International Organizations

International Organizations are multilateral bodies that countries can join, lead, and use to coordinate foreign policy, pass bloc-level legislation, and establish free trade agreements. The system ships with 7 built-in organizations (EU, NATO, UN, Commonwealth, Warsaw Pact, Non-Aligned, COMECON) and also allows players to create custom organizations.

Built-in organizations#

These 7 are defined in the catalogue; era founding and dissolution years decide which exist in a given world. Players can also create custom organizations.

Organization structure#

Every organization, built-in or custom, has the following components:

Founding members#

Each org is created with a list of founding member countries that defines the initial membership. Additional countries can join later through the membership proposal process (see below).

Leadership office#

Each org has a leadership office with:

• A title (e.g., Secretary-General, Secretary General, President of the Council)
• A termTurns of 96 turns (approximately 2 game years)

Leadership elections are held when the term expires, and the office confers authority over the org's agenda and legislation.

Charter#

Each org has a charter: a text document describing its purpose, rules, and governance principles. The charter is set at creation and can be amended through org legislation.

Membership proposals#

New countries join an org through a membership proposal, which is voted on by existing members for 24 turns. Admission is unanimous: every member entitled to vote must cast a "yes" within the window. If the proposal falls short or expires, the country is not admitted.

Leadership elections#

When a leadership term (96 turns) expires, the org holds a leadership election. A candidate is seated by a majority of the members entitled to vote. Eligible candidates compete for the leadership office, and the winner serves the next full term. Holding leadership of a major org like the EU or NATO is a significant source of political influence on the international stage.

Organization legislation#

International organizations can pass legislation that binds their members. Key legislation types include:

• Withdrawal bills: a member-state's exit from the organization
• FTA legislation: establishing a free trade agreement between members (see International Trade)

Org legislation is voted on by members, typically over the same 24-turn voting window used for membership proposals.

Only members a player can act for hold a ballot. Client states are bound by whatever their bloc decides, but they do not vote on it.

Two thresholds apply, and both are measured against the members entitled to vote rather than against turnout. Abstaining, or never voting at all, withholds consent exactly as a "no" does.

• Unanimous: declaring a new war, entering a conflict at the bloc's call, free trade agreements, and admitting a new member. Any one member can refuse simply by declining to consent.
• Majority: everything else, including sanctions, directives, aid packages, dues, posture, agency funding and joint statements. More than half the voting members must vote "yes".

A resolution that fails, and a leadership candidate who is not elected, are written to the country history rather than vanishing from the pending list. A joint statement about a country lifts or lowers that country's national approval for as long as it stands (see Government Approval).

Mutual defence#

An organization binds its members to defend each other in one of two ways:

• Article 5. Any Security or Bloc organization whose members vote the Article 5 alert posture is a mutual-defence pact for as long as that posture stands. This includes organizations players found.
• A standing charter. In worlds that begin in the Cold War, NATO and the Warsaw Pact are Blocs whose charters bind their members at every posture, with no vote needed.

Political, Economic and Development organizations never bind their members, whatever their posture.

When a binding organization's member is declared on, every other member with a government enters the war on the defender's side. The alliance is named on the war's belligerent roll, and the heads of government and defence ministers of the countries pulled in are told. Entry works like any other defensive entry: part of each ally's ready reserve moves to the front, and war weariness and approval count from the turn it joined.

The rule is checked every turn, not only at the moment of the declaration. If an alliance raises its posture to Article 5 while a member is already under attack, or a country joins an alliance at Article 5 while a fellow member is at war, the allies enter that war on the next turn. Lowering the posture stops new entries but does not take anyone out of a war already joined.

It is defensive only. An ally pulled in has declared on nobody, so no other alliance fires and no chain can form. An ally stays out when it:

• has an active truce with the attacker, or is already fighting the attacker in another war;
• shares a bloc with the attacker, or belongs to any binding alliance the attacker also belongs to;
• already fought in this war and left it.

When the attacker is itself a member of the alliance, the alliance takes no side and nobody is pulled in. A member dragged in can negotiate its own exit; it is not held in the war until the member it came to defend settles.

Admission does not apply the pact retroactively to a war the applicant is already fighting. When an applicant is already defending a live war, the membership ballot shows a warning and a member can table a unanimous defensive-entry resolution. If it passes, eligible alliance members enter the defender's side immediately without votes in their national legislatures. A declaration still before an aggressor's legislature also appears as a warning. If the applicant becomes a member before that declaration is enacted, the normal automatic charter applies when the war begins. Calling the bloc onto the attacking side remains an offensive coalition choice and requires national ratification after the organization vote.

A Bloc can also originate a new war. Only player nations vote on the organization resolution, and every player nation must consent. When it passes, NPP-governed members join automatically. Each eligible player nation receives its own declaration of war, with all of its voting chambers open at the same time. That declaration still needs a two-thirds supermajority in every required chamber. A country whose legislature refuses stays out, while NPP members and every country that ratifies continue into the war.

In worlds that begin at the 1953 preset the two armed blocs also levy a fixed tribute on their non-voting client members instead of voted dues. See Declaring War.

Autonomous governments cast opinion-based votes here too, table trade agreements, aid, sanctions and statements, and can call their alliance to war, so a bloc's ballots fill in whether or not players hold the seats.

Custom organizations#

Players can create their own international organizations with arbitrary parameters:

• A player-chosen name: the org is identified by a unique short name
• A player-created flag: marks the org as player-created (as opposed to built-in)
• A category, leadership office, charter, and optional emblem

A custom organization may use the Bloc category. Founding a Bloc creates a new independent alignment pole named for the organization, with a color chosen by its founder. The founder begins committed to that pole. Bloc members can spend the pooled organization fund on Influence, use aid to reinforce member alignment, draw autonomous countries toward membership, and risk defections when a member remains below the alignment threshold. Custom Blocs also receive the same posture, statement, aid, sanctions, war-declaration, and conflict-entry resolution powers as other Bloc organizations.

Custom orgs function identically to built-in ones for membership, leadership, and legislation purposes. The primary difference is provenance: they did not exist at game start. Categories other than Bloc do not create alignment poles.

Organization pages#

Each organization has a dedicated page at the route:

/international/[orgId]

This page displays the org's membership, current leadership, active legislation, charter, and proposal history. Both built-in and custom orgs are accessible this way.

Strategic notes#

• Joining an org grants bloc benefits. Countries that share an org membership receive a trade affinity bonus (see International Trade).
• Leading an org amplifies your voice. The leadership office gives you agenda-setting power and political influence.
• FTAs are the most impactful org legislation. A free trade agreement between two members eliminates bilateral tariffs and boosts trade affinity, a major economic lever.
• Custom orgs are flexible. You can create a bloc tailored to your diplomatic strategy, inviting only aligned countries.

Public API#

Bots and public dashboards can read the live organization layer with any scoped API key:

• GET /api/public/v1/organizations lists every active built-in and custom organization with membership, leadership, and activity counts.
• GET /api/public/v1/organizations/[id] adds the charter, membership proposals, resolutions, country-level vote records, leadership elections, and pending withdrawals.

The detail route reports how each country voted, but deliberately omits the internal character IDs attached to proposals and ballots. The complete request and response reference lives in the public API documentation.

Related systems#

• International Trade: how org membership and FTAs affect trade affinity
• Tariffs: how FTAs override bilateral tariffs
• Foreign Policy: international standing and its domestic effects