The pillars of your nations are its traditions, its thirst for knowledge, and its industriousness. In terms of this game, I’ll start by explaining Industry, as it is the easiest to do.
Each province has two values related to Industry: Logistics and Factory Districts. Logistics is a 0-to-100 “meter” of sorts that determines how much of the province’s Factory Districts being used. A 50 Logistics province allows you to use 50% of the output of the Factory Districts in the province. So, if you had 10 Factory Districts, you effectively earn 5 Industry to use how you see fit. Incidentally, choosing Industry as your Secondary Focus nets you exactly 10 Factory Districts to start with. Meanwhile, starting with Industry as your Primary Focus nets you 15 Factory Districts and 60% minimum Logistics in your starting province. A Tertiary Focus nets a measly 5 Factory Districts.
Increasing Factory Districts is simple enough; you can build a single Factory District with 5 Industry. However, in order to increase industrial efficiency, you need to increase your provinces’ Logistics. To do this, you have to spend a portion of your Technology and Industry on a turn by turn basis. Specifically, to raise Logistics of a single province by 10%, you must spend 6 Industry and 4 Science yearly. Each increment of this expenditure increases Logistics by a further 10%. Be careful not to overspend, as overspending on logistics means funds are getting lost. You can also opt to spend 12 Industry and 8 Science yearly to raise the Logistics of all provinces by 5% per spending increment. There are ways to permanently boost a province's Logistics, such as upgrading the City Center or researching some technologies. A City Center gives a province a based minimum Logistics of 50%. A destroyed City Center provides a Logistics of 25%.
Finally, of course, each province has its spacial limitations. At base, a single province can only hold up to 20 Factory Districts. This limit, of course, may be increased through technological advancement, as your people find ways to push industrial efficiency.
Factory Districts cannot be built over several turns; you have to pay the cost of a Factory District upfront, though you may build multiple districts in one turn. Special projects, however, can be built over multiple turns. This is a simplicity measure, if I’m honest.
Speaking of Technology.
In addition to each province producing Industry, each province also produces Science. The “Science” value is an abstraction of the number of libraries and universities your nation has in its borders, as well as the emphasis in which your nation puts into scientific progress. At a base, a province with the basic City Center generates 1 Science; this is how much Science you produce with a Tertiary Focus. A City Center is given the Learning Center upgrade if the nation in question has Science as a Secondary Focus, which generates 5 Science. A Primary Focus further upgrades the City Center with a University District, which generates 8 science; in addition, it gives a head start in all fields of research.
Speaking of, there are 5 fields of research available to you:
- Aero Technology: Advancing the flight capabilities of your machines.
- Aquatic Technology: Advancing your nation’s naval capacities on the high seas.
- Ground Technology: Advancing the capabilities of your ground fighters and armor.
- Industrial Technology: Advancing your nation’s Industrial Efficiency.
- Bio Technology: Advancing your nation’s knowledge of life on Earth.
In the posts following this one, you can find the beginning of these trees along with what you can get out of them. The first nation to research a technology gets a one-time bonus, and the next “card” of the research progression will be displayed for all.
You can distribute research however you see fit, though it’s probably for the best if you focus on one at a time.
Next, we’ll be talking about Unity. You have a base Unity per turn depending on your focus. Primary Focus nets you 8 Unity. Secondary Focus nets 5 Unity. Tertiary nets you 2. Unity can be used towards one of two things: Keeping populace Militancy down and acquiring Unity Perks. Unity can be gained through several means, all of which are permanent boons to your Unity, such as:
- Completing special building projects, such as canals or great railways.
- Succeeding all your wargoals against another country.
- Researching certain revolutionary technologies first.
- Etc.
Each Unity increase is clearly defined before you complete the goal you’re working towards. IE, I will place a Unity value for success in a war, and I will give explicit unity values for technologies eligible for them before anybody has researched them. Suffice to say, Unity increases will vary based on where it’s coming from.
As stated, Unity can be used to either keep militancy down or acquire Unity perks. Your people in general don’t have a reason to dislike you as you start in this new world, so everyone’s militancy starts at 5%, representing some people in your nation who are on the lower echelons of society who turn to crime to earn their living. Militancy tells you the exact chance of a clash occurring within your borders, and also how severe the clash is. So, if you get hit with the 5% militancy encounter, it probably just means some brave criminals staged a bank heist or something to that effect. Meanwhile, if you have 95% militancy, you’re likely facing a civil war-type scenario. Every 3 points of Unity you spend on combatting militancy decreases your current militancy by 1% retroactively; meaning, if you start with 50% militancy on a turn and immediately spend 30 Unity to decrease it, I’m rolling for 40% militancy for the next turn. There are other ways to handle militancy, involving your army, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Unity perks, meanwhile, are essentially cultural milestones. They communicate the ethos your government is espousing, and as such, you may only focus on one of these at a time. You have some choices for what you can focus. It may seem like some of these are at odds, but you will never be locked out of a Unity perk line for picking one over another. Just as each individual person is a mixed bag, each nation is itself a mixed bag.
Domination: the Domination line means that your government believes something is exceptional about your nation and it deserves a spotlight more than most other nations. This is the route to take if you wish to aggressively expand and colonize territory, and the route which will incline your people more towards war.
Harmony: The Harmony line means your people are content cooperating with other peoples to achieve the most good. This is the route you should take if you wish to trade with other nations; however, your people will be more averse to offensive wars.
Discovery: The Discovery line means that your people treasure technological advancement and generally learning new things. You should take this route if you wish to increase your capability to research new advancements and make other discoveries.
Prosperity: The Prosperity line means your people wish to prosper using what means they have at their disposal. You should take this route if you want to look inwards and build tall, having metropolises and man-made wonders that the world envies you for.
Each of these three resources are free to be traded to anyone for any cost deemed appropriate. Any deals you make should be made clear to me. If I’m confused by a deal or it seems that two parties are on the wrong page, I’m ignoring the deal entirely and dropping what I deem to be the lowest priority purchases for each respective party relevant to the deal.
You cannot, however, trade buildings, wonders, or technologies. Units are fair game, but owning the unit doesn’t imply capability to build those units or research those units, nor any boons to research those units. If you wish to understand the tools which you don’t have, you must get a contribution of science from another party.
Speaking of units.
Though we are exiting a time of conflict, only a fool refuses to prepare for the inevitable. War must at all times be declared in thread no less than 48 hours before the biweekly deadline if you wish to take military actions on a given turn. Because of the nature of the tools at hand, it takes time to get personnel prepared, and this preparation will just about never go unnoticed by your neighbors, rendering sneak attacks useless in this world. If you don’t make this time table, your forces do not have time to prepare and no battles will take place until the end of the next turn. In addition, war goals must be clearly stated at the start of a conflict. Both the offender and the defender can propose war goals, up to and including unconditional surrender.
Battles in owned provinces can also destroy infrastructure, including Factory Districts, learning centers, and even special buildings. Of course, they can be repaired. In addition, during a war, provinces may change hands, but final ownership is decided at the peace table. The original owner of a province will always be able to utilize all of a province’s undamaged assets, but a hostile actor taking over a province gets no resource from the province until the war is over. The exception to this is if the aggressors order their units to scorch the earth, a move which destroys a portion of the province’s infrastructure and gives a one-time bonus based on what was ransacked. Long term, this makes the remaining residents entirely spiteful to the actor who perpetrated the scorched earth.
To repair damaged assets costs a quarter of what they originally costed.
To start, military logistics allow for up to 3 units to be in any military group. These groups can be comprised of any assortment of combinations, though, logic of course will tell you that a sea-bound ship cannot travel over land. Usually. Unless otherwise stated. It’s not really relevant yet.
To be clear, at this opening stage of the game, land units can ferry themselves across bodies of water, but are otherwise helpless against an enemy presence. Aerial units can end a turn within the borders of a province with which one of your or your allies’ provinces shares a border. Sea units cannot traverse solid land, unless a canal runs through the province; in which case, they may cross if they have permission of the province controller.
Units have three roles they can fill: Frontline, Support, and Firepower. The Frontline units take priority damage from hostile fire and damage is distributed evenly among them Frontline units until they collapse. Then, the Supports take priority, then Firepower. Generally, the Frontline units do not deal a lot of damage but can soak it up, Support units deal no damage but provide assistance to the other roles, and Firepower deals a lot of damage but goes down quickly if left undefended. For specific details, see the Units below.
To start with, a military group can effectively collaborate with a single other army group in a given conflict, regardless of ownership. If more than two military groups collaborate in a single battle, the side with additional military groups may face disorganization events depending on how many groups the battle involves. Disorganization events can lead to friendly fire, dissertations, and other similar happenings.
Each unit has its own “health bar,” but the army group as a whole has a “morale bar.” It holds that units generally will have “morale damage” type and a “physical damage” type. When a army group’s morale hits 0, it retreats first to the province it came from. If that province was taken by hostiles in the same turn, they retreat to the nearest province void of hostiles. If none exist, they retreat to the one with the least hostile elements and battle commences at full morale, where they face the possibility of total extermination.
A military group can be put on policing duty. If they do, they decrease militancy by a flat 5% that turn. Though, while on policing duty, they are quite busy keeping the citizenry in line; if they are attacked, they may face disorganization events as described above.
At the start of the game, most of the map will be unclaimed. There are two ways to stake your claim to a piece of land: By sending a settlement unit there, or a military unit. In this context, all provinces are settled to some extent, but the people there have not yet organized to the extent of your nation.
A settlement unit is a non-combatant which works with the locals to establish meaningful ties. The unit attempts to get the province to join your faction, rolling to garner favor with them. Favor is tracked by a 0-to-100 value, and multiple nations may try influencing a border province in this way. The first one to 100 takes the province. See units for specifics on the base settlement unit. This is the safest way to expand, as the people living in the province in question legitimately want to live under your rule at 100 favor. Your militancy increases by 5 to account for underground elements already in the province. A settlement unit is not consumed in adding a province to your control, but they must stay at a given province until a proper nation owns it, and are free to leave an owned province they were already inside, even if the new owner sends a military unit there.
Of course, you can also take over a province with hostile force. Just as the province isn’t organized to match your nation, their military might is largely trivial; it will simply take a turn’s time for your forces to neutralize the province of meaningful hostile elements. However, this sort of expansion can be dangerous based on if your neighbors were trying to peacefully expand, as their settlement units are defenseless and will be immediately destroyed if they are not defended by a proper military group. Not to mention, people don’t like being forcibly taken over, and militancy will instead increase by 15 for capture of the province. If multiple countries move a military unit to a province with the intent to take it over, they battle as normal, though the involved powers remain at peace officially and may not attack each other’s actual owned provinces. Regardless of the victor, the battle gets in the way of the time it takes to clear out the province of its militias, so capture of the province is delayed a turn, and further skirmishes may commence over it. If you move a military unit to a province, you must specify they are merely protecting your interests and not taking over the province themselves.
Provinces, regardless of how they are obtained, always have 5 Factory Districts and output 1 Science. However, skirmishes can destroy some of these Factory Districts, in the same way that battles over owned provinces can destroy infrastructure, though this infrastructure cannot be repaired and is simply lost forever, the eventual owner then having to build new ones in their place.
