Extraction Contracts

An extraction contract grants a named corporation an exclusive share of a state's resource capacity for a specific resource. Contracts are the primary tool legislators use to direct natural resource extraction — and they have direct consequences for commodity supply, prices, and who benefits from a state's sovereign wealth.

What a Contract Does

A contract reserves a fraction (its share) of a state's total extraction capacity for one corporation. That corporation's extraction sectors in that state are guaranteed access to their allocated portion and cannot be squeezed out by competing sectors.

For example: if Texas has 450,000 bbl/turn of oil capacity and a contract grants 50% (0.5 share) to Lone Star Energy Corp, that corporation can extract up to 225,000 bbl/turn regardless of how many other extraction sectors are operating in Texas.

The remaining 50% is the open-access pool — available to all uncontracted extraction sectors in the state, allocated proportionally if demand exceeds the pool.

Contract Fields

Each contract records:

A contract covers exactly one state and one resource. A corporation operating in multiple states, or extracting multiple resources, needs a separate contract for each combination.

Who Can Grant Contracts

Contracts are granted by legislature administrators — state officials can grant contracts at the state level; national officials can grant contracts at the national level. There is no player-driven bidding process: extraction contracts are granted directly through the UI to qualifying corporations.

Navigate to a state's Resources tab (/country/[code]/region/[id]?tab=resources) or the national Congress Contracts tab (/country/[code]/congress?tab=contracts) to see current contracts and grant new ones.

Granting a Contract

1. Navigate to the Resources tab for the target state, or the Congress Contracts tab for the country.
2. Select the corporation, resource, and share percentage.
3. Confirm the grant. If the existing contracts for that resource already total 100% or more, the system warns that the state would be over-allocated. You must confirm a second time to proceed.

The contract takes effect on the next turn's commodity price calculation.

Over-Allocation

Contracts can collectively exceed 100% of a state's capacity. When this happens:

• Each contract holder is still capped to their contracted share — but if a holder's actual extraction output is below their cap, they operate at full output (the cap is a ceiling, not a floor).
• The open-access pool collapses to zero. Any uncontracted extraction sector in that state produces nothing for the over-allocated resource.

Over-allocation is a deliberate legislative choice — it shuts out smaller, uncontracted operators entirely. The grant modal displays a warning and requires explicit confirmation before inserting an over-allocating contract.

Revoking a Contract

Contracts are revoked by setting a revokedTurn timestamp — they are never deleted. This preserves historical records.

Once revoked, the contract is excluded from all capacity calculations starting the following turn. The corporation's extraction sectors immediately lose their guaranteed share and fall into the open-access pool with everyone else.

Revoke a contract from the same Resources or Congress Contracts UI surfaces where contracts are granted.

Turn Processing

Each turn, the extraction capacity system runs before commodity prices are calculated:

1. All active contracts (those with no revokedTurn) for each state are fetched.
2. For each resource and state, contracted shares are summed. If total contracted share ≥ 100%, the open-access pool is set to zero.
3. Each extraction sector gets a multiplier between 0.0 and 1.0:
   • Contract holders are capped to their allocated share. If the sector's natural output falls under that cap, multiplier = 1.0 (no penalty).
   • Open-access sectors share the remaining pool. If total demand exceeds the pool, each sector's output is proportionally reduced.
4. The multipliers are applied to raw extraction output, which then feeds the global commodity supply calculation.

The new supply levels then drive commodity price changes for that turn.

Viewing Contracts

The state Resources tab also shows per-resource summary data: capacity ceiling, contracted percentage, open-access percentage, whether the resource is over-allocated, and the most recent output reading from the commodity price history.

Strategic Implications

For legislators: Granting a contract to a domestic corporation entrenches their position and squeezes out foreign competitors. Granting to multiple corporations at 100%+ total shuts the open-access pool entirely — useful for concentrating extraction in known political allies, risky if those corporations later change ownership or strategy.

For corporations: Holding an extraction contract provides stability against market competition. Without a contract, extraction output can be squeezed to zero if the state's capacity fills up with contracted players. Contracts are especially valuable in highly contested states like Texas (oil) or Minnesota (iron).

For the commodity market: Heavy contraction in a major producing state — whether through strategic grants or over-allocation shutting out open-access sectors — reduces global commodity supply and pushes prices up. This affects every sector that uses those commodities as inputs.

See Resources for which states hold which resources, and Corporations for how extraction sectors use resource capacity in their production calculations.