Concept · About 8 minutes

Policies and development stages

Policies are development programmes assigned to individual settlements. A four-stage ladder decides which programmes fit a place, national slots limit how many run at once, and each policy works through five distinct channels.

Applies to game version 0.2.0Published on 16 August 2026

The one-minute explanation

A policy is assigned to one settlement and shapes that settlement: its economy, its development fields, its attractiveness to migrants, the demand it generates and a small contribution back to the transport fund.

Two national constraints govern the system. The stage ladder matches programmes to a settlement’s maturity—an advanced financial hub cannot be planted in a farming town, and a frontier programme has no place in a mature city. The slot budget caps how many policies the nation runs at once, and grows with settlements and milestones.

The four development stages

Every settlement sits on a ladder determined by its development score (not population, not income):

Below 25

Foundation

Frontier programmes: rural revitalization, tourism, special economic zones, new towns.

25–45

Industrializing

Manufacturing and export programmes that need a workforce and rail.

45–65

Transition

Knowledge and services: universities, medical hubs, trade and conventions.

65+

Advanced

Technology, science and global finance programmes with heavy prerequisites.

A policy can be assigned at the settlement’s current stage or one stage away in either direction. One stage ahead is an early bet; one behind remains applicable; two or more apart is blocked.

Mandatory retirement

When a settlement grows two or more stages past a policy, the policy becomes outdated and enters a twelve-month grace period, announced in the panel with its retirement date. If the gap closes—the stage relation improves—the clock is cancelled. When retirement lands, the policy is removed automatically: its direct GDP factor and ongoing effects end, while the development and population it already created remain.

The five channels of a policy

Direct GDP growth: An annual growth percentage compounding monthly on the settlement’s GDP, capped at ten years of compounding. Removing the policy removes this factor immediately.
Development boosts: Monthly points into named development fields—a university town builds education, an industrial park builds industry and logistics. Gains slow as a field approaches the 100-point ceiling, like all development growth.
Population: Either a boomtown surge toward a target population (a few foundation policies) or an extra migration pull. The surge scales with the settlement’s transport service score—an unconnected boomtown gets only 30% of its designed effect.
Demand: Multipliers on the passenger and cargo demand the settlement generates as an origin. Almost all are increases; the agro-industrial base is the one programme that trades some passenger demand for freight.
Fund contribution: A small share of the settlement’s GDP paid to the transport fund each month, reported under the Government Grants family. Deliberately modest—a supplement, never a replacement for earned revenue.

Stacking differs by channel. Direct GDP factors, development boosts and fund contributions stack across a settlement’s policies. Population and each demand axis instead take only the strongest single policy—assigning three population programmes to one city wastes two of them.

Slots, costs and prerequisites

The national slot budget is 12, plus one per five settlements, plus one for each slot-granting milestone (seven are available—see Milestones and achievements). There is no per-settlement cap, but local coordination is priced: a settlement’s first three policies cost their base price, and each additional one multiplies its price by 1.5 more—the fourth costs ×1.5, the fifth ×2.25, the sixth ×3.4.

Assignment is paid from the transport fund. Removal is free and refunds nothing.

Beyond stage and price, policies carry prerequisites: population windows (some programmes are only for small places, some only for large), transport requirements (road, rail, expressway or high-speed rail, airport, port) and special conditions such as a satellite city needing a large anchor within 50 km. The exact values for all nineteen policies are in the reference: Policy catalog and effects.

Choosing policies well

Read the settlement’s stage and weakest fields first. The balance-adjusted development score punishes a lagging field; a policy that feeds the shortboard is worth more than a bigger number in an already strong field.
Match the channel to the problem. A place with people but no economy wants GDP and development channels; an economy with no people wants a population programme—and the transport service to let it work.
Respect the strongest-only rule. Spread population and demand programmes across different settlements instead of stacking them in one.
Treat contributions as a bonus. After the rebalance, policy contributions are a minor revenue line; assign policies for their growth effects, not their income.
Plan for the ladder. A foundation policy in a rapidly developing city is on borrowed time; either let it retire on schedule or replace it deliberately.

Common misconceptions

“Policies are national settings”

Every policy belongs to one settlement and acts on that settlement. Only the slot budget and the summed fund contribution are national.

“A policy’s gains vanish when it ends”

The direct GDP factor ends immediately, but development points and population already gained stay. Retirement removes the engine, not what it built.

“More policies in one city always means more effect”

GDP factors and development boosts stack, but population and demand take the single strongest policy, and each additional assignment beyond three raises the price steeply.