Leaders

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This article is about Leaders. You may be looking for Military Leaders.

Leaders
Information
Type	National Economy Military Geopolitics
Purposes	Politicians who provide modifiers across almost all branches of the nation.
Affects	Base Stability Political Power Gain Corruption Gain Unrest Reduction Integration Speed Ideology Power Economic Laws Cost Tax Income Factory Output Resource Output Manpower Increase Development Cost Infrastructure Cost Airport Cost Mines Cost Research Output Military Power Gain Military Upkeep Military Attack Military Starting Experience Ground, Naval, and Air Recruitment Time, Defense, Attack, and Starting Experience Ground, Naval, and Air Doctrines Cost City Resistance War Justification Time Diplomatic Actions
Currency	Political Power
Interface Location
Basic Access Step 1: Click your flag at the bottom right corner > 'Country' > 'Leaders' Step 2: You will be introduced to a 'Recruit Leaders X/7' button. If you do not have any active leaders, there will be a large empty space below the button (as seen in the image above). Recruitment Step 1: Click the recruitment button (shown in the previous image). When clicked, a list will open, showing 10 leaders available for potential recruitment. You can view each leader's modifier(s) and political power costs by hovering over their profile. Step 2: If you hire a leader by clicking on their profile, they will reappear in the same area where the 'Recruit Leaders X/7' button is located. Their level will automatically begin increasing, and as mentioned before, you can view their active modifier(s) and costs by hovering over them. You can also dismiss them at any time by clicking the 'Dismiss' button.

Leaders, also referred to as political leaders or civilian leaders, are politicians that players can recruit to govern their nation, influencing critical areas such as the government, economy, and military, with 19 different types of leaders being available.

Each year on January 1, a randomized list of 10 leaders is generated, featuring standardized attributes such as portrait, name, occupation, ideological alignment, starting level, effect percentages, and political power costs. This list is fixed and cannot be manually customized. However, it can be reshuffled to generate a completely new set of leaders at a cost of 150 political power, which can be reduced to 125 or 100 upon adopting 'Low' or 'Minimum' levels in Party Loyalty laws, respectively.

Upon hiring, a leader immediately applies their modifiers, gains experience, and consumes political power every five days for upkeep. All leaders have randomized percentages for modifiers and upkeep costs, even with the same type. While most leaders provide benefits, some introduce drawbacks. For instance, both the Chief Judge and Corporate Representative decrease political power gain in addition to their upkeep cost. Only a maximum of seven leaders can be active simultaneously, with only one of each type (e.g., only one Head of Research).

Political Alignments

Since leaders serve the government, their effectiveness is inherently influenced by a nation's ideology. A Socialist leader, for example, receives a ±25% adjustment to both positive and negative modifiers depending on whether they align with or oppose the nation's ideology—being strengthened in a socialist or communist nation and weakened in a liberal one. However, most leaders are classified as Moderate, meaning they remain neutral and are unaffected by ideology. Additionally, Non-Aligned is the only ideology that does not impose any ideological bonuses or penalties on leaders.

Below is a table that denotes the agent nouns with their respective ideology.

Moderate Non-Aligned	No Ideology
Socialist Communist	Socialism Communism
Liberal Democrat	Liberalism Democracy
Nationalist Fascist	Fascism Nationalism

Loyalty

As the effectiveness of leaders shifts based on the alignment between their ideology and the state's ideology, loyalty can manifest within the hearts of the leaders. This is primarily featured through Party Loyalty laws, which influence a candidate's likelihood of either aligning with a conflicting ideology or supporting the nation’s ideology. Conflicting ideologies deviate from the country's, while supporting ideologies align with it.

Below is a table that shows the percentages at each level that influence the chances of a candidate supporting or opposing the state's ideology.

Level	Conflicting Chance	Supporting Chance
Minimum	0%	-33%
Low	0%	-15%
Standard	0%	0%
High	-25%	+75%
Maximum	-50%	+150%

Experience

The 'Promote Deputy' button that appears when a leader becomes corrupt and is level three or above.

Located in the recruitment interface, most leaders will start at level one, though some might start at level two. Level two leaders generally provide larger modifier percentages than level one, but they cost more political power, though this is not strictly universal. When recruited, leaders can gain experience passively over time, leveling up to improve their current abilities and potentially gaining new modifiers. For example, the Chief Ambassador reduces war justification time at the first level but unlocks a new modifier, one additional diplomatic action slot, at level two. Passive experience gain can be increased through specific methods—see Ways to Boost XP Gain Ways to Boost XP Gain below for details.

As leaders accumulate experience, they are always at risk of succumbing to corruption, which can increase the corruption rate and potentially damage many branches of a nation if the rate cannot be offset. The likelihood of a leader becoming corrupt is highly (but not completely) influenced by the nation's current level of corruption. For instance, a high corruption percentage increases the probability of a leader becoming corrupt, while a low corruption value decreases the chances. However, even in countries with zero corruption, leaders are still susceptible to spontaneous corruption, as the probability of a leader's corruption is not solely determined by the nation's corruption level.

Fortunately, corruption from leaders can be removed by promoting them to deputy, but there are costs to this. This ability only works if the leader is at least level three and will cost a randomized amount of political power. Additionally, once promoted to deputy, the leader will lose two levels, and their modifiers will be reduced.

Ways to Boost XP Gain

• The corruption policy, Favor the Political Elite, is the best method to gain as much experience for leaders as possible. However, this policy also increases corruption gain, so it is important to prevent passive corruption from rising should the policy be enacted.
• Education Spending boosts the experience gain for political leaders, however, the amount of experience is dependent on the level of Education Spending.
• Party Loyalty laws can either increase or decrease experience gain. Levels below 'Standard', specifically 'Minimum' and 'Low', increase experience gain by +10 and +5, respectively. Conversely, levels above 'Standard', such as 'High' and 'Maximum', decrease experience gain by -3 and -8, respectively.
• Stability percentage exceeding 50% boosts experience gain for political leaders, with the experience accumulation increasing as stability rises. The boost percentage maximizes at +25% at 100% stability.

List of Leaders

• + and - are color-coded to represent the extent of the changes:
  • Lime indicates a considerable beneficial change.
    • Yellow indicates a small beneficial change.
  • Red indicates a harmful change.

Leaders and Modifiers
Government and Political Leader Modifiers Level Required Type Extent Head of Government Political Power Gain Base Stability + Level 1 or 2 All Economic Laws Cost - Level 2 or 3 Political Reformer Political Power Gain + Level 1 or 2 Ideology Power Level 2 or 3 Interior Minister Unrest Reduction Base Stability + Level 1 or 2 Integration Speed + Level 2 or 3 City Resistance + Level 3 or 4 Manpower Increase Level 4 or 5 Chief Judge Corruption Gain - Level 1 or 2 Political Power Gain - Base Stability + Unrest Reduction Level 2 or 3 Propaganda Minister Unrest Reduction Manpower Growth + Level 1 or 2 City Resistance Level 2 or 3 Chief Ambassador War Justification Time - Level 1 or 2 Diplomatic Actions +1 Level 2 or 3
Economic and Industrial Leader Modifiers Level Required Type Extent Finance Minister Development Cost - Level 1 or 2 Tax Income + Corporate Representative Tax Income + Level 1 or 2 Political Power Gain - Factory Output + Building Speed Level 2 or 3 Resource Output Level 4 or 5 Building Cost Level 5 or 6 Infrastructure Minister Building Speed + Level 1 or 2 Building Cost - Airport Cost - Level 2 or 3 Infrastructure Cost Level 4 or 5 Industry Minister Factory Output + Level 1 or 2 Building Cost - Chief Geologist Mines Cost - Level 1 or 2 Resource Output +
Military and Armed Forces Leader Modifiers Level Required Type Extent Chief of Staff Military Attack + Level 1 or 2 Military Starting Experience Level 2 or 3 Military Power Gain Level 3 or 4 General of the Army Land Doctrines Cost - Level 1 or 2 Ground Attack Ground Starting Experience + Ground Defense Level 2 or 3 Ground Recruitment Time - Level 3 or 4 Admiral of the Fleet Naval Doctrines Cost - Level 1 or 2 Naval Attack Naval Starting Experience + Naval Defense Level 2 or 3 Naval Recruitment Time - Level 3 or 4 Marshal of the Airforce Aerial Doctrines Cost - Level 1 or 2 Naval Attack Naval Starting Experience + Naval Defense Level 2 or 3 Aerial Recruitment Time - Level 3 or 4 Fortifications Expert Fortifications Cost - Level 1 or 2 Ground Defense + City Resistance Level 2 or 3 Head of Conscription Recruitment Center Cost - Level 1 or 2 Manpower Growth + Tax Income - Procurement Minister Military Cost Military Upkeep - Level 1 or 2 Naval Cost Level 2 or 3 Air Cost Level 3 or 4 Ground Cost Level 4 or 5
Research and Technology Leader Modifiers Level Required Type Extent Head of Research Research Output + Level 1 or 2

Strategies

Notes

• Political leaders are one of the most important components in the government and the game. In general, all nations, no matter the ideology, territorial size, population, economy, or other influential factors, should have leaders.
• Most leaders do not come with direct drawbacks, except for the Corporate Representative and the Head of Conscription leaders. However, while the majority of leaders do not present downsides, the real drawback lies in the percentages they offer in their modifiers within the Recruitment panel. For instance, you might prefer to select a Head of Research who provides a +16% research output over another Head of Research offering only +12%. Similarly, you might prioritize a Chief Judge who automatically mitigates corruption by over -0.2 rather than one with -0.15. Furthermore, it is highly advisable to prioritize leaders with supporting ideologies, as they offer larger bonuses compared to those whose ideologies do not align with the country's.
  • Unfortunately, leaders with desirable percentages in their modifiers are generated through random number generation, essentially leaving them locked behind pure luck.
  • Some leaders who provide large percentages in their modifiers are also sometimes very expensive to recruit and maintain.
• The amount of leaders should be limited when attempting to convert to another ideology during the early years of the game, as it could hinder the time to achieve the desired ideology as political power maintenance for leaders will be a burden.
• In the recruitment panel, it is possible for two or more leaders that share the same occupation to appear (e.g., two Industry Ministers). If this ever happens, pick the individual than offers higher base modifiers than its counterpart.

• Meta Lineups
• Government and Political
• Economic and Industrial
• Military and Armed Forces
• Technology

Meta Lineups

There are some leader lineups that are crucial to consider. Please note that this is not the ultimate meta, and your leader choice may vary depending on the situation. Feel free to create your own loadouts.

Versatile

• Head of Government
• Political Reformer
• Head of Research
• Chief Judge/Interior Minister
• Corporate Representative/Finance Minister
• Industry Minister/Chief Geologist/Infrastructure Minister
• General of the Army/Admiral of the Fleet/Marshal of the Airforce/Fortification Expert/Chief of Staff

Fascist Loadout

• Head of Government/Political Reformer
• Head of Research
• Corporate Representative/Finance Minister/Head of Conscription
• General of the Army
• Chief of Staff
• Interior Minister/Propaganda Minister
• Fortification Expert/Admiral of the Fleet/Marshal of the Airforce

Note: If you are using Fascism for speedrunning, you can replace the Corporate Representative/Finance Minister with Chief Ambassador.

Communist Loadout

• Head of Government
• Head of Research
• Chief Judge
• General of the Army/Fortification Expert
• Chief Geologist/Industry Minister
• Chief of Staff/Finance Minister/Infrastructure Minister
• Corporate Representative/Interior Minister/Procurement Minister

Note: Be careful of corruption gain if using a Political Reformer instead.

Democracy Loadout

• Head of Government/Chief Judge/Political Reformer
• Head of Research
• Finance Minister
• Corporate Representative/Industry Minister/Chief Geologist/Infrastructure Minister
• General of the Army
• Fortification Expert/Admiral of the Fleet/Marshal of the Airforce
• Chief of Staff

Pre-Ideology Selection

Selecting these leaders before an ideology is optional, but highly recommended.

• Head of Research
• Head of Government/Political Reformer
• Chief Judge
  • Should only be appointed before switching to Communism from Socialism, unless if you are trying to mitigate your current corruption gain.
• General of the Army/Chief of Staff/Fortification Expert

Government and Political

Head of Government

• One of the best leaders to appoint even before securing an ideology, as the leader boosts political power which means it could accelerate the speed of claiming the ideology.
• Useful for supporting the government and economy, as it increases base stability, improves political power gain, and decreases the maintenance costs for economic laws.
• The Head of Government reduces economic laws maintenance at a minimal degree, which could be slightly helpful for some.

Political Reformer

• One of the best leaders to appoint even before securing an ideology, as the leader boosts political power which means it could accelerate the speed of claiming the ideology.
• Extremely beneficial for countries that have an ideology other than Communism, such as Democracy or Fascism, as it significantly augments ideological power which means ideologies can provide more buffs, with the exchange of higher disadvantages.
• On the other hand, countries using Communism should be very wary when having this leader enabled, as the ideology power boost increases corruption gain, which means higher corruption percentages, leading to significant risks or burdens for Communist countries.

Chief Judge

• One of the best leaders to appoint after securing an ideology, as they can assist in exploiting the advantages and mitigating the flow of corruption.
• Extremely useful for a Communist nation, as Chief Judges can effectively counterbalance Communism's inherent corruption gain. They can also serve as a temporary alternative to the costly Anti Corruption Spending for Communism, especially when Communist economies are relatively limited for a certain period. Activating high levels of Anti Corruption Spending can be excessively expensive, so Chief Judges can be a more optimal option to combat corruption.
• As stated previously, Chief Judges can be applied to any other nation as well, no matter their ideology, as it can help players reap the benefits of corruption, without suffering much.
• The Chief Judge should be selected before choosing Communism from Socialism.
• While the Chief Judge does lower political power gain, it is not necessarily detrimental in most cases.

Interior Minister

• One of the best leaders to appoint after securing an ideology, as they are the jack of all trades in social benefits, but the master of none. They focus on moderately buffing unrest reduction, base stability boosts, accelerated integration speed, and more.
• Convenient for countries that are using Fascism or Communism, as those two ideologies can have its inherent unrest reduction drawback outweigh upon claiming this leader.
• Interior Ministers can further enhance base stability, which can useful for particularly Communism and Fascism, as those two already provide stability boosts.
• Suitable for players engaging in mass expansion, as the leader's reduction to unrest can expedite the decrease of the unrest bar in newly conquered cities. This can be facilitate early buildups of military units or buildings in the newly acquired cities.

Propaganda Minister

• The Propaganda Minister is vital for countries that will be focusing on wars, militaries, and expansion as the the leader has the necessary modifiers (i.e., manpower growth, city resistance, and unrest reduction) to assist in those fields.
• Primarily suitable for Fascist and Communist countries; not essential for Democratic countries unless they are involved in a significant war.
• Serves as a simplified counterpart with Interior Minister, as it retains stronger base modifiers but less modifiers.

Chief Ambassador

• Chief Ambassador is not generally essential for most players, unless they are an aggressive Democratic country. However, Democracy is not designed to engage in mass wars compared to its ideological counterparts, Fascism and Communism.
• It is also useful to get for speedrunning formables, as it decreases war justification time and adds another diplomatic action slot.
• While Chief Ambassador may seem beneficial for Fascism on paper, it should be considered a lower priority compared to other political leaders. Since Fascism already has many capabilities to accumulate fast justification speeds by upgrading Fascist ideological power, such as through technologies, policies, the Political Reformer, and formable modifiers, Chief Ambassador renders as redundant.
• Additionally, while the extra diplomatic action slot could be perceived as needed for Fascism, it is not as crucial, since having 4 slots is relatively useless in most cases. One would not simultaneously fight in 4 wars at once unless rapidly expanding without worrying about war exhaustion, and 3 slots are usually sufficient.
• Could be worthy for Communist nations that are mass expanding.

Economic and Industrial

Finance Minister

• One of the best leaders to appoint after securing an ideology, as they can significantly assist in the economy.
• Finance Minister can greatly support the economy as it boosts tax collection and reduces development costs, which can be essential for all ideologies, with Democracy gaining the most advantages from this leader.
• Mass development and industrialization can be facilitated when combined with the Infrastructure Minister and the Corporate Representative.

Corporate Representative

• One of the best leaders to appoint after securing an ideology, as they are jack of all trades in economic assistance, but the master of none. Their economic upsides include higher tax collection, streamlined building construction, and improved resource and factory output.
• One of the best economic leaders to choose, and is suitable for all countries.
• Corporate Representative slightly reduces political power.

Infrastructure Minister

• Extremely useful to appoint for countries that are mass developing and industrializing, particularly with Communism and Democracy, as the Infrastructure Minister increases building speed, while also reducing infrastructure and airport costs.

Industry Minister

• The Industry Minister is worthy for mass factory industrialization, especially for countries that align with Communism.
• Industry Minister combined with primarily the Chief Geologist can significantly expand resource income, which can help grow the economy.

Chief Geologist

• The Industry Minister is worthy for mass natural resource industrialization, especially for countries that align with the Communism.
• Economically convenient for countries that possess many resource-rich regions.
• Chief Geologist combined with primarily the Industry Minister can significantly expand resource income, which can help grow the economy.

Military and Armed Forces

Chief of Staff

• Usually one of the best military-political leaders in the game, as it increases attack and military experience for all units. It also increases military power gain.
• Mainly effective for countries focusing on building a large, powerful military. Also viable for engaging in large-scale war or mass expansion.

General of the Army

• Usually one of the best military-political leaders in the game, as strengthening the power of the army is crucial in many scenarios, especially during ground warfare.
• Provides significant performance upgrades to almost every aspect of the army, from attack, defense, experience, doctrines, and more.
• Extremely vital for countries heavily concentrated on ground forces.

Fortifications Expert

• Usually one of the best military-political leaders in the game, as strengthening the power of the army is crucial in many scenarios, especially during ground warfare.
• Renowned for being the best for defense in both national security and ground units, as it increases both city resistance and ground defense, while reducing the cost of fortifications.
• Useful for neutral countries positioned near or within hostile areas, such as Non-Aligned Switzerland with the Neutrality Act policy.
• Useful for accumulating as much ground defense and city resistance modifiers as possible.

Admiral of the Fleet

• Significantly crucial for players heavily focused on naval expansion or engaging in naval warfare.
• Practical for island countries expanding via the ocean, as the navy will be utilized extensively.

Marshal of the Airforce

• Significantly crucial for players heavily focused on aerial expansion or engaging in aerial warfare.
• Essential for deploying large numbers of aircraft to achieve objectives via the air, such as mass bombing campaigns, airspace defense through fighters, close air support using attackers, and more.

Procurement Minister

• The Procurement Minister is often considered unnecessary due to its modest percentages on modifiers. However, there are exceptions.
• This leader can be very helpful for Communist countries, as it alleviates the financial burdens of maintaining and producing a substantial number of military units. This can also be helpful for Non-Aligned countries.
• While this leader could be perceived as needed for Fascist countries, it is often not. Fascism already has many methods to decrease military upkeep through ideological power, which can be boosted via technologies, policies, formable modifiers, and the Political Reformer leader. Furthermore, military upkeep reduction maximizes at -95%, and once it reaches that threshold, it cannot surpass that number.
• Although notable for reducing military costs, which Fascism does not inherently have, there are many other better and more suitable leaders (especially financial leaders that can already help the economy) that are more important than a Procurement Minister.

Head of Conscription

• The Head of Conscription is primarily useful for colonial and expansive countries, such as Fascist and Communist, as it is feasible for expanding the growth of manpower, while slightly decreasing the yield of taxes.
• Head of Conscription is not necessarily needed for Democratic countries, unless they are aggressive or in dire need of manpower, but highly developed cities should reap loads of manpower.
• Useful in private events as accumulating significant manpower is crucial for establishing a massive military. In events, the size of a military determines its strength.

Technology and Research

Head of Research

• One of the best leaders to claim even before securing an ideology, as the leader boosts research power which means it could accelerate the speed of claiming Quantum Computing early-game.
• This is one of the most important leaders to claim as technology is extremely integral for the structures of a nation. Expanding research power gain as much as possible, especially via Head of Research, is utmost needed.
• Most of the time, all countries, no matter their characteristics, should have this leader at all times.

Trivia

Old leader portraits before they were officially released into the game.

• Leaders were first showcased by Hyperant, the sole developer of the game, in the Official Discord on August 2, 2023, before it was eventually released in the 10/25/2023 Major Update.
  • In the preview, the leaders shown in their portrait did not don any form of clothing, unlike the business suits that they are currently wearing.
• At level 10, the requirement to level up automatically converts to 1,000,000,000 XP, rendering the level impossible to surpass. However, at Level 9, the EXP requirement is 45,000 before transitioning to the absurdly high number.
  • It will take around six to seven hours (41 years) for a leader to reach level 10 with all XP boosts, which is around the year 2060 if the leader is hired and the boosts are applied within 2019.
• While the Chief Judge is the only leader capable of reducing corruption, they are also vulnerable from becoming corrupt themselves.
• In real life, despite communism opposing the creation and influence of private corporations, Communist nations in-game are able to hire the Corporate Representative for their government.
• Before the 02/19/2025 Update (February 19, 2025), if a political leader became corrupt, there was no way to reverse their corruption. The only options were to either dismiss them entirely or keep them despite their corruption if they were too valuable to remove.
  • However, this changed with the update, which introduced the ability to promote a deputy of the same leader. This promotion removes their corruption but comes at a cost—it costs political power and lowers the leader's level by two, thereby reducing their modifiers.

Gallery

Moderate

Support

Conflict

Corrupt

Maximum Rank (1,000,000,000 XP)