Sooner or later, if you live in a country with enemies, it may be your town that falls. An attacker beats your defence, survives the battle, and settles in as your occupier. It is an unwelcome feeling, but it is not the end of the world, and it is certainly not the end of your town. This lesson is about being on the receiving end: how you learn you have been occupied, what it costs you, and how you begin the work of throwing the invader out. Losing a battle is a setback, not a defeat - the story is only over if you let it be.
The warning is always visible
You will never be occupied without knowing it. Whenever a foreign force holds your town, a small panel appears in the left-hand menu on every page, sitting just above the rotating adverts, telling you plainly that your town is occupied and by whom. It follows you everywhere in the game precisely so you cannot miss it - there is no digging through menus to discover your predicament. The moment you are taken, that panel lights up, and it stays lit until you are free. Consider it your standing reminder that there is work to be done.
For the full picture you go to your My town page, which shows your town from a war standpoint. If you are free, it simply shows your home defence and reassures you that no foreign troops hold you. If you are occupied, it names your occupier, lists the enemy force sitting in your town with its total strength, and gives you the panel to fight back. This is your war room - the place you come to understand exactly what you are up against and to launch your counterstroke when you are ready.
While occupied, you pay the 10 percent tax
For as long as the enemy holds you, a tenth of everything your town produces - gold, resources, goods - flows to your occupier instead of staying with you. Every hour you remain occupied is an hour of tribute paid to someone else. That steady drain is the real cost of occupation, and it is your incentive to act rather than shrug and carry on. The sooner you free yourself, the sooner you keep your full production again.
You can still train troops under occupation
Here is the crucial thing that makes fighting back possible: being occupied does not shut down your town. Your buildings still run, your academy still works, and you can keep training soldiers even while the enemy sits on your ground. This is exactly how you claw your way free. An occupied town is not a conquered ruin - it is a town under pressure that can still arm itself. So the response to occupation is not despair; it is production. You put your academy to work, build up a fresh garrison, and prepare to hit the occupier with everything you can muster.
And there is one more gift the defender holds that we met last lesson: your town's happiness is the clock on your occupier's life. Every occupying soldier lives only as long as your town sustains them, so even if you cannot immediately raise a force to fight, time is quietly on your side - a garrison abroad is always dying, slowly, and yours is no exception. You can wait them out, or you can hurry them along with a fight of your own. Which brings us to the counterattack, the free and satisfying business of liberation, which is where this chapter ends. Next we learn exactly how to throw the enemy off your ground.