1. Starting conditions for presidents [ top ]

When you start playing, your country has a population of about 9 millions. The economy is running reasonably with 8 to 12 very large corporations employing most of the workers in the country.

The country has a cash amount of several hundreds billions and in the initial period, it receives additional amounts of money each game month. The country may have some small debt that was inherited from a corporation that was previously closed. Monthly Income is higher than the monthly cost and the economy is running at a surplus.

The initial resources are intended to allow for the start of fast development of the country without immediate money constraints. In addition, all new players have about 15 Gold coins on their account and can use these coins to increase their population or to get more game money into their country account. Check the direct trading market for these functions.

When you start, your country is fully protected against war. It is always in secured mode and cannot be attacked by anyone. The secured mode will remain in force as long as you do not turn it off.

In this mode, you cannot be attacked by anyone but you are allowed to start a war against a country without a president. If you conquer other countries and build an empire, only your leader country will remain in secured mode. The other countries can be protected using the temporary war protection but will not enjoy automatic and unlimited protection.

A country in secured mode cannot start a war against any country with a president. It can build an army, trade weapons with others but war is only possible against countries without a president. The army at the start is not very strong but the country is reasonably defended.

2. When You Login [ top ]

When you log in you get to the portal page and can check the general situation of your account, using the status pages that show on login. You can also click on your country name and get to your country's home page. This is your main control center. Clicking on "e;My Home"e; on the left frame will always bring you back to the portal page. You see the map of your country and some status information at the bottom of the page. Click on the links above and below the map. Click on objects on the map.

You get a list of all things you can do as a president by clicking on menu options on the top of the page. Click on some of the menu options and you will see that most of them lead to a submenu with many more options. There is no need to try them all. You will gradually learn to use the ones that are important. Click on "Now What" in the header of the country home page to see a more human-readable instructions of things you can do as president.

Your country's home page shows a list of indices. You can click on most of these indices to manage that part of your country. The associated numbers give you a rough estimate on how you are doing. Your rank in the list of presidents depends on all these indices. If an index is lower than 60, something is wrong. If it's close to or higher than 100, you are doing very well. There is also an index page link that will show you all the game indexes and your game level.

3. Now What? - Help for beginners and others [ top ]

The �Now What� feature is showing on the country home page and is useful in helping players, guiding them through important things that should be done to develop their countries.
We advise beginners but also other players, to check the feature and follow the available hints and recommendations.

The system advises players about what they should do, based on the current situation in their countries. It will guide them towards moving to a next level, showing them the steps needed and directing them to the relevant pages. It includes many explanations and hints to make sure players understand each function.

Each country will show a different setup of the pages with details and listed items changing from game month to game month, depending on changes made by the player or by automated functions that have been turned on by the player.

The automation system is also used by many to improve their countries and in combinations with the �Now what� feature, will make playing easier for beginners.

4. Building your country [ top ]

Build roads, train tracks, and schools! Improve your social security and water maintenance! Build hospitals!
You can build roads, train tracks, and water treatment installations by clicking on "Transportation Index" at the bottom of your country's home page. This takes you to the Transportation and Water Treatment page. Search for "build new roads," "build new train tracks," and "build new water treatment facilities." Expand your infrastructure aggressively.

All these functions are also directly accessible from the menu at the top of each page. If you use these menus, you will be able to get to any of the game pages with a single click.

Education is key to your long-term successful economic growth. You can build more schools by clicking on "Education Index" at the bottom of your country's home page. This takes you to the Education Details page. Search for "build a new elementary school," "build a new high school," and "build a new university."

You can tell your schools and universities how to educate people. Click on "set education priorities" in the Education Details page. Make sure that the numbers add up to at least 120. The ratio between the numbers determines the ratio of professions that the schools "produce." You should give teachers, university teachers, and medium level managers a relatively high priority in the beginning. It will allow you to improve your education system. Medium level managers are frequently in short supply because they are also recruited as officers in the army.

Adapt the education priorities to the needs of your country. Check out the Occupation and Income Details by clicking on "Employment Index" at the bottom of your country's home page to see the potential shortages in certain professions. Anticipation is key here.

You should raise social security payments. Click on "Social Security" at the bottom of your country's home page. Then click on "You can change the social security payments." You cannot raise social security by more than 2 percent. You can set a target and the changes will be automated or change the percentages every day until you reach 60 to 80 percent.

Do this only if your country can afford paying the cost. If your financial index is lower than 80, wait for the financial situation to improve before you get into extra cost.

Look into the financial pages and make sure you understand the figures. Use the hints that are available on nearly every line of text to understand the numbers and make sure you know what the monthly shortages or surpluses are.

5. Gifts to New members [ top ] New players receive additional cash injections that are added to their income. The extra income can be seen on the financial page. It is specified as part of the monthly income of the country. The amount of the extra income declines each game month and will disappears completely over time. The income boost for beginners is only given to new players who have a single country in one world. New countries in the empire or new countries in other worlds do not receive this income boost. 6. Login Gifts for New members [ top ] New members receive gifts when they login. This feature is active in the first 6 to 7 weeks a new player participates in the game. The number of gifts can reach the total of 80 with a maximum of 2 gifts each day. The gifts include 40 cash boosters with a total of 3 Trillion. It also includes up to 4.0 million in additional population. Players receive these gifts if they login regularly. 7. Supporting new players and Countries in Difficult conditions [ top ] Some players, most of them playing for a short period, have difficulties in balancing and expanding their economy. The reasons may vary; the results are similar. The support functions are intended as a way to prevent the economies of these countries from falling apart. In most cases, the economy of a new country runs smoothly and generates profits. However, some new presidents start massive purchasing of weapons and ammunition that can result in very high spending. Large numbers of people in the country are then joining the growing army, reducing the number of available workers. Such countries may end up with unbalanced education, low income and very high cost. This extends into high cost of social security, low income, financial shortages, high debt and eventually it can lead to bankruptcy. The support measures in Simcountry do not provide free cash to any countries or corporations. Instead, they will help such countries move in the right direction and help them to build a healthy economy. If the financial situation is deteriorating, debt is high and unemployment too. One of the support functions checks the education to discover shortages and may make small correction in the form of natural flow of workers into other professions, and reduce these shortages. The changes are small and unlikely to make a very large difference. However, a sequence of monthly changes will over time help to reduce unemployment, and production in corporations may increase. Another function checks unemployment in the country and employment levels in corporations, and if it concludes that the country can have another corporation without causing major shortages of workers, it might add one corporation. This too will not cause major changes but will in time improve the economy. Two other functions check the financial situation. If the level of debt is considered too high, it forces a reduction of salaries. One function will reduce country salaries and the other function will do the same in corporations where debt is high and the corporations are losing money because of these high salaries. The reduction in salaries may return some corporations to profitability or at least reduce their losses. It will also reduce the cost of all government functions and the losses countries make. Salaries can be reduced to very low levels and countries and corporations may find themselves in a third world income levels. The main objective of these measures is to protect countries and corporations against themselves and help them to return to profitability. Taxes in corporations can also be forced to higher levels in case the country is in a very bad financial situation and makes severe losses each month. Corrections are always limited in size and have effect over time. All the corrections mentioned here do not create wealth or make any supported countries and corporations into major successes. They are triggered when the country or a corporation are close to bankruptcy. Support functions do not intervene in countries that do not have major problems and there are no interventions in countries run by experienced players. 8. Automation Functions [ top ] To make it easier for starters, but also for others, playing in Game levels 1,2 and 3, Simcountry has several automation functions that are turned on by default for every new player. The automation functions help players in advancing the country to a balanced economy and solve initial problems that might arise when a beginner is trying to tune education, health and manage orders or tune employment in the country. The automation functions do not try to improve the country beyond game level 3 and will stop working when the country reaches level 4. The automation functions will not push education, transportation, healthcare or employment to very high levels but will help in the development of the country in the early stages. Each function can be turned off any time if you prefer to be in full control. A reporting page is available for each of the automated functions, to show what was done in the past month. It shows orders that were placed automatically etc. The automation functions include: Balancing the numbers of unemployed people in various groups. The function uses the existing game rules and automatically moves professionals who are unemployed in high numbers, into workers groups if these show shortages. In the same way as in the manual function, the movements are limited to 100.000 people per game month. The features are aimed at improvements in education that will set education priorities to levels that will take current availability of workers in all categories into account and try to adjust the priorities to the needs of the country. The automation of education will gradually improve the education level in the country and try to increase the education index to a level of up to 120. This will improve the supply of educated professionals and make it possible to improve employment. Together with the employment optimization functions, these features will help to improve the hiring levels in corporations and when hiring is close to 100%, start new corporations that produce products that are in short supply and require the highest game level the country can build. Automatically ordering of supplies for the army. This function places orders for all types of ammunition that are used by the army of the country and also military supplies and fuel, depending on the monthly use. To prevent many orders, the system orders one game year supplies and is triggered on time, to prevent shortages. When new types of weapons are acquired or numbers of weapons change, the system will update itself to order whatever is needed for the new weapons and new size of the army. Improvement of the health system, by adding hospitals and making sure the education system is tuned to produce the doctors and nurses that are needed for these hospitals. Improving the transportation system and water treatment. Ordering roads, railroads and water treatment facilities. 9. Playing Simcountry and participating in the war game [ top ] If you choose to play the game including the war options, you must build an army to defend your country. New players are fully protected against wars by their secured mode setting. The protection prevents others from attacking the country and gives the new president some time to build his defense. Secured mode will remain in force until you decide to turn it off. While in secured mode, you are able to build an army and even declare war and fight countries that do not have a president. These are computer controlled countries. The first war may be very easy to win and you can end up with an empire of two countries. Your leader country will remain in secured mode. The conquered country is protected from war for two weeks. By then it should be able to defend itself. It can obtain weapons from the market or from the leader country to build up quickly. Secured mode is always active in one country only. More countries can be protected temporarily by the use of temporary war protection. See the war page for more details. Also check the boosters feature to find out how to obtain temporary war protection for your countries.

Most players do play the war game and there are some who have built huge armies and try to control large areas of the worlds.

10. Building your army [ top ]

You can buy weapons to defend your country and to attack (or deter) others. There are 3 kinds of weapons: defensive, offensive, and strategic. The Defense Index is a combination of all three. You can manage each type of weaponry by clicking on the appropriate Index link in the war menu at the top-of-the-page menu. Search for the "purchase more weapons and ammunition page" to buy weapons. All these functions are directly available in the top menu showing on every page.

Investing too much money in weapons is harmful in two ways. First, you might not have enough funds left for schools, social security, etc. Second, your army needs soldiers and officers.

Officers are taken from the group of medium level managers. Many of these managers are employed in your corporations and if the numbers in the country are insufficient for both the industry and the army, medium level managers will leave the corporations where they work and join the army. This may damage economic growth to the point where your economy will decline rapidly.

Building The Defenses in a new country

The defense index of a new registered country is around 15 to 20. It includes some defense units, fortifications and a reasonable air force (defensive air wings). These items are a good start for a defense but the numbers are insufficient.

To prevent a successful attack against your country, the defense should be able to frustrate the attacker. It should either prevent high damage to your own country, making the war very costly for the attacker, or make the war so difficult and long, your enemy may decide to abandon the fight.

Defensive Missile Installations

To defend your military installations, your cities and corporations, you need to setup garrisons at such locations that are capable of defending such targets. Garrisons are military units that are attached to a city or a corporation etc.

The garrisons should include anti aircraft weapons, and land based weapons and sufficient amounts of ammunition to defend the target. Large numbers of missile interceptor batteries and ammunition as part of the garrisons will limit the damage from attacks and increase the cost in missiles and weapon systems that your enemy will sustain. He will have to destroy many targets in your country and the better these targets are protected, the more difficult it will be.

Large numbers of anti aircraft missiles will increase the numbers of attack airplanes that will be destroyed during attacks. You need large numbers of these weapons, to be part of your garrisons to stop such attacks. The damage you inflict on your enemy will increase with the number of available weapons.

Build up a large stock of missiles. The defense will be using many. We see countries with 100.000 to 200.000 of these missiles in stock.

Defensive missile batteries are also essential for the defense and should be part of the garrisons you set up. These batteries use defensive missiles (that are not really defensive) against the attacking forces. If missile batteries are used to attack your country, defensive missiles will destroy the attacking batteries. Large numbers will inflict high damage on your enemy and will weaken his attack capabilities.

Defensive air wings are also essential in the defense of your country. Such defensive wings include large numbers of interceptors and defense helicopters and will go into action to intercept air attacks (interceptors) and attacks against your land units (defensive Helicopters).

Defensive Fortifications

These are small military installations, mainly along the borders, and they are used in the defense. Fortifications in large numbers make it harder to conquer your country. Your enemy will have to destroy most or all the military bases, including the fortifications to win a war. Destroying large numbers of fortifications will make that a long process and many of the attackers will give up if it takes too long. Fortifications are very hard to destroy and they help in blocking the borders of your country and prevent invasions.

Build up to 100 fortifications. This is the max number you are allowed to have. Station strong garrisons at all these fortifications. Building 100 fortifications is possible within the initial 30 game months. You can achieve this by ordering fortifications on the market.

Delivery time for weapons

When purchasing weapons, you will see the weapon orders on the trade page. Many weapons are in short supply and take longer to be delivered. The trading page will show the weapons that have been ordered but not delivered yet. You can use the immediate ordering procedure to shorten the delivery time but the cost will increase by about 15%.

Direct trading of weapons

It is possible to build weapon factories in your own country and close direct sale contracts with your own country. It is also possible to setup direct sale contracts with other countries for direct delivery of weapons. The weapons are delivered directly from the stock of the seller to your country and there are no delays.

11. New players � Building Empires [ top ] It is quite easy for new players to build themselves a small empire. New players start with an offensive army and they can easily extend this army if they so wish. When a new member attacks a "Computer Controlled Country" (C3 country), war starts immediately, it is relatively easy and can be won quickly. This is true for the first war only and limited to new members in the first 6 weeks they are playing. Purchasing a country is also an option. You can have a small empire without engaging in war. Countries that can be purchased (C3 countries that are not engaged in war) are showing a link on the country home page allowing any player in the game to purchase it. Attacking a C3 country for all other players and new players who already were involved in such a war can be more challenging but war against C3 countries at a low war level is easier than winning a war against an active player. Players are unable to attack any country with a president for a period of 6 weeks after they join the game and they must reach war level 3 before being able to attack a country with a president. 12. Fighting wars [ top ] You can start a war. Click on "War Situation Index" and pick your enemy! Make sure you have at least three defensive radar planes to optimize your air defense and also three offensive radar planes so that you can plan your attack in detail. If you attack, aim at the defense units and garrisons first and destroy them, before you attack the target itself. Sometimes it is better not to destroy the target but rather to move your army units past the unprotected target, and occupy large areas of the enemy's country. Make sure you have enough well equipped military units with many offensive weapons and ammunition before you start a war. Fighting wars is not without consequence, though. Beside the bad image you create for yourself, people in both countries will die and your economy will suffer significantly. If things really turn for the worse, your enemy will gain control over your country and transfer money and people to his/her own country.

If your country is conquered, it will become part of his (or her) empire and you will have no control. The country will move from your account to the account of your enemy.

There is no other choice than to choose another country, play it better this time and maybe take revenge some day and even regain control over your old country.

13. Peace Treaties [ top ]

You can sign a peace treaty with another country. All peace treaties are enforced by the game procedures and the two parties are unable to declare war on each other for the duration of the agreement. Click on "Peace Treaties" on the left frame or in the menu at the top of the page.

14. The peaceful game - no defense needed [ top ]

The first country of each player, on all worlds except for Fearless Blue, is always placed under secured mode and will not participate in any war.

Playing in secured mode, you will be able to build an army and even wage war and conquer a computer controlled country but you will not be able to attack any country with a president and nobody can attack your country.

You play mainly the economic part of the game and you are free from any possible war. Your country cannot be conquered by anyone.

Only one country in your empire is in secured mode (the leader of the empire). All other countries you have conquered or purchased play the full game and do participate in the war game. The leader country is frequently used as a safe place to keep many of the large empire assets including cash and the main corporations.

15. Federations [ top ]

Federations are groups of countries that have signed a defense agreement with each other to support each other in case of war. They can also agree to automatically declare war on any country that declares war against any of the members of the federation.

Up to 25 countries can be members of a single federation. You can start a new federation or join an existing one. Click on "Federations" in the navigation bar or on the menu at the top of the page.

16. Fearless Blue - The war world [ top ]

Fearless blue is populated by mainly war players. Peaceful players are not welcome in Fearless Blue. For beginners, we recommend that you start playing in one of the other four worlds and leave the wars to the warlords. If you enter Fearless Blue together with a group of players and create a federation, your chances to prosper will improve. We do see many new players on Fearless Blue who learn quickly and build large empires.

The way to succeed in Fearless blue is by making war very expensive and very long for the attacker. Some of the warlords may drop the idea of an attack altogether, if they realize that it will not be easy to win and will not be over within an hour or two. We have seen recent entries into FB by single countries without an empire and without a federation to support them. They used a fast track strategy, investing fast in the development of their army, and survived.

Countries in FB are attacked for no reason. It is a war world they say, and new players are bombed out of existence by very large players who just enjoy the war game. You have 14 days of temporary war protection that you can turn on and you must build quickly. Players in war levels 1 and 2 cannot be attacked.

If you are interested in joining Fearless Blue than there are some hints that may help you survive. The strategy as we will describe here will frustrate such attacks and make such actions against you more expensive and less likely.

Surviving in Fearless Blue

Start immediately with expansion of your industry and build defense related corporations only. Build several "fortification-building corporations". As they start operations, close contracts with them for their full production to be delivered to your own country.

Within the first 10 game months you can have at least six of these corporations that will deliver up to 6 fortifications in each following game month. You can easily grow quickly to 100 fortifications. Do not attack many C3 countries and be careful not to increase your war level to 3.

Continue building corporations that produce the defense weapons you need and keep checking availability on the market. There is no need to build a weapon corporation in your own country if there is sufficient supply on the world market. Build the ones that are in short supply.

Use the max military spending space your country has to purchase weapons each game month and try to obtain large numbers of defensive batteries and missiles that are used by these batteries.

Money can become a problem and you may consider using your gold coins to improve your financial position. With the coins you received at the start you can purchase some additional game money.

Try to join a federation with other players because federations are better capable in offering a good defense to new players. The federation members will participate in your defense and you will participate in their defense if they are attacked.

17. Corporations [ top ]

To play the game, you need money to spend. The money usually comes from corporations that can be very profitable, pay taxes and share their profits. These payments provide the means for presidents and CEOs to continue developing their countries and enterprises. Money also comes from selling of corporations and from the share market. The most important part of the income is however from corporations.

You need many corporations. Countries can have 1.5 to 2 corporations per million of their population and run them at full capacity. You can have many more but they will probably be unable to find enough workers to run at full capacity. Enterprises can have up to 750 corporations.

Which corporations should you build?

Look into the Trading menu. There are menu options that will link to pages that show the world market, product pricing, demand and supply. It is easy to see the products that are in short supply. It makes sense to build corporations that produce such products because these corporations will become profitable very quickly. They receive a high price for their products, their revenue is high and they make a good profit.

Upgrading corporations, sell strategy and purchasing strategies

Once a corporation is set up, you need to set a selling strategy. The easiest way is to trail the quality of the product you produce. You also need to set a purchasing strategy. This will ensure that the supplies of raw materials you need for the production process will be delivered. Make sure you always get the supplies you need. You can better offer to pay a little above market price. If raw materials are not available in any of your corporations, the production process in that corporation will stop.

18. Playing the Enterprise game - starting conditions [ top ]

A starting CEO has no corporations, no cash and no debt. A new CEO can immediately start bidding for existing corporations in countries that do not have a president and she can also start building new corporations in such countries.

New CEOs cannot setup corporations in countries with presidents because of possible misuse by some players who initiated new enterprises only to be able to buy corporations from countries of their adversaries. Such corporations where closed in many cases, only to cause damage to these countries.

A new CEO does not need to worry about the money needed when starting new corporations or bidding for existing ones. If he is in need of cash, loans will be provided automatically. In the first period, the CEO will also receive some free bonuses, some of which are game money.

It is impossible to play a CEO without debt. Build many corporations quickly and upgrade them to make them highly profitable. The profits you will make in these corporations will easily pay for the interest on the loans and also make it possible to pay the loans back.

Acquiring companies

You can acquire corporations from countries and from other enterprises. In both cases you enter a bid while other CEOs can also enter their own bids that might be higher than yours. You can enter higher bids and even automate the bidding to increase your chances. The bidding period is 3 game months and the highest bidder will end up buying the corporation.

To place a bid on a corporation, click on the corporation's menu. You can search for a product and get a list of all corporations that produce a certain product. You can also search on a country name. Remember that the icon left of the country name field, allows you to search using the term you typed in the field. You can only bid on State corporations if the president accepts bids. You can also search for Enterprise owned corporations and place a bid on any of its corporations.

You can have up to 3 bidding processes running simultaneously.

19. Playing a Country and an Enterprise [ top ]

It makes a lot of sense to have both a country and an enterprise. This combines the strategic and political power you have as president with the economic power you have as a CEO.

Sometimes your country needs products but does not have the manpower for new corporations. You can either try to find the products you need on the market, or you can have your enterprise build a corporation and then sell the products on good conditions, to your own country.

20. Automation of game functions and parameter settings [ top ]

There are several automation parameters, secrecy parameters etc. that can be set. Click on the settings menu option or on the settings menu at the top of the page and find out everything about automation and setting of parameters.

21. Messages, Chatting and the Forum [ top ]

You can send a message to a specific country or to the bulletin board (the forum). Click on the communication menu at the top of the page. You can also enter a chat room and communicate in real time with other players.

22. Awards [ top ]

W3Creative gives awards to good players. The awards are payments (paid as Gold Coins) that are awarded every month to the best players.

The number of awards and the numbers of gold coins that are awarded, depends on the number of players in each world. A player can win awards in all worlds, one award per empire, and all enterprises can also win awards. Winning an award, will (temporarily) reduce the score of all the countries and enterprises in the account. Wining multiple awards, will add up all the reductions that are associated with each award. As a result, it will be difficult, or impossible to win more awards in the following month(s).

23. Game Documentation [ top ]

Everything you need to know about Simcountry should be covered by the documentation set, available from the menu at the top of each page. More documents are being added from time to time.

Important information is published once in a couple of days on the game news. All recent additions to the game and changes to some game functions are published in the game news.