Devlog #5: International Institutions

Hello, world leaders!

Our fifth devlog is a preview of the next update , which rebuilds the world's institutions. In the United Nations , the Assembly and the Security Council vote by their own rules, and a Council measure decides exactly which trade stops. Trade blocs become the real agreements in force on 1 January 2026, and the European Union decides together. This preview is about the UN, the trade blocs and the EU.

Every screenshot comes from the current development build, taken from games we played three months forward as the United States, Germany and Australia. To show each step, our test tools tabled a few of the items and cast some of the votes on cue, through the same commands the AI uses. Details can still change before the update ships.

The United Nations

• A new Institutions page: your agenda, all 22 institutions with their members as of 1 January 2026, your commitments and your representatives
• The General Assembly condemns, calls for ceasefires, supports mediation and elects the Council's members. Every country casts its own ballot, the AI included
• The Security Council has 15 seats, 5 of them permanent. It decides by nine votes with no permanent member against, and it can restrict trade with a country
• A measure names its target, its goods and what happens to running contracts, and it shows wherever you trade: under your commitments, on your contracts and on your suppliers
• Vetoed? The draft can go to the Assembly under Uniting for Peace as recommended measures. In the game, voting for them commits your country to applying them
• Stand for a Council seat in the yearly elections, held region by region

Your two representatives

A permanent representative to the UN and a representative to the other institutions vote for you when you don't. You tell them what to cast, the softest wording you'll accept on your own items, what is brought to you, and up to four countries they never condemn, sanction or keep out.

Trade blocs, as of 1 January 2026

• 13 blocs — the EU single market, MERCOSUR, the Eurasian Economic Union, EFTA, USMCA, CPTPP, RCEP, AfCFTA and more — and the EU's 23 trade agreements with its partners
• Members trade the goods a bloc covers at a lower tariff or none, so deals follow tariffs
• Apply to a bloc that will have you, found a free trade area with a partner, or leave one. And when a country applies to your bloc, you get a vote

The European Union

• A sanction takes two stages: a decision by unanimity, where a member can abstain without blocking it (a constructive abstention), then a regulation by qualified majority that binds every member
• Support a decision with an exemption for the goods that would hurt you most
• The EU trades as one: its members can't sign trade agreements of their own, and a trade mandate offers a partner one with the whole single market

Same orders, same world

Global Protocol is built to be deterministic: the same start and the same orders play out the same way.

• Only your orders travel between players. Every computer works out each AI ballot, compromise and exemption by itself, and six new orders carry everything you do in an institution
• Votes are counted in exact fractions — two-thirds is 2/3, not 0.6667 — so a tally comes out the same on every computer
• The world's fingerprint now covers every membership, seat, ballot, measure and trade bloc, and a test runs two copies of the world side by side through a whole UN vote to prove they stay in step

Everything in this devlog works in multiplayer, exactly as in single player. It's also how we make our Claude Plays videos: Claude plays an original session, then we replay its orders on the same fresh game and record the replay in one take. In our 30-minute take, all 20 in-game months matched the original session.

This one takes a little longer

The next update is bigger than the last ones, and it's taking longer. Institutions touch almost every part of the game, and we'd rather ship it when each part works with the rest. Thank you for your patience.

We're working on NATO and CSTO now: allies will decide together how to defend a threatened member.

Read the full devlog

17 screenshots and the rules behind them: read Devlog #5 on our website.

What's next

Our roadmap is public — see what we're working on.

Thank you for every review, bug report and long message. If you're enjoying the game, a Steam review helps a small team like ours more than you know.

Join us on Discord!

See you on the world stage.