Beyond automation
The engine
Every lane on this site runs through the same pass. It is worth understanding once.
Candidates
Every action that is legal right now.
shows its work
Decide
Score each by time taken off the goal.
shows its work
Arbitrate
Hand out what they compete for.
shows its work
Plan
Turn the winners into queue orders.
shows its work
Run
The only stage that touches the game.
The first four stages are pure functions of their input, so the decision exists separately from the doing — which is why the bot can tell you what it chose and why.
Goal: colony ship
Considered, and blocked
An illustration of what the Why column reports each pass — every candidate valued by the time it removes from this town's goal.
| Action | Time removed from goal |
|---|---|
| Build Harbour to 12 | −4h 10m |
| Accept market offer: 380 wood for 300 silver | −2h 55m |
| Research Cartography | −1h 20m |
| Claim 6 farm villages | −48m |
| Build Harbour to 14 | Warehouse too small · clears in 2h 10m |
| Recruit 8 biremes | Not enough population |
Five stages
Candidates, decide, arbitrate, plan, run. Candidates gathers every action that is currently legal. Decide scores each one by how much time it removes from the town's goal. Arbitrate hands out the things those actions compete for — resources, population, gold, favour, merchants. Plan turns the winners into queue orders. Run is the only stage that touches the game.
The first four are pure functions of their input, which is not an implementation detail you should have to care about except for one consequence: the bot can tell you exactly what it decided and why, because the decision exists separately from the doing.
Divide by the scarce thing
A score is a rate, and what matters is the denominator. Gold actions are scored per gold, favour actions per favour, culture per point, trades per merchant. Resources stay out of the denominator, because resources are what everything costs and dividing by them would make every action look the same.
Sixteen goals, and a custom editor
Fast start, starter, farming, coloniser, colony ship, economy, navy, attack fleet, military, attack army, defence army, support fleet, support army, pegasus support, town slot, culture. Six of them are offered first as a shortlist to a town that has nothing set. If none of them is what you want, the preset editor is there.
The Why pane
For each town: the ranked candidates with their value, the seconds saved, which queue they would occupy and how confident the estimate is — and underneath, the candidates that are currently illegal, with the thing blocking each one and the moment it clears.
What it does not do
- A beam-search lookahead exists, but as a forecasting tool. It is not in the acting path, and this page is not going to imply that it is.
The rest of what it automates
- FarmingClaims every farm village on its real cooldown, takes the trades worth taking, and keeps going while the tab is in the background. Free, no subscription.
- BuildingAuto build that raises what your town's goal needs next, including the warehouse and farm levels the game's own requirement tree never mentions.
- RecruitingKeeps the barracks and harbour working towards the army your goal needs, splitting a unit count into as many orders as the queue will really take.
- ResearchSpends academy points on the research your town's goal is waiting for, not on whatever is cheapest, and raises the Academy when the bill needs it.
- CultureRuns festivals, plays and victory processions towards your next town slot, choosing the celebration that pays and stopping once the slot is covered.
- QuestsCollects finished quest rewards across the whole account, and decides the daily login bonus rather than just taking it, so nothing sits uncollected.