Round and ranking questions

Short answers to what players often ask about rounds and rankings. For the whole story, see Rounds, Rankings and records and Career points.

A round is one game of 70 days in real time. Everyone starts from scratch, and the company with the highest Company Value when it ends wins. It ends exactly 70 days after it starts, at the same time of day, and only one round runs at a time. The top bar shows which day it is: the day the round starts is Day 0 (Game time and updates).

A new round is normally scheduled as soon as one ends, to start on the first Sunday at least 7 days later. Between rounds, Next round in the menu counts down to the start and shows how your last round went. Switch on the New rounds e-mail under Settings to be told when it starts.

Yes. You can found a company on any day of a running round, right up to its end, and every new company gets the same starting money whenever it joins. The Start your company page shows which day of the round it is. Bear in mind that the bank lends nothing in the last 7 days, and no loan may run past the end of the round (Loans).

Not quite. Each round has its own cities, from 10 to 20: the more companies played in the last round, the more cities. Depending on the round, the map and the currency differ, distances are in kilometres or miles, the vehicles include ships or trains, and some rounds have a weekly wealth tax (Taxes and bonuses).

Forty minutes before the end every company pays its staff, and ten minutes before the end the last dividends are paid. Then every company is settled: waiting orders are refunded, goods still on the market are taken off it unsold, zones are cashed in for what selling them would bring and every share is sold to the bank. What is left in your savings is turned into Company Value, 1 for every £20, and the final C-rank and S-rank are fixed. You get an e-mail with your result, unless you switched Round results e-mails off under Settings.

• Sell your goods in time: goods left in your warehouse or still on the market at the end earn nothing.
• Keep the salary and gasoline accounts to what you need: only savings are turned into Company Value at the end (Savings and investments).
• Borrow early if you need to: the bank lends nothing in the last 7 days.
• Shares you still hold go to the bank after its full last-week discount; a player who buys them before then pays the full share price.
• Leave your zones: they are cashed in for you.

Your account stays, with your profile and its results from earlier rounds, your career points, the number of rounds you finished, any records you set and your unused VIP days (Premium membership). Your company does not: its money, buildings, staff, vehicles and shares are gone, and everyone starts the next round from scratch. The final standings of every finished round stay on Rankings under Past rounds.

Once the next round has started, found a new company on Start your company, as you did the first time (Founding your company). You choose its name, speciality and home city again, and get the same starting money as everyone else. The tutorial comes back on for the new company.

Your C-rank is your company's place by Company Value: number 1 when the round ends wins. Your S-rank is its place by S-points, which come from dividends and from selling shares at a profit (Trading shares); until you have S-points it shows N/A. Both are in the top bar, where a click opens the ranking at your place, and both are brought up to date at every update. Your C-rank can fall while your Company Value grows, when other companies grow faster: RC on Rankings shows the change since midnight.

Rankings (Ranking in the menu, under Info) has the tabs Companies (the C-rank), Members (the S-rank), Career points, Awards and Past rounds. Every Monday at midnight three weekly awards go out: the Success award for the highest Company Value, the Growth award for the biggest gain over the week and the Savings award for the most savings. Todays winners & losers, linked at the bottom of the game's pages, lists the companies whose share price rose or fell the most yesterday. The Records page keeps the best figures set in the game.

They show how well you have played over all rounds. When a round ends, the company you are still running earns 1 for every 1,000 of its final Company Value and 1 for every 30 S-points, each rounded down, and they are added to your total. They are not spent on anything: they place you on the Career points tab of Rankings against every player of all time, and your profile shows them with your career rank.

Career points are only given when a round ends, never during it. Only the company you are still running then earns them: one that went bankrupt, was closed for inactivity or was reset earns none, though a company you founded after it in the same round does. Each part is rounded down, so a small Company Value or a few S-points may add nothing.

Records are counted at midnight for the day just ended, so a record you set today shows tomorrow. The round's last day is counted when the round ends, after the final settlement. Only companies still trading are counted, and when two figures are equal, the one set first ranks higher. The Personal Bests tab on Records shows your own best in each record.

The game itself gives no money or VIP days for a round. What you win is your place: the winner and the final standings stay on Past rounds and on the public Round results page, and your result adds to your career points. If you finish in the top 25 of the C-rank or S-rank and your username is a real first or last name with a capital letter, it may join the names of the people who look for work in the game, once the game's team approves it. During the round, the weekly awards raise their winners' share prices.