Kingdoms: Founding & Progression

Status: Planned. The Kingdom era is the next major chapter of Roblade. This page describes its design; details will evolve as development progresses.

The Kingdom System is designed to turn mature personal territories into community-built societies. A kingdom begins with one player’s territory, but its growth is deliberately structured so that no amount of individual wealth can substitute for a real community. This page covers what a kingdom is, how one is founded, and how it progresses — or declines.

What a kingdom is — and is not

A kingdom is not simply a guild with a different name. It combines five elements:

Kingdom = Territory + Citizens + Infrastructure + Contribution + Economy

The central rule of the system: a strong individual player may found a settlement, but higher progression requires other players. This separates two achievements:

• Founding: proving that one territory is mature enough to become a capital;
• Growth: proving that a real community can organize, build and remain active over time.

In the intended experience, a founder creates the initial identity and provides the capital. Citizens then help the kingdom increase its active population, pledge Land, complete kingdom quests, contribute resources, construct public buildings, create trade activity, improve Beauty and prosperity, and participate in governance and events.

Just as important is what the Kingdom System should never become:

• a paid shortcut to maximum progression;
• a way for a founder to seize member assets;
• a list of inactive wallets counted as population;
• a treasury controlled without limits;
• a direct permissionless token-launch tool;
• a second interface disconnected from the visible world.

Kingdom progress should be visible through buildings, territory, residents and history — in the world itself, not only in menus.

Founding a kingdom

A kingdom begins with a mature personal territory. Final values will be determined through testing, but founding can require several categories of proof:

• a minimum player level;
• a minimum number of owned Land parcels;
• a connected core territory;
• multiple functional building types;
• sufficient territory development or prosperity;
• Gold and material costs;
• completion of a founding quest;
• construction of the Town Hall.

The founding sequence itself is designed to be a memorable moment:

1. The player qualifies for the Found a Kingdom quest.
2. The player selects an eligible connected core.
3. Required resources are committed.
4. A Town Hall is constructed in the capital area.
5. The founder chooses a name, banner and public description.
6. The new Settlement becomes visible in world and profile systems.

A founder can establish the first Settlement alone. The Settlement can have an identity, capital and recruitment page. However, it cannot progress indefinitely through founder spending alone: Town and Kingdom upgrades require active citizens, member Land, public construction and sustained participation.

Founding is responsibility, not ownership of people. The founder becomes the initial leader but does not own member assets. Founding grants administrative responsibility, not unlimited economic control. The guarantees behind that principle — including how members pledge Land without surrendering it — are detailed in Kingdoms: Citizens, Contribution & Governance.

Town Hall to Royal Hall

The kingdom’s administrative center evolves with its community, through three capability tiers.

Town Hall. The Town Hall begins as the center of a mature personal territory and early Settlement. Before the complete Kingdom System is available, it can already support a territory name and banner, Land and building statistics, Beauty and production summaries, visitor-facing information, and a shareable territory profile. When kingdom creation is enabled, the Town Hall becomes the place where the founder establishes and manages a Settlement.

Kingdom Hall. The Kingdom Hall represents a functioning player community. It can unlock expanded citizen capacity, Pledge Land management, public construction proposals, kingdom roles, public records, kingdom progression, and advanced profiles and rankings.

Royal Hall. The Royal Hall is reserved for mature kingdoms. It can support advanced governance, large public projects, kingdom specialization, alliance functions, treasury oversight, and access to late-stage economic systems — including eventual eligibility paths described in The Kingdom Launchpad.

Visually, each upgrade should remain recognizable as the same administrative lineage while becoming more public, ceremonial and complex. The building should look like a civic center before it looks like a military fortress.

From Estate to Empire

Kingdom progression should measure whether a community is real and sustainable. The proposed stages:

• Estate — a developed personal territory that has not yet become an official Settlement;
• Settlement — a founder has built the Town Hall and created the kingdom identity;
• Town — the community has active citizens, pledged member Land and its first public infrastructure;
• Kingdom — the society maintains stable population, trade, public construction and administration;
• Great Kingdom — the kingdom has significant influence, specialization and sustained participation;
• Empire — a large, mature player civilization connected to wider world systems.

Advancement is multi-dimensional. Progression can evaluate:

• Territory: eligible pledged Land and connected core area;
• Population: active rather than merely registered citizens;
• Prosperity: production, tasks and public activity;
• Trade: valid economic participation;
• Beauty: diversity, design and visitor recognition;
• Infrastructure: completed public buildings;
• Time: sustained operation across a minimum period.

Population deserves special care. A wallet should not count automatically; an active citizen can be required to complete multiple meaningful actions within a recent period. This reduces multi-wallet population farming.

And there are no instant empires. Even a resource-rich founder should need time and participation from other people. Kingdom progression is intended to prove organization, not only purchasing power. How trade activity is measured for these requirements — and protected against inflation — is covered in Kingdom Economy.

Decline, succession and dissolution

Kingdoms need rules for inactivity and failure. Otherwise the world eventually fills with abandoned organizations that still occupy names, rankings and territory associations.

Dormant status. A kingdom may enter Dormant status after sustained inactivity. Possible effects include: advanced bonuses pause; the kingdom leaves active rankings; new high-level projects cannot begin; citizens can start a revival objective; buildings and history remain visible. Dormancy is a pause, not an erasure — a community that returns can revive what it built.

Leadership succession. If the founder is inactive for a defined warning period:

1. officers or high-contribution citizens can trigger succession;
2. eligible members receive notice;
3. a protected selection or vote occurs;
4. a new leader receives administrative responsibility;
5. the original founder retains a historical Founder title.

This allows a healthy community to survive the departure of one person.

Dissolution. Dissolving a kingdom should require a formal proposal, a long notice period, suspension of new contributions, transparent handling of shared resources, automatic Land unpledging, and preservation of public history.

Above all, one guarantee holds through every kingdom process: decline, succession or dissolution must never transfer member Land to another player. Whatever happens to the kingdom, each member’s ownership survives it. The full ownership guarantees behind pledged Land are described in Kingdoms: Citizens, Contribution & Governance.