Game Systems/Nation

Politics and reform

Last updated 2026-08-28

Politics is what stands between you and the changes you want to make. You do not simply enact a reform; you have to carry an upper house that has its own composition, its own ideology, and a growing impatience with being asked.

The whole system runs once a month, after culture and before research.

Parties and the upper house#

Each nation has a set of parties, each with an ideology. The upper house is a distribution of seats across those ideologies, and it is what actually votes on reform.

Pops have ideologies too, derived from their type and circumstances. In an elective government, elections pick a ruling party out of that pop base. In a non-elective one they do not — but the upper house still exists, still has a composition, and still drifts over time.

Franchise determines whose opinion counts. Each pop type supports the franchise differently at each level, so widening the franchise changes which pops translate into political weight. This is the lever that changes who the upper house represents, and it is itself a reform.

Passing a reform#

To pass a reform you need enough support in the upper house to clear the threshold for that reform's category under your form of government. The threshold varies: an autocracy and a parliamentary state do not need the same level of agreement to change the same law.

Reforms also cost money and prestige, scaling with the level you are reaching for.

Reform fatigue#

This is the mechanic that stops reform being a checklist.

Every reform you pass adds fatigue, and fatigue does two things: it reduces the support any future reform can muster (by up to 20%), and it raises the cost of reform (by up to an additional 125%). The gain per reform has a base component, a per-level component, and a category-specific component — so some kinds of change tire a nation faster than others.

Fatigue decays at 12% per month. It is a rate limit, not a wall: a nation that reforms hard for a year will find the next reform expensive and poorly supported, and will need to let the country settle before pushing again.

Unrest, suppression and rebellion#

Pops generate reform demand: each pop, based on its consciousness and militancy, wants a particular reform. Aggregate that across a nation and you have a picture of what the country is actually agitating for.

You can respond in two directions. Granting the demanded reform relieves the pressure. Or you can apply political suppression, which pushes back on militancy and consciousness directly — but suppression is a policy with its own costs, and it treats the symptom.

Unmet demand accumulates as state unrest. Where unrest runs high enough, a rebellion spawns with a specific demand attached to it. Rebels are not random banditry; they want something, and it is something your pops were already asking for.

Note the ordering within the monthly pass: suppression is applied first, and unrest is then recalculated from the post-suppression state of your pops. What you see as unrest already accounts for the boot on the neck.

Literacy and consciousness#

Literacy and national consciousness are recomputed monthly. Literacy feeds research directly — an illiterate nation researches slowly. Consciousness feeds reform demand. This is the central tension of the century: the educated population that powers your science is the same population that starts demanding a say.

What this means in play#

You cannot reform continuously. Fatigue makes the second and third reform of a year progressively harder and dearer. Space them.
Widen the franchise deliberately. It changes who the upper house answers to, which changes what you can pass afterwards. It is a move with consequences in both directions.
Rebellion is a forecast, not a surprise. Aggregate reform demand tells you what your pops want before unrest turns into rebels wanting the same thing.
Suppression buys time, not consent. It lowers militancy without addressing the demand that produced it.
Educating your country is a political act. Literacy is the engine of research and of consciousness at the same time.