SOVEREIGN
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First steps

Your first hour in SOVEREIGN – from clicking “Play now” to your first construction project, your first price shock and your first look into the “Why?” tooltip.

3 min read Game version 0.1.0 Updated 10/16/2026
Contents
  1. Start – no download, no account
  2. Reading the map
  3. Controlling time
  4. Panels and shortcuts
  5. The “Why?” tooltip
  6. Your first hour
  7. Saving

Start – no download, no account

SOVEREIGN runs right in your browser. Single player works without an account and without a server; you only need an account when you choose an online feature (cloud saves, friends, multiplayer). Sign-in then appears in the game and you continue where you were.

The title screen already shows the real map: in the background an observer game runs in which only the AI governs. Under New campaign you choose map and scenario, then your nation – one click on a country is enough.

Title screen with the wordmark, the menu and a live map of Central Europe
The title screen: menu on the left, behind it the map of a running AI game.

Reading the map

Drag the map with the mouse, zoom with the wheel or move with WASD; a double-click zooms in. At the bottom right you switch the map mode:

  • Political and Terrain for an overview,
  • Diplomacy for friends, allies and enemies,
  • Population density, GDP per capita, Industry, Infrastructure, Unrest and Supply as data maps,
  • Trade for flows of goods and chokepoints, Tension for running crises.

Clicking one of your provinces opens the region's detail panel on the right: population, employment, buildings with their production method and limiting factor – and under Build new projects with cost and duration.

Controlling time

The game starts paused. Press Space or the play button in the status bar to start time; keys 1–5 select the speed. One simulation step is one game day.

Speed 1
3 s per day
Speed 2
1.2 s per day
Speed 3
0.5 s per day
Speed 4
0.15 s per day
Speed 5
as fast as possible (up to 50 days/s)

Values from the client specification (Spec 40 §2).

Important events pause the game automatically (configurable): a declaration of war against you, a peace offer, an alliance request, an event with a decision or an ultimatum.

Panels and shortcuts

The navigation rail on the left opens the panels. Each has a shortcut:

F1
Overview
F2
Economy (taxes, budget, stocks, trade partners)
F3
Market (world market, price history, trade orders)
F4
Construction (queue)
F5
Research tree (full-screen timeline)
F6
Military
F7
Diplomacy
F8
Ranking
F9
Research (compact list)
F10
Chronicle
K
Crises
Ctrl/⌘ + K
Search for nations, regions, provinces

Shortcuts do not apply inside input fields.

Economy panel with treasury, balance, debt, GDP and budget sliders above the map of Central Europe
The economy panel (F2): tax rate and budget categories, key figures above.

The “Why?” tooltip

Hover over a value in the status bar – treasury, balance, GDP, stability, research. The tooltip shows what the value is made of and nests the causes down to their source. If stability drops, you see for example whether taxes, unemployment, supply, a war or a diplomatic crisis is behind it.

This is the most important way to learn the game: instead of memorising rules, you ask a value why it is what it is.

Your first hour

  1. Survey the situation: overview (F1) and economy (F2). How large are balance and debt, which goods are missing from your stocks?
  2. Remove a bottleneck: if a factory shows a missing input as its limiting factor, a building that produces it often helps – or a trade order in the market (F3).
  3. Start research: in the research tree (F5) you plan a path with one click; the queue works through it.
  4. Let time run: speed 2 or 3 and watch the messages at the bottom left. Clicking a message jumps to the province.
  5. Save: via the status bar.
Good to know: a lot of administration already runs automatically – automatic trade keeps every good at a stock buffer, AI nations plan for themselves. Ministries that propose or carry out construction and modernisation are planned but not part of the current build yet.

Saving

Saves are stored locally in your browser (IndexedDB). You can export any save as a file (.sovsave) and import it again – for example to take it to another computer. Cloud saves with an account follow with multiplayer.

For experts: what runs in the background

The simulation runs as WebAssembly in a web worker, separate from the interface. Systems run at different rates: production, trade and construction daily, world market prices and trade routes weekly, budget closing, population, stability and AI monthly. That is why prices move week by week while treasury and balance change smoothly every day.

Derived from the specifications; measurements come from test runs of the prototype and are marked as such.