Welcome, noble Sir. Today you tread upon the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth — a realm of szlachta (nobility), local diets, scythes ready over rye fields, taverns busy with merchants from Gdańsk, Vilnius, and Kraków. Your lands await prudent stewardship.
We have opened beta tests of our Hive-based game. It is casual and turn-based, so it doesn't take a lot of your time to play. Below is a Player Guide, which will be updated as the game develops. To participate in the beta, take up the mission at beta.sarmatiamundi.org.
Sarmacja Mundi is an economic-strategy game set in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Sarmatia) of the 16th–17th centuries. You play as a Polish nobleman who inherits or purchases a parcel on the historical map of Poland. Your task: manage your land wisely, direct the work of peasants, trade with other players, take part in the politics of the Crown — and along the way, earn cryptocurrency (HBD).
Every decision has consequences that last weeks. This isn't a play-in-one-session game — it's a long-term project where you build the legacy of your house.
A parcel is a piece of land on the historical map of Poland — your NFT on the Hive Engine blockchain. It might be a country estate, a market town, or a frontier fortress. You buy it either from the Chancellery (@sarmatia.app) or from another player who's listed theirs for sale.
Every parcel belongs to a voivodeship (a historical administrative region). This matters because:
On your parcel you found villages — these are your operational units. Each village has its own resources, its own peasants, its own buildings. You may have several (limit depends on your Manor level: lvl 1 = 2 villages, lvl 2 = 3, etc.).
The first village (central) is granted free when you buy a parcel. Founding additional villages costs 2 HBD (Keychain transfer to @sarmatia.app).
Peasants live in cottages. Each cottage houses up to 2 peasants. A peasant:
This isn't the 21st century. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, peasants were a scarce resource — famine, plague, raids, infant mortality. The game mechanics reflect that period:
After resource calculations per village, two rolls happen:
1. Mortality (always rolled):
2. Birth (only if conditions met):
cottage_count × 2 > current population).Practical consequence: population growth needs active planning:
Without peasants, the parcel produces nothing and earns nothing. Look after them.
Three basic resources exist in the game:
In the future, stone (needed to upgrade the Church past level 4), and other special materials will arrive.
Every building contributes its own storage capacity — there's no "free" space at the start. Each resource (grain, livestock, timber) has its own independent capacity per village:
| Building | Capacity contribution |
|---|---|
| 🏚 Cottage | +5 / each (cellar) |
| 🏛 Manor | +50 (regardless of lvl — manor treasury) |
| 🌾 Field | +10 × lvl |
| 🐄 Pen | +10 × lvl |
| 🌲 Forest | +10 × lvl |
| 📦 Warehouse | +25 × lvl × (lvl + 1) — progressive |
Warehouse — increment per level:
| Lvl | Capacity | Increase |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 50 | — |
| 3 | 300 | +150 |
| 5 | 750 | +250 |
| 7 | 1400 | +350 |
| 10 | 2750 | (+500/lvl) |
What happens if you exceed capacity?
How fast does it rot? Pace depends strongly on the season:
Variance ±10pp from deterministic RNG (Hive block hash). Extremes: never below 10%, never above 85%/turn.
Strategic implication: winter is brutal — buying over capacity in Dec/Jan/Feb often loses 60-70% in the first turn. Summer is the good time to build reserves.
Auto-fill: at the start of each turn, if the warehouse frees up space (peasants ate the stock), excess automatically returns to the warehouse. So you can knowingly buy more than fits, if you plan that consumption will soon free space.
Each upgrade requires resources (sometimes HBD) and takes several turns of work.
| Building | What it is |
|---|---|
| 🏚 Cottage | A peasant's home. Each houses one peasant. |
| 🏛 Manor (Dworek) | Your seat. Higher level = more villages allowed + better dice rolls. |
| 🌾 Field | Produces grain. Seasonal (best spring-autumn). |
| 🐄 Pen | Produces livestock. Stable year-round. |
| 🌲 Forest | Produces timber. Reliable. |
| 🔨 Workshop | Boosts production of other buildings (artisans). |
| 📦 Warehouse | Increases village storage capacity. |
| 🐎 Stable | Required for caravans (transport between your villages |
| ⛪ Church | The pinnacle of piety. Allows prayers. Paid in HBD, burned (send to  @null - the church, faith requires sacrifice). |
A building can become ruined if you neglect your parcel (long inactivity). It then produces at only 25% of normal output, and you must spend resources to rebuild it.
You get 10 AP per turn. Everything you want to do costs AP. The most important uses:
Unused AP expires at the turn close. No carry-over.
These are NPCs always ready to trade, but at fixed prices:
The Crown takes a customs duty (default 5%, adjustable by Sejm) on every transaction. The state-wide quota grows with the level of the Royal Market in the capital.
Payment: purchases — Keychain to @sarmatiapay. Sales — HBD lands on your Hive account automatically after the turn (or within ~30 min via the payout queue).
You post an offer: "selling 50 grain at 0.020 HBD/unit." Other players can buy all or part.
@sarmatia.app (acts as escrow).You post batches: "2 timber ↔ 1 livestock × 10 batches." The taker decides how many batches to grab (1-10). No HBD, no tax. Ideal for quick exchange with a neighbor.
Transport resources between your own villages or for longer operations. Requires a Stable. Travel time depends on distance (80 km/turn). Future feature: allied caravans with other players.
Four kinds of tax affect your income:
| Tax | What it taxes | Default rate |
|---|---|---|
| Capitation (Pogłówny) | per peasant per turn | configurable |
| Land-roll (Łanowy) | by sum of building levels | configurable |
| Customs (Cło) | by value of foreign trade | 5% |
| Market (Targowy) | by value of P2P transactions | 2% |
| Quartersmen tax (Kwarciany) | annual obligation (turn 1 of each year) | configurable |
Rates are set by the Crown through proposals brought to the Sejm — your vote as a deputy can modify or reject them.
This is the only annual tax that's NOT auto-deducted. You must pay it yourself via Keychain to @sarmatia.gov, within the first 6 turns of the year (January–June).
Be a loyal subject. Pay your kwarciany.
The capital is Warsaw — a parcel owned by @sarmatia.gov. The Crown Treasury collects taxes and fees.
he Crown has 8 edicts at its disposal, unlocked progressively as the Palace is upgraded.
| Edict | Palace req. | Duration | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🌾 Production Support III | lvl 5 | 3 turns | +15% production + 5% peasant income |
| 🔨 Infrastructure Works III | lvl 5 | 3 turns | +15pt to build roll + 5% cheaper materials |
| ⚔ Levée en masse | lvl 5 | 3 turns | (placeholder — military module) |
| 🏛 Great Sejm (edict) | lvl 7 | 12 turns | −10% edict costs, −10% gov building costs, +10% production (cooldown 24 turns) |
Two stages to enact an edict:
@sarmatia.app). Requires the appropriate Palace level. Once unlocked, the edict is available permanently (with an optional cooldown between activations).@sarmatia.app) + Crown Action Points (activationCostActions). Activation progress is rolled turn-by-turn with a dice roll (like construction). Once 100% is reached, the edict takes effect.The edict stays in force for duration turns from activation, and its effect applies to all players in the realm.
When the Crown wants to upgrade a state building (Palace, Academy, Royal Market, etc.), it opens a public fundraiser. Every player can contribute via Keychain to @sarmatia.gov and receive splendor (10 per HBD, up to daily limit).
Every 2 in-game years (even year, January-March), Sejmik elections take place:
Deputies vote in the Sejm on the Crown's tax proposals (Support / Oppose). With a 50% quorum:
This is your chance to influence state policy.
The Crown conducts research along three paths:
Each level requires research (by the Crown, costs HBD and AP) and separately adoption by the player (Keychain to @sarmatia.app, fee scales with level). Only adopted technologies grant you their effects.
The Church is a special building paid in real HBD (burned on the blockchain to @null — it goes to no one). Each level has its own name: chapel, small church, parish church, collegiate, cathedral…
With a church on your parcel, you can conduct prayers:
A prayer requires HBD to activate (also burned to null) + several turns of work (AP). Effect duration scales with Church level. Fertility is often the best choice early in a parcel's life, when you're fighting for your first 5–10 peasants.
In the capital, the Crown has an even more powerful building — Church Holdings (Dobra Kościelne). There, the Crown activates voivodeship-wide or global prayers that affect the GLOBAL event roll for the entire state.
Don't leave your parcel lifeless. If you take no action for many turns (default 12):
ruina — buildings drop to 25% efficiency.Every saved action, every "build" or "trade" click refreshes your activity. Logging in every few days is enough.
Under the hood, everything is calculated in HBD, but the UI shows authentic period coins:
| Coin | Value |
|---|---|
| 1 ducat (dukat) | 3 thalers = 18 złote = 540 grosze = 1 HBD (game convention) |
| 1 thaler (talar) | 6 złote = 180 grosze |
| 1 gold-coin (złoty) | 30 grosze = 90 boratynki |
| 1 groschen (grosz) | 3 boratynki |
| 1 boratynka | 0.001 HBD — the smallest denomination |
Coin stacks appear on your character card, wallet, and prices. Click a stack — see the detailed breakdown.
In Sarmatian culture, splendor is everything visible: knightly and political deeds, wealth of lands and residence, generosity toward the Crown, good name among neighbors. It's the measure of your house's prestige in the Commonwealth.
Each medal is a one-time badge in your house's career, granting bonus splendor. In the medal gallery (tab Character → 🏅 Medals) you can filter medals by group:
Serfs (settling the estate):
Manor:
Church (rising splendor — faith is an investment!):
Politics:
Villages:
Disasters (negative splendor):
Your medal gallery is shown on your player profile, where unearned medals are also displayed (dimmed) as goals to pursue. All medals + total splendor are recorded on the Hive blockchain (in a special registry post) — your legacy is permanent and independent of the portal.
Splendor is the foundation of the future free election — when the Crown loses legitimacy or the King dies, the top 10 magnates by splendor may run for new King. And soon more bonuses.
Negative splendor → loss of civic rights-*: no access to the civic tab, Sejm, fundraisers.
@sarmatia.app) or from another player. Each costs a specific amount of HBD. You automatically receive a free starting village (central) with a built Manor.The first weeks are calm; then the climate deepens: Sejmiki, the Sejm, compromises with neighbors, loyalty to the Crown, prayers in hard times.
Upcoming phases (after the initial player tests):
@sarmatiapay. Then this trading channel will mediate between games rather than generating resources "from thin air."Thank you for joining at the start of this journey — your feedback and decisions will shape Sarmacja in its earliest form.
Da Bóg szczęścia, Waszmość! — May God grant fortune, noble Sir!