The Announcements Phase
Announcements is the first of the seven phases of each round — the phase where the world acts before the players do. In it the Wrath of God is measured, the invaders move, events fall on the land, and titles change hands.
A phase that almost always passes on its own
In most rounds you do nothing in this phase: it resolves automatically and the result arrives as a notification in the bell instead of interrupting play with a window.
It only stops and waits when someone owes a decision. There are four:
- Prophet’s decision — choosing where the events and the invaders strike;
- King election vote — while an election is running and you still have a vote to cast;
- Judge appointment — when a vacant title can be filled by you;
- King succession — when the king has died and it falls to you to choose the successor.
In those cases the turn will not end until the action is completed. The matching window opens on its own, but it can be closed: a button appears on the bottom bar (🗳 Vote, ⚖ Appoint Judge, 👁 Foresee) to reopen it whenever you like.
What the phase resolves, in order
1. The Wrath of God is reconciled
The meter adds up everything logged during the previous round: mercenaries hired, assassinations, lootings, prophets killed, taxations. That is why the cup always rises one round behind the act that filled it.
This is also where the pressure that paces the game comes in: while at least one settlement of Israel or Judah is still in Canaanite hands, the Wrath rises +1 per round — one point per round, not one per settlement. Leaving the Canaanites in the promised land grows expensive over time.
If the meter reaches 13, a judgement is declared and the meter resets to zero.
2. The invaders move
If there are Canaanite invader pairs on the board, they teleport to the next settlement around the board’s ring, skipping razed settlements and ones already besieged, and laying siege to the settlement they arrive at. (On the default difficulty of 1 pair per wave they all circle clockwise; with 2 pairs per wave the second circles counterclockwise.) An undefended settlement (no garrison, no generals) is razed on arrival, with no battle.
If the round brought a judgement, a new pair enters the board here.
3. The Anointed is crowned
A non-captive general carrying the **Anointed** is crowned King automatically, before any election runs — and that coronation takes precedence over a pending succession.
4. The previous round’s events expire
Terrain events last one round. Last round’s cards are discarded here — that is how a Sandstorm stops sealing the desert, even when no new event is announced.
5. The new events fall on the land
Each card in the Events Area is rolled onto a terrain with a six-sided die — 1-2 plain, 3-4 mountains, 5-6 desert — and the Sandstorm always lands in the desert. No two cards share a terrain: the newer one displaces the older, which is discarded.
The Plague resolves on the spot, rolling against every garrison and every general on the struck terrain. Abundance and Hunger stay in force for the Income phase, and the Sandstorm seals the desert for the round.
If a prophet is in play, the distribution waits for their owner, who picks each card’s terrain instead of the dice. With several prophets, the deciding owner is the one last in the round’s turn order.
The King election
When two or more eligible judges are in play and no king reigns, an election runs every Announcements phase.
- Each judge title grants its owner one vote, and each general carrying the Prophet grants an extra one.
- You may vote for any non-captive judge, including your own.
- Only judges can be candidates; prophets vote but cannot be elected.
- A strict plurality wins. A tie for first crowns no one, and the election runs again the following round.
Everyone gets a notification with the per-candidate tally. A general with the Anointed skips the election entirely: they are crowned outright.
Vacant titles and succession
When a general holding a Judge title dies, the title does not disappear: it falls vacant. In the next Announcements phase it is filled — by the king, if one reigns, who grants it to a non-captive general (of another player or of his own tribe); with no king, the title’s owner fills it, choosing one of their own generals.
If a vacant title cannot be filled by anyone eligible, it is simply postponed to the following round — it never blocks anybody’s turn.
When the king dies, an heir carrying the Anointed is crowned automatically; with no heir, his player chooses the successor among their own generals in this phase.
Eliminations
A player who has lost every settlement and every free general is eliminated at Check Victory, and the elimination is announced in the following Announcements phase. From then on their turns are skipped and their board disappears from the Players panel.
The report
Everything resolved — dice rolls, terrains struck, plague victims, invader arrivals and razings, the election result — becomes an Announcements notification for every surviving player, reachable from the bell at any time.