Events and decisions

Events are the game's narrative layer, but they are not flavour text. Each one is a data-driven package of requirements, choices, and effects that changes the world state.

The engine runs monthly, staggered across nations so the work is spread out rather than landing all at once.

How an event fires#

Every event has requirements checked against the current world. An event only becomes a candidate when its conditions are actually true of your nation — the right government, the right technology, the right circumstances.

When one fires for you it becomes pending and waits. The game does not resolve your events for you; it waits until you choose. AI nations resolve theirs immediately.

Choices and effects#

Each choice carries effects, and the game summarises what each effect will do before you pick. You are not choosing blind between two pieces of prose.

Effects operate on the same world state everything else does — treasury, prestige, pops, reforms, relations, and so on. There is no separate "event currency".

Determinism#

Events are deterministic. They come from the seeded random number generator threaded through the simulation, which means the same save played the same way produces the same events. An event you got is not an event you were lucky to get; it is one the world state and the seed produced.

Balance of power#

Riding alongside the event engine is a balance of power pressure system, aimed at formable nations — the unifications that would create a new great power.

As a formable's progress crosses thresholds, the rest of the world reacts:

• At the alarm share, powers apply pressure at 1.5.
• At the rivalry share, that rises to 3.

There is a player-facing readout for the formable you are closest to completing, so you can see the alarm you are generating before it becomes opposition.

This is the counterweight to unification. Diplomacy discounts unification war goals by 60% infamy, making the wars affordable — and then balance of power ensures that as you approach the prize, the existing powers notice and push back. Getting most of the way to a unified great power is the point at which the world becomes hostile.

What this means in play#

• Read the effects, not the prose. Every choice tells you what it will do.
• Pending events wait for you. There is no timer forcing a bad choice.
• Events follow from your situation. If you keep getting a category of event, it is because your world state keeps satisfying its requirements.
• Watch your balance-of-power readout while unifying. The opposition scales with your progress, and it is visible in advance.

See also#

• Diplomacy — infamy, and the unification discount this counterbalances
• Crises and the Concert of Europe — the other way the world reacts to a rising power
• AI nations — who is applying the pressure