Concept · About 6 minutes
Milestones and achievements
Thirteen national milestones mark the stages of a nation’s growth. Each is earned once, pays a one-time fund award scaled to your population, and some permanently expand what the nation can do.
The one-minute explanation
A milestone is a national goal with a precise condition: connect every provincial capital, reach a population threshold, cross an income level. The game checks every milestone once a month, after that month’s growth has been counted. When a condition is met for the first time, the milestone triggers—once, permanently—and its rewards are paid.
Rewards come in two different currencies. The fund award is one-time cash, scaled to the national population at the moment of triggering. The permanent unlock—extra policy slots, a higher city-feedback cap or a faster development speed—stays with the nation forever.
Three families of goals
Connect the nation
Six milestones reward physical integration: capitals connected by any surface link, by rail, by expressway; high-speed services running; every province reachable by air; every coastal province served by sea.
Grow the cities
Four milestones follow urban scale: a city of one, five and ten million, and ten settlements of at least one hundred thousand.
Raise the standard of living
Three milestones follow GDP per person: middle income, wealthy, developed. Each permanently accelerates development growth.
The complete list, with every exact threshold and reward, is in the reference: National milestones and rewards.
How evaluation works
Milestones are evaluated every month, on the live state of the nation. A completed goal never sits unrecognized for long, and because the check runs after the month’s population and GDP updates, the same month’s growth counts toward it.
Three properties of the evaluation matter in play:
- The conditions are strict. “Connected” means one continuous network component containing every provincial capital, not pairwise links. A high-speed service only counts when the line is active, is a passenger service, runs at least one daily round trip, and every link in its path is high-speed track. An airport only covers its province while an active air route actually schedules flights to it.
- Each milestone triggers once. Falling back below a threshold later—losing a connection, shrinking below a population mark—does not revoke the milestone or its rewards.
- Progress is visible. The Achievements panel shows every milestone as completed or in progress, with a live progress line such as “Progress: 7 / 10”. The panel recomputes progress every time it opens, independent of the monthly check.
What the rewards do
One-time fund awards
Each milestone carries a per-resident award rate. When it triggers, the transport fund receives the national population multiplied by that rate—so the same milestone is worth more to a larger nation. If several milestones trigger in the same month, all use that month’s population.
The money is best treated as development capital: it can finance a major connection or reduce borrowing, but it does not improve the monthly balance. See Where public money comes from for how one-time funding differs from recurring revenue.
Policy slots
Seven milestones each add one permanent policy slot. Slots determine how many policies the nation can run at once; the base allowance grows with the number of settlements, and milestone slots stack on top. Expanding the network therefore also expands the nation’s policy capacity.
Development speed
The three economy milestones permanently accelerate development growth by ten, twenty and thirty percent—up to +60% combined. This acceleration shares a hard overall ceiling with other development-speed effects, so bonuses cannot compound without limit.
City feedback cap
The two mid-tier population milestones raise the cap on how strongly a designed City Map can feed back into its settlement’s development. The cap takes the highest earned level rather than adding them together. See Land, allowance and no construction fund for what that feedback is.
Reading milestones in play
- Open the Achievements panel before planning. The in-progress list with live progress lines is effectively a to-do list of national goals within reach.
- Time expensive pushes. Since the award scales with population, a connectivity milestone completed after a period of growth pays more than the same milestone rushed early—but the permanent unlocks argue for earning them as soon as practical.
- Do not confuse the award with a trend. A month that includes a milestone payment looks unusually strong. Compare with neighbouring months before concluding that recurring revenue improved.
- Check the exact criteria when a milestone refuses to trigger. The most common surprises: a capital connected only through a car ferry does not count for the rail milestone (a train ferry does); an expressway chain must be E-grade for every link; a port or airport without an active, scheduled route covers nothing.
Common misconceptions
“Milestone money repeats while I keep the condition”
The award is paid once, in the month the condition is first met. Keeping or losing the condition afterwards changes nothing.
“Building the infrastructure is enough”
Service milestones count operating services, not construction: active high-speed passenger lines, scheduled air routes, active water routes. Track and terminals alone do not qualify.
“All permanent bonuses add up”
Policy slots and development speed accumulate across milestones; the city-feedback cap instead takes the highest level earned. And development speed shares a global ceiling with other acceleration effects.
Related reading
- National milestones and rewards — the full list with exact criteria and rewards.
- Where public money comes from — how one-time funding fits into public finance.
- Policies and development stages — what the extra policy slots are for.