You have total control. There are no menus. The GM hands you no list of options. If you want your soldiers to march into your capital and drag your political rivals into the street, you may order it. If you want to burn your own city to deny it to an enemy, you may do it. If you want to forge an alliance with the nation blockading your coast, you may try.

You do not ask which options are available. You declare your intent, and the world responds.

Every decision triggers a consequence. Purge your rivals and your military may fall in line or fracture in protest. Burn your city and lose the revenue, perhaps forever. Make peace with your blockader and your own people may call it betrayal. The GM will never stop you from acting. The GM will always make the world react.

Events work the same way. When a plague, a coup attempt, a religious movement, a famine or a foreign ambassador with an ultimatum arrives, you are not given options. You are told what is happening. Then you tell the GM what your nation does. Your plan, your orders, your choice.

How this book is organized

The book is divided into chapters, marked with Roman numerals. Each chapter holds numbered sections, marked 1, 2, 3 and so on. References in the text, such as “Section 11,” point to those numbers.

Read it once. Then read it again. You definitely missed something the first time.

One turn is one day. This is the single most important rule to internalize. All actions, combat and construction advance in day-sized steps.

Daily deductions

Income arrives weekly, but these costs come out every turn, which keeps continuous pressure on your treasury:

• Fortification upkeep.
• Ship upkeep, and dockyard and shipyard maintenance.
• Active propaganda campaigns and active project costs.
• Colony administration upkeep.
• Payments to vassals or puppets, and any other recurring obligation (event-specific upkeep, for example).
• Scheduled loan payments and WBO auto-fees, if set to auto-deduct.

There are no separate troop salaries or hidden per-turn supply costs. Mercenary contracts are not a daily cost: they are paid in full when signed (Section 13).

Actions

Each nation has 5 actions per turn. Actions cover movement, construction orders, diplomatic actions, RP posts, espionage missions and so on. Diplomacy has no fixed rules: it is simply whatever two players agree to, and it can be anything. Several mechanics in this book cost exactly one action, such as switching tax levels, reassigning a severed trade route, or redistributing supply after a hub falls.

Chat channels and speaking in character

The Chat page has three public channels, plus private mail to the GM, one-on-one chats, group chats and alliance chats.

• Announcements is read-only for players. Only the GM posts there.
• Out of Character is for normal conversation between the people playing.
• In Character is the RP channel. This is where you state your public actions for the turn, in the open, so every nation can react to them.
• Mail to the GM (the envelope icon) is for private actions, secret orders, espionage and questions. Only you and the GM can read your mail thread.
• Private chats and alliance chats are for diplomacy. Any player can start a one-on-one or group chat. Only the GM can create an alliance chat.

Chat tools

The Chat page has a few tools so you do not have to hunt for things.

• Formatting. Use the same BBCode NationStates uses: [b]bold[/b], [i]italic[/i], [u]underline[/u] and [s]strike[/s], so a post copied from here to NationStates keeps its formatting. Shortcuts also work: one asterisk for italics (*like this*), two for bold (**like this**), double underscores for underline (__like this__) and double tildes for strikethrough (~~like this~~).
• Commands. Type /help to see them all. Players can use /roll (for example /roll 2d6), /coin, /time, /me for an action line and /cheer. The GM also has /announce, /narrate, /deadline, /ticker and /clear.
• Mentions. Type @ and a nation or player name to highlight that person. @GM and @all work too. A mention lights up the chat tab for the person you called out.
• Search. The magnifier in the Chat header searches the current channel, or every channel you can read.
• Alerts. A tab title count and a short sound tell you when a new message arrives. The Alerts button turns the sound off.

Dice rolls and every command show up in the log for everyone in the channel, so nobody has to take a roll on trust.

Reading the page

• Deadline banner. When the GM sets a turn deadline, a banner counts down to it. The time is shown in your own local time zone, converted from 12:00 AM Eastern.
• News bar. The scrolling strip at the bottom of the screen carries headlines, declarations of war, treaties, notices and reminders. It is the quickest way to see what just happened.
• Diplomacy tab. Lists every active and past war, alliance and treaty, who is on each side and since which turn. Nations that sign a treaty should still ask the GM to register it there.
• Map layers. The map toolbar has Private and Official drawing. Private drawings are yours alone. The GM can switch to Official, and everything drawn there is shown to every player.

Army size and supply

Your total Personnel begins with your Defense Forces stat on NationStates. This is your raw levy headcount. Supply comes from your Arms Manufacturing stat. Both refresh weekly, so your military capacity can grow or shrink with the NationStates issues you answer.

Stability and War Support

These two meters measure how steady your government is and how willing your people are to fight. Both update daily. Taxes, propaganda, victories, defeats, blockades, governments, ideologies and events all move them. Starting values are set by the GM at game start.

Your population sets how much land you start with, and your government and your ideology each set bonuses and penalties you carry into every system.

Starting territory by population

These values are fixed at game start and cannot be changed outside of war.

Home region

The GM assigns each nation a home region on the world map at game start. Your home region fixes your trade distances, the goods you may export (Section 11), and where your cities stand.

Government and ideology

Every nation chooses two separate things at game start: a form of government (how the nation is ruled) and an ideology (what the nation believes and wants). Each gives its own bonus and its own penalty, and the two stack. For example, a Theocracy with an Imperialist ideology is a Theocratic Empire.

Any pairing is allowed. The GM may refuse pairings that flatly contradict each other, such as a True Democracy with Fascism, or ask you to justify them in your RP.

Forms of government

Ideologies

Starting Stability and War Support

When the game starts, your Stability and War Support are not handed out. They are built from a common base, your form of government and your ideology, so two nations with the same population can begin in very different shape.

Only the modifiers marked at start in the tables above count here. Peace, war and event modifiers apply later, in play. Keep each result between 10 and 100. The GM may adjust a nation by up to 10 either way for its backstory, and must say so in the nation sheet.

The base of 75 is the book's default. A nation sheet that already shows different numbers keeps them, since the GM adjustment above covers it.

Base weekly income comes from your chosen Tax Level. Level 5 is the default at 50,000 Currency per week. All amounts in this book are in “Currency,” your nation's own money as reflected in your NationStates stats.

Weekly income, Stability and War Support are applied together at the start of each week. Switching tax levels costs 1 action and takes effect the following week.

Vassals and territories

• Vassals pay 25% of their weekly income to their suzerain.
• Territories pay 50% of their weekly income to their suzerain.

Order of deductions within a turn

Weekly income is added at the start of the week. Daily deductions are removed each turn, mandatory costs before voluntary ones.

1. Mandatory game costs: fort upkeep, ship and yard upkeep, colony administration, vassal transfers.
2. WBO maintenance fees and interest.
3. Loan amortization payments.
4. Voluntary payments: donations, propaganda.
5. Player-initiated withdrawals.

Debt, recession and depression

Daily costs can push your treasury below zero. The amount below zero is your debt. Debt triggers an event: your economy is in trouble, and things stop going well for you until you pay it off.

• The Stability and War Support losses repeat every day until the debt is cleared. Nothing stops them but paying.
• A recession ends the day the treasury is back at zero or above. A depression drops back to a recession once the debt is under 2 weeks of income.
• You must do whatever it takes to get out of debt. Raise taxes, cut spending, sell goods, or borrow.
• You may borrow from other players on any terms you both agree to. You may also take a WBO loan, but only if you hold enough banked balance as collateral (Section 7).

Every purchase in this section is scaled to the 50,000 Currency per week baseline. Spend with that number in mind.

Political and domestic

A nation may run at most 2 propaganda campaigns at once: 1 civil and 1 military.

Economic investment

Covert and military

Espionage, sabotage and rebel support are covered in Section 19. Fortifications are in Section 8.

Every nation has an Economic Ceiling, the largest treasury its economy can hold before idle money stops being productive. The ceiling is not fixed, and you can raise it.

The Economic Ceiling and Stagnation

Your ceiling is set by the GM at game start from your NationStates stats and updated weekly. It rises as your nation develops, as you buy the National Bank, and as you expand your colonial holdings.

When your treasury exceeds your ceiling, Stagnation triggers:

• Income growth slows by a GM-set percentage based on the size and duration of the overflow.
• Project build times lengthen and fort build costs rise slightly.
• Upkeep and import costs rise modestly.

Stagnation is a penalty for hoarding, not a redistribution. Spend, deposit into the WBO, or invest before it hits.

The National Bank

Your NationStates stats are not the only path to a higher ceiling. The National Bank levels the field for newer or smaller nations.

Colonies

Colonies raise your ceiling continuously for as long as you hold and administer them, at the cost of upkeep and political risk. Colonisation needs a military presence and money. You cannot simply declare territory colonial.

• The territory must be unclaimed land, land won with war LETs, or land beyond your starting borders granted by moderator adjudication.
• Pay a one-time Colonisation Fee of 200,000 per colony.
• Declaring a colony costs 1 action. It becomes active the following turn.

Ceiling bonus

Administration upkeep

500 per day for the first 10,000 km², plus 200 per day for each additional 10,000 km² or part of one.

Colonial income

All income from colony-sourced resources takes a 0.85× Colonial Efficiency Modifier, applied after all trade route calculations. Colony trade income equals standard trade route income × 0.85.

Political status

Autonomy depends on distance and control. Colonies are usually overseas, far from the suzerain, so they run with more freedom. Territories are usually close to home and sit under tighter control. Vassals are subjugated players or states that keep their own government.

Liberty Desire

• Raising vassal taxes or prolonged neglect increases Liberty Desire.
• Donations reduce it by 1 per 5,000 Currency spent.
• Above 70 it can trigger revolts, independence requests or territorial collapse at moderator discretion.
• Mitigations: donations, puppet treaties and embedded advisers (Section 19).
• Liberty Desire must reach 0 before a Territory can be incorporated (see Incorporation below).

Revolts and independence

Liberty Desire is a number from 0 to 100. The higher it climbs, the more openly a subject pushes back.

1. Uprising. The subject's Stability falls by 15, its garrison is treated as hostile, and the suzerain must answer with force (Section 15) or concessions (donations, lower taxes).
2. Declaration. A player subject posts a declaration of independence. The suzerain has one turn to accept, refuse or negotiate. A non-player region is run by the GM.
3. War of independence. If refused, the revolt is a war. The subject fights with its own levies, and the suzerain may not use the Territory's own garrison against it. Other nations may join either side under their treaties (Section 24).
4. Outcome. If the subject wins, or the suzerain agrees, the subject becomes independent: Liberty Desire resets to 0, all tribute ends and the land leaves the suzerain's Area. If the suzerain wins, the subject stays and its Liberty Desire drops by 20, but its Stability stays low until events and infrastructure repair it.

Playing as a vassal, colony or territory

A player subject stays a full player. It keeps its own treasury, actions and RP, and it keeps its government and ideology.

• Orders. The suzerain may issue one binding order per week. It must be reasonable for the status: a Vassal can refuse an order that threatens its survival, a Territory cannot refuse. Refusing raises Liberty Desire by 5.
• Wars. A subject may not declare war on its own. If the suzerain goes to war, a Territory joins automatically, a Colony joins at the suzerain's call, and a Vassal may choose, at the cost of −5 Liberty Desire if it joins willingly and +10 if it is forced.
• Treaties. A Vassal may sign treaties with third parties only with the suzerain's consent. A Colony or Territory may not sign any.
• Tribute. Paid weekly according to the status table above. Falling behind raises Liberty Desire by 5 per missed week.
• Regaining independence. By revolt as above, by agreement with the suzerain, by a Global Treaty (Section 25), or by being freed at a peace table (Section 20).
• Covert action. A subject may run covert operations against its own suzerain (Section 19). Discovery counts as an uprising.

Incorporation

Incorporation is full annexation. A suzerain cannot simply swallow a subject. The subject must first be brought down to Territory status, its Liberty Desire must be driven to nothing, and its people must then agree in a vote.

1. Bring it down to Territory. A Vassal or Colony becomes a Territory by agreement between the players, or through LETs at the peace table (Section 20). Only a Territory can be incorporated.
2. Bring Liberty Desire to 0. Use donations and the other mitigations above. Incorporation is not possible while any Liberty Desire remains.
3. Trigger the Referendum. The suzerain spends 1 action to call a Referendum event. The GM runs it and decides the result, weighing the Territory's Stability, its recent treatment and how much was spent winning it over.
4. The vote. If the population votes yes, the Territory is incorporated and annexed in full into the suzerain. If it votes no, it stays a Territory and its Liberty Desire rises at the GM's discretion.

Referendum score

The chance of a yes vote starts at 50%. Add or subtract the modifiers below, keep the total between 5% and 95%, then the GM rolls a d100. A roll at or under the total is a yes. Liberty Desire must already be 0.

After incorporation

Incorporation does not mean complete direct control. The land and its people become part of the suzerain's own Area and tax base, and tribute ends, but the region is not quiet.

• If it was a player: that player stays in the game and may still try to break free using covert tactics and a revolutionary movement (Section 19).
• If it was not a player: the region begins with relatively low Stability and is in unrest. The suzerain must work to stabilize it fully, through events and by building infrastructure. The GM sets the starting Stability and the events that apply.

The WBO lets a nation store currency off the books, shielding funds from the Economic Ceiling and enabling financing for large projects. It is a tool for specific, planned situations, not a savings account.

What the WBO is

The WBO is the world's shared bank. It is not a nation, and no player owns it. Think of it as a vault and a lender that every sovereign nation may use.

• A vault. Currency you deposit is kept off your national books. It does not count toward your Economic Ceiling, so it cannot cause Stagnation (Section 6).
• A lender. Your banked balance is collateral. Against it you may borrow up to 75% of that balance, and pay interest on what you take.
• Not free. Opening an account, depositing, holding money and withdrawing too much all cost fees. The bank earns its keep from you.
• Run by the GM. The GM keeps the ledger, charges the fees and enforces defaults.

A nation in debt cannot borrow from the WBO unless it has a banked balance to pledge. Debtors without one must turn to other players (Section 4).

Loan default enforcement

1. Warning. New loans are frozen.
2. Asset freeze and a 2-week loan ban.
3. Confiscation, a 10% fee and a 4-week ban.
4. Permanent ban, on the third major default.

When the WBO makes sense, and when it is a trap

Forts raise defensive strength and garrison capacity. Build cost is a one-time payment. Upkeep comes out every turn.

Trebuchets add a further bonus against Level 4 and higher forts, and Ballistas installed at forts add their EP bonus to fort defense. High-tier fortifications are a major investment. Sustaining Level 8 or higher takes strong weekly income and careful WBO planning.

This is the complete list of tradeable goods on Earth. Every item on the regional supply and demand map comes from these categories. When you register a route, use the closest matching category and the GM will confirm it against your region's position on the world map. You can only trade goods that your own region actually produces (Section 11).

Each good has a distance type that sets its best shipping lane. Long goods are luxuries best traded across continents. Short goods are bulk necessities best traded between neighbors.

Tier 1: Precious (base value 14,000 to 16,000)

Rare, portable and universally desired. Always travel long distance.

Tier 2: Luxury (base value 10,000 to 13,000)

The backbone of wealthy merchant empires. They reward long-haul trade.

Tier 3: Refined goods (base value 6,000 to 9,000)

Processed or manufactured items. Their value comes from craft, not extraction.

Tier 4: Industrial (base value 3,500 to 5,500)

Core materials that power armies, navies and cities. Best traded regionally.

Tier 5: Bulk commodities (base value 1,000 to 3,000)

High-volume, low-margin goods. Short distances are optimal. They are the lifeblood of regional economies.

Special goods

These have no fixed base value. Their worth depends on context and is set by the GM.

Each region of the real world produces certain goods in abundance and historically lacks others. These values are fixed at game start and change only if a major narrative event destroys a region's productive base.

To find your best partner, match your abundances to their demands and theirs to yours. Cross-reference the values in Section 9 to estimate income before you register a route.

North America

South America

Europe

Africa

Asia

Oceania & Pacific

Border regions and unlisted places follow the nearest listed region. The GM may add or adjust entries as the war changes the world, and decides era availability for goods like Whale Oil and Saltpetre.

Route income is calculated, not flat. It comes from the actual goods exchanged, how abundant each is where it is made, how scarce it is where it lands, how far it travels, and how balanced the exchange is.

• There is no fixed exporter or importer. Both sides may export and import on the same route, and each side's income is computed separately.
• Routes connect city to city at both ends. If a connected city is captured or destroyed, the route yields 0 until restored or reassigned.
• Routes are mandatory for income. A trade ship or caravan with no declared route earns nothing.

Step 1: Raw route value

Distance efficiency

The GM sets distance from the map positions of your registered cities.

Step 2: Sum each direction

Step 3: Trade balance multiplier

Step 4: Transport bonus

Each active trade ship or caravan adds +2% to its route. Multiple units stack. Costs for ships and caravans are in Section 18.

Operating rules

• Routes must be registered and anchored to a city at each end.
• Reassigning a cut route costs 1 action, which stops instant rerouting during combat.
• Several goods may share a route within the caps. Calculate each good separately, sum into VA or VB, then apply the balance and transport steps.
• Blockades, naval or land interruptions and captured cities reduce income to 0 until resolved.
• Creating a new city costs 500,000 Currency, one time.

Every soldier begins as a Levy. Your Defense Forces stat is your headcount, and Currency is what turns raw conscripts into warriors.

How upgrading works

Your Defense Forces stat gives you a pool of Levies, untrained conscripts pulled from the population. A Levy costs nothing beyond his existence. To make him useful, you spend Currency to upgrade him into a unit type before war begins.

• Upgrades are direct. Any Levy may become any unit type in one step. What limits you is cost, supply and the hard cap on Knights.
• For line units, the price is per battalion of 500 troops. You may upgrade a partial battalion at a proportional price, rounded up to the nearest 50 troops.
• Knights, War Elephants and siege engines are bought one at a time at their listed price.
• Personnel cost is real headcount. One Cavalry unit is one man on one horse. A Trebuchet crew is 10 men.
• Supply cost is what it takes to keep the unit in the field. A Levy eats bread. A Knight eats bread, grain for the horse, replacement equipment and wages befitting his station.

Unit tiers

Unit reference

Base EP is the unit's contribution to Effective Power (Section 16) before terrain, supply and morale are applied. For line units it is per man. For elephants and siege it is per elephant or machine.

Supply costs are per unit per turn from your Arms Manufacturing supply pool. For siege weapons they apply per machine, not per crew member. An unsupplied Trebuchet is timber and rope.

Declaring your composition

Before a war, or during the between-campaign window, you submit a Unit Composition Declaration listing how many of each unit type you field and what upgrades you have bought.

• Declarations are made before a war starts or between campaigns. You cannot upgrade mid-campaign.
• You may change composition between campaigns. Retraining costs Currency, not time. Upgrades take effect at the start of the next campaign.
• If your Defense Forces stat drops between campaigns, you lose Levies. Units beyond your new headcount are disbanded with no refund.
• The GM keeps the ledger publicly. Your declared composition is visible to all players once the war begins.

Knights

• Hard cap of 12 Knights per nation at any time.
• Knights are named individuals: nobles, commanders, household guard leaders. When one is killed (GM adjudicated, typically on a Catastrophic Defeat), the slot opens. A replacement costs the full 8,000 and takes 3 turns to train.
• Each Knight deployed in an engagement adds +350 EP flat to your force.
• For every 3 Knights fielded (rounded down), you gain +1 War Support once per week at the weekly refresh. Twelve Knights give +4 per week.
• Knights cannot be captured as ordinary POWs. A captured Knight is a diplomatic event, and the GM handles ransom separately.

War Elephants

• Each needs 3 Personnel: a mahout and two handlers. All three are lost if the elephant dies.
• A nation with no territory in Africa or India pays 30,000 per elephant, double the standard cost.
• The terror bonus applies automatically in open terrain. It does not apply in forests, mountains, cities or sieges, where elephants panic and can become a liability.
• If an elephant panics (on a Catastrophic Defeat roll, or against an enemy strategy that targets it), it may turn on your own forces. The GM adjudicates the damage.

Siege engines

• Ballistas are defensive. They are installed at forts or prepared positions and cannot move with an army.
• Catapults count as set up from the first engagement at a front. They cannot reposition within an engagement.
• Trebuchets need 2 full turns to assemble at a new front. They add no EP to Engagement 1 and come online from Engagement 2.
• All siege engines are priority targets. A strategy aimed at your siege train may destroy machines. A successful Ballista defense may neutralize attacking Catapults or Trebuchets before they contribute full EP.

When your levies are not enough, coin can buy swords that are. Mercenaries provide Tier 2 or higher units without using your Defense Forces pool, but they cost far more than upgrading your own men, and they fight for coin, not loyalty.

Contracts

• Declare a contract to the GM: which company, how many units, and how many weeks. The GM confirms availability. A company already under contract elsewhere is unavailable.
• Payment is made upfront for the full term when you sign. You cannot pay week by week.
• A contract runs a maximum of 4 weeks. To keep a company longer, renew and pay again at the same rate, unless in-world events change it.
• Mercenaries do not count toward your Knight cap and do not benefit from your Knight morale buffs.
• After a Catastrophic Defeat, mercenaries may break contract and flee (GM rolls). A nation that cannot pay at renewal loses its mercenaries at once.

Longer contracts cost more in total but less per week.

The five companies

The GM tracks availability and may introduce or retire companies based on in-world events. Active contracts are listed in the public ledger.

Geography is not neutral. Where you fight, how you divide your men, and how well you feed them decide battles before they begin.

Terrain quick reference

Moderators have the final call on terrain classification.

Troop positions

At the start of a war, and at the start of each campaign, you place your formed units in three roles. Your general commands all Deployed troops. Garrisoned troops stay under city commanders.

If your deployed force drops severely, the GM will notify you, and you may commit reserves to reinforce the front. Do not strip garrisons bare: empty cities fall fast.

Casualties

Casualties are recorded in Personnel. The GM converts them back to unit losses in proportion to your declared composition. If your army is 40% Men-at-Arms, 30% Spearmen, 20% Bowmen and 10% Light Cavalry and you lose 5,000 Personnel, the GM records about 2,000, 1,500, 1,000 and 500, unless the outcome says otherwise (for example, cavalry screening a retreat and taking the brunt of the pursuit).

Returning Personnel are unupgraded Levies until re-declared. Dead Knights do not return; their slot opens but must be refilled for 8,000 and 3 turns. A nation that fights four or more campaigns without growing its stat will field a progressively smaller army.

Supply hubs

Supply comes from your Arms Manufacturing stat and refreshes weekly. At the start of each campaign you assign it to your front through three Supply Hubs.

• You designate 3 hub locations when you declare a campaign front. Each holds part of your assigned supply.
• Supply must reach your deployed units or their effectiveness drops. This applies to every unit type, including siege and elephants. An unsupplied elephant is an angry elephant.
• Hubs can be targeted and captured as an objective. A captured hub's supply is lost until your weekly refresh.
• If a hub falls, you may redistribute supply from intact hubs. That costs 1 action and takes effect the following turn.
• Recapturing a lost hub restores normal flow at once.

At the end of each campaign, supply refreshes to your current Arms Manufacturing stat. You reassign hubs fresh for the new campaign. A well-executed hub capture can flip an engagement without firing a shot at the enemy's main force.

A war is not a single clash or a best-of-five. It is a sustained conflict in three nested levels, and it can last as long as both sides are willing to bleed.

Campaigns

At the start of each campaign, both sides choose a front, the place where the next five engagements will be fought. Front and composition are linked decisions: Trebuchets are useless on open steppe, and War Elephants are useless in a mountain pass.

• LETs earned during a campaign carry into the war total. They do not reset between campaigns.
• After a campaign ends, both sides get a between-campaign window to reposition troops, resupply, re-declare compositions and choose the next front.
• Either side may propose peace in that window.

How wars end

LET totals do not end a war. A war ends only when both sides agree to a peace treaty. LETs are negotiating currency, not victory conditions.

• A side with many LETs has strong leverage, and the other may accept terms to stop the bleeding.
• A side losing on LETs but holding strong economic defenses and high War Support can fight on indefinitely.
• If both refuse to negotiate, the war continues campaign after campaign.
• A nation at 0 War Support, or whose Stability collapses entirely, may be forced to negotiate by internal events.

Every engagement is scored with Effective Power. The GM turns your submitted units, ships, forts, terrain and morale into EP, runs the simulation, and publishes the result.

What goes into EP

• Unit count × base EP × terrain modifier × available supply.
• Knight bonus: +350 EP flat per Knight deployed in the engagement.
• War Elephant terror, applied to enemy EP (−10% to enemy infantry in open terrain).
• Ships × naval power weighting.
• Fortification and terrain defense bonuses, including Ballista bonuses for defenders.
• Morale multiplier, drawn from Stability, propaganda and prior battle outcomes.
• General and Loyalty modifiers. Your general's specialty bonus and your Loyalty tier modifier are added together and applied once to Starting EP, after terrain and fort multipliers. A +8% specialty at a Devoted tier (+5%) is +13%.

Battle Score Differential

Final EP is Starting EP after terrain, fort, strategy and dice swings in the simulation. The side with the higher Final EP wins.

Moderators must publish starting EPs and the BSD for every engagement. No hidden math.

Close results

A close result is not always neutral. Embarrassing Victory and Heroic Defeat are the same battle seen from both sides, so they fire together.

What you submit for an engagement

• A strategy summary: your objective, your maneuver, the unit types assigned to each role (for example, Pikemen holding the center, Light Cavalry screening the flanks, Crossbowmen on high ground), and any Knights or War Elephants deployed.
• Your supply and transport plan.
• Confirmation of your current Unit Composition Declaration.

Or you may hand the engagement to your general (Section 22). Fortification values are in Section 8.

LETs are earned by winning engagements and accumulate across the whole war. They have two uses: face-value currency at the peace table, and bidding chips when allies fight over the same territory.

Use 1: peace treaty currency

• 1 LET = 10,000 km² of territory claimed from the losing side.
• Reparations alternative: 1 LET = 5,000 Currency paid weekly for 3 weeks.
• LETs can also buy vassalage terms, non-aggression treaties and political concessions (Section 20).
• More LETs mean stronger leverage, but you cannot force specific terms. Only economic and political collapse can do that.

Use 2: territorial bidding

When two or more allies want the same territory at the peace table, it goes to a LET bid. All bids are irrevocable, and all bidders pay, win or lose.

1. Each interested nation declares a bid.
2. A bid cannot be reduced or withdrawn. You may raise it.
3. The highest bidder wins the territory.
4. Every bidder loses their committed LETs regardless of outcome.

• Bidding applies only to contested territory between allies. Enemy territory is claimed by straight LET conversion.
• A nation with zero LETs cannot bid.
• The GM mediates every bid and confirms the final ledger publicly. Outcomes are final. No appeals.

Coalition warfare

When several nations fight on one side, LETs are split in proportion to each nation's Contribution Score.

Fractional LETs accumulate and are rounded to integers by the moderator at war's end. Track them across every engagement and campaign, and bring your ledger to the peace table.

Ships win trade wars, break supply lines and carry armies where roads do not go.

Ships

Troop cap is Personnel headcount. A War Elephant takes 3 Personnel of transport capacity.

Dockyards and shipyards

Trade ships and caravans

Sea and land units are identical for income. A unit with no declared route earns nothing. Each active unit on a validated route adds +2% to that route's base income, and units stack. Routes must connect to a city. Blockaded routes earn 0, and raids and sabotage can destroy trade units outright. Example: a route worth 100,000 per week with 3 Trade Ships earns 100,000 × (1 + 3 × 0.02) = 106,000.

Blockades

• All overseas routes through the blockaded region earn 0.
• If no land bypass exists and every sea route is covered, the blockaded nation takes −3 Stability and gains +3 War Support each turn. A sealed land border with no sea routes does the same.
• Keep one active land route to a non-blockaded nation and you avoid the full penalty. Challenge the blockade fleet in a naval engagement when you can match its EP. A successful counter-engagement ends the blockade at once.

Amphibious operations

The defending navy may intercept your fleet before it reaches the coast. If you lose that naval engagement, the entire landing fails, and the troops on destroyed transports are lost. Only after winning at sea do you face the garrison at the landing site. Never commit your whole army to one crossing without warship cover.

Sea movement and distance

Distance at sea is measured in straight lines on the Map tab, using its ruler. Round up to the next 100 km. A fleet moves at the speed of its slowest ship.

• Coastal waters are within 200 km of a friendly or neutral coast. Everything else is open sea.
• Sea zones. A navy may hold a sea zone on the Map tab. A held zone blocks enemy trade ships and transports, and an enemy crossing it must win a naval engagement first.
• Supply at sea. A fleet more than 3,000 km from a friendly dockyard without a Supply Ship takes −10% EP per further 1,500 km.
• Examples. A fleet of Transport Ships takes about 8 turns to cross the Atlantic (roughly 6,500 km) and about 6 turns from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. A War Galley squadron does the Atlantic in 6. The long way around the world takes a transport fleet around 15 turns.
• Storms. The GM may delay a fleet by one turn in a storm event, and a fleet caught far from shore may lose a ship.
• Landings. A landing takes one full turn after arrival, and the army is Deployed on the shore only once the beach is held.

Spies cost money and usually fail. When they succeed, they can flip a battle without a single soldier crossing a border.

Steal enemy war plans

Cost: 50,000 Currency per mission. Best used the turn before a planned engagement.

Do not spam missions. Five missions give about a 41% chance of at least one critical failure.

Sabotage

Cost: 100,000 Currency per mission. Choose one target. Success chance is +1% per 5 Personnel sent, capped at 50%. On failure, all Personnel sent are lost, and the GM may fire an exposure event.

Fort sabotage before a key defensive engagement cuts the defender's EP bonus. Income sabotage early in a long war strains upkeep and forces hard choices.

Supporting rebel groups

Cost: 75,000 per week per group. Worth it only against a politically unstable target. Do not fund rebels in a nation you plan to invade soon, because a successful rebellion can install a hostile state before you are ready.

Mitigations reduce turnover risk: Puppet Treaty (−15%), Embedded Advisers (−10%), Cultural Support (−5%).

Cities are targets. They hold your revenue, your garrisons and your trade routes, and losing them hurts all three.

City structure

Personnel allocation totals 100%: 30% in the capital, 60% across the four major cities, and 10% always deployed. The tax shares also total 100%.

• Capital captured: lose 40% of tax revenue for the duration.
• Losing a war: the losing side's economy needs time to recover. For 7 turns (1 week) after the war ends, its income is 85% of what it was before.
• Major city captured: lose 15% of tax revenue per city. Its Personnel become POWs.
• Capturing enemy cities: you gain their revenue share.
• Destroying a city: permanent. The enemy loses the revenue and you gain nothing.
• Building a new city: 500,000 Currency. It starts as a Major City.
• A captured city kills that trade route's income immediately.

When the war ends

Reparations everywhere in this book follow one rate: 5,000 per LET, paid weekly for 3 weeks.

After the peace

• Collect reparations or register territorial gains with the GM.
• Return POWs or negotiate their release as part of the terms.
• Reassign garrisons from war deployment back to cities.
• Restore disrupted trade routes. Each reassignment costs 1 action.
• Update your ledger with new income figures if cities or routes changed.
• Check your general's Loyalty. Win or lose, this is a natural moment to honor or blame them, so choose carefully.

Territory won with LETs may be designated a Colony, Territory or Vassal rather than incorporated outright (Section 6). Subjects can later be brought down to Territory and incorporated through a Referendum (Incorporation). The National Bank (600,000) permanently raises your Economic Ceiling.

Every player creates a Leader Profile before posting any RP. It is a narrative document, not a stat sheet, and it carries no mechanical bonuses. It is how the GM writes you into events, how NPCs address you, and how your general perceives you.

Required fields

What your leader does

• Appears in diplomatic and domestic events as the named participant.
• Interacts with your general in RP exchanges that can shift Loyalty.
• Initiates RP interactions with NPC figures as a declared action (1 action).
• Can be targeted by assassination or coup events.

Each nation selects one Five-Star General at the start of the game. Your general commands your deployed armies, can resolve engagements in their own style, and carries a Loyalty score that measures the trust between your leadership and your military command.

The rules of command

• Choose from the roster in Section 23, or create a custom general.
• Generals are first come, first served. Once claimed, a general is locked to that nation.
• Your general commands all Deployed troops. Garrisoned troops stay under city commanders.
• You cannot swap generals freely. Death, defection, dismissal or relief are the only exits.
• Match the combat style to how you expect to fight. An aggressive assaulter is wasted on a nation fighting only on the defensive. Check starting Loyalty and read the flaw seriously.

Auto-resolve

For any engagement, declare: “I leave this engagement to [General Name].” The GM generates a strategy in the general's combat style and adjudicates it normally. You may add constraints such as “minimize casualties,” “hold the supply hub” or “do not cross the river.” Constraints that conflict with the general's style reduce effectiveness slightly.

• Auto-resolved plans are rated Competent. They gain the general's specialty bonus and +3 Loyalty, win or lose, but never a Clever rating.
• +1 additional Loyalty on a Decisive or Miraculous victory.
• A Catastrophic Defeat on auto-resolve costs −3, which cancels the +3 for a net of 0.

Loyalty

Loyalty runs from 0 to 100. It affects EP, auto-resolve quality and event behavior. You see your exact number. Opponents never do, and the GM publishes your Loyalty tier in each engagement's EP breakdown.

Loyalty tiers

Threshold events

Enemy espionage against your general

An enemy may use espionage to try to flip your general. The chance depends on Loyalty.

Death, relief, defection & replacement

Death in auto-resolve is far less likely than in a high-casualty manual engagement, because the general coordinates from command. If your general dies in a manual engagement where you overrode their judgment, you forfeit your next auto-resolve.

Keeping your general loyal

1. Auto-resolve regularly. Three auto-resolves at the Devoted tier are worth more than any other combination of bonuses.
2. When Loyalty is low, auto-resolve the next engagement at once. Even a bad result earns +3.
3. Have your leader honor the general publicly (1 action, +5).
4. Follow their stated tactical preference for the next campaign, even if you disagree.
5. Below 50, avoid manual submissions that ignore the general. Every one is a −2 or −3 risk with no upside.
6. Never let enemy agents work on a general below 30 without a plan.

In coalitions, the LET ledger and the Loyalty ledger run in parallel. A general who wins you Decisive victories and watches you give the LET credit to a partner will notice, and the GM may apply Loyalty penalties where the narrative supports it.

Fifteen commanders, fifteen histories, one throne's trust to give. Each entry lists a combat style, a specialty bonus, a known weakness and a starting Loyalty.

Specialty bonuses and your Loyalty tier modifier are added together and applied once to Starting EP (Section 16).

Custom generals

If no default general fits your nation, create your own and submit it to the GM before the RP begins. All fields are mandatory. Custom generals start at Loyalty 50.

• Name and title, and age and origin.
• Personality: 2 or 3 traits, including their relationship with authority.
• Known flaw. No flaw means rejection.
• Combat style: Aggressive Assault, Defensive Attrition, Flanking Maneuver, Siege Specialist, Naval Commander, Guerrilla Tactician, Combined Arms, or a Custom style with GM approval.
• Specialty bonus comparable to the defaults, with GM approval.
• Known weakness, meaningfully limiting.
• Lore entry of at least 3 sentences.

Claim registry

The GM updates this as generals are claimed.

Diplomacy has no fixed rules. A treaty is simply anything two or more players agree to, and it can be about anything at all.

How a treaty works

1. Negotiate. Talk in RP or in private. Spend actions on diplomatic contact as needed (Section 2).
2. Agree. Every nation involved must accept the same terms. A treaty cannot be forced on a nation by the other side alone, except through the peace table (Section 17).
3. Register. Post the terms to the GM. Anything with a mechanical effect, such as money, land, trade routes, troops or supply, must be registered so it can be tracked. Pure promises of friendship need no registration.
4. Live by it. The GM applies the terms to your ledger and runs the consequences.

Common treaty types

These are examples, not a list of options. Players may invent their own, and combine them freely.

Secret clauses

Treaties may have public terms and secret ones. Secret terms stay between the signatories and the GM. An enemy can only learn them through espionage (Section 19).

Breaking a treaty

No nation is ever stopped from breaking a treaty. Sovereignty means you may do it. The world reacts, as always.

• Breaking a treaty publicly and deliberately triggers an event, and the GM may cut your Stability and War Support to reflect the loss of trust.
• The injured partner may respond however it likes: cancel trade, call in allies, declare war, or demand compensation.
• Other nations may refuse to sign with you in future, or ask for higher prices when they do.
• If a treaty ends because its time ran out, that is an expiry, not a break. Nothing happens.

A global treaty is an agreement open to many nations at once, a pact for the whole world. Like all diplomacy it has no fixed rules, only what its signatories agree to.

Creating a global treaty

1. Propose. Any nation may draft a treaty and post the full text publicly, with a name, its terms and how it is enforced.
2. Sign. Any sovereign nation may sign by posting its signature. Signing costs 1 action. A treaty needs at least 3 signatories to take effect, or it remains a draft.
3. Register. The GM records the treaty, its signatories and its terms, and notes it in the Diplomacy tab and the Timeline (Appendix F).

A global treaty binds only the nations that signed it. Non-signatories are free to ignore it, though the world may react to how they behave.

What global treaties can cover

These are examples. Players may write any terms they can agree on.

Running a treaty

• Voting. Unless the text says otherwise, each signatory has one vote and a simple majority decides. A treaty may set its own rules, such as weighted votes or a veto.
• Amendments. Changes need the vote the treaty sets for itself. Without one, they need every signatory to agree.
• Joining. New signatories join by posting their signature, unless the treaty requires a vote to admit them.
• Withdrawing. A nation may withdraw at any time by announcing it. The withdrawal takes effect after 7 turns, unless the treaty says otherwise.
• Secret clauses. A global treaty may have them, but they are exposed more easily because so many nations know them (Section 19).

Enforcement

Nobody polices a global treaty except its signatories. The GM does not stop a nation from breaking it, but the world reacts.

• Breaking a global treaty publicly and deliberately triggers an event for the violator, with a larger loss of trust than a two-nation treaty, because every signatory was wronged.
• Signatories may respond together: sanctions, closed ports, a joint ultimatum or war. A war by signatories counts as a coalition (Section 17).
• Signatories that ignore a clear violation may be seen as having abandoned the treaty. The GM may let it collapse.

Events are how the world pushes back, and occasionally rewards. Your nation exists inside a living world that reacts to your decisions, your neglect, your wars, your prosperity and your luck.

In both cases the GM describes what is happening, you declare what your nation does, and the GM adjudicates. No options are ever provided.

How random events trigger

Each week the GM calculates both scores for every active nation and nets them.

• Net positive: a positive event fires with probability equal to the Net Score in percent.
• Net negative: a negative event fires with probability equal to the absolute value of the Net Score in percent.
• Net zero: no event fires this week.

Once the type is set, the GM picks the most fitting event. The category is never purely random: a nation with blockaded grain routes does not receive a trade windfall.

Negative events

Positive events

Player-triggered events

These always draw a consequence event:

• Ordering your own troops to act against your government, citizens or political rivals.
• Executing, imprisoning or publicly humiliating a named figure (general, noble, clergyman, foreign ambassador).
• Destroying your own infrastructure: burning a city, demolishing a fort, scuttling your fleet.
• Switching government or ideology mid-game.
• Breaking a treaty publicly and deliberately.
• Declaring yourself or your ruler divine, eternal or absolute beyond what your government and ideology grant.
• Funding rebel groups that go on to take power.
• Committing acts other nations would call war crimes: mass executions, deliberate starvation of civilians, destruction of religious sites.

Dramatic positive actions also trigger events: exceptional mercy, a spectacular victory, a major gift to an ally.

Economic shocks

Money moves the world, and it can be turned into a weapon. These shocks are triggered by player action or by the GM, and they apply to income, Stability or both.

Sanctions and embargoes ignore only goods the target does not need. A nation cannot embargo a good that was never traded between the two.

Themed events

The GM may draw from these when the world needs a jolt. Each is a starting point, and the GM sets the exact numbers.

Events do not demand immediate resolution. Gathering information, setting conditions and positioning resources are all valid responses, but time has a cost, and the world does not pause while you think.

The four responses

Escalation rates

Every event has an Escalation Rate set honestly by the GM. It tells you how fast the situation develops while you act.

A Slow conspiracy leaves room for a 3-turn investigation. A Critical mutiny may be past negotiation if you spend even one turn gathering information.

Investigation

A successful investigation returns partial or full information: who is involved, what they want, how far along the plan is, what leverage they hold, and where they are weak. Quality of the action sets quality of the answer.

Complications

• Agents spotted. The target knows. They may accelerate, go to ground or hunt your agents.
• Wrong lead followed. Time was spent on nothing useful while the situation worsened.
• Agent turned. An agent was captured or flipped, and misinformation now comes back as intelligence.

The GM does not always say which complication occurred. You may learn your intelligence was wrong only when you act on it.

The update loop

After your action completes, the GM posts an Event Update: what your action revealed, how the situation changed meanwhile, and its current status. The event is not resolved until you take a decisive action that addresses the root cause, or the situation escalates beyond your control.

Partial resolutions are real outcomes. You may address the symptoms but not the cause, and a related event returns weeks later. You may satisfy a demand but create a grievance, and a follow-on is queued. Or external factors may end it before you act.

Concurrent event lines

An open event does not pause the weekly roll. New random events can fire while another is unresolved, and player-triggered events always fire. There is no limit on simultaneous lines. A careful player who investigates thoroughly will carry more open lines than one who acts bluntly. The tradeoff is information against exposure.

How the GM judges a response

1. Is it realistic for your stats and resources? You cannot spend money you do not have, deploy troops stationed elsewhere, or call on allies without a treaty obligation.
2. Is it specific and well considered? “I send soldiers” is not a plan. A named reassignment of garrison commanders to distant postings, with loyal officers installed and honors given to the noble families to mask the move, is a plan.
3. What do the dice say? Some outcomes are guaranteed, some are uncertain even with a perfect plan, and the GM rolls honestly.

Default deadline is 3 turns, shorter for urgent crises. Positive events may have none.

Cascades

A badly handled event feeds the next. A grain route blockaded for 3 weeks triggers Famine. Famine handled poorly triggers city unrest. Unrest at low Stability triggers a Garrison Mutiny. A mutiny that spreads with defecting officers triggers a Coup Attempt. None of this is punishment. It is consequence, and always traceable to decisions made or neglected.

Positive cascades exist too. Handling a crisis exceptionally well can produce a surge of public confidence, a general whose loyalty deepens, or a foreign power that takes note of your competence.

Actions outside the rules

The GM will never refuse a player action because it is not in the rules. You declare it. The GM decides whether it is possible given your resources and stats, adjudicates, and the world reacts. Fully valid examples:

• Ordering your army to march on your own capital and rule by military decree.
• Publicly converting your nation's official religion mid-game.
• Commissioning an assassination of a foreign leader, with high risk and massive fallout if discovered.
• Declaring your nation permanently neutral and disbanding its offensive military.
• Offering to become a vassal of a stronger nation in exchange for protection.
• Attempting to bribe the GM's adjudication of a battle. This will not work, but the GM will find it entertaining.
• Declaring yourself a god.

Every one of these produces a consequence event. Some go well, most are complicated, and a few end in immediate catastrophe. All are valid, because Tua Voluntas. Tua Fata.

The opening month sets the tone for the whole game. Spend recklessly and you will play catch-up for weeks. Move methodically and you will have a stable economic base before your first war.

Every player picks a General and writes a Leader Profile before the RP begins. Both are mandatory.

The first thirty days

Day 0

• Confirm your tax level. If unrest is low, stay at Level 5 (50,000 per week) until trade routes are paying.
• Open a ledger with your treasury and weekly income. Apply your government and ideology bonuses.
• Select your General. Generals go first come, first served.
• Write your Leader Profile before any RP.

Days 1 to 3

• Register 1 or 2 high-value routes. Tier 1 and 2 goods on long routes pay best.
• Build trade ships or caravans at once. A route with no transport earns 0. Aim for at least 2 units per route (+4%).
• Make sure each route connects to a city at both ends.

Days 4 to 10

• At 150,000 Currency, buy an Industrial Expansion (+10% of base income).
• With no trade partners yet, spend 75,000 on Diplomatic Outreach.
• Skip forts unless you face an active threat. Upkeep starts immediately.

Days 11 to 30

• Near your ceiling? Deposit the excess in the WBO rather than let Stagnation hit.
• If the ceiling pinches, the National Bank (600,000) is your most important early purchase after income.
• Plan forts at Levels 1 to 3. Run a Civil Propaganda campaign if Stability drifts down.
• Start building your relationship with your general in RP. Early trust costs nothing.

Tax policy

• Keep Level 5 as your neutral default.
• Drop to Level 3 or 4 if Stability is falling and you are not in immediate need.
• Raise to Level 6 or 7 only for short-term war financing, expecting −2 to −4 Stability per week, and run Military Propaganda alongside.
• Level 8 or higher is an emergency measure. The −9 Stability and −15 War Support of Level 10 can destabilize a nation faster than losing a battle.

Trade route priorities

You can only export what your own region produces. Check the region tables in Section 10 before you plan around a good.

Assign 2 or 3 transport units to each high-value route, never leave a registered route without transport, and budget for replacements, because in war your trade ships may be reassigned or destroyed.

Before you go to war

LET doctrine

• LETs are leverage, not a win condition. Build them, then negotiate the peace you want rather than the one you can take by force.
• As attacker: accumulate LETs, then offer peace from strength. Do not keep fighting a winnable peace for land you do not need.
• As defender: every LET you earn makes the attacker's terms costlier to enforce. Holding out through several campaigns with Stability and War Support intact is a legitimate path to a good peace.
• In bids: the bid is a sunk cost. Never bid what you are not prepared to lose entirely.

Naval and covert counsel

• A blockade with no land bypass zeroes the enemy's overseas trade and costs them −3 Stability per turn. Sustained long enough, it forces concessions without winning every land battle. Watch your supply ships.
• To resist a blockade, keep one land route to a non-blockaded nation, challenge the fleet when your EP matches, and run Civil Propaganda while you build.
• Target enemy generals below 30 Loyalty with espionage. A successful flip brings them to your side at Loyalty 30.
• Target fort sabotage before a key defensive engagement, and income sabotage early in a long war.

Colonies, the Bank and what comes first

Final doctrines

• Economy first, always. A nation with twice your income will outbuild, outfortify and outlast you.
• Your wallet is not fixed. The Bank raises your ceiling at once, and colonies raise it continuously.
• Your general is a force multiplier or a liability. A Devoted general (+5% EP) across a five-engagement campaign is a real swing, and a Mutinous one (−10%) may be decisive against you. Loyalty is math, not flavor.
• Auto-resolve is the safe default. Manual is how you win on purpose: a Clever plan beats the general's Competent one, but a vague plan loses to it.
• Your leader's flaw is not decoration. The GM will press on it at the worst moment.
• Forts are cheap to start and expensive to finish. Build up only as income allows.
• LET discipline wins wars.
• The WBO is insurance, not a piggy bank.
• Cities are targets. Your capital is 40% of your tax revenue. Garrison it.
• Colonies are not free territory. Hold only what you can sustain.
• Your government and ideology are free bonuses. Use them.

Copy these into your posts. Fill every bracket.

Leader profile

Nation sheet

Engagement post

Weekly ledger

Moderator battle report

Event post and update

The whole game on one page. Seriously, read the whole book too.

• Turns are days. Income is weekly. Deductions are daily. Daily costs should stay below weekly income.
• Every soldier starts as a Levy. Your Defense Forces stat is your headcount. Spend Currency to upgrade Levies, priced per battalion of 500, before war. No upgrades mid-campaign.
• Tiers: Tier 1 (Men-at-Arms, Spearman, Bowman) is cheap. Tier 2 (Crossbowman, Pikeman, Light Cavalry, Mounted Archer) costs more. Tier 3 Knights (cap 12) add +350 EP each. Tier 4 War Elephants rule open terrain.
• Supply scales with quality. Levies cost 0.5, Knights 4.0.
• Siege crews are real: Ballista 4 (defensive), Catapult 6, Trebuchet 10 (2 turns to assemble).
• Mercenaries are paid upfront for up to 4 weeks. Five companies, each with a special rule.
• Three levels of war: Engagement, then Campaign (5 engagements), then War (ends by treaty only).
• BSD = winner EP ÷ loser EP. 1.00 to 1.20 close, 1.21 to 1.70 decisive, 1.71 and up miraculous.
• 1 LET = 10,000 km² or 5,000 Currency per week for 3 weeks.
• Positions: Deployed, Garrisoned, Reserve. Dead return as Levies at the weekly refresh.
• Supply Hubs: 3 per front. Each hub lost costs EP, from −15% up to −60%.
• Trade: export only goods your region really produces. 1 route per city, 2 goods per direction, 1 of them Tier 1 or 2. Income depends on abundance, demand, distance, balance and transport.
• Industrial Expansion: 150,000 for +10%, up to 3 stacks. National Bank: 600,000 for +25% ceiling.
• Generals: auto-resolve for +3 Loyalty. A Clever manual plan earns +5% EP. Keep Loyalty above 50.
• Events: Net Score = Positive − Negative, rolled weekly. No options are ever given.
• Stability and War Support stay between 0 and 100.
• The GM publishes everything: EPs, BSD, LETs, compositions and contracts.

These are the standing procedures for moderators. Players may read them. Nothing here is hidden.

Transparency

• Publish starting EPs, the BSD value and the outcome category for every engagement.
• Record each side's Unit Composition Declaration at the start of each campaign.
• Record fractional LETs per engagement and track them through the war.
• Record Knight deployment numbers per engagement.
• List active mercenary contracts in the public ledger.
• Document any penalty beyond the standard tables with a written rationale.
• Publish each general's Loyalty tier in the engagement EP breakdown. Owners see exact values.

Weekly event check, per nation

1. Calculate the Negative Score: start at 15 and add every applicable modifier.
2. Calculate the Positive Score: start at 10 and add every applicable modifier.
3. Net Score = Positive − Negative.
4. If positive, roll for a positive event at Net%. If negative, roll for a negative event at the absolute value. At zero, no event.
5. Choose the most contextual event from the matching list.
6. Write the event post in the standard format. No options and no hints.
7. Set a response deadline: 3 turns by default, 1 for urgent crises. Positive events may have none.
8. Adjudicate the response with the three-question test (Section 27).
9. Post the outcome. If a cascade is warranted, queue the follow-on for next week.

Player-triggered check

1. Does the action fall in a player-triggered category? If so, a consequence event is guaranteed.
2. Decide the realistic reaction within 1 or 2 turns, positive or negative.
3. Write and post it in the standard format, then adjudicate as normal.

Adjudication notes

• Events should feel earned. A plague on a carefully managed nation is bad luck. On a nation that ignored unrest, it is inevitable.
• Never telegraph the right answer. Write the situation, not the solution.
• Set Escalation Rates honestly. A conspiracy does not become Critical because it would be dramatic.
• Track the escalation clock independently of the player. The situation evolves whether they watch or not.
• Do not reward vague investigations with precise intelligence. Reward named agents, cover, target and method with real detail.
• Complications are realism, not punishment. Roll honestly and apply the results.
• Never say at once that an agent was turned. Let the player act on the false information and reveal it through consequences.
• Reward creative but plausible responses. Do not punish lateral thinking.
• A partial resolution is a complete resolution for now. Close the event, note what was not addressed and queue the follow-on.
• Not every event needs a mechanical effect. Purely narrative consequences matter.
• Track named characters across events. A general who defects now exists in the shared world and may appear in another player's events.
• Keep a GM Event Ledger per player: open lines, current escalation stage and the turn of the next escalation. Three or four open lines for an active player is normal.
• When a new event needs troops or funds already committed elsewhere, flag it in the new post.
• When two lines share a root cause, consider merging them into one compound event.

Every term of art in this book, in one place.

The history of the world now has its own page.

Open the Timeline tab at the top of the page. It holds two things, both kept by the GM:

• Timeline: the public record of what happened, grouped by turn. Wars begun and ended, treaties signed and broken, cities founded and lost, leaders who rose and fell, and world events. Each entry notes the turn, the type, who was involved and how it ended. You can filter it by type or by nation.
• Global News: headlines from around the world, written in the style of a newspaper front page, with breaking news flagged in red.

The GM may also post any entry or story to the Announcements channel in Chat.

Diplomacy tab and news bar

Wars, alliances and treaties are also kept in the Diplomacy tab, which shows who stands on which side, since which turn, and whether each is still in force. When the GM records one, it can be added to the Timeline and sent to the scrolling news bar at the bottom of the screen in the same step, so the whole table sees it at once.