Support

Novarchy — a free hobby project

Something is broken, or someone is behaving badly

Write to support@novarchy.com. It is read by a person, not a queue.

Locked out of your empire

A guest account has no email and no password. The only key is a sign-in token kept by the browser or app you played in. That is exactly what stops anyone else walking into your empire by typing your commander name — and it is also why clearing your site data, reinstalling, changing device or signing out can leave you standing outside your own empire.

Two things to try, in this order:

• Open the game on a device you never signed out of. By far the best odds, and the key does not have to still be valid: the game trades an expired one for a fresh key by itself. An old phone, a tablet, a second browser — all worth trying before anything else.
  But do not wait. A guest empire that goes quiet is retired after about a month, and once the empire is gone the old key on that device has nothing left to open. The generous part — months, not hours, to come back — protects someone whose key ran out while they were still playing. It does not hold an empire open for a player who stopped.
• Sign in with Apple or Google — but only if you linked one to that empire while you still had access. That door opens the empire it was linked to. If you never linked one, it does not find your old empire and starts a new, empty one instead: it cannot open a door that was never fitted.

What signing up again does not do. If the game refuses your old commander name, that is not proof your empire is still there — the same refusal answers a name held by somebody else, and a name left behind by a player who renamed themselves. And if the name is accepted, that is not your empire coming back: a retired empire frees its name, so you would be founding a new and empty one wearing it. Either way, signing up here starts something new rather than reopening something old.

If neither route is open to you, write to support@novarchy.com and say what you remember of the empire. It is read by a person, who will tell you honestly whether anything can be done — but be prepared for the answer to be no. There is no automatic way back in, and an empire cannot be handed over on the strength of a name, because commander names are public and that single refusal is what protects everybody's empire, including yours.

Reporting a message in the game

Every message written by someone else has a ⋯ button. From there you can:

• Report the message — pick what is wrong with it. A human reads reports. Nothing disappears automatically because it was reported: if it did, three people who agreed could silence anyone.
• Block the author — their messages stop reaching you, immediately. It works only for you: it does not change what anyone else sees, and the person is not told. You can undo it any time from Blocked at the bottom of the chat.

House rules

Threats, harassment, slurs, sexual content involving minors, and spam are not welcome and will get an account removed. Rivalry, trash talk between empires and declared wars are the game — the line is the person behind the screen, not the character.

Deleting your account

Ask at support@novarchy.com and the account and its game data will be deleted. See the privacy page for what is stored.