Curves as the model actually draws them, saving finished games, UI scaling

The curves now match the model

The main fix of this update. The Phillips curve was drawn as a STRAIGHT LINE, while the engine bends it on both sides — and both nonlinearities are active in an ordinary game, not in some special mode:

• upward — the convexity of tight capacity: 4 pp of overheating DOUBLES the slope;
• downward — downward wage rigidity (DNWR): inflation does not fall linearly but is squeezed asymptotically, because nominal wages do not go down.

Measured slope across the range: 1.50 at +4 pp of overheating against 0.14 in deep deflation — a tenfold difference. A straight line with a constant slope was lying in exactly the places you look at a Phillips curve for.

It turned out this picture existed twice in the game: the main-screen diagram and the "Statics" cells (also used for scenario previews and the map overlay) were computed from separately written formulas. Both now share one source, and any drift from the engine is caught by a test.

An audit of all twelve textbook diagrams

Since one picture lied, we checked every one. Five disagreed with the model:

• The Beveridge curve — its own formula instead of the engine's matching function. At the rest point it showed 0.68% vacancies where the engine gives 2.79% — four times off.
• The Lorenz curve — a smooth arc instead of the three-tier polyline. The Gini coefficient matched, but the hollowing of the middle — the very thing the decomposition exists for — was invisible.
• Debt dynamics Δb × b — a straight line instead of a kinked one. It hid the main point: past the sovereign-premium threshold the interest rate rises TOGETHER with debt, and a second equilibrium appears — the one past which debt cannot be brought back. The threshold is now drawn and both points marked.
• Solow and the growth map — capital depreciation was left over from an old calibration and showed a steady-state capital stock half the engine's.

The formulas printed under the diagrams were rewritten too: they contradicted their own pictures.

Saving finished games

From a player report. A finished game could not be saved — and this turned out to be four bugs, not one:

• the results screen had no save button;
• Esc did not open the pause menu once the game had ended, and the pause menu is the only door to the save slots;
• switching language or window mode did not autosave a finished game: a completed century was lost silently;
• and if you did get such a save, it opened onto a frozen board with no explanation.

The button now sits on the results screen, pause works after the game ends, the autosave fires before a reload, and a loaded finished game opens with its results screen.

UI scaling

Requested on the forum: everything was too small on 4K. Ctrl + and Ctrl − change the scale on the fly, Ctrl 0 returns to 100%, and the same control is in the settings. Everything scales together — fonts, the map, charts and diagrams — because this is zoom, not font size.

The PC·MR diagram on the main screen

The third overview chart at the bottom right now shows PC·MR: your economy as a POINT on gap × inflation axes, with a trail of where it came from. The small "▼" in the corner switches the window to IS, WS-PS, the debt phase diagram, or the old country ranking — which has not gone anywhere.

The brief tutorial

Reworked so that the player makes real decisions:

• the game starts with inflation above target, so raising the rate is now NECESSARY rather than "press this because we asked". Previously the lesson started in equilibrium, and the player's very first action damaged a healthy economy;
• a second exercise was added: cut the rate so the dot lands on the MR line instead of punching through it;
• and it explains what all of it is for: you aim at MR, but you cannot land there in one quarter — the rate works with a lag, so the job is to shrink the distance to the line turn after turn.

Spheres of influence

From a player report: a small country was vassalizing a large one. Debt bondage did not check sizes at all, and its threshold was tied to quarterly GDP. The threshold now depends on the size ratio and is expressed in annual GDP: bonding an economy larger than yours is still possible, but it has become an event rather than a routine. Measured over three centuries: cases of "creditor smaller than victim" went from 1 to 0.

"Statics"

Labels on the diagrams no longer collide — they are placed by a layout pass that knows what has already been drawn. Curves leaving the frame now break off instead of running along the edge: that used to read as "the model flattens out here" while meaning the exact opposite.

Demo

• task cards removed;
• the starting country can only be one of the four the demo actually simulates — previously you could pick a country that does not exist in the game world.

Smaller things

• the formulas in the detailed tutorial are typeset the same way as in "Calculations";
• each campaign chapter now has its own grading bar instead of a shared era-wide one;
• achievements are awarded only with task cards enabled ("Medium" or higher).