← Back to the game

Rules & Conduct

What is this?

You are a minister in an unstable republic. Each year the President proposes a budget, the cabinet votes on it, and everyone quietly moves public money into a private account abroad. After six years, whoever has the largest hidden fortune wins — provided they are still alive to spend it. Holding power is only a means.

Every minister begins with the same modest sum in a private account. Fortunes only diverge as budgets are skimmed — so in the first year nobody is meaningfully ahead, and killing a rival then costs more than it can possibly take.

How a year works

1. Revenue. The treasury takes in money, scaled to the size of the cabinet.
2. The budget. The President announces allocations to ministries and direct cash grants to individuals. Both are public.
3. The vote. A simple majority passes it, and the President holds a casting vote on a tie. If it fails the President may redraft, but after three failed attempts the year passes with no budget at all and the money stays in the treasury.
4. Skimming. Ministers move money out of their ministry into their own account. This always succeeds — the risk in this game is political, not administrative.
5. Orders. Everyone writes secretly and everything resolves at once: support the President, revolt, attempt an assassination, move troops, or patrol the coast.

What the President can hide

The announced budget and the delivered budget need not match. The President may quietly withhold part of a ministry's allocation and keep the difference. The cabinet votes on the announcement; the ministry receives less.

Nothing is announced publicly — but the minister who was short-changed is told privately, and sees exactly what was promised against what arrived. What they do about it, and who they tell, is up to them.

Force

• Marching. A commander can move his army into a neighbouring province with any order, not only a revolt — which is how an army leaves the barracks to forage.
• Revolt. Commanders march on the capital. If the attacking units outnumber the palace defenders, the leader seizes the presidency.
• Assassination. Costs money, spent whether or not it works. Each dollar committed adds 5% to the chance, up to a cap of 90% — so $18 buys the best odds there are, and more buys nothing. An attempt one province away is half as likely; each guard unit where the victim stands takes 5% off. A success transfers half the victim's hidden fortune to the killer, the rest being lost with them, and removes them from the final count. So at $18 a kill only pays if the victim holds more than $36 — and every minister begins with $10. Fortunes are hidden, so you are betting on who you believe is rich. The orders form shows the odds for any target and sum before you commit.
• Vacant ministries. When a minister dies, the most junior surviving minister is promoted to the empty post if it outranks their own, and takes up its building. The order of precedence is defense, interior, economy, navy, development, foreign; the most junior post may be left empty. This keeps the army in command even when its commanders fall. The same happens when a revolt succeeds: the new President's old post passes up the chain, and the deposed President is given whatever post is left open at the bottom — never the army that overthrew him.
• Guards. Troops stationed where someone is standing make an attempt on them far more likely to fail. The palace is guarded by default.
• Succession. Killing the President does not end the republic. Power passes to whoever holds the most troops in the capital, or to a minister installed by an anxious cabinet.

The ministries

• President — proposes the budget, and is the only player who can receive foreign aid.
• Defence and Interior command troops, and so are the only ministers who can lead a revolt.
• Navy patrols the sea lanes foreign money arrives through. Each year the Admiral commits to one coastal province; if the shipment lands there, the Navy takes it instead of the President. Four provinces, one guess — and the shipment's landfall is never announced.
• Economy, Development and Foreign hold budgets to skim but command nothing.

Foreign aid

Some years a foreign power quietly pays the President. Everyone learns that something arrived; only the recipient learns the amount. If the Navy intercepts it, the President knows a shipment was stopped but not what it was worth.

Key locations

• Presidential Palace — the seat of power, and well guarded.
• Army Barracks — raises a fresh unit each year for whoever holds it. But an army kept at home must be fed: troops in the barracks' own province cost their commander $1 a year for every two units, from his own fortune, and unpaid troops desert. Troops stationed in any other province live off the land for free — though they no longer guard the barracks, or him.
• The Admiralty — command of the sea lanes.
• National Bank and Ministry of Works — administrative seats, and somewhere to stand.

The map

Generated fresh for every game: borders follow meandering rivers, the coastline differs each time, and the buildings move between provinces. There is no memorised layout to exploit. Territories that share a drawn border are exactly those you can march between — the map never implies a move you cannot make.

Spectating

Anyone with the watch link can follow a game without taking a seat. Spectators see the public view only — the roster, the map, and the dispatch log — never hidden balances, votes, or orders, and they can't act or chat.

Conduct

This is a game about backstabbing your fellow ministers — that's the point, and it's all in character. What's not okay, in chat or player names:

• Harassment, hate speech, or targeting other players outside the game itself.
• Estado Libre is invite-only: there is no public list of games, and a room cannot be joined by guessing its code. The link you were sent carries everything you need.

Chat runs through a basic automated filter, but it isn't perfect. The host of a room can remove disruptive players at any time.

Privacy & data

Player names, chat messages, and game state are stored only for the lifetime of a room, and rooms are automatically cleared out after a period of inactivity. There's no account system and no data retained beyond that. Don't share anything in a game you wouldn't want other participants to see.

← Back to the game · Spectate