BORGIA
Letter from Rome · click to break the seal
🎲
FORTUNA CHANGES THE BOARD
Yesterday we had a plan.
Today we have a memory of a plan.
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SAN VERANO · city status
COUNCIL DECISIONevery option has a political cost
🦊 AleksandrinkoPhilosophy · Year 4
0 / 8 actsItaly, early 16th century
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MACHIAVELLI · POLITICAL DRAMA · SAN VERANO
A State on the Brink
No perfect rulers, no immaculate decisions, no safe history. Here politics is not an abstract debate about the ideal good, but the survival of a common political order amid war, factions, greed and Fortuna.
Your task is not to create a perfect society.
Your task is to keep it alive.
Your task is to keep it alive.
🇫🇷 France crosses the Alps
⛪ Rome plays worldly politics too
⚔️ Condottieri change employers
🦊 Alliances last only as long as interests align
PROLOGUE — THE ITALY THAT DOES NOT YET EXIST
Italy, early 16th century.
You can see Florence, Milan, Venice, Naples, the Papal States and dozens of smaller political centres on the map. But there is no single Italian state capable of protecting them all.
Today's ally may open the gates to the French army tomorrow. The pope is not merely a religious leader but a political player. Spanish, French and imperial forces see the peninsula as territory, money and influence.
In such a world, a political mistake is more than a bad decision: your city might cease to exist next year.
You have just become the chief adviser to the small republic of San Verano.
Your task is not to create a perfect society. Your task is to keep it alive.
🏛️ Factionsprivate interest or the common political order?
🛡️ Armswhose forces actually defend the state?
🦊 Virtùcan you adapt?
🎲 Fortunawhat if the world changes overnight?
⚖️ Morality and statethe same morality for private people and rulers?
Enter the Council of San Verano.
Every decision shifts six indicators. There is no easy good-or-evil button. You may strengthen the state but lose trust, protect freedom but let factions grow, act honourably but become predictably weak, or use harshness and breed hatred.
🏛️ State strength — can the common order act?
⚖️ Institutions and law — rules or the momentary will of the powerful?
🛡️ Military readiness — can the city defend itself without relying on others?
🤝 Civic loyalty — do citizens see the state as their own?
🦊 Virtù — the political capacity to adapt to changing circumstances.
🕸️ Private interests / factions — the higher this score, the more private interests displace the common order.
ACT I · SAN VERANO
👑 BOSS — ITALY IS BURNING
100 political tokens. More problems than resources.
ITALY IS BURNING.
1511.
France demands passage.
Spain offers protection — at a price.
Borgia's political project has collapsed.
A powerful family in your city negotiates secretly with a neighbour.
The treasury is empty.
Citizens demand lower taxes.
The harvest was poor.
Rumours suggest a new northern alliance.
Five reports lie on your desk.
Not one contains good news.
The treasurer says:
“We have enough resources to tackle perhaps three problems seriously.”
The general responds:
“Then choose which two you want to become catastrophes.”
You look out the window.
The square is full of people expecting their state to know what it is doing.
But the state has neither endless money nor endless troops nor endless time.
It has only your priorities.
🇫🇷 FRANCEdemands passage through your territory
🇪🇸 SPAINoffers protection — at a price
👑 GREAT FAMILYsecretly negotiates with a neighbour
🌾 POOR HARVESTcitizens demand lower taxes
SAN VERANO
100 TOKENS
100 TOKENS
Crisis council.
The question is not what matters. Everything matters. The question is what you will leave exposed for Fortuna to strike.
The question is not what matters. Everything matters. The question is what you will leave exposed for Fortuna to strike.
Allocate all 100 tokens. Military, citizens, economy, institutions and diplomacy determine the state's resilience when Fortuna strikes again.
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SAN VERANO · FINAL REPORT
The city still exists. But what kind of city?
Machiavelli asks not only whether the state survived, but how: with whose arms, what institutions, how much civic trust, and at what cost to individuals.
🏛️ Anatomy of your state
🦊 Your political style
⚖️ The individual and the common order
🎲 Virtù versus Fortuna
🗡️ Fear, morality and the limits of force
👑 BOSS — your priorities
📜 The path you took through San Verano
🦊 Machiavelli's verdict on your rule
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SAN VERANO · epilogue
What should you take away from this simulation?
- Machiavelli examined not an ideal state but one that might disappear at any moment.
- Virtù is not simply moral goodness, but the political capacity to respond to circumstances.
- You cannot fully control Fortuna; you can build an order better equipped to withstand her shocks.
- Excessive private power can tear apart the political community; an overreaching state can stifle the individual.
- Political realism is not arbitrary cruelty: power that breeds hatred may weaken itself in the long run.
PUBLIC DEMO · Results stay on this page only.