Foreign Relations

Foreign Relations are measured on a 0-10 scale.

0: At war. The two nations are at war and no meaningful communication can be created.

World Wars

1-2: Hostile. There are no meaningful communications at this point but there is no war either

Cuban Missile Crisis

3-4: Cold. Diplomatic relations are strained but normalized.

Cold War

5-6: Neutral. Normal diplomatic relations.

Switzerland with *everybody*

7-8: Friendly. Powers with this relation level like each other and are likely to have very close trade and military relationships.

Taiwan and the US

9: Allied. NPCs with this level of relation to you allow you significant control over what they do and build, although they're still unlikely to share their secrets.

Russia and the Warsaw Pact

10: United. The two nations can essentially share just about everything, including their deepest secrets.

US control of the Phillipines

Relations are generalized to entire blocs. The Blocs that do exist are:

Core

PACT: 3

EU: 3

CIS: 5

China: 5

ZOCU: 8 (Relations 9, allied, etc --Ezekiel- 21:46, 10 February 2010 (UTC))

Expanse: 5

League: 6

Magnate: 4

Rim: 5

[House of War] Core Relations -2

[Guiding Star] ZOCU Relations +1 [9]

[Hardliner Ouster] ZOCU Relations -2 [6], Core Relations + 2

League

PACT: 5

EU: 5

CIS: 5

China: 5

ZOCU: 6

Expanse: 5

League: 8

Magnate: 1

Rim: 6

Magnate

PACT: 3

EU: 3

CIS: 5

China: 3

ZOCU: 4

Expanse: 4

League: 1

Magnate: 8

Rim: 3

[We're People Too] +2 relations with any three of: CIS/Expanse/League/Rim.

Independent

All Relations at 5 (except Magnates which defaults to 4)

6 points to improve relations (up to +2 in any one category)

[Transhuman Supremacy]: -1 to all non-Magnate relations, max 5 (max 4 with PACT/EU/China), +1 to Magnate relations

Domestic Support

Morale is rated on a 0-10 scale. A default power has a morale of 5, increased or decreased by 1 for every +/- morale that the power has. 0 morale represents an entirely dysfunctional power in the throes of full revolt, 1-3 likely represents a power with its rulers scrabbling desperately to hold on against a tide of public dissatisfaction, 4-6 morale is normal for the average democracy, 7-8 morale normal for particularly propagandized powers with nationalistic streaks or significant brainwashing, and 9-10 equivalent to thought control powers or powers with truly inhuman levels of population support.

Domestic Support is generated quarterly by Morale, representing the goodwill your power can "burn" every so often without larger repercussions. A power has a certain number of Support points that it can use freely, scaling up or down dependent on the current situation. Domestic support may not be banked-taxing an extra 5% of someone's income is likely to make them grumble, but suddenly taking away 100% of their income for a month is likely to make them revolt.

Certain events such as fighting a defensive war may increase the available domestic support to a power.

Generating Support

Support is generated dependent on the situation the power is in, with no . Note that for this chart, "High Morale" means a Morale of 4+, and Low Morale means a Morale of 0-3.

Unthreatened (i.e., Core World): (Morale) support generated
Elevated Tensions (i.e. ZOCU, Core): (Morale x 2) support generated
Crisis Situation/Cold War (i.e. League, Magnates): (Morale x 3) support generated
Offensive War: (Morale x 4) support generated
Defensive War, Low Morale: NEGATIVE (Morale) support generated. The invading power may choose any Morale effect and either take advantage of it himself or reverse it (reducing your production, creating insurgents and spies for his own use, etcetera)
Defensive War, High Morale: (Morale x 6) support generated

Using Support

Support can be used in several ways.

Peacetime

Mobilization

Whether it involves taxing people more or forcing them to work long unpaid hours in the factories, domestic support can be used to increase income. Each point of Support may be traded in for (15 - Trade Index) points of CIP, PIP, or Wealth. This may never be more than double the population bonus-the people may only work so hard, and you can only tax 100% of their income.

Loans

Domestic loans are a somewhat more reliable method of borrowing wealth. Each point of Support may be traded in for a loan of [5 + Trade Index] * 10 Wealth, up to double your population bonus in this case. Rich, connected worlds tend to have a lot more money going around and their governments tend to be significantly more likely not to default on their payments.

You still have to pay them back though, or at least pay the interest. Defaulting on your payments may cause stability problems, possibly permanently decreasing both support and trade index.

Diplomacy

Giving concessions to foreign powers tends to annoy citizens of your nation, but appeasement might be critical to seal a deal. During peacetime, 1 point of Support can be traded in for one point of DAP, representing making unpopular concessions to another foreign power (examples?) to gain concessions in the form of military or economic aid, reduced sanctions, or what have you.

Similarly, you can use support to burn bridges, if you want to cut yourself away from a bloc partner whose warmongering is likely to drag you into an unwinnable war. However, this is expensive and will almost certainly cause the permanent loss of at least one or more points of morale, as well as permanently damage your bloc relations, possibly irreparably.

Weapons Sales

You can sell arms or give aid to unfriendly powers (the enemy of your enemy is your friend after all). However, this costs domestic support equal to 1 point of support per 50 PIP, CIP, Wealth, or Delta Dust, and 1 point of support per every 10 points of Theta or Omega dust. This cost may be paid over an entire year, unlike most other methods.

Wartime

Wartime Production

Diverting civilian industries and vital resources to military production costs popular support due to widespread rationing, but can increase military production drastically.

Wartime production in this form increases your PIP and CIP production, but reduces your wealth production by the given amounts. In addition to the boosts to base PIP and CIP production, lost wealth production is converted into CIP or PIP at a 2 Wealth: 1 Production ratio. This affects infrastructure alone, not population bonus. It is possible to, in fact, mobilize population as well as run wartime production, representing a combination of nationalization, rationing, and crippling taxation, but in general doing so is only likely if you are literally in a war for national survival.

Basic Mobilization (+50%, -50% wealth output, -50% wealth output): -20 Support/Quarter

Heavy Mobilization (+100% industrial output, -100% wealth output): -25 Support/Quarter

Total War Footing (+175% industrial output, -200% wealth output): -30 Support/Quarter

War Upkeep

Offensive wars cost domestic support, with the cost increasing as the war drags on. Defensive wars do not cost morale. In general, an offensive war costs 6 Support during the first quarters, costing an additional +2 for every quarter after that. Police actions, where the war has largely petered out, cost much less, generally cost much less, somewhere around 2-4 Support per quarter depending on the scale and how long you've been around (but naturally, police actions and nationbuilding don't give the patriotic fervor that wars do).

Atrocities

In general, war crimes and other atrocities may inflict temporary support penalties on your population. This costs (base cost * atrocity multiplier) in support. Putting yourself into support debt will either require the burning of permanent support, or paying for a temporary boost of support (i.e. bread and circuses) to distract the populace.

Atrocity Multipliers (Base)-Add the multiplier for government + faction together

Core/ZOCU: x2.0 (The Core and ZOCU like to think they're the "good guys" and war crimes mar this image.)

Independent: Special Government Multipliers

House of War ZOCU: x1.0 against Core worlds only (the populace doesn't give a flying fuck about the Core)

Loyalist China: x1.0 against rebellious Chinese worlds only, as Core otherwise (we are sick and tired and give no fucks).

League: x0.5 (The League's been in a total war with the Magnates for decades and the peace is relatively recent, their population is hardened and embittered)

Magnate: x0.1 (Magnates essentially never are penalized domestic support for atrocities due to their thought-control nature and exhuman qualities, but alternative methods are always on the table and atrocities can often be an inefficient waste of resources).

Atrocity Multipliers (Government)

Future Government (TG): x0.25/x1.5, x-0.1/x0.4 for Magnates, x0.1 for Independents with Transhuman Supremacy, x0.5/x3.0 for Independents

Often known for their caste systems, Magnate future governments often give de jure leadership legitimacy to their leaders by virtue of literally being better at leading than the proles, while similar but lesser effects exist for other states, although few states openly admit it. The higher atrocity multipliers are for democratic future governments, while the lower ones are for repressive ones.

Future Government (AI): x0.25/1.5, x0.5/3.0 for Independents

Generally direct democracies, AI future governments make it very easy for people to express their displeasure at your shenanigans. The lower numbers are again, AI run dictatorships or thought control systems, while the higher ones are for democracies.

Multiparty Democracy: x1.5, x3.0 for Independents

Atrocities mean the other party wins!)

Single Party Democracy: x0, x1.5 for Independents

What, are they going to vote for the opposition party?

Space Monarchy: x0, x1.5 for Independents

The king is law.

Junta: x-0.5, x0.5 for Independents

Anyone who protests about your genocide of the Space Kurds can eat bullets.

Insurgencies

in an invasion, your citizens take to the streets, fighting the enemy with whatever arms they can be equipped or trained with. IEDs, ambushes by partisans with RPGs, intelligence gathering by resistance cells against the occupiers, mass public revolts, and so on. In a war, each point of Support may be traded in for (30 - 2[Trade Index]) military points worth of light infantry, spies, or special forces, representing partisans resisting the enemy with all their might.

Soldier Morale

Low morale means a low tolerance for hard fights. Every point of Morale below 5 adds a -1 penalty to any rolls made to resist rout or surrender, while every point of Morale above 5 adds a +1 bonus to such rolls. This is in addition to whatever bonuses veteran and elite units have. The forces of a world with high morale are far more likely to fight to the death, while a world with low morale should make sure it chooses its battles carefully. That is to say, a force with low morale is much more easily knocked out of battle, but a force with high morale is much more likely to fight till the bitter end if necessary, creating a horrific meat grinder at great cost to themselves.

As the morale of your soldiers can be roughly described as how much they're willing to die for their country, the base morale score is generally used to give the base morale level of most formations and combat forces.

Adjusted Morale/Brief Blurb

10+: Heroic: Combat ineffective only happens at 100% losses. Only extremely rare units have this level (and most of them end up being made famous for their valor and esprit de corps by dying to a man and are therefore defunct) outside of inhuman creations such as combat drones, psychologically imprinted supersoldiers, and the like. Examples: Teletroopers, robot soldiers, SPACE MARINES (the 40k kind FYI)
10: Extremely Fanatical: "It is what we do best. We die standing." Examples: Leonidas and the 300, WWII Japanese
9: Fanatical: Fidelis tamquam Post Mortem. Examples: SAS, French Commandos,
8: Valorous: Death before dishonor. Like rating 7, most elite forces end up around here. Examples: British Royal Marines, US Special Forces,
7: Very Reliable: Semper Fidelis. "Elite" forces of the Core and ZOCU tend to be around here. Example: US Marine Corps, British Paras,
6: Reliable: Somewhere around the standard frontline soldier of your standard space democracy. Example: Most modern first world armies, PLA.
5: Steady: Your standard reservist soldier of your standard space democracy. Examples: US National Guard
4: Questionable: They talk up a good game, but their courage is untested under fire. Draftees often are around this level. Examples: US forces circa Vietnam
3: Wavering: They'll fight, but half-heartedly and break as soon as they start taking serious losses.
2: Grumbling: "How do I get out of this chicken-shit outfit?"
1: Rebellious: They're still technically loyal to you, but expect them to surrender at the drop of a hat. Example: Iraqi regular forces 2003
0: Mutinying: Outright rebellion. The unit is no longer combat effective at all. Get a commissar to shoot their leaders or something until they get back in line.

Militia/reservists (i.e. low cap shitty infantry, etc) would generally default to -1 or -2 on the morale scale while elite units (supersoldiers, Elites/SPF, Orbital Frames, ace squadrons) would default to +1 or +2. Certain doctrines may also raise these-or lower them, in exchange for getting cheaper dudes.

Burning Morale

In a very desperate situation, a power can burn morale for an extremely large influx of domestic support points, representing an unpopular decision which may well be necessary to ram through to prevent catastrophe, sometimes at gunpoint. In this case a single morale dot can be "burned" to create an additional influx of domestic support points which lasts for an entire year.

Building Morale

To Be Considered

Bread and Circuses
Tax Cuts
False Flag Operations
Shooting Dissidents
Short Victorious War
Getting Invaded

Economic Growth

PIP, CIP and Wealth can all be boosted with annual spending. Dust production and population can also be expanded, at somewhat greater expense. For every 150? wealth spent (double for dust and population), you can build 5?+trade index of the relevant infrastructure.

Some nations have additional modifiers: (impact on balance not yet assessed)

Garden Worlds have +2 bonus to population growth
Hell Worlds have a -1 penalty to population growth
Longshots have a +1 bonus to population growth

Other forms of industry can be spent to construct infrastructure. PIP and CIP can substitute for wealth at a 1.5x premium. The versatile output of fabricators substitutes at 1x.

Economy and Diplomacy Prototypes

Contents

Foreign Relations