> Welcome, noble Sir. Today you tread upon the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth — a realm of szlachta (nobility), local diets, scythes ready over rye fields, taverns busy with merchants from Gdańsk, Vilnius, and Kraków. Your lands await prudent stewardship.

Betatests

We have opened beta tests of our Hive-based game. It is casual and turn-based, so it doesn't take a lot of your time to play. Below is a Player Guide, which will be updated as the game develops. To participate in the beta, take up the mission at beta.sarmatiamundi.org.

[IMAGE: https://api.sarmatiamundi.org/uploads/sarmatia.gov/1778103703637.webp]

What is Sarmacja Mundi?

Sarmacja Mundi is an economic-strategy game set in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Sarmatia) of the 16th–17th centuries. You play as a Polish nobleman who inherits or purchases a parcel on the historical map of Poland. Your task: manage your land wisely, direct the work of peasants, trade with other players, take part in the politics of the Crown — and along the way, earn cryptocurrency (HBD).

Every decision has consequences that last weeks. This isn't a play-in-one-session game — it's a long-term project where you build the legacy of your house.

Core rules at a glance

• 1 turn = 1 in-game month = 1 real-world day. Every night at 04:00 AM in winter (05:00 in summer), Polish time (03:00 UTC), the turn closes — production, taxes, income, and payouts are calculated.
• You have 10 Action Points (AP) per turn. AP decide how you spend your time: building, praying, trading, politicking, caring for peasants.
• 5 minutes before turn close a pulsing red banner appears on your screen — that's the signal to stop tinkering. Save what you have and wait for resolution.
• HBD is real cryptocurrency on the Hive blockchain — it actually moves to and from your account. But the UI displays coins of the Commonwealth: ducats, thalers, gold-coins (złote), groschen (grosze), and "boratynki" — the smallest denomination. It feels period-accurate and follows historical exchange rates.
• All random rolls are deterministic — peasant mortality, births, events, production dice — everything is computed from the Hive block hash captured at turn close. Any player can retrospectively verify that this particular peasant didn't die at the server's whim, but from a publicly recorded blockchain block.

Your parcel

A parcel is a piece of land on the historical map of Poland — your NFT on the Hive Engine blockchain. It might be a country estate, a market town, or a frontier fortress. You buy it either from the Chancellery (@sarmatia.app) or from another player who's listed theirs for sale.

Every parcel belongs to a voivodeship (a historical administrative region). This matters because:
- Voivodeship events (drought, harvest, Tatar raid) affect production for all parcels in that region.
- The Sejmik (regional diet) of your voivodeship elects deputies every 2 in-game years.
- Your neighbors are potential trading partners and political allies.

Villages

On your parcel you found villages — these are your operational units. Each village has its own resources, its own peasants, its own buildings. You may have several (limit depends on your Manor level: lvl 1 = 2 villages, lvl 2 = 3, etc.).

The first village (central) is granted free when you buy a parcel. Founding additional villages costs 2 HBD (Keychain transfer to @sarmatia.app).

Peasants — your workforce (a scarce resource!)

Peasants live in cottages. Each cottage houses up to 2 peasants. A peasant:
- Produces money — every day earns you 1 boratynka (0.001 HBD).
- Works in one of your production buildings (if assigned).

This isn't the 21st century. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, peasants were a scarce resource — famine, plague, raids, infant mortality. The game mechanics reflect that period:

Every turn: death (~7%) and (maybe) birth (50%)

After resource calculations per village, two rolls happen:

1. Mortality (always rolled):
- 7% chance that one peasant in the village dies (independent of anything).
- Negative events (Tatar raid, jesters' visit, etc.) add losses ON TOP of this roll.

2. Birth (only if conditions met):
- Full feeding (no resource shortages in the village after building consumption).
- Free cottage slot (i.e. cottage_count × 2 > current population).
- Baseline 50% chance of a new peasant.
- The Fertility prayer in the Church adds +20 percentage points (i.e. 70% chance).
- Event bonuses ("Pax Dei", "village festival") multiply further (capped at 95%).

Practical consequence: population growth needs active planning:
- Build enough cottages so there's room for new peasants.
- Keep resources non-zero in every village.
- Consider the Fertility prayer when starting a parcel from scratch or recovering from losses.

Without peasants, the parcel produces nothing and earns nothing. Look after them.

Resources

Three basic resources exist in the game:
- 🌾 Grain — from fields. Basic foodstuff.
- 🐄 Livestock — from pens. Cows, sheep, pigs.
- 🪵 Timber — from forests. Building material.

In the future, stone (needed to upgrade the Church past level 4), and other special materials will arrive.

Warehouse and resources outside the warehouse ⚠

Every building contributes its own storage capacity — there's no "free" space at the start. Each resource (grain, livestock, timber) has its own independent capacity per village:

Building Capacity contribution 🏚 Cottage +5 / each (cellar) 🏛 Manor +50 (regardless of lvl — manor treasury) 🌾 Field +10 × lvl 🐄 Pen +10 × lvl 🌲 Forest +10 × lvl 📦 Warehouse +25 × lvl × (lvl + 1) — progressive

Warehouse — increment per level:

Lvl Capacity Increase 1 50 — 3 300 +150 5 750 +250 7 1400 +350 10 2750 (+500/lvl)

What happens if you exceed capacity?

• Buying (foreign, Royal Market, barter) — the system stops you with a warning modal: "Warehouse full. The excess will go outside the warehouse, where it rapidly rots." You can knowingly confirm and buy, but you accept the risk.
• Producing (peasants working fields, pens, forests) — overflow always goes to "outside", even if you didn't want it.

How fast does it rot? Pace depends strongly on the season:
- ❄ Winter (Dec-Feb): 65% per turn — frost, damp, rodents in haystacks
- 🍂 Autumn (Sep-Nov): 45% — rains, wet harvest
- 🌷 Spring (Mar-May): 30% — snowmelt, but still cold
- ☀ Summer (Jun-Aug): 20% — dry, best storage conditions

Variance ±10pp from deterministic RNG (Hive block hash). Extremes: never below 10%, never above 85%/turn.

Strategic implication: winter is brutal — buying over capacity in Dec/Jan/Feb often loses 60-70% in the first turn. Summer is the good time to build reserves.

Auto-fill: at the start of each turn, if the warehouse frees up space (peasants ate the stock), excess automatically returns to the warehouse. So you can knowingly buy more than fits, if you plan that consumption will soon free space.

Player buildings

Each upgrade requires resources (sometimes HBD) and takes several turns of work.

Building What it is 🏚 Cottage A peasant's home. Each houses one peasant. 🏛 Manor (Dworek) Your seat. Higher level = more villages allowed + better dice rolls. 🌾 Field Produces grain. Seasonal (best spring-autumn). 🐄 Pen Produces livestock. Stable year-round. 🌲 Forest Produces timber. Reliable. 🔨 Workshop Boosts production of other buildings (artisans). 📦 Warehouse Increases village storage capacity. 🐎 Stable Required for caravans (transport between your villages ⛪ Church The pinnacle of piety. Allows prayers. Paid in HBD, burned (send to @null - the church, faith requires sacrifice).

A building can become ruined if you neglect your parcel (long inactivity). It then produces at only 25% of normal output, and you must spend resources to rebuild it.

Action Points — your time currency

You get 10 AP per turn. Everything you want to do costs AP. The most important uses:

• Production (1-10 AP) — more AP = bigger dice roll for yield. Your daily decision: how much to invest in current earnings vs. future growth.
• Building upgrades (1-10 AP per turn) — upgrade progress depends on AP. A full upgrade can take several turns.
• Prayers (1-10 AP) — progress toward activating a protective or blessing prayer.
• Trade (1-10 AP, limit 10 units/AP per resource) — both foreign merchants and the Royal Market.
• Caravans (1-10 AP) — moving resources between your villages.
• Politics (1-10 AP) — Sejmik / Sejm voting, edict progress (if you're sarmatia.gov), Academy research.

Unused AP expires at the turn close. No carry-over.

Trade — three channels

🌍 Foreign merchants (BUY / SELL)

These are NPCs always ready to trade, but at fixed prices:
- You sell grain at 0.001 HBD/unit, livestock at 0.002, timber at 0.003.
- You buy higher: grain 0.030, livestock 0.060, timber 0.090.

The Crown takes a customs duty (default 5%, adjustable by Sejm) on every transaction. The state-wide quota grows with the level of the Royal Market in the capital.

Payment: purchases — Keychain to @sarmatiapay. Sales — HBD lands on your Hive account automatically after the turn (or within ~30 min via the payout queue).

🏛 Royal Market — P2P trade with other players

You post an offer: "selling 50 grain at 0.020 HBD/unit." Other players can buy all or part.

• Buyer's payment: Keychain → @sarmatia.app (acts as escrow).
• Seller's payout: automatic, from the same account.
• Market tax (default 2%) goes to the Crown.

🔄 Barter — resource for resource, no money

You post batches: "2 timber ↔ 1 livestock × 10 batches." The taker decides how many batches to grab (1-10). No HBD, no tax. Ideal for quick exchange with a neighbor.

🐎 Caravans

Transport resources between your own villages or for longer operations. Requires a Stable. Travel time depends on distance (80 km/turn). Future feature: allied caravans with other players.

Taxes

Four kinds of tax affect your income:

Tax What it taxes Default rate Capitation (Pogłówny) per peasant per turn configurable Land-roll (Łanowy) by sum of building levels configurable Customs (Cło) by value of foreign trade 5% Market (Targowy) by value of P2P transactions 2% Quartersmen tax (Kwarciany) annual obligation (turn 1 of each year) configurable

Rates are set by the Crown through proposals brought to the Sejm — your vote as a deputy can modify or reject them.

Kwarciany — pay attention!

This is the only annual tax that's NOT auto-deducted. You must pay it yourself via Keychain to @sarmatia.gov, within the first 6 turns of the year (January–June).

• Don't pay by turn 6 → turn 7 → penalty −50 splendor, status "penalized".
• Still don't pay → January of the next year → seizure in resources (the Crown takes your grain/livestock/timber equivalent to the debt).
• No resources to seize → status "ruined" (parcel loses activity).

Be a loyal subject. Pay your kwarciany.

The Crown, Sejmiki, and Sejm

The capital is Warsaw — a parcel owned by @sarmatia.gov. The Crown Treasury collects taxes and fees.

Edicts

he Crown has 8 edicts at its disposal, unlocked progressively as the Palace is upgraded.
| Edict | Palace req. | Duration | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🌾 Production Support III| lvl 5 | 3 turns | +15% production + 5% peasant income |
| 🔨 Infrastructure Works III | lvl 5 | 3 turns | +15pt to build roll + 5% cheaper materials |
| ⚔ Levée en masse | lvl 5 | 3 turns | (placeholder — military module) |
| 🏛 Great Sejm (edict) | lvl 7 | 12 turns | −10% edict costs, −10% gov building costs, +10% production (cooldown 24 turns) |

Two stages to enact an edict:
1. Unlock — one-time HBD cost (Keychain → @sarmatia.app). Requires the appropriate Palace level. Once unlocked, the edict is available permanently (with an optional cooldown between activations).
2. Activation — HBD cost (Keychain → @sarmatia.app) + Crown Action Points (activationCostActions). Activation progress is rolled turn-by-turn with a dice roll (like construction). Once 100% is reached, the edict takes effect.

The edict stays in force for duration turns from activation, and its effect applies to all players in the realm.

Public Fundraising

When the Crown wants to upgrade a state building (Palace, Academy, Royal Market, etc.), it opens a public fundraiser. Every player can contribute via Keychain to @sarmatia.gov and receive splendor (10 per HBD, up to daily limit).

Sejmiki and Sejm

Every 2 in-game years (even year, January-March), Sejmik elections take place:
- Every citizen of the voivodeship (Manor lvl ≥ 1, active parcel) votes for one candidate.
- In April we tally votes; the strongest becomes a deputy for 24 in-game months.

Deputies vote in the Sejm on the Crown's tax proposals (Support / Oppose). With a 50% quorum:
- 100% in favor → proposal passes immediately (no Crown AP needed).
- 100% against → proposal rejected + blocked for several turns.
- Majority for/against → modifier to the Crown's dice roll.

This is your chance to influence state policy.

Academy — Technologies

The Crown conducts research along three paths:
- Infrastructure — building bonuses, ruin protection.
- Trade — higher foreign trade quotas, lower customs.
- Administration — more efficient taxation, additional AP.

Each level requires research (by the Crown, costs HBD and AP) and separately adoption by the player (Keychain to @sarmatia.app, fee scales with level). Only adopted technologies grant you their effects.

The Church and prayers

The Church is a special building paid in real HBD (burned on the blockchain to @null — it goes to no one). Each level has its own name: chapel, small church, parish church, collegiate, cathedral…

With a church on your parcel, you can conduct prayers:
- 🕊 Blessing — increases chance of positive local events (bumper crop, village festival…).
- 🛡 Protection — decreases chance of negative ones (drought, plague, jesters).
- 👶 Fertility — +20 percentage points to peasant birth chance per turn.

A prayer requires HBD to activate (also burned to null) + several turns of work (AP). Effect duration scales with Church level. Fertility is often the best choice early in a parcel's life, when you're fighting for your first 5–10 peasants.

State prayers

In the capital, the Crown has an even more powerful building — Church Holdings (Dobra Kościelne). There, the Crown activates voivodeship-wide or global prayers that affect the GLOBAL event roll for the entire state.

Activity and ruin

Don't leave your parcel lifeless. If you take no action for many turns (default 12):
1. Parcel enters status ruina — buildings drop to 25% efficiency.
2. Cottages in ruin give zero peasant income.
3. You must spend resources to rebuild each ruined building.

Every saved action, every "build" or "trade" click refreshes your activity. Logging in every few days is enough.

Money and the coins of the Commonwealth

Under the hood, everything is calculated in HBD, but the UI shows authentic period coins:

Coin Value 1 ducat (dukat) 3 thalers = 18 złote = 540 grosze = 1 HBD (game convention) 1 thaler (talar) 6 złote = 180 grosze 1 gold-coin (złoty) 30 grosze = 90 boratynki 1 groschen (grosz) 3 boratynki 1 boratynka 0.001 HBD — the smallest denomination

Coin stacks appear on your character card, wallet, and prices. Click a stack — see the detailed breakdown.

Splendor — your house's prestige

In Sarmatian culture, splendor is everything visible: knightly and political deeds, wealth of lands and residence, generosity toward the Crown, good name among neighbors. It's the measure of your house's prestige in the Commonwealth.

Earning splendor

• +10 splendor / 1 HBD contributed to a Crown fundraiser (up to daily limit)
• +50 splendor for being elected as a Sejmik deputy
• Missions (published by players and by the Crown) — varying amounts by difficulty
• Medals for economic, religious, and political achievements (see below)
• Annual rankings — top 5 in 3 categories (serfs, buildings, production) at the end of December: 80/60/40/20/10 splendor

🎖 Medals — gallery of achievements

Each medal is a one-time badge in your house's career, granting bonus splendor. In the medal gallery (tab Character → 🏅 Medals) you can filter medals by group:

• 🏛 Economic — economic, political, and religious deeds (list below)
• 📜 Chronicler — coming soon — contributions to the map and history of the Commonwealth (map pins, articles about history, popularity of those articles)

🏛 Economic

Serfs (settling the estate):
- First Manor (50 serfs) — +25
- Village Lord (100) — +50
- Great Lord (200) — +100
- Magnate (500) — +200

Manor:
- Stone Manor (lvl 3) — +25
- Mansion (lvl 5) — +75
- Noble Residence (lvl 7) — +150

Church (rising splendor — faith is an investment!):
- Chapel (lvl 1) — +20 · Small Church (lvl 2) — +40 · Parish Church (lvl 3) — +80 · Collegiate (lvl 4) — +150 · Cathedral (lvl 5) — +250 · Grand Cathedral (lvl 6) — +400 · Basilica (lvl 7) — +600

Politics:
- First-time Deputy — +50
- Three-time Deputy — +100

Villages:
- Lord of Three Villages — +50
- Lord of Five Villages — +100

Disasters (negative splendor):
- Dishonor — first estate ruin: −25

Your medal gallery is shown on your player profile, where unearned medals are also displayed (dimmed) as goals to pursue. All medals + total splendor are recorded on the Hive blockchain (in a special registry post) — your legacy is permanent and independent of the portal.

Losing splendor (dishonor)

• −50 splendor for unpaid kwarciany (status "penalized")
• −10 splendor for every Sejm law you skipped as a deputy (dereliction of duty)
• −5 splendor for skipping a Sejmik election (when you're a citizen of the voivodeship with an active Manor)
• ... Infamy imposed by the courts it can take-s various amount of your splendor.

Why splendor matters

Splendor is the foundation of the future free election — when the Crown loses legitimacy or the King dies, the top 10 magnates by splendor may run for new King. And soon more bonuses.

Negative splendor → loss of civic rights-*: no access to the civic tab, Sejm, fundraisers.

How to get started?

1. Set up a Hive account (if you don't have one) — e.g. via our app. Install the Hive Keychain browser extension — your wallet plus the way to authorize transactions.
2. Log in to the Sarmacja Mundi portal — you use your Hive account.
3. Buy a parcel from the Chancellery (@sarmatia.app) or from another player. Each costs a specific amount of HBD. You automatically receive a free starting village (central) with a built Manor.
4. Start playing turn by turn — check in daily, plan AP, watch the reports.
5. Eventually upgrade the Manor — each level allows founding one more village (2 HBD to the Chancellery per new village).

The first weeks are calm; then the climate deepens: Sejmiki, the Sejm, compromises with neighbors, loyalty to the Crown, prayers in hard times.

What's next?

Upcoming phases (after the initial player tests):

• Free election — citizens vote on a new King (top 10 by Splendor).
• Towns and guilds — urban classes, mining concessions, new resources (stone, metals, cloth, weapons).
• Battle module — barracks, troops, battles, alliances, sieges.
• International trade — real exchange of goods with other states mediated by @sarmatiapay. Then this trading channel will mediate between games rather than generating resources "from thin air."
• many more

Thank you for joining at the start of this journey — your feedback and decisions will shape Sarmacja in its earliest form.

Da Bóg szczęścia, Waszmość! — May God grant fortune, noble Sir!