Banking

The bank keeps your gold safe and earns interest. Gold in the bank cannot be taken by pirates or raids.

• Deposit — move gold from your treasury into the bank.
• Withdraw — move gold from the bank back to your treasury.
• Cash Relief / Loans — borrow gold, or pay back a loan that is due.

A deposit or withdrawal moves only what fits under the limit below. The investments that pay back on any one date may return at most two billion gold between them, so the bank offers only what still fits for the date you choose. You may open as many investments as you like.

Interest is paid at the end of every turn, on whatever is in the bank at that moment. While Deposit gold at End of Turn is on in Preferences (a new realm starts with it on), your gold is put in the bank first, so the gold you earned this turn earns interest this turn. It goes in after the pirates have had their chance at it, so it is no protection against a raid.

The start of your next turn tells you what the bank paid: the interest, and your share of the investments that matured today.

You can hold at most two billion gold, in hand and the same again in the bank. Gold you earn above that is lost. Spend it before you get there.

A full bank still pays its interest, into your gold in hand rather than the bank. Once both are full, it goes nowhere.

The game tells you when gold is lost this way. Your event log names the amount and where it came from.

Cash Relief / Loans

When you borrow, you first pick how many days you have to pay it back (1 to 10). A longer term has a higher daily interest rate, and the interest builds up each day (it compounds), so a long loan costs much more in total. The bank tells you the rate and the most it will lend you, then you choose how much to take.

From the due date, the bank takes a payment from your gold in hand at the start of each turn you play, until the loan is paid. Each payment is a share of what you owe, so a full day of turns pays nearly all of it. The bank never takes gold from your savings. If you have no gold, you pay nothing that turn.

Whatever is still unpaid at the end of the day grows, by more than the bank's interest rates, and the payments go on the next day. So keep gold in hand when a loan comes due, or pay it off early from Cash Relief.

Investments

You can lock gold away as an investment for 2 to 10 days. It pays back your gold plus interest when it matures. The bank pays it out over that day, an equal part at the start of each turn you play. If you do not play all your turns, the rest is paid on the next day, rounded down to a whole thousand gold. The interest rate floats — it rises and falls with how much everyone is investing — so check the rate before you commit. A common tactic is to keep several investments running at once, each for a different length, so one matures every day.