Terra Invicta – How to Manage Small / Unstable Nations

Guide to Manage Small / Unstable Nations

This is a long-term project, so if you have plans for Africa, the Stans, SE Asia or (God forbid) LatinAm, start early.

Getting Started

Mouse over your country’s Cohesion and Unrest scores to check the Cohesion and Unrest resting points (CRP/URP). If necessary, do some math to see where the URP will end up once the country reaches the CRP. If the CRP will keep the URP above 8, there will be a chance of naturally occurring Coup events. If the URP will stay above 9.9, the country will eventually auto-revolt.

Get up to 10 Rivalries to bump up CRP for free.

Invest 100% in Unity to pump up Public Opinion, which reduces the “Elite-Public Opinion Differences” malus to Cohesion, while also increasing Cohesion directly. If reducing this malus can make the difference between the country coup/revolting on its own and not, use a Councilor to Public Campaign when they can be spared from more important duties. Keep going until (i) the CRP is moving toward equilibrium and (ii) the resulting URP is below 8.

Decide how long you want to continue investing in Unity. Because it reduces the “Differences” malus, it’s a reasonably efficient investment in small countries, no matter how few IP you have: it bumps up CRP and Public Opinion to make the country more resistant to hostile actions, but more importantly, it increases cohesion directly, which drags your Unrest down so it doesn’t eat as much of your IP. Once you have “enough” IP, it’s time to decide what to invest in next.

• (A) If you have >60M population, mouse over the Economy Priority to see how stronk the effect is. If >= +6 GDPpc, invest ~85/15% in Economy/Welfare. This increases per-capita GDP while still reducing some Inequality – both factors that will continue to raise CRP/lower URP over time (at least until you hit $6000 GDPpc). Large enough countries can move their IP totals faster this way than with #4. You can even throw in an occasional Stabilize mission if the URP is going down faster than your Unrest is. Switch to (b) as needed.
• (B) If the country’s Eco is too weak, but it still produces >3.5 IP, invest 100% in Space Program, then fill up on MC. Once this is done, take your pick of Boost or Funding. Remember that you get more Boost the closer you are to the equator!
• (C) If the country produces <3.5 IP/month, Space Program is too rich at 50 IP. invest 100% in Funding. At least you’ll be investing in permanent bonuses while you wait to unify.
• (D) If the country is too poor/unstable to reach 2 IP, consider running back-to-back coups to reduce Unrest. Then, invest 100% in Welfare to lower URP until you can reach 2 IP. This is inefficient, but countries this poor and tiny will suck no matter what you do. Frankly, this is just a holding pattern while we wait to Unify into something with an Economy that can actually do anything.
• (E) If the country cannot reach <8 URP, even with Public Opinion above 70%, you’re probably in Central America. What are you doing? Are you a masochist? Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Once you have selected an option for #5, let your teensy economy run. Check back periodically, swap between #4 and #5 as needed, and try to fill up on MC before unifying if at all feasible.

Abandon nations as needed – the objective with these small nations is to set their priorities early and let them chug along for the long term with minimal intervention. You can even let other factions “steal” them from you, as long as their chosen priorities aren’t actively counterproductive/wasteful (Spoils, Military, spreading the IP too thin and accomplishing nothing while the GDP continues its inevitable climate decline).

In practice, there are other ways to deal with small time-sink countries, like the multi-coup method, or Schrödinger’s Nuke, but this is the one I prefer to use. I mean, I ‘m sinking all this time into the game anyway – clearly patience is not a skill I lack.