Name your nation and its first ruler. The Chronicle determines everything else — the landscape, the people, the culture they carry. Every game begins somewhere different. A volcanic archipelago. A fog-wreathed coast. A canyon land where water is power.

Each time you press the button, decades turn. Events unfold — wars begin and end, rulers die and are replaced, discoveries are made, disasters strike. Your eight stats shift quietly in the background. Stability. Legitimacy. Military. Culture. Watch them. They matter more than they seem.

Every so often, history pauses and asks what your nation does. There is rarely a right answer. The merciful choice and the ruthless choice both have costs. Sometimes you can choose to do nothing — but inaction is never free.

Rulers die. Their heirs may be worthy or disastrous. If stability crumbles and legitimacy fails, usurpers emerge. The dynasty may change entirely — but the nation endures, carrying all its history forward.

Most nations fall eventually. Conquest. Collapse. A dynasty that destroys itself from within. But tend your nation well across generations and something rare becomes possible — a golden age. A moment when everything your people built becomes something worth remembering.