Holding your ground

Claiming a cell is the easy part. Every cell you hold has a grip that loosens while you stay away, and walking it again is what tightens it.

Two meters

Each cell you hold carries two numbers. Defense is the buffer, and it starts at 40 out of 100 the moment you claim the cell. Control is your actual grip, and it starts full at 100.

Defense drains by 12 points a day from your last visit. Control does not move at all while defense has anything left in it. Only once defense reaches zero does control start dropping, and then only by 6 points a day.

The effect is a grace period. A freshly claimed cell has a bit over three days before your grip starts loosening, and a cell you visit regularly never loses any grip at all.

A line chart over fourteen days. Defense starts at 40 percent and falls to zero after about three days, then stays at zero. Control holds at 100 percent until defense reaches zero, then falls more slowly to about 35 percent at fourteen days. — Visiting the cell resets both.

What the states mean

Those two numbers put every cell into one of four states, which is what the map colours.

A cell moves from held, to at risk, to contested, to dormant as it is left alone. Visiting the cell at any of those stages returns it to held. — Only time away moves a cell down this list.

The four states a held cell can be in
State	When	What it means
Held	Defense above 25	Solid. Nothing needed.
At risk	Defense below 25	The buffer is nearly gone. One visit refills it.
Contested	Defense at zero for about six days	The buffer has run out and your hold is fading. A visit still recovers it.
Dormant	Control below 35, or twelve days away	The cell has dropped off your active map. Walking it again brings it back.

Contested is a description of your own neglect rather than of anything happening around you. Nobody takes a cell off you in MovenRun. Time is the only thing that moves a cell down this list, and a visit is the only thing that moves it back up.

Returning

When you save a session, every cell you already held that your route crossed gets refreshed automatically. Defense goes up by 40 and control by 10, both capped at 100, and the clock starts again from that moment.

That is the main way ground stays yours, and it costs nothing beyond going for the walk. A regular route through your own neighbourhood keeps a dozen cells permanently solid without you ever thinking about it.

Fortifying

Fortifying is the deliberate version. From a cell's detail view you can add 25 to its defense without going anywhere, once per cell per day. It is free.

Fortifying tops up the buffer and nothing else, so it buys time rather than grip. It is what you reach for when you know you will be away for a while.

Bringing a dormant cell back

A dormant cell is not lost. It sits on your map in a faded state, and the next session whose route crosses it picks it straight back up. Long absences cost you position, not history.