Every consequence has a rule.

Turn order and economy

1. Each of 12 turns covers four invented years beginning in 2030. Commit one crisis response and two orders; reserve orders cost nothing. Funding and public backing must cover each purchase when it is made. Institutions have at most three levels.
2. Resolve in order: pay response; carry out orders left to right; pay total upkeep; apply every institution's recurring effects; apply regional drift; resolve the announced crisis; adjust constituency trust; collect income and backing. New institutions work immediately. Future income cannot fund this turn's orders.
3. If remaining funding cannot pay all upkeep, consume the remaining funds. Every institution works at half strength (each effect rounded to the nearest integer); Workers lose 5 trust, Builders 3 and Local councils 4. Institution levels are retained.
4. Each region loses 2 care and 2 resilience per turn; dependence rises by one per full 30 capacity. Dependence more than 20 above resilience costs 3 more care and 2 more resilience. Truth and voice both 60+ restore 2 care.
5. A crisis targets the region with the lowest relevant measure; ties choose Harbor, then Uplands, then Delta. Its damage multiplier is (12 + 3 per completed three turns + 4 if any constituency trust is below 25) / 12. Each relevant institution level prevents 20% damage (half under unpaid upkeep). Response plus institutional protection is capped at 90%.
6. After the crisis, Workers gain 2 trust if average care is 45+ (otherwise lose 4); Builders gain 2 if average capacity is 45+ (otherwise lose 3); Local councils gain 2 if average voice is 45+ (otherwise lose 4). Trust is bounded from 0 to 100.
7. Income is 26 plus one per full 10 average capacity, minus 3 per constituency with trust below 25, with a floor of 8. Backing is total trust divided by 30, rounded down, minus 2 per withdrawn constituency, with a floor of 1. Funding caps at 150; backing and regional measures cap at 100 and floor at 0.
8. A successful ending meets every selected world's goal at turn 12. The continuity score is the rounded average of the lowest regional care, resilience, truth and voice, average capacity, and 100 minus the highest dependence. It is a game score, not a moral verdict or real-world estimate.

The six regional measures

Each is an invented index from 0 to 100, not a real-world measurement.

capacity

Ability to produce useful goods and services.

care

How reliably essential services reach people.

resilience

Ability to keep services working through a shock.

truth

Ability to check the evidence behind a decision.

voice

Ability of the public to shape decisions.

dependence

Reliance on a network without a working alternative. Higher means more exposure.

Starting worlds and goals

Institutions and orders

Effects recur per institution level; emergency relief applies once. Every effect is rounded when applied, then bounded to 0–100. Constituency shifts below apply once per purchased order, in this order: Workers / Builders / Local councils.

Crisis responses

Crisis selection and damage

The default crisis index is (seed modulo 5 + turn index × 3) modulo 5. Check dependence first, then average resilience, for the priority rules below. Turn indexes begin at zero. Outages and floods target the lowest resilience, fabrications the lowest truth, displacement the lowest care, and ultimatums the lowest voice.

Endings, codes and replay

All goals met: A world that can stand. Otherwise, any region with care below 25 yields The people left behind; any region with resilience below 25 then yields Prosperity on a fault line; all remaining worlds yield A watch still unfinished. Provisional goals and score are visible throughout; a campaign finishes only at turn 12.

LWC2 codes carry an unsigned 32-bit seed, starting-world index, and three characters per turn: response index followed by the two base-36 order indexes. Zero is reserve; orders 1–18 enumerate the six projects in Harbor, Uplands and Delta. A four-character checksum detects transcription errors, not malicious tampering. Replays validate affordability and institution limits. Classic LW1 codes keep their original rules.

Opening another player's campaign does not save it as yours. Branching preserves earlier choices and creates your own path. The original and alternate worlds compare at the same turn. Browser-local progress and finished runs can be erased using the game’s forget control; the privacy page explains browser storage.