giB mONieS tO wHo?

As the great nations of Southeast Asia begin to industrialize, they are quickly becoming relevant economic powers on the world stage. And the recent great turmoil in the region creates opportunities for the sale of goods and services of all sorts, as states seek to bolster their militaries and civilians seek to evade strict rationing.

The great mercantile enterprises from the world at large have taken notice, and many are seeking opportunities to increase profits by rapidly expanding their operations in the region.

How you manage the ride of international trade and the influence of these foreign businesses is up to you. These enterprises bring with them great wealth and novel technologies, but they may also ravage our lands and resources for profit, or allow undesirable foreign influences to corrupt our society.

How this event works

In the following section, the major trade entities that are seeking to expand into Southeast Asia shall be listed. A brief and necessarily incomplete biography will be given for each, to somewhat inform your choices. Each enterprise has different specialities, resources, operating procedures, and goals, although of course all seek to gain hold, hard cash.

For each listed enterprise, each faction must list their policy towards it. These policies are freeform – that is, you may state a policy of your own design for each enterprise, instead of picking from a preset list. However, a list of example policies is provided at the end of this post, both to inspire your creativity and to serve as defaults to choose if you wish.

Non-faction entities may, if they wish, state a policy towards any enterprises that they choose, but such policies will naturally be different in nature than those of sovereign territorial states.

The results from each your policies are not determined statically, but are dependent on all of your policies and on everyone else's policies as well. If, for example, you allow one entity access to your markets while denying it to competitors, that entity may be disposed to directly aiding you. On the other hand, if all factions except yours grant an enterprise certain trading rights, that enterprise may seek to aid your enemies against you in revenge.

List of enterprises

Babylonian Universal Mercenary Service: A military contracting company led by a bombastic and boastful man, who claims to be the rightful ruler of some long-annexed desert shithole. The BUMS, as they're commonly known, are most famous for their mercenary services, and have stated their intention to both procure mercenaries from Southeast Asia to sell abroad, and to offer mercenaries from around the world for service in Southeast Asia. They also have a smaller, but highly lucrative, division that performs a variety of martial and underhanded acts directly for paying clients.

Tyrian Guild: Originally a clothing and textiles company, the Tyrian Guild now employs specialists in a dizzying array of fields and undertakes a myriad of seemingly unrelated projects, some profitable and some not. From what little you can gather from their flawlessly polite yet tight-lipped members, the Tyrian Guild has close ties to the government and ruling dynasty of a far-off, mighty empire. The lines of business that they're most heavily pushing are private correctional facilities, orphanage restructuring, and temporary bulk staffing services – all of which involve the lowest dregs of society, coincidentally enough.

Tocharian Traders: These men are refugees from a sacked city. Their reputation is unsavoury, but their skills and discretion are unparalleled. They once orchestrated the greatest wealth redistribution scheme in all of Asia, and despite being exposed, have maintained a prominent fixture of the economies of northern and western Asia, when regional rulers allow them to. They have dabbled enough into private services for clients to have a bit of experience in almost everything, but their true specialty remains manipulating the flow of currency.

Easy Martial Arts: A business known mostly for its exceedingly tacky flyers and pushy salesmen. It offers to teach you to be a master of all forms of martial arts, for just a low, low monthly fee. You can even become a official sensei and run your own licensed dojo; all you have to do is recruit your own students, and get them to pay the same monthly fee that you're paying. Although this might seem a bit shifty, they corporate hierarchy chart is perfectly in the shape of one of the majestic, sturdiest, and timeless architectural structures in existence: the pyramid.

Banco Internacional Español: Like the Tocharian Traders, the BIE is a company in the financial sector. Unlike the Traders, it is a specialist in the field of banking, and does not partake in other money-related schemes. As the oldest and richest bank in the world, it has held accounts and financed loans for more emperors, popes, presidents, and other grandees than any comparable institution in history. It's fees aren't cheap, but they're upfront and fair.

NEET: A newcomer the world stage. Viewed as a petty upstart by the other enterprises, it is currently the fastest-growing business in the world. Although it lacks the enormous cash reserves, histories of fulfilled promises, and institutional expertise of its older competitors, it prides itself of being nimble, flexible, and innovative, closing deals faster than its more bureaucratic counterparts and pushing new products to market that they could never dream of. Of course, it has yet to turn a quarterly profit, but since when has that ever stopped a good business?

Sample policies

• "We shall ban this enterprise entirely from operating within our territory and contracting with our citizens."

• "We shall allow this enterprise to operate only at a designated foreign port in $CITY_NAME, and strictly regulate their activities and our citizens' interactions with them."

• "We shall allow this enterprise to operate and trade within our borders, but subject to standard tariffs and fees that are applied to all foreign businesses."

• "We shall allow this enterprise to freely operate and trade within our borders, on the same standing as our domestic businesses."

• "We shall grant this enterprise special privileges, including lower tax rates and preferential access to major government contracts, to encourage them to invest heavily into our country."