What's New in Balance of Threat

The latest changes to the game, newest first. If you've played before, read the updates since your last game: some of them change what works.

October 8, 2026

New

• Read past editions of your newspaper. Open the paper (the newspaper button at the top of the screen) and use "Earlier edition" and "Later edition" under the masthead to page back through every edition of the game, turn by turn, then "Today's paper" to come back. Each one is the paper exactly as your country read it that turn.

Fixed

• The War record counts the dead who weren't soldiers. A nuclear strike on a city, or a war that kills civilians, used to show "none" in the losses columns if no military units were lost. Each opponent's row now also shows the civilians killed and the dead of a nuclear strike, on both sides.
• Island landings have a cost. Taking an island now kills or captures its whole garrison, and the news, the War record and the Chairman's report say how many people each side lost. Heavy air cover keeps the landing force's losses light, but not to zero. A garrison that throws a landing back loses some of its troops too.
• "No strike on our soil" now means a real strike. In both Gulf crises, closing the Strait of Hormuz counted as an attack on every other country, so states that were never hit (Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the UAE) failed this goal in the final standings. Now only a real attack on a country — an air or missile strike, a battle, a proxy attack, sabotage traced to its author — fails it. A closed strait still counts against the goal to keep Hormuz open.
• Setup pages line up. On the solo, join and quick-game pages the big heading now starts on the same left edge as the boxes below it.
• No more flicker on the title screen. In Chrome, pointing at a game card or a tutorial made it stutter as it lifted; it now rises smoothly and stays put.
• Ship icons all the same size. Carriers, destroyers, landing ships and submarines now sit on the map at one standard size inside their dark plates, instead of the carrier filling its plate and the others looking small.

New

• Every warship on the map, with its range. In the Gulf crises your destroyers, submarines and landing ships now appear on the map beside your carriers, stacked one under another where they share a stretch of sea. Point at one of yours and a circle shows how far its missiles (or a carrier's jets, or a landing force) reach from there, with the targets inside it marked; drag it to another station or port and the circle follows, so you can see what you gain by moving closer. Everyone can see where a rival's destroyers and landing ships are (satellites watch them), but never how strong they are, and no one sees anyone else's submarines. Each kind has its own picture (destroyer, amphibious ship, submarine), pale on a dark plate with its flag, like the carriers.
• Warships near an enemy coast can be hit. Until now only carriers were in danger from a coast's anti-ship missiles. Now any surface warship sitting inside that reach (the red zone on the map) can be hit in a week of war: a ship or two damaged, not the whole group sunk. Submarines are never found. Further out is safer, but reaches less.
• The Gulf, 2031: a safe station in the open Arabian Sea. Iran's longer-range missiles now reach the North Arabian Sea, so the US destroyers, the Marines' ships and a carrier "standing off" start further out, beyond the red zone. From there only the Zumwalts' hypersonic missiles reach Iran's nuclear sites: to strike deep with Tomahawks or carrier jets, you have to come in closer and take the risk.

Fixed

• Undersea units can be dragged on the map. Pressing on one panned the map instead; now you can pick it up and drop it on the water you want, like a carrier. While you drag, only the stretch of water under it shows its name.

New

• The Gulf, 2031. A new what-if scenario on the Gulf map, set five years after the 2026 crisis. American forces have left their bases in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iraq. The US keeps Incirlik in Turkey and a missile-defence battery in Israel, and fights from carriers, ships, submarines and bombers that fly from home. Iran has rebuilt: more missiles, many more drones, and anti-ship missiles that reach further out to sea, so even the Arabian Sea isn't safe for a carrier. Its neighbours have new jets and more air defences, and Israel has the Iron Beam laser. The rules, the length and the nuclear clock are the same as the 2026 crisis, so you can play both and compare what changed. Pick it from the title screen, or from the World menu when your teacher sets up a game. It's a what-if, not a prediction.
• New weapons in the Gulf, 2031: hypersonic missiles and lasers. Hypersonic missiles (Iran's Fattahs, a US destroyer's Conventional Prompt Strike) manoeuvre as they come down, so air defences stop far fewer of them; there are only a few dozen. Israel's Iron Beam laser shoots down drones (and some cruise missiles) close to it for almost nothing a shot: it never runs out, but it can only fire so many shots a week, it can't touch ballistic or hypersonic missiles, and dust and cloud get in its way. The Munitions tab explains each.
• The Gulf, 2031's forces were checked against the latest reporting. Each country now fields what was ordered or in production by 2026 and should be in service by 2031: the B-21 and drone wingmen, carrier tankers that let US carrier jets reach further, a few US hypersonic missiles; Israel's new tankers and the missiles its jets fire from outside Iran's air defences; Saudi Arabia's seven THAAD batteries and home-built drones (its F-35s aren't delivered yet); the UAE's Rafales and Korean air defences; Turkey's Eurofighters, first KAAN stealth fighters and Tayfun missiles; Iran's rebuilt missile force, Su-35s and Chinese air defences. Each country's Military briefing says what it has.

• The undersea war (the Gulf, 2031). Mines, uncrewed submarines and mine clearance. Iran's underwater drones, the US Navy's Orca uncrewed submarines and the minehunters of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the US are new units in the Order of battle: give one a mission there, or drag it on the map (like a carrier) to the water you want and choose what it does. Mines laid underwater are secret until a ship finds them, and nobody knows whose they are until someone traces them. A mined strait stops shipping even if no one has declared it closed, and escorts can't force it open until it is cleared; a mined port loses its trade and keeps the ships based there in port; mines where carriers sit put them in danger. Clearing is slow, and underwater drones working near a hostile coast can be caught. The Military tab's new Mines section and the map show every minefield that has been found (as a painted mine), and your own undersea units appear on your map as painted submarines — on your map only: rivals can't see them. The newspaper reports mines found, traced and cleared, and drones seized, with their own pictures.
• More US options in the Gulf, 2031: Army long-range missiles (HIMARS with PrSM, a Typhon Tomahawk battery and a Dark Eagle hypersonic battery) start in the United States and can deploy to a country that will host them; from Israel, the Typhon and Dark Eagle reach Iran. The US attack submarines are now the 2031 force: one new boat with 40 Tomahawks and an older one.

Changed (both Gulf scenarios)

• A host decides what flies from its soil. Any country with foreign forces on its soil, ally or not, can now bar them from launching strikes or landings from there (Military tab, "Strikes from our soil"); they can still defend. It's public news. Turkey starts the crisis barring US strikes from Incirlik, as it has kept its bases out of wars on its neighbours; a Turkish team can change that, and the US can try to persuade it.
• The computer's Iran no longer fires its whole arsenal at a dug-in island garrison every week; it sends a light salvo. And the computer's US now flies its fighters from home to a base in the region when a crisis heats up.
• Every Gulf game has its own luck. Before, chance events (a carrier sunk, a strait closed, a drone caught) fell the same way in the same week in every game with the same moves. Now each new game rolls its own.
• Fordow matters most. Iran's nuclear sites no longer count the same: a strike on Fordow, the buried enrichment plant, sets the programme back most, Isfahan least. The Joint Chiefs aim their bunker busters accordingly.
• Carriers near Iran's coast face one danger, not two, and a smaller one. A carrier close in off Iran was being hit by two rules for the same missiles and fast boats, and the second also wore down the whole US Navy and Air Force; now only the danger from Iran's anti-ship missiles counts, by distance, and it is half what it was. Closing in is a real gamble (in tests, about one carrier lost in eight weeks of raids from close in), not a death sentence.
• Internal security works. Choosing "Internal security" for a ground unit in the Order of battle didn't reach the game: the order was dropped when you submitted. It counts now.
• No more false "close calls at sea" with friends. Countries that exchange ambassadors and have nothing between them no longer get incidents-at-sea crises when their warships share waters.
• Clearer strike news. When a target was mobilised and dispersed, the news now says the strike "does little damage" instead of "largely intercepted", which read wrongly beside the number of missiles that got through.

October 7, 2026

New

• The war record (a student's idea!). The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs reports on the fighting, battle by battle. Our record gives your battles won and lost, strikes, your losses, the ground you took and lost, civilians, and your GDP before your first battle and now, with his assessment; against each opponent breaks it down country by country; and every battle has its own card: who attacked, who came to the target's aid, each side's losses, the territory taken and the result. You can look at any other country's record too, or at all the battles. Open it from the War record button at the top, beside the Joint Chiefs (it appears once the first battle is fought, with a red dot when you fought this turn), from the Military tab, from "The Chairman's report" on a battle alert or the war strip, or from the link under a war story in the newspaper. Drag it by its banner and resize it from its corner; it reopens where you left it. Everything in it comes from the news, so nothing secret is revealed.
• The coalition planner's odds follow your picks. Tick or untick allies in the "call your allies to a joint attack" window and the combined force, the odds and the list of defenders update for exactly the coalition you've chosen.
• Who will defend them? The Joint Chiefs' coalition plan and the "call your allies to a joint attack" planner now list the countries that would come to your target's aid: its allies and any forces stationed there. Each one shows its share of the defence you'd face, and help from across the ocean is marked as weaker. They also say when your army (or an ally's) has to cross the water without enough navy to carry it, as the invasion plans already did.
• The Joint Chiefs use forward bases. In games with forward bases, invasion and coalition plans now point out that troops you've stationed in an ally next door to the target attack at full strength, with no water to cross. If the army would otherwise cross water, they suggest stationing troops there first, or asking a neighbour for basing rights.
• How bad is the insurgency? An armed revolt at home now says how serious it is, in words (small, sizeable, large or entrenched) with a four-step meter, whether it's growing or shrinking since last turn, roughly how many fighters it has now and had last turn, and exactly what it costs you each turn in stability and growth. Look under Your nation; the Stability card sums it up in one line.

Changed

• Security counts a coalition that's fighting you. Your Security used to measure you against the single strongest country that can reach you, even right after two others attacked you together. Now it measures you against whichever is bigger: that country, or everyone who has fought you in the last few turns, combined. The Security card names them ("biggest threat Bhastra + Corvane (fighting you)"), and the threat fades a couple of turns after the fighting stops.
• Alliances are now strictly two-way: you defend only the countries you sign with. An ally's ally is no longer bound to defend you, and you're not bound to defend your ally's allies. To build a NATO, where everyone defends everyone, each pair signs its own alliance. The map names a bloc only when every member is allied with every other, and the Alliances map view colours only a country's own allies. New in the Diplomacy tab: Join (a bloc) or Ally with (a country) and its allies proposes an alliance to all of them in one click, and if only some of them accept, it tells you who hasn't signed yet.
• Breaking an alliance counts at once for defence. An alliance you break still ends at the end of the turn, but from now on neither side comes to the other's defence in that turn's battles. Before, you could break a pact and still find yourself fighting for it the same turn. (Attacking an ally you're breaking with still counts as turning on an ally: the treaty stood when you struck.)
• A mutual break is free. If you and your ally both break your alliance in the same turn, you part by mutual consent and neither of you loses reputation. Breaking it on your own still costs reputation.
• Leaving a bloc costs one penalty, not one per partner. Breaking several alliances in the same turn costs the full reputation penalty for the first and only a small amount for each one after it. Attacking an ally still costs the full penalty.

Fixed

• The war record speaks the Gulf crisis's language. In the Gulf it now counts weeks, not turns, and tells each strike the way the crisis does: the site hit, the units that flew it, what it did, the missiles and bombs fired, the interceptors that rose and what got through, the named units lost and the personnel, and any other country's forces hit at that base. Island landings appear too. Each country's record lists strikes launched and suffered, what was fired at it and by it, interceptors used, and islands taken and lost, under the crisis's own banner.
• Striking a base where another country's forces are stationed is now flagged. In the Gulf, the Joint Chiefs and the strike planner warn when a target base hosts a third country's units (US squadrons at Al Dhafra, for example): the strike hits them too, and counts as an attack on that country, which can strike back as the injured party.
• Warnings stand out. Warning notes in the planners and the Military tab (short of munitions, a carrier inside anti-ship range, an order not carried out) now show in amber instead of the same grey as every other note.
• Foreign troops based in the country you're attacking are now spelled out. The dossier and the Joint Chiefs' plans name them ("Galloway has forces stationed in Bhastra, about 10–14 regiments and 11–16 squadrons by our estimate"), show your odds with and without them, and warn that attacking that country also counts as attacking theirs. The strike odds also now count their aircraft and ships, which join the target's air defences in the battle; before, those odds came out too high.
• "Recent shocks" names who's arming your insurgents once it's known. If a terror attack on you is pinned on a foreign government, the line about foreign involvement now names it instead of saying "an unidentified source".
• The newspaper's photo fits the outrage. A story about a terror bombing now shows the aftermath of a bombing, not tanks on a road; a humanitarian catastrophe under a blockade shows the blockaded port.
• A nuclear launch no longer disappears from your orders. If you ordered a launch (or warhead or missile-defence building), then reopened the game before the turn ended, the page forgot those orders, and saving again sent your orders without them. Now they're kept like every other order.
• You can launch a nuclear strike in a crisis again. The order needs a deliberate tick ("I understand what this order means, and I give it") before Launch works, but that box was invisible, so Launch did nothing. The box now shows, Launch looks unavailable until you tick it, and clicking it anyway points you to the box. Long windows also scroll on short laptop screens. (Teachers: the console's "Let events fire on their own" box was invisible the same way; it shows now.)
• The upkeep warning tells the truth. When your budget leaves too little for upkeep, the Budget tab now says which forces would disband, for example "6 regiments, 2 flotillas and 4 squadrons". It used to show a number about a quarter of the real loss.
• A coalition battle now reports the defender's losses. A country that threw back a joint attack used to look untouched in the news, because each attacker's report named only its own losses. Now the battle's report also says what the defender lost, whether it held or fell, and the newspaper story does too.
• The compass stays in one piece when you zoom. Its letters and rings used to shrink back while its arrows grew. Now the whole compass stays the same size on screen.

October 6, 2026

New

• Tidier country labels. On the map, each country's flag now sits to the left of its name, and the tank that shows a country has mobilized sits in a row above the name, beside any "under assault" banner. The labels are shorter, so they cover less of the land.
• A Provinces view. The Provinces button on the map now switches views, the way strategy games do: the countries' names step aside and every province is named, each at one fixed spot with a ★ on the capital. Press it again for the countries. Names no longer slide around as you zoom: one that would sit under a label waits, hidden, and fades in as you zoom closer. Occupied and annexed land keeps its name in the same place.
• Keep spying going. When you choose to spy on a country (Diplomacy tab), a small menu now appears under it, just like the one for sponsoring unrest: this turn only, 3, 5 or 10 turns, or until you stop. Your spying is then queued for you each turn, and you can change your mind any time.
• "Same budget as last turn" now sticks to the Budget tab. It used to re-pick last turn's spying too, and "Clear the budget" used to cancel your spying. Now both only touch the spending lines on the Budget tab. To keep spying going, use the new menu under each country you spy on.

Fixed

• No more black slivers along borders. Zoomed all the way in, thin dark gaps showed between neighbouring countries and provinces, where their outlines didn't quite meet. The map's borders are now drawn so neighbours share exactly the same edge.
• Base markers stay put when you zoom. The markers for forces based abroad used to slide toward the country's name as you zoomed in. They now stay fixed on the map, like the attack planes.
• No more ghost lines inside countries. Zoomed in, faint seams and dark slivers sometimes showed along the borders between a country's own provinces. Countries are now drawn as one solid colour, with no gaps.
• Smoother map zooming. Zooming and dragging the map ran at a low frame rate, especially on Macs. The faint terrain shading on the map is now prepared ahead of time instead of being rebuilt on every step, and the map redraws at most once per screen frame. It looks the same and zooms about three times faster.
• Blocs defend the victim, not the attacker's friends. When one bloc member attacks another, the countries linked to the victim only through the attacker now stay out of the fight; the victim's own allies still defend it. (Before, a country could be made to fight its only ally.) The student guide has a new section, "Alliances and blocs", that explains who comes to help and when.
• Spheres of influence: no more in-and-out. If a computer-run country took you under its protection, it could drop you a turn later and then invite you back, over and over. A patron now keeps the countries it protects.
• No false surrender over the bomb. If someone demanded that you halt your nuclear programme, and your programme was finished before the deadline, the news used to say you had given in, and your stability dropped as if you had. Now the news says the ultimatum was overtaken, and nothing happens to you.
• Province names stay on land. With Provinces switched on, a few names (like ★ Vorsk) sat on a small island off the coast, which looked odd once you zoomed in. Every province's name now sits on its mainland.
• A reminder for doctrines. When one of your research tracks is ready for its doctrine (Military, Civilian or Intel), the Budget button says so, in amber, until you choose.
• Names stay put when you zoom. On a Mac (Safari), zooming into the map made the names of provinces, capitals and seas slide away from their places. They now stay pinned where they belong at any zoom. Thanks for the bug report!
• Dragging the map no longer highlights text. Moving around the map could accidentally highlight words on the page, and the next drag then stuck. The map can't be highlighted now, and starting a drag clears any highlight.
• An Alliances view of the map. The little coloured dots under each country's name are gone. Instead, switch on Alliances (bottom corner of the map): the map turns plain and shows your alliances: you in gold, your allies in green, the rest of your defence bloc in pale green (they'd come to your aid in a full invasion), everyone else in grey. Click any other country to see the map from its side: who would stand with it?
• The game keeps itself up to date. If you leave the game open in a tab for days, it used to keep running the old version. Now, when the game is updated, your page reloads by itself as the next turn begins, and before then a gold notice offers Reload now (your orders are saved as a draft first, so nothing is lost).
• Your orders at a glance. In Map first, each order button now says what you've set this turn: how much of your budget you've spent, whether you're mobilized or attacking, what's waiting for your answer in Diplomacy, which decrees you hold. In Classic, a tab with something waiting gets an amber dot (hover it for the details). And next to "Orders not submitted", a line tells you what you might have missed before you submit: an untouched budget, offers still waiting for an answer, a decision you haven't made. (Money you don't spend isn't lost: it's saved in your treasury.)
• Tidier map labels. A country's "mobilized" tank no longer sits on top of its own name or a neighbour's label: it finds a clear spot next to its own country. Aurelia's name moved a little east so it no longer bumps into Bhastra's.

October 5, 2026 — a new way to lay out the screen

New

• Try "Map first". At the bottom of the play screen there's now a Layout switch: Classic (the screen you know) or Map first, a suggestion from one of you. Map first gives the map most of the screen. Your orders (Budget, Military, Diplomacy, Decrees) open as windows from a bar on the left, and Intelligence, Your nation and the news from a bar on the right. Drag a window by its title bar to move it, and pull its edges or the corner grip to resize it; it remembers where you left it, and double-clicking the title bar puts it back. If a window covers something, drag the map itself aside. Tap one of the score cards on the right for its full story. Alerts stack in the map's corner; routine news can be folded away, but an attack or anything that needs your answer always stays. Your orders are exactly the same in both layouts, and you can switch back any time (switching saves your draft first). Map first needs a laptop or desktop screen; phones keep Classic.
• Messages from your teacher. Your teacher can now send a message to every country or just to your team. It pops up at the top of your screen (in gold) and stays until you close it with ×; if chat is on, it's in your chat too.

• A new look for the map. The map of Valmera and Gorgon is now a clean political map: each country in its own colour on a dark sea, with faint shading for the mountains and rivers. It stays crisp however far you zoom in, and borders, occupied land, attacks and fleets stand out more clearly. Nothing on it has moved. (The Gulf crisis keeps its parchment map.)
• A sharper world map. The map of Valmera and Gorgon is now two and a half times more detailed, so it stays crisp on big screens, in Map first, and when you zoom in. Nothing on it has moved.
• A new strike marker. Air strikes on the map are now marked with a fighter jet seen from above.

Fixed

• The strike planner and the landing planner no longer turn see-through while you drag them.
• Zooming in on the map no longer pulls the strike marker's jet off its dark disc.
• The jet or tank marking an attack now always sits on its arrow, right behind the tail, pointing the way the arrow goes.
• In Map first, the Diplomacy window's title no longer runs into its count ("Diplomacy1").
• In Map first, the map's title plate no longer covers the alliance-bloc bar above the map.
• In the Gulf crisis, the painted United States in the "Across the ocean" box lines up with its outline again.
• Using your team's join link again (from your class page, say) now takes you straight into the game if you're already signed in on that device, instead of asking for your name again.

October 4, 2026 — zoom the map, and a new crisis

New

• Zoom the map. Scroll up over the map (or use the + and − buttons in its top corner) to zoom in, and drag to move around; on a phone, pinch. Whole map takes you back out. Names and markers stay readable as you zoom, and your view stays put while the page updates.
• The Gulf crisis. A new twelve-week scenario on a real map of the Gulf, from the title page: Iran's nuclear programme and the Strait of Hormuz, with named units at real bases, strike packages, missile defence, and islands to seize or hand back. Play it solo against the computer, or your teacher can run it for the class.

• Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz. When the computer plays Iran, it now shuts Hormuz the week it is struck or blockaded, as it did in 2026, and reopens it after talks or once the strikes stop. Escorts have to hold the strait for three weeks in a row to force it open, and the Strait of Hormuz panel shows how far along they are. Playing Iran yourself, you can now reopen the strait early from the Decrees tab, for example as the price of a deal.

Fixed

• Headlines no longer cut a country's name short.
• Playing Iran, answering the inspectors' report with "Expel the inspectors and speed up" no longer counts as abandoning your nuclear programme. It now does what it says: the programme moves a week faster.
• The Joint Chiefs' plans are clearer, for every country. The defence plan now says plainly which of your sites the other side can strike, and with which of its forces (it used to list them under "Needs", as if you needed those bombers). Every plan's "Needs" is now What it takes (forces, munitions, permissions), and a strike plan has a new What to expect section (how many missiles should get through, whether a bigger salvo would overwhelm their defences). Worn-down units now show up under Risks.
• Carriers: choose a station, see the danger. In the Gulf, a carrier now takes one of several named stations (the northern Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the North Arabian Sea, the Red Sea...) instead of a coast plus a "close in / stand off" switch. Each station says how many targets its jets reach and whether it is inside Iran's anti-ship missile range, which the map now shows in red. Anywhere in the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Oman, a carrier reaches deep into Iran but can be hit: on any raid it flies, and every week you are at war with Iran. The North Arabian Sea is safe, but its jets reach only the coast. You can also drag a carrier on the map to any station; its course is drawn through the water.
• On the Gulf map, the United States box ("Across the ocean") sits lower, clear of a carrier in the North Arabian Sea, and the Provinces and Attacks buttons moved to the bottom left, beside the compass, so they no longer cover it.
• Each unit in the order of battle (and the military briefing) now labels its two numbers: "91% strength" (how much of it is left since the crisis began) and "25% ready" (how fresh it is this week). Before, a bare percentage sat beside a readiness bar that showed something else.
• The Joint Chiefs now judge an island landing from your own seat: taking back the Tunbs and Abu Musa is "popular at home" only for the UAE; for anyone else it is the UAE's claim, not theirs. Retaking your own island reads (and counts) as retaking, and costs no reputation. Only a country that can close a strait is told its fleet is "what it would use to close the sea lanes", and the island panel now says Kharg carries Iran's oil exports, whoever holds it.
• The Military tab no longer needs sideways scrolling: each unit's mission menu now fits the column.
• Offer to host talks. When two countries are at war, any country not in the fight can offer to host talks between them (Diplomacy tab, "Offer to host talks"). Both sides get a card and decide whether to come; talks bind no one, but they can stop a war. Turkey's "Gain influence" goal is now about being the go-between: talks that both sides agree to are fully met, one side agreeing (or a new alliance, trade deal or ambassador) partly. The computer's Turkey offers too.
• Fixes from a newcomer's playthrough of week 1:
• The computer no longer signs new defence pacts during the twelve-week crisis (you could see five in week 1, including Iran and Iraq while Iraq hosted US troops). Students can still ally with each other.
• No more "intelligence has uncovered a secret programme" card after the programme is public (or after you have already bombed it), and the news no longer calls the sites "secret".
• Iran no longer threatens to "blockade" the United States.
• The newspaper, decision cards and guide now say "the United States" and "the United Arab Emirates".
• The dossier says why a strong strike is still "risky" (an escalation); the planner explains that most of a strike's damage can come from the aircraft even when few missiles get through, and what a tanker slot is.
• The guide's Defend step now says to defend near the fight, and that a unit on Defend doesn't fly strikes.
• Israel: "Protect the home front" replaces "Keep the home front secure". It is now judged by how much of Iran's fire reaches Israel: nothing getting through is fully met; a single exchange (hit in one week, fewer than 30 missiles and drones) is partly met; a sustained campaign fails. Every strike invites Iran's answer. The after-action review now tells each country how many missiles and drones reached its soil.
• The computer plays Israel and its neighbours more like the real ones. The computer's Israel now backs its demands that Iran halt its programme with the threat of a strike, and strikes when it is defied (before, it never fought Iran). Turkey, Iraq and Israel no longer join sanctions on Iran unless they are at war with it.
• Saudi Arabia's "Keep the oil money flowing" goal now asks for 95% of the starting economy (it asked for 100%, so a fraction of a point's dip failed it), and an economy just under a goal now shows the decimal (99.6%, not "100%").
• See where you have basing rights. "Your nation" now lists the countries that let you base there without an alliance (and any you grant basing rights to); the Military tab separates your allies from those hosts; a country's dossier says "grants you basing rights"; and you get an alert the moment a host withdraws them (or grants them).
• With Provinces shown, a province name that has no room in its own province now moves elsewhere inside its own country. "Baghdad" used to land across the border, in Iran.
• The strike planner now explains a missing carrier: a carrier you order to move or close in this week plans from its new station next week, and the planner says so.
• A guide for your first two weeks in the Gulf. A small card walks you through the controls: your goals, putting your air defences on Defend, a rival's dossier, the strike planner, the Joint Chiefs, decisions, raising the alert, airspace and island landings. Each step ticks itself off when you do it, and Show me points at the control. You can hide it at any time; your teacher can switch it off.
• A new military briefing in the Gulf dossier. Click a country: instead of the old invasion odds and shares of GDP, you now see your strike options against it (how much of each strike should get through, and whether the Joint Chiefs rate it), any island you could land on, and which of your sites it can reach. Each option has a Plan it button that opens the strike or landing planner ready to go.
• The Joint Chiefs no longer say "nothing we have can reach" when your aircraft can reach but are on Defend: they tell you which units could fly if you change their mission.
• Your country's briefing looks tidier: the title sits in the middle of the picture, and "Print this briefing" and "Take office" no longer run into each other.
• Iran can no longer strike the Jurf al-Sakhar militia compound in Iraq: it belongs to a militia Iran arms and funds. Only the United States and Israel, who have struck such sites, can target it.
• A closed strait in the Gulf is now called the Strait of Hormuz (it was "the overland corridors through Iran"), and only Iran can close it.
• The end of the Gulf crisis now shows your goals and your after-action review in one window, without the newspaper. That window also scrolls smoothly now.

October 2, 2026 — staying signed in

Fixed

• You now stay signed in when you close your browser. Before, closing it logged you out, and you needed your join link to get back in. (On a new device or after clearing your browser, you still need your join link.)

October 2, 2026 — Lord Cray

New

• Every country's dossier, and your own country's briefing, now opens with a couplet by Lord Cray, the world's great romantic poet: an Aurelian lord who toured every country, and died fighting for the Free Isles.

October 2, 2026 — tidier province names

Fixed

• With Provinces switched on, province names no longer crowd into one corner or overlap. Each name finds the clearest spot in its own province, using the empty space around a country's name, and if there's no room inside, it sits just outside with a thin line pointing in.

October 2, 2026 — loyal puppets

Changed

• A government you install in a computer-run country now stays loyal while it believes you could do it again: it won't break the alliance, sanction you or attack you, and it only makes new alliances with your allies. If you grow weak, or it grows strong enough to resist you, it may break away like any other ally.

October 2, 2026 — no puppet governments for players

Changed

• When you take the capital of a country that students play, "install a new government" is no longer one of the peace terms. A team would have ended up playing its own conqueror's puppet. You can still impose a harsh or generous peace, or annex the country. Against a country run by the computer, nothing changes.

October 2, 2026 — the Dominion under occupation

Changed (long campaign)

• The Cinder Dominion can rise in occupied land. If a country has lost most of its provinces to rivals, the Dominion can take hold in land a rival occupies or has annexed. That's where such movements grow. The province still belongs to the rival on the map, with the Dominion's charred overlay on top.
• A stronghold is lost when a country's army takes it. Land simply handed back to its owner stays the Dominion's, because returning a province kills no fighters.

October 2, 2026 — smoother Joint Chiefs

Fixed

• Switching between countries in the Joint Chiefs window no longer makes the whole window blink: the plans stay on screen until the next ones are ready, and countries you've already looked at switch instantly.

October 2, 2026 — the Cinder Dominion on the map

New (long campaign)

• The Cinder Dominion now appears on the map: its strongholds are charred black and ember-red, and they spread when it launches an offensive.
• Its fighters carry its name. In the Military tab's Counterterror operations they're listed as the Rite of Cinders, marked as the Dominion's army, with how many more fighters must fall before it collapses.
• You can take its strongholds by force. Each stronghold captured kills or scatters much of its army, and taking the last one brings the Dominion down.

Fixed

• Two states in the same revolutionary bloc could carry out an ultimatum against each other and stay allied. An ultimatum between states that have since become allies now lapses.

October 1, 2026 — the economy of a conquered country

Changed

• When a country loses all of its land and its government goes into exile, the economy it leaves behind now splits three ways: part of it flees (money and skilled people leave; the more advanced the economy, the more flees), a small part goes into exile with the government, and the rest passes to whoever holds its provinces. If the land is later returned or liberated, that share goes back with it.

October 1, 2026 — no attacking your friends

Fixed

• Attacking your own ally now ends the alliance on the spot, whether it's a ground attack, an air strike or a nuclear strike. The attacker also pays the reputation cost of breaking a treaty, and any protection pledge between the two ends too. Before, an ally could nuke you and stay your ally, still counted as part of your defence.
• Computer-run countries no longer fire nuclear weapons at their own allies.

October 1, 2026 — what to do with conquered land

Changed

• Install a new government after taking a capital now always works. Before, if the beaten government chose to fight on from exile, your choice was quietly dropped. Now the friendly government takes office anyway, and the old government's partisans fight it. A generous peace also goes through either way.
• A capital held against a government in exile is no longer a dead end. The Territory section (Diplomacy tab) now offers Install a new government and Annex the whole country there.
• Annex or give back land province by province. Click a province in the Territory section to annex it, click again to give it back. Annexing more provinces at once costs more reputation; giving back part of the land earns part of the credit.

New

• Governments in exile. A country that loses all its land now governs from abroad. Its army at home surrenders, and its air force, navy and carriers escape to an ally, or are scuttled if it has none (a conqueror never captures them). In exile it can't attack from home, raises only a quarter of its taxes, and can't be attacked. Winning back any of its land brings its government home.
• An Attacks button on the map hides this turn's attack arrows, so you can read who holds which province underneath. Click it again to bring them back.

October 1, 2026 — Galloway's sphere

Changed

• Galloway starts with a bigger army (the strongest on Gorgon by a clear margin), so Dhelmar and Ferrun can't simply carve it up early.
• Spheres of influence can now be part of a class game, if your teacher turns them on. Galloway (or whichever country leads its continent) may proclaim a doctrine and offer its neighbours protection.
• Protection now costs tribute. A country under another's protection pays about 1% of its economy every turn into its protector's treasury. Peace and a powerful friend are worth a lot, but they aren't free.

September 30, 2026 — enough is enough

Changed (all games)

• Security now means "enough", not "most". Your Security score asks whether you, together with the allies who would fight beside you, could hold off the most dangerous country that can reach you, and whether you've kept your land. Once you have enough, more weapons add nothing to your score. An ally counts just like your own army.
• Armies are cheaper to keep: upkeep per unit is halved, so a country starts the game spending about 4-8% of its economy on its military instead of 7-17%.
• Computer-run countries spend like real states: a few percent of their economy in peace, more when they feel threatened, and a lot only when they are fighting for survival.
• Galloway starts as the giant of its continent: the largest economy in the world and the strongest army on Gorgon. Dhelmar and Ferrun must decide whether to follow its lead or find a protector across the ocean.
• Ruling by decree costs autocracies more stability than before, though still less than a democracy pays.
• The Budget tab shows your arms spending as a share of GDP next to what real countries spend, and the Defense minister will tell you when you already have enough.

September 30, 2026 — conquered land on the map

New (all games)

• Every country is now made of named provinces, and the map shows who holds each one. When you win an assault, the provinces nearest you change hands and the border on the map moves. A capital is never taken.
• Land taken in war is occupied (striped in its owner's colour). Holding it costs you stability every turn. In the Diplomacy tab's new Territory section you can annex it (the border moves for good, but you lose reputation and the world won't recognise it) or give it back (the land and its wealth go home, and you gain reputation).
• The old red crosshatch showing "territory lost" is gone: now you see exactly which land changed hands.
• You can also annex or return land from a country's right-click menu, and you get an alert when your own land is occupied, annexed or handed back.
• Capitals can fall. Once a country has lost all its other land, a winning full assault takes its capital. The winner then chooses the peace (harsh, generous, a new government, or annexing the whole country), and the loser chooses to accept it, fight on from exile, or accept and appeal to the world. No country ever disappears.
• A Provinces button in the corner of the map shows every province's name, with a star on each capital. Click it again to hide them; the map remembers your choice.

September 30, 2026 — the nuclear umbrella

Fixed

• If a country nukes one of your allies, you can now answer it as a reprisal. Before, the game treated your answer as an unprovoked first strike: your own public revolted and the world condemned you, as if you had started the nuclear war. Now it is judged like a strike back for an attack on yourself: your public backs you, the reputation cost is small, and no condemnation campaign follows. The launch window says so before you commit.

September 30, 2026 — humanitarian catastrophes need a long blockade

Changed

• A blockade now has to last four turns in a row before it can cause a humanitarian catastrophe, as the sanctions on Iraq did over years, not months. Before, any blockade could cause one from the first turn, so they fired far too often (about one every three turns in a long campaign). A blockaded country can suffer only one catastrophe a turn, however many countries blockade it, and every country blockading it shares the blame.
• Computer-run countries now blockade only during a war or just after it, and step a blockade down to an embargo once the war is over.

September 30, 2026 — a movable tutorial guide

Changed

• In the long campaign every state now has its own name for its sphere of influence, not just Galloway's Aster Doctrine: Estara's Veld Doctrine, Aurelia's Solace Compact, Bhastra's Midland Guarantee, Ferrun's Maren League, Corvane's Greater Valmeran Co-Prosperity Sphere and Dhelmar's Continental Security Zone. A revolutionary government renames it after its creed: the Restoration's New Concordat, or the Levelling's Fraternal Union of Valmeran (or Gorgonian) Peoples. If the revolution falls, the old name comes back.
• The tutorial guide is now a window you can move: drag it by its title bar and it stays where you put it. Double-click the title bar to bring it back to the middle. It opens near the top of the screen, and when "Show me" points at something underneath it, it moves out of the way instead of folding up.

Fixed

• The Decrees tab no longer scrolls sideways when you deploy forces to secure the sea lanes or trade routes.

September 30, 2026 — spheres of influence

New (long campaign)

• When a country becomes the leading power of its continent (about 40% of its wealth), it faces a choice: proclaim a doctrine that closes its continent to powers from across the ocean (like the Monroe Doctrine), be a good neighbour, or stay out of its neighbours' affairs. Galloway's doctrine is the Aster Doctrine.
• A country with a doctrine can offer its neighbours protection from the Diplomacy tab: an alliance and a trade tie, in return for a pledge of no alliances or bases from across the ocean. Neighbours can accept, ask a great power across the ocean for help, or stand alone.
• Any outside alliance, base or carrier on the continent tests the doctrine. Stand firm, and the outsider must back down or defy you. Each test you win makes the doctrine more believable; each one you let pass weakens it. A doctrine can never be more believable than your military power on the continent.
• A revolutionary government accepts protection only from a patron that shares its creed. If a revolution of another creed takes power in a protected country, it tears up the pledge, and the patron's doctrine looks weaker for it.
• Every doctrine, and who is under its protection, shows in the bar above the map.

September 30, 2026 — taxes weigh less on growth

Changed (all games)

• Taxes now slow your economy's growth less than before, and very low taxes speed it up less. At a 30% tax nothing changes. Above that, growth falls more slowly; below it, it rises more slowly. Before, going light on taxes paid off so much that countries could skip defence, grow rich, and then out-arm everyone anyway, which isn't how it works in the real world. The projected-growth figure in the Budget tab already uses the new numbers.

September 30, 2026 — computer-run nuclear powers think before they launch

Changed (games with nuclear weapons)

• Computer-run nuclear powers used to fire a fixed two or three warheads whatever the situation. Now they fire enough to get through the target's missile defence (or don't fire at all), keep a quarter of their arsenal back for a second strike, and answer a nuclear strike with at least as many warheads as hit them. They only gamble on a disarming first strike when they believe they have at least twice their rival's arsenal, so reckless first strikes are now rare.

Fixed (long campaign)

• The end of a war is always in the Chronicle now, whether the beaten side sued for peace, a victor made peace, or the fighting simply stopped. Before, only the first was recorded, so the "What peace do we impose?" decision could appear with no story behind it.

September 29, 2026 — allies and sanctions

Changed (all games)

• If you are sanctioning one of your own allies, the game now tells you, with a one-click button to lift the sanction. You can still keep squeezing an ally on purpose; real states sometimes do. Allies are marked "your ally" in the Diplomacy tab's sanction list.
• Computer-run countries won't agree to an alliance while you are sanctioning them: lift the embargo first. They also drop their own sanctions on anyone they ally with.

September 29, 2026 — no more phantom armies

Fixed (all games, most visible in long campaigns)

• Computer-run countries forgot that new troops cost upkeep the turn they're built. They spent their whole budget on an army, couldn't pay for it at the end of the turn, and had to disband most of it. In a long campaign a rich country could raise a big army, beat back your invasion with it, and then vanish from your spies' estimate again: a "phantom army". They now leave room for the upkeep of what they build, and a country that falls short in a long campaign loses only as many troops as the shortfall actually pays for.
• The invasion odds now also warn how big an army a rich defender could raise in a single turn. Countries spend their budget before the battles, so a country you've stripped bare can rebuild before your troops land.

September 29, 2026 — invasion odds that see the whole defence

Fixed (all games)

• The invasion odds in a rival's dossier used to count only its army, navy and air force. The battle also counts its carriers in home waters, the whole alliance bloc that comes to its aid when you launch a full assault, foreign troops stationed there, a public Contested Frontier decree and a revolutionary government's fervour. The odds now count all of these (a defensive doctrine only if your spies can read it), and the notes tell you which ones apply. A country with no army left can still be defended by its carriers and its allies.

September 29, 2026 — cleaner attack arrows

Fixed (all games)

• Attack arrows on the map now follow the geography. An attack on a neighbour is a short arrow across your shared border, an attack across a short stretch of sea follows the dashed sea route, and an attack across the ocean is a long arc. Before, two countries with labels close together (like Bhastra and Estara) got a tiny, tangled arrow.
• The pulsing strike ring now sits at the tip of the arrow instead of on top of the target's name, and the tank or jet icon sits clear of every label.
• A marker for troops stationed abroad now sits inside the country hosting them, not beside its name (where it could look like it was in the neighbour next door).
• You can now type numbers instead of only clicking + and −: troops stationed abroad, warheads and missile defences to build, and forces deployed to secure the commons. Click the tax rate or the capital-openness number beside its slider to type a value too.
• The invasion odds in a rival's dossier now count your troops stationed in an ally next door. Before, the odds treated them as if they had to cross the ocean from home, so an easy invasion from your base could show 0%.

September 29, 2026 — honest odds in the coalition planner

Fixed (all games)

• The coalition planner could promise a near-certain win (like 99%) for an attack that then failed. It forgot that a mobilized defender fights 40% harder, and it treated your spies' estimate of the target as exact. Now it counts the defender's mobilization, pools every coalition member's intelligence, and allows for how far off that estimate might be. Its odds now match how battles actually turn out.
• If the target isn't mobilized yet, the planner also shows your odds if it mobilizes in reply (it will usually see your coalition massing).

September 29, 2026 — computer-run countries behave more like real states

Changed (all games against computer-run countries)

• Peaceful computer-run countries no longer tax their people to the limit to arm against dangers they only imagine. They keep taxes within what their public accepts until a threat is real: a stronger neighbour massing its army, a recent attack, or lost land. Then they arm hard.
• Aggressive computer-run countries now invest in science and technology too, as real rivals do, so they grow and compete instead of withering. Expect tougher, richer opponents and fewer runaway leaders.

September 29, 2026 — computer-run countries stop strangling each other with sanctions

Fixed (all games against computer-run countries)

• Computer-run countries used sanctions far too freely: they sanctioned a neighbour just for being stronger, used full blockades in peacetime, and almost never lifted a sanction once its reason was gone. Most of them ended a game poorer than they started. Now they sanction a country only for what it does (massing its army, attacking someone, holding someone's land), keep blockades for wartime, and lift a sanction when the threat has passed or when it hurts them more than the target. Their economies now grow, so they are stronger rivals and better partners.

September 29, 2026 — joint attacks count your garrisons

Fixed (campaigns, and classroom games with bases)

• In a joint attack, troops you've stationed in an ally next door to the target now fight, at full strength. Before, a coalition counted only the forces at home, so stationing troops next door actually made your share smaller.
• The coalition planner now shows each country's share after the water it has to cross, plus your own share, so the numbers add up to the total. (Before, it listed each ally's full strength while the total counted the crossing, which looked like the arithmetic was wrong.)
• A country with troops stationed next door to the target now counts as having a way in.
• When you mobilize, your troops stationed abroad mobilize too: they now get the same bonus as the troops at home (they used to fight about 30% weaker). The military briefing's invasion odds now count them as well.

New

• The newspaper has new photos: battles between fleets, navies meeting at sea, and bombing raids on power plants and factories. A bombing raid also gets its own headline.

September 29, 2026 — two tutorials

New

• Basic training: a five-turn tutorial on the home page. You lead Bhastra while a neighbour arms, you can see only an estimate of its army, and other countries offer to stand with you. A card on the screen tells you one thing to do at a time and ticks it off when you've done it; "Show me" points at the button. You can't lose it, and at the end it asks you three questions about what you just lived through.
• The long game: a five-turn tutorial to play before a long campaign. You lead Ferrun and its old carrier through a world crash, the choice that comes back to you a turn later, a rival's secret bomb programme, and save points.

September 29, 2026 — more room for the map

Changed (all games)

• The "Last turn" strip above the map is gone, and the map is taller for it. Last turn's changes now sit on the Prosperity, Security and Stability boxes at the top, beside each number (green up, red down). The newspaper is still one click away on the Paper button.

September 29, 2026 — carriers on the new map

Fixed (campaigns)

• When you drag a carrier, the stations you can send it to light up again. The new painted map was covering them.
• A carrier's course now follows the sea. While you drag it, and after you drop it, the dashed line shows the route it will sail, around the coasts, instead of a straight line over land.
• Corvane's and Ferrun's carrier stations moved to their own waters, so they no longer crowd Galloway's.

Fixed (all games)

• Attack arrows on the map, and the tank or jet at their start, no longer cover a country's flag or its numbers: they begin just outside the attacker's label and stop above the target's banner.

September 29, 2026 — a new world: two continents

New (all games)

• The map is new. Seven countries now share two continents with an ocean between them. Valmera, in the west, holds Aurelia, Bhastra, Corvane and Estara. Gorgon, in the east, holds a new country, Galloway, a young continent-sized republic, with Dhelmar and Ferrun on either side of it. The map is a painting of the real terrain, with the borders drawn along its rivers and mountains.
• A seventh team. Classes get one more team to play, Galloway.
• The ocean stops armies. Invading across it takes a navy about as big as your army, and even then your army lands weakened. Strikes from home reach across at half strength, and help from an ally across the ocean arrives weakened too. Carriers and bases near the target restore full-strength strikes. The two straits where the continents come closest, the Narrows and the Tessel Passage, are shipping lanes, not bridges.
• Every country has a coast now, so every country can build a navy.
• Offshore balancing. If a power starts swallowing its neighbours, the countries on the other continent take notice: the neighbours look across the ocean for protectors, and the strongest powers over there answer.
• The lore, flags, and national briefings are updated for the new world, and Galloway has its own flag, capital, newspaper and insurgent movements.

September 29, 2026 — the Joint Chiefs

New (all games)

• The Joint Chiefs. Beside the Cabinet, a new button opens your military leaders' war plans. Pick any country and they lay out every way you could fight it: an air campaign, punitive strikes, a show of force, a strike on a nuclear programme your spies found, invasions of three sizes, a coalition offensive with your allies, and your nuclear options if you have them. Each plan has a codename, its steps, what it needs, its odds and its risks, and a rating from viable to not possible. The Chairman says which plan the chiefs would pick, or advises against war.
• The invasion plans also show your odds if they mobilize in reply, because every country sees you mobilize.
• A rival's dossier has a War plans link that opens the chiefs on that country.
• The chiefs now have faces: the Chairman, the Air Chief, the Army Chief and the Commander of Strategic Forces.
• The chiefs know only what your spies know, so their plans can be wrong. It's advice: nothing changes in the rules.

September 29, 2026 — carriers, air supremacy, and a clearer military briefing

New (campaigns, and classroom games with the strike menu)

• A carrier stationed off a rival's coast makes every kind of strike hit harder: about 30% more damage for one carrier, 60% for two. From close range its planes fly more missions, and they find their targets. (A sea-denial coast can still sink a carrier that raids it.)
• Air supremacy. Once a rival's air force is all but gone, your strikes on their forces fall on their army too, not just their planes and ships. How much depends on the size of your strike force against their army.

Changed (all games)

• The military briefing in a rival's dossier is easier to read. Air strikes and invasions are now two separate blocks: air strikes (navy + air, no mobilizing, takes no ground) and invasion (mobilize first, takes territory). Each shows what happens if you attack and if they attack you, one line per option. Hover a line for the full reasoning.
• Hover any attack option in the right-click menu for a one-line explanation of what it does.

Changed (campaigns, and classroom games with the strike menu)

• Computer-run countries now fight for their skies, within reason. If an enemy's planes rule the air over a computer-run country at war, it rebuilds its air force when its economy can stand the race, like Germany did. If it's far poorer, it stops buying planes that would only be shot down and puts the money into its army, like Iraq and Iran did.

September 29, 2026 — choose what your strikes hit

New (campaigns, and classroom games where your teacher turns on "Strike menu")

• A strike is no longer just one thing. When you attack without mobilizing, the Military tab asks what to hit:
• Their forces: the strike you know, destroying forces caught unready.
• Infrastructure: power grids, refineries and industry. Their economy shrinks and grows slower for a while. It costs you more reputation, and history says their public usually rallies behind its government instead of giving in (the Blitz, North Vietnam).
• A limited signal: a few symbolic targets. Little damage and little cost, a message rather than a campaign.
• Their nuclear sites: only if your spies have uncovered a secret programme. It sets the programme back.
• You can strike while mobilized, too. If you're mobilized, choose Ground assault (invade, as before) or Air strike (hit from the air and take no ground). Being mobilized doesn't make a strike stronger, and a rival that saw you mobilize and mobilized in reply is harder to hit.

Changed (all games)

• A tidier right-click menu. On a full-size screen it now has two columns: force and pressure on the left, diplomacy and intelligence on the right. Choices that come in several sizes (assault, strike targets, sanctions) sit on one row of small buttons. Whatever you've already ordered against that country is highlighted, and you can call off an attack from there. Nothing was removed, and everything in it still has its home in the tabs.

September 29, 2026 — encounters and battles at sea

New (campaigns only)

• When your warships and a rival's share the same waters, things get tense. That happens when both have carriers there, or your carrier sits off their coast. The first time, both governments decide how to handle it: shadow and warn them off, pull the carriers back, or propose an Incidents at Sea agreement (hotlines and rules of the road, like the one the US and Soviet navies signed in 1972).
• Close calls can flare into an incident at sea, more often when the two countries are already at odds. It's a standoff, not a war: escalate and your fleets fight a battle in those waters, or stand down. An Incidents at Sea agreement makes incidents much rarer.
• Battles at sea, when two countries at war have fleets in the same waters, are decided by what recent wargames found matters most. Can you find the enemy? Your intelligence on them decides that. Are you fighting near home, under your own land-based aircraft and missiles? Carriers can be sunk, and losing one is a national shock.

September 29, 2026 — drag your carriers

New (campaigns only)

• Drag your carriers on the map. Pick up one of your carriers and drop it on a station: home waters or the sea off another coastal country. It snaps there as an order and moves when the turn resolves. Until then it shows faded at its new station, with a dashed line from where it is now. Several carriers at one station can be moved one at a time. Drop it anywhere else and it slides back. The Military tab still works the same way.

Fixed (campaigns)

• A saved draft now keeps your troop deployments and carrier orders when you reload the page.
• After dragging a carrier, the next button you pressed (often Submit) could be ignored. Fixed.

September 29, 2026 — fixes

Fixed (campaigns)

• A Grand Alliance member could stay allied with a revolutionary regime, and even keep troops there protecting it. Joining the Grand Alliance now ends any alliance with a revolutionary state, and such an alliance can't be made. The same goes for two regimes of rival creeds. Troops stationed there come home.
• A new aircraft carrier now gets its own newspaper picture instead of the tanker photo, in its country's style: American-style supercarriers for Aurelia and Ferrun, Chinese-style ski-jump carriers for Corvane and Dhelmar.

September 29, 2026 — Ferrun's old carrier

New (campaigns only)

• **Ferrun, the sea republic, starts a campaign with an ageing aircraft carrier, the Maren.** It's a relic of Ferrun's great days: weaker than a modern carrier, and just as expensive to keep. Ferrun still chooses its kind of navy, and building new carriers still takes a blue-water navy and the research. Keep the old ship as a symbol of past greatness, or scrap it and spend the money elsewhere.

September 29, 2026 — forward bases and crisis decisions in class games

New (classroom and quick games, if your teacher switches them on)

• Your teacher can add two extra systems to a game when creating it. You'll see them only if they're on:
• Forward bases. Station troops in an ally from the Military tab (Forces abroad). They defend your ally against any attack, even a small incursion, and let you strike your ally's neighbours. Bases show on the map.
• Crisis decisions. If your spies uncover a rival's secret nuclear programme, you decide whether to strike it, sabotage it or contain it. A coastal country can close its strait (Decrees tab), and then every other team decides whether to escort convoys through, strike the coastal sites, share the cost in a coalition, or wait.
• Decisions open as a card with the story and your options; the answer takes effect when the turn resolves.

Changed (campaigns)

• A carrier can now be found in the Attack list: a rival you can reach only by sea shows as "strike from your carrier offshore". A carrier can strike, but it can't invade.
• A carrier in home waters helps defend your coast but no longer adds to your ground invasions.

Fixed (campaigns)

• A pact between two revolutionary regimes now lapses if one of them falls or takes the other's creed, instead of lingering between two states it no longer describes.

September 29, 2026 — when a strait is closed

New (campaigns only)

• When a country closes its strait, every other government decides how to answer. A card opens with four choices:
• Escort the convoys with your warships or a carrier. Escorts cut the losses for every trading nation, including the ones that do nothing, and they cost you every turn.
• Strike the coastal launch sites, if your forces can reach them. It shortens the closure.
• Join a maritime coalition and pay half an escort's cost.
• Wait it out and let others take the risk.
• Enough escorts together force the strait open. One navy on its own only softens the blow.
• Against a coast armed for sea denial, escorts lose ships every turn, and an escorting carrier can be sunk.
• A closed strait shows on the map with a red "STRAIT CLOSED" tag. Hover it to see who is escorting.

September 29, 2026 — navies and aircraft carriers

New (campaigns only)

• Choose what kind of navy you build (Budget tab, Doctrines, once your military reaches level 2; coastal countries only). It's permanent and public:
• Blue-water navy: the only kind that can build aircraft carriers.
• Sea denial: fast boats, mines, submarines and anti-ship missiles. A cheaper navy that fights much harder in its own waters, and makes any carrier that raids your coast pay dearly. It can sink one.
• Aircraft carriers (Military tab, Carrier groups). Lay one down and it's ready four turns later. Station it off any coast: off an ally it helps defend them; off a rival it lets you strike that rival from the sea, even across the world; at home it guards your coast. Carriers are expensive to build and to keep, and only a big economy can run many: how many you can have depends on your share of the world's wealth. You can decommission one to save money.
• Every carrier is on the map, at sea off the coast where it's stationed, with its country's flag. A new carrier is front-page news, and a rival's dossier shows its navy.

Fixed

• A country under a missile-defence treaty that shrank (after losing a war, say) could end up holding more interceptors than the treaty allows. It is now held to the treaty's limit every turn.

September 29, 2026 — forward bases

New (campaigns only)

• Station troops in an ally from the new Forces abroad section of the Military tab. Pick how many regiments, flotillas (only in a country with a coast) and squadrons to keep there.
• A garrison is a tripwire. If your ally is attacked, your troops there fight at full strength, even against a small border incursion, and an attack on them counts as an attack on you.
• A base gives you reach. From a base you can attack or strike your ally's neighbours, even ones you don't border. They appear in the Attack list as "from your base in …".
• The catch: troops abroad don't defend your own country, and garrisons cost more upkeep.
• Bases are on the map, marked with the flag of the country whose troops are there. Everyone can see a base; only its owner knows exactly how big it is.

September 29, 2026 — the breakout crisis: strike and retaliation

New (campaigns only)

• When your spies uncover a rival's secret nuclear programme, you decide what to do. A card opens with three choices: strike the facilities, sabotage them quietly, or contain the programme with sanctions.
• A strike is a gamble. You never know exactly how far it set the programme back: your analysts give you an estimate, and it's only as good as your intelligence on that country. A programme that has been hit digs deeper, so each later strike does less. And if the bomb is already built, you're too late.
• Sabotage does less damage, but if your hand is never found, nobody knows whom to blame.
• If your programme is struck, you answer. Close your strait (every trading nation pays for each turn it stays shut, and so do you), turn your proxy militias loose on the striker and its allies, or absorb the blow and race for the bomb.
• Tip: save first (⏱ Timeline) and try all three answers from the same moment.

September 29, 2026 — the bomb, then the shield

Changed (campaigns only)

• Nuclear weapons and missile defence are no longer an either/or choice. At Military level 2 you can still begin a nuclear weapons programme, with all the same risks: it's secret, but a rival's spies can catch it, and they may demand you stop or strike it before it's ready.
• Missile defence is now its own programme at Military level 4, open to any country, with or without the bomb. You'll find both under Doctrines in the Budget tab. A shield stops part of any missile attack, nuclear or conventional, but never all of it.
• A shield alarms your rivals. Radar and interceptor sites can't be hidden, so everyone knows the day you start. Every rival with nuclear weapons that isn't your ally fears you are trying to cancel out its deterrent. It may race to build more warheads, offer you a treaty (you cap your shield, it cuts its arsenal), or declare your shield a threat, which makes an attack on you look like self-defence. With your own bomb as well as a shield, you look like you're getting ready to strike first.
• If a rival builds a shield against you, you get the same choice.

September 29, 2026 — save points and "what if" branches

New (campaigns only)

• The Timeline (⏱ in the top bar). Your campaign now saves itself at the start and every ten turns, and you can add up to ten save points of your own, with a name ("Before I strike Dhelmar").
• Replay from here. Pick a save point to start a branch: a separate copy of the campaign from that turn, with the same world and the same luck, so you can try a different decision and see what really changes. Your original game is never touched, and you can switch between them from the Timeline.
• Compare the branches. The Timeline charts your economy in every branch on one graph, and lists your rank and the leading power in each.

September 28, 2026 — repeat an action, clear the budget

New

• Repeat an action for several turns. Once you've chosen to fund unrest in a country, send it aid, export the revolution to it, or raid an insurgent group there, a Repeat picker appears beside it: this turn only, 3, 5 or 10 turns, or until you stop. Each new turn queues it again for you, and a note says what repeated. Turning the action off stops the repeat.
• Clear the budget. A new button in the Budget tab sets every spending line to zero so you can start from scratch. Your tax rate stays where it is.
• Faces for the revolutionaries (campaigns). When a creed seizes a country, its leader's portrait now appears on that country's file, beside it in the axis banner above the map, and, if it's your own government, at the top of Your nation.

Fixed

• Dismissing an ally's call to join its sanctions now makes the alert go away.

September 28, 2026 — campaigns: shorter, and less busywork

New (campaigns only)

• Campaigns now run 100 to 250 turns (150 by default), so a shorter campaign works just as well. A 100-turn campaign still gets its age of revolution, world events every few turns, and changes of leader.
• Standing orders. Two switches in the Budget tab, both on when a campaign starts:
• Keep my budget: each new turn starts with last turn's budget already filled in (tax, builds, research, intelligence, the counterterror fund, spying). One-off actions like an attack are never carried over, and if you can't afford it all, every line is scaled down evenly. You still review and submit.
• Hold my forces steady: in a campaign about 2% of your forces retire every turn. This builds at least enough to replace them, so your army doesn't quietly shrink. A bigger build you chose is kept.
• The decade in review. Every ten turns your paper prints a special issue: how the six powers rank by the size of their economies now and ten turns ago, your own decade (growth, stability, human development, battles and agreements), and the decade's biggest stories.

September 28, 2026 — a new front door

New

• A new home page. The game now opens on a proper title screen: the six flags, the game's big idea in one line, and a box to join your class with your team code right at the top. The game modes (Solo, Quick game, Balance of Terror, the Long Campaign) each have their own card, and the teacher's setup form is tucked away below.
• The pages after it match. Joining with a team code now greets you with your country: its capital, flag and character ("Aurelia, the republic of merchants"). The solo, campaign and quick-game setup pages have pictures, and you pick your nation from cards with its flag.
• On phones, the little ⓘ help icons now stay beside their labels instead of drifting away when a label wraps.
• No more warships over the mountains. Bhastra and Estara have no coast, so the newspaper now prints land pictures for their stories: air strikes on inland bases, truck convoys at border crossings, armies facing off across a fence. Border standoffs anywhere get their own picture too.

Fixed (campaigns)

• When a revolution or takeover changes your government, your country now leaves the Grand Alliance. Before, a country could be listed in the Levelling's axis and the alliance against it at the same time.
• The bond of liberation holds. If you free a country from a revolutionary regime and ally with it (or make a generous peace and bring the old enemy into an alliance), that alliance is bonded for 20 turns: the country won't abandon you under a rival's ultimatum, as West Germany stood with the West after 1945.
• No more mixed blocs. A defensive bloc (where an attack on one member brings in all of them) can no longer stretch across the ideological divide, so a revolutionary axis and the countries it threatens can't end up in one bloc together. A direct alliance across the divide still counts, but only between its two partners.
• The news no longer claims a country "yielded" to an ultimatum by breaking an alliance that didn't exist. (This also happened in classroom games; there the news now says the demand lapsed.)

September 28, 2026 — new flags, and the final edition

New

• New national flags. All six were redesigned to look like real flags (stripes, crosses, stars, a sun): Aurelia's green and white with a gold star, Bhastra's crossroads cross, Corvane's crimson and black, Dhelmar's army star, Estara's valley bands, Ferrun's sea stripes and sun.
• Flags everywhere: on the map above each country's name, beside each rival in the intelligence panel, on a country's file when you open it, in the alliance banners, and in the standings.
• The final edition. When a game ends, your paper prints a commemorative issue: who ended the era on top, the biggest stories of the whole game in order, the final standings, your nation's record (growth, battles, agreements, human development), and three questions for the history books. It opens by itself once, and the standings card has a button to read it again.

September 28, 2026 — event cards, and fresher front pages

New

• Event cards (campaigns). A world-event decision now opens as a full card: the event's photograph, the story of what happened, the leader involved (if any), and your options side by side, each explaining what it will do. A follow-up card reminds you what you chose two turns earlier, so the story reads as one arc. The alert stays short, with a Decide button, and after the morning paper the first decision waiting for you opens on its own.
• Fresher front pages. The paper no longer prints the same photo twice in one edition, and it rotates through several photos for common stories. Treaties and ultimatums get their own pictures.
• The paper fits the news. How big it is depends on how big the turn was for your country:
• a quiet turn: no paper pops up; its headline sits in the strip above the map (click it to read);
• an ordinary turn: the paper arrives folded, showing the top story and the other headlines; Unfold opens the full page;
• a big turn (you're at war, a world event, anything nuclear): the full front page, stamped EXTRA! Wars and atrocities are big news anywhere; a quarrel between distant countries counts for less than one next door.

September 27, 2026 — your flag and your newspaper

New

• Every country has a flag, shown in the top bar.
• A national briefing welcomes you on your first turn: who your country is, your three goals, and how the region sees each of your neighbours. Click your flag to read it again.
• Your own newspaper. Each turn now opens with the front page of your country's paper: The Solace Ledger, The Kesh Courier, The Vorsk Standard, The Garrow Bulletin, The Lindra Tribune or The Maren Gazette. It shows:
• the biggest story of the turn, with other headlines below it;
• how your economy and your public fared at home;
• the rest of the news in brief.

Stories end with a line on what they mean: why a neighbour's mobilization is alarming, why an arms treaty is hard to trust. The Paper button brings it back. It only prints what your country knows.

• Now with pictures: news photos on the front page, a portrait of every revolutionary leader, a view of your capital city on the national briefing, and faces for your three cabinet ministers.

September 27, 2026 — the depression and its wake

New (campaigns only)

• World events come more often: roughly every 6 to 12 turns (was 10 to 18).
• A depression discredits the old order. After a financial crash, people blame the governments in charge. While faith is low:
• both revolutionary creeds recruit, and the country polarizes;
• strikes and unemployment drain stability every turn;
• revolutionary movements are much more likely to spread and seize power, and the next world event comes within a few turns. If no age of revolution has begun yet, it comes early, as the 1930s followed 1929.
• Your answer to the crash matters. Spending your way out (a New Deal) restores faith in the government fastest. Austerity reassures the markets but deepens the despair the extremists feed on. A new Faith in the government line on your Politics card shows how shaken your people are.

September 27, 2026 — defeat, the peace, and revenge

New (campaigns only)

• Defeat leaves a scar. A country beaten in war carries a national grievance that fades only slowly, over decades. It feeds the Restoration, the creed that promises to take back what was lost, so a defeat can lie quiet until a later crisis ignites it (1919, 1929, 1933).
• The victors choose the peace. After a coalition victory, each winner decides:
• a harsh peace: the loser pays reparations for years, and its grievance deepens (Versailles);
• a generous peace: help it rebuild; the grievance is mostly defused (the Marshall Plan);
• or withdraw without terms.

The peace is decided when the war ends, and a war ends when:

• you make peace: the new Ending wars section of the Military tab has a Make peace button for each war your coalition is winning (your allies decide for themselves);
• the loser sues for peace: if you're the one losing, the same section has a Sue for peace button;
• or four turns pass without a new victory.

A long war humiliates more than a single battle, but not several times over. Once a war ends, a peace treaty holds for 15 turns, and attacking that country again breaks the peace: your reputation suffers and the victim's grievance deepens. A follow-up two turns later asks whether to enforce or forgive, or whether to bind the old enemy to you in an alliance.

• Revenge. If the Restoration takes power in a humiliated country, it swears revenge on the powers that humiliated it, and it will come for them.
• Your Politics card now shows your own national grievance and who it's against.
• Pandemics have modern names, like real outbreaks: Valmeran acute respiratory syndrome (VARS), COVAL-31 (the novel Solace coronavirus), the H7N4 avian influenza, and more.

September 27, 2026 — resistance movements

New (campaigns only)

• Choose whom you arm. When you sponsor unrest inside a country ruled by the Restoration or the Levelling, the Diplomacy tab now asks whom you're arming:
• the rival creed's partisans: faster, and support for the rival creed grows there. But if the regime falls while they're strong, they may take power themselves, as the communist partisans did in Yugoslavia in 1945.
• a democratic resistance: slower, but if the regime falls a democracy follows.
• Liberation. When a regime falls while you're backing its resistance, the world credits you, and the new government offers you its friendship: an alliance, aid to rebuild, or stepping back.
• The underground survives. A revolutionary regime still purges its rivals when it takes power, but afterward it only wears them down slowly, so there's always a resistance to build on.
• Other countries in the Grand Alliance now arm resistance movements too.
• **The student guide has a new section, The long campaign,** explaining everything that's special about campaigns (and that none of it applies to classroom games).

September 27, 2026 — nuclear ceasefire timing fixed

Fixed

• The ceasefire now comes after the exchange, not the first strike. A country hit by a nuclear first strike keeps its right to answer. The world imposes the ceasefire once it has retaliated, or two turns later if it hasn't. Before this fix, the ceasefire landed right after the first strike, so a victim that retaliated was the one sanctioned for breaking it.

September 27, 2026 — polarization: the Weimar trap

New (campaigns only)

• Extremes feed on each other. Every country now has popular support for the Restoration and the Levelling. Hard times raise both. When one creed rises, frightened people rally to the other, as in Weimar Germany, Italy after 1919, and Spain in 1936. When both are strong the country is polarized, and street battles drain its stability every turn.
• Who seizes power depends on local support. When a country collapses, the creed with more backing there takes it, and fear of one creed can hand power to the other.
• Politics gauge (under Your nation): how much of your public backs each creed, and how polarized you are. Calm, prosperity and good answers bring support back down.
• Hindenburg's bargain: when a creed stirs in your country, you can bring its rival into government to crush it. It works, but two turns later your new partners demand emergency powers. Refuse and the streets turn violent; grant them and the country is theirs.

September 27, 2026 — nuclear ceasefires and realistic armies

Fixed (campaigns only)

• No more century-long nuclear feuds. Some pairs of countries traded nuclear strikes every few turns for the whole campaign. Now a retaliation answers a strike and ends the round. After any nuclear exchange, the great powers impose a ceasefire, and both governments decide how to respond: accept it, accept it and rebuild, or defy the world. Breaking the ceasefire brings sanctions from every other country and turns your own people against you.
• Armies stay a realistic size. By the end of long campaigns some countries fielded thousands of formations, spending a third of their economy on upkeep forever. Now:
• equipment ages out: about 2% of forces retire each turn unless replaced, so keeping a large army means paying for it continuously;
• formations get costlier as the world's technology advances, so richer countries field fewer, better units.

Great powers now end a 200-turn campaign with a few hundred formations, not a few thousand. The Budget tab's costs and upkeep reflect the higher prices.

September 27, 2026 — revolutionary leaders

New (campaigns only)

• Named leaders. Every regime the Restoration or the Levelling seizes has a named leader, and so does the Cinder Dominion. The Chronicle tells you who rules where, and what becomes of them when their regime falls.
• Victories against the odds. Through zeal that terrifies the enemy, tactical genius, or the enemy's complacency, a revolutionary leader can win a battle the odds were against: never a hopeless one, but a close fight can turn. Leaders know it, so they pick fights a cautious government wouldn't. Bring more than "just enough" force against them.
• The Dominion's offensives. Its leader sometimes launches a lightning offensive and seizes more of its host.
• Axes on the map. The Restoration Axis, the Levelling Axis and the Grand Alliance now appear by name above the map, alongside the other blocs.

Changed

• World events come more often: roughly every 10 to 18 turns instead of 15 to 25.

September 27, 2026 — a revolutionary age in every campaign

Changed

• Every campaign now has at least one revolutionary age. If none has begun a quarter to halfway through, a revolutionary tide rises: the Restoration or the Levelling surges in the two shakiest countries, and street battles plunge them into turmoil. If your country is one of them, you'll see the warning and get the choice: crack down, address the grievances, ignore it, or lead it yourself. Restore order within the turn and the tide passes you by. If the tide passes without an axis forming, it comes back stronger.
• Once a creed has an axis, its rival creed rises against it: the two camps of a twentieth-century struggle.

September 27, 2026 — ages of revolution

New (campaigns only)

• Revolutions spread. A country taken over by the Restoration or the Levelling doesn't sit still. It stirs unrest in weak neighbours, a neighbour it defeats can have the creed installed, and states of the same creed ally automatically: an axis. The two creeds are rivals, like fascism and communism, but they may sign a cynical pact to carve up a neighbour. The pact won't last.
• The Gathering Storm. As soon as an axis forms, every other government chooses: lead a Grand Alliance against it, appease it, or stay neutral. Alliance members defend one another, fight the axis harder, and their people rally while at war with it. Appeasing buys time while the axis grows. Each choice has a follow-up.
• Play the revolutionary. When a creed organizes inside your country, you can take up the cause and lead it yourself. Your people accept heavier taxes and your armies come cheaper, but investors flee, your old allies walk away, and much of the world will turn against you. A new Export the revolution order in the Decrees tab stirs revolt in a neighbour.
• The Cold War. If both camps get nuclear weapons, open war freezes into arms races and proxy wars, until one side collapses from the strain.
• The Cinder Dominion. Where an insurgency festers in a failed state, the Rite of Cinders can seize part of the country and proclaim a Dominion. It raises the terror threat, sends fighters across the borders, and never gives up on its own. The world decides whether to join a coalition against it.
• A revolutionary regime beaten on its own soil while its people are turning on it falls at once.
• The Chronicle panel shows who rules by which creed, the Grand Alliance, any pact, the Cold War, and the Dominion.

September 27, 2026 — events become stories

New

• Every major world event is now a short story in two acts (campaigns only). When an event touches your country, you choose one of three policies. Two turns later a follow-up arrives that depends on what you chose, with two new options. For example:
• After a terror attack you went to war over: the war is bogging down. Send more troops, or hand over to local forces and withdraw?
• After you recognized a neighbour's new government: it asks for an alliance. Sign it, or stay friendly without commitments?
• After a crash you spent your way out of: bond markets are balking. Raise taxes to reassure them, or keep spending?
• Every major event now asks: a new ideological regime (contain it, engage it, or fund its opponents), an ideology spreading inside your country (crack down, address the grievances, or ignore it), the fall of an ideological regime next door (aid, exploit, or stay aloof), and a technological revolution (race, share, or guard your secrets), as well as attacks, revolutions, crashes and pandemics.
• Follow-up cards are marked ↪. If you don't answer, there is no response and no follow-up.

September 27, 2026 — campaign economies fixed

Fixed

• Runaway economies in the long campaign. By turn 90 or so, economies could reach 65 times their starting size and keep growing 10% a turn, and armies grew into the thousands. Now the world's technology advances at a steady pace, and the further a country runs ahead of it, the harder the next percent of growth comes. A well-run country still ends up several times richer than a badly run one, but no one compounds forever. By turn 200 the richest country is typically 10 to 20 times its start, and poorer countries catch up faster.
• Projected growth now tells the truth in a campaign. The growth figure in the Budget tab includes the campaign's rules, and a note says when your economy has run ahead of the world (or is catching up). The stability breakdown shows society rebuilding, or complacency setting in.
• If you're in the middle of a campaign: an economy that already ran far ahead will stagnate for a long while rather than crash. For the intended experience, start a new campaign.

September 27, 2026 — the long campaign and world events

New

• The long campaign (home page → Start a campaign): a solo game of 150 to 300 turns, where each turn is roughly a year. Over that span great powers rise and fall:
• growth slows as an economy matures, and countries that fall behind can catch up;
• ruined countries rebuild faster than they first grew;
• holding a huge share of the world's wealth gets expensive, so an early lead won't hold on its own;
• an insurgency that no foreign sponsor is feeding burns out after about a dozen turns. These rules apply only to campaigns. Classroom games and ordinary solo games play exactly as before.
• World events (campaigns only). Every 15 to 25 turns or so, something shakes the world. What happens, and where, depends on the state of the world:
• a spectacular terror attack by a group festering in a weak state, usually against the leading power;
• a revisionist ideology (the Restoration or the Levelling) spreading, seizing a troubled country, or collapsing when it fails;
• a revolution or coup in a country that has been in turmoil for years;
• a financial crash, a pandemic, or a technological revolution that opens a new era and raises the research ceiling.
• The big ones ask you to decide. After an attack on your country: go to war, lead an international campaign, or answer with police and intelligence. After a revolution next door: recognize the new government, back the old guard, or stay out. In a crash or a pandemic, every government picks its own response. Each answer has real consequences.
• Warning signs at home. If your stability stays below 30, a red warning counts the turns. After 2 turns a radical movement could seize power; after 4, a revolution could topple your government. Pull stability back up in time and it passes.
• The Chronicle (right-hand column) lists every world event of your campaign so far.
• Same budget as last turn (Budget tab): one click fills in last turn's tax rate, builds, research, intelligence and fund contribution. If you can't afford all of it this turn, everything is scaled down evenly. Attacks and other one-off actions are never repeated.

September 26, 2026 — in-game chat

New

• Chat. Press the gold speech-bubble button at the top of the screen (next to ★ and ?) to talk with other teams without leaving the game. There are three kinds of channel:
• World: every country reads it. Use it for announcements, warnings, and public offers.
• Team: only your own teammates read it. Use it to plan together between classes.
• A private line to each other country played by students: only your two teams read it.
• A red number on the speech-bubble button counts unread messages, and a new message pops up briefly at the bottom of the screen.
• Your teacher can read every channel, including private lines, and can remove a message. Keep it about the game.
• Messages can be up to 500 characters. If you send several in a row very fast, the game asks you to slow down.
• Chat only appears in games with at least two teams of students. Your teacher can switch it off.

Fixed

• Alerts no longer flicker. The alerts at the top of the screen used to replay their slide-in every few seconds while other teams were busy, most noticeably at the start of a turn. Now only a genuinely new alert slides in.

September 26, 2026

Fixed

• Proposals now arrive live. An alliance, ambassador, arms-treaty or trade proposal, or an invitation to a joint attack, appears on the other team's screen within a few seconds. You never need to press Submit for it to go out or to arrive. (Before this fix, it could sit unseen until the other team saved or submitted their orders.)

New

• See where your proposals stand. Each proposal you send shows its status on its alert and on the Diplomacy tab: Sent, then Seen by the other team, then Accepted or Declined. A joint-attack invitation shows which allies have seen it, committed, or declined.
• Terror attack alerts say what happened: which group struck, what it hit, and how many civilians were killed.

September 25, 2026

New: the world of Valmera

• The student guide has a new section, The world of Valmera: the history of the continent, the movements that cross its borders, and each country's insurgent groups.
• Insurgencies now carry names from that history, and which group rises depends on why unrest broke out: a rival funding it, a rival holding your land, or hardship at home.
• Sponsor unrest now tells you which group your money would fund.

New: fighting terrorism

• Counterterror raids (Military tab): special forces and drones against a named group in another country. Alongside an ally's forces, a raid works well and costs nothing politically. Without the host's consent, it costs you reputation, humiliates the host government, and civilian deaths bring the group new recruits.
• Aid (Diplomacy tab) to a country fighting an insurgency now also restores its stability.

Changed

• Insurgencies level off and burn out. They no longer grow forever. Once their country is stable again (stability above 45), they shrink every turn until they're gone.
• Terror hits hardest where it happens. The country with the insurgency and its neighbours feel the full effect; distant, stable countries feel only a little. The runaway terror spiral in long games is gone.
• The Counterterror fund and Global Order panels now list every active group, with its size.
• Raids and insurgencies are described in fighters, civilians and new recruits.
• The Cabinet now advises on insurgencies at home and next door, raids, aid, and the burnout rule.
• Plan coalition attack in the right-click menu is now red, like the other attacks.

September 24, 2026

New

• The Cabinet. The Cabinet button at the top opens a briefing from your finance, defense and foreign ministers, each with a couple of suggestions. They argue from their own priorities, so their advice can conflict; deciding between them is your job. They know only what your intelligence knows. (Your teacher may switch the Cabinet off.)
• Human development. Your nation now shows how well your citizens actually live (living standard after arms spending, knowledge, and health & safety) with a few lines on daily life. The final standings show every country's. It is not part of the score.

Changed

• Capital openness now pays, for the country that earns it. Foreign investment builds faster and adds more growth, especially in smaller economies. Sanctions against you slow the market's recovery instead of freezing it. A country at peace that guards its own trade now grows faster open than closed. An open economy in a chaotic world with no protection still suffers.

Fixed

• The finance minister quoted a wrong tax rate at the start of a game.
• The "life in your nation" description no longer contradicts itself.

September 23, 2026

Changed

• Nuclear weapons cost less. A warhead is now cheaper than a fighter squadron, as in reality.
• Bots now almost never strike cities with nuclear weapons.

For class games

• Your teacher can set real due dates for turns. Your screen shows when orders are due.
• Your teacher may keep the number of turns secret. Play as if there's always a next turn.

September 22, 2026

New

• Keep playing. After the final standings in solo and quick games, you can continue in free play.
• Sanctions relief. When two countries are sanctioning each other and both economies are bleeding, you get an offer to lift your sanctions together.

Changed

• The terror threat climbs more slowly, and the Counterterror fund panel now shows what's feeding the threat, who is paying into the fund, and how much funding would hold it steady.

Fixed

• The joint-attack planner could show different odds from the ones used to decide the strike, so an ally sometimes stayed home from an attack it had agreed to join.

September 21, 2026

New

• Collective defense. Once three or more countries are allied together, they form a named bloc, and a full assault on any member brings in the whole bloc. Incursions and limited attacks don't.
• The nonproliferation window. A nuclear weapons programme now takes several turns after you commit to it. Rivals with good intelligence can detect it, demand that you halt it, or strike to stop it.
• Countries with larger militaries detect weapons programmes sooner.

Changed

• Non-aggression pacts are gone. Your safety now rests on your forces, your alliances and deterrence, not on promises.
• Bots think more like real states. They weigh the odds before attacking, balance against the most threatening power, and pick a side instead of allying with enemies of each other.
• Landlocked countries can still protect their own trade, but only a naval power can raise the world trade order.
• The student guide is linked from the ? button.

September 20, 2026 and earlier

• The Global Order. The open trading world has to be maintained: someone must patrol the commons with Secure the Commons (Decrees tab), or order erodes and open economies lose trade.
• A coalition victory now frees its members' occupied territory.
• Emergency Stabilization can be used at most once every two turns.
• Weak countries no longer throw themselves into hopeless attacks on a much stronger leader.