Extending the Empire System

The core types form one closed loop: Empire, Settlement, Army, Officer, Resource and Edict, plus Pact, Trial, Intrigue, Happening, Faction, Faith, Title, Wonder, Site, Asset, Research, Envoy, Dynasty, Calendar and Leader Path. Settlements produce, needs gate upkeep, armies spend, Authority buys actions, and threads move from 0 to 6.

Add fields, not types

Add depth by extending fields, never by duplicating:

• new income goes on Settlement or Resource;
• new military stats go on Army;
• new realm stats go on Empire;
• new kinds of operation are Intrigue.operation values, not new types;
• ships are Assets with Power;
• portals are Sites.

Keep derived values as expressions (population, size, Power, upkeep, wages, ratings). Never store a copy of something you can compute: stored copies drift.

The scales (never break them)

• Tiers 1–5: cost ×1/2/4/8/16, upkeep ×1/2/3/5/8, output ×1/3/5/8/16.
• Pop = 100 people; Food is per pop per season; 1 material = 100 gp.
• All money is seasonal.
• Stability 0–10 (local and realm); unrest 0–100; Legitimacy 0–100.
• Relationships and loyalty −5 to +5; threads 0–6; Authority capped at 20.
• "× tier" means the settlement's size rank, or the realm's rank tier for realm-level costs.

New content uses these. No parallel currencies, no bespoke clocks.

Conventions

• Slugs are stable and lowercase.
• Reference the empire from settlements, armies, officers and edicts with the empire field; link the capital with Empire.capital.
• Vassals are Empire-to-Empire references; avoid chains deeper than two levels.
• Holdings live in a settlement's holdings array (type, tier, grade, build months left). A settlement never stores its own size or population total.
• Settlements and realms may name a culture; the core names none.
• Rival realms are ordinary Empire files with a temperament. The GM creates them in play; don't ship named rivals in a base system.