Sirius Command is a closed-ended PBM game with a two-week turnaround. Each player controls one of the game's twenty major nations, while the computer maintains the one hundred minor nations that also participate. The object is to accumulate Victory Points, which are earned through military conquest (no surprises there), but also through creating and maintaining a high National Standard of Living (NSoL) in your home nation.
After Turn 16 is run, the players with the three highest victory point totals are declared the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, respectively. If any of those three happen to be at war, the game continues until the war is resolved (and no further wars may be declared).
Only for the eyes of the Commander in Chief
** STATE OF THE NATION **
This is the section of the turnsheet where your nation's current characteristics are located. Every nation in the game has a rating of 1 through 100 that define their Aggression, Climate, Economy, Information, Morale, Nationalism, and Piety. An Aggression rating of 1 would indicate extreme sloth, and thus it would be difficult to motivate such a nation into action. Extreme ratings will have effects that vary with each characteristic. Characteristics also have a tendency to slide toward a middle "homing range" over time.
The census and birth rate also appear in this section;. IT is assumed that every member of your population is employed. A larger population makes it easier to earn victory points, so it's important to keep your citizens alive.
Of course, you might be tempted to let a few million of 'em die after you see your wage rates, which are printed in this section. Your population are all paid wages by the government (you), consisting of Agriculture (AP), Fuel (FP), and Industry (IP). The higher your wage levels are set, the greater your National Standard of Living (NSoL) will be, and this is essential to earning Victory Points. For your convenience, your NSoL will be calculated for you and printed in this section.
You receive victory points every turn based on your World Standard of Living (WSoL), which also appears here. A nation's WSoL is determined by dividing its NSoL by the highest NSoL in the game. Thus, the country with the highest National standard of Living in the game has a WSoL of 1.0, and all other nations will have a lesser WSoL. This creates competition amongst players to have the highest NSoL in the game, since everybody wants to have the WSoL of 1.0, thereby gaining more Victory Points.
Information on the National Wealth is provided here, as well as money in the "Slush Fund" (to be used for diplomatic or covert actions) and the "Slush Tax rate," which determines how much money is siphoned off from the National Wealth for "other use."
To encourage players to more accurately simulate the diversity of nations in a world, all countries have a "Character Modifier" to Victory Point awards. The modifier is higher in nations that have more characteristics in the extreme ranges, and thus increases the amount of Victory Points earned each turn. The character Modifier is calculated and printed each turn.
In addition to Victory Points, a player will also be notified of how many Influence Points he has at his disposal. Influence Points are required for most actions within the game, and are a very real measure of how much power a player has at his disposal. Influence Points are awarded every turn, based on the National Wealth. In addition, on every fourth turn, an Influence Point bonus will be awarded based on the nation's military readiness, and its NSoL. Influence Points can be saved for use on later turns. They can even be used to purchase Victory Points, although it is generally more cost effective to spend them on changes in your nation that will, of themselves, produce greater Victory Point gains.
This section of the results sheet contains complete details on your nation's economy, and the World Market. There are six commodities in the game - in addition to AP, FP, and IP, there are Non-strategic resources (NP), Research (RP), and Strategic resources (SP). Each nation can produce a certain amount of each commodity per turn, which is called their Current Capacity. Each nation also has a Maximum Capacity, and by expending Influence and commodities, a player can increase his nation's Current Capacity until it reaches its Maximum Capacity (thereby producing more of the commodity in question).
The amount of each commodity produced, and the amount consumed are listed here. The quantity of each commodity that a nation has in reserves is displayed similarly. During a given turn, a nation can only consume the commodities that were in its reserves at the end of the previous turn; thus, the reserve is the amount of the commodity that the player's nation may expend during the coming turn.
To offset the often unforeseen effects of commodity shortages, production growth, and unstable supple/demand, each nation has a reserve rate for each commodity, which is set by the player. By way of example, if a nation's reserve rate for IP is 10%, and on a particular turn the nation consumes 200,000 IP, the player's nation will try to end its turn with 220,000 IP in reserves. If the reserves fall short of this number, then the nation will try to purchase IP on the open market. If the reserves exceed this figure, then the nation will attempt to see IP on the open market. There are no commands to "buy/sell commodity" in Sirius Command; the reserve rate serves that purpose.
Whether or not a nation can buy or sell a sufficient quantity of a commodity to meet its reserve rate will also be determined largely by its asking price. If your nation is offering IP for sale at 20.00 CU per unit, and a hundred other nations are offering to sell at 5.00 CU, then the chances are that the hundred other nations will sell most or all of their IP before anyone buys from your nation. Players who are serious about the economics of the game will change their asking prices for all commodities on almost every turn.
Following the Activity Summary is an itemized commodity consumption chart, which shows exactly how much of each quantity went to each type of expenditure: wages, commodity production, military maintenance, military production, and commodity capacity increases. Needless to say, this is extremely useful information.
It may seem as if the economics system in the game is somewhat complicated, but this is not the case. For those who like to crunch a few numbers, the time it takes to become conversant with the economic system is minimal. For those who hate economics, there is some degree of built in "help" offered by (computer generated) "advisors," which will appear on turn printouts. It is not necessary for you to micromanage the economy on every single turn.
The first figure presented here is the net currency gain/loss experienced by your country for that particular turn. Following that figure is a detailed description of the trading that took place for each commodity. An average market exchange might look like this:
AP Market: Economists rallied as their prediction of an AP squeeze came true. 7,676,999 AP sold for about .604 CU. Our interests had to pay about .575 CU, with buyers' prices of .702 to .504 (before the haggling started). The count of other involved nations totaled 89. On average, one might say that economists' predictions are getting pretty hazy.
FP Market: The market was flooded with FP this quarter! The Cumulate Commodity Compendium concluded that 67,181,204 FP sold at a price of .270 CU. They paid us .309 CU (avg) per commodity point. The sellers' prices initially varied form .392 to .203 CU. There were 45 other nations selling, just like us.
IP Market: IP was in short supply this quarter. Juicy intelligence for the economic grapevine revealed that 7,821,818 IP retailed for 5.676 CU. Our interests sold at 5.709 CU. The 66 buyers started the bidding at between 6.594 and 5.090 CU. Analysis: no one is rocking the boat.
NP Market: Sellers had a hard time giving NP away in this environment! The Economer Journal surveys acknowledged that 12,429,003 fresh NP were sold at about .448 CU. Our interests had to pay about .444. All of 97 sellers created an initial pricing array of .506 to .391 CU.
RP Market: Economists sought raises, they ALL AGREED, there is a need for more RP! 768,998 RP were retailed for about 15.613 CU. We received 16.046 CU Per unit, with 5 buyers' prices ranging from 21.499 to 10.030. Then the haggling started.
SP Market: The SP supply was almost on target. 30,653,479 units of SP were purchased at a cost of around 1.657 CU. Our businesses accepted a 1.565 CU unit value. The 78 buyers started the bidding at between 1.690 and .743 CU. Sirius Stuff: ATTENTION should be paid to currently unstable supply: demand indicators.
Finally, in this section, information on your research and development programs are listed. Each commodity, (with the exception of RP) and each of the three military forces have a Tech Level. All player nations begin with Tech Levels of 1.0 in all categories. The only way to increase a Tech Level is to allocate RP (Research) to the task. It requires 25,000 RP to establish Tech Level 1.0 (which all player nations start with). An additional 150,000 RP (for a total of 175,000 RP) will provide Tech Level 2. A whopping 575,000 RP in total are required to reach Tech Level 3.
At higher Tech Levels, a nation will produce larger amounts of a commodity, while production expenditure stays the same. For example, at Tech Level 1.0, a nation will expend (among other things) 2,000 IP to produce 200,000 FP. At Tech Level 2.0, that nation would still expend only 2,000 IP, but would produce 220,000 FP. This represents the application of research into improving refining techniques, etc.
While military units will not be produced at lower cost, higher Tech Levels will lead to more effective units. Tech Level (TL) 2.0 units will naturally outperform TL 1.0 units. Towards the middle of the game, TL 2.0 units will become essential, if only as a deterrent to would-be attackers. TL 3.0 forces are rare, but represent incredible military power.
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