Economy

Your treasury is the single pool of funds your country spends. It's displayed in the top-right of the menu bar. Every cycle, your treasury updates:

new_treasury = old_treasury + income − upkeep

If income exceeds upkeep, you're profitable. If upkeep exceeds income, you're bleeding. If the treasury goes negative, production halts — no new units or bases — and persistent deficit will eventually cause your units to desert.

Your income comes from several sources, summed together each cycle.

Base income

A flat amount every country earns just for existing (around $8,000 per cycle in default worlds). This is your floor.

Heartland income

Your country automatically processes resources from a fixed number of sectors nearest to your capital — roughly 5% of the world's total land. These are your heartland. Heartland income doesn't require any infrastructure — it represents community-scale extraction happening naturally around your capital.

Heartland is powerful because it can't be disrupted from the outside. Even if you're pushed back on all fronts, your heartland keeps paying as long as you hold your capital.

Refinery income

Territory beyond the heartland threshold doesn't pay automatically — you need to build Refineries on it. A Refinery processes resources from every sector within a ~3-hop radius (excluding sectors already covered by heartland or another overlapping Refinery; no double-counting).

Refineries are how you monetize frontier territory. A strategic Refinery placement can cover many sectors at once, while a poorly placed one wastes coverage.

Diminishing returns

Your combined resource income (heartland + Refineries) is scaled down based on how much of your territory counts as covered — your heartland sectors, plus partial credit for each sector inside a Refinery's radius. The more uncovered land you hold relative to your covered land, the steeper the scale-down.

This means Refineries help your economy two ways at once:

1. They directly produce income from the sectors in their radius.
2. They soften the diminishing-returns curve by adding to your covered-territory count.

But each Refinery-covered sector only counts at a partial weight (0.7 by default) — never a full 1.0. So even an empire that carpeted every single sector with Refineries can't fully escape the curve; there's always a baseline overhead for managing a sprawling country. The takeaway: Refineries are how you fight the curve, but they can't beat it. Smart, concentrated expansion still wins.

Capital loss penalty

If you don't control your capital sector, your total income is halved until you retake it. Capitals are high-value targets for this reason.

Every unit, base, and structure you own has a per-cycle upkeep cost. Upkeep is summed across everything and deducted each cycle.

Base upkeep

Flat rate per base, independent of distance:

• Land Base: ~$100/cycle
• Sea Base: ~$100/cycle
• Air Base: ~$150/cycle (more expensive because of the fleet it supports)

Refineries and Turrets have their own flat upkeep.

Unit upkeep — distance matters

A unit's upkeep cost equals its base upkeep multiplied by a distance factor — how far the unit is (via shortest-path through the adjacency graph) from the nearest friendly base of a compatible type. The farther out, the more expensive.

• A tank sitting right at a Land Base pays baseline.
• The same tank two sectors out pays moderately more.
• Five sectors into enemy territory, far from any friendly base, pays considerably more.

This is the supply line mechanic. To move an army far from home, you need to extend your supply network with forward bases — otherwise your own upkeep will crush you before the enemy does.

Each unit measures distance against the base type that supplies it:

• Land units (Infantry, Tank, Jeep, Truck, Spy, Mine Layer, Medic, Mechanic, Rebel) measure overland to the nearest friendly Land Base or Supply Depot — both anchor the same supply graph.
• Sea units (Transport, Warship, Carrier, Frigate, Sea Mine Layer, Submarine) measure in water hops to the nearest friendly Sea Base — naval supply doesn't run over land. Supply Depots don't extend the sea supply graph.
• Air units stationed at an Air Base are co-located with land territory and measure overland to the nearest friendly Land Base (or Supply Depot), like ground units do.

The distance multiplier scales from 1× right at a supplying base up to 3× when ~20 steps away. A ship cruising next to one of your Sea Bases pays baseline; the same ship parked an ocean away from any Sea Base pays up to 3× as much.

A Supply Depot is the cheap way to keep an offensive's upkeep down without committing to a full forward Land Base. See Structures.

What has zero upkeep

Some unit types have no upkeep:

• Missiles and Warheads at air bases — they're one-shot ammunition, not fielded units.
• Rebels — comeback unit; thematically, they fight for free. See Comeback.
• Paratroopers — stockpiled drop-kit, no upkeep until deployed.

Switch the map to Supply Lines mode to see distance tiers visualized. Sectors where your units are stationed light up in colors representing their upkeep tier. Red tiles mean expensive units — consider whether you need a forward base, a retreat, or a scorched-earth retreat.

The Economy mode shows exactly which of your sectors are heartland (auto-processed), covered by a Refinery, or unprocessed (owned but generating no income). Use this mode to identify dead weight — territory you own that doesn't pay — and decide where to place your next Refinery.

Open the Dashboard tab (top menu bar) for a full financial breakdown.

Income breakdown

• Base income — flat amount.
• Heartland income — from auto-processed core sectors.
• Refinery income — per-refinery output, with coverage overlap already resolved.
• Diminishing returns adjustment — the reduction applied if your empire is large.
• Capital penalty — halving applied if capital is lost.

Total is your gross income for the cycle.

Upkeep breakdown

• Base upkeep by base type.
• Unit upkeep by unit type, further broken down by distance tier (near / mid / far).
• Structure upkeep by structure type.

Total is your upkeep for the cycle.

Net income and projected treasury

Shows your current treasury, net cycle change, and (if you're in deficit) how many cycles until bankruptcy at the current rate.

Build cost projection

Sums up the cost of every build order you've currently queued. If this exceeds your expected treasury at resolution time, some builds will fail.

Trends

A rolling chart of income, upkeep, and treasury over recent cycles — so you can spot a slow economic collapse before it's too late.

A few recurring economic tactics:

• Target enemy Refineries. Destroying one frontier Refinery can erase a chunk of an opponent's income without touching their heartland. Nukes are particularly effective at this but overkill for most targets — a single air strike on a lightly-defended Refinery is often enough.
• Don't overextend. A forward tank costs far more in upkeep than one at home. Push bases forward with your armies, not just units.
• Don't ignore diminishing returns. If your economy is tanking while your territory is huge, the diminishing-returns curve is biting hard. Build Refineries on your uncovered sectors to soften it — but if your territory is already well-refineried, the curve won't go away further, and consolidating (or invading instead of expanding) is the better play.
• Scorched earth. If you can't hold a Refinery, destroy it before the enemy captures it (see Scorched Earth in Comeback).
• Sell damaged infrastructure. A Turret at 20% strength refunds much less than one at full strength — but it still refunds something. If you're going to lose it, consider selling first.