Resources: You control a sum of money (the coin of the realm is the Dinar) and a supply of the six resource types in the game (Food, Wood, Iron, Stone, Silver, and Rubies). You earn resources from your buildings, and you can spend them in various ways (see below).

Turns: You gain 2 turns per hour of real-world time, for a total of 48 turns per day. You can spend your turns collecting resources from your buildings (see below) or building new buildings. You can only accumulate up to 96 unused turns, so plan accordingly.

Object and Scoring: You have two goals. One is to become one of the Sultan's trusted advisors. You can do this by holding offices in the Sultan's court and by making extravagant gestures in his honor (see Titles and Extravagant Gestures sections below). To become a trusted advisor, you need to acquire 7 levels of favor. Each title you hold is worth one level per day that you hold it. Each Extravagant Gesture is worth 5 levels when you make it. Trust levels are shown as scimitars on the player ranking list, and Trusted Advisors are indicated with a flower.

The second goal is to score points by pleasing the Sultan. There are three ways to do this - give him gifts of goods, assume positions of power in the Sultan's court, and make extravagant gestures of obsequious toadyism. During the game, you will amass various resources (Food, Wood, Iron, Stone, Silver, and Rubies) and the currency of the realm (Dinars). All will be useful in garnering favor with the Sultan. The following options are available on the Sultan's Court page:

• Gifts - You may give gifts to the Sultan to increase your standing. Each gift you give will earn you a number of points determined by (1) what type of gift you give and (2) how much you give. The Sultan is a busy man, so you are limited to 3 total gifts per day. You may postpone your giving and store up your gift opportunities, but you may only accumulate 6 unused gifts.
• Titles - You may try to convince the Sultan to award you positions of power in his court. To do this, you offer the Sultan a bribe inducement small token of your loyalty. The Sultan decides on who gets what title at the start of each day based on who has offered him the most for that title. Different titles require different types of offers (e.g. becoming the Minister of Construction requires an offer of Wood, while becoming the Treasurer of the Realm requires Silver). If, on a given day, no player offers more than the current titleholder offered to get the title, this player will retain the title for the new day. Every day a player holds a title, he or she is granted a sum of points depending on the importance of the title. If you make an offer for a title, but another player offers more, the other player gets the title, and you lose your offer - the Sultan is in the business of amassing wealth, not redistributing it. If two players offer the same amount for a title, the player who made the earlier offer will get the title.
• Land Auction - Similar to the titles above, there is also a daily land auction. The Sultan will give out 3 new acres of land each day to the highest bidders (one acre each). This is the only way to increase your number of buildings. Non-winning bids are retained by the Sultan as gifts, so beware.

ON THE FLIGHTY TASTE OF DESPOTS:

The Sultan generally grants you more points for more valuable gifts, as follows: Good Value of Minor Gift (50 units) Value of Major Gift (500 units) Food 10 150 Wood 20 300 Iron 30 450 Stone 30 450 Silver 50 750 Rubies 100 1500 However, if the Sultan receives a great many of the same kind of gift, he will become bored with that item, and if he receives hardly any of one type, he will prize it more highly. Thus, the values for gifts can change. They may be up to 30% higher or lower than the values above on any given day, based on what the Sultan received on the previous two days. The most common gifts will have a reduced value, and the least common an increased value.

• Extravagant Gestures - Gifts of regular goods are fine, but sometimes you really want to make an impact, particularly when the Sultanate is on the line. There are 15 different unique deeds or gifts you may make to impress the Sultan. Each is expensive, and each is worth a significant number of points. Each gesture is unique and may be made only once per game - the Sultan prizes originality, not mimicry. The first player to provide the necessary resources for the gesture is rewarded, and that deed is unavailable for the rest of the game. Score values and costs are listed below and on the Extravagant Gestures page.

The Winner - The winner of the game (and the new Sultan) is the Trusted Advisor with the highest score. If there are no Trusted Advisors, the winner is the player with the highest overall score. If any player is a Trusted Advisor, then no player who is not a Trusted Advisor can win, even if he or she has the highest game score.

Economics: In addition to currying favor with the Sultan, you have your personal fortune to manage. You control a sum of money (Dinars) and a supply of the six resource types in the game (Food, Wood, Iron, Stone, Silver, and Rubies). You can spend your resources on (1) gifts or offers to the Sultan as described above, or (2) constructing buildings. You may also try to sell or buy resources on the open market.

• Buildings - You may use your resources to construct buildings. Each building has a different set of resource requirements to build, and each building will produce a different type of resource as the game progresses as indicated below. These options are available on the Builders' Guild page:
  
  

  Building	Cost	Income
  Farms	40 wood 10 iron 10 stone	10 Food
  Lumberyards	50 iron 50 stone	5 Wood
  Iron Works	50 wood 100 stone	3 Iron
  Quarries	100 wood 100 iron	3 Stone
  Silver Mines	100 wood 100 iron 100 stone	2 Silver
  Ruby Mines	200 wood 200 iron 200 stone	1 Rubies
  Taverns	100 food 30 wood 10 stone 10 silver	3 Dinars
  Bazaars	50 food 50 wood 50 iron 50 stone 50 silver 10 rubies	20 Dinars

  
  Each building will produce its allotment of resources once for every turn you spend collecting them. Constructing a building takes one turn. You start with 30 acres of land, and you may only construct one building per acre, so choose carefully what to build. You may destroy buildings and build different ones if your needs change, but you receive none of the resources back when you destroy a building. You may also bid once a day for more land from the Sultan through the land auction.
  BUILDING CLOSING:Your buildings will eventually use up the supplies you have provided and close down. When this happens, you can either rebuild the building or do something else with the land. Buildings last for about 250 turns of production.
  NOTE: If you pick Collect Revenue Five Times, you will get the full five turns of revenue for all your buildings, even if one of your buildings would have closed down during the five turns. So, there is a slight advantage to collecting five turns at once rather than just one turn - it could preserve your building for a few extra turns.
• The Marketplace - You may find you have more of a particular resource than you need, or you may find you need more than you have. If so, visit the marketplace, where you can list items for sale and buy items that others have listed. In the marketplace, click on the resource names to change which resource you are viewing.
  • SELLING GOODS: When you offer items up for sale, you specify a quantity and a price per item. Your resources are deducted from your total and listed on the market. Buyers can only buy whole lots - they cannot buy just part of your listing. Sellers may not list more than 5 lots of a particular resource for sale at one time.
  • REQUESTING GOODS: You may also make an offer to buy any of the resources at a set price. You specify a quantity and a price per item. The total offer amount is temporarily deducted from your supply of Dinars and listed in the requests section of the marketplace. If another player accepts your offer, you will get the specified items and your dinars will be paid to that player. Sellers can only fulfill your entire request - they cannot grant you just part of your request. You may not request more than 5 lots of a particular resource at one time.
  The market sales transactions are instantaneous and irrevocable, so be sure you can spare what you are selling and can afford what you are buying. If circumstances change or prices vary, you can recover your listed items or your requests by clicking on your own listing. You are then free either use the resources or dinars yourself or re-list them with a different price or quantity. All of these options are available on the Marketplace page.

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  THE CASE OF THE MEDDLING POTENTATE:

  The Sultan pays attention to the marketplace, and if a sales listing is very attractive, he may step in and conduct the transaction himself. If the price offered for goods is very high, he may sell the goods to the buyer himself; if it is very low, he may buy the goods himself. He may choose to act on any transaction, whether a sales listing or a request for goods. If you are muscled out of a transaction by the Sultan, you retain your goods or dinars, and the transaction is carried out between the Sultan and the other player.