Statum

Been heads-down on my browser-based geopolitical/economic sim (mechanics inspired by the old e-Sim/eRepublik/Politics&War genre, built from scratch — no copied code/text/numbers). Quick rundown of what shipped since my last update:

Diplomacy got real teeth. Countries can now form bilateral Alliances and full Coalitions (think EU/G7 — shared currency display, combined market, elected offices like President/General/Secretary of State/Economist, all voted 1-country-1-vote by national Presidents). Just closed the loop on this: joining a coalition now requires an invitation from existing members (majority vote) before the candidate's own Congress can approve — and members can expel a rogue country either by majority vote or unilaterally via the coalition President. No more "anyone can join and no one can kick them out."

Travel is a real system now. Players move between the 61 countries via an actual adjacency graph (real borders, some sea links for islands), takes ~10 min per border crossed. You can't route through or into a country your side is at war with — except your own war-torn homeland regions, those stay reachable. Also gated work (must be physically in your employer's country) and battle participation (defend from anywhere in-country, attack only from the front-line region) behind location.

Combat equipment, from zero. Renamed the old "Weapons" resource to "Bullets" to make room for actual gear: Weapon, Knife, Body Armor, Helmet, Pants, Shoes, Goggles — 7 slots, each item RNG-rolls 2 attributes scaled by quality (miss reduction, crit%, dodge-the-HP-cost-of-a-hit, etc.). Then built the whole economy around it: items drop after battles (more/better loot the bigger the fight, weighted toward top damage dealers and medal winners), 3 duplicates merge into 1 higher-quality item, and there's now a global Gold-only auction house with escrow bidding and a diplomacy-tiered export tax (0% same country → 15% if you're buying from someone your country's at war with — basically a smuggling tax).

Underpinning all of it: had to build a Gold treasury + bidirectional currency exchange system first, since alliances/coalitions needed a way to actually cost something in Gold.

Still solo, still no visual design (that's next), no automated test suite yet either — but the core loops (economy, politics, war, diplomacy, gear) are all interlocking now. Curious what genre fans think is missing from this list before I start polishing.

Hey IH 👋

I'm building Statum, a browser-based multiplayer game where players are citizens of real-ish nations, competing across economy, military, and politics — think e-Sim/eRepublik-style gameplay, built from scratch.

What you can do in Statum:

• Pick a country (61 playable nations across Europe, Asia, and the Americas) and become a citizen.

• Work in companies, produce goods, and trade in a per-country market with real supply/demand.

• Train and fight in region-based wars — battles have rounds, terrain bonuses, weapon quality, and real territorial conquest.

• Run for Congress or President on real calendar-based election cycles, and govern: manage the treasury, appoint a General or Finance Minister, declare war.

• Write articles, build a readership, level up through combat, work, or politics — whatever you're into.

The design principle I care most about: you shouldn't need to do everything.
A lot of games in this genre quietly punish you for not grinding every system at once. I'm building Statum so a player who only wants to run a company and trade, or only wants to fight, or only wants to do politics/journalism, can go deep in that one lane and still matter — without feeling like they're falling behind players juggling all four. That's shaping a lot of the balancing decisions (XP curves, daily limits, income sources) as I go.

Why I'm building this:
I've always loved this genre, but every implementation I played eventually got abandoned, or the balance drifted somewhere strange. I'm building Statum incrementally — one system at a time, tested properly before moving to the next — and keeping a public design log of every decision so the game stays coherent instead of accumulating cruft.

Where it's at:
Core economy, military, and political systems are live and tested. Currently working on daily combat limits and a diplomacy/alliance system between nations.

What I'm actually asking:

1. Browser/text-based MMOs like e-Sim, eRepublik, Politics & War, TravianW — most of them either shut down or got left to rot by their studios. Why do you think that happened? Bad monetization, dev burnout, the genre itself losing appeal, something else?

2. Is this still a gap in the market, or has it been filled by something else you'd point me to?

3. Do you actually like this kind of game, or is it a relic that had its moment? Honest takes welcome.

4. If "focus on one system, still matter" sounds appealing (vs. "grind everything or fall behind"), I'd love to hear that too — and if you'd want to try an early beta when it opens.

Happy to go deep on mechanics or the build process in the comments.