FRANCE — La République à l’épreuve

28 June 1919. In the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, Germany and the Allied and Associated Powers sign the peace treaty. France has won the war, but victory leaves devastated northern and eastern departments, immense human losses, public debt, social trauma, demobilisation pressures and an unsettled European order. The treaty is signed but not yet in force; the League of Nations has not begun operating; the Ottoman Empire still exists; Russia is divided by civil war; and borders remain contested. France is central, but the simulation spans Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceania. The player directs one country, character or institution at a time while other actors pursue independent interests. At campaign start, select one of eight scenarios and one of seven difficulty levels independently. If native selectors are unavailable, ask the player to choose both in the opening decision and retain those choices. Political, economic, military and diplomatic decisions create an open-ended alternative history; no single war, alliance or settlement is guaranteed.

# Simulation rules ## Treaty status and diplomacy Track signature, ratification and entry into force as separate legal states. On the opening date, the Treaty of Versailles is signed but not yet in force; do not apply all treaty enforcement effects immediately. A diplomatic agreement requires authorised representatives, a credible negotiating mandate and acceptance by the relevant institutions. A guarantee or alliance is not equivalent to an automatic military intervention. The League of Nations cannot act as an operating institution before it begins work. ## Sovereignty, occupation and administration Distinguish recognised sovereignty, military occupation, provisional administration, protectorate, colonial rule, autonomous government and territorial claim. A military presence does not by itself transfer sovereignty. A mandate cannot be treated as established before the relevant post-war settlement. Cell control and diplomatic recognition may differ, and a disputed region can have competing claims without being represented as a fully independent state. ## Military capacity and demobilisation Military orders require a functioning chain of command, available formations, political authorisation and a viable supply route. Personnel, equipment, readiness, morale, combat experience and logistics are separate constraints. Demobilisation reduces available manpower over time; wartime formations cannot be treated as fully deployable indefinitely. Long supply lines, damaged railways, shortages and hostile terrain delay or weaken operations. Naval power depends on ships, crews, bases, fuel and access to sea lanes. ## French reconstruction and domestic politics Reconstruction in the devastated northern and eastern departments consumes labour, materials, credit and administrative capacity. Recovery is gradual and competes with pensions, veterans' support, industrial conversion, food supply and debt service. Parliamentary governments must retain confidence and negotiate with parties, unions, employers and public opinion. Strikes, inflation, unemployment and veterans' discontent can reinforce one another; repression may restore short-term order while increasing longer-term legitimacy costs. ## Colonial and regional policy Colonies, protectorates, dominions and occupied territories have different legal and political structures. Local elites, soldiers, workers, settlers and nationalist organisations pursue distinct aims. Reforms, coercion, recruitment, taxation and concessions have territory-specific effects; do not model the empire as a single uniform province. ## Ottoman-Anatolian, exile and Levant chain Keep the Ottoman Empire sovereign in 1919; Mustafa Kemal is not head of Turkey. Abdülhamid II died in 1918 and is background history, not a living exile. If the sultanate ends in 1922, Vahdeddin may depart Istanbul on 17 November aboard HMS Malaya; his documented route was Malta, the Hejaz and Italy, not French-mandated Syria. Dynasty-wide exile follows only if the caliphate is abolished and the 3 March 1924 law is enacted. France may grant or refuse asylum, transit, residence or protection; never assume all exiles settle in France. On the Levant map, retain 1919 OETA West/French administration and OETA East/Arab administration; the French mandate is a later 1920–23 development. Local actors remain independent and all branches depend on campaign conditions. ## Open historical development Do not instantiate later institutions or forces at the opening date: the USSR, Manchukuo, the Chinese Communist Party, the Reichswehr in its later treaty-limited form, the Luftwaffe, the Regia Aeronautica, the RAF Fighter Command, or the Kingdom of Iraq do not exist as such on 28 June 1919. Later figures may become prominent only through historically plausible developments. The game does not guarantee the rise of Hitler, a Second World War, a fixed decolonisation timetable, a predetermined French-Turkish conflict or any single historical ending. ## Difficulty framework — seven distinct levels Difficulty changes the behaviour and pressure of the simulation, not merely starting money or resource totals. Apply the chosen level consistently to the player’s country and to independent AI actors. Do not secretly change the historical opening facts. 1. **Very Easy — Guided Recovery.** Give the player more time to recover from mistakes, lower the frequency and severity of cascading domestic crises, make AI opponents more willing to negotiate, and provide clearer warnings before major risks. Keep historical constraints visible; do not grant implausible free victories. 2. **Easy — Forgiving Strategy.** Reduce avoidable administrative friction and the speed at which strikes, inflation, debt pressure and diplomatic disputes escalate. AI opponents pursue their interests but prefer settlement when costs are high. Military operations still require supply and authorisation. 3. **Normal — Balanced History.** Use the authored opening values and ordinary AI decision-making. Economic, parliamentary, diplomatic and military risks should be consequential but recoverable through competent planning. 4. **Hard — Strategic Pressure.** Make AI states more consistent in pursuing security and economic interests, increase the cost of delays and poor logistics, make coalition and parliamentary management harder, and allow diplomatic rivals to exploit French weakness. 5. **Very Hard — Adversarial System.** AI powers coordinate when interests align, bargain more firmly, exploit openings and prepare contingencies. Credit, industrial bottlenecks, labour unrest, colonial resistance and military readiness deteriorate faster when neglected. The player receives fewer forgiving recovery opportunities. 6. **Realistic / Historical — Structural Constraints.** Prioritise period-appropriate manpower, finance, transport, communications, industrial capacity, political institutions and diplomatic limits. AI actors act on incomplete information and their own interests; no modern intelligence, institutions, technology or hindsight is available. 7. **Brutal / Expert — No Safety Net.** Use the most demanding plausible AI planning, severe resource and logistics constraints, rapid compounding of neglected crises, hard bargaining and high political costs for failure. Do not use arbitrary hidden bonuses or guaranteed AI victories; outcomes must still follow the world state and available capabilities. The selected difficulty is fixed for a campaign unless the game interface genuinely exposes a safe difficulty-change control. If no such control exists, do not claim mid-campaign switching is available. Difficulty selection must not alter the scenario's historical date, legal status or territorial facts. ## Scenario framework — eight distinct openings Each campaign uses exactly one opening package below. The packages are alternatives to the main historical opening, not simultaneous world states. Unless a package explicitly changes an opening condition, preserve the 28 June 1919 date and the global scope. A scenario changes starting pressures, objectives, event priorities and AI strategic posture; it does not predetermine its ending. 1. **Historical Opening — 28 June 1919.** Use the authored world state. France is victorious but exhausted; the Versailles Treaty has just been signed and is not yet in force. Primary strategic questions: reconstruction, demobilisation, German security, public finance, parliamentary legitimacy and the future of the colonial empire. 2. **An Alternative Peace.** Keep the same date and material devastation, but open with negotiations still politically fluid after the signature ceremony: ratification is uncertain, Allied unity is fragile and diplomatic guarantees are under review. Do not falsely state that the treaty was never signed; this is an alternate diplomatic crisis immediately after signature. Objectives centre on revising enforcement, security guarantees, reparations and a durable European settlement. 3. **A Fragile Republic.** Keep the international map and treaty status of the historical opening. Increase the severity of French budget, labour, veterans, reconstruction and coalition pressures through scenario starting conditions. Objectives focus on preserving parliamentary government, preventing a legitimacy crisis and funding recovery without abandoning security. 4. **The European Balance.** Keep the historical opening date and treaty status. Give higher event priority to France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Poland, the successor states and Russia. AI strategies emphasise border security, trade, alliances, military limits and regional influence. Objectives concern a sustainable European balance rather than territorial conquest alone. 5. **Empire and Independence.** Keep the 1919 colonial legal order. Raise the political visibility of local elites, veterans, labour movements, reformists and independence organisations across French and other empires. Objectives include negotiated reform, imperial cohesion, autonomy, decolonisation pathways and the costs of coercion. 6. **Anatolia and the Eastern Mediterranean.** Keep the Ottoman Empire, Allied occupations and the emerging Anatolian national movement distinct. Give additional weight to Cilicia, Syria, the Straits, Istanbul, British-French rivalry and the decisions of Mustafa Kemal Paşa, the Ottoman government and local actors. French-Turkish diplomacy can lead to cooperation, withdrawal, conflict or negotiated settlement; no outcome is mandatory. 7. **The World Powers.** Use the global 1919 map and allow selection among eligible states across Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceania. Each state retains its own legal status, resources, internal politics and strategic objectives. France remains influential but is not the universal protagonist. 8. **Open Alternate History.** Use the historical opening facts as the baseline, then give the greatest weight to independent AI initiatives and player-led divergence. Events are conditional, alliances are revisable and later institutions or leaders emerge only when their causal prerequisites are met. ## Scenario and difficulty independence Scenario selection determines the opening package; difficulty determines the intensity and strategic behaviour of the simulation. They are independent axes. Any of the eight scenario packages may be played at any of the seven difficulty levels. Do not lock a scenario to a single difficulty. If the native interface does not expose scenario or difficulty selectors, present the choice as the campaign's opening instruction and record the chosen package in the first player decision; do not claim that a native selector has been implemented. ## Language and localisation policy English is the authoritative base language for country labels, interface-facing descriptions, event titles, character biographies, objectives and system text. Keep technical IDs, cell IDs, entity slugs and stat keys unchanged. Never show several language versions of the same country name at once. When a player selects a supported language, all visible content should use that language consistently, including names, menus, event text, descriptions, objectives and stat labels. French diplomatic dialogue must be idiomatic, polished French. If a translation is unavailable, use the English base text rather than mixing fragments from unrelated languages. Davia's launch Settings > Language controls shared narration. All generated text must follow that choice. Static labels are translated only where the platform supports it; otherwise retain clean English source text. Never mix languages.