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An example of a city
A detailed UI popping up that shows base statistics upon clicking a specific city
Cities are the forefront backbone of a player's nation. They produce money, manpower, run factories, resources, and recruit units. Each nation in the game includes at least one city at the start of the game.
Cities are the main purpose of having wars, as the player must capture the enemy's cities in order to make them lose a war or capitulate. Players can cede (or Transfer Occupation) to another country, provided that the receiving country is a player.
A city’s appearance varies depending on the population. Cities with a spherical appearance have a population less than 1 million, while cities that have squares surpasses one million population. Said cities can also change formation over time, depending on the growth of the population.
Such cities can also be ceded to other countries, though it cannot pass the 40 million population limitation, as transferring can only be under 40 million population before waiting a given time.
Benefits[]
Tax[]
Tax income from city is:
Base (unmodified) tax value in capital city is increased by 60000, so that even a city with no population will give at least $60,000 per turn. It also implies that relocating capital makes sense only if the new one is of a higher tier and is unaffected by unrest and integration.
| Description | Modifier |
|---|---|
| Socialism | -10% |
| Communism | -25% |
| Liberalism | +40% |
| Democracy | +110% |
| Fascism | -10% |
| Tax Collection 1 | +10% |
| Tax Collection 2 | +15% |
| Tax Collection 3 | +30% |
| Tax Collection 4 | +50% |
| Tax Collection 5 | +75% |
| Stability | -1.5% per negative% +1% per positive% |
| War Exhaustion | -7.5% per point |
| Disarmed conscription law | +5% |
| Policies | ||
|---|---|---|
| Description | Modifier | Notes |
| The Welfare Act | -5% | |
| The Neutrality Act | +25% | Non-aligned ideology required |
| Agricultural Act | +8% | |
| Tax Reform | +25% | Democracy required |
| The Prosperity Act | +10% | Stability greater than 75% and less than 100% |
| Improve Infrastructure | +10% | |
| Forced labour for dissidents | +15% | Communism required |
| Press Censorship | -5% | Requires ideology other than Democracy |
| Emergency War Fund | +40% | Must be at war |
| Martial Law | -25% | Stability greater than 0% and less than 55% |
| Encourage Development | -10% | +34% chance for Economic Boom event (Tax Income: +25%) |
| National Modifiers | |
|---|---|
| Description | Modifier |
| Inefficient Bureaucracy | -20% |
| Workers Strike | -10% |
| Widespread Insurgency | -10% |
| Economic Growth | +25% |
| Rolling Blackouts | -25% |
| Economic Depression | -15% |
| Rampant Corruption | -20% |
| Skills Shortage | -15% |
| Mass Demonstrations | -10% |
| Disjointed Government | -10% |
| Forced Regime Change | -25% |
Manpower[]
Manpower increase from city is:
Recruitable population modifier is the 36000 divided by percent. With Volunteer Law (2%), for example, the "recruitable population modifier" will be 36,000 / 2 = 18,000.
In capital city, base (unmodified) manpower value increased by 85.
Resource[]
Resource income is determined by population, resource type and amount of resource produced.
Cities Functions[]
Cities maintain a wide range of usages.
- Scorching
- Development (Developing a city will increase a city's tier level by one, increasing the tax generation, manpower, and population growth. Cities can maximize development up to the 8th tier/level.)
- Construction of Category:Buildings.
- Recruiting a military.
- Resource generation.
- Ceding Cities.
- Building Infrastructure
Cities War Functions[]
During wars, one of the main objectives is capturing cities. In order to capture cities, a player should move any ground unit towards a city (infantry, tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft).
The duration of fully capturing a city depends on the city's population along with many external sources. Resistance modifiers are the main way of increasing the time it takes to capture a city. Some examples of these resistance modifiers are fortifications, policies (Neutrality Act), technology (Resistance branch in Political tree), and formable modifiers.
During a city siege, the player capturing the city will start losing troops depending on the resistance of the city.
Integration[]
Integration plays a significant and crucial role in the game mechanics. When a player annexes a city, the city does not normalize immediately and remains maxed out on unrest.
Upon annexation, the player will only receive 15% of the taxes and resources that the city would normally generate. As the unrest decreases gradually, the player will experience a slow and progressive increase in tax collection, resource output, and manpower growth. Once the unrest level falls below 50%, the player can begin constructing units and factories, though construction and recruitment durations will be longer due to the existing unrest and the unfinished integration.
A large green bar will be visible when clicking on a city that is not cored yet, representing the integration level, indicating that the city was recently annexed by another nation. The integration process takes around 20 minutes (equivalent to approximately 3 years) to complete. Once the city is fully integrated, it will be cored to the player's country (while still maintaining its previous cored country) and will start generating the initial amount of money, manpower, and resources it did prior to annexation. However, it's important to note that the city's stats after integration are unlikely to maintain the same value as before, such factors can manipulate the resource, manpower, tax collection like the new ruler's policies and ideology.
Certain policies can increase integration speed, which are:
There are also certain research branches that can hasten the speed of integration.
The fastest way to integrate a city would be to form a Formable, however it only works by automatically coring the required cities for the formable.
Capital Cities[]
An example of a capital city
A capital city is the most important city of a nation. It is represented by a unique symbol hovering on top of the city, which appears as a star. All starting capital cities also have an airport, which is the sole airport within the country at the start of the game. Airports allow players to recruit aircraft.
Capital cities receive undetermined boosts to resource, tax, and manpower gain, such as certain cities like Beijing in 
China or Moscow in 
Russia.
A player must protect and defend it continuously, as losing the capital will drastically decrease stability and raise war exhaustion.
Transferring[]
Capitals can be swapped from one city to another, although it costs 250 political power, and -3% Stability. During wars, 750 political power and -10% stability is the upgraded price. (Ex. the player is 
Brazil and they switch their capital from Brasilia to São Paulo.)
Transferring the capital must always be in a range of less than 750 kilometers away from your original capital to switch it, and the distance can be measured using units, by clicking on them when they're on the current capital, then afterwards hovering the line over the city you plan to relocate your capital.
Exceptions[]
There are some exceptions in moving a capital city; for example: Longyearbyen is the northernmost island city in 
Norway and is far from Oslo, so it cannot be a capital, but if the mainland is taken away from Norway except the northern island, the player will be able to relocate the capital.
If the player happens to have no cities in a radius of 750 kilometers, (from previous capital only), the game will make an exception. Another example is that if a player loses their entire mainland, but has leftover territories that surpasses the maximum range, they are able to relocate without any limitations. However, the selected city must be cored or the system will refuse to transfer.
Importance of Moving Capitals[]
If the player is in a war and their capital is near the enemy, it is optimal to switch. A player can change it to something a bit distant but less than 750 kilometers apart. It could be their largest or populous city (If capital is not already largest city), or hard to capture with significant defense, such as entrenched units, biomes, or terrain.
If the player is at war and/or there are many threats near their borders, it is recommended to move the capital to a city covered in a harsh biome or surrounded by rugged terrain. If no such terrain or biomes exist within a player’s borders, move the capital as far away from the enemy as possible.
Capitals are also best to be moved somewhere off the coast, to prevent a naval landing from enemy who are crossing overseas. This helps prevent the chances of capital sniping. (Ex. 
United States moves their capital from Washington D.C. to Detroit, where they proceed to build a naval fleet in the Great Lakes for active protection.)
Capital is Lost[]
If the player lost their capital city, they will have a consecutive -15% Stability decrease, so it is vital to defend it from potential enemies or even allies if the player is suspicious of them. Long periods of lost capital will raise the player's war exhaustion even if the player is at peace without a capital and lose continuous stability. It can work even if the player is socialist or communism, though both of these ideologies downgrade war exhaustion intake.
Scorching[]
Visit main article: Scorching
When a city is scorched, it will not generate tax, manpower, and resource income, with an addition of maximum unrest. The main factors for scorching are bombers, manual scorch mechanic initiation, or nukes. Scorching is also useful during wars, as it helps prevent enemies from advancing through the blistering territory. Scorching can also lower stability and raise war exhaustion, especially when the capital city, or any metropolitan area is on fire.
Port Cities[]
The Shipyard is a coastal building that is used to build and repair battleships and aircraft carriers.
Ports, also known as seaports, are cities that lie on a country's coastline, which are used to build naval units. These types of cities are marked as ports per indication of an anchor icon showing on top of a city. If the player and an enemy are separated by water, these cities are usually taken first. Port cities can be positioned in large lakes such as the Caspian Sea or the Great Lakes, although, not every city on a coastline is a port city, as this can occur if the city is small in population or located in the arctic.
Visit main article: Canal
An example of a canal city, located in Kiel, 
Germany
Coastal cities may have an exclusive canal, which is mainly utilized for transporting groups of ships from one body of water to another. Countries with these exclusive canals on their coastal cities include: Kiel, Germany, Panama City, 
Panama, Istanbul, 
Turkey, and Suez, 
Egypt.
Square Cities[]
Visit main article: Square Cities
An example of a square city
A square city refers to as a metropolitan city, as they hold over one million population. As their name suggests, square cities are represented with a square instead of a sphere. These cities are very important since they allow tank recruitment, meaning nations without square cities will not be able to make tanks, regardless of whether or not the player has the required resources, unless the player conquers a country that has square cities.
Square cities can be vital to a country’s economy and manpower gain as well, as they have a heavy population capacity, meaning they are substantial for production of heavy tax and manpower income. Due to square cities being so advantageous in-game, countries with a vast amount square cities are typically viewed powerful and are usually chosen first to play in fresh servers (e.g. Russia, China, Germany, etc.)
City Resistance[]
Visit main article: City Resistance
City resistance is a national mechanic that determines a city's defense against enemy capture during war. It affects the length of the capture time during an enemy siege and inflicts additional attrition on attacking enemy units. This mechanic can be upgraded through various means, including research, fortifications, policies, military operations, formable modifiers, and political leaders.
Trivia[]
- Certain cities have weird names, such as Gay,
Russia, Moron, Mongolia, Bath, United Kingdom, Batman, Kurdistan, etc. - If a city is larger, then it may block a strait and not let ships pass through. An example of this is Gibraltar enlarging to an enormous size in late game servers that it blocks the accessibility from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.
- The larger a city is, the more likely it is to control the color of a certain territory. (Example: Gibraltar having more population than the surrounding cities in Spain, and thus the game switched the color of some of Spain’s territory to Gibraltar.)
- Airports cannot be built on cities less than 500,000 population, unless the nation has unlocked the military doctrine 'Airfield Expansion', which reduces the minimum population to 250,000.
- The capital's city name used to have the same as the country's name, then if this country forms a formable, the capital city name will change too (Ex. Luxembourg forms Benelux and its capital becomes Benelux.) However, this was fixed following a minor update on April 25, 2023.
- A city might become bigger than the island it is on (ex. Malta becoming so big that it becomes bigger than the island itself.)
- Tokyo, the capital of Japan is the largest city at the start of the game with 40 million population.
- Sri Lanka has a city with the longest name in the game which is "Sri Jawewardenepura Kotte", totaling 25 letters (including spaces). It is so big that it glitches behind the flag of the occupying country. It is also misspelled, with Jayawardenepura being Jawewardenepura.
- Some countries, before the border revamp, would expand their borders in a way that when their cities near neighboring countries grew large enough, the expanding city would annex tiles from the neighboring country.
- There has only been two cases of cities being removed, both being from the United States. In the very early versions of the game, it went from thousands of cities to around 900, and in February 2024, it was further reduced to 711.
