Match phases

Phase	What happens
Prep	The lobby. There's no countdown. Ready appears once all slots are full (a bot fills a slot). The match starts when every human has tapped it. Bots don't tap Ready. Training skips this phase: joining starts the match.
Running	The match is live.
Paused	A 3-minute opening pause. The world clock freezes, so you can build and assign routes while traders stand still. There is one pause per match. Training skips it.
Ended	Scores are locked and the highest wealth wins. On a standard-length match, a signed-in 1st place earns 50 PZR if a human rival built a market, or 10 against bots (1st place only). Other lengths pay in proportion, rounded down. Against humans, 2nd–4th place get 30% / 15% / 5%. Training pays nothing. See Profile, PZR, leaderboard.

Exact timers come from the live match rules in the Lobby.

Waves

During the match, timed waves shift demand and prices. This match's times and effects are shown on the Lobby wave card (i). The defaults are:

W1 — houses and repair yards demand more
W2 — rice and wheat base prices rise ×1.3; trade houses and estates demand more
W3 — demand for silk clothes and furniture spikes; trade houses and furniture halls demand more

Each wave can also raise producer output for specific goods (GAME_WAVEn_PROD_GOODS, GAME_WAVEn_PROD_MULT). An empty list changes nothing. The live effects appear on the same Lobby card.

Economy events

Separate from waves (and from temporary timed shocks like crop failure). Once per match, around GAME_EVENT_DYE_PRODUCTION_SEC (default 12 minutes of running time), a permanent economy event fires: unlock a craft good + recipe, remap some consumers, spawn neutral dye workshops. Which event fires depends on the map (see Rooms and invites):

Han lands — dye_production: unlocks 🧣 dyed silk; trade houses and estates switch from 👘 silk clothes
Arabian sands — dyed_carpets (~12m): unlocks 🧶 dyed carpets; riads and bazaars switch from plain carpets. indian_steel (~18m): unlocks 🗡️ damascus blades; existing weapons workshops retool; garrisons switch from weapons
Roman roads — purple_dye: unlocks 🟣 purple cloth; villas and forums switch from togas

Training (tutorial) uses the Han dye event. The Lobby map blurb under What’s on this map names that map’s mid-match change.

Timed shocks

Separate from waves and from the permanent dye unlocks above. Each match draws 2–3 temporary events from a pool (not on Training). They fire at random times inside fixed windows, scale with match length, and expire on their own. The map banner shows the title while one is active.

Examples: crop failure (food production stops), war (weapons demand doubles), mine collapse (ore and copper production stop), fair (pottery and hemp-clothes demand doubles). Opening pause time does not count toward their clocks.