11 KiB
The Desk: Rules
You rule the Republic of Valdoria for five years, from a wooden desk. Papers arrive, you sign or refuse them, you set the budget, and the country answers. This sheet explains what is on the desk and how the machinery behind it behaves.
Your task
Rule for the full term, 1826 days, without being thrown out of office. Every decision carries your signature, and most of them have a price that arrives later.
When the term ends, a final review is drawn up: a grade from S to F, a title from the historians, and charts of the period. The last year counts for half of the score, so a boom bought on credit does not pay. You are judged on the country you leave behind.
The game never shows you its formulas. Read the papers, watch the gauges, and learn from what happens.
The desk
Four things sit in front of you. On a phone they share the screen, and a shelf at the top switches between Tray, Briefing, News and Calendar.
The briefing
The Ministerial Briefing is your dashboard. It has three parts.
- Seven indicators, each with a gauge and a small sparkline of its recent history.
- The economic figures: GDP, growth, unemployment, inflation, debt and deficit as a share of GDP, and the interest rate, each with a trend arrow.
- The intelligence summary, which covers what the gauges cannot show you (see below).
The in-tray
The In-tray holds the proposals waiting for your signature. The one on top is the one you answer. When it is empty, the country simply carries on.
The calendar
The calendar shows the day count, the next briefing and the next budget review. A clock dial turns once per in-game day, and turns faster at higher speeds. The speed buttons, the pause and the Menu are here too.
The newspaper
The press reports what moved: indicators, growth, jobs, prices, debt, and the state of the world economy. It is often the first place you learn that a slump or a boom has started.
The seven indicators
Each runs from 0 to 100. They move slowly, they pull on one another, and they all drift downhill if you leave them alone.
| Indicator | What it measures | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Order | Calm streets, a working state | Police, justice, administration; falls with unemployment and unrest |
| Stability | Solidity of institutions | Social spending, health, housing, justice; falls with debt, unemployment, inflation |
| Civil rights | Freedom and fair treatment | Justice; falls with heavy policing, a large army and crackdowns |
| Public opinion | Mood of the people | Health, social, housing, jobs, growth; falls with high prices and heavy taxes |
| Economy | Strength of the productive base | Industry, infrastructure, research, education; growth and jobs |
| Hard power | Military weight | Army above all, then research and industry |
| Soft power | Influence abroad | Culture, foreign affairs, civil rights |
The intelligence summary
Two gauges are hidden from you, and the summary describes them in words. A third line tells you how safe your seat is.
- Unrest reads Calm, Restless, Tense, Volatile or Explosive. It climbs with unemployment, inflation and a hostile public.
- Army loyalty reads Mutinous, Wavering, Steady or Loyal. It follows the army's budget, but also debt, inflation and the general mood.
- Hold on power reads Secure, Shaky or Critical. Shaky means you are close to a danger zone. Critical means you are in one.
Time
One in-game day lasts 10 seconds at speed 1. In Settings, Slow time stretches a day to 60 seconds.
- Speeds: 1x, 2x and 4x, plus pause. Space pauses and resumes; the keys 1, 2 and 3 pick the speed.
- The game keeps running if the browser tab is in the background. The tab title shows how many proposals are waiting for you.
- The game stops by itself for the budget review, for urgent telegrams, and when the in-tray is full (see below).
Proposals
Every Monday a new proposal lands in the in-tray. It comes as a memorandum, a report, a letter, a petition or a telegram, and it names its sender.
Proposals pile up. The game does not stop for each one, so time keeps moving while the stack grows. You answer the top one whenever you choose.
Answering
Stamp it Approved or Rejected, with the buttons or with the keys Y and N. Both answers cost something: there is no free choice, and refusing is a decision like any other.
The game pauses only when 10 proposals are waiting, not after 10 weeks, and stays paused until you answer one.
Consequences
Answers have lasting effects, and many arrive late. Some set off a follow-up proposal weeks later: a promise comes due, a refusal turns into a petition, a gamble goes wrong.
A run draws roughly 260 proposals from a pool of more than 900, so no two terms read the same. Crisis telegrams are different: they react to the state of the country and to extreme choices. Starve the army, squeeze the taxpayers or arm the police to the teeth, and the telegrams will notice.
The budget
On day 0 and then every quarter (13 weeks), the Treasury ledger opens and the game pauses. Between reviews the ledger is closed: the budget you filed is the budget you live with. Nothing takes effect until you press Sign and file, and Reset returns to the figures the ledger opened with.
Sectors
Fifteen sectors share the spending: education, health, social and pensions, police, army, justice, industry and energy, public transport, infrastructure, housing, research, culture and media, foreign affairs, environment, administration.
Each is set as a share of GDP. A tick on each line marks what the sector needs, and needs grow a little every year, so a frozen budget slowly buys less.
Each sector has a quality from 0 to 100 that follows the budget slowly. Police reacts within weeks, health within months, education and infrastructure only over years. Above about 70, a sector brings extra benefits; below about 40, it starts to hurt. Overspending gives diminishing returns, so the last coins buy the least.
Taxes
Three taxes can be set: income tax, corporate tax and VAT. For each, revenue rises with the rate up to a peak, marked by a tick, and then falls. Beyond the peak you collect less and still pay in opinion and growth. Each tax hurts in its own way: VAT is the most felt by the public, corporate tax weighs most on growth.
The projection
The ledger shows a Treasury summary (revenue, sector spending, debt interest, surplus or deficit) and a four-quarter projection of the deficit and debt. It assumes nothing else changes, so it cannot foresee the world cycle or the proposals to come.
Debt
Each day the deficit is added to the debt, and a surplus pays it down. Debt is measured against GDP.
- Below 60%, debt is free: it costs nothing extra to carry.
- Above 60%, an interest premium appears and climbs steeply. From about 100% it is dangerous, and bond panics and rating downgrades can arrive as proposals.
- At 135%, a warning telegram arrives.
- Above 165%, the country defaults and your term ends at once.
Interest eats into the money you would rather spend on sectors, so debt feeds on itself.
Ways to lose power
Four things end the game at once, each with its own front page. The chance grows with every day spent in the danger zone, so leaving it quickly matters more than leaving it perfectly.
| Ending | Trigger | Warning |
|---|---|---|
| Revolution | Unrest above 62 and public opinion below 28 | Urgent telegram: crowds at the gates |
| Military coup | Army loyalty below 35 with stability below 50, or army loyalty below 18 alone | Urgent telegram: the generals are restless |
| Impeachment | Civil rights below 10 and public opinion below 25, for 60 days in a row | Urgent telegram: a motion of no confidence |
| Default | Debt above 165% of GDP | Urgent telegram at 135%: lenders pull back |
Warnings
Entering a danger zone sends an urgent telegram, and the game pauses until you acknowledge it. An Emergency session then opens the ledger at once, outside the quarterly schedule, so you can change course without waiting. It happens at most once every 45 days. A revolution or a coup is not certain on the first day, but it only gets likelier.
The world
Outside your borders, a global business cycle swings between slumps and booms. It moves growth, inflation and revenue whatever you do, and a slump can turn a balanced budget into a deficit. The newspaper reports it.
Everything also drifts. Public opinion fades, order and stability erode, unrest creeps up, and needs grow. Standing still loses ground, so a hands-off term is a slow slide, not a safe harbour.
The final review
The term ends with a review, drawn from the average of the whole term and not only its last day.
- A score out of 100, weighted toward opinion, stability and economy, then adjusted for final debt, average growth and unemployment.
- A grade: S, A, B, C, D or F. S is rare by design. A term that ends early is always an F.
- A title from the historians, and a verdict that depends on how you ruled.
- Charts of opinion, stability, economy and debt, and the decisions that defined the term.
Saves
The game autosaves in your browser, and the autosave is removed when a game ends. The pause menu offers three manual slots (Save game).
- To keep a game safely, use Export: it gives a text string starting with
CG1:, or a.savfile. Import takes either back, on any device. - If your browser blocks storage (a private window, for instance), Settings warns you. Export instead.
- At the start you are asked how the press should refer to you: He / Him, She / Her or They / Them. This only changes how the historian writes about you.
Controls
| Control | Effect |
|---|---|
| Space | Pause or resume |
| 1, 2, 3 | Speed 1x, 2x, 4x |
| Y / N | Approve or reject the top proposal |
| Esc | Open the menu (time stops while it is open) |
Sound and music
Soft sound effects accompany the desk: stamps, paper, telegrams. In Settings → Sound mixer every sound has its own slider, so you can turn down only what bothers you. On the day before each new proposal a small clock ticks while the dial turns.
The cassette player under the calendar plays the .mp3 files of the music folder in random order. Its keys are previous, play, pause, stop and next. With no file in the folder it reads "No tape".
Advice
- Balance the books, but do not be shy: bold investment pays up to a point, then the debt calls.
- Do not ignore the army. A neglected army is a coup waiting for a date.
- Police is cheap and quick, but it costs civil rights.
- Every tax has a ceiling. Push past it and you earn less while angering everyone.
- Keep an eye on the intelligence summary: it speaks of what the gauges hide.
- Answer telegrams first.
- Read the projection in the ledger before you sign.
- Slow sectors need an early start: education funded in year four helps no one.