How to be a Transformational President

Overview

NOTE: This guide has been updated as of April 21, 2021, and was played in Patch 1.1.4Let’s say you want not only to succeed at some reforms, but to be a transformational President. What if through careful decision making you can be the equivalent of a Washington a Madison and a FDR all in one?It’s possible. You can revive the economy and have it rise to new heights, you can rewrite the constitution you inherit into a true democracy and you can choose to either win a war against your militant neighbor or use clever diplomacy to isolate them and defuse the war before it happens.You can have it all (mostly). This guide is about doing all of these things, at once.

Introduction

In Suzerain you are the newly elected president of a 3rd world country in the middle of not just one crisis, but a multiplicity of them.

To start with you have three major problems that will swallow up your time:

• An economic crisis caused by a dysfunctional and badly managed economy
• Multiple foreign policy crises mostly centering around a large, powerful nation, Rumburg, which is becoming increasingly militaristic
• An ongoing political crisis caused by the dysfunctional constitution you inherit

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As if that weren’t enough, you must solve the above three problems while also navigating multiple political crises caused by the above three big ones in a highly divided nation with an unhealthy and corrupt political culture.

You will have to carefully manage multiple factions all of whom have different demands and all of whom you need to help you to at least some extent to achieve your goals.

Oh, and in case this wasn’t enough you are a neutral power in the middle of the Cold War who has to navigate an increasingly tense situation.

Given all this, failure in this game is the default.

But you can succeed!

You can solve the three big crisis and many minor ones as well and truly transform Sordland into a better place.

Our goal here will be to solve all three of the three big problems we face and solve as many of the minor issues we can tackle as well. We won’t quite get everything, but by the time we’re done Sordland will be a very different place.

General Strategy

• Obviously, this guide assumes you are intending to reform and change Sordland. While it is quite possible and fun to become a dictator and revert what privatization has occurred in the economy, that’s not what this guide is about.
• As President, what you say matters. Your dialog choices matter. Some non obvious “this is a choice” options open if you select some choices while others close off. This means that some things are likelier to happen or not happen based on your dialogue choices. Some options only become available if you pick the right dialog choices and others close off. It would be tedious for me to provide you with an exact guide of every conversation in the game and would take all the fun out of it, so I won’t do that, but keep this in mind given our goals. Look for dialog choices that aim for democracy, new trade partners, helping people, capitalism, etc.
• As an extension of this, be careful with your promises. If you make a promise and then don’t follow through, there are consequences. This is true of both your electoral promises at the start of the game and also promises during conversations.
• You are a politician in this game, and you have a lot of things you are trying to achieve at once. Be diplomatic as possible, but also stay firm to some core principles.
• Let me repeat, you are a politician, you are going to have to make some compromises and engage in a small amount of mildly questionable behavior to succeed in your goals given the forces arrayed against you.
• That being said, do not take any bribes or make any “deals” with the Oligarchs. These always, always, always come back to bite you in the ass later. Likewise be careful of some of the investment opportunities offered to you, if they sound like you are being given special access, stay away.
• Given that you are trying to reform the nation some of the members of your own party (the USP) including some Judges and some members of your cabinet are in fact your enemies and are working against you. Pay close attention to what everyone says during the meetings. The people you really need to watch out for are the “Old Guard” whose goal it is to defend the status quo created by Tarquin Soll, the creator of the present constitution. The Old Guard should not be trusted, but you must also be careful not to alarm them too much. It’s a fine balance as you reform the country away from the constitution created by Soll who they see as their leader.
• The military is another power player. They have a bad habit of overthrowing Presidents and preventing them from overthrowing you is one of your primary challenges. Some of them are also members of the “Old Guard” and as such not to be trusted. That being said, be respectful and diplomatic to them and generally give them what they want.
• By the same token, your army is very concerned by the threat of Rumburg to the north. The threat is real, take them seriously.
• Your country is currently very isolated which is the preferred position of the Old Guard Sollists. For both economic and military reasons, however, you need trade partners and allies. With clever footwork you can make alliances and trade deals with two of your four neighbors that are mutually beneficial but give you more of an advantage.
• Be very, very hesitant to spend your budget on anything not directly related to economic investments, especially during the first 4 turns. It’s imperative you be at -2 or better by Turn 4. My selection of choices below has you exactly at -2 by the end of that turn, you need every bit of budget you have. Even after turn 4 be careful and try not to go below -3 by the end of a turn.
• Regardless of what reforms you pass, be careful of going against Colonial Soll. It’s a red flag for many people who would otherwise support you.
• I know some people think feminism is the equivalent of nuclear war or something, but a) If you think this, you’re an idiot, and b) to achieve all the goals of this guide it will be a lot easier if you play your character as a feminist. Support your wife and her political ambitions.
• It is important that you be very polite and nice to your driver. Ask him about his family and get to know him. There is specifically a very important convo during Turn 3 on your way to Narbel to get a briefing on the health and education departments. If he ever gives you anything, accept it.

The Political Landscape: Who can I trust?

If you don’t want to play a guessing game of who is out to get you and who isn’t,this is the section for you. Note however, that this is full of spoilers if you want to find out some of this yourself..
Also note that “trust” doesn’t mean “always right” it just means that they are telling you the truth as they see it and understand it and they actually want you to succeed.

Trustworthy:

Lucian Galade: Your chief strategist for good reason. The man has very good political instincts and is almost always right. If says something will cost you votes, he’s right. You will sometimes still disagree with him and make up for it in other ways, but still, pay close attention and take him seriously.
Symon Hall: He’s very pro-capitalism and pro corporate, but generally gives good advice
Deivid Wisci: He is a very astute foreign policy head, and almost always right
Nia Morgna: As a reformer, this woman is your ally and shares your goals. Listen to her.
Iosef Lancea: Iosef is a slightly complicated case. His strategic military advice is good, listen to him over the generals. But when it comes to questions of immigration and internal security, he is a bit more prejudiced towards keeping the military’s role and traditional Sordland.
Ciara Walda: She’s entirely focused on her issues with education, but can be trusted
Paskal Beniwoll: The health version of Ciara: focused on his issues and not much else

Somewhere in the middle/Out for their own interests:

Petr Vectern- Your VP is a good friend and loyal to you, but he is also an alcoholic playboy who can’t keep it in his pants. He gives sound political advice in general, but he has poor personal judgement.
Walter Tusk and Marcel Koronti: These two greedy slugs are out for their own interests. If you stay diplomatic and give them some of what they want they will support you and help you, but remember it’s just for their own greed. They also represent a veritable series of pitfalls as they try to engage in almost comical levels of corruption in their attempt to bribe you or improperly influence you in multiple ways that can break out into a scandal later on if you are not careful.
Monica Rayne: Your wife is a smart woman and in the process of becoming a Jackie Onassis type feminist icon. She supports you and wants you to succeed, but she’s fundamentally an idealist who’s political instincts are clouded by that idealism. Given our goals, she’s our ally, but we need to manage her demands with the complex larger political situation.

Untrustworthy:

Lileas Graf- your minster of the interior is a committed Sollist and in fact plots throughout your entire administration to overthrow you. Take everything she says with a grain of salt.
Orso Hawker- The Chief Justice is one of your central opponents of reform.
Heron Garaci- While he can be suborned to support your constitution, there is a reason he accompanies Hawker when they come to try and convince you to abandon your reforms and declare an emergency.
Valken Kruger: While not actively working against you like Lileas or Orso, Valken is an Old Guard who is against your reforms, and furthermore, whose general military advice is outdate or bad. In any argument between him an Iosef, go with Iosef.

Reforming & Repairing the Economy

Politics, Economics & Foreign Policy influence one another

As a starting point, it’s worth pointing out something that may seem obvious but often has complex and non obvious implications: the three main challenges of the game (the economy, the political system and the foreign policy crisis of Rumburg) are all connected.

I also want to reiterate the goal of the guide: to be capable of suceeding at all three of these challenges to truly transform our country. Overall, the main issue with succeeding at reforming and repairing the economy and being capable of defeating Rumburg and reforming the political system is that there will be a lot of things you want to do but your abilities are extremely limited. That being said, you can achieve this through a delicate balancing act

Politics & the Economy

It’s logical and obvious that your job on recovering the economy influences not just your war fighting ability but your political prospects. Recovering the economy fully makes getting reelected much likelier.

In terms of political reform, I talk about this in more length in that section, but keep in mind that if you are trying to pull off both an economic reform and political reform there is only so much change the system can tolerate. Choosing to reform the economy more will reduce the size of the political reforms you can pull off and vice versa. The strategy I follow here is calibrated towards what I feel is the most change in both areas that is possible, but it is a judgement call.

What is less obvious is that your overall political support matters for recovering the economy as well. Basically, Sordland is both politically and economically fragile and has an unhealthy political culture. Because of this you have a lot of tough decisions to make and given our overall goals of democratic and social reform we will often have veto popular nationalist/anti-democratic bills.

Given all of that, it’s depressingly easy to get into a situation around turn 8 or 9 where you’ve lost enough popular support to cause political unrest to break out again, causing foreign investment to flee and killing your economic recovery just as it gets going.

All that being said, it’s possible to still make the right choices from a democratic reformer perspective with the right economic and political strategy, but requires careful thinking.

The Economy & Foreign Policy

Another thing that may or may not be obvious is the fact that your success or failure at reforming your economy impacts the overall impact of your eventual confrontation with Rumburg.

In short: the better your economy the better your country will fight in a war and the more some of your allies will be inclined to fight hard on your behalf.

In other words, if you are aiming to win the war with Rumburg its important you get your economy in top shape as well as taking the appropriate steps to prep your military.

The Importance of the Deficit

The other point I cannot emphasize enough is you must be very careful with your budget.

Basically, if you run a budget balance that is too negative (-3 or lower) a couple of things happen:

• If your budget balance is -3 or lower at the end of turn 4 an event called “Black Tuesday” occurs. This is essentially a Great Depression like financial crash that destroys your banking system and makes the work of recovery much harder. In my experience Black Tuesday triggering makes a full recovery impossible.
• Even past turn 4, a high (-3 or lower) negative balance in later turns will likely cause your credit to be downgraded, causing a loss of economic development and again making a full recovery harder. In this case, you can still recover the economy fully if you fix your budget balance quickly, but it does need to be fixed.
• A very high (-4 or -5) budget deficit, in any turn and for almost any period of time, is very likely to utterly crash your economy and in my experience make a recovery impossible regardless of any other choices you make.
• I haven’t seen this happen personally, but based on the comments of other players I can only conclude that if you get into some debt situations it can create some sort of snowball effect of negative effects that cause even further debt and cause your economy to crash even further.

The worst part of the problem is that there is only a very small number of events that boost your budget balance and there are a lot more opportunities to spend yourself into a credit downgrade and/or a financial panic. As if that weren’t challenging enough, there are a couple of economic investment projects you have to spend money on to recover the economy fully.

General Strategy:

• Take almost every investment project opportunity you are given. The only one I pass on is the -2 decision you get in turn 8 to invest in your choice of industry. You can recover your economy without this investment and I like to use the budget it would cost for other priorities.
• Take all regional development decisions
• Pay attention to the current situations described in Economy section of your Country overview. Choices you make for investment and development should directly address either red or yellow conditions.
• Privatize to some degree to give yourself more budget.
• Make trade deals with at least two of your neighbors. Through clever diplomacy you can get an advantageous deal from Agnolia and Lespia. The trade deal with Wehlen is more trouble than it’s worth and you lose most of the advantages of it when you make a deal with Lespia anyway, and you need Lespia. Given our general goals, we also have to take Agnolia’s side in their dispute with Valgsland over the island they are fighting over. Given our goals to democratize and become a capitalist economy they are more aligned with us and they are more meaningful to an eventual war with Rumburg, if one should happen.
• Avoid non investment project related decisions that cost you budget that will push you below -2 before Turn 4 and -3 afterwards unless you are certain you can get your budget back on balance quickly (within the same turn).
• To repeat: Avoid Black Tuesday like the plague. Your balance must be -2 or higher at the end of turn 4. You can go below that temporarily, but have a clear idea of what event will push you back up (there aren’t that many, as I mentioned)
• While Black Tuesday will no longer trigger past turn 4, you still need to keep your deficit low (-2 or higher is best)
• You must choose to do the initial infrastructure investment: be it the L1 High speed rail line or H-3 Highway in Angland. There are pluses to both from both an economic and grand strategy perspective. I personally think the L1 is better, but you have to do one or the other.
• Mr. Tusk’s bribery attempts may irritate you, but even after rejecting his bribe it’s very beneficial to choose Underhall to do the initial infrastructure project. They will be the only ones who finish it on time without problems regardless of other choices you make. It *really* helps if this project is finished in time for the economy to begin to recover at the correct pace. Choosing Underhall for this project also has political benefits.
• Sadly, you must choose to either to reduce the budget in a department (or not increase the military and thus be forced into avoiding war with Rumburg), pass on a regional investment decision for the term OR Veto the Workers Rights bill. I always veto the bill given our goals of doing all three and because the consequences of that are easier to work around than a reduced budget or passing on a regional investment decision.

If you want a turn by turn guide of what choices to make and specific advice on how to handle the trade negotiations go to the end sections of this guide.

Reforming the Constitution: General Strategy

The Constitution you inherit in this game is a fascinating thing. It’s really best thought of as a “constitutional dictatorship” sort of similar to how some constitutional monarchies had vague and sometimes ill defined but nonetheless real limits on their power based on a written constitution.

The in game constitution was created by Colonel Soll, and he established a classic 3rd world mix of Dictatorship and Democracy best captured by the Spanish word “Democradura” or “Dictablanda” see e.g. Peron in Argentina or the rule of the PRI (the closest analogue to the USP I can think of) in Mexico. It also bears a intentional similarity to the political norms of Ataturk’s Turkey, which Sordland is a fictional analogue of.

That little history lesson aside, this guide assumes you want to reform the Constitution of Sordland and make it into an actual democracy.

But not just any democracy. You don’t want “moderate” or “incremental” reforms, you want sweeping wide changes,

This is one of the more challenging tasks in the game. It is, however, quite possible.

Choice of Reforms

Our goal is the following:

• President impeachable only by the assembly with a 3/5th vote
• Presidential veto can be overridden with a 2/3rd vote of the assembly
• Decrees require a enabling act by the assembly
• Limit of 2 terms
• Supreme Court is no longer able to vote on amendments to prevent them
• Supreme Court can be impeached by 2/3rd vote
• “Members of Honor” are no longer immune from prosecution
• In addition, during the constitution writing process, on every successful run I have also chosen to lower the electoral threshold to 8% but then “give up” this reform when meeting with the conservatives (see below)

Political & Economy Strategy for Constitutional Reform

One of the things that makes our task so challenging is the way that the economic decisions in the game interact with the constitutional reforms. If you don’t pay close attention, these two storylines seem separate, but in truth the interweave very closely. Forgetting this, or not knowing about it because you didn’t pick the correct dialogue choices, is one of the easiest ways to have your reform effort fail.

In general, to achieve our goals we need to act like a Democratic reformer, side with the reformist wing of the party and with the main opposition party, the PFJP, without scaring the conservatives too much. It’s a very fine needle to thread and it involves a lot of smooth talking.

General Strategy

• Veto the Electoral Campaign Finance Bill, passing it seems to anger the PFJP and makes them harder to convince when your talking to their leader to support your constitution.
• Obviously, when asked, say you want to reform the constitution and work with the reformists.
• During your budget meeting, it is imperative you increase the budget for the interior. Later on, when meeting to discuss how it should be divided, give all of the money to the Ministry of Justice and then agree to form an Anti Corruption police force. This will be critical in the last stages of getting your constitution past the Supreme Court.
• When writing the new constitution, I have always selected to lower the electoral threshold to get seats to 8%. You’ll notice this is not on our list of goals. This is basically something I add in to give away during your bargaining of the conservatives, but I’m not yet sure what happens if you just leave it out.
• Likewise, when your wife asks to make a speech at an event, make an initial decision to have her speak. This is something else I give up to the conservatives when talking with them.
• If you choose to privatize the economy you can only go so far. Based on trying multiple variations I’ve only been successful with the following:
• Majority Government share of SSC
• Minority share in the Nedam Mining Group.
• You can privatize health OR education, if you do both you lose the conservatives. Due to budget needs and the sequence of events, to pull off both constitutional reform AND an economic recovery, it’s education that will end up privitized and health will remain nationalized.
• The company you pick for your first infrastructure project matters as well. Long story short, Underhall is the favored company of the Corportists who have money and influence the media as well. I haven’t tested every single permutation of this, but in my successful runs I have picked Underhall for at least the first project.
• I’m still testing to see how necessary bribing MP’s is before the final vote, but every time I have succeeded I have spent at least -1 wealth bribing and I usually spend -2 wealth.

The Constitution: Convincing the Leads

As you finish writing your constitution and are in the process of getting signatures so it can be voted on in the Assembly, you will meet with the leaders of wing of your party as well as the leader of the main opposition party, the PFJP.

If you follow the steps above, the progressive wing of your own party literally won’t require convincing, they will be 100% on board since you’ve given them everything they want. The real challenge ins the conservative wing and the PFJP.

For each of these, I will first give you an overall strategy and then put the actual conversation guide in a spoiler if you just want the answer.

Convincing Gloria, the leader of the Conservatives

General Strategy

• Emphasize UFP leadership and that your only goal is democratic reform
• She’s a committed Sollist, if you enacted any reforms taking away Solli’s position or immunity, she will need heavy reassurances on that point.
• You will have to give up 1-3 reforms of what you choose if you followed my advice earlier. The 10% reform is the one she finds most important.
• If you have agreed to let your wife speak at the Banfi Festival she will ask you take that back. This is a non-negotiable for her, if you don’t agree she’ll walk away from the deal.

Script for Gloria if you followed my suggested reforms:

<some initial pleasantries that don’t matter too much>

A1: The reforms are not against anyone…
A2: I would never betray our party
A3: You must understand these reforms are a necessity…
A4: The USP is a party that knows how to react to changing times…
A5: I have no deal with anyone.
A6: Will that ensure your support?
A7: Very well, I will remove the change to the threshold.
A8: I have no intention of putting Colonial Soll on trial.
A9: The member of honor laws are unnecessary and undemocratic..
A10: Look, I promise we won’t touch him…
A11: This will benefit the party.
A12: Mr.s Tory, please try to understand me…
A13: Fine I’ll have Monica taken off…. (you can also ask what does it have to do with anything and have a little back and forth, but in the end you have to agree

From here, your responses don’t seem to matter too much, but if you ask her about surprises she’ll inform you of the points I mentioned earlier of the dangers of privatizing too much

Convincing Frens Richter, leader of the PFJP

While this conversation is not quite as dicey as the one with Gloria, it’s still perfectly possible to mess it up. You can even end up in a situation where he says he supports you but is clearly unhappy about it and you lose most of the PFJP votes and come nowhere close to hitting your threshold.

General Strategy

• Remind him that this constitution gives him almost everything he wants
• emphasize your desire to work together
• Make sure to remain diplomatic in your responses, anything that sounds like a demand or like he doesn’t have a choice is likely to anger him. Remember, if this effort fails the likeliest beneficiary is him.

Script for Frans if you followed my suggested reforms:

<some initial pleasantries that don’t matter too much>

A1) You prefer Soll’s constitution then?
A2) I still believe we can accomplish meaningful change together.
A3) You’re going to miss our chance for reforms just because…
A4) I’m sure you have something in mind.
A5) Of course, Mr Ricter. You can count on me.

The Constitution: Your Speech and the Vote

I’m not actually sure if your speech has a mechanical effect on the vote tally yet, but based on the responses of the assembly, a speech that emphasizes unity and working together works best.

During the vote itself, Soll will arrive (the only time I haven’t had this happen is when I was on the road to not even coming close to getting the requisite number of votes).
The way this tends to play out is that if you got things mostly right but made one or two crucial mistakes (like privatizing too much) you will lose ba very narrow margin, often by exactly one vote (Soll’s) because Gloria changes the total number of votes required
You know you are succeeding if when you ask Gloria to speed up the vote she says its already following the allotted time, but she nonetheless speeds things up (if she outright refuses, something has gone wrong somewhere, usually in that you lost the conservatives). Another signal of success is when, near the end of the vote, you’re told you only need 20 or so more vote for it to pass. If you’re told you need 30 out of 40 remaining votes, you came close to getting it right but did one or two things wrong.

In any case, despite Soll showing up and voting, your new constitution should pass. I’ve had it pass comfortably with 170 some votes.

The Constitution: Convincing the Supreme Court

All your advisors will tell you that passing the constitution through the court is going to be harder than the assembly. In my opinion, they are wrong. The assembly, as we just saw, is a maze of intersecting political and economic choices and conversations with critical players with lots of dead ends and only a few paths to pull off the vote. Getting it past the court, on the other hand, if you’ve made the right choices, will just require one carefully managed, if lengthy, conversation.

The key to the whole thing is Justice Isabel Edmonds. She leads the moderate wing of the court, can bring along all her fellow moderate justices and together with the reformists on the court pass your constitution.

Convincing Isabel Edmonds

General Strategy:
Isabel is a moderate who respects the rule of law but is nervous about changing things too much. She will be especially nervous about some of your reforms to the court if you choose those, but it is possible to convince her. Her other main motivation is her dislike of the Old Guard.

In light of that, keep in mind the following general guidelines:

• Be reassuring in general that your only goal is democratization
• Emphasizes responses that speak to respect for the traditional role of courts as the branch that performs independent judicial review rather than any legislative functions.
• Stay away from choices that make it sound like you are about to start purging the courts.
• Emphasize unity of purpose against the old guard while making sure to pay attention to the previous points.
• Don’t hurry her or be aggressive.

Script for Isabel if you followed my suggested reforms:

<some initial pleasantries that don’t matter too much>

A1) We want to cooperate with you.
A2) And what do you think..,
A3) We need proper balance of power..
A4) We need a better democracy…
A5) I thought you would agree to that…
A6) To ensure the new processes…
A7) Mrs. Edmonds please help us…
A8) The judiciary should not have legislative powers..
A9) Weren’t you for Alphonso’s free market reforms?
A10) Don’t be. We are together in this.
A11) It must have the power of judicial review…
A12) It plays an essential role…
A13) You have nothing to worry about…
A14) Stay silent

Convincing Judge Heron

If you convince Isabel, Heron is unnecessary. If you do get Isabel, I recommend just forgetting about Heron altogether, since you have to cut a deal with him. But if for whatever reason you fail to convince Isabel, you can talk Heron into it and still succeed.

If you do need to convince him do the following:

When the event asks you who to pick to send, send Lucian, that will lead to him scheduling a meeting between you and Judge Heron

When you talk to him, the conversation is pretty simple and not worth scripting out. He’ll ask that you push out Hawker so he can become Chief Justice, he’ll say he has material on him to impeach him. Agree to his deal and he’ll vote for the constitution.

Preventing or Winning the War Against Rumburg

In case you skipped the reforming economy section, I want to start by pointing out that the economic side of the game matters to the outcome of a war with Rumburg, should one occur.

In short, the better your economy the better your chances of winning both because your economy can better support the war effort and because your lucrative economy represents a more valuable investment for your allies.

It’s worth pointing out that you have a great deal of control over whether the war even happens in the first place: you can prevent the war entirely and be reelected after a normal election if you like or make choices that make a war likelier.

As with everything, your overall behavior in terms of both actual choices and dialog choices throughout the game matters to the overall outcome.

If you want to make a war less likely: adopt a less martial stance, deescalate the situation when Rumburg makes provocations and so on.

If you want to make war more likely then you do the opposite: you respond aggressively to their escalations.

My general policy is to respond to their aggressions: don’t escalate further than they do, but respond in kind.

The most crucial choice in terms of causing or preventing the war is at the meeting of the Allied Nations on Turn 10.

There, you can choose to reveal the things you have learned through your defector to the world and thus cause Rumburg to become an international pariah and suffer massive trade sanctions, and thus defuse their desire for war.

On the other hand, if you’d rather deal with them once and for all you can not reveal what you have learned and it becomes much more likely that they will declare war (your behavior throughout matters here as well).

General Strategy

If you have decided that you want to win a war against Rumburg, there are a few crucial things to keep in mind:

• I want to point out again that you want to make sure your economy is in the best shape possible by the time everything comes to head in turn 10. It reflects both your overall ability to produce and support a war economy and also influences your allies to be more helpful.
• During the budget meeting boost defense spending
• Go with Iosef’s advice to both modernize the army and do away with conscription
• When asked what to do with the resources freed up by ending conscription, choose to further modernize the army.
• When you are asked to give asylum to an informer, do so.
• In the argument between Interior and defense over who gets the Gendarmerie, keep it with Defense. It matter to the eventual outcome of the war a great deal.
• Your own army is the one you can trust to do the most mission critical things
• Your allies are trustworthy, but they should be given supporting tasks.
• Rumburg’s army is not as good as yours in quality, but it is much larger. Don’t make choices that might get you dragged into a war of attrition, be aggressive.

Specific Advice on how to Win the War

• Go with Iosef’s Pincer Strategy
• Have Agnolia attack Dome
• Have Lespia guard your flank
• For phase two after the success of the pincer strategy, go straight for the capital

Walkthrough: Prologue to Turn 4

Prologue and Election Promises

Just like in real life, this series of choices are easier if you are rich. Choose to be from a wealthy family. I’m not sure what impact the other choices have on the game overall, but I tend to pick logical choices for someone who is going to be a democratic reformer whose main goal is to help people.
Promise democratic reforms, promote the free market, side with the west, and have relaxed immigration.
Choose to focus on either the interior OR the military.

Turn 1

• Work with the reformist to write a new constitution
• Veto the campaign finance bill
• Ensure that the media is independent.
• Promote the free market
• Decide to build the L1 High Speed Train (-1 budget, current budget=2)
• Invest in Armidine if you can, but make sure you have at least 1 wealth left. (Being rich, I invested -2 wealth and had 1 left)
• Agree to meet with Mr. Koronti

Turn 2

• Visit the towns most affected by the unrest.
• Reject Mr. Tusk’s bribe, but do so diplomatically.
• Distribute stimulus checks to the people (-1 Budget, current budget=1)
• Reject Mr. Koronti’s deal, being as diplomatic as possible.
• Award the L1 contract to Underhall (-1 Budget, current budget=0)
• Attend the funeral of Bernard Ciceras. I’m not sure how much impact your words have exactly, but I emphasize that his murder was unjust and that we need unity.
• Order the consulate in Rumburg to be closed in response to their provocation
• When Orso Hawker comes to talk to you to suggest you declare an emergency you obviously say no. It costs you nothing to be diplomatic in your approach, however.

Turn 3

• Pay for the education of Serge’s kids (-1 Wealth). This is surprisingly important. To get this prompt you obviously need 1 wealth on hand to give and also be nice to him, ask him about his family, etc and the option should come up.
• Don’t ban either youth political movements.

Constitutional Reforms to choose in the final draft:

• Limit Veto
• Remove Supreme Court Vote
• The Assembly may impeach.
• Confidence vote will be required
• Decrease threshold to 8%
• Decrees require an enabling act
• Two terms
• Judges can be impeached
• Abolish immunity of Honorary Members

Budget Decisions:

Increase Military and Interior/Law, maintain health and education. (-2 budget, current budget = -2)

Turn 4

• Sadly, you have to veto the Workers rights Bill. This is honestly my biggest regret on this particular path, but given all the other things we are aiming to do, this one has the least cost for saying no. In other words we could pass this bill but then have to give up on one either increasing our budget in both interior and military to be ready to deal with the old guard and our foreign enemies, or giving up on investing in one of the provincial economies and threaten our economic recovery. The costs of vetoing the bill compared to giving up any one of these things are minor: a minor bit of diplomacy with Albin.
• Regional Investment decision: Invest in Lorren. (-1 budget, current budget =-3). This is one of those seemingly small decisions that has a lot of side effects down the line given our other goals and choices. There are two logical choices: Lorren or Bergia. Let me explain: while Lorren or Bergia are pretty much tied in terms of our economic strategy, Lorren boosts your popularity with the general populace more, while Bergia boosts your overall popularity less but boosts Bludish opinion specifically. Given our other choices, we will already be boosting Bludish opinion a great deal, while we will be forced to take a number of unpopular stances against nationalist bills. We need the boost to general popularity or there is a general danger that protests will break out around Turn 8 or 9 that become unmanageable and cripple your economy.
• Give all of the extra law enforcement budget to the Ministry of Justice and then give Nia the go ahead to form the Anti-corruption police. This is seriously one of the most critical movies of the entire game and makes many other seemingly unrelated things possible.
• Accept Monica’s offer to speak at the Banfi festival
• Maintain taxes at the same level for both large and small/medium business
• Reform and Privatize Education (+1 Budget, Current Budget= -2) During the visit to the school, I also agree with the little girl and tell them to change the curriculum.
• Meet with Gloria Tory and convince her. Follow my advice/ guide if you’re not sure how.
• Meet with Albin. You’ll need to smooth talk your veto of the workers rights bill briefly, but he will be very supportive.

Walkthrough: Turn 5 to Turn 8

Turn 5

• Accept the Arcasian Aid (+1 Budget, Current Budget= -1 )
• Veto Religious Harmony Bill
• I haven’t tested it, but I am 99% sure taking Gus’ offer to invest in Underhall construction at Petr’s party it will result in a scandal later on.
• Keep immigration laws relaxed.
• At the Banfi festival, I tell Monica to sit down repeatedly, later at home I agree to let her join in the educational and political reform movement.
• Focus anti corruption investigations on the Old Guards (another crucial move)
• Improve military equipment and begin a modernization program.
• During your trade talks with Agnolia, refuse the increased steel prices. President Van Hoorten will be rather upset. Ask him if there is any room for discussion, he will ask you to recognize Heljiland as Angolian territory, and then agree to his alliance offer as well. (fun fact, if you agree to the increase steel price, you then have to recognize the island for the alliance, so the island recognition is a 2 for 1 for you)
• During your trade talks with Wehlen, reject Wiktor Smolak’s deal. You don’t need Wehlen and agreeing to his deal causes you a number of complications down the road.
• I’m genuinely not sure what impact your speech choices at the assembly have. I tend to focus on unity, democracy, embracing change.

Turn 6

• Like any good politician, attend the opening of the L1 Railway and focus your remarks on jobs and growth.
• Remove mandatory conscription and then use the freed up resources to modernize your army.
• Your two most logical choices are the Benfi Airport and the Bergia Agricultural Zone. Bergia will boost production and Blud opinion, Benfi will synergize with your eventual trade deal with Lespia and with our earlier investment in Lorren’s economy as well as boost infrastructure into the green. I went with Benfi Airport. (-2 Budget, Current Budget= -3 )
• Keep healthcare in state control. If you privatize it, you’re likely to lose the conservatives, and therefore the reform vote.
• Convince Frans to support the reform effort. See my guide for how to do that if you’re not sure what to do.
• Give the contract to Taurus this time as the development company to save on budget. Taurus doesn’t seem to get delayed they way the do with the L1.
• Order new rural schools to be built
• Mandate the teaching of evolution, but allow schools to teach creationism if they like.
• At this point, I usually spend 2 wealth to convince MP’s before the vote, just in case.

Turn 7

• I refuse to listen to Marcel Koronti when he tries to suborn me
• Choose to privatize, and then do the following:
• SSC majority state owned
• Nedam Mining minority state owned
• These choices will result in +2 Budget, Current Budget= -1
• Veto the Unified Education Act
• During the electoral vote, I do ask Gloria to speed up the vote. I’m not sure it makes a difference exactly, but generally if she agrees that means you have kept the conservatives and are going to win. I win the vote handily with 226 ayes. (This might tempt you to think you can privatize more, in my experience and testing, if you do you still lose, often by exactly 1 vote….Soll’s)
• Reject Frans Ricter’s offer of an alliance
• Grant asylum to the whistleblower from Rumburg. This another one of those “seemingly small but actually crucial” moves.
• I tend to send my son to Harcard. Be careful of some of the choices here, especially spending money to get in to Holsord State (IIRC) as this causes a scandal later.
• Convince Isabel Edmonds to vote for your constitution, bringing the moderates with her. Follow my guide if you’re not sure how.
• In the meeting after the supreme court vote, focus on the economy., and impeach Justice Hawker. I recommend *not* impeaching Soll. Doing so seems to impact the late game protests negatively and also damages your relationship with the military.
• In general, in speeches and other statements, focus on the economy.

Turn 8

• You will be given a choice of Judge now that Hawker is done. I recommend picking the most experienced Judge, as he will be a Moderate who becomes Chief Justice. If you pick the most loyal, you will still get a moderate and instead Heron Garaci, who is a old guard will become Chief Justice. The impact of this is limited, given our choices this play through, but I like the extra oomph of having a different ideology for our chief justice as well as changing the overall ideological balance of the court. If you do choose to go after Soll, it becomes mandatory that you choose the most experienced justice: it’s your only chance to actually get Soll in jail and successfully navigate prosecuting it.
• For your decrees, I just pick the Sordish Radio & Television Council (and keep it independent) & the Fair Trade Competition Commission.

During your trade talks with President Alvarez of Lespia you can take the following steps to get an advantageous deal:

It doesn’t matter what you do with the teapot.
Thank him
“Have you been drinking?”
“You are speaking to a president. Where is your professionalism?”
Mr. Alvarez are you making fun of me right now?”

From here, he will sign the trade deal without even looking at it. The conversation that follows can be confusing as to whether you are joining ATO or just allying with Lespia is a little confusing as to whether you are agreeing to join the ATO or just be allied with Lespia. It’s the latter. Agree to the alliance with Lespia.

• What happens now is a scandal involving your VP sleeping with your secretary. Tell Lucian about it, believe what he says in general. Whether you shoulder the blame or blame Petr entirely, you seem to come out pretty clear, the main difference is that Petr chooses to take the blame if you try to share it whereas in the other scenario he commits suicide. During my conference, I make sure to name “Ilana” as a Rumburg spy.

• Agree to open the women’s rights commission
• For your replacement VP, I pick Albin Clavin. If you go with Lucian, it turns out he’s not as good at retail politics. Albin solidifies your support with the liberals/reformists.
• During the argument between Lileas and Iosef about the Gendarmerie, your approach depends on whether you want to fight Rumburg or avoid war. If you want to avoid war, you can get the military out of policing, but if you want to fight and win against Rumburg, then you have to agree with Iosef and keep the Gendarmerie with Defense. Transferring them to interior impacts the outcome of the war: even making the right choices you will lose if you transfer them.
• Agree to spend money to get the Polio Vaccine and agree to mandatory vaccinations (-1 Budget, Current Budget = -2)
• Sign the Less Smoke Bill (+1 Budget, Current Budget= -1)
• You now have one of those though choices to make. You will be given an opportunity to invest -2 budget on an economic expansion. But you can do this OR the women’s right’s bill, NOT both, since both will cause a debt crisis and crash your economy. You can recover the economy without this investment so I decide not to expand so we can implement another social reform.
• Sadly, you have to choose NOT to attend the Aschraf Anniversary. Regardless of your choice to attend it or not, protests will break out, but if you DON’T attend the protests are much more peaceful and attempts to negotiate with them peacefully actually work. If you DO attend, the protests become much more violent and attempts to end the protests blow up in your face. If anyone has figured out a way to attend this anniversary and quell the protests successfully, please tell me.
• In the briefing with Lileas and Karl about the protests shortly after, ask to meet with the protestors and hear their demands.

.

Walkthrough: Turn 9, 10 & Endgame

You are almost there!

Turn 9

• Sign the women’s liberation act into law. (-2 Budget, Current Budget = -3)
• Veto the Human Dignity Bill
• In your meeting with Katarina Horten, the leader of the protestors, agree to her demands.
• Sign the Freedom Act into law (-1 Budget, Current Budget= -4)
• Sign the Alcohol Tax Law (+1 Budget, Current Budget = -3)
• Veto the Fair Luxury Tax
• When Rumburg downs one of your planes, respond by downing one of theirs.
• Hold a military parade
• Agree to meet Dwight Walker from the USA..oh sorry.. Arcasia, but don’t agree to join the ATO.
• Order the arrest of Lilias Graf, but only her
• Somewhere around here, for unknown reasons, your budget will go up by +1 and you will be at -2
• Symon should announce to you in your meeting that the economy has recovered. Congratulations!
• I go ahead and take loans from the MFF, but I’m not sure it matters too much (+2 Budget, Current Budget=0)

Turn 10

This turn you have a very important choice to make that shapes the entire end game.

You will be attending the Alliance of Nations and making a speech. In addition to voicing support for your allies and the Blud ethnic minority, you can also handle the address about Rumburg in two ways which can either prevent or cause a war:

• Call out Rumburg and present all the lovely evidence your defector has found for you about its smuggling of weapons and development of Nuclear Weapons. This will cause the entire national community to enact trade sanctions on Rumburg, isolate them and defuse the war. The end game will consist of a normal election campaign, where, honestly, if you play even half smart you will win because, well, we rewrote the constitution and ended the depression and defused a potential war.
• Call out Rumburg but pick the dialog choices that don’t mention this evidence. (and I mean ANY of it. Just the weapons smuggling by itself is still sufficient to cause #1)

End Game:

What happens this turn, as I mentioned above, depends on your choices at the AN. If you defused the war by revealing Rumburg’s crimes, a regular election will happen. Any half reasonable set of choices you make here will net you a reelection victory, after all, your record speaks for itself. Just mention all the stuff you’ve done.

If you don’t reveal Rumburg’s weapon smuggling or nuclear program, then the diplomatic crisis breaks out, followed by war when you don’t give up part of your country to Rumburg (I assume you aren’t an idiot).

Look back at my strategy for how to win the war above, but the basic idea if you forgot is to be aggressive and have your allies do supporting maneuvers to your moves.

Congratulations on your re-election Mr. President!