A server patch on top of v0.992. Every industry now sells under a brand, and the money a brand earns is split between the company that carried it, the company whose name is on it and the stakeholders who made it. The Industrialist trades half its development nodes for dividend nodes and its Trusts for Specialisations. The rail AI stops building depots on a bend. A full guide to how brands work is below.
Development is capped at 500%, and a committed Industrialist reached that ceiling early in a session, so the back half of an industry build bought nothing at all. Half the board's industrial development nodes now raise industry dividends instead, which is what every stake you hold pays you each month and has no ceiling to run into. 24 nodes of each, same cost, same place on the board. Your class lifts both: the Industrialist's 30% now covers development and dividends alike. A full build reaches +95% development and +86% dividends where it used to reach development alone.
Industrial Trusts are now Industrial Specialisations, and they reward repetition rather than sprawl. Every industry of the same type you serve beyond the first gives all of them +10% development speed and +10% dividends. Four coal mines run at +30% each, eight oil wells at +70%. Each Specialisation you hold lets one more works of that type count, so the crowns set your ceiling and your network fills it. Industrialists hold three from level one and reach six.
What that replaces: a Trust used to give every industry across your whole HQ region +25% output and double development, up to +150% on a district. That was the overgrowth, and it is off. An industry window now names the leading stakeholder's dividend percentage beside their income, so the bonus is visible where it is earned.
An industry's output now carries the brand of its leading stakeholder: among the companies holding a development stake in it, the one whose stake weighs most once Brand Influence is applied. It is settled by those numbers rather than by a roll, so a multiplier on other people's income never changes hands at random. An industry nobody has developed sells unbranded. Passengers and mail work differently: they carry the brand of whoever moves them, so any class can build a name on people.
A brand has three numbers. Awareness climbs every month its product moves, and a sole seller reaches 100% in about 10 years while a half share takes twice that. Share is your part of that cargo's branded traffic. Prestige lifts the result by +10% per crown. Brand value is up to 400% of a unit's worth, and your house brand, the average of your top three products, opens every new product at 50% of it, so an established name does not start from nothing.
Every branded unit moved creates a pot: the unit's value times the brand value. The pot is divided on the 15th of each month.
A power station, water tower or bank is the middleman between the carrier and the customer, so it resells: its own stakeholders take a further 20% markup of its brand value on everything it consumes. A sink ships nothing, so its brand rides the cargo it is fed. Brand income counts as market profit on the rankings.
The Magnate's four Treasury Bond crowns are now Brand Prestige crowns, each adding +10% to every brand value you hold, with three built in from level one. A full build carries 7 of them, worth +70%. Two of its cost relief clusters became brand awareness and brand influence talents at the same point values, since cost relief was capped anyway and a maxed Magnate still reaches the 60% relief cap. Bond interest now comes only from the Open Exchange charter. The research page gained a Brand category: Influence, Prestige and one awareness track per cargo on the map.
A brand is a company and a cargo. There is nothing to found and nothing to name: the first month your company moves a cargo that belongs to it, a brand exists on that cargo, and from then on it grows or fades on its own. You can hold a brand on every cargo you touch, and each one is worth a different amount.
Who owns an industry's output. Every company holding a development
stake in an industry is in the contest for its name, and the winner is the
one whose stake weighs most once Brand Influence is applied:
stake x (100 + influence).
| Company | Stake | Influence | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| You | 100 pts | +50% | 150 |
| A rival | 140 pts | none | 140 |
The smaller stake wins, because influence weighed it. A tie goes to the larger raw stake, then to the lower company number, never to a roll. The contest is settled again every month from the stakes as they stand, so a name can change hands without anyone building anything new.
Passengers and mail are different. No industry makes them, so there is no stake to contest: they carry the brand of whoever moves them. Any class can build a name on people, and it costs nothing but the route.
Awareness is how well known the brand is, from 0% to 100%. It climbs only in the months your product actually moves, and it climbs by your share of that cargo's branded traffic, so the market decides how fast your name spreads.
| Your position | Share | Awareness / month | To 100% |
|---|---|---|---|
| You are the only company moving it | 100% | +0.83 | 121 months |
| You move half of it | 50% | +0.41 | 244 months |
| You move a quarter of it | 25% | +0.20 | 500 months |
| Only company, maxed awareness talents | 100% | +1.24 | 81 months |
A month in which nothing moves costs you 0.83 points, the same rate a sole seller gains at, so a brand you stop serving fades in the time it took to build. Awareness is the slow half of a brand on purpose: it is the part nobody can buy in an afternoon.
Share is your units over every branded unit of that cargo on the map, averaged across three months so one quiet month cannot collapse it. Output from industries nobody has developed is unbranded and belongs to nobody, so it never appears in that total.
Prestige is a crown, like an Exchange Seat. Each one adds +10% to every brand value you hold at once, so it is the only one of the three that pays off across your whole portfolio rather than one cargo at a time.
What a brand is worth is those three together:
400% x awareness x share, then lifted by
prestige.
| Awareness | Share | Prestige | Brand value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100% | 100% | +0% | 400% |
| 100% | 50% | +0% | 200% |
| 50% | 100% | +0% | 200% |
| 25% | 100% | +0% | 100% |
| 100% | 100% | +70% | 680% |
Awareness and share multiply, so half of either halves the result. A brand nobody knows is worth nothing however much of the market it holds, and a famous name on a cargo you barely carry is worth just as little.
What that pays. Take 100 units of coal worth 200 each, moved under a brand at +200%. The units are worth 20,000 of ordinary haulage, and the brand creates a pot on top of it:
| Share of the pot | Money | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| The pot | 40,000 | 20,000 of cargo at +200% |
| Carrier, 60% | 24,000 | the carrier's own vehicle revenue line |
| Owner, 20% | 8,000 | a royalty, or the vehicle line if the owner carried it |
| Makers, 20% | 8,000 | the mine's stakeholders, divided by stake |
Paid on the 15th of each month, on the pickups the month's settlement recorded. Carry your own brand and you take the first two shares together, 80% of the pot, and your stake takes part of the third. Nothing is minted: the three shares are the pot.
A sink resells. A power station, water tower or bank stands between the carrier and the customer, so it takes a markup of its own: its stakeholders share a further 20% of its brand value on everything it consumes. A sink ships nothing, so its brand is measured on the cargo it is fed, which means your reputation in coal is what your power stations trade on. This is the one share added on top rather than divided out of the pot.
Your house brand is the average awareness of your best three products, and every product that moves opens at 50% of it. Three well known cargoes therefore make your fourth cheap to start, which is why breadth compounds late in a session even though each brand starts slowly.
Building one. Take a cargo few companies carry, so your share is high from the first month and awareness climbs at the top of the table. Then keep moving it: the clock only runs in months the product moves, and it runs backwards in months it does not. Develop the industry as well as hauling from it, because the stake is what puts your name on the output and pays you the makers' share.
Taking one. There are two ways at a rival's brand. Haul the same cargo, which takes share directly and slows their awareness while it grows yours. Or develop the same industry and out-weigh their stake, which takes the name outright and leaves their awareness intact but attached to nothing. Influence is what makes the second cheap.
Where the talents are. The Magnate's wedge holds 5 brand awareness nodes, 5 brand influence nodes and 4 Brand Prestige crowns, and Magnates start with three of the crowns. A full Magnate build carries +49% awareness growth, +67% influence and 7 Prestige. The research page's Brand category adds +4% influence and +4% prestige per level, plus one awareness track per cargo on the map at +10% per level. Every class can take all of it; the Magnate simply gets more from each point.
Every industry window names the brand it sells under and why, with the stake and the influence behind it. A sink also names the cargo its brand is measured on. Your book gained Your Brands: what each of your brands is worth, who carries it, your rank on that cargo, and what it paid you split between your own vehicles and royalties. The global book gained The Brands, which ranks every company by brand power, lists the strongest brands on the map and gives the leader, the challenger and the traffic on every cargo. The balance sheet now separates market bonus from brand income, with all four shares on their own line.