requirement concealed until earned. The Badge Cabinet will reveal one after its authoritative condition is met.

Cosmetics and set rewards

Completing a full badge set unlocks a permanent cosmetic. Cosmetics never improve income, odds, protection or ranking: they are a visible record of how the player built their empire.

Reward types include profile titles and frames, property outline patterns, transport liveries, venue marquees and action celebrations.
Use the Cosmetics tab directly below the Badge Cabinet heading to see a miniature in-game screenshot of every reward, its set progress and its Equip control.
The previews remain visible while locked, so you can decide which complete badge set to pursue next.
Property styles recolour your owned world-map buildings; transport, venue and celebration styles appear during their matching live game actions.
Titles, favourite badges and showcase badges are shared on public profiles.
Fresh Start clears the cabinet; Prestige preserves it and can unlock new Prestige badges.

What does every badge-set cosmetic do?

Badge-set cosmetics change presentation only. This catalogue is generated from the game's current cosmetic definitions so the Wiki uses the same names and descriptions as the Locker.

Property Tycoon: The Landlord — Shows The Landlord beneath your name on the public player profile.; Gilded Deed — Surrounds your public player card with a bright double-gold deed frame.; City Grid — Turns your owned map buildings teal with a bold yellow grid outline.
Hospitality: Perfect Host — Shows Perfect Host beneath your name on the public player profile.; Golden Marquee — Gives owned venue controls a luminous gold marquee and headline treatment.
Entertainment: Encore — Adds a giant gold spotlight star to positive-action celebrations.
Transport: Neon Transit — Adds a bright cyan-and-gold glow to your planes, trains and service vehicles.
Community Builder: District Guardian — Wraps your public player card in unmistakable police-blue and fire-red light.
Explorer: Atlas Outline — Turns your owned map buildings violet with a rare bright atlas outline.
Multiplayer: World Connector — Shows World Connector beneath your name on the public player profile.
Founders: Early Access Founder — Adds a permanent teal-and-gold legacy frame to your public player card.
Founding Summer 2026: Founding Summer — Replaces the standard reward burst with a large limited-edition summer sun.
Premium Themes: Neon Dominion — A deep teal city-grid menu atmosphere with holographic light.; Golden Blueprint — Architectural navy plans lit by property-gold detail.; Midnight Metro — An indigo rail-night theme with violet route glow.; Emerald Estate — A calm dusk-green estate map with understated gold.

Seasonal, annual, community and legacy badges

Limited collections add optional long-term goals without blocking the core collection. An expired badge remains permanently visible to players who earned it.

Founding Summer 2026 contains an individual building goal and a shared-world registration challenge.
Annual badges recognise meaningful play during a calendar year.
Early Access accounts can earn the permanent Founding Player legacy badge.
Original testers selected for the Founders Fleet receive a Mythic legacy badge and a permanent named game aircraft. This appreciation is never removed by game-progress resets.
Secret achievements reveal their real name and condition only after completion.

How do Prestige cards, rarities and stacks work?

Every completed Prestige level and every repeatable Legacy Run reveals exactly three collectible cards in a celebration pack. Cards are permanent in-game progression: they apply their named income bonus automatically to every owned property in the matching category.

Open All game areas or More → Progress & records → Prestige cards. The collection shows all 116 designs, each card's effect, owned copy count and total stack.
Every design has one fixed rarity and one fixed effect; the same design does not exist at several rarities. Drop odds are Common 68%, Uncommon 20%, Rare 8%, Epic 3%, Legendary 0.9% and Mythical 0.1%.
Income strength is fixed by rarity: Common +0.5%, Uncommon +1%, Rare +2%, Epic +3%, Legendary +5% and Mythical +10%.
A category card affects every current and future owned property in that category. It needs no slot, equipment choice or manual activation; the property card shows its combined Automatic card bonus and contributing stacks.
Duplicate copies add together. Two copies of one Uncommon +1% railway-station design give every owned railway station +2% income; they do not merge or upgrade into another rarity.
World Deed is the single Mythical design and adds +10% to all property income for each copy. Completing a themed set or the full album is a collection milestone and does not add a second hidden economy bonus.
Every Legacy pack guarantees at least one unowned design while the album is incomplete. Every tenth other pack receives the same protection; Epic-or-better is protected after ten packs without one and Legendary-or-better after twenty-five.
Cards cannot be equipped, traded, sold, transferred, exchanged for game cash or connected to Steam. All previous card trading has been retired to prevent feeder-account and bot pumping.
Cards survive ordinary Prestige and Legacy Runs. A deliberately destructive Fresh Start clears the card collection, stacks and pack counters after its warning and confirmation.
Players who already completed Prestige levels receive the correct historical packs through the protected catch-up award and celebration flow; the server will not grant the same Prestige pack twice.

What does every Prestige card do?

There are five category designs for each of 23 property categories, plus the single Mythical World Deed. The list below is generated from the exact live card catalogue, including each fixed name, rarity and per-copy income effect.

Houses: House: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); House: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); House: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); House: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); House: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Apartments: Apartment: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Apartment: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Apartment: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Apartment: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Apartment: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Retail Property: Retail: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Retail: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Retail: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Retail: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Retail: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Restaurants: Restaurant: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Restaurant: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Restaurant: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Restaurant: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Restaurant: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Cafés: Café: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Café: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Café: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Café: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Café: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Pubs: Pub: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Pub: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Pub: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Pub: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Pub: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Hotels: Hotel: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Hotel: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Hotel: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Hotel: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Hotel: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Offices: Office: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Office: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Office: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Office: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Office: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Warehouses: Warehouse: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Warehouse: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Warehouse: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Warehouse: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Warehouse: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Industrial Property: Industrial: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Industrial: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Industrial: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Industrial: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Industrial: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Supermarkets: Supermarket: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Supermarket: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Supermarket: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Supermarket: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Supermarket: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Cinemas: Cinema: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Cinema: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Cinema: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Cinema: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Cinema: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Entertainment Venues: Entertainment: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Entertainment: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Entertainment: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Entertainment: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Entertainment: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Car Parks: Car Park: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Car Park: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Car Park: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Car Park: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Car Park: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Landmarks: Landmark: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Landmark: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Landmark: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Landmark: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Landmark: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Nightclubs: Nightclub: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Nightclub: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Nightclub: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Nightclub: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Nightclub: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Stadiums: Stadium: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Stadium: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Stadium: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Stadium: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Stadium: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Places of Worship: Sacred Place: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Sacred Place: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Sacred Place: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Sacred Place: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Sacred Place: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Airports: Airport: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Airport: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Airport: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Airport: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Airport: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Railway Stations: Railway Station: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Railway Station: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Railway Station: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Railway Station: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Railway Station: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Bus Stations: Bus Station: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Bus Station: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Bus Station: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Bus Station: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Bus Station: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Marketplaces: Marketplace: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Marketplace: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Marketplace: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Marketplace: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Marketplace: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Shopping Centres: Shopping Centre: First Deed (Common, +0.5% income per copy); Shopping Centre: Rising Portfolio (Uncommon, +1% income per copy); Shopping Centre: City Network (Rare, +2% income per copy); Shopping Centre: National Empire (Epic, +3% income per copy); Shopping Centre: World Crown (Legendary, +5% income per copy)
Mythical Empire: The World Deed (Mythical) — +10% income to all owned property per copy.
Every copy stacks additively with copies of the same design. Cards apply automatically; names and artwork are collection identity and do not add a second unlisted effect.

Empire Prestige

Prestige has 10 levels. Each level grants a permanent 7.5% server-authoritative earnings bonus, capped at 75%.

Prestige 1 needs 100 properties, £100,000,000, 5 cities and 2 countries.
Prestige 10 needs 775 properties, £1,450,000,000, 23 cities and 6 countries.
The new-empire cash reward starts at £1,500,000 for Prestige 1 and doubles every level: £3,000,000 at level 2, £6,000,000 at level 3 and £12,000,000 at level 4.
Every Prestige and every repeatable Legacy Run reveals exactly three cards. There is no daily claim.
Every purchased industry licence and its current tier survives Prestige and Legacy Runs permanently. You never repurchase or re-upgrade a licence because you Prestiged.
After Prestige 10, the final requirements become a repeatable Legacy Run. Prestige stays capped at 10 and each completed run raises Legacy Rank.
Every card design has one fixed rarity. Drop odds are Common 68%, Uncommon 20%, Rare 8%, Epic 3%, Legendary 0.9% and Mythical 0.1%.
Income strength is fixed by rarity: Common 0.5%, Uncommon 1%, Rare 2%, Epic 3%, Legendary 5% and Mythical 10%.
Cards apply automatically to every owned property in their named category. There are no property slots or loadouts, and cards never reduce purchases, upgrades, repairs or operating costs.
Duplicate copies add together without promotion. Two copies of the same +1% railway-station card give every owned railway station +2% income.
The World Deed is the one Mythical design and adds +10% to all property income per copy. Completing a themed set or the full album is a collection milestone rather than another economy buff.
Every Legacy pack guarantees at least one unowned design while the deck is incomplete; every 10th other pack has the same protection. Epic-or-better is protected after 10 packs without one and Legendary-or-better after 25.
Open Cards to inspect all 116 designs and see every owned stack. Empire property cards show their total automatic bonus and which stacks contribute to it.
Card trading has been retired. Cards cannot be sent to another account and game cash cannot be added, requested, reserved or transferred through cards.
Every open offer that existed when trading was retired is cancelled automatically. Locked cards return to their owners and any legacy reserved cash is released without completing the exchange.
Cards are purely in-game progression and cannot be equipped, sold for real money or moved through Steam. They survive Prestige and Legacy Runs, while a deliberately destructive Fresh Start clears them.
Prestiging resets cash and releases every property, but earned achievements and paid objective rewards remain recorded.
The guide contains a checkpoint for every Prestige from 1 to 5. Open Goals, press Open Prestige and confirm the next level in Agent once its displayed requirements are green.
After a Prestige, the guide resumes in that level's rebuild chapter instead of returning to Claim your first property or immediately asking for a locked industry.
Each guided Prestige credit forms part of the advertised new-empire cash reward rather than being added on top, so the starting balance remains predictable.
Released property returns to the shared market, creating opportunities for other players.

Fresh Start

Fresh Start is a safeguarded voluntary full restart available in Agent. It awards no bonus and removes existing prestige, Legacy Rank, cards, properties, cash progress, objectives and achievements.

The player must type a confirmation phrase.
It is limited to once per hour.
Offers, bids, transport schedules and ownership are released safely.
The card collection, duplicate stacks and pack counters are cleared; ordinary Prestige never clears them.
Afterward, the map presents personalised quiet-market suggestions.

Inactivity, forced auctions and returning

Closing the game does not immediately remove anything. The server tracks genuine game activity throughout a persistent session and uses a staged 14/30/60-day policy.

After 14 inactive days the account receives a warning.
After 30 inactive days, owned properties receive an additional daily holding charge equal to 0.10% of fictional valuation.
After 60 inactive days, eligible properties enter visible 72-hour forced auctions.
Returning before an unbid forced auction ends cancels that auction. An auction that already has a bidder continues so bids remain fair.
If a forced auction completes or an unbid property returns to the market, the former owner receives a one-time welcome-back recovery equal to that ownership record’s original acquisition cost.
Upgrade spending and fictional valuation do not inflate the recovery. Voluntarily sold, reset or prestiged properties do not qualify.
Properties never silently disappear: ownership history, auction history and every recovery payment remain recorded.

⌖

GAME GUIDE

Treasure hunts

Explore the world for account-specific caches in permanent, seasonal and special campaigns.

When can I see a treasure hunt?

Treasure Hunt appears in game navigation only while an administrator has made a campaign live for your account. If no campaign is active, the menu and page are completely hidden.

When a newly eligible campaign starts, the game opens a Hunt Started screen with its theme, description, progress and reward explanation.
While it remains live, phones show a direct Hunt tab. Players and Agent remain available inside More, keeping the bottom bar to five readable items.
The game checks for newly launched campaigns while it remains open, so the Windows app and installed PWA do not need restarting.
Permanent World Explorer campaigns can remain available alongside limited events.
Seasonal and special campaigns can have scheduled start and end times.
A paused or ended campaign disappears, but completed real-campaign claims remain recorded.
Private Test campaigns appear only to selected testers and are clearly labelled.

How do I find treasure?

Open Treasure Hunt and choose one of the three current clues. Show Region travels to a deliberately broad map area rather than revealing the exact cache.

Hunt HQ is the permanent campaign menu for progress, current clues, rewards and the complete found/undiscovered trail.
Only three unfinished clues are shown at once. Try Another Cache rotates one out without deleting it; Previous Caches cycles back to clues you left for later.
Pan and zoom through the named region, then tap the part of the map that you believe matches the clue. Panning or zooming alone cannot reveal a cache.
A wrong tap tells you to try another area. Tapping the correct search area unlocks the signal and tells you to move closer.
After the area is unlocked, reach the displayed street-level zoom and distance. Only then does the treasure marker become visible.
The cache stays fixed at its assigned map coordinate. Its glow may pulse, but the marker itself does not move.
After confirming the broad clue area, single-tap nearby map points to use the close-range signal. It responds only inside 100 metres with Warm, Hot or Very Hot guidance; a tap within the final 15 metres opens the cache immediately.
The visible marker also has a larger invisible touch target and accepts a small near-marker tap, so collecting it remains reliable on phones. The next unclaimed clue then enters the active set.
Treasure locations do not depend on property scanning, ownership or available cash.
If a clue is too difficult, choose Need an easier clue. Narrow Search Area places the cache somewhere within 500 metres of the supplied point. Its marker still needs the campaign's displayed street-level zoom and the right search-area tap before it can appear.
A small map indicator says Cache hidden while you are too far zoomed out, then changes to Search zoom active when the required zoom is reached.
Your active clue stays visible in a compact map card throughout the search, so you do not need to keep returning to Hunt HQ to reread it.
A narrowed clue keeps 35% of both its normal cache reward and any milestone bonus attached to that find. It does not affect badge eligibility.
If you remain stuck, Reveal Exact Cache shows the precise stationary marker but forfeits all cash from that find.
Revealing even one exact cache in a campaign permanently removes your chance to earn that campaign's completion badge. The confirmation screen warns you before this irreversible choice.
Clue help costs no treasury cash, so players with low funds can still continue exploring.

What does a treasure cache look like?

A treasure cache is a tiny purple-and-gold diamond with a soft glow. It is a special hunt marker placed over the map, not a yellow property polygon, house icon, business marker or real-world point of interest.

The marker is intentionally small—roughly the size of a normal real-world place marker—so a hunt is about following clues, not spotting a giant icon from far away.
It is hidden until you have tapped the correct broad search area and reached the minimum zoom shown by the map's Cache hidden / Search zoom active guide.
Once visible, move the map centre within 350 metres. The status changes to Cache ready, then single-tap the purple-and-gold diamond to open it.
The marker glows and may pulse, but it does not move. A larger invisible tap area makes it easier to select on a phone without making it visually obvious.
If you cannot see it, do not keep scanning the whole world: return to the current clue, use its named region, make a deliberate map tap, then follow the zoom and distance instruction.

Rarity, rewards and badges

Caches are Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic or Legendary. Higher rarities provide stronger configured rewards and every find advances the hunt trail.

Real rewards are added to the treasury through a permanent Treasure Hunt ledger entry.
Completing every cache awards the campaign's illustrated badge in the existing Badge Cabinet.
To earn the completion badge, finish the campaign without using Reveal Exact Cache. Narrowed 500-metre clues remain badge-eligible.
Hunt badges can be selected as a favourite or added to the same public showcase as every other badge.
Private test campaigns simulate rewards and never award permanent badges.
The same player cannot claim the same treasure twice.
Collection milestones add bonus rewards and the final cache completes the album.
Seasonal campaigns are shorter, limited and configured to be more rewarding than the permanent expedition.
Private Test rewards are simulated and never alter real cash, rankings or the financial ledger.
Assisted-cache reward cuts are calculated by the server and cannot be avoided by refreshing, switching devices or reopening the clue.

What makes seasonal hunts special?

Seasonal hunts run alongside World Explorer with limited availability, stronger reward values, themed collections and occasion-specific presentation.

Built-in occasions include New Year, Valentine's, Lunar New Year, spring, Easter, Eid, summer, Halloween, Bonfire Night, Diwali and Christmas.
Administrators can create a custom occasion without waiting for another game release.
Each campaign can use a different treasure count, schedule, description and selected test audience.
Seasonal progress never deletes progress in a permanent campaign.

How are hunts controlled and tested?

Full administrators create hunts as invisible drafts in the Control Centre. Publishing is a deliberate action and every campaign change is audit logged.

Private Test automatically includes the creating administrator and can include selected players.
Testers can play the full clue, map, claim, album and celebration flow without receiving real money.
Disable immediately hides a live test. Reset & Hide Test clears test claims and restores the invisible draft.
Optional start and end times use the administrator's local browser timezone. A future campaign is marked Scheduled rather than Running now.
Start now overrides a future start time. If a campaign's window has expired, Start now reopens it for 24 hours.
Administrators can publish, pause, resume or end campaigns and can keep every hunt disabled indefinitely.
Moderators can see campaign status but cannot publish or change a global campaign.

⚙

GAME GUIDE

Rules, safety and administration

Virtual ownership, privacy, administrators and technical behaviour.

Virtual ownership disclaimer

Own the Map is a fictional game. Game ownership provides no ownership, rights, access or financial interest in any real building, land, address, business or transport service.

All values, returns, taxes, rates, bills and balances are fictional game mechanics.
The game is not a property-investment product.
OpenStreetMap attribution applies and map data may be incomplete or outdated.

Map data and privacy

The game stores mapped building geometry, broad address tags and place information needed for gameplay. It avoids resident names and unnecessary personal information.

Public tile services are not scraped or bulk-downloaded.
Provider adapters support suitable hosted or self-managed production data.
Mock map mode supports local development without repeated external calls.
For support and security, active game sessions record client type, browser or app version, operating system, screen and connection capability, session activity, and network IP/location headers.
GPS diagnostics are requested by default only through your browser's location permission. You can switch them off at any time under Agent → Account & settings.
Messages written to the dedicated Discord Ask Wiki channel may be sent to Groq to distinguish gameplay help from ordinary conversation and, when appropriate, produce a short conversational reply. Game answers also include the matched public Wiki article. No Discord identity, balance, ownership, private chat outside Ask Wiki or support conversation is included unless the player separately uses the documented linked-account help system.

Administration and moderation

The protected Control Centre exposes player support, service health and corrective tools. Every mutation is attributable to the staff member who performed it.

The landing page is a lightweight logging overview: recent sign-ins, live presence, attention counts and the latest protected staff actions.
Use the persistent Admin menu to open dedicated Players, Finance, World, Hunts, Reports, System and Audit pages. On phones the menu scrolls horizontally without squeezing its labels.
Member cards show online presence, last activity, tracked active play time, balance, account status, role and owned property.
Staff can adjust balances, refund a mistaken debit once, release property, reset or suspend individual accounts, retry failed map cells and run bounded maintenance.
Staff can send a direct notification to one player; it appears in that player’s normal notification inbox and the send is audit logged.
The Support page groups player conversations by status and label, preserves linked bug-report context and allows staff replies without using an external chat service.
View Ledger on any member card opens that player’s paginated financial history, including reserved cash and direct property-map links.
A debit can be refunded once when a bug charged a player incorrectly. This returns the exact cash but deliberately does not undo ownership or the original action.
The operations view shows deployment uptime, recent background-job health and grouped server faults with first/last occurrence times and resolution notes.
Moderators have the player-support and correction toolkit, but cannot issue Global Treat payouts, perform a global reset or financially alter their own account.
Global Treat sends every account that existed at issue time a message and one-time Claim button, with a configurable 1–30 day claim window.
Refunds and claimed treats create new ledger entries; previous history is never rewritten.
Only the owner administrator can assign moderator access, issue Global Treats or use the safeguarded global reset.
The owner-only Event Scheduler creates draft, scheduled, paused or cancelled Global and Company boosts independently from treasure hunts. It shows overlap warnings, caps combined effects at ×3 and supports in-game and optional Discord announcements.
No administrator action silently bypasses the financial ledger or ownership history.

ASK IT IN YOUR OWN WORDS

What do you want to know?

You do not need to know the game’s terminology. Ask a complete question or tap an example.

↻

AUTOMATICALLY UPDATED

Release history

Every shipped update is added here from the same release source used by the in-game What's New card.

V0.22.35Live Early Access & Optional Beta18 August 2026LATEST

Own the Map now has the protected foundations for a stable Live Early Access World and an optional, separately hosted Beta World for approved testing.

Live and Beta use separate databases, economies, progression, markets and sessions; Beta actions can never change a player's permanent Live progress.
Approved testers receive a persistent LIVE / BETA switch on desktop, phone and tablet once the isolated Beta host is connected and admission is enabled.
Added owner controls for Closed, Staff-only, Invite-only and Open admission, individual tester access, maintenance gating and clear Beta release labels.
Beta profiles start separately and may be reset, while returning to Live restores the untouched Live profile. Real-money purchases are blocked inside Beta.
Expanded the Wiki with detailed joining, application-status, switching, progression and safety guides without exposing or speculating about unreleased Beta features.
Ask Wiki can report the public admission state but is explicitly forbidden from revealing, guessing or summarising private Beta work.

V0.22.34Exact Building Taps18 August 2026+

Map taps now stay attached to the building or marker the player actually presses instead of allowing a nearby property or overlapping map layer to replace it.

Each mouse or touch action now has one deterministic selection winner across overlapping footprint, ownership, extrusion and marker layers.
Point properties only take priority when the tap is genuinely close to the visible marker centre, preventing a marker beside a building from stealing the building tap.
Newly discovered properties resolve by exact map identity or by a footprint that contains the tapped coordinate before any distance fallback is considered.
The last-resort nearby-property tolerance was reduced from hundreds of metres to single-digit metres in both the main map and the vector-map diagnostic view.

V0.22.33Ask Wiki Holds a Real Conversation18 August 2026+

Ask Wiki can now narrow broad questions over several replies, retain the unresolved subject until it is clear and answer several distinct questions from one Discord message.

Broad questions about boosts, contracts, properties, money or income now receive a focused choice instead of a guessed article.
Clarification state survives successive replies for 20 minutes, allowing the bot to ask progressively narrower questions until it can identify the correct verified guide.
Messages containing up to four clear questions are separated and answered under individual labels; an ambiguous part can request more detail without discarding the parts already answered.
Conversation history now remains available across topic changes instead of being erased whenever the best-matching Wiki article changes.
Low-confidence AI replies may ask a useful clarification, while a high-confidence verified answer remains protected from unnecessary AI uncertainty.

V0.22.32Ask Wiki Distinguishes Every Boost18 August 2026+

Ask Wiki now treats boost as a family of different mechanics and uses the rest of the player's question to select the correct property, progression, card, transport, venue, contract, city or Company guide.

Added one complete boost overview separating permanent property improvements, territory, portfolio size, Prestige, cards, local footfall, city effects and scheduled events.
Added subject-aware routing so the word boost no longer sends unrelated questions to Global Events.
Distinguished passive-property multipliers from optional contract, treasure, login and referral rewards and from Police or Fire services.
Added regression coverage for sixteen natural boost questions across the major game systems.

V0.22.31Ask Wiki Understands Grouped Property Income18 August 2026+

Ask Wiki now recognises natural questions about houses owned together and explains the correct Street, Neighbourhood and portfolio-size income bonuses instead of mistaking the word boost for a live server event.

Added a focused guide explaining exactly how grouped properties increase passive income and how the three separate bonuses differ.
Documented the 3-property Street control threshold, scaling +5% to +15% bonus and the 10-property +10% Neighbourhood control bonus.
Clarified that qualifying properties can receive both local bonuses, while the portfolio-size multiplier applies separately across the empire.
Added the exact reported Discord question and related natural phrasings as regression tests so live boost events cannot steal this housing intent again.

V0.22.30Every Feature in Ask Wiki18 August 2026+

The in-game Wiki and Discord guide now cover the smallest controls as well as the major systems, with exact searchable catalogues for every current card, visible badge and badge-set cosmetic.

Added focused guides for Treasury Recovery, Maintenance Reserve controls, currency and time-zone settings, diagnostics, Support conversations, bug reports and Steam account linking.
Documented the complete shared place-of-worship rename and repurpose flow, including every fictional use, naming rule, cost boundary and public-name safety rule.
Generated the full badge, Prestige-card and badge-cosmetic references directly from the authoritative game catalogues so future catalogue changes cannot silently leave the Wiki behind.
Improved named-item search and verified every current visible badge, all 116 Prestige cards and every badge-set cosmetic against natural What and How questions.
Corrected the final retired car-park session instruction: car parks operate continuously by the hour with one live price and no booking slots.
Expanded the Game Directory's exact action vocabulary for shared venue changes, display and diagnostic settings, Steam linking, support replies and bug-report evidence.

V0.22.29Complete Specialisation & Discovery Guide18 August 2026+

The Wiki and Discord Ask Wiki now teach the full Level 2 property decision, including why to specialise, every trade-off, the exact controls and renovation discoveries.

Added a direct answer to why a player might leave a property unspecialised: choosing is free and normally beneficial, while waiting only preserves time to compare a cost-saving strategy with a larger revenue-and-cost strategy.
Documented the exact desktop, Chromebook, phone and tablet path, Level 2 unlock, Choose permanent specialisation control, bulk action and all fifteen category-specific effects.
Clarified that a specialisation is locked for the current ownership run rather than attached forever, and that district-service buildings cannot use ordinary property specialisations.
Expanded renovation discoveries with their automatic Level 2 trigger, celebration, all five effects and ownership-run reset behaviour.
Added British and American spelling, common misspellings and natural Why, How, Where and When questions to Ask Wiki matching, backed by regression tests using the reported player wording.

V0.22.28Exact Linked-Player Balances17 August 2026+

Ask Wiki now reads personal account figures fresh for every question and reports reserve balances directly from the game server without AI reinterpretation.

Removed the 30-second linked-player snapshot cache so a personal answer cannot repeat a balance from before a deposit, withdrawal, bid or released offer.
Reserve questions now receive a deterministic server answer with a fresh capture time rather than allowing the external language model to rewrite the numbers.
Maintenance & bill reserve, bid or offer reserved cash, and Available cash are labelled as three separate balances to prevent the two reserve concepts being confused.
Updated the in-game Wiki and AI safety instructions to require exact linked-player figures and forbid recalculating or contradicting them.

V0.22.27Licences Are Permanent Through Prestige17 August 2026+

Purchased industry licences and their current tiers are now an explicit, transaction-protected permanent unlock through every Prestige and Legacy Run.

Prestige and Legacy Runs preserve every purchased sector licence and its exact tier; players never have to buy or upgrade one again because they Prestiged.
The server snapshots licence tiers inside the Prestige transaction and rolls the entire reset back if any licence cannot be preserved.
The Prestige confirmation, Progression screen and Licence Office now state the permanent rule before a player commits to a reset.
The in-game Wiki and Discord Ask Wiki live context now give the same unambiguous answer for licence persistence questions.
Fresh Start and an owner-approved global reset remain deliberately destructive clean-economy actions and clearly separate from ordinary Prestige.

V0.22.26Ask Wiki Can Read the Game Safely17 August 2026+

The Discord guide can now combine the verified Wiki with the current game interface, live server status and a tightly restricted snapshot of the linked asker's own progression.

Created one 23-area interface catalogue shared by the live Game Directory and Ask Wiki, including desktop, mobile and tablet paths plus current visible actions.
Added read-only live facts for the deployed release, Industry Licensing state and active scheduled global or Company boost events.
Allowed personal questions from a linked Discord user to use a sanitised 30-second snapshot of their own Prestige, treasury summary, portfolio progress, maintenance, contracts, collections, services, Company role and licence capacity.
Excluded identifiers, email, exact locations, property names, devices, support records and private chat; the AI has no mutation tools or direct database access.
Added a clear source label to distinguish verified Wiki answers, current live-state answers and linked-player answers.
Unlinked players still receive the general answer, followed by the exact Settings route for linking Discord and claiming the protected one-time £250,000 bonus.

V0.22.25Ask Wiki Answers Licence Questions17 August 2026+

The Discord Wiki bot now answers natural questions about keeping purchased industry licences through Prestige directly, without asking the player to define licence.

Matched natural phrases such as last through Prestige, survive Prestige and keep my licence when I Prestige to the verified licence reset guide.
Ensured car-park and parking-licence questions select the licence preservation rule instead of the broader Empire Prestige article.
Rejected unnecessary AI clarification questions whenever the deterministic Wiki already has a confident answer, falling back to the verified article text instead.
Added regression coverage using the exact reported player wording so this response cannot silently return.

V0.22.24The Complete Playable Wiki17 August 2026+

The in-game guide and Discord Ask Wiki have been audited against every current game area, with complete licence instructions and focused manuals for previously bundled systems.

Documented all eight industry licences with exact navigation, Prestige gates, five capacity tiers, operating standards, permit percentages, every purchase price and every visible button state.
Added dedicated step-by-step guides for Prestige cards, Housing contracts, Police and Fire dispatches, Daily and Weekly contracts, seven-day login rewards, parking wardens, and global or Company boost events.
Improved natural-language matching for licence and license spelling, the reported licenenses typo, feature names, plural forms and common Where or How questions.
Stopped generic words such as game, play and work from overpowering the actual subject of a question, preventing unrelated theme answers.
Added a regression matrix covering every current Game Directory area and the major actions inside each system so future features cannot silently lose Wiki coverage.
Kept the Discord bot constrained to verified current Wiki instructions, exact routes and real button labels rather than invented gameplay advice.

V0.22.23A Wiki Guide You Can Talk To17 August 2026+

The Discord Wiki guide now holds a natural follow-up conversation while staying strictly inside verified Own the Map gameplay instructions.

Added short, private per-player conversation context so follow-up questions such as ‘what if I cannot see it?’ retain the feature being discussed.
Allowed What, Where, Why and other game questions to receive the same natural AI-assisted explanation as How questions.
Told the guide to answer only Own the Map gameplay, never guess an absent button or rule, and ask one useful clarification when the verified Wiki is not specific enough.
Added a complete Game Directory guide covering desktop, mobile, every current area, exact screen paths and important visible action labels.
Removed the retired Buses entry from the live Game Directory so players are no longer sent to a feature that does not exist.
Kept conversations isolated by player and Discord channel, limited them to six recent turns and expired them after 20 minutes.

V0.22.22Wiki Answers the Actual How17 August 2026+

The Discord Wiki bot can now use a free, tightly constrained AI layer to turn verified Wiki rules into a direct answer to the player's exact How question, while retaining the existing answer whenever AI is unavailable.

Connected How questions to Groq's open-weight GPT-OSS 20B model using only the matched Own the Map Wiki article as its source.
Required direct ordered actions, exact in-game labels and an explicit refusal when the verified source cannot support an answer.
Added prompt-injection boundaries, Discord-mention removal, short timeouts and strict output limits.
Cached repeated questions for six hours and capped generation at five requests a minute and 150 a day by default, safely below the free-plan request allowance.
Kept the normal deterministic Wiki response as an automatic fallback for missing configuration, rate limits, provider errors or uncertainty.
Disclosed exactly which question text is processed and confirmed that no player account, Discord identity, balance, ownership or private chat data is sent.

V0.22.21Ask Wiki Shows You How17 August 2026+

The in-game Wiki and Discord bot now understand natural How questions more accurately and answer with useful ordered actions instead of only describing the matching feature.

Added question-intent matching so How, Why, Where, When and What wording helps select the right article.
Improved natural phrasing for property upgrades, repairs, bills, offline earnings, Companies, Company chat, tenant contracts, Treasure Hunt and Discord linking.
How answers in Discord now include up to three numbered actions and retain a direct link to the full guide.
Removed partial-word matching that could confuse words such as not with notification or out with unrelated text.
Added regression coverage for common How can I phrasing while preserving existing Wiki answers.

V0.22.20A Simpler Mobile Directory17 August 2026+

The mobile Game Directory now starts as four compact categories, letting players open only the group they need without scrolling through every game area.

Made all four mobile directory categories collapsible and closed whenever the directory opens.
Each compact category shows its number of areas or identifies the group containing the current screen.
Kept Current Goal above the categories and preserved the full two-column directory on desktop.
Added large touch targets, clear open-state arrows and matching light-mode styling for phone and tablet accessibility.

V0.22.19Connected Community Bonus17 August 2026+

Linking Discord now adds a protected one-time £250,000 fictional game-cash reward, including a fair automatic catch-up for players who were already connected.

Added £250,000 fictional game cash when a player successfully connects Discord.
Existing linked players receive the same reward automatically when this release is deployed.
Permanent account and Discord-identity claim records prevent relinking, account switching and simultaneous requests from producing duplicate money.
Added an atomic wallet credit, dedicated ledger entry, in-game notification and clear connection confirmation.
Updated Account settings and the Wiki with the reward and its fair-play limits.

V0.22.18Know What Players Need17 August 2026+

A new owner analytics centre reveals real feature adoption, screen engagement and progression bottlenecks while deliberately avoiding private content and invasive click tracking.

Added an owner-only Usage & Progression dashboard covering unique users, visits, visible active time, period-over-period movement and authoritative completed actions for each major game system.
Added Career Guide, objective, Prestige and portfolio-size distributions so difficulty spikes and stalled progression can be identified before balance changes are made.
Added decision signals for lowest eligible-player adoption, strongest feature discovery and the Career Guide lesson with the largest waiting group.
Lifetime adoption is reconstructed immediately from server-verified game records; exact per-screen engagement begins with this release and supports 7, 30 and 90-day comparisons.
Product analytics record only the game area, day, deliberate visits and visible active seconds—not mouse positions, messages, Company chat, searches or precise movement.

V0.22.17Clear Map Command Deck17 August 2026+

World-map cards now occupy coordinated control lanes instead of competing for the same corners or covering map controls.

Arranged search, Quick Travel and live flight status into a consistent left-side stack with deliberate spacing.
Moved Services and Vehicles, its key and the expanded service guide into a dedicated right-side lane below the permanent map tools.
Reserved the bottom-right corner for location and zoom controls, with separate positions for Treasure Hunt and the Career Guide.
Active Hunt clues temporarily take priority over optional travel cards, while search results clear nearby compact controls until the search is finished.
Added tablet, phone and short-landscape rules so compact controls remain reachable without covering the map or mobile navigation.

V0.22.16Learn the Empire17 August 2026+

A responsive Career Guide now introduces Own the Map one useful system at a time, while cash recovery choices and a collision-safe Hunt dock keep players moving on every screen size.

Added a saved eight-chapter Career Guide covering the map, first property, upgrading, balanced growth, active contracts, Police and Fire services, Companies and Prestige.
New accounts progressively reveal the Market, contracts, district conversion, community and advanced operations; existing players keep complete access and experienced newcomers can deliberately skip the guide.
Added a Treasury Recovery panel at zero available cash with direct routes into active contracts, live treasure hunts, guided rewards and Empire management—without loans, paid shortcuts or generated rescue cash.
Reworked the live Treasure Hunt card into a remembered minimisable dock on medium and desktop layouts, while phones use the unobstructed Hunt navigation tab.
Added narrow, zoomed and touch-layout safeguards for phone, tablet, Chromebook and desktop treasury views, tutorial sheets, recovery choices and locked menu states, plus a dedicated Career Guide Wiki article.

V0.22.15Fair-Play Economy Shield17 August 2026+

Company rewards and referrals now have stronger server-enforced protection against feeder accounts, bots and manufactured progress, while card trading has been retired completely.

Company offer goals now count only accepted property deals, with each property able to score once per rotation; cancelled, rejected and expired offers cannot be pumped for progress.
Company cash paydays require a seven-day account, two tracked active hours, 24 hours in the Company and meaningful verified contribution; immature accounts cannot inflate generated prize pools.
Referral sponsor rewards now mature after seven account days, five owned properties and two active hours, while exact shared-client matches hold only sponsor payments for a review.
Card trading has been removed completely. Deployment closes every open offer, unlocks every reserved card, releases any legacy reserved cash and blocks outdated clients from creating or accepting trades.
Added a dedicated Fair play, bots and account pumping Wiki article explaining the protections and review process in plain language.

V0.22.14The Official Company17 August 2026+

The owner-led Own the Map Official Company gives the whole community a clearly verified home for large shared goals and flagship prize pools.

Added the verified Own the Map Official Company, visibly marked as OFFICIAL throughout its directory card, Company header, controls and leaderboard entries.
The official Company supports up to 250 members and is led permanently by the game owner, while ordinary player Companies retain their 25-member limit.
Official objectives use the same server-authoritative contribution rules and anti-pumping protections, with 115% flagship shared prize pools distributed by genuine participation.
Private Companies can still outperform the official Company per active member through tighter coordination; the official Company offers the largest community prize pools rather than guaranteed individual dominance.

V0.22.13Player-Owned Companies17 August 2026+

Players can form Companies with a CEO, private operations chat, rotating scaled objectives, contribution-based paydays and fair Company rankings; owner administrators can separately schedule protected global and Company boost events.

Added open, approval-only, invite-only and closed Companies with CEO-controlled names, size limits, invitations, requests, kicks, Company bans and leadership transfer.
Added three changing daily and three changing weekly goals based only on server-authoritative gameplay; Monday roster snapshots lock weekly size and difficulty before play begins.
Added private rate-limited Company chat with pinned plans, CEO message controls, timed mutes, reporting and protected payday handling when membership changes.
Company paydays reserve 20% for meaningful participation, 70% for contribution and 10% for helping every goal type, with a 35% individual cap in Companies of three or more.
Added a Company leaderboard based on completed goals rather than raw wealth, plus an owner-only event scheduler for property income, contracts, emergency rewards, Company progress and Company rewards.
Scheduled boosts are capped at ×3, audit logged, announced in game and optionally through Discord; global events remain independent from Companies and treasure hunts.

V0.22.12Complete Living Wiki17 August 2026+

The in-game guide and Discord Ask Wiki now cover the latest property cards, progressive loading and configurable community status tools.

Documented the complete responsive property-card layout, upgrades, automatic card bonuses, contracts, service conversion and owner controls.
Updated the Vector World guide for lightweight map summaries, selected-property detail loading, stable ownership paint and flat car parks.
Added exact setup guidance for automatic Ask Wiki channels and the persistent Online, Updating or Offline Discord status panel.
Added a responsive Join Discord section in Agent and Account settings, with clear separation between joining the community and linking a game account.
Audited recent contracts, emergency dispatches, Prestige card rewards, friend trading protections, maintenance balance and accessibility guidance against the current implementation.

V0.22.11Solid Surface Colour17 August 2026+

Flat owned car parks now keep one consistent ownership colour across paths and changing base-map terrain.

Raised only ground-surface ownership opacity so underlying map detail cannot create false bands or colour fighting.
Kept building transparency, genuine 3D depth, property interaction and map context unchanged.

V0.22.10Single Ownership Paint17 August 2026+

Owned map assets now use one visible colour and outline layer, removing the remaining two-tone edge conflict.

Stopped the unclaimed vector footprint from repainting beneath owned, rival and auction property overlays.
Preserved yellow available-property footprints while owned buildings keep their stable 3D presentation and car parks remain flat.

V0.22.9Flat Surface Safeguard17 August 2026+

Parking assets now have a guaranteed zero-height rendering rule across every live map paint path.

Added a second height-level safeguard so delayed ownership refreshes cannot raise car parks into 3D towers.
Parking ownership colours, outlines, selection and management remain fully available at ground level.

V0.22.8Ground-Level Car Parks17 August 2026+

Car parks now remain clear ground-level map assets instead of rising into false 3D buildings.

Owned and rival parking polygons retain their live ownership colour, outline and map interaction without building extrusion.
Real building properties remain three-dimensional and continue using the single stable ownership renderer.

V0.22.7Real Map Geometry Only17 August 2026+

Removed synthetic development properties that had leaked into the live world and appeared as giant false buildings.

Live map discovery now defaults safely to OpenStreetMap when the provider setting is absent.
Catalogue, ownership and property map responses exclude development-only mock geometry in deployed builds.
The map requests a fresh catalogue revision so previously cached false footprints disappear immediately after deployment.

V0.22.6Single 3D Property Renderer17 August 2026+

The live World map now renders every owned polygon through one 3D path, eliminating temporary towers and overlapping ownership surfaces.

Stopped temporary pending catalogue records from becoming large yellow 3D blocks.
Removed the second owned-property extrusion that could tear or alternate between ownership colours.
Preserved property labels, selection, cards, map icons and the authoritative live ownership layer.

V0.22.5Stable Building Footprints17 August 2026+

The World map now uses one authoritative building layer so structures stay anchored and ownership colours remain stable while moving or zooming.

Removed duplicate provider building extrusions that could produce oversized blocks over parks and other non-building areas.
Stopped overlapping 3D surfaces from fighting between yellow and ownership colours.
Kept the game vector archive, property selection, ownership colours and genuine owned-property extrusions unchanged.

V0.22.4Focused Property Command Sheet17 August 2026+

The World map property sheet now keeps the important numbers and everyday actions visible without turning every option into a large panel.

Combined fictional value, income, upkeep and net yield into one compact financial summary.
Placed the complete next-upgrade decision and action directly below the finances, while maximum-level properties get a clear header badge instead of a dead button.
Fixed automatic card bonuses on narrow map sheets so the complete contributing card name and perk remain readable.
Changed house contracts and Police or Fire conversion into concise, touch-friendly action rows.
Moved destructive sale and auction controls into a clearly labelled owner-options drawer while preserving both actions and their full explanations.
Replaced raw coordinate fallbacks with a cleaner mapped-property description and reduced repeated borders and unused space.

V0.22.3Cinematic Property Cards17 August 2026+

Every property card now presents the asset with responsive value-tier artwork while preserving its complete management toolkit.

Added five original, optimized property scenes that progress from starter streets to landmark-scale world assets according to fictional game value.
Redesigned both World map and Empire property cards around a clearer visual hierarchy without removing bonuses, contracts, maintenance, upgrades, operations, auctions, offers or sales.
Added dedicated layouts for small phones, tablets, Chromebooks and desktop screens, including long-name wrapping, touch-sized actions and horizontal-overflow protection.
Narrowed Empire cards to a comfortable desktop reading width and replaced oversized action bars with a compact responsive control deck.
Moved Police and Fire conversion into a guided window with service comparison, footprint eligibility, live map-radius preview and a clear earnings-impact summary.
Added Empire shortcuts for starting a conversion on the correct map property and compact active-service controls for dispatches, defence and returning the building to normal use.

V0.22.2Stable Response Vehicles17 August 2026+

Police cars and fire engines now travel smoothly without their emergency pulse fighting the map's positioning.

Removed the marker-level transform animation that made responding vehicles bounce between positions.
Kept the emergency emphasis on the vehicle artwork, flashing lights, glow and Responding label.
Added regression coverage preventing decorative animation from overriding MapLibre's live marker transform again.

V0.22.1Watch the Response17 August 2026+

Opening an active police or fire call on the map now shows the correct emergency vehicle travelling from its station to the incident.

Changed the dispatch action to View Response on Map and included the active call identity in the map link.
The map automatically frames the responding station and mapped incident, even on a narrow mobile screen.
An active police call replaces that station's normal patrol with a clearly labelled police car; a fire call uses a fire engine.
Response position is derived from the server-recorded dispatch start and finish times, so refreshing or changing devices does not restart the journey.
Vehicles follow the available connected road graph and fall back to a direct visible approach only where the map provider has no routable street data.
Reduced-motion players see the vehicle's current response position without continuous animation.

V0.22.0Emergency Dispatch17 August 2026+

Police and fire stations now provide hands-on emergency calls in two new contract lanes that run alongside housing work.

Expanded the Contracts Centre with clear Housing, Police, Fire & Rescue, and Daily/Weekly selectors.
Players may run one housing contract, one police dispatch and one fire dispatch at the same time.
Each emergency call assigns a real mapped location inside the selected station's coverage area and offers controlled, standard or priority response strategies.
A server-persisted scene update arrives halfway through each six-minute dispatch, offering a new safety-versus-reward decision.
Station budget and defence integrity modestly improve response odds, while every displayed chance and outcome remains server-authoritative.
Failed calls retain a small attendance payment and can never reduce district protection, property earnings, service integrity or another player's assets.
Added dispatch links to owned police and fire cards on the world map and expanded the game-wide tracker to show concurrent emergency operations.

V0.21.3Contracts Follow You16 August 2026+

Signed house contracts now stay visible throughout the game and create optional tenant decisions while players continue building their empire.

Added a compact game-wide contract tracker for desktop and mobile with the live countdown, waiting-message badge and reward estimate.
The tracker opens an accessible decision drawer over the current game area, so responding never discards the player's place or navigation context.
Each signed tenancy now schedules one or two persistent tenant moments; they wait safely through navigation, refreshes and device changes instead of expiring in a popup.
Safe responses give a small dependable benefit, while investigative and bold choices use applicant clues to trade greater upside against a small optional-bonus reduction.
Ignoring tenant moments is neutral, and no tenant decision can reduce or interrupt the property's protected standard income.
Added links to upgrades, repairs, the market and Treasure Hunt while the contract runs, plus optional browser or desktop alerts when the game is in the background.
Added a lightweight authenticated tracker endpoint and server-authoritative moment outcomes, reward calculation and permanent contract storage.

V0.21.2Contracts Page Stays Put16 August 2026+

The Contracts Centre now respects where the player scrolls after opening a linked house.

A house link still brings its exact property into view when the Contracts Centre first opens.
Automatic contract refreshes no longer drag the page back down the property list every 30 seconds.
Players remain in control of their scroll position while running or comparing contracts.

V0.21.1The Contracts Centre16 August 2026+

Contracts now have one central home, while every owned house remains a direct doorway into repeatable Tenant Viewing Rush play.

Added a dedicated Contracts Centre that gathers active house work, every owned-house opportunity and existing daily and weekly Empire goals in one clear place.
Owned house cards on both the world map and Empire now open the exact property inside the Contracts Centre.
Removed the fixed hourly allowance: players may keep taking house contracts, with one active at a time and a short two-minute recovery after a failed or abandoned viewing.
A successful tenancy naturally occupies about ten minutes, creating an ongoing check-in rhythm instead of three quick actions followed by nothing to do.
Rebalanced repeatable rewards to target roughly 12–18% extra income during sustained successful play, so active contracts complement rather than replace upgrades and passive earnings.
The centre refreshes running work automatically and continues to state clearly that standard property income is always protected.

V0.21.0Active House Contracts16 August 2026+

Owned houses now offer a short skill-and-luck tenant contract that pays entirely on top of their normal property income.

Added a house-only Tenant Viewing Rush directly inside each house card without replacing upgrades, maintenance, card bonuses, selling or passive earnings.
Players choose a preparation strategy, spend only two checks across three anonymous applicants and weigh rent, reliability, property care and agreement length.
Signing offers show their exact acceptance chance: safer terms reduce the reward, while aggressive terms increase rejection and early-departure risk.
A successful tenant creates a ten-minute temporary bonus; an early departure only stops the remaining optional bonus and never reduces standard property revenue.
Upgrades, condition and automatic house-card bonuses influence contract quality and rewards, keeping investment in the property meaningful.
Server-authoritative outcomes, a three-per-hour limit and one active contract at a time keep rewards auditable and resistant to rapid farming.
Every collected payment is written separately to the permanent ledger as a House Contract Reward.

V0.20.9Stable Buildings While Zooming16 August 2026+

Property geometry now stays available when the Vector map's primary archive host has trouble serving a zoom-level byte range.

Added bounded retries for failed PMTiles range requests instead of dropping the affected building tile immediately.
Added automatic server-side failover across the current and previous official Protomaps daily builds, followed by the separately configured archives.
Capped every archive attempt at six seconds so an unhealthy source cannot leave the map waiting indefinitely.
Preserved authenticated access, byte-range caching and the existing map ownership overlay during archive recovery.

V0.20.8Repair Status Stays Current16 August 2026+

The navigation repair indicator now clears as soon as the final maintenance problem is repaired.

Removed stale cached repair totals after individual property, venue and transport repairs.
Repair All now refreshes the shared game header from authoritative maintenance data immediately.
Treasury and portfolio metrics continue refreshing through the same protected game-state channel.

V0.20.7Seamless Windows Admin16 August 2026+

The installed Windows web app now keeps the protected admin control centre inside the same clean app window.

Expanded the installed app scope from the game routes to the complete Own the Map site.
Opening Admin no longer crosses the app boundary or causes Chrome and Edge to reveal an unnecessary address bar.
Normal browser visits and the dedicated desktop client continue to use their existing navigation and security protections.

V0.20.6A Simpler Admin Control Centre16 August 2026+

Administration is now organised around the jobs staff actually perform, with clearer navigation and a much shorter, more useful overview.

Replaced the twelve equally weighted navigation tiles with a persistent grouped workspace for Daily Work, Game Management, and Safety & Access.
Added a compact mobile admin menu that always names the current section instead of hiding tools inside a sideways-scrolling strip.
Moved common jobs such as player management, support, reports and system health above historical analytics.
Kept the daily player roster closed until a chart day is deliberately selected, dramatically shortening the default dashboard.
Added an obvious roster close control and retained direct links from each attendance record to the protected player profile.
Preserved moderator section permissions and owner-only tools while making the current location unmistakable.
Completed dark- and light-mode styling for the redesigned admin navigation on desktop, tablet and mobile.

V0.20.5City Events Light-Mode Fix16 August 2026+

The City Events area now uses a complete warm daylight palette instead of retaining its dark-mode event cards.

Replaced the dark City Events card background with a warm cream-and-gold light-mode surface.
Adjusted event borders, lightning icons, headings and supporting text for clear daylight contrast.
Rethemed property feature tags and the complete automatic card-bonus panel, including every rarity chip and empty state.
Added regression coverage so City Events cannot silently fall back to dark-mode styling again.
Includes the already-live Fair Trade Protection rules for card exchanges between accounts.

V0.20.4Fair Trade Protection16 August 2026+

Card exchanges now stop feeder accounts, bot funnels and deliberately one-sided transfers while leaving genuine friends room to negotiate.

Trading now unlocks only after both accounts are seven days old, have two active play hours and have reached Prestige 1.
Friends must be connected for 48 hours before exchanging cards or treasury cash.
A server-authoritative protection value based on card strength keeps both sides of every offer within a flexible 2:1 range.
Rolling account and friend-pair limits cap completed trades, cards sent or received and cash received during any 24-hour period.
A card received from another player cannot be traded again for seven days, preventing rapid laundering through chains of accounts.
Every protection is checked again inside the atomic acceptance transaction, so browser changes and old open offers cannot bypass it.
Shared networks are not automatically treated as cheating; account behaviour and completed transfers remain the authoritative signals.

V0.20.3Trade Cards With Friends16 August 2026+

Friends can now build clear card-for-card offers and add in-game cash, with every asset protected until both sides settle together.

Added a simple four-part card exchange: Make a trade, Incoming, Sent and History.
Each offer can contain several copies across several card designs, with optional in-game cash added to either side.
Trades are limited to accepted friends and remain open for seven days; removing the friendship closes any unfinished offers.
The sender's cards and cash are secured while an offer is open, while requested assets are checked again when the receiving friend accepts.
Acceptance transfers every card and cash amount in one protected transaction, writes both cash movements to the ledger and immediately recalculates automatic category buffs.
Cancelling, declining, expiry, Prestige and Fresh Start safely release secured trade assets instead of stranding cards or treasury cash.
Rebuilt the complete Cards area for light mode, including its collection header, reward panel, trading forms, offer comparisons, card tiles, detail dialog and Prestige celebrations.
Finished light-mode coverage across the game directory, Treasure Hunt, objective and reward overlays, transport detail panels and the Cosmetic Store.

V0.20.2One Simple Game Directory16 August 2026+

Own the Map now fits short, narrow and enlarged displays while one organised directory makes every game area easy to find on desktop and mobile.

Pinned the desktop treasury inside the visible viewport while the longer navigation list scrolls independently on short Chromebook and laptop displays.
Reduced the permanent desktop navigation to five familiar destinations and placed every other feature in one clearly labelled All Game Areas directory.
Organised all 22 destinations into Build Your Empire, Run Operations, Progress & Records, and Community & Account instead of presenting one long mixed menu.
The same directory now powers desktop and mobile navigation, with a sticky close button, Escape-key support, automatic focus and large touch targets.
Improved high-zoom and small-phone layouts with a compact treasury header, single-column finance cards, protected text scaling and visible keyboard focus.
Daily rewards, maintenance reserve controls, card details and other shared pop-ups now stay inside the usable screen and scroll when display height is limited.

V0.20.1Prestige Deserves a Celebration16 August 2026+

Catch-up rewards and every future Prestige card pack now arrive through an unmissable, durable opening celebration.

Moved the historical card catch-up above the launch screen so returning players cannot have their celebration hidden behind loading artwork.
Every future Prestige and Legacy Run now records an unopened pack until the player completes its reveal, surviving slow responses, reloads and closed windows.
Added a full confetti pack intro, three individual card reveals with rarity and stack details, and a pack-complete finale before the new empire begins.
Removed the immediate redirect that previously erased the final celebration before players could see it.

V0.20.0A Cleaner Empire Deck16 August 2026+

Every property category now has one clear card at each rarity, alongside a safe three-card catch-up for every Prestige level already completed.

Rebuilt the deck as 23 five-card category collections: exactly one Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary design for every supported property category.
Removed repeated same-rarity category designs; duplicate stacking now only means finding another copy of the exact same card.
Kept The World Deed as the single Mythical card, awarding 10% income to every property per copy.
Added 16 new image-generated portrait artworks so all 116 cards have their own visual design.
Every player receives exactly three permanent cards for each Prestige level already completed, with existing rewards counted so nothing is duplicated.
Catch-up awards use durable per-level claim keys, making retries and interrupted connections safe.
A full-screen gold-and-teal celebration welcomes returning players and displays every newly awarded card, rarity, stack and automatic category bonus.
Unseen catch-up rewards remain pending until the player confirms the celebration, so closing the game cannot make the reveal disappear.

V0.19.99Stable Property Cards and Ownership16 August 2026+

Map property cards now keep confirmed progression and ownership stable while faster live data arrives.

The cacheable instant-map catalogue no longer stores mutable upgrade level or condition, preventing a previous owner's 5/5 progress from flashing on a newly selected property.
A confirmed property card now retains its complete live upgrade, value and ownership record during refresh instead of mixing it with partial catalogue data.
The lightweight ownership response paints map colours as soon as it arrives rather than waiting behind the much larger property-detail response.
Normal Vector-map movement is now read-only and no longer starts broad discovery writes; discovery is limited to the small area around an unregistered building when it is actually selected.
Ownership colours remain on the last confirmed state while refreshes are in flight, removing the owned-to-pending flicker.

V0.19.98Develop Before You Expand16 August 2026+

Upgrading is now the strongest normal investment, while neglected property sprawl carries the maintenance exposure it previously avoided.

Refitted through Elite now raise base revenue to 1.35×, 1.85×, 2.55×, 3.5× and 4.8× while reducing operating costs by up to 30%.
Upgrade prices now follow the acquisition cost of a comparable property, and every tier is tested to repay at least 35% faster than buying another undeveloped holding.
Empire and map upgrade panels now show projected net gain, hourly operating saving, approximate payback time and the exact fault-risk reduction.
The first ten level 0–1 properties retain a three-problem daily ceiling; further undeveloped sprawl can raise it gradually to ten, while level 2–5 properties add no exposure.
Ignored maintenance now has stage-based offline caps from 10% at Warning to 50% at Critical, but passive operation still never withdraws treasury cash.

V0.19.97Cards Power Whole Categories16 August 2026+

Prestige cards are now a simple in-game collection whose bonuses apply automatically across matching property categories.

Every Prestige and every repeatable Legacy Run now reveals exactly three cards.
Each design has one fixed rarity and income strength: Common 0.5%, Uncommon 1%, Rare 2%, Epic 3%, Legendary 5% and Mythical 10%.
A collected card automatically boosts every owned property in its named category, with duplicate copies adding together linearly.
The World Deed is the single Mythical design and adds 10% to all property income per copy; visual album completion adds no hidden economy bonus.
Property slots, loadouts, promotions and Steam Inventory card functionality have been removed, while Empire and map property panels now show their live automatic card bonuses.

V0.19.96A Fairer Endless Card Hunt16 August 2026+

Legacy rewards now make the 100-design collection achievable without allowing card bonuses to overpower the property economy.

Every repeatable Legacy Run now reveals eight cards and guarantees at least one missing design while the collection is incomplete.
The normal every-tenth-pack guarantee and Epic and Legendary rarity protection remain active alongside the stronger Legacy reward.
Ten-design set bonuses are now a controlled +1% for matching properties, while full 100-design mastery adds +3% everywhere and retains the valuable fourth property slot.
Fresh Start now clearly and safely clears card stacks, pack counters and loadouts; Prestige and Legacy Runs continue to preserve them.
Map property figures now include equipped income and operating-cost card effects, and district service buildings no longer accept cards that cannot benefit them.

V0.19.95Every Card Has A Rarity15 August 2026+

Card designs can now drop at six different rarities, improve through bounded duplicate promotion and specialise exact property types without making core actions free.

The same card can drop from Common through Mythical, scaling its property-specific effect from 1% to a hard maximum of 10%.
Duplicates add fixed promotion value to their card stack; reaching a threshold raises its effective rarity, while Mythical remains the permanent ceiling.
Cards now improve income, operating costs or resilience against profit-losing problems. Upgrade and repair discounts have been removed to protect the endless economy.
Prestige 1–9 award one card each, Prestige 10 awards three and every repeatable Legacy Run continues to award three.
Ten-design set rewards are now +2% matching income; full 100-design mastery grants +5% everywhere and the fourth property slot.

V0.19.94Build Your Property Decks15 August 2026+

Collected cards now become property loadouts with multiple slots, specialised effects and permanent set-completion rewards.

Every property has three card slots, and each slot can hold a different eligible card stack for combined income, operating-cost, upgrade-cost and repair-cost effects.
Duplicates strengthen their existing stack by 20% of base strength per copy, capped at 2.5 times base, without consuming extra property slots.
Each complete themed 10-card set adds 5% income to its matching property types.
Completing all 100 cards adds 10% income to every property and unlocks a fourth card slot across the empire.
The Cards vault manages equipment while every Empire property panel shows its live loadout and discounted actions.

V0.19.93The Legacy Card Hunt15 August 2026+

Prestige now opens milestone card packs, and repeatable Legacy Runs keep the 100-card collection grind alive after level 10.

Prestige 1 awards 2 cards, Prestige 5 awards 3, Prestige 10 awards 5 and the remaining levels award 1.
After level 10, players can repeat the final empire challenge for a 3-card pack and a permanent Legacy Rank without increasing the capped Prestige bonus.
Every card clearly shows its per-copy and stacked property-earnings buff: +0.5% Common, +0.75% Uncommon, +1.25% Rare, +2% Epic, +3.5% Legendary and +6% Mythical.
Collection and rarity protection guarantee an unowned card every 10th pack while needed, Epic-or-better after 10 misses and Legendary-or-better after 25.
Multi-card packs reveal one card at a time before the rebuilt empire begins.

V0.19.92Prestige Card Rewards15 August 2026+

Cards are now permanent stackable buffs revealed automatically by Prestige, with stronger effects at rarer tiers.

Every successful Prestige now reveals its card reward inside the same protected server transaction as the empire restart.
Rarity runs from Common to Mythical; rarer cards have lower roll chances and grant larger permanent property-earnings buffs.
Duplicate cards stack instead of becoming spare trade items, and the collection shows every stack count and its combined effect.
Daily card claims, player card trading and Steam Inventory transfers have been retired because they did not match the intended progression design.
The Prestige confirmation, reward reveal, Cards screen, Wiki and Steam store presentation now explain the same mechanic.

V0.19.91Bigger First Wins14 August 2026+

Every opening Empire Sprint victory now lands with a rewarding celebration instead of quietly disappearing into the objective panel.

Buying the first property, earning money, completing the first upgrade and growing to three properties each trigger their own full-screen victory moment.
Celebrations clearly show the completed step, reward waiting to be claimed and the next simple action.
Finishing the fourth step receives a larger First Empire Sprint finale with an extended gold-and-teal celebration.
Claiming a reward now confirms the exact payout was banked, while the server-authoritative ledger and duplicate-claim protection remain unchanged.
Celebrations can be dismissed immediately and automatically respect reduced-motion device preferences.

V0.19.90The First Empire Sprint14 August 2026+

The opening session is now softer, clearer and more rewarding, with enough breathing room to learn the game and keep building.

New players choose from three quieter personalised launch districts, with a clearer start card and the freedom to search anywhere instead.
The first four guided wins now award £110,000 in total: buy a property, bank earnings, complete an upgrade and grow to three properties.
The current sprint action, progress and reward stay visible on desktop, while completed rewards can be claimed immediately without hunting through menus.
The starter view clearly explains the £500,000 opening treasury, half-price first upgrade and 24-hour maintenance shield.
All rewards remain server-authoritative, ledgered and protected against duplicate claims.

V0.19.89Safe First Property Click14 August 2026+

A property can no longer briefly appear available while its shared ownership record is still arriving.

Clicking a newly loaded building now shows a clear animated ownership check until the authoritative shared-world result is ready.
Unresolved properties remain yellow on the map but never show a price, available label or purchase button prematurely.
The purchase action now has an additional safety check that refuses unresolved property records even if a stale interface attempts to submit one.
Confirmed owned, rival, auction and available states replace the loading card immediately when they arrive.

V0.19.88Clear Loading, Consistent Buildings14 August 2026+

Branded loading screens are restored across navigation and unresolved map buildings remain visibly unclaimed while authoritative ownership is checked.

Page changes now use the complete Own the Map loading screen instead of a small floating loading card or an unfinished blank view.
Portfolio, Market and leaderboard preparation keep the branded full-screen experience visible until their usable content is ready.
Buildings awaiting ownership data remain yellow rather than turning grey before their shared-world colour arrives.
Confirmed owned, rival and auction colours remain stable during refreshes, without temporarily exposing purchase controls.

V0.19.87Stable Ownership, Smoother Loading14 August 2026+

Property ownership now stays visually stable while fast map data refreshes, and key game screens remain covered by the branded loading experience until their real content is ready.

A confirmed owned property can no longer flicker back to unowned while panning, zooming or refreshing the map.
The instant property catalogue now marks unresolved ownership as a neutral checking state; only the authoritative shared-world response may label a property available, yours, another player's, rival-owned or auctioned.
Previously confirmed property cards and ownership colours are kept warm on the device so revisiting the same area responds immediately without showing stale purchase controls.
Portfolio, Daily Drops, auctions, offers, Deal Room and leaderboards now retain the branded loading screen until usable content is ready instead of exposing unfinished text or blank panels.
The faster launch, early world loading and responsive navigation improvements from the previous update remain included.

V0.19.86Faster World, Instant Feedback14 August 2026+

Own the Map now begins loading the player and world during launch, responds visibly to every navigation, and keeps heavy work away from the action players are taking.

The launch screen now preloads one compact game bootstrap containing treasury, portfolio totals, notifications, achievements and the current objective before the first game page appears.
Navigation responds immediately with branded visual feedback while the requested page continues loading, replacing uncertain dead time after a tap or click.
The large interactive map is now loaded separately from ordinary game pages, so Empire, Market, Players, Agent and other screens no longer pay the map's startup cost.
Instant Vector buildings begin from a cacheable property catalogue while current ownership colours and authoritative gameplay details arrive independently and safely overwrite it.
Expensive portfolio summaries now use a short safe cache and refresh after the response, while wallet balances remain live and server-authoritative.
The admin System area now includes real player navigation measurements, with seven-day median and slowest-response timings split by browser, Windows app and route.
The previous reliable-building patch is included: incomplete districts keep retrying and a fast property response can no longer disappear before the map is ready.

V0.19.85Reliable Game Building Loading13 August 2026+

Instant map buildings can no longer remain stuck without their purchasable game properties, ownership colours and property cards.

The first registered-property response now waits for the gameplay map layer to exist, preventing a fast successful response from being silently discarded.
Missing map cells are registered in the background at building zoom and incomplete districts keep refreshing until their game properties are ready.
Temporary property-layer failures retry automatically, without requiring the player to move the map or reload the game.
Property identities, prices, ownership and the instant yellow building layer are unchanged.

V0.19.84Prestige History Collision Fixed12 August 2026+

A previous Prestige or global reset can no longer block a qualified empire from starting its next Prestige cycle.

Prestige objective payments are now safely scoped to the new empire's unique progression cycle.
The append-only ledger remains fully auditable without an older reward record being mistaken for a duplicate current reward.
Failed attempts remain atomic: Prestige level, properties and treasury stay unchanged until the complete restart succeeds.

V0.19.83Prestige Completion Fix12 August 2026+

Large empires can now finish Prestige without leaving the confirmation screen stuck on Working.

Prestige now has a dedicated bounded database window sized for releasing a large worldwide portfolio.
The reset runs once under the player's protected financial lock instead of repeatedly restarting the full empire release.
If the shared world cannot secure the empire in time, no data changes and the player receives a clear retry message.
The confirmation panel now closes on a failed attempt so the result can always be read and acted on.

V0.19.82Reliable Empire Prestige12 August 2026+

Qualified empires can now complete Prestige reliably even while their live property income is being settled.

Prestige now joins the same protected per-player queue as live income calculations, preventing the two balance updates from colliding.
Large empires receive the full automatic database retry protection instead of the previous three-attempt limit.
The operation remains atomic: a failed attempt cannot partly release properties, duplicate a reward or advance Prestige twice.
Previously failed attempts remain safe: they cannot partly release properties, duplicate a reward or advance Prestige twice.

V0.19.81Reliable View on Map12 August 2026+

Every property link now takes players to the exact building, opens its card and makes the destination unmistakable on mobile and desktop.

View on map now flies to a close building-level view instead of occasionally leaving mobile players at their previous location.
The requested property is included even in a crowded district, so viewport result limits cannot hide the destination.
The property card opens automatically as soon as authoritative details arrive.
A bright temporary ring and building outline identify the exact property for twelve seconds after arrival.
The same navigation works from portfolios, auctions, offers, ledgers, player profiles and other property links.

V0.19.80A Guided Road Through Prestige12 August 2026+

The one-at-a-time objective route now teaches the current game from a first property through every Prestige-gated licence and industry.

Beginner chapters teach ordinary property buying, automatic earnings, worthwhile upgrades, local businesses, street building, district services and city expansion before Prestige 1.
Every Prestige from 1 to 5 now has its own checkpoint and rebuild chapter, so the guide no longer ends after the original tutorial.
Commercial and Parking appear at Prestige 1; Industrial and Hospitality at 2; Major Venues and Rail at 3; Aviation at 4; and Heritage landmarks at 5.
Each regulated-property objective follows its real Licence Office step and uses the same server-authoritative Prestige rule as purchasing.
Offers and attacks remain optional achievements and contracts instead of blocking a new player behind another player's response or protection cooldown.
Existing badges and paid rewards remain intact, while post-Prestige players resume at the correct unfinished chapter instead of restarting the first-deed guide.

V0.19.79True Daily Player Activity12 August 2026+

The admin dashboard now shows who genuinely played each day instead of relying on the creation date of long-lived login sessions.

Daily active-player history is recorded from real web and Windows-app heartbeats, so returning players with persistent sessions are counted correctly.
Select any bar in the activity graph to open that day's player roster, with first activity, last activity and tracked active time.
Every player in the daily roster links directly to their protected admin profile for account investigation and support.
The graph supports 7, 14 and 30-day comparisons; older history is reconstructed where possible, while attendance is exact from this release onward.

V0.19.78Lifetime Legacy Leaderboards12 August 2026+

Prestiging now strengthens permanent competitive standing instead of making a successful player appear to fall behind.

Lifetime Legacy is now the headline world ranking, combining permanent Prestige milestones, distinct properties ever owned and objective achievements.
A property counts only once for each player, so selling and rebuying the same asset cannot farm Legacy points.
Empire Power remains a separate board for the strength of the empire owned right now.
The Prestige board ranks level first and progress towards the next level second, making every rebuild visible immediately.
A fresh monthly Season board tracks new acquisitions, completed objectives and Prestiges earned during that month.
Public player profiles now show Lifetime Legacy, Prestige and Current Empire ranks together.

V0.19.77Five-Stage Industry Progression12 August 2026+

Powerful property sectors now unlock across five meaningful Prestige levels instead of crowding the beginning of a new empire.

Prestige 1 now focuses on commercial properties and managed car parks.
Industrial sites, warehouses, hotels and entertainment venues now unlock at Prestige 2.
Stadiums and rail now unlock at Prestige 3, airports at Prestige 4, and globally important landmarks at Prestige 5.
The same worldwide rule protects direct map purchases, Daily Drops, player offers and auctions; an alternate acquisition route cannot bypass it.
Existing holdings remain usable, upgradeable and sellable. The higher requirements apply only when acquiring another regulated property.

V0.19.76Admin Player Finder12 August 2026+

Every protected admin workflow that selects a player now has the same fast search and useful account sorting controls.

Administrators can find players by username or email anywhere a player account must be selected.
Player directories can be sorted by newest or oldest account, highest or lowest earnings, available cash, property count, recent activity or username.
Finance now has a searchable ledger directory showing each player's cash, earnings, reserved funds and property count before the ledger is opened.
Support, staff permissions, treasure-hunt testers, theme gifts, supporter management and the main Players control all share the same mobile-friendly finder.

V0.19.75Owned Property Controls Restored12 August 2026+

Prestige and licence gates now control only new acquisitions; every property a player already owns remains fully manageable and disposable.

Properties obtained through auctions continue to show their owner controls even when that industry is now gated for new buyers.
Selling to the game, listing an auction, upgrading and opening property operations all use an explicit server-authoritative management permission.
Desktop map cache data can no longer temporarily replace a confirmed owner card with an old unclaimed or licence-locked card.
A live audit checked all 324 currently owned properties, including RyanJames's settled office auction, and found no corrupt ownership or stuck auction records requiring removal or refund.

V0.19.74Complete Industry Progression12 August 2026+

Every purchasable category now has an explicit place in the starter economy or the Prestige licence system, closing the remaining office, commercial and parking gaps.

Offices, supermarkets, markets and shopping centres now require Prestige 1 and a Commercial Property Operator licence worldwide.
Car parks now require Prestige 1 and a Parking Network Operator licence, with their own five capacity tiers.
Homes, apartments, local retail, restaurants, cafés and places of worship remain the open starter economy; every other purchasable category is explicitly regulated.
Map purchases, Daily Drops, player offers and auctions all use the same server-owned classification, so no alternate purchase path can bypass a gate or permit.
A ledger-backed world reconciliation releases holdings obtained through the missing rules and refunds only accepted purchase and current-ownership upgrade spending.

V0.19.73Clean Unclaimed Properties11 August 2026+

The complete shared-world catalogue has been audited so every unclaimed property now starts at Standard level 0 with no inherited operating progress.

A live-world scan found and reset 316 unclaimed properties that still showed upgrade levels from legacy ownership releases, including every remaining level-5 property.
Stale unclaimed upgrade history, transport operations, specialisations and renovation discoveries are removed without changing any currently owned property.
A database rule now prevents an unclaimed property from ever retaining an upgrade level above 0.
Property purchase also defensively starts a clean ownership run, so a new owner can never inherit another player's levels, condition or operating choices.

V0.19.72Secure Account Recovery & Deletion11 August 2026+

Players can recover forgotten passwords, while the owner has safe audited controls for recovery and permanent account deletion.

Forgot password now sends a private one-use recovery link through the configured email provider instead of showing a placeholder form.
Recovery links expire after one hour, cannot be replayed and sign out every existing session after the player chooses a new password.
The owner-only Players control can create an audited private recovery link without revealing or choosing the player's password; moderators cannot access it.
Reset requests return the same response for every address and are rate limited, preventing account discovery and reset-link abuse.
The owner can now permanently delete an ordinary player account. Its personal data and login are removed, live activity is cancelled and properties return to the world while anonymised ledger and ownership records remain auditable.

V0.19.71Fair Hospitality Progression11 August 2026+

Hotels and entertainment now join the Prestige licence economy, while inherited upgrades and the three-property earnings exploit are removed at the server.

Hotels, cinemas, pubs, nightclubs and entertainment venues now require Prestige 1 and an active Hospitality & Entertainment licence worldwide.
The licence begins with capacity for two venues and can be upgraded through five increasingly demanding tiers; every acquisition also includes the displayed 6.5% permit fee.
Starter momentum now grows modestly as an empire expands instead of awarding a reusable 4× multiplier for shrinking back to three premium properties.
Selling, resetting, prestiging or administratively releasing a property now clears its upgrades and venue or transport progression before the next owner can acquire it.
A one-time live-world audit removes invalid hospitality holdings, refunds honest players' accepted spending and corrects progression inherited from an earlier owner or reset.

V0.19.70Discord Verification Gate Enforced9 August 2026+

Joining or linking no longer unlocks the Own the Map Discord automatically: every player must deliberately verify before protected channels appear.

The former automatically granted Player role has been retired and all existing members must pass through Verify & unlock once.
Joining the server, linking an account and restarting the bot can no longer silently grant protected channel access.
Managed community roles have had unsafe server-wide visibility permissions removed, and the bot now rejects any unexpected role override on a protected category or channel.
Unverified newcomers can see only Start Here and Game Guide; the rest of the community remains completely hidden until verification succeeds.

V0.19.69Discord Access Gate Repaired9 August 2026+

Unlinked Discord newcomers now see only the public welcome and game guide until their Own the Map account is verified.

Every protected Discord category and channel now receives an explicit deny for unlinked members instead of relying on inherited permissions.
Old channels moved into the staff archive are made private in the same operation, preventing legacy permissions from leaking through.
The bot now checks the complete access gate after every community setup and reports a hard failure rather than silently accepting an exposed channel.

V0.19.68A Discord Worth Joining9 August 2026+

The official Own the Map Discord is now cleaner, more welcoming and easier to navigate, with a self-healing layout that keeps old clutter out of the player view.

Players now see four clear sections: Start Here, Official, Community and Help & Feedback, with private tester and staff areas kept separate.
A polished link-first welcome card explains exactly how to unlock the server and provides direct Play, Link, Verify and Game Guide buttons.
The new /roles command lets linked players add or remove Trading, Treasure Hunt, Event Alert and Looking for Group interests at any time.
Bug and suggestion forums now use purpose-built workflow tags, while normal wiki questions have one clearly named ask-for-help channel.
On every bot restart, useful old channels are preserved in the private staff archive and the intended categories, permissions and ordering are restored automatically.

V0.19.67Your Empire in Discord9 August 2026+

The Own the Map bot is now a useful read-only game companion in every server where it is installed, without moving authoritative gameplay out of the game.

Use /me for a private linked-account summary and /profile to view a player's public empire.
Leaderboards, live auctions, registered property search and personal treasure-hunt progress now have dedicated Discord commands.
Auction and property results link straight to the correct map location, while purchases, bids and upgrades remain protected inside the game.
Current events, the latest game update and a privacy-safe availability check are now available through the bot.
The official server keeps its streamlined link-first layout, clear role buttons and two-channel welcome area for unlinked newcomers.

V0.19.66A Clearer Own the Map Community9 August 2026+

The official Discord is now deliberately streamlined, link-protected and backed by a game-aware question command that works wherever the bot is installed.

New members see a simple Start Here flow and must link their Own the Map account before community, support and official channels unlock.
The new public /ask command searches the complete in-game wiki in any Discord server that has the bot and links directly to the full answer.
Optional Trading, Treasure Hunt, Event Alert and Looking for Group roles can be enabled or removed with clear buttons.
The official server now uses fewer, broader channels; superseded channels are preserved in a staff-only archive instead of cluttering the player view.
Founding Tester and Bug Hunter roles remain automatic, while staff authority and private tester access can never be granted from an ordinary linked account.

V0.19.65Fair Active-Day Invoices9 August 2026+

Bills now form one clear rolling invoice that grows only when genuinely new properties mature, while inactive players never lose cash or suffer overnight escalation.

A newly purchased property receives a full 24-hour grace period before it can add one line to the rolling invoice on a later active local day.
An unpaid invoice may grow when another new property finishes its grace period, but the same property can never add a duplicate unpaid ordinary bill.
Invoice stages advance only on active player-local days and freeze while the game is closed; the first reminder has no penalty.
Later stages reduce only the affected property's positive profit by 25%, then 50%, before pausing that property at the final stage.
Bills never remove cash automatically. Players can pay individual lines, pay the entire invoice, or optionally use their maintenance reserve.

V0.19.64Worldwide Prestige Locks Restored9 August 2026+

Prestige and licence requirements now apply consistently to every regulated property worldwide after the reset activation was repaired.

Industrial sites and warehouses require Prestige 1; stadiums and rail require Prestige 2; airports require Prestige 3; and landmarks require Prestige 4.
The rule follows the property's regulated category rather than its country, address or region, so incomplete map metadata cannot bypass a lock.
Airport and landmark cards now show their exact Prestige or licence requirement instead of offering an invalid unrestricted purchase.
The reset safeguard now preserves an already-active licensing system during future global resets.
Homes, everyday businesses, hotels and car parks remain available as the early-game path into the regulated industries.

V0.19.63Reset Safety & Clear Industry Locks9 August 2026+

The new Prestige industry economy is clearer before purchase, permanent cosmetics survive world resets, and busy-world money actions are more reliable.

Regulated assets now show their exact Prestige, licence or capacity requirement directly on the property card instead of waiting for a rejected purchase.
Purchased, gifted and earned cosmetics—and the theme a player has equipped—now survive Fresh Start, individual account resets and global resets.
Older purchased theme entitlements removed by a previous reset are restored automatically from the permanent store record.
Income settlement, parking revenue and grouped bill payments now use stronger per-player coordination and retry handling to reduce shared-world busy errors.
Hotel and venue schedules are cleared with ownership during resets, and every venue payout now rechecks the current owner before money is credited.

V0.19.62Prestige Industry Licensing8 August 2026+

A new long-term licensing economy is ready for the next world: ordinary property stays open while high-value industries unlock through Prestige, licences and capacity upgrades.

Homes and everyday businesses remain unrestricted. Industrial sites unlock at Prestige 1; major venues and rail at Prestige 2; aviation at Prestige 3; and landmarks at Prestige 4.
Each regulated sector has five increasingly expensive licence tiers. Fill the current capacity and improve the sector's properties before buying the next tier.
Direct purchases, player offers and auction bids all reserve and charge the correct sector permit fee, with every debit recorded separately in the ledger.
The Agent Licence Office explains requirements, capacity, permit rates and the next upgrade in one place.
The system is deployed safely but activates only with the next owner-approved global reset; existing players and properties are unchanged until then.

V0.19.61Founders Fleet Visual Polish8 August 2026+

Named Founders Fleet aircraft now look exactly like the other game-operated planes while flying across the map.

Founders Fleet planes use the same clean aircraft marker, size, colour and movement as every other game-operated flight.
The permanent dedication remains available by tapping the aircraft to open its full flight details.
Aircraft names, Mythic badges and reset-proof founder recognition are unchanged.

V0.19.60The Founders Fleet8 August 2026+

Fifteen permanent game aircraft now carry the names of the early testers who helped build Own the Map.

Each founding tester has a dedicated game-operated aircraft flying continuously across the shared world.
Tap a named aircraft to see its dedication alongside the real route, flight number, aircraft type, load and timetable.
The same fifteen accounts receive a permanent Mythic Founders Fleet badge that survives Prestige, Fresh Start, individual resets and global resets.
This is a cosmetic thank-you only: it grants no money or gameplay advantage, and any tester may ask Support to opt out.

V0.19.59Bus System Retired8 August 2026+

The experimental bus layer has been removed so property taps always belong to real purchasable buildings and businesses.

Bus stops, stands and stations are no longer discovered, shown or offered for purchase, preventing them from stealing taps from nearby buildings.
Bus route controls, game-operated buses and bus management have been removed from World and Empire.
Retired bus assets are excluded from Daily Drops and game-hosted auctions.
Existing ownership and financial history remain intact; airports, trains and all other property gameplay are unaffected.

V0.19.58Accurate Buildings, Businesses & Bus Stands8 August 2026+

Map taps now select the asset that was actually pressed, while ordinary businesses and their buildings remain one purchase.

A nearby shop or café marker no longer steals a tap intended for the surrounding building; a point asset wins only when its visible marker is pressed.
Ordinary businesses mapped inside their own building continue to resolve to one stable property and one purchase, whichever representation is tapped.
Markets, malls and transport hubs keep their intended landlord structure: the site, named stands and separately mapped tenant businesses remain distinct targets.
Short OpenStreetMap stand names and references such as A, B or 7 now keep their exact mapped identity, name and coordinate.

V0.19.57Bus Stands Line Up Correctly7 August 2026+

Named bus stands now remain attached to their exact OpenStreetMap points instead of inheriting a nearby building's property card.

Bus stands and full bus stations are now distinguished during map registration, while both remain usable transport hubs.
A stand inside or beside a shop, house, station building or shopping centre keeps its own coordinate, card and game identity.
Previously mislinked stand aliases repair themselves safely when their district refreshes; building ownership and transaction history are preserved.
Map-cell data has been refreshed so corrected bus assets propagate across newly viewed UK areas.

V0.19.56Nationwide UK Bus Networks7 August 2026+

Bus operators can now buy mapped bus stands and build ordered multi-stop routes that grow into a nationwide UK network.

Named OpenStreetMap bus stands, coach stations, coach terminals, bus interchanges, termini, depots and transport centres now join ordinary bus stations as purchasable transport hubs.
Build a service through several mapped stops: add intermediate stops, change their order or remove them before dispatching the bus along one continuous road-following route.
National and National Express station levels now expose registered and major bus hubs throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Previously processed map cells refresh lazily so newly eligible stands can appear as their area is viewed, while ordinary unnamed roadside stops stay free shared route points.

V0.19.55Bus Stations Back in Business7 August 2026+

More real mapped bus stations are now recognised as purchasable transport businesses, while ordinary roadside stops remain free route points for every operator.

OpenStreetMap bus stations tagged as station=bus or site=bus_station now join the same purchasable transport category as amenity=bus_station locations.
Previously processed districts refresh lazily when viewed, so missing eligible bus stations can appear without importing the whole world again.
Roadside bus stops and platforms remain shared routing points rather than thousands of separately owned properties. Buying the station gives the player the operating hub; routes may use surrounding mapped stops.

V0.19.54Road-True Local Transport7 August 2026+

Buses now stay on real road routes, while ground transport remains clear and compact on local maps instead of cluttering the world view.

Bus services are created only when a genuine road-following route is available. A temporary routing failure now asks the player to retry instead of drawing a straight line across buildings.
Buses and trains appear only when zoomed into a local area and never grow larger as the map is pulled out. Aeroplanes remain the only transport visible on regional and world views.
Only explicit OpenStreetMap bus stations become purchasable transport hubs. Mapped bus stops and bus platforms remain route destinations rather than separate station purchases.
Incorrect unowned stop or shelter classifications are corrected as their area refreshes, without changing valid owned property identities.

V0.19.53Build Your Bus Network7 August 2026+

Mapped bus stations are now purchasable transport businesses, with player-built routes that grow from local services into a national network.

Buy eligible OpenStreetMap bus stations and use the real mapped bus stops around them as route destinations.
Every station begins with short local routes. Five facility stages unlock town, regional, intercity, national and national-express reach, larger buses, more destinations and more daily departures.
Set the destination, departure window, bus type and fare. Running cost and break-even load are visible, but final passenger demand remains hidden so aggressive prices carry real risk.
Player and game-operated buses travel along road routes on the shared map and can be clicked for operator, timetable, vehicle and passenger details.
Successful services build transport reputation, create local footfall and support nearby partnerships through the existing shared-world transport system.

V0.19.52Live Train Details7 August 2026+

Every moving train can now be inspected directly from the world map, just like an aircraft.

Tap or click any player or game-operated train to open its live journey card without moving the map underneath it.
The card shows service number, operator, origin, destination, departure and arrival times, train type, passenger load and live route progress.
Player services use their real scheduled capacity and passenger figures; game-operated trains receive stable shared-world service details.

V0.19.51Clearer Hunt Cards7 August 2026+

Treasure hunting now keeps every map control in its own space on phones and tablets, and Hunt HQ always opens correctly.

The active clue card now sits beneath the services control on mobile and tablet layouts instead of covering it or the search controls.
Hunt HQ links now open the real protected hunt page and retain the active campaign, removing the 404 page.

V0.19.50Clear Controls & Live Flight Cards7 August 2026+

Premium-theme controls are easier to spot, hunt clues stay with the player on the map, and every aircraft can now be inspected in flight.

Buttons across all four premium themes now use a strong two-stage outline, deeper shadow and unmistakable keyboard focus ring without losing each pack's own colours.
The chosen treasure clue remains in a compact map card while searching, together with the required zoom state and a direct return to Hunt HQ.
Player and Own the Map aircraft are now clickable and show operator, route, departure, landing, aircraft type and live loading details.
Game-operated cargo aircraft use cargo capacity and a named manifest instead of displaying passenger numbers.

V0.19.49Treasure Hunt Field Guide7 August 2026+

Treasure Hunt now explains the full search flow clearly, including exactly what a cache looks like and when it can be opened.

Hunt HQ now has a five-step field guide: choose a clue, open its broad region, tap your suspected area, reach the instructed zoom and single-tap the cache.
A clear visual sample shows the tiny purple-and-gold diamond cache marker, so it cannot be confused with a property, business or normal map point.
The Hunt Started screen and searchable Wiki now explain the marker, the 350m ready range, clue help, reward cut and exact-reveal badge rule in plain language.

V0.19.48Hunt Difficulty Controls7 August 2026+

Each treasure hunt can now tune cache visibility and marker size from the admin area.

Hunt creation explains the reveal zoom in plain English, from a broad neighbourhood view to very close individual-building view.
Every existing hunt has editable Standard and Narrow-clue reveal levels, plus Tiny, Compact, Standard or Prominent cache markers, so tests can be adjusted without rebuilding the campaign.
The same reveal requirement now applies to the marker, map tap and server-side claim, keeping hunt difficulty fair.

V0.19.47Seamless Page Loading7 August 2026+

Moving between game screens now keeps the Own the Map loading screen in place until the next page is ready to appear.

The transition no longer fades out on a fixed timer while the next page is still loading.
The destination page paints first, then the loading screen fades away smoothly—on desktop, browser and Windows app.
Treasure cache symbols now stay at a compact real-world place-marker size, with a larger invisible touch area for phones.
Saving moderator section access repeatedly is now safe and cannot create duplicate permission warnings.

V0.19.46Clearer Hunts & Reserve Controls7 August 2026+

Treasure hunts are easier to follow without becoming automatic, and reserve money can now be moved safely from every version of the game.

Active treasure caches now use a compact, always-visible map marker at the same scale as a business marker. Players still need to zoom to street level and move within range before a cache can be opened.
Admins can permanently remove old, paused and draft hunts with an in-game confirmation step. Live hunts must be disabled first.
Maintenance-reserve contribution and withdrawal now use an in-game panel rather than a browser prompt, so the controls work in the Windows app as well as browsers.

V0.19.45Premium Themes, Repainted7 August 2026+

Every premium theme now uses its own high-resolution game-world scene, making the collection sharper, calmer and genuinely distinct across a full screen.

Neon Dominion, Golden Blueprint, Midnight Metro and Emerald Estate now each have a dedicated full-screen artwork instead of sharing a small repeated image.
Theme Store previews now show the same individual high-resolution art players receive after equipping a pack.
Background scenes no longer tile or blur when they fill a desktop, tablet or phone display, while overlays keep controls and text easy to read.

V0.19.44Staff Access & World Trends7 August 2026+

Owner administrators can now tailor the control centre for each moderator, with a new time-based overview of how the world is performing.

A new Owner-only Staff access section makes it possible to promote a player, then grant or remove individual admin areas such as Theme Store, Support, Reports, Finance or World.
Theme Store is no longer automatically available to every moderator: it appears only when the owner grants its specific section permission.
The admin overview now includes clear 7, 14 and 30-day charts for registrations, returning players, economy activity, reports and newly detected server faults.
These charts are built from completed server records, so they provide useful trends without adding background work to normal player map sessions.

V0.19.43Quieter Economy Safety Checks7 August 2026+

Normal fast play no longer triggers misleading unusual-activity warnings, while the game is more resilient when several players act at once.

The Economy Guardian now ignores ordinary bursts of purchases, upgrades and trading that happen during active play.
A broad activity alert now requires an implausibly dense burst of 150 high-risk actions inside two minutes; the targeted repeat-resale exploit alarm remains immediate and strict.
Auction bids, settlements and contract checks now use stronger transaction retries and auction-level coordination, reducing busy-world errors without duplicating any action.
Existing historical Economy Action Burst entries are safe to mark resolved when they only describe normal play.

V0.19.42Approved Profile Pictures & Safer Launch6 August 2026+

Theme owners can now make their public identity their own, while the game launch screen reliably clears itself before play begins.

Players who own any premium theme can submit a JPEG, PNG or WebP profile picture from Theme Store.
Submitted pictures remain private until an administrator approves them; approved portraits appear in public profiles, player listings and leaderboards.
Administrators have a dedicated approval queue and can decline a picture with an optional explanation.
The launch screen now has a reliable safety exit and does not replay while moving between game sections in the same session.
Public banners, profiles, player cards and the new portrait tools have additional small-screen guardrails to prevent clipped content and overlap.

V0.19.41Animated Public Theme Identity6 August 2026+

Premium themes now look and feel like a real public collection, with moving rank banners and generated crest avatars wherever players are seen by others.

Top leaderboard positions now use their owner's equipped premium theme as a living animated banner, with a subtle moving pattern and light sweep that never hides ranking information.
Generated crest avatars replace plain initials for equipped premium themes on public player profiles, leaderboard entries and Theme Store previews.
Each of the four themes has its own matching animated crest identity: Neon Dominion, Golden Blueprint, Midnight Metro and Emerald Estate.
Animations automatically stop for players who request reduced motion, while all public effects remain cosmetic only and never alter gameplay.

V0.19.40A Kinder First Empire & Claimable Goals5 August 2026+

The opening game now gives new empires more room to build momentum, while objective rewards are clear, player-claimed and permanently ledgered.

The first five properties receive the strongest momentum and personal Daily Drops now prioritise affordable nearby choices.
The first upgrade in the opening week costs 50% less, and early properties have significantly lower maintenance exposure.
New accounts receive 24 bill-free hours for ordinary taxes and rates before the normal management game begins.
Completed objectives now sit in Current goal as explicit rewards to Claim; every payout is recorded once in the ledger.

V0.19.39Stronger Upgrades & Player-Controlled Reserves5 August 2026+

Improvements now have a far greater impact across every asset, while bills become more predictable and the maintenance reserve is fully in the player's control.

Every normal property upgrade now delivers a substantially larger profit increase and a stronger reliability gain, while Standard assets face meaningfully higher old-equipment risk.
Venue, airport and train-station facilities now add more reliability too, making operational investment a core strategy rather than a cosmetic extra.
Repair stages are tougher for neglected assets, but still affect only that property—not the player's wider treasury or empire.
A newly purchased property will not receive its ordinary tax, rate or parking bill on the purchase day. The first bill is due from the next selected local day.
Players choose how much of future positive earnings goes into their Maintenance & Bill Reserve, from 1% to 20%, can enable optional automatic bill payments, and can withdraw unused reserve money at any time.

V0.19.38Faster Windows Game Client4 August 2026+

The optional Windows app now makes better use of each player's own computer for smoother map play and faster return visits.

MapLibre rendering is explicitly accelerated through the computer's GPU, reducing avoidable browser-style rendering overhead.
The desktop client retains a larger persistent on-device cache for game files and recently visited map tiles, so familiar areas return faster.
Cached game code is prepared earlier during launch and spell-check overhead is removed from the dedicated game renderer.
Live notifications and shared-world refreshes remain active while the Windows app is in the background, avoiding stale screens after switching back.
The shared server remains authoritative for every balance, purchase, ownership change, reward and auction—this update changes performance only, not the economy.

V0.19.37Windows Reminder Fixed4 August 2026+

Choosing Later on the one-time Windows upgrade notice is now remembered after closing or restarting the app.

The same Windows upgrade banner no longer returns every time the app reloads after Later is selected.
Dismissal is saved on that device for the specific offered version.
A genuinely newer Windows release may still show one fresh update notice, so important future upgrades are not hidden forever.

V0.19.36Windows App Updates3 August 2026+

The optional Windows app can now find, download and install future releases without making players hunt for a new installer.

Existing 0.1.0 Windows users receive a clear one-time in-game upgrade prompt to install version 0.2.0.
Version 0.2.0 and later check for updates quietly in the background and never interrupt an active session.
Players choose when to download and when to restart, with live download progress shown inside the game.
Agent → Account & settings now includes the installed version, update state and a manual Check for updates control.
Updates preserve the same account, treasury, properties and shared world; browser and PWA players are unaffected.

V0.19.35Singapore Rails & Fairer Airports3 August 2026+

Singapore's railway stations now run real mapped services, while airports rely on active transport management instead of oversized passive profit.

Added the official Singapore rail-line network and six connected destinations: Woodlands, Jurong East, City Hall, HarbourFront, Tampines and Punggol.
Existing Singapore station owners receive the routes automatically; no station needs to be sold, rebought or recreated.
Singapore trains follow cached rail geometry and never take a fake straight-line, road or ocean shortcut.
The regional-pack architecture is now ready for verified North American, Japanese, Australian and further country releases without changing property IDs or ownership.
Airport passive yield has been reduced substantially and unclaimed airport acquisition now costs at least £5,000,000 or 15% of fictional value.
Existing airport ownership and upgrade progress are preserved. Scheduled flights, facilities, reputation, tenants and partnerships remain the airport owner's high-upside gameplay.

V0.19.34Cleaner Vector World3 August 2026+

The Vector map now keeps the playable world clear by removing the redundant Classic-map Live World status panel.

Removed the Live World and house-scanning status panel from Vector mode on phones, tablets and desktop.
Vector buildings remain immediately visible and clickable, with the animated property card still shown only while genuinely missing game details are prepared.
The Classic map keeps its existing Live World and discovery progress panel because that renderer still uses on-demand area preparation.

V0.19.33Your Map, Your Choice3 August 2026+

The new Vector map can now be rolled out safely while every player keeps a one-tap Classic-map fallback and an optional private feedback route.

When the player rollout is enabled, Vector becomes the default World map without changing shared ownership, property IDs, treasury balances or gameplay rules.
Players can switch between Vector and Classic at any time under Agent → Account & settings; the saved choice follows their account across devices.
Returning to Classic opens one optional feedback question. Skipping it never blocks play, while submitted comments arrive as private Map feedback in Support.
Admin → World shows live Vector and Classic adoption totals, every account that has switched back, its fallback count and whether feedback was supplied.
The rollout control and player Vector endpoints are protected on the server. When rollout is paused, every player safely returns to the production Classic map.

V0.19.32Objective Reward Recovery3 August 2026+

Guided objectives now verify their cash reward against the permanent ledger and automatically recover any missing payment.

A completed achievement is no longer assumed to prove that its cash reward reached the treasury; the financial ledger is checked independently.
Missing or partially paid objective rewards are topped up to the exact configured amount when progression is evaluated.
Every recovery is protected by a permanent idempotency key, ledger entry and notification, so retries and page reloads cannot pay it twice.
An administrator-only worldwide audit can find and correct every historic completed-but-underpaid objective, with a per-player audit record.
New objective completion remains one atomic server-authoritative operation covering the achievement, treasury credit, ledger and notification.

V0.19.31Reliable Local-Day Bills3 August 2026+

Property tax, business rates and parking bills now arrive reliably after an owner opens the game, without charging anyone while they are away.

Opening the game now checks the player's selected local day and creates any missing ordinary bills on the first active heartbeat.
The harmless offline processing marker remains separate and can no longer prevent a real bill after the player returns.
The check is idempotent across every property, so repeated heartbeats, page changes and retries cannot create duplicate bills.
A brief database collision defers only the bill attempt; presence remains online and the next heartbeat safely retries it.
New bills retain the existing grace period, grouped notification, property-specific profit pause and server-authoritative Pay All flow.

V0.19.30Invite Friends & Earn Together3 August 2026+

Own the Map now has a fair referral programme that gives new players a stronger start and rewards genuine sponsors without reducing anyone else's earnings.

Every player now has a permanent invite code and shareable registration link under Agent → Invite friends.
A referred player receives an extra £100,000 game-cash welcome bonus immediately, on top of the normal £500,000 starting treasury.
The inviter earns £100,000 after the new account is at least 24 hours old and owns three properties.
A qualified inviter receives a separate game-funded 2% sponsor share of that recruit's positive passive property earnings for 30 days; the recruit keeps 100% of their own income.
Sponsor share excludes gifts, admin grants, rewards, gambling, auctions and referral payments, and is capped at £1,000,000 per recruit to protect game balance.
One account can have only one permanent referrer, with server-authoritative ledger entries and idempotent settlement protecting every payment.

V0.19.29Reliable Account Recovery & Prestige Rankings3 August 2026+

Staff account recovery now visibly restores the chosen checkpoint, while Prestige becomes a first-class competitive leaderboard.

Account recovery now preserves its before-and-after result on screen instead of immediately reloading the admin page and hiding what happened.
Full recovery restores checkpoint cash and ownership, removes post-checkpoint properties, restores missing properties and rewinds later property upgrades.
A checkpoint that already matches the account now reports that no recovery is needed instead of claiming a change was made.
Every main ranking now shows Prestige level, with a dedicated Prestige leaderboard where net worth breaks ties at the same level.
Vector Lab's opening world-to-home flight is slightly slower, giving destination tiles time to arrive smoothly before street-level play begins.

V0.19.28Instant Vector Property Cards3 August 2026+

Vector Lab now remembers the full property details already loaded in the viewport and opens those cards immediately.

The lab loads authoritative property-card details alongside its lightweight ownership paint instead of discarding them after each viewport refresh.
Clicking a known polygon, point or ownership overlay now selects the cached property immediately; the animated loading card appears only for a genuinely unprepared building.
Geometry matching provides a safe fallback when an archive feature uses a different OpenStreetMap identifier, avoiding needless repeated preparation.
The owner-only lab now flies from the world view into the home district over a slower, visible journey while the production map timing remains unchanged.

V0.19.27Clear Vector Loading & Ownership Colours3 August 2026+

Vector Lab property preparation now feels alive, stays readable and preserves the shared world's full ownership colour language.

A gently animated Own the Map mark, orbit and progress shimmer now confirm that a newly selected building is being prepared rather than stuck.
The Services & Vehicles control and key temporarily step away while the property loading card is open, preventing stacked controls on phones and desktop.
Authoritative property geometry now paints a reliable ownership overlay, restoring cyan owned properties, blue other players, pink rivals and purple auctions even when archive feature IDs differ.
The animation uses lightweight transform and opacity effects and respects reduced-motion device preferences.

V0.19.26Instant Vector Selection & Safe Account Recovery3 August 2026+

Vector Lab buildings respond immediately, daily rewards remember local-time claims correctly, and staff can preview a complete account recovery before applying it.

Every visible Vector Lab building can now be selected immediately; its card opens in a loading state while the authoritative shared-world property record is prepared.
Ownership colours now use a lightweight geometry-free viewport feed, so buildings stay interactive while shared ownership catches up independently.
Provider buildings remain visible as the instant fallback in areas where the experimental archive has incomplete coverage.
Daily reward ledger checks now retain the player's selected timezone, preventing a completed local-day claim from reopening after a reload.
Administrators can preview and restore either treasury only or treasury plus the recorded property portfolio; recovery refuses to take any property that another player now owns and records the result in the ledger and audit log.

V0.19.25Visible Roofs & Detailed Vector Buildings2 August 2026+

The owner-only Vector Lab now draws its real procedural building mesh reliably on modern phones and browsers instead of falling back to plain blocks.

Updated the custom renderer for MapLibre's WebGL 2 graphics context, fixing the silent shader failure that hid roofs, windows, doors and rooftop details.
Close buildings now have clearer overhanging eaves, roof fascia, window frames, entrances, chimneys and flat-roof equipment while distant buildings remain lightweight.
The tapped building and buildings nearest the screen centre receive detail first, making the useful part of a dense city readable without rebuilding the whole viewport.
Ownership and selection now use the same stable OSM identity in the custom mesh, so shared-world colours and the selected building stay aligned.
The old block extrusion fades out before the detailed mesh takes over, preventing depth fighting and preserving smooth camera movement.

V0.19.24Silky Cities & Fair Active Bills2 August 2026+

The owner-only vector lab now keeps dense cities smooth, while active-play billing and phone update screens behave correctly.

London and New York now render only visible procedural geometry under a strict level-of-detail budget, keeping camera gestures on the GPU instead of rebuilding thousands of off-screen buildings.
Close buildings gain deterministic sloping roofs, shaded walls, windows and doors through one compact WebGL mesh; distant buildings remain deliberately simple.
Shared ownership loads through a compact geometry-free response and recolours the same building mesh without changing production property IDs or gameplay rules.
A player who opens the game after an offline daily processing pass can now receive the normal active-play bill; closed apps remain protected from payable background bills.
The release/update screen now fits phone browser viewports, scrolls independently and keeps every action reachable above browser controls.

V0.19.23Shared World Stability2 August 2026+

Busy economy and map requests now recover from brief database contention, while a geocoder outage no longer becomes a server fault.

Connection-pool acquisition timeouts now use the same bounded retry and jitter policy as serializable write conflicts.
Map-cell reads, claims, registration and viewport queries recover automatically from short database congestion instead of leaving districts stuck loading.
Reduced map query fan-out at low and building zoom levels so map movement leaves database connections available for login and economy actions.
Property resale, offers, venue settlements and partnerships, train scheduling, transport upgrades and parking-warden hiring now retry their complete authoritative transaction safely.
Temporary geocoding-provider outages return a retryable empty search result and are logged as degraded external service warnings rather than Own the Map server faults.

V0.19.22Economy Exploit Guard2 August 2026+

The shared economy now raises immediate staff alerts for suspicious resale loops and audits wider unusual activity patterns.

Selling and reacquiring the same property repeatedly now creates an immediate critical Economy alert for administrators and moderators.
Treasury Guardian scans recent purchases, upgrades, resales, offers and Deal Room activity for unusual high-speed patterns without automatically accusing or penalising a player.
Every alert includes the player, affected property, ledger entries, amount and detection time so staff can investigate from the permanent financial record.
Prestige now rejects stale or repeated submissions inside the authoritative transaction, while its reset and reward remain ledger-backed.
A confirmed historic upgrade-sell-rebuy exploit balance was corrected to the proper Prestige 1 starting treasury.

V0.19.21Prestige Cash Ladder2 August 2026+

Every Prestige level now starts the rebuilt empire with a larger cash reward that doubles level by level.

Prestige 1 now begins with £1,500,000, level 2 with £3,000,000, level 3 with £6,000,000 and level 4 with £12,000,000.
The reward continues doubling through the remaining Prestige levels and is shown before confirmation.
The first-Prestige guided-objective credit is included within the £1,500,000 total, so the displayed ladder is the exact resulting starting balance.
Fresh Start remains separate and continues using the normal new-player starting balance without a Prestige reward.
The permanent Prestige earnings multiplier and progressively harder requirements are unchanged.

V0.19.20Daily Reward Confirmation2 August 2026+

Daily rewards now close as soon as the permanent ledger confirms the claim, with a cleaner seven-day mobile layout.

A delayed claim response can no longer leave the daily reward screen open after the server has safely credited it.
Background refresh now treats the immutable daily ledger as authoritative and closes an already-completed claim automatically.
The seven reward tiles now use a compact four-plus-three mobile layout instead of pushing day seven onto a third row.
Audited the reported Prestige 2 reward: every Prestige restarts with the configured £500,000, while the separate £1,000,000 guided-objective reward is paid only on the first Prestige.

V0.19.19Clean Restarts & Reliable Support2 August 2026+

Fresh Start and Prestige now create a genuinely clean empire, while support composing and touch-tablet navigation remain dependable.

Fresh Start and Prestige now reset property upgrade levels, maintenance reserve funds and parking wardens from the previous empire.
Large account restarts restore public property names in one bounded database operation, reducing stalls and transaction contention.
Starting a new Support message no longer snaps back into the most recent old conversation when the inbox refreshes.
ChromeOS, Android and Fire-style touch tablets now use the responsive tablet navigation at landscape widths.
Improved light-mode Support contrast and centred the sun/moon control consistently.

V0.19.18Secure Property Buybacks2 August 2026+

Game buybacks can no longer reuse improvements paid for by a previous owner, closing a repeat buy-upgrade-sell exploit.

A resale now includes only upgrades purchased during the current continuous ownership period.
Every game buyback is protected by a server-side loss cap and can never return more than the current owner invested.
Map purchase prices are now read live from the shared world rather than retained in the long-lived property catalogue cache.
Added regression coverage for repeated ownership cycles and historic property upgrades.

V0.19.17Ask Anything Wiki & Focused Support Replies31 July 2026+

The official Wiki now answers natural-language player questions, while staff messages open the exact Support conversation and can request a focused response when needed.

Rebuilt Wiki search around player intent, synonyms and common questions instead of requiring an exact phrase from an article.
Every question now returns one direct Best Answer with the most relevant steps, followed by ranked related guidance.
Added question examples covering buying, scanning, money, repairs, services, transport, treasure, progression, devices and support.
No-result searches now offer a direct route to player Support rather than leaving the player at a dead end.
Support notifications now carry their exact conversation and open that thread directly for both players and staff.
Staff can send a rate-limited Request Response popup for an important unanswered conversation without turning ordinary replies into popup clutter.
Treasure searches now gain a close-range Warm, Hot and Very Hot signal inside 100 metres, while the wider map reveals no directional shortcut.
A single tap within the final 15 metres opens the cache immediately; visible markers also use a larger invisible phone-friendly touch target.

V0.19.16Clear Treasure Search & Reversible Map Panels31 July 2026+

Treasure hunting now explains the required map tap clearly, while loading and Quick Travel controls stay readable and reversible on phones and desktop.

Hunt HQ now presents a four-step play guide: read a clue, open its broad region, tap the suspected map area, then move closer and zoom until the cache appears.
Clarified that panning and zooming alone cannot reveal treasure; a correct map tap must unlock the hidden search area first.
The Houses are still loading panel is correctly anchored on desktop and opens fully whenever a new phone scan begins.
Loading and Quick Travel now use minus controls instead of destructive close buttons, collapsing into compact left-side tabs that restore the full card with one tap.

V0.19.15Local Daily Clocks & Complete Maintenance31 July 2026+

Daily systems now follow each player's chosen time zone, every repair type appears in one queue, and persistent service coverage is easier to use.

Added a clearly labelled time-zone selector under Agent → Account, currency & time zone; rewards, private drops, contracts and routine charges now reset at that player's local midnight.
Offline property income remains at 100% of normal positive net profit within the existing 24-hour cap, while closed apps cannot receive ordinary payable bills.
Airport and railway faults now appear beside property and venue faults in Empire → Repairs & Maintenance, including Repair All.
The repair bell now counts only actionable faults attached to properties the player still owns; stale venue and transport alerts no longer open an empty list.
Police and fire coverage starts visible, survives panning and zooming, and remains on until the player explicitly switches Services & Vehicles off.
Mobile holding cards keep selection controls, property details and game value readable without crushing the value into vertical text.
Car-park map actions now sit beneath their location line instead of overlapping it.
The Houses are still loading card now has a compact minimise control on phones while discovery safely continues in the background.
Staff support notifications open the exact conversation, closed conversations no longer accept replies, and suggestions can be filtered or shortlisted.
Player and staff support messages now appear immediately after Send, and open conversations check for incoming replies every five seconds without a reload.
Treasure markers stay hidden until the player taps the correct clue area, preventing blind zoom-scanning from replacing exploration.

V0.19.14Player Support & Clearer Transport Hubs31 July 2026+

Players and staff can now continue support conversations in-game, while transport naming, automatic operations and maintenance protection are clearer and more reliable.

Added a player Support inbox for starting a private help request, replying to staff and attaching a supporting screenshot.
Bug reports can now become two-way support conversations, allowing staff to request more information without losing the original report context.
Dismissing a report now asks staff for a player-facing explanation and delivers it as a replyable private Support message.
Linked Discord bug threads and in-game Support now share replies in both directions; app replies return to the thread and new thread comments enter the staff inbox.
Agent is now a compact account hub: settings, progression, support, updates and downloads open in focused pages instead of forming one very long screen.
Agent now includes a clear Log out action, and ordinary daily bills are generated only while their owner is actively connected rather than increasing after the app closes.
Background systems cannot withdraw treasury cash, and even an overdue property keeps a protected offline yield so a returning player cannot wake up poorer.
Treasury Guardian now returns a named fourteen-day correction report, making every automatic-loss reimbursement easy for staff to verify player by player.
Busy wallet actions now use wider jitter and up to eight bounded retries to sharply reduce repeated write collisions without risking duplicate actions.
Added a focused Admin Support inbox with status, category, labels, sorting and direct replies.
Maintenance Reserve now protects affordable property, venue and transport faults and groups completed automatic repairs into one notification stack.
Expired auctions are settled before live listings are returned, while mobile property panels now remain visually solid and readable.
Automatic airport operations receive an additional login heartbeat trigger so a returning owner does not depend on one browser request.
Airport railway stations now keep their train-station classification and use an explicit railway-station name; Schiphol Airport railway station can no longer be mistaken for the airport itself.
Daily reward guidance clearly explains when a protected claim has completed.

V0.19.13Reliable Daily Rewards31 July 2026+

Daily reward claims now complete safely during busy periods and the claim screen cannot submit the same reward repeatedly.

Daily reward transactions now retry brief database write conflicts using the same protected economy path as purchases and upgrades.
The claim button now has an immediate single-flight lock, preventing rapid taps from starting overlapping requests.
An already-completed reward closes cleanly instead of reopening or appearing stuck while the immutable ledger remains authoritative.
Slow or interrupted connections now show a clear protected-claim message and recheck the server before inviting another action.

V0.19.12Authoritative Income Rankings30 July 2026+

Hourly-income rankings now use the same complete server calculation as the player’s portfolio and live treasury.

Replaced the leaderboard’s simplified income estimate with the shared authoritative portfolio calculation.
Rankings now include upgrades, condition, specialisations, discoveries, territory and city-event bonuses.
Transport and venue boosts, maintenance penalties, unpaid-bill pauses, attacks, landlord rent and district-service costs are now reflected.
The live treasury, portfolio and leaderboard now share one calculation so they cannot drift as new economy features are added.
Added a short shared cache so many players opening rankings together do not repeat the same heavy database calculation.
Protected admin pages are now explicitly server-rendered, preventing production builds from depending on live database availability.

V0.19.11One Maintenance Centre30 July 2026+

Hotel and venue faults now appear everywhere players expect to find urgent repairs, instead of remaining hidden inside Venue Control.

Active hotel, cinema, pub, nightclub, stadium and car-park faults now count toward the top-bar maintenance spanner.
Venue faults now appear as clear cards in Empire → Repairs & Maintenance with their demand penalty, repair price and affected venue.
Each venue repair card links back to the affected property on the shared map and repairs through the correct protected venue action.
Repair All now includes both ordinary property problems and venue operational faults in one discounted, atomic payment.
The notification inbox and live game figures now use the same combined maintenance count, so a fault cannot be visible in one screen but missing from another.

V0.19.10Reliable Map Status & Clear Property Panels30 July 2026+

Completed district scans now always dismiss their loading status, and mobile property information is no longer covered by the Services & Vehicles control.

Background property refreshes now reconcile the visible scan state instead of leaving a completed Houses are still loading banner behind.
A quiet recovery refresh only changes the scan indicator after it receives a valid authoritative response, so temporary request failures cannot hide genuine work in progress.
Pending scan-stop timers are cancelled before applying a newer server result, preventing an older response from clearing a newly started district scan.
Services & Vehicles now stays hidden whenever a property panel is open, including narrow mobile layouts whose command controls use stronger display rules.
The map key remains immediately available again as soon as the property panel is closed.

V0.19.9Safer Actions & Clearer Cities30 July 2026+

High-contention economy actions now recover from short database write collisions, while dense base-map buildings no longer merge into recurring white blocks.

Venue upgrades, venue activity scheduling, district-service conversion and Deal Room plays now use bounded automatic transaction retries.
Deal Room retries preserve the original server-generated outcome; a database replay can never reroll the same protected request.
Venue activity retries preserve their original quote and departure time while existing request keys prevent duplicate events or charges.
The shared transaction policy now allows five bounded attempts with backoff and jitter during brief bursts of simultaneous play.
Business-rule failures such as insufficient funds are never retried or hidden, and an exhausted retry returns a clear safe busy message.
Real provider buildings remain visible, but dense city overview layers now use restrained grey transparency instead of opaque near-white fills and extrusions.

V0.19.8Organised Admin Control Centre30 July 2026+

The growing administration screen is now a fast logging overview with focused pages for each area of live-game operation.

The Admin landing page now prioritises recent sign-ins, live player presence, attention counts and the latest protected staff actions.
Player tools, financial ledgers, world processing, treasure hunts, bug reports, system health and the audit history now have dedicated pages.
A persistent section navigator keeps every administrator tool easy to reach on desktop, tablet and mobile.
Opening the Admin overview no longer loads every heavy operational dataset at once, reducing pressure on the shared database connection pool.
Moderator safeguards remain unchanged: no self-financial actions, staff promotion, global payout or global reset access.

V0.19.7Fairer Hunt Assistance30 July 2026+

Treasure help now preserves the search game: narrow the area for a reduced reward, or reveal the exact cache by forfeiting its cash and the campaign badge.

The standard easier clue now provides a more challenging 500-metre search area instead of revealing the exact cache; its marker appears at zoom 15+ when the map centre is within 120 metres.
A live map indicator shows Cache hidden with the required zoom, then changes to Search zoom active when the cache can reveal.
On phones, the services control now contracts to an icon during a hunt so it never covers the cache zoom indicator.
Narrowing a clue removes 65% of that cache's final cash reward but keeps the campaign completion badge available.
Players who remain stuck can reveal the exact stationary cache marker by forfeiting the entire cash reward for that find.
Revealing even one exact cache location permanently disqualifies that player from earning the campaign's completion badge.
Two-step warnings clearly show the cash and badge consequences before either irreversible choice is confirmed.
Players can still finish a badge-forfeited campaign, advance hunt progress and collect rewards from caches whose cash was not forfeited.

V0.19.6Stable Treasure Cache Markers30 July 2026+

Treasure caches now remain fixed to their real map position and are easier to claim on touch screens.

Removed positional movement from the cache animation so the visible cache and its clickable map location can never drift apart.
Cache markers now use a stationary glow pulse that does not interfere with MapLibre's coordinate positioning.
Increased the cache touch target and added direct mobile touch handling for more reliable taps.
Opening and discovery effects remain animated without moving the marker away from the assigned cache coordinates.

V0.19.5Coordinate Search & Easier Hunt Clues30 July 2026+

Players can travel directly to latitude and longitude coordinates, while difficult treasure caches can be pinpointed in exchange for a major reward reduction.

World search now recognises latitude and longitude entered as comma-separated, space-separated or labelled coordinates.
Coordinate results stay inside the protected server-side search flow and move the shared MapLibre world map directly to the requested point.
Every unfinished cache now offers an optional easier clue with a clear two-step confirmation instead of an accidental purchase.
Unlocking the easier clue permanently pinpoints that cache for the player and opens its map at street level.
Assisted caches retain only 35% of their final cache and milestone reward, making convenience a meaningful choice rather than a free shortcut.
Clue assistance is stored server-side per player and cache, survives refreshes and cannot be removed to restore the original reward.
Private test hunts show the same assisted flow while continuing to simulate all rewards.

V0.19.4Caches, Login Rewards & Bug Bounties30 July 2026+

Treasure hunters can rotate difficult clues, daily login streaks pay more and confirmed fixed reports can earn a one-time administrator-awarded bounty.

Hunt HQ now explains that three active clues are shown from the complete unfinished cache list.
Added Try Another Cache to rotate one new clue into view without losing or completing the cache being left behind.
Added Previous Caches and wraparound navigation so every skipped clue remains easy to revisit.
The selected clue group is preserved while travelling to the map and when returning after a successful find.
Added compact, readable controls for phone, tablet, desktop, light mode and dark mode.
Increased the seven-day login streak from £5,000 on day one through to a £100,000 day-seven maximum.
Resolving a confirmed fixed bug from the Admin support queue now awards its reporter £250,000 exactly once, with a permanent ledger entry and player notification.
Investigating, dismissing, reopening or repeatedly resolving a report cannot duplicate its bounty.

V0.19.3Balanced Mobile Map Controls30 July 2026+

The phone navigation now fills the screen evenly, while Quick Travel and live house-loading progress remain separate and readable.

Corrected the mobile navigation to five equal-width columns, removing the unused sixth space that made the bar look off-centre.
Quick Travel now rises only while the taller house-loading status is visible, preventing the two controls from covering each other.
Once district preparation finishes, Quick Travel returns to its compact lower position so more of the map stays visible.

V0.19.2Cleaner Mobile Hunts30 July 2026+

The active hunt remains easy to reach without covering Quick Travel, scan progress or the playable map on phones.

Removed the floating hunt progress card from phone and small-tablet layouts where it competed with map controls.
The dedicated Hunt tab remains permanently visible for eligible players and opens the complete progress, clues and rewards screen.
Capped the phone navigation at five items: World, Empire, Market, Hunt or Players, and More. Agent and the displaced player directory remain inside More.
Desktop keeps the wider live progress card because there is enough room for it without obscuring gameplay.

V0.19.1Live Hunt HQ & Clear Service Map30 July 2026+

Active treasure hunts now launch like real world events, while the service map clearly explains every district colour and vehicle state.

Eligible players now receive a full Hunt Started presentation when a new permanent, seasonal, special or private test campaign goes live.
Added a permanent live-hunt progress control and a direct Hunt tab on mobile, so the expedition cannot disappear inside the More menu.
Hunt HQ now displays found caches, collected or simulated reward value, the next reward range and the final illustrated badge reward.
The game checks for newly launched eligible hunts while it remains open and presents them without requiring an app restart.
Admin draft cards now say clearly that testers cannot see a hunt until Make live is pressed; live cards confirm the player launch and progress UI is active.
Hunt start and end times now preserve the administrator's browser timezone instead of shifting scheduled launches on the production server.
Scheduled or expired live campaigns are labelled honestly in Admin and include Start now, which immediately opens the hunt to eligible players.
Replaced the unexplained mobile service symbol with a labelled Services & Vehicles control.
Added one expandable map key for blue police, red fire, purple overlap and gold dashed parking-warden coverage.
Added plain-language vehicle status that explains whether patrols are active, off-screen, too far zoomed out or still building a route from loaded OpenStreetMap roads.
Parking wardens now report whether they are visible in the current area or active elsewhere, with a direct instruction to use Car-park Operations → View on map.
Moved property ownership colours into the same expandable key while Service View is active, reducing duplicate overlays.
Added larger touch targets, readable phone text, a compact landscape layout and a one-tap KEY button after the panel is closed.

V0.19.0Worldwide Treasure Hunts30 July 2026+

Administrators can prepare permanent, seasonal and special worldwide treasure campaigns, privately test the complete experience and decide exactly when any hunt becomes visible.

Added an admin-only Treasure Hunt builder with draft, live, paused and ended states; no hunt navigation or empty screen appears to ordinary players unless an eligible campaign is live.
Private Test campaigns are visible only to the administrator and explicitly selected test players, simulate rewards without changing the real economy and can be reset and hidden in one action.
Campaigns support 5–100 treasures, optional start and end times, permanent, seasonal and special-event rules, occasion presets and custom future occasions.
Every player receives deterministic account-specific treasure positions around a worldwide catalogue of cities, so shared answer lists do not reveal another account's exact locations.
Players receive three clear clues at a time, travel to a broad region, follow warmer signals at street-level zoom and tap the revealed treasure to complete a server-authoritative claim.
Real campaign rewards are append-only treasury entries protected by a unique player-and-treasure claim constraint; repeated taps cannot issue duplicate money.
Hunt completion now awards illustrated badges inside the existing Badge Cabinet, keeping favourites, public showcases, rarity and collections unified instead of creating a second collectible system.
Added original collectible artwork for World Explorer, New Year, Valentine's, Lunar New Year, spring, Easter, Eid, summer, Halloween, Bonfire Night, Diwali and Christmas, with a reusable treatment for custom occasions.
Seasonal and special hunts can run beside the permanent World Explorer hunt and receive stronger configured reward values.
Added touch-friendly dark and light layouts, map treasure signals, discovery animation and completion celebrations.

V0.18.28Street Manager & Cleaner Inbox30 July 2026+

Repeated management work is faster and clearer: inspect offers on the map, manage matching street assets together, tune worldwide parking by local time and claim a daily reward that feels important.

Received and sent property offers now show the mapped address and a View on map action before an owner accepts, declines or cancels.
Daily login rewards have left the ordinary notification list and now open as a dedicated seven-day treasury-drop screen with the complete escalating reward track.
Repeated notifications of the same type are stacked under the newest message, with an expandable history instead of filling the inbox with near-identical cards.
Car-park Operations now includes a World Parking Clock showing simulated local time, current daypart, live price and a completed-history signal for every owned facility.
Parking guidance uses only closed-hour occupancy and never reveals future demand, preserving the pricing gamble.
Venue, airport and railway partnership requests now live in collapsed inboxes, include a Decline all control and show only the twelve closest valid new candidates.
Empire property cards can be selected in matching same-street, same-level groups and upgraded together with one visible combined cost.
A common permanent specialisation can also be applied across selected same-level street properties when every selected asset supports it.
All batch actions still use the existing server-authoritative individual property transactions, so each level, ledger record and contract action remains auditable and replay-safe.

V0.18.27Discord Release Relay30 July 2026+

Own the Map's Discord bot can now detect live game releases automatically, while the Toro controller account can manage it safely in every connected server.

The immutable Discord account behind toro.uk can run setup, status and changelog commands in every server where the bot is installed, even without that server's Manage Server role.
Server members with Manage Server permission retain their existing bot controls; ordinary members remain blocked by the bot's own permission check.
The changelog watcher now reads the newest release from the live Own the Map game instead of relying on the release bundled when the Discord worker last restarted.
Configured changelog channels are checked every minute and receive each newly detected release once, using the existing per-server delivery record to prevent duplicates.
Added a lightweight cached public release endpoint so automatic checks do not query the game database or add meaningful load.

V0.18.26Fair Maintenance & Resilient Scanning30 July 2026+

Maintenance now interrupts individual property profit without raiding saved cash, while stalled map cells can no longer freeze an entire district scan at zero.

Repair costs are never removed automatically from available cash; every repair remains an explicit player action or is paid by the separate optional reserve.
Warning, Overdue, Serious and Critical now reduce only the affected property by 10%, 30%, 60% and 100%. Critical cannot drain the rest of an empire.
Repair prices now use roughly 2, 5, 10 or 18 hours of the property's normal profit instead of a percentage of a huge fictional valuation.
Problems discovered while a player is away remain at Warning and show Inspection required until the maintenance queue is opened.
Inspection starts a 60-minute grace period before the normal server-authoritative escalation clock begins.
At most three new property-maintenance problems can be created for one player in a rolling 24-hour period.
Offline maintenance loss is capped at 20% of the otherwise-earned offline property profit.
Repair All now resolves the complete queue atomically with a 12.5% management discount.
Players can optionally direct 5% of future property income into a separate Maintenance Reserve that automatically handles affordable Warning repairs.
Empire now reports reserve balance, costs avoided, automatic repairs and protected properties.
A slow or abandoned map-cell task no longer blocks every other cell in view, preventing scans from remaining stuck at 0 of 15 areas prepared.

V0.18.25Stable Map Ownership29 July 2026+

Late map discoveries can no longer turn a purchased shop or small property into a billion-pound parent landmark with retroactive earnings.

Locked an owned property's registered valuation, income and operating costs so later OpenStreetMap aliases cannot reprice it after purchase.
Shops and attractions inside famous landmarks now remain separate from the landmark itself, just as businesses inside markets, malls and transport hubs do.
An owned property's authoritative identity now remains stable even when a later scan discovers a larger surrounding building, complex or attraction.
Late aliases can still connect matching map geometry for discovery and rendering, but they cannot silently change the economy of an asset somebody already owns.
A business point found inside a landmark polygon is treated as its own purchasable business rather than being promoted into the surrounding end-game landmark.
Unowned discoveries can still receive fresher names, geometry and balancing data before purchase, preserving the quality of newly populated map areas.
Added automated coverage for the exact retail-inside-landmark regression and for the rule that owned discoveries can never be repriced.
Added a read-only ownership audit that compares every owned property with its original registered map feature and reports suspicious category, valuation or income jumps.
Audited every currently owned property worldwide for the faulty promotion pattern and found one affected asset, confirming that the issue was isolated.
Corrected the affected account without creating debt or removing its other properties, restored the originally purchased retail asset and returned the landmark to the shared market.
Recorded the correction in the append-only player ledger and protected administrator audit trail, with a clear in-game notification for the affected player.

V0.18.24Database Traffic Guardrails28 July 2026+

Treasury Guardian now audits quietly without consuming the database connections needed by players, authentication or map discovery.

Changed Treasury Guardian's large ledger scans and reconciliation reads from concurrent fan-out to low-priority sequential and grouped queries.
Added a cross-deployment lease so only one Treasury Guardian audit can run at once, even if staff press the control more than once.
Historic batch refunds are now recognised from their reversed ledger IDs, preventing an already-corrected deduction from being credited twice.
Capped each serverless function's local Prisma pool at five connections while retaining Neon's pooled endpoint, with a longer queue timeout for short traffic spikes.
Reduced map discovery and operations-dashboard database fan-out so scanning, login and property views remain responsive during maintenance.
Corrected the daily game-auction lock so background maintenance executes PostgreSQL's void lock result instead of trying to deserialize it.
Converted Treasury Guardian currency totals safely before background-maintenance results are returned to the admin screen.
The Market now fetches a lightweight Live Auctions count on every tab while keeping the full auction list lazy until opened.
Replaced unreliable browser bid prompts with clear inline bid fields, minimums and per-auction feedback.
Auction bids now retry short wallet-write conflicts automatically without duplicating bids or reservations.
Automatic car-park hourly settlement now retries short write conflicts atomically without duplicating income or parking records.
The staff control centre now has a prominent Player Ledgers directory that administrators and moderators can both use.
Staff player ledgers now include a saved time-zone selector and show the selected zone beside every precise transaction time.
Property upgrades now retry brief wallet write conflicts atomically without charging twice or applying duplicate levels.
District actions against an unprotected property no longer fail while checking for a non-existent service defence.
Every protected Admin action now uses an in-game confirmation form instead of browser popups, making the complete toolkit reliable in the Windows app.
The Windows app now checks for user messages and other notifications every 12 seconds and refreshes immediately when its window regains focus.
Treasury displays now show genuinely spendable cash and identify money reserved for leading bids or property offers.
Players can open Reserved Cash for an itemised list of every leading bid and pending offer, with amounts, expiry times and Market links.
Added a Clear Resolved control that removes completed fault records while preserving every active fault.

V0.18.23Operations Control Centre28 July 2026+

The protected staff area now shows player activity, deployment health, background work and recorded faults, with direct player support and safe recovery tools.

Member cards now show tracked active play time, current presence, last activity, balance, role and owned properties.
The operations dashboard shows deployment uptime, latest successful background run, job duration, failed map imports and unresolved server faults.
Unexpected API and database faults are grouped by fingerprint with occurrence counts, first/last seen times and audited resolution notes.
Staff can run bounded maintenance, invoke Treasury Guardian, retry failed map cells and send a direct inbox notification to any player.
Added audited account suspension and restoration plus owner-controlled moderator role management.
RyanJames has moderator access to the complete support and correction toolkit, including individual refunds and account/property controls.
Global Treat payouts and global reset remain visible and callable only by the owner administrator.
Moderators cannot adjust, refund, reset or remove property from their own account, and cannot suspend the owner administrator.

V0.18.22Treasury Guardian28 July 2026+

A recurring economy audit now checks every player’s treasury, reservations and automatic-system deductions, returning confirmed discrepancies safely and only once.

Treasury Guardian runs automatically about every two days as part of the bounded daily background work.
It checks every real player’s wallet against the append-only ledger and verifies reserved auction and property-offer cash.
Only provably invalid passive deductions or stale automatic operations with no matching result qualify for an automatic refund.
Purchases, upgrades, repairs, bills, bids, Deal Room outcomes, attacks and manually scheduled activities are never mistaken for discrepancies.
Every refund is idempotent, appears in the player Ledger, creates an administrator audit record and sends one clear notification.
Unknown wallet mismatches are flagged for administrator review instead of creating or removing money based on a guess.

V0.18.21Treasury Protection Hotfix28 July 2026+

Logging out, waiting or changing pages can no longer reduce saved cash, and every player now receives the full positive offline income rate.

Positive property profit now accrues at 100% while offline, still using the existing 24-hour cap.
Passive property expenses and district-service running costs can reduce profit to zero but can never withdraw existing treasury cash.
The live treasury animation never counts backwards because an empire has a negative hourly operating total.
Continuous car-park operating costs are funded from that hour's parking revenue and cannot drain the wallet unattended.
Automatic hotel bookings and automatic airport flights fund their costs from their own eventual revenue instead of charging cash when a player logs in.
Manual purchases, upgrades, repairs, bills, bids and manually scheduled activities continue to cost the clearly displayed amount.
Affected passive and automatic deductions were identified through the append-only ledger for reimbursement.

V0.18.20Fairer Starts & Clearer Operations27 July 2026+

New empires start stronger, offline progress is fairer, missing map labels no longer break local bonuses and every important operating cost or market listing is clearer.

New accounts now begin with £500,000 in fictional game currency; existing player balances are left unchanged.
Positive offline property profit was raised to 50%; release 0.18.21 subsequently removes the offline penalty entirely.
Properties missing an OpenStreetMap city label inherit the nearest confirmed local city within 25km, restoring city events and readable Empire grouping without inventing an address.
Hotel and car-park View Map actions now open the actual selected property instead of the previous map location.
Venue Control excludes stale ownership records, fixing private-name changes incorrectly saying that the venue is not yours.
Activity cards now show genuinely available cash and explain cash reserved for bids and offers before scheduling.
Fortify and repair actions receive their authoritative server price, and district services show estimated neighbour-fee income.
Ordinary properties owned by other players are blue; only active friendly rivals retain the vivid pink/red rivalry colour.
Parking-warden previews centre once at a useful street zoom and then allow normal panning and zooming.
Game-hosted auctions remain stocked with three or four active discounted listings and now show full property details plus a working View Property action.
Light mode has stronger text contrast across parking, venue and auction controls.

V0.18.19Fortified Districts & Game Auctions27 July 2026+

Police and fire coverage now changes visibly with defence condition, while the shared Market gains discounted game-hosted auctions and property exits carry a meaningful loss.

Police and fire stations can be fortified to 100% protection, expanding their maximum coverage radius by 25%.
Every attack handled by a fortified service damages its defence by 10%, reducing both its protection chance and its actual map coverage radius.
Owners can pay to repair a damaged district service, restoring 100% integrity and the complete upgraded coverage circle.
Police and fire stations can now be returned to their original property use, stopping patrols and restoring normal property earnings.
The coverage circle always shows the current authoritative radius—it grows after fortification and shrinks after attack damage.
Own the Map now starts three or four game-hosted auctions each day from unclaimed shared-world properties.
Game-hosted auctions begin at 40% below the normal acquisition cost, remain competitive and settle atomically like player auctions.
Instant Sell to Game now returns 50% of acquisition and retained improvement basis, making player sales and auctions more worthwhile.
Small buildings can reliably open the Outpost tier through the same protected service API shown by the map interface.

V0.18.18Safer Districts & Automatic Warden Patrols27 July 2026+

District actions now have firm anti-harassment protection, while parking wardens automatically rebuild proper road patrols as an empire grows.

New players receive three days of attack protection, ending early only if they launch a district action themselves.
After one player targets another, both players enter a 72-hour two-way truce and cannot target each other again during it.
A victim also receives a two-hour recovery shield after an incident ends, preventing several different attackers piling on immediately.
Attack crews have a 30-minute action cooldown and temporarily reduce their owner's positive property profit by 15%, 25% or 40%.
Blocked actions still occupy the attacker's crews and apply their temporary profit penalty.
A newly purchased car park inside an existing warden's 3km district is added automatically—there is no connection button or second hire fee.
The patrol refreshes immediately after a purchase instead of waiting for the map to move or for the background timer.
Wardens now calculate street routes from the road data currently loaded on the map and travel between every covered car park.
Each patrol pauses at every car park to inspect tickets before continuing around the district.
Updating a route preserves the live patrol cycle instead of making the warden restart from its base.
The 3km preview remains centred on the selected car park so players can see what a hire will cover.

V0.18.17Living Car Parks & Reliable Presence27 July 2026+

Car parks now run continuously with risky player-set pricing, factual performance history and visible paid wardens, while launches, market data and online status are more dependable.

Car parks now fill and earn automatically every hour instead of behaving like scheduled entertainment events.
Owners can set a live hourly price; high prices can earn more or drive occupancy close to zero, with future demand deliberately hidden.
A historical graph shows only completed hourly occupancy, non-payers, price and net results—never an advance answer.
Facilities progressively reduce non-payment, while nearby transport, hotels, entertainment and active partnerships increase local demand.
Paid parking wardens cover multiple owned car parks inside a 3km previewable area, reduce non-payment sharply and visibly patrol between sites.
Prestige now rewards 7.5% per level, capped at 75%, to better match its demanding reset requirements.
Live-auction counts load with the Market screen, update notices include Refresh & Play, and dedicated heartbeats fix false Offline admin labels.
The World map now opens from a global view before flying into the player's home district or chosen location.

V0.18.16Reliable Actions & Fairer World Progress27 July 2026+

Payments recover cleanly, partnerships can be disconnected, international progress survives missing map labels, rivals are unmistakable and offline earnings now reward active play.

Pay All and individual bill payments now retry safely during brief database contention without charging twice.
Financial buttons return useful retry guidance instead of the unexplained Unexpected server error message.
Either property owner can disconnect an active venue partnership directly from Venue Control.
The other owner receives a notification when a shared partnership is disconnected.
Three-city and five-city objectives now count geographically separate mapped areas when OpenStreetMap has not supplied a city label.
There is no minimum property value for a city objective: any owned property in a genuinely separate city can count.
Prestige country progress now recovers from OpenStreetMap buildings that omit their country code.
Viewing another player's empire keeps every rival property vivid magenta instead of applying the yellow objective highlight.
Positive offline net profit initially accrued at 35% after a five-minute grace period; release 0.18.20 raises this to 50%.

V0.18.15Clear Venue Calendars & Private Labels27 July 2026+

Automatic venue operations now have protected slots, misleading activity counters are corrected and owners can privately name similar venues.

Fixed car parks allowing eight manual activities despite describing a six-manual-plus-two-automatic daily plan.
Car parks now reserve two automatic manager slots and enforce a separate six-activity manual limit.
Hotels now show and enforce the same clear split: two automatic bookings plus eight manual bookings.
Venue calendars and counters label automatic and manual usage separately instead of combining them into a misleading total.
Added private owner-only management names for car parks, hotels, cinemas, pubs, nightclubs and stadiums.
Private labels never alter the shared map name and are cleared automatically when venue ownership changes.

V0.18.14Live Presence & Property Marker Guide27 July 2026+

Admin presence now reflects genuinely open game browsers, and the Wiki explains every compact property marker and its exact effect.

Fixed Admin players remaining labelled Online now after their game browser had closed.
Presence snapshots now refresh through a lightweight protected endpoint every 30 seconds while Admin is visible.
A heartbeat automatically ages offline after 90 seconds, without requiring a manual page refresh.
Added a searchable Wiki guide to marker families, rarity, tenancy, paused-profit and repair labels.
Documented every permanent property specialisation with its exact revenue and running-cost effect.
Documented every renovation discovery and every temporary city-event marker with exact bonuses.

V0.18.13Empire Running-Cost Overview27 July 2026+

The Empire Command Centre now makes gross income, running costs and net profit visible at a glance, with useful area and street breakdowns.

Added separate gross hourly income and running-cost totals to the main portfolio metrics.
Added an expandable running-cost breakdown covering every city or mapped area in the empire.
Each area shows its property count, gross income, running costs and resulting net income.
Collapsed street groups now show their combined hourly running cost alongside value and net income.
All totals reuse the server-authoritative economy calculation, including service budgets, operating expenses and tenant rent.
Negative net figures and running costs use a clear warning colour on desktop, tablet and mobile.

V0.18.12Optional Windows Desktop Client27 July 2026+

Own the Map can now run in a dedicated Windows app while retaining the same accounts, properties and persistent shared world as the browser game.

Added an optional Windows installer to the landing page and Agent account area.
Added an Android PWA install action to the landing page and Agent, using the native browser prompt when available.
Kept Play in Browser as the primary instant option; no player is required to install anything.
The desktop client securely remembers its own session, supports fullscreen and opens outside links in the normal browser.
Added a branded offline state when the persistent world cannot be reached.
Created a separate unpacked Windows build and SteamPipe configuration templates for a future Steam Playtest.

V0.18.11Fair Inactivity & Live Presence27 July 2026+

Inactive empires now receive a long warning path before recoverable forced auctions, while admins can distinguish a browser that is online now from a player who has left.

Active play now refreshes the inactivity clock throughout a persistent login, preventing a player who is still playing from being treated as absent.
Added staged warnings at 14 days, extra daily holding charges at 30 days and 72-hour forced auctions after 60 inactive days.
Returning before an unbid forced auction ends cancels it and keeps the property; auctions with a committed bidder remain fair to that bidder.
A property ultimately lost through inactivity creates a welcome-back recovery equal to its recorded acquisition cost, paid once through the permanent ledger.
Forced auctions with no bidder return the property to the shared market instead of making it disappear.
The admin member list now shows Online now from a live game-browser heartbeat, or Offline with the player’s last active time.

V0.18.10Reliable Objectives & Prestige Finish27 July 2026+

Objective checks now survive shared-world database collisions, and the final guided objective leads clearly into a fully rewarded first Prestige.

Added bounded automatic retry to the complete objective-evaluation transaction when PostgreSQL reports a write conflict or deadlock.
Shows a visible temporary refresh message instead of silently leaving an objective panel stale if every retry is exhausted.
Fixed objective Show Me links being forced back to the top of Agent instead of scrolling to Empire Prestige.
Renamed the final objective action to Open Prestige and clearly explains that it is the last guided objective.
Completing the first Prestige now permanently records PRESTIGE_ONE, adds its badge and pays its £1,000,000 objective reward into the new empire run.
Added the same bounded transaction recovery to the large Prestige and Fresh Start operation.
Changed rival-owned map buildings and points to vivid magenta with a bright outline, and matched the Rival swatch in the top-right ownership key.

V0.18.9Mobile Command Menu & Currency Choice27 July 2026+

Every important game area is now easy to reach on phones, players can override automatic currency display, and rival ownership has an unmistakable red map state.

Replaced the hidden mobile destinations with a clear More menu that includes Leaderboards, Ledger, Goals, Badges, cosmetics and the complete Wiki.
Kept World, Empire, Market, Players and Agent as the five fast primary mobile destinations.
Added a persistent Agent currency setting with Automatic and 24 manual display-currency choices.
Manual currency preference overrides IP country detection across every device until the player returns it to Automatic.
Kept one unchanged fictional shared economy: choosing a currency changes symbols and formatting, not balances or exchange values.
Changed rival-owned polygons, points and the map legend to a strong red that cannot be confused with yellow unclaimed properties.

V0.18.8Visual Reports & Local Currency27 July 2026+

Player support is easier to act on, shared listings are clearer on the map and game-money displays now feel local without changing the authoritative economy.

Added optional private screenshots to in-game bug reports and a protected full-size Admin viewer.
Added permanent report deletion with confirmation, screenshot removal and an administrator audit record.
Added responsible OpenStreetMap correction guidance for factual real-world map errors.
Localised the game-currency symbol from the player's country while keeping one unchanged internal fictional economy with no exchange conversion.
Made negative property yield red and made every live auction property visibly purple on the world map, including the seller's own listing.
Added durable achievement notifications so a missed celebration can still be found in the notification inbox.
Added a dashed map preview of each police and fire coverage tier before a property is permanently converted.
Made Service View yield to open property panels instead of covering their controls.
Made all contract reads private and uncached, switched upgrade and repair progress to durable ledger actions, and refreshes contract cards as soon as game state changes.
Completed contracts now remain visible as rollover claims for 48 hours, so a midnight rotation cannot erase an earned reward.
Made successful specialisations confirm contract progress immediately and added a durable notification; failed actions can no longer look completed.
Property offers now show success or failure inside the open property panel, give the sender a delivery receipt and update offer contracts only after cash reservation and recipient notification commit.

V0.18.7Worldwide Scanner Recovery & Bug Reports27 July 2026+

New districts across the United States, Japan and the wider world now register quickly and reliably, while players can report problems directly to the administrator from Agent.

Fixed dense and previously unvisited map cells repeatedly timing out while re-saving unchanged OpenStreetMap buildings.
Skips redundant property and geometry writes while still applying genuinely new aliases, categories and source changes.
Starts authoritative discovery immediately when the player arrives at a new map position.
Verified the repaired importer against live Newman, California and central Tokyo map cells.
Added a real Report a Bug form to Agent with category, description, reproduction steps and optional location.
Securely attaches the reporting player, page, device, viewport and last viewed map position to help diagnose the issue.
Added a protected administrator report queue with direct map links, investigation states, resolution notes and audit logging.
Added automatic retry when two devices settle the same player's live earnings at the same moment.

V0.18.6Lean Live World26 July 2026+

Own the Map now keeps its live feel while making far fewer background server requests, protecting availability as the player base grows.

Stopped Market from loading Daily Drops, auctions, offers and the Deal Room together when only one tab is visible.
Daily Drops and the Deal Room now load on entry and after actions instead of repeatedly refreshing unchanged data.
Live auctions and offers retain a visible-screen safety refresh while successful actions still update immediately.
Slowed expensive account, alert, objective, portfolio, venue and transport recovery checks without changing server-authoritative gameplay.
Kept the treasury animating every second in the browser while authoritative timestamp settlement runs in efficient bounded heartbeats.
Separated plane and train animation frames from their server feeds, so smooth movement no longer triggers repeated transport requests.
Reduced hidden-tab work and centralised production polling limits with regression coverage.

V0.18.5Daily Drops Recovery26 July 2026+

Restored personal Daily Drops after a database-lock result caused the Market to remain on its loading screen.

Corrected the daily allocation lock so PostgreSQL can serialize player rotations without returning an unreadable void result.
Preserved country-balanced Worldwide and Wildcard allocation when several players open Market together.
Added a clear Daily Drops error card and Try Again control instead of an endless loading spinner.
Added regression coverage for the production database-lock failure.

V0.18.4Readable Celebration Effects26 July 2026+

Fixed the Founding Summer and Encore celebration artwork so upgrade confirmations remain clear on every browser.

Replaced the font-dependent summer sun glyph that could break into oversized overlapping shapes.
Kept equipped celebration artwork safely behind the confirmation card so it never covers action text.
Bounded and scaled celebration effects consistently across phones, tablets and desktop screens.

V0.18.3Complete Manual & Mobile Width Fix26 July 2026+

The official How To now explains every current game system in direct question-and-answer form, while Empire holding cards can no longer make phone pages scroll sideways.

Expanded the How To into a complete screen-by-screen guide covering World, Empire, Market, Players, Agent and Goals.
Added exact instructions for map controls, property buying, property categories, bills, repairs, auctions, offers and the Deal Room.
Documented rewards, notifications, services, attacks, transport scheduling, venue activities, partnerships and landlord rent.
Added complete guidance for territory, collections, rankings, badges, cosmetics, resets, Prestige, administration and troubleshooting.
Updated the guide to reflect the quiet notification inbox and country-balanced Worldwide and Wildcard allocation.
Fixed long treasury values and upgrade balance sentences forcing Empire wider than a phone viewport.
Made property headings, street totals, upgrade panels and action buttons safely shrink and wrap on narrow devices.
Added an app-wide horizontal-overflow guard, including a fallback for older tablet browsers.

V0.18.2Quiet Inbox & Fairer Wildcards26 July 2026+

Alerts now wait in one quiet notification inbox, repairs recover from brief shared-world clashes, and Wildcards are distributed across the least-used countries before any country repeats.

Replaced automatic reward, bill, social and update popups with a bell that only appears when something needs attention.
Added one readable notification centre with direct actions, individual clearing and Clear All.
Kept daily rewards and server treats claimable after a notification is postponed.
Cosmetic unlock messages now open the Cosmetic Locker; clearing the message never removes the permanent reward.
Made View Update and player-interaction notifications open the correct game screen instead of falling back to the World map.
Added automatic retry and replay-safe completion to property, venue and transport repairs when the database briefly collides.
Balanced Worldwide and Wildcard allocations by country across all players for the day, with random choice among the least-used countries.
Serialized daily global-drop allocation so simultaneous player requests cannot receive the same stale selection.
Rotated existing daily cards onto the corrected allocation version immediately.

V0.18.1Player Care & Reliable World Actions26 July 2026+

Purchases and disruptions now recover safely from brief shared-world collisions, global property drops are genuinely random per player, and administrators gain complete member ledgers, guarded refunds and server-wide claimable treats.

Added safe automatic retries for brief database collisions and timeouts during property purchases and district disruptions.
Replaced unexplained transaction failures with a clear shared-world busy message if every retry is exhausted.
Changed Worldwide Drops and Wildcards to make a fresh random selection when each player’s daily rotation is created.
Avoids reusing another player’s global-drop city that day where the registered worldwide property pool permits it.
Uses geographic separation when imported map data has no city name, and keeps each saved result stable until the next daily rotation.
Restricted every venue and transport partnership to a genuine 10-mile radius, with closest candidates listed first for the selected property.
Automatically disconnects existing active or pending partnerships that exceed the new local limit.
Added a dedicated View Ledger control to every member card in the protected Admin Area.
Added paginated administrator access to each player’s permanent financial history, current balance and reserved cash.
Added a clear Property column to the player and administrator ledgers.
Property purchases, upgrades, repairs, taxes, venue actions and other linked entries now show the exact asset name and mapped address.
Added one-tap View on Map links that open the authoritative property at its real map position.
Kept non-property rewards and adjustments clearly labelled without suggesting a false asset connection.
Made the ledger responsive as readable transaction cards on phones and a full audit table on larger screens.
Added one-time bug refunds to debit lines in the administrator ledger, returning the exact cash without erasing or changing the original action.
Made every refund idempotent, ledger-backed and permanently recorded in the administrator audit log.
Added Global Treats so an administrator can attach a message and offer every existing player a one-time claimable reward.
Added server-wide treat popups, configurable claim windows and protection against repeated claims.

V0.18.0Worldwide Parking Operations26 July 2026+

Worldwide Drops now spread across the globe, every owned property receives a fair daily maintenance roll, and car parks have become fully playable businesses.

Changed Worldwide and Wildcard selection to choose a populated world region before selecting a property, preventing heavily scanned cities from dominating.
Keeps both global drops unique per player and prefers a region away from the player’s main portfolio when alternatives exist.
Fixed the daily worker repeatedly processing the first 100 properties while newer holdings missed maintenance rolls.
Added a fast, idempotent daily processing marker and raised the safe bounded pass to 5,000 owned properties.
Added six car-park activities: commuter, shopper, event, match-day, airport-overflow and festival park-and-ride parking.
Added two automatic low-risk parking sessions and six manual daily slots for better, riskier returns.
Added car-park reputation, five facility upgrades, hidden vehicle demand, local partnerships and temporary operating faults.

V0.17.3One Stadium, One Asset26 July 2026+

Mapped football stands now belong to their enclosing stadium instead of appearing as separate residential properties.

Groups the main stadium and every enclosed mapped grandstand into one shared venue purchase.
Tapping a stand or the stadium now opens the same authoritative property.
Uses the complete stadium footprint, name and football-stadium category on the World map.
Preserves the combined fictional value of every component when existing duplicate stand records are merged.
Automatically repairs pristine legacy stand records as their district is rescanned.

V0.17.2Fresh World Cards26 July 2026+

World-map property cards now refresh their static classification whenever their source record is corrected, preventing an old cached building type from hiding newer gameplay.

Fixed the World map continuing to show Travelodge Norwich Cringleford as apartments after its database record had become a hotel.
Tied cached property-card data to the map source synchronisation time.
Automatically refreshes category, classification, address and economic card data after a source correction.
Kept the seven-day cache for unchanged buildings to preserve map speed and reduce database transfer.
Verified that Empire and World now receive the same authoritative hotel category.

V0.17.1Hotel Recognition Fix26 July 2026+

Mapped hotels now keep their hotel gameplay even when an underlying OpenStreetMap building outline is labelled apartments or another generic building type.

Made mapped tourism, brand and operator hotel identity take priority over generic building-outline tags.
Fixed Travelodge Norwich Cringleford so its existing owner receives Hotel Control without buying it again.
Preserves ownership, purchase history, value, upgrades and income when correcting a property category.
Stops corrected hotels from offering inappropriate police or fire conversion controls.
Added regression coverage for real mapped hotel data that uses an apartments building outline.

V0.17.0Hotel Manager26 July 2026+

Hotels now run a real seven-day booking calendar: a cautious manager keeps low-level income moving while hands-on owners can take greater risks for much better profits.

Added a seven-day hotel booking calendar with ten booking slots per hotel per day.
The hotel manager automatically schedules two cautious starter bookings each day while the owner is online.
Leaves eight daily slots for manual room pricing, premium packages and higher-risk, higher-profit decisions.
Expanded hotels to fourteen booking types, from family breaks and coach tours to film premieres and celebrity takeovers.
Shows broad occupancy confidence bands before booking while keeping exact final demand hidden on the server.
Added a six-stage facility ladder covering refurbished rooms, conference space, restaurant and bar, spa facilities and luxury suites.
Added hotel-specific reputation from Local Guesthouse to World-Famous Resort.
Made active local partnerships clearly visible and strengthened hotel visitor spending around the surrounding district.
Expanded temporary hotel incidents, including overbooking, staff shortages, room damage and booking-system failures.

V0.16.1Cosmetics You Can See26 July 2026+

The Cosmetic Locker now shows miniature in-game screenshots, and equipped rewards have been strengthened so they are clearly visible during real play.

Replaced tiny abstract cosmetic samples with wide miniature scenes showing the actual player card, map, transport route, venue or celebration affected.
Made every preview available before unlock so players can judge whether a badge set reward is worth pursuing.
Made City Grid and Atlas Outline change the colour and outline of owned buildings on the live world map.
Strengthened Neon Transit across planes, trains and service vehicles.
Expanded Golden Marquee into a full gold venue-operations treatment instead of a faint border.
Fixed Encore and Founding Summer so they visibly replace the standard positive-action burst.
Made profile frames heavier, brighter and immediately recognisable on shared player profiles.
Kept all cosmetic previews readable and full-width on phones while retaining the two-column desktop locker.

V0.16.0Landlord Estates26 July 2026+

Markets, shopping malls, airports and railway stations now support separately owned tenant businesses whose positive profits pay automatic rent to the site owner.

Restored market sites as purchasable landlord estates while keeping every mapped stall independently ownable.
Added whole-mall ownership with independently owned shops and businesses inside.
Airport purchases continue to include every mapped passenger terminal as one asset.
Separately mapped airport businesses now pay rent to the airport owner.
Station shops and businesses now pay rent to the railway-station owner.
Rent is charged only from positive tenant profit and credited automatically through the server-authoritative ledger.
Added clear Tenant, Landlord Site, rent-rate and linked-tenant information on World and Empire property cards.
Kept all ordinary street properties under the one-building, one-purchase rule.

V0.15.5One Building, One Purchase26 July 2026+

Building outlines and their attached business labels now always resolve to one shared asset, market halls are sold stall-by-stall, and Goals and cosmetics are easier to understand.

Made every business label attached to an ordinary building an alias of that building's single game property.
Tapping either the business icon or the building outline now opens the same property ID, price and ownership state.
Preserves the combined fictional value when older duplicate unowned records are consolidated.
Removed whole-market containers from purchasing while keeping individual mapped stalls and shops available.
Made mapped airport terminals components of their nearby airport instead of additional properties to purchase.
Retires old unowned marketplace-container records safely as affected districts are rescanned.
Expanded the Goals detail panel with plain-language explanations and exact completion instructions.
Replaced abstract cosmetic glyphs with recognisable live samples of titles, frames, property styles, transport trails, venue effects and celebrations.

V0.15.4Cosmetic Locker & Canonical Businesses26 July 2026+

Cosmetic rewards now have a dedicated previewable cabinet, while a business point and its physical building are registered as one value-preserving asset.

Added a one-tap Badges and Cosmetics switch directly below the Badge Cabinet heading.
Shows all 12 cosmetic rewards instead of hiding every locked item.
Added visual previews, reward types, matching badge sets and live completion progress.
Made Equip and Unequip immediately available beside every unlocked cosmetic.
Fixed badge sets with multiple rewards so completing the set unlocks every attached cosmetic, not only the final one.
Kept cosmetics purely visual: titles, frames, map styles, vehicle trails, venue effects and celebrations never alter the economy.
Combines an unambiguous named shop or business with its containing generic retail/building outline while preserving their combined game value.
Keeps genuine multi-tenant buildings separate when several distinct businesses share one mapped structure.

V0.15.3World Address & Badge Collection26 July 2026+

Mapped buildings can inherit house numbers from separate OpenStreetMap address points, and every collectible badge now has original game artwork.

Matches separate address points to the building outline that contains them, improving house numbers in Costessey, Mile Cross and the same mapping pattern worldwide.
Reopens previously scanned cells so existing registered properties can receive newly available address details.
Keeps a clear street or district fallback wherever the source map genuinely has no house number.
Completed original transparent artwork for all 38 permanent, seasonal, legacy and hidden badges.
Added distinct visual collections for hospitality, entertainment, transport, community, exploration, multiplayer and special achievements.
Optimised every badge asset for responsive phone, tablet and desktop cabinets.

V0.15.2Dense District Repair26 July 2026+

Building discovery now uses a fast bounded OpenStreetMap path and bulk registration, while missing personal daily-drop slots repair themselves.

Added a fast official OpenStreetMap fallback for bounded street cells when community query replicas are unavailable.
Bulk-registers new properties and geometry instead of making hundreds of sequential database writes.
Keeps scans cell-sized and processes dense desktop and mobile views in safe batches.
Reopens cells processed by the earlier importer so blank mapped streets can populate correctly.
Automatically replaces any personal daily deal whose underlying map record was safely merged.
Restored the missing revealed Worldwide Drop while preserving five local deals and the hidden wildcard.

V0.15.1Reliable World Scanning26 July 2026+

Mapped streets now populate more reliably on every device, while desktop and mobile map controls stay usable in tighter screen layouts.

Made empty map-provider responses automatically fall through to alternate OpenStreetMap-compatible sources.
Reopened previously stale or incorrectly empty cells for on-demand discovery as players browse them.
Split large desktop discovery scans into smaller authoritative batches to avoid provider and database timeouts.
Kept the full desktop command menu and treasury within the visible screen, including shorter displays.
Made Quick Travel move out of the way while location search results are open.
Restored the mobile Goals button so the current What’s Next objective is always one tap away.

V0.15.0Badge Cabinet26 July 2026+

Achievements are now a permanent collection game with public showcases, set rewards, cosmetics, seasonal challenges and illustrated end-game badges.

Added a dedicated responsive Badge Cabinet with 38 core, seasonal, legacy and hidden achievements.
Added automatic retroactive checks so existing properties, services, journeys, venues, friends and Prestige still count.
Added one favourite badge and a three-badge public showcase visible on player profiles.
Added rarity tiers, earned dates, locked progress and an Almost Earned row showing the clearest next targets.
Added collection sets for Property Tycoon, Hospitality, Entertainment, Transport, Community, Explorer and Multiplayer play.
Added equipable titles, profile frames, property patterns, transport liveries, venue marquees and celebration styles.
Added set-completion rewards, Early Access Founder recognition, a 2026 annual badge and Founding Summer community challenge.
Added six original illustrated Property Tycoon badge emblems from First Deed through Prestige Founder.

V0.14.0Destination Venues26 July 2026+

Hotels, cinemas, pubs, nightclubs and stadiums now grow into reputation-led businesses with fast, risky activities and local economic effects.

Added Venue Control for every owned hotel, cinema, pub, nightclub and stadium.
Hotels can run weekend escapes, conferences, wedding packages, spa retreats and celebrity takeovers.
Cinemas schedule screenings, pubs run social nights, clubs stage events and stadiums host fixtures and headline shows.
Added five venue reputation tiers that unlock increasingly prestigious and risky activities.
Added five facility upgrades improving capacity, reliability, local reach, efficiency and partnership slots.
Activities hide final demand until completion; ambitious pricing and short lead times can produce major losses.
Successful activities pay local footfall, temporarily boost nearby properties and support cross-player partnerships.
Added venue-specific operational faults, repair controls, notifications and background settlement.
Kept hotels, transport hubs and dedicated venues unavailable for police or fire conversion.

V0.13.0Transport Empires26 July 2026+

Airports and stations now grow into reputation-led transport businesses whose passengers strengthen the surrounding district.

Added persistent Local-to-World-Gateway reputation to every player-owned airport and railway station.
Added five facility upgrades that improve capacity, reliability, operating efficiency, local reach and partnership slots.
Added specialised flight and train services with distinct costs, demand, capacity, risk and reputation rewards.
Completed services now create passenger footfall payments and temporary profit boosts for eligible nearby properties.
Added direct partnerships with nearby hotels, venues, businesses and transport hubs, including Airport Express links.
Added temporary baggage, runway, platform and signalling problems with visible demand penalties and repair controls.
Combined matching business points and building outlines into one value-preserving game property, preventing duplicate purchases.

V0.12.0European Rails & Automatic Earnings26 July 2026+

Treasury profit now banks itself, trains expand beyond Britain and the Wiki gains a complete searchable how-to centre.

Removed the redundant Collect Earnings button and made automatic server settlement run immediately, once per visible minute and whenever play resumes.
Kept the treasury animation live while all real balance changes remain protected by the append-only ledger.
Added player railway networks in France, Belgium and the Netherlands using bundled OpenStreetMap track graphs.
Added Paris, Lille, Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht as supported main-city terminals.
Added rotating game-owned services inside the new countries so European railways feel active before players schedule trains.
Made train vehicles progressively shrink at regional, continental and world zooms instead of covering countries.
Expanded the Wiki with a searchable How to Play & FAQ centre covering the complete player journey and common troubleshooting.

V0.11.1Tablet & Daily Reward Hotfix25 July 2026+

Daily rewards remain single-claim after a reset, and common tablets now receive a clean touch-first game layout.

Fixed a legacy reset state that could repeatedly reopen and apparently re-claim the same daily reward.
Made the append-only financial ledger authoritative when repairing an affected daily claim.
Preserved daily login streak and claim state through Fresh Start, Prestige and administrator resets.
Started Empire contract progress and reward claims in a clean save cycle after every reset.
Extended the touch-first header, bottom navigation and readable map controls through tablet portrait widths.
Reflowed dense portfolio, market, transport, maintenance and Agent controls for tablet screens.

V0.11.0The Living Wiki25 July 2026+

A rebuilt public welcome, a searchable guide to every system and a longer in-game path from first purchase to prestige.

Launched a public searchable Own the Map Wiki covering gameplay, economy, multiplayer systems, transport, progression and safety.
Connected key wiki values directly to the live economy, service and prestige configuration so balance changes stay accurate.
Added the complete release history to the Wiki and linked every future What’s New card to it.
Rebuilt the landing page around genuine live gameplay screenshots on desktop and mobile.
Extended the Next Objective route through 25 properties, five cities, 50 properties and the first Prestige.
Made Prestige objectives open the correct Agent control instead of returning players to the map.
Added direct Wiki access from the landing page, desktop game navigation and the mobile-friendly Agent page.

V0.10.0New Frontiers & Prestige25 July 2026+

New players get quieter places to build, veterans can prestige for permanent progression, and every player can choose a genuine Fresh Start.

Added personalised launch-district suggestions weighted toward cities with less player ownership.
Launch suggestions rotate daily and jump directly to building-level discovery while preserving worldwide search.
Added ten server-authoritative Prestige levels with a carefully capped 5% earnings bonus per level.
Prestige begins at 100 properties, £100 million, five cities and two countries, then becomes progressively harder.
Prestiging releases every old property back into the shared market, restarts cash and objectives, and preserves earned achievements.
Added a safeguarded player-controlled Fresh Start that resets achievements without awarding a multiplier.
Released properties, offers, reservations, auctions and transport schedules are settled safely during either restart.
Added the Outpost service tier so every owned building can become a small police or fire station.

V0.9.5Small Station Hotfix25 July 2026+

Every owned property can once again become a police or fire service, with coverage balanced to its building size.

Added an Outpost tier available to every owned property, including buildings with no mapped footprint.
Outposts provide 50% protection across 250 metres for a 3% district operating budget.
Kept stronger Community, District and Elite coverage locked to progressively larger buildings.
Automatically selects the strongest coverage tier the chosen building can support.
Shows the building size, available tier, protection, radius, cost and size requirements before conversion.

V0.9.4Empire Control & Clearer Properties25 July 2026+

Holdings are easier to find and identify, district actions respond clearly, and Own the Map has its official new home.

Launched the official game address at own-the-map.com with secure HTTPS and a permanent www redirect.
Added instant processing feedback and reliable success or failure results to Disrupt actions.
Removed a database transaction stall that could make a district attack appear to do nothing.
Added an Empire search for property names, addresses, streets, cities and property types.
Added sorting by cheapest next upgrade, highest profit, highest value and property name.
Made the mapped address prominent on every holding card.
Shows exact mapped coordinates when OpenStreetMap does not provide a house number or street address.

V0.9.3World Flights & Service Balance25 July 2026+

The world-flight viewer now opens the world, while police and fire coverage requires a suitably sized building.

Added a dedicated worldwide flight-map entry mode.
View World Flights now starts at global zoom with live player and game aircraft visible.
Suppressed home-district, GPS and owned-property quick travel when entering flight view.
Moved the desktop Goals button clear of the ownership colour key.
Made buildings below 250m² ineligible for new police or fire conversion.
Moved the revealed Worldwide Drop onto the same full registered-world selection pool as the wildcard.
Kept the empire navigator closed until the player deliberately selects an empire.
Required 750m² for District coverage and 2,000m² for Elite coverage.
Rebalanced existing undersized service buildings to a limited 250m legacy-outpost radius.

V0.9.2Brighton Line25 July 2026+

Brighton joins the player railway network.

Added Brighton as a selectable main-city rail destination.
Added Brighton to the rotating game-owned rail traffic.
Confirmed OSM railway=station features are discoverable and purchasable around Brighton.
Brighton services use the same official track-following rail graph as every other supported route.

V0.9.1Rail Network & Rewards Hotfix25 July 2026+

Real track-following trains, a stronger player-offer reward and a clearer way to discover each update.

Routed player and game-owned trains over official mapped Network Rail track instead of straight lines.
Limited train planners to main-city destinations reachable from the selected station.
Automatically reassigns an old unreachable service to a valid rail destination before displaying it.
Replaced the old train map marker with a clear top-down railway vehicle.
Raised the custom property-offer objective reward to £200,000 and added a £140,000 top-up for players who completed it at £60,000.
Added a concise one-time What’s New card after each release, with the full archive in Agent.

V0.9.0The Living World Update25 July 2026+

Railway ownership, shared transport traffic and a cleaner map on every screen.

Made mapped railway stations purchasable and added player-operated passenger train services.
Added fares, departure planning, hidden passenger demand, operating costs and atomic arrival profit.
Changed railway journeys from airport wording to clear scheduled and in-transit states.
Made every active player plane and train visible to every player at every map zoom.
Added continuously rotating game-owned planes and trains so the shared world stays active.
Added a compact landscape-phone layout that removes the desktop sidebar and separates map overlays.
Moved coloured building footprints to an earlier zoom and retained point symbols only where useful.
Raised the first custom property-offer objective reward from £60,000 to £150,000.
Added worldwide property drops, a dedicated maintenance centre and non-overlapping repair alerts.

V0.8.0Airports & Personal Deals24 July 2026+

Player-run airlines, risk-driven ticket sales and personalised daily opportunities.

Made airports purchasable and gave each owned airport ten daily player-scheduled flights.
Added destinations, editable fares, departure times, operating costs and hidden passenger demand.
Made premium rushed flights capable of departing empty, creating real downside risk.
Added two conservative automatic flights per airport while its owner is online.
Replaced third-party aircraft with persistent in-game flights that survive map movement.
Made daily property drops personal to each player and added mystery worldwide wildcards.
Added progressive building reveals, gentle loading shimmer and a clearer scanning experience.
Introduced the new Own the Map identity and tidied portfolio upgrades with visible treasury cash.

V0.7.0Empire Progression23 July 2026+

More reasons to return, specialise, collect and take calculated risks.

Added rotating daily property deals with common, good, rare and exceptional discounts.
Added daily and weekly contracts, territory bonuses, collections and city events.
Added permanent property specialisations and surprise renovation discoveries.
Added the fast Deal Room risk game with odds weighted in favour of the game.
Made fictional venue conversions and custom faith names shared worldwide.
Added persistent light and dark themes and the updated Own the Map logo.
Improved mobile controls, PWA safe areas and map quick travel.
Reduced Neon transfer through stable viewport caching and database-query optimisation.

V0.6.0Friends, Rivals & Shared Activity22 July 2026+

The shared world became social, searchable and ready for friendly competition.

Added player search, profiles, friends, friend requests and rivalries.
Added notifications for friendship, offers and other player interactions.
Added public empire browsing and quick travel between another player’s properties.
Added friendly map wars and easier rival property targeting.
Stabilised desktop navigation so every command menu remains interactive.
Made district patrol routes varied, persistent and resilient across zooming and panning.

V0.5.0District Services21 July 2026+

Player-built police and fire districts brought movement and strategy to local streets.

Allowed owned properties to become police or fire stations with configurable protection.
Added private service coverage, neighbour contributions and temporary attack incidents.
Added animated patrol cars and fire engines travelling connected map-road networks.
Added guided objectives, permanent achievement badges and map-based Show Me guidance.
Made dense districts register buildings in safe bounded batches.
Rendered cached buildings immediately while remaining areas continued processing.
Prevented service running costs from driving player wallets below zero.

V0.4.0Own the Map Relaunch20 July 2026+

A faster game economy, stronger administration and rewarding daily play.

Renamed the game Own the Map and rebalanced prices, earnings and progression.
Added escalating daily reward streaks and rewarding action celebrations.
Added timed property taxes and business rates with combined payment actions.
Added full player administration, balance adjustments, property removal and account resets.
Added safeguarded global resets with audit records.
Added mapped house names, numbers and approximate addresses where OSM supplies them.
Added GPS starting location, live treasury figures and repaired rankings.
Accelerated map scans and started discovery before the visual map finished loading.

V0.3.0Worldwide Property Rush19 July 2026+

Ordinary buildings, famous landmarks and player offers became part of one shared economy.

Made ordinary mapped houses and businesses discoverable and purchasable worldwide.
Split discovery into bounded street-sized cells for safer global scaling.
Registered large OSM multipolygon landmarks including internationally known end-game locations.
Added accelerated early progression with a longer late-game acquisition curve.
Added profitable reliability-focused upgrades with worthwhile capped levels.
Added custom offers for buying another player’s property, with a £200,000 strategist objective reward.
Added faster streamed building discovery through production-safe Neon transactions.

V0.1.0Persistent World MVP18 July 2026+

The first playable end-to-end version of the worldwide property game.

Launched secure registration, login, protected routes and persistent player sessions.
Added the worldwide MapLibre map, search, geolocation and OpenStreetMap attribution.
Created persistent properties with one server-authoritative owner worldwide.
Added atomic purchases, append-only currency ledger and offline earnings.
Added upgrades, maintenance problems, taxes, debt and timed auctions.
Added portfolios, transaction history, leaderboards, notifications and administration.
Added PostgreSQL/PostGIS, Prisma, Redis-compatible caching, workers, tests and Docker development.

Ask anything. Get unstuck.

What is the Prestige Industry Licensing System?

How do licence tiers and capacity work?

Exactly how do I buy or upgrade an industry licence?

What is an industry purchase permit?

Do licences survive Prestige and Legacy Runs?

Account and first login

First Empire Sprint and suggested districts

Your first property

How do I start playing?

What does every main screen do?

Where is every game feature and which button opens it?

How do I use every World map control?

Exactly how do I buy a property?

What can I buy and how do property types differ?

What do the small markers on my properties mean?

How do properties owned together boost income?

What are all the different boosts in Own the Map?

Referral programme and invite rewards

Fair play, bots and account pumping

How do property specialisations work, and why should I choose one?

How do renovation discoveries work?

What does every ⚡ city-event marker mean?

How do live global and Company boost events work?

Why can’t I see or buy buildings?

How do earnings and the treasury work?

What can I do when I run out of Available cash?

How does the early-game progression work?

Do new players receive a 4× earnings multiplier?

What does every figure on the Empire screen mean?

Why do my treasury, hourly income, profile and ranking figures look different?

If the game refreshes less often, is my money or ownership still live?

Why did my hourly income fall or pause?

Are these real property prices or returns?

How do I find and manage a property I own?

How do the new property cards work?

How do I check where my money went?

When should I upgrade?

How do taxes, business rates and operating costs work?

What happens if I ignore maintenance or bills?

How do I buy from or sell to another player?

What are all the auction and offer rules?

How does the Deal Room work?

How do daily rewards, contracts, treats and celebrations work?

Exactly how do I claim the seven-day login reward?

Exactly how do Housing contracts and Tenant Viewing Rush work?

Exactly how do Police and Fire & Rescue contracts work?

Exactly how do Daily and Weekly contracts work?

How do friends, rivals and notifications work?

How does the notification bell work?

How do police, fire and attacks work?

What does a district service cost and protect?

How do airports and train stations make money?

What should I know before scheduling transport?

How do hotels, car parks and activity venues work?

How do local partnerships and footfall work?

How do markets, malls, airports and stations collect tenant rent?

How do Daily Deals, Worldwide Drops and Wildcards differ?

What should I do next?

How do streets, collections, events and rankings give me goals?

How do badges, sets and cosmetics work?

What is the difference between Fresh Start and Prestige?

Can I play on mobile, tablet and desktop?

Where are account, legal, admin and update controls?

How do currency, time zone, light mode and diagnostics settings work?

How do I contact Support, reply and attach a screenshot?

Exactly how do I report a game or map bug?

How do Steam sign-in and account linking work?

What can an administrator help with?

What should I do if an action appears stuck or the installed app looks old?

Map navigation and search

The Vector World map

Building scanning and fast property loading

Names and addresses

Correcting the real map

One shared ownership state

Purchasable property types

Income and offline earnings

Upgrades

Repairs, inspections and maintenance reserve