Core Game Concepts

The invasion is over. Coalition forces have mostly withdrawn from the country, leaving the future in the hands of a new government. You are a recently sworn-in provincial governor, tasked with the reconstruction and stabilization of the area.

Most of the population is simply waiting and hoping for the best. But there are insurgents who demand your destruction. They have weapons, smuggled away at the end of the war or delivered to them by foreign supporters. Their chaos will be your doom, and it is up to your efforts to demolish them as you head the reconstruction.

## Reputation

*Main page: Reputation*

Reputation reflects the confidence held in you by The Coalition, the international community and locals. It is proportional to the amount of income you receive and you will lose the game if it drops to 0.

Four things can reduce Reputation:

* Insurgent activity: the primary factor in most games. You immediately lose some Reputation when insurgent take control of a province, with the penalty growing exponentially every time they re-take that particular zone - people fear returning Insurgent will punish those who collaborate with the Operation, and the world begins to doubt you can secure any future gain. In addition, you will slowly lose Reputation while the insurgent control zones in the region.

Both effects are scaled to the population of the affected zone(s). This means that Insurgent can be safely bottled up in remote, low population areas, but that they should never be allowed to conquer, re-conquer or occupy a city for any period of time.

* Lack of Stability: Operation sponsors understand they are in a long-term commitment, but they expect progress and may lose confidence if you are unable to secure any part of the territory. The early phase of the game is a balancing act between military activities and the civilian/administrative investment that will allow you to win supporters and start stabilization. You will start bleeding Reputation if you have not stabilized any zone after about two years; once this is done, then the higher-ups will expect slow and steady progress.

Lack of Stability may put you under a lot of pressure in the early game, but it will be less of a concern once two or three populated zones have been stabilized.

* Corruption: The international community expects not merely a stable region, but one with reasonably fair and just government. Large investments are made over the course of the Operation, and unscrupulous people might exploit that for personal gain. A corrupt administration will reduce confidence in your government.

Corruption can be controlled with the appropriate Government initiatives, and shouldn't cause too much Reputation loss if properly managed. For more details, see the Corruption entry below.

* Government Actions: Some of your decisions may disappoint or anger your partners as well as locals. For example, covering up a Judge in a corruption scandal or preventing Coalition withdrawals.

Conversely, there are three ways to gain Reputation:

* Stabilizing zones: every zone you stabilize give a small Reputation boost, proportional to the local population.
* Government Actions: Standing up to the Insurgents, implementing reforms in the country and similar decisions will impress your partners and generate Reputation.
* Specific Initiatives: Some initiatives give a Reputation boost when bought.

Reputation will inevitably decrease in the early game, though it should be kept as high as possible to secure a steady income. If you are simply looking for a win, Reputation becomes less important in the late game, as gaining supporters and stabilizing zones increase outcome in and of itself. However, your final Reputation count is the main factor in calculating your score at the end of the game, so an advanced player will try to maximize it at all times.

## Support Level

Support Level describes the opinion of the general population. The higher it is, the faster you will recruit supporters and stabilize the region. It is composed of support, increasing which converts neutral people to supporters, and hostility, decreasing which converts hostiles to neutral people.

Support Level is increased by:

* Most Civilian Initiatives being rolled out.
* Some Government Initiatives such as PR & Media, Universal Justice, and Anti-Corruption
* Certain government decisions
* Nearby Stable zones
* Less hostile population

Support level is reduced by:

* Local concerns
* Excessive corruption
* Certain governor-exclusive initiatives
* Tanks
* Coalition units
* Local Militia
* Insurgents
* Certain government decisions.
* Nearby Insurgent-controlled zones
* More hostile population

Regional hostility is generally decreased through Services and regional support is generally increased through Development initiatives.

Support level has a region-wide level and local zone modifiers - It is the latter that determines the speed of supporters gain. Occasionally, the people will protest and demand a particular initiative, like Education, Medicine, or Jobs. Such requests should be prioritized since they cause a large drop in Support Level, and granting the corresponding initiative will give a large Support Level boost on top of removing the penalty.

It is of utmost importance to increase Support Level in the early game, especially in harder difficulties. Not doing so delays the first Stabilized zone(s) and can cause unrecoverable losses in Stability. The amount of supporters needed to stabilize a zone is higher with a higher hostile population and/or a smaller physical size.

## Inflation

The large investments made during the Operation may destabilize local economy and cause inflation, increasing the price of all initiatives for a short period.

The more money you spend in a particular initiative category, the faster inflation increases. It follows that spending should ideally be split between the three categories, Civilian, Government and Military. Whenever inflation begins to increase sharply, switch to an other category or wait for the economy to cool down. Inflation decreases gradually over time, so spreading the investment over time is generally helpful. Some Anti-Corruption initiatives, mainly Effective Procurement and the Corruption Purges, permanently increase costs for certain initiatives as well as inflation. Both the Banker and Development Director have extra inflation gains as well (30% and 10% respectively).

It is notable that the costs of most initiatives relevant to the Coalition such as Drones, Coalition units and Airstrikes do increase inflation normally, but are much more resistant to the effect as well. Instead, they are primarily affected by the number of units deployed.

## Corruption

Another consequence of the investments flooding into the region is that unscrupulous officials get opportunities for personal enrichment. If they are not held accountable, corruption may run rampant throughout the region, turning the population and Operation partners alike against your government. The Support Reduction is actually not that much of an issue even with Smuggler, as players tend to worry about its Reputation penalty that starts at 40% corruption. Support damage is equivalent to **1.15 (1.35 for Smuggler) \* Corruption Risk^2**, whereas the reputation loss per month is **(Corruption Risk ^ 3.6) \* 6**.

Every month, Corruption changes by an amount equal to Corruption Risk, and the higher the Risk, the faster Corruption catches up. When it goes down, so does Corruption itself. Many Initiatives increase Corruption Risk when funded. By default, they drop very slowly over time. Players will primarily rely on Anti-Corruption Teams to reduce them gradually over time. In ideal cases, Corruption maxes out a few years into the game due to essential investments, but eventually drops later on. On higher difficulties and with Economist, Corruption catches up to Risk faster, eventually forcing players to manage Corruption Risk, rather than real Corruption.

As mentioned before, Anti-Corruption Initiatives are the way to go for reducing Corruption. Anti-Corruption 1-4 (commonly referred to as **Anti-Corruption Teams**) do so gradually, subtracting Corruption Risk every month by a small amount. Each has a cumulative effect of 7.5% corruption chance reduction on Decisions, which are stacked first and then applied multiplicatively.

Effective Procurement and Corruption Purges work a bit differently:

* Effective Procurement is less expensive, and increases Civilian Initiatives' Costs by 10% in exchange for reducing Corruption Risk gain by 10% when purchasing Initiatives that generate any. permanently increases Civilian Initiatives' costs by 10%.
* Corruption Purges have varying costs, but are generally higher than Effective Procurement. They multiply any existing Corruption Risk by a percentage (with the side-effect of removing some Corruption) and increases the cost of all Civilian initiatives by $1.