Nations & provinces
Every country is drawn from a real-world dataset of roughly 174 playable nations, but only the country you rule is simulated down to its individual provinces — a live administrative map of 4,593 first-level regions (world_2025_adm1).
How it works
The world runs at two resolutions. AI-controlled nations are simulated as single aggregate entities (one GDP, one population, one army), which keeps ~174 rivals affordable to compute every tick. The moment you pick a country, its territory is exploded into provinces, each carrying its own development level, unrest, population, governor and local resource endowment (oil, steel, food). This 'player-only province sim' is why your nation feels granular while the rest of the world moves in broad strokes.
Each quarter, provinces update toward a development target anchored to your national wealth (per-capita GDP), plus infrastructure and education budget, local potential, and any governor competence bonus — but the budget effect is gated by wealth, so a poor country cannot simply buy first-world development. Unrest rises from high taxes, low approval, under-development and separatist pressure, and falls with garrisons, development and a capable governor. Provinces that fully secede drop their development toward 12 and lock unrest near 88, contributing zero output.
Province output feeds straight back into your national economy: the derive step weights each province's oil/steel/food by its development and population, so developing a resource-rich province genuinely raises national production, while a rebelling or seceded province stops contributing entirely. Investing in regional specialization (industry, agriculture, resource, tech, trade, military — up to level 5) and appointing strong governors is how you turn the map into economic power.
Formulas
devTarget = clamp(natDev*60 + 10 + ((infra-20)*1.0 + (edu-20)*0.7)*wealthGate + governorComp*3 + specLv*2, 5, 96)res.oil.prod *= clamp(0.4 + oilFactor*1.7, 0.25, 2.2) // dev- & pop-weighted, rebels excludedKey numbers
How to play
- ▸Raise infrastructure and education budgets, but remember the payoff scales with your per-capita wealth — grow the economy first, then the budget starts to bite.
- ▸Appoint competent governors: they instantly calm unrest and lift development on arrival, and ambitious ones raise secession risk.
- ▸A rebelling or seceded province produces nothing, so garrison and develop restless regions before their unrest locks in.
- ▸Specialize high-development provinces (industry, resource, tech…) to convert local strength into national growth, stability and treasury.