Ch.133Hierarchy of Power

Everything has its stages.

Just as small change becomes a fortune and dust becomes a mountain, Polistory had various stages and parameters indicating a nation’s development level, which, though invisible in this world, remained one of the commonly used measures.

Military power, diplomatic power, economic power, production capacity… This scale, which calculated all factors determining a nation’s strength, was officially called the “Hierarchy of Power,” and the monarch of the nation standing at its peak earned the privilege and qualification to be addressed by the glorious honorific “Your Imperial Majesty.”

And above all else, I wanted to obtain that title.

Step by step, climbing the hierarchy of power, someday I would push Fahrenheit off that throne.

Fahrenheit wasn’t always a great power from the beginning.

Like them, all nations start as small states, but through various growth processes, they gradually develop greater strength.

For easier understanding, I’ve written below about the stages of national development in Polistory and their explanations.

First, a nation is established, people gather to form a small settlement, cultivate the surrounding land, and create a small self-sufficient community.

At this level, it’s a nation in name only. In reality, it’s no different from one or two villages gathered together.

As time passes, when the population grows and cultivated land increases considerably, people need various resources beyond just bread and meat. Usually around this time, merchant caravans find their way to sell all sorts of interesting goods.

Even if there were no roads, merchants would create them, displaying surprising tenacity in unexpected ways—a quality I could respect.

Once caravans begin regular visits, currency starts circulating in society, barter gradually declines, and credit transactions begin to emerge.

As caravans make regular visits, they bring immigrants, and from this point, professionals like doctors, scholars, and blacksmiths begin to make their mark in society.

The increase in floating population means more people coming and going through the nation, leading to the establishment of taverns for adventurers and merchants, followed by businesses supplying food and drink to these taverns.

Around this time, revenue noticeably increases, and this is the most crucial period.

Instead of trying something new and flashy, quietly increase the number of taverns, strictly regulate and manage merchant caravans and commerce, and thoroughly exploit the trickle of skilled professionals until they’re completely drained—this naturally grows national power. Unfortunately, this is precisely when advanced buildings become unlocked as technicians arrive, causing novice players who’ve been playing Dudukri Online for hours to lose their minds.

Of course, this was a sophisticated trap set by the developers, as these advanced buildings required far more technicians to operate.

After several more hours of playing the Dudukri Online expansion, you finally reach the stage where you can call it a “city” with multiple taverns and commercial districts. Most users tended to enjoy this stage.

The city is small enough to decorate in charming ways, and development is visibly apparent, satisfying players who enjoy seeing progress.

Above all, the advanced buildings that were mere pipe dreams during the village stage can now function properly with the mass employment of technicians, creating synergistic effects. High-rise buildings emerge, various systems are established, and laws are enacted… It’s comparable to the crucial infancy period in human development.

Just as good habits formed in childhood make later life easier, at this stage, you must promote national policies with careful consideration of the current geopolitical situation. If you try to paint too grand a picture, you might run out of paint before completing it.

Or you might finish the painting but create a disaster by painting a mural instead of a canvas piece, or using pastels when oil paints were needed. This required techniques for meticulously adjusting various laws and economic metrics.

This stage was both the most commonly experienced by users and the dividing point between casual and hardcore players. Casual players would give up after dabbling a bit, finding it too tiresome, while hardcore players enjoyed the minutely responsive society and eagerly wanted to advance to the next stage.

And naturally, I belonged to the latter group.

Beyond the city stage awaited the metropolitan stage.

Now exceeding a single city, you begin coordinating relationships between one massive city and the villages supplying it with primary resources. This is when the importance of economy, diplomacy, and military becomes prominently highlighted.

The economy experiences explosive growth through expansion. Diplomacy allows gradual recognition from other countries in the region based on increased national power. And the military’s importance suddenly escalates as it must protect numerous villages beyond the city walls.

During this period, the player first encounters fragments of the Geohex and receives the first piece through goodwill from neighboring countries, achieving the first territorial expansion.

To reciprocate this “goodwill,” the player begins to enter the diplomatic arena in earnest, taking their first steps into the intense and ruthless international political scene.

In the subsequent expansion stage, the player can actively intervene in regional affairs and faces diplomatic machinations and all-out wars from AI nations attempting to block the player’s expansion.

This is the stage where you learn to deal with social chaos caused by spies and discord, as well as military provocations through active force projection—and also contemplate how to return these tactics in kind. Here, the player irreversibly gains the power to destroy other nations and must use this power and accumulated national strength to defend against external threats and grow the nation to an even higher level.

In the struggle stage, the player, as one of the powerful nations in the established region, must engage in fierce information warfare and competition with other great powers, competing endlessly to secure regional hegemony.

Military power is most important at this stage, as maintaining the status of an independent sovereign nation that doesn’t yield to pressure from other countries requires appropriate military strength.

By this stage, the player would have already obtained numerous fragments, expanding their territory to the limit of the Geohex or close to it, and built numerous cities and villages in each expanded area, housing a population of millions.

In the final dominance stage, the player reigns as the region’s strongest nation with a population exceeding 10 million. Under the observation of all regional nations, they hold a solemn coronation ceremony, elevating their title from monarch to grand monarch, and their form of address from “Your Highness” to “Your Majesty,” exercising extensive influence throughout the entire region.

A monarch ruling over other monarchs, backed by firm control over tens of millions of subjects beyond mere millions—no force remains capable of threatening the player’s hegemony, and the region flows according to the player’s will.

This was the end of Polistory and the reward for players who invested hundreds of hours.

Currently, Amurtat was in the struggle stage, striving to surpass Fahrenheit, which was in the dominance stage (once a stage is achieved, the hierarchy doesn’t decrease).

With the current national power, if Amurtat and Fahrenheit engaged in all-out war, even fighting with every ounce of strength, Fahrenheit would have a slight advantage. At best, it would result in mutual destruction.

How could such a difference exist? Simple. For 300 years, Fahrenheit had stockpiled an enormous quantity of artifacts and possessed several powerful archmages capable of determining the outcome of entire campaigns beyond mere battles.

They also boasted powerful knights numbering more than three times those of Amurtat, making regular troops “insignificant” in the face of such overwhelming asymmetric forces.

However… Fahrenheit’s power was no longer what it once was.

If you can’t overcome something with strength, you simply find another way.

In my case, that method was money.