The biggest systems update since Ways of Power: society becomes the connective tissue of the whole simulation.
• Every nation has a population — the thirteen societal blocs now have real head-counts and shares unique to each country: India is a farmers' nation (507 million of them), America skews seniors and white-collar, Saudi Arabia is faith and barracks. The Interest Groups tab shows your society's full makeup.
• Approval is the people's verdict — your headline approval now tracks what the weighted population actually thinks. A bloc of 19% of your country drags harder than one of 3%. A new panel shows exactly who pulls you up and who drags you down.
• Cohesion is about polarization — a society where farmers despair while business booms frays even when the averages look fine.
• Elections run on bloc arithmetic — big friendly blocs win votes; the aftermath reconciles honestly with honeymoons and backlashes instead of arbitrary resets.
• Everything reaches society — inflation angers pensioners, wars rally then exhaust, laws jolt the groups they touch, and every decision card echoes through the blocs that would really care.
• The Lobbies — organized money arrives: each country's real power lobbies with war chests and concrete demands on deadlines. Deliver and investment flows; stonewall and face the ladder — capital pullback, media campaigns, opposition funding, capital flight. Autocrats play palace rules, including outright expropriation. Five new Lobbying & Influence laws let you cage the game — if your constitution allows it.
• AI nations have societies too — all 200 countries vote, trade, arm, and wobble under their own domestic pressures. Petroleum states fight climate resolutions; farm nations resist opening their markets; misgoverned societies visibly turn on their regimes.
• War logistics fixed — ammunition production finally supplies the front. Out-produce your war and you hold; embargoes, blockades, and distance still bite. The War Room shows your exact consumption-vs-production balance.
• Alerts now jump — aggrieved blocs and hostile lobbies light up the SOCIETY tab and carry a GO button straight to the action.