Free city

Free cities are cities that do not belong to any empire. Player empires can declare war on neutral Free Cities to conquer them, which will lower the empire's alignment by 5. Making peace with a Free City costs  Gold. You may find Free City armies occupying certain nodes in the world: If you bring an army led by a hero to them, and you are on good terms, they will offer to leave in exchange for  Imperium.

Communication channels

Empires may give Free Cities one of their Whispering Stones, which will slowly improve  Allegiance with a Free City.

Depending on  Allegiance, an empire may have the following relations with a Free City:

	Relations	Allegiance	Effect
	Neutral	-11 to 22
	Pact of Cooperation	12 to 27	Opens borders Enables trading with up to two resource trades
	Pact of Loyalty	27 to 44	Shares vision Allows building on claimed provinces Contributes by 2 to Rally of the Lieges Reinforces in combat against Marauders and empires the Free City is at war with
	Pact of Vassalage	45	Vassalage

Vassalage

Once an empire reaches 45  Allegiance with a Free City, the city will become a Vassal and allegiance will change back to 0. Vassals reinforce their liege in combat against all enemies, though an overlord cannot use their vassal's teleporters. A Free City can only be a Vassal to a single empire. Vassals also provide additional benefits scaling with their  Allegiance.

Vassalage	Allegiance	Income shared	Rally of the Lieges contribution	Trading costs	Shares magic materials	Enables integration
Denying Tributary	-100 to -80	0%	0	+100%
Minor Tributary	-80 to -40	10%	1	+50%
Tributary	-40 to -10	20%	2	+25%
Vassalage	-10 to 10	30%	2	0
Bonded Vassalage	10 to 40	40%	3	-10%
Flourishing Vassalage	40 to 80	45%	4	-15%
Supreme Vassalage	80 to 100	50%	5	-20%

Relationship

The amount of  Allegiance yielded every turn by a  Whispering Stone is affected by your relationship with the free city. Your relationship can be increased through regular interactions, like establishing trade treaties or recruiting heroes from that city (+50 each), or through special events.

Relationship	Score	Allegiance modifier
Hostile	<= -600	-5
Suspicious	-599 to -400	-3
Cautious	-399 to -200	-1
Indifferent	-199 to 199	0
Respectful	200 to 399	+1
Trusting	400 to 599	+3
Friendly	>= 600	+5

Releasing your own cities

Cities belonging to an empire may be released for a refund of 100  Imperium. This can be useful if you are over your City Cap. This process may be started from the City Information panel, which is accessed by clicking the cog icon in the city management interface. Under the Settings tab, you will find the option to "Release as Vassal City". The reward for releasing a city means that founding a free city from ruins costs no  Imperium, and that reanimating city ruins effectively trades  Souls for  Imperium.

Releasing a city as a vassal will take as many turns as the city has tiers: A city with a third tier town hall will take three turns to release, while a newly created city will only take one. Players cannot set production or draft for a city that is being released, but their automated governor may still take these actions as it sees fit.

Once released, the free city will be your vassal and your diplomatic state will be determined by its former  Stability. A "Stable" city will start with a "Vassalage" bond, but an "Unstable" one would become a "Tributary".

Due to a bug in v1.002.004, Free Cities created in this way will not behave like the ones created on map generation. This stunts their development and prevents them from launching raids against players they may be at war with.