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The map has two scales. Up close, it’s a patchwork of holdings — the individual parcels you claim and defend one campaign at a time (see Conquering Land). Pull back, and the land resolves into Kingdom Regions: large, named provinces that whole courts compete to rule. This page is about that larger scale — what a province is, how a court comes to fly its banner over one, and how a province changes hands.

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What a Kingdom Region is

A Kingdom Region is a province — a fixed, named area of the real-world map, sitting above the level of any single holding. Each one is drawn from a real district or neighbourhood and given a feudal name, so Riverside becomes something like Rossford March on your war map. Two things are true of every province, and they’re the key to the whole system:
  • It never moves or changes shape. A province is a stable polygon on the map, exactly like a territory — a fixed arena with permanent borders.
  • What changes is who controls it. The borders hold still; the banner flying over them does not.
Provinces exist whether or not anyone rules them. An unclaimed province is simply named on the map, waiting for a court to plant its ground inside and take control. You don’t create a province by running there — you win one that’s already on the map.

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How a court controls a province

A court controls a province the same plain way it earns anything in Ashenmarch: by holding the most ground. Specifically — whichever court’s members together own the largest share of protected, defended land inside the province’s borders controls it. Only real, held ground counts: ghosted and undefended land does not. Add up every member’s protected holdings that fall inside the boundary, compare courts, and the biggest share rules.
It’s a plurality, not a majority — you need only more than any other single court, not more than everyone combined. And it takes just two court-mates with holdings inside the borders to claim control, so a small, local court can absolutely rule its home ground. (The exact member floor is a tuned value — see the reference.)
Notice what this is not: there is no separate province battle, no siege timer, no “attack the region” button. A province is won purely by the aggregate of ground held inside it. You take a province by out-claiming and out-defending your rivals across its streets — the same running you already do — and the province follows.

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The province fortification field

Controlling a province isn’t just a badge. It hands the ruling court a real, standing advantage: a province-wide fortification field. Normally your campaigns only reinforce the specific holdings you run through. But once your court controls a province, that expands: a member’s campaign anywhere inside the province’s borders reinforces your court’s land throughout it — not just the parcels directly underfoot. It’s presence-based, with no button to press. Simply marching within the province you rule strengthens your court’s grip on it. This is why courts pool their dominion (see House & Court): every member running inside a province the court holds is defending all of it at once.
The Court Seal item temporarily boosts this field, so a province your court controls reinforces even harder while the Seal is active. It’s the one item that acts at province scale — see the Armoury.

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When a province is contested — and when it flips

Because control is just “who holds the most,” it can change hands the moment the ledger tips.
  • Contested means two courts are neck-and-neck — the leader’s share is only narrowly ahead, one good week of claims from changing hands. On the map, a contested province wears a distinct, unsettled treatment instead of a single court’s colour. (The margin that counts as “narrow” is a tuned value; think roughly a tenth of the province as an illustration — the live figure lives in the reference.)
  • Control flips the instant a rival court overtakes the leading share. There’s no capture ceremony to defend and no timer to run out — out-hold the current ruler, and the province is yours.
When control does change, the Herald sends a dispatch to both courts — the one that took the province and the one that lost it. It’s a genuine capture moment, and a shareable one.
Worked example — taking a province. Thornfield March holds 90,000 m² of protected player land. House Draven’s court owns 40,000 m² of it; your two-member court owns 35,000 m². You’re contested — close behind, and the map shows it. One strong week of claims inside the borders pushes your court to 45,000 m², and control flips without a single siege: the province washes into your court’s colour, and both Heralds carry the news. From that moment, any member’s campaign anywhere inside Thornfield March fortifies your court’s land there.(Figures illustrative — authoritative values are in the reference.)

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Whose banner flies — the on-map region label

When you pull the map back to frame a whole province, it should answer one question at a glance: whose is this? So a controlled province flies its ruler’s banner at its heart:
  • Controlled — the province’s ground washes faintly in the ruling court’s colour, its border drawn in that same colour, with the ruling house’s name and colour chip set at the province centre, beneath the province name. That’s your at-a-glance “ruled by.”
  • Contested — no single ruler, so no house line: the centre reads ”⚔ Contested” and the border is drawn unsettled. Two courts are fighting over it.
  • Unclaimed — just the province’s name, quietly. Nobody rules it yet.
This ownership label belongs to the region-framing view. As you zoom down into the streets, it fades away so your own crests and your rivals’ hold the map — down among individual parcels, per-holding ownership carries the story and a big province banner would only clutter it. Zoom back out, and the banner returns.

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Where this sits

Kingdom Regions are the macro layer of the map. Everything else stacks beneath them:

Conquering Land

Your personal holdings — the claimed, defended ground that adds up, parcel by parcel, into a court’s share of a province.

House & Court

Courts are what hold provinces. Band together, pool your dominion, and climb the court leaderboard.
The court leaderboard is ranked by provinces controlled first — conquest is the headline, so the court flying the most banners leads the ladder. Combined territory area is only the tiebreaker. Raw acreage is nice; ruling the realm’s provinces is the scoreboard. You’ll find the court board on the Leaderboard screen, alongside your personal city board.
A province is won by aggregate held ground, never by a separate fight. If you and your court-mates simply keep claiming and defending inside a province’s borders — the ordinary work of the game — the region tips your way on its own. Conquest at the largest scale is the sum of your smallest runs.
Question not answered here? Ask on Discord or email support@ashenmarch.com. Game values in this guide (margins, member floors, timers) reflect current live settings and may be tuned over time — the Game Reference is refreshed when they change.