If you've been killed, the restore will pick the largest version of your kingdom to have existed during the last 72 hours prior to death. If you are still alive, the 72 hours will count from the current time.
Rather than restoring the kingdom to it's full state. Your kingdom will be restored with 75% of the land, buildings, population and elan (a loss of 25% from the backed up kingdom). Your kingdom will also have 0 turns, 0 gold and 0 troops.
For 48 hours after restoring a kingdom, you will be in a new mode called 'Restore Protection'. This is essentially identical to NPP, but is on a timer rather than based on the amount of turns you spend. During Restore Protection you are unable to send or receive cash with allies, and are unable to use the war, sorcery or scum screens (unless using an option that targets your own kingdom).
If you are restoring while still alive, you will need to have not attacked (using scum, sorc or war - including scouts) for the previous 24 hours. You will also need to have saved 24 hours of turns to purchase the restore.
In order to restore while alive, you will need to click the Load / Save icon. This will show up any time that you're out of NPP and have not attacked for the last 24 hours. If you click the icon and you're still in NPP, you'll go to the normal Load / Save screen.
The timers in place should allow you to attempt to retaliate, and then, assuming you still wish to restore, start saving up the turns you'll need to do the restore itself. Once restored, the 48 hours of protection ought to be enough to make the money to refort, but wont be enough time to also save up max turns.
Essentially restoring will take you out of offensive warfare for 3 days (1 prior to restoring and 2 after). You will also lose 25% of the kingdom. But losing 25% is significantly better than restarting at 500 acres, and if it isn't, maybe a restore isn't the best option.
[edit]
The following changes were implemented at the end of June 2013:
* There is now a Maximum of 10,000 'open' acres on a restored Kingdom. There is no maximum for built land.
* You still continue to lose 25% of your buildings, but you only lose 20% of your land. This is to ensure that you at least have 'something' that can be built during NPP.
* You now start with 10,000 gold and also have 50% of the turns required to purchase the restore. e.g. In guilds, you have 36 turns (out of the 72 needed to purchase the restore) aka 12 hours of turns.
* During RPP your Build-Rate & Training-Rate have been reduced by 50%. Also, the Inspire Devotion and Calming Chants will be less effective.
* RPP for kingdoms is no longer 'fixed' at 48 hours. Each game has a period that is suited to the action of that game type.
* RPP for kingdoms after death is also no longer 'fixed' as 48 hours. Each game can now configure this independently from manual RPP duration. e.g In guilds, RPP after death lasts an extra 24 hours.
[edit 2]
The following changes were implemented at the start of August 2013
- RPP
- The countdown will now say "This is your final hour of Restore Protection" rather than "You have 1 more hours of Restore Protection"
Restore - Restored kingdoms are now taxed for land and buildings.
- For the first 5,000 acres on a restore, there is no land tax, buildings are reduced by 5%.
- For the next 10,000 acres, land is reduced by 10%, buildings by 15%.
- For the next 10,000 acres, land is reduced by 25%, buildings by 30%.
- For the next 20,000 acres, land is reduced by 50%, buildings by 55%.
- For all remaining acres, land is reduced by 75%, buildings by 77.5%.
- Restore now counts as a death on the scores screen and in the hall of fame