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Countries

Lawmaker has multiple fictional countries, each a self-contained political simulation: laws, elections, and the economy play out separately in each, so, treaties aside, what happens in one country doesn't change another. The simulations stay separate, but players don't have to — parties connect across borders through international blocs and cross-country messaging, and countries themselves can bind their laws together, or embargo one another, through international treaties. Choosing a country is really choosing a community to join.

What countries share, and what makes each unique

Every country uses the same political issues, laws catalogue, rules, and proportional electoral system. What differs from country to country:

  • Population and legislatures — the scale and structure of politics.
  • Cabinet and constitutional offices — unique government roles, and sometimes special institutions like a monarchy.
  • Permanent national moods — a baked-in cultural character that tilts how voters weigh issues.
  • Community and history — each country grows its own meta-game, traditions, and legislative record.

Available countries

Country Character
Avalon The flagship: a large Westminster-style constitutional monarchy (65m people, 650 seats), with the most established community.
Marianne A French-inspired republic.
Columbia An American-inspired presidential system.
Rheinland A German-inspired federal democracy.

Choosing a country

If you're new, Avalon is the safest start — it's the most active and established. Otherwise, look for a country with an engaged community and a gap in its political spectrum you could fill. Before committing, check who's already playing, recent elections, and the current laws, then build a party that occupies space no one else does. A unique, well-placed party is far more impactful than a copy of an existing one.

Each country only has room for so many parties at once (see Quick Reference) — one showing Country full won't let you found a new party there until an existing one disbands, so have a second choice in mind.

Private countries

Some countries are private, invite-only games run by supporters for a closed community. They're marked with a padlock, and joining one needs an invite code (a share link or a code you enter) from the country owner. Creating a private country is a supporter-only feature.

The owner of a private country can open it to everyone from the country page ("Make public"). Doing so removes the padlock, deletes the invite code, and lets any player create a party there. This is one-way — a country that has been made public cannot be made private again, because parties that join while it is public cannot be removed. Everything else is untouched: the owner stays the owner, and existing parties, laws, elections and historical events carry on as before.

Because nobody can join a private country without a code, one with no parties in it is unreachable rather than merely quiet. So a private country that has no parties at all for 3 real-life days sends its owner a warning email, and one that is still empty after 7 real-life days is deleted. Founding a party there — or getting someone else to — resets the clock immediately, and a country whose only player is on the throne does not count as empty. Public countries are never deleted this way — so making an empty private country public is also a way to stop its clock, at the cost of the invite code.

Proposing a new country

Supporters can always propose a public country; other players need an account at least 30 days old, and everyone is limited to one active proposal at a time — a rejected proposal doesn't count against the limit, so you're free to try again with a fresh idea once one is resolved.

Proposals are temporarily supporters-only

While the team works through a moderation backlog, submitting a new proposal is temporarily limited to supporters, regardless of account age. This is a temporary measure, not a permanent rule, and it doesn't affect anyone's ability to browse and upvote existing proposals in the meantime.

From the countries list you define the country's name, population, system type, legislatures, cabinet positions, constitutional offices, and permanent national moods (and optionally a flag). Before you can submit, you must confirm you've read the acceptance criteria below, write a rationale for creation (minimum 100 characters) making the case for why the country is worth adding, and add at least three historical events — each with a year and a headline — to give the country an opening backstory.

What makes a good country proposal

Most proposals are not accepted. A small number of countries are approved — the ones that offer genuinely interesting and distinctive gameplay — and submissions are held to a high bar:

  • Care and attention. Spelling, punctuation and grammar are part of the review; a proposal with typos will be sent back or declined.
  • Fictional countries only. No real countries or thinly veiled stand-ins — you can reference a continent or broad geography ("a mountainous state on a northern coastline"), but not specific countries or named neighbours.
  • Keep the description to 1–2 paragraphs. Set a scene — don't recount the nation's whole history (that emerges later through lore events) or describe the form of government (the game handles that).
  • English only. All submissions must be written in English.
  • Be sparing with cabinet positions. Large cabinets are hard to fill and stall gameplay; 6–10 positions usually works well.
  • The game does not simulate race or religion. Don't build your concept around them.
  • Tell us why it's interesting. Your rationale should make the case for a distinctive economic situation, an unusual political fault line, or another fresh gameplay angle.

Review and the "changes requested" loop

Proposals go through staff moderation before reaching community upvoting. Reviewing a proposal, a moderator can:

  • Accept it, sending it to community upvoting.
  • Reject it outright, with a reason.
  • Request changes — leaving a comment on a specific problem instead of rejecting outright. Your proposal moves into a changes requested state; you edit it to address the comment, then mark it ready for review to put it back in the moderation queue. You'll get an email whenever a moderator comments on your draft, and the back-and-forth is visible as a comment thread on the proposal's own page.

Once accepted, a proposal moves to community upvoting, with the most popular and well-built proposals prioritised for launch. You can track your own proposals and their status, and browse and upvote others', on the countries list.

When a proposed country goes live, it begins with a year-long founding Constitutional Convention: constitutional packages are capped at 75 PP and there's no cooldown between them, so the first parties can reshape the constitution you proposed before it settles down.

Country pages

Each country has overview pages bringing together its current laws and legislative history, active parties and seat distribution, the current government, the election schedule, recent activity, any Crown status, and active national moods. Two extras give a country depth:

  • Historical events — major lore moments from the country's past (its founding, a revolution, a war), added by the country owner or proposed by any player for approval. These are for lore not already captured by the game's own records of elections and legislation.
  • National flag — every country can have one. When a country has none, any player can start a 48-day flag-suggestion process where the community uploads and upvotes designs, and the most-upvoted flag wins.

Historical events

Historical events are major, one-off moments in a country's life story that give it depth and character. Good examples include:

  • The founding or independence of the country
  • A constitutional revolution or regime change
  • A major war, invasion, or peace treaty
  • A significant natural disaster or national crisis
  • The discovery of a valuable resource
  • A landmark social or cultural turning point

Don't duplicate what's already recorded

Events that are already tracked elsewhere in the game — such as constitutional changes, elections, and passed legislation — should not be entered as historical events. Use the historical events section for lore that isn't captured by those systems.

Adding a historical event

Each event records a year (AD), a short headline, and an optional longer description that is hidden until a player clicks to expand it.

One event per year

Only one historical event can exist per year in a country. If a year is already taken, you will see a warning as you type.

Who can add events:

User type Action
Country owner or admin Add event — published immediately
Any other logged-in player Propose event — saved as a draft pending approval

Proposed events are shown in a dashed style and marked "Pending approval". Only the submitting player, the country owner, and admins can see them until approved.

Historical events on proposed countries

A country proposal must be submitted with at least three historical events already filled in — the proposal form has a dedicated Historical Events section for this, pre-filled with three blank rows. These publish immediately as part of the proposal; they aren't held for approval the way another player's suggestion would be. While the draft is still a proposal, its proposer (and admins) can keep adding events directly from the proposal page — right up until a moderator accepts it for community voting. If a moderator requests changes, the draft must still have at least three published events before it can be resubmitted, and the proposer can't delete an event that would take it below that minimum while it's awaiting review (admins can). Once the proposal is up for votes, its history is locked: no events can be added, changed or removed. The timeline stays visible to voters, and normal historical-event rules resume once the country goes live.

Approving and managing proposed events

Country owners and admins see an Approve button on each pending event, and a Reject & delete button to discard a proposal that doesn't fit the country's lore. They can also Delete an already-published event from their country's record.

Email notification for country owners

If you proposed the country (you are its owner), you will receive an email notification whenever a player submits a lore event proposal that is awaiting your approval — for any of your countries, public or private. The email includes the event year, headline, and description, along with a direct link to your country page where you can review and approve it. You can manage this notification in your email preferences.

The world map

Some countries are placed on a continent and shown together on an interactive world map, hosted outside the game itself. A country that's been placed shows a Continent card on its page, with a view map link and a list of its neighbours on that continent. You can also jump straight to the map at any time from the main menu, under World → Map.

On the map, each country is sized by its population, and clicking one opens a card with its flag, name and population, plus a link straight back into the game to view the country or join it.

Next steps