Labs / History
The Dynastic Cycle
Good harvests swell the population and fill the treasury, funding order and earning the Mandate of Heaven — until overcrowding, corruption, and disaster erode it toward rebellion and reset. Nudge the tax, corruption, and disaster sliders and watch the coupled curves push your empire through founding, golden age, decline, and collapse. Drag across the chart to inspect any year of the record.
Pop 13.0 MTreasury 28Mandate 64%Turning pt stable
What to try
- With low taxes and little corruption, can a single dynasty hold the Mandate for centuries — or does something always break the calm?
- Crank taxes past 30%. The treasury swells at first, so why does the Mandate start falling anyway?
- Set corruption high but taxes low. Where does all the harvest go, and why can't the state pay for order?
- Push disasters to the maximum. Do collapses come faster — and does the population ever recover between them?
- Right after a rebellion the population is tiny but the Mandate rebounds. What is it about an empty, well-fed land that founds a golden age?