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A Beginner's Guide to World Power, by Rory Koster
If you have not read the instructions please do so now.
1st Day
On your first day you have a limited number of buildings that you can build and a very limited amount of cash and resources. Your main
concern for the game as a whole is being self-sufficient.
Your construction options are: farm, school, lumber mill, textile mill, and plantation.
The single biggest expense to your country is coal because you consume 5 coal per turn. It is convenient to put a cash value on your
production and consumption rates to accurately gauge what you are really making in terms of positive cash flow. Since coal costs $35/piece
the investment in coal is $175/turn. You cannot build a coal mine at Tech Level 1; you will need a school to start getting literacy points, and a
simple calculation will tell you how soon you will be able to build Tech Level 2 structures. You will need lumber to construct your buildings,
and although you can purchase lumber from the World Market, you should aim to be self sufficient. Now would be a good time to build a
lumber mill.
You will also need food to feed your people. If you do not have enough food in reserve to feed your people there will be a famine -- you will
lose popular support (-10%) and your population will decrease. This does not mean that you have to produce more food than your people eat
at all times, but it does mean that you need reserves, which is generally a good idea for all goods that your country needs.
Your tax revenues will be low for a while until you grow a population and build some structures. If you need quick cash you can sell some
excess goods that you may produce -- food, lumber, coal or metal. Another option open to you is the sale of military units -- tanks and missile
bases. Both types of units are expensive to buy, which also makes them a profitable sale. If you choose to sell military units, you risk the
security of your country (your cash on hand, your goods in reserve, and the protection of your population).
On the topic of drafting troops, here a few things to keep in mind. Drafting troops drops your popular support, which affects your income and
the rate of population increase. A healthy popular support percentage is greater than 90%, so it's generally not a good idea to draft more than
1% of your population. The higher your population, the more troops you can draft while still maintaining a healthy popular support percentage.
A neat trick in drafting troops is to draft the first few numbers that are next to the 5%= (population X .05)
Example:
Population = 1,323,161
Popular Support = 100%
Maximum Draft (5%) = 66158
661 troops is .05% of the population. That will cause only a 1% decrease in popular support. Of course on your first day you will only have a
population of 10,000 to begin with, so your initial drafts will be between 5 and 10 troops per draft if you want to keep your popular support in
the high 90's.
A typical first day consists of building a few lumber mills, a few farms, two or three schools, and a coal mine when you get to Level 2.
Day 2
Now that you've got a stable government and production in place you will need to start thinking about what's more important to you. You
have a choice to build military strength through drafting troops and buying tanks or you can improve your economy through building
improvements. Pay attention to how much money you get every turn and how much surplus you produce in goods, and realize that tax revenues
are not the only way to have a profitable economy.
You do need to pay maintenance costs on every building you construct every turn. If you fail to pay the maintenance costs, some of your
buildings will deteriorate due to a lack of funding. If you lose structures this early in the game (day 2), you will be in serious trouble because
you will have nothing to fall back on to rebuild your country.
Some improvements require goods that you cannot produce yourself this early in the game. Limit those improvements to what you can afford,
and keep in mind that there are at least 20 other people who need those same goods.
Literacy
When is it a good time to invest in literacy and how many schools will you really need? Every school produces 2 literacy points a turn and
every university produces 10 literacy points a turn (assuming you have 5 schools to go along with every 1 university you have). You cannot
build universities until you have reached tech 3, which is 1000 literacy points. Universities are very helpful and you should build several in
order to get to the better parts later in the game (surviving nuclear winters and dodging biological weapons –- the good stuff).
Keep your economy and goods production in mind when you build schools and universities. Do some math; set goals; knowledge is power.
75 turns x ((schools x 2) + (universities x 10)) = literacy per day
Goal: 2000 literacy per day
To reach goal: (2000/75) = 26.66 literacy per turn
Schools: 9 (9x2=18)
Universities: 1 (1x10=10)
Literacy per turn: 28
We've met and exceeded our goal; Tech 4 is right around the corner!
Military Units and Attacking
On the military front you’ve got to keep in mind that you are playing against real people who have worked very hard to build their country and
get it to be profitable (or maybe not so profitable). When you attack a country, you are attacking that person, and regardless of whether or not
you fail or succeed in your attack, that person/country will most likely retaliate. Or even worse, they will remember what you did and ball up
their emotions and save it up for a rainy day. What goes around comes around.
Troops by definition are not a very strong military unit, having only 1 attack strength and 1 defense strength. But over time, a gradual build up of
troops is very effective, and drafting should not be overlooked.
Tanks are your main ground assault force, having attack strength of 160 and defense strength of 200.
Attack: 1 tank: 160
Defense: 1 tank: 200
In a tank on tank battle, in order for an attacker to be successful, he will need more than 5 tanks for every 4 the enemy has (assuming ties result
in a victory for the defending country).
Lets say you have 75 tanks. How many tanks would the enemy need to stop you?
Unfortunately there is no such thing as a pure tank on tank battle. You need to be aware that a defending country gets 2% of its population as
additional troops, meaning you will need to take into account (.02 x population) every time you make a ground attack. This can be rather
significant and should not be overlooked if you have a small force of tanks (a population of 400,000 can defend against 50 tanks with no other
military units present).
Missile bases and bombers are the most expensive units to purchase. Missile bases are worth every penny as air strikes can wipe out a tank
battalion in one raid. Bombers are devastating in any successful strike. Residential strikes result in major population loses. Industrial strikes
destroy enemy infrastructure (farms, schools, resorts, etc). Military air strikes destroy more troops, tanks, and missile bases, provided the
enemy has any remaining.
Missile bases defend with 3 strength while bombers attack with 1 strength. As you can plainly see the ratio of 3 bombers to 1 missile base is needed to be successful.
A good rule of thumb for any attack: more tanks, more troops, more bombers -– Oorah!
Any war costs money, expect your revenues to drop and your popular support to go down, and be prepared for payback.
Day 3
Options abound on your third day, provided that you have schools to get you to tech 3 or tech 4. Continue your military conquests or
economic development. Start talking –- use the message board and make some friends (flame and make some enemies). Realize that you are
playing against "veterans" who are an invaluable source of information –- communication is key.
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