Workforce & Strikes

Your buildings don’t run themselves. Owners and Staff are real NPCs with morale, fear, and grudges. Push them too hard and they walk out — your shop’s daily income drops to zero for up to two weeks. Treat them well and the workforce rewards you with sustained productivity bonuses.

This is the labor system — an opt-in deep mechanic introduced in #227 Phase 6. Every owned building participates; how it plays out depends on your management style.

How a strike fires

Once you’ve unionized a building (via UNIONIZE action) and the avg Staff Loyalty drops below 30, the workforce walks out:

• Daily income drops to 0 until resolved
• You take +0.5 FederalHeat per day while the strike continues
• Sector Heat slowly accumulates (police presence in walkout zones)
• A one-time Cash penalty of $50 × Staff hits at strike start
• Repeat strikes at the same shop escalate the penalty (1.5× → 2× → 2.5× → … up to 3×)

Non-unionized buildings can’t strike. Unionizing is the trade-off: you gain access to powerful negotiation actions (PAY_OFF_WORKERS / BREAK_STRIKE) but lose the workforce-stability of a non-unionized shop.

Four ways out

A strike ends through one of four resolution paths. Each carries distinct consequences:

Tactical breakdown:

• resolved is the carrot path — slow but pays back permanently
• broken is the stick — fast resolution but accumulates federal pattern
• paid_off is the gentle middle — costs cash but buys peace
• timeout is the worst non-action — 14 days of zero income

Chronic patterns

When the same shop’s resolution history starts skewing toward one path, the system flags it. 3+ lifetime fires at one shop with ≥60% via one path triggers a chronic pattern:

Same detection runs at the sector level — when 3+ sector-wide fires hit ≥60% one path, the SECTOR flips chronic too. Chronic-broken sectors take +0.5/day SectorHeat; “trusted neighborhood” zones surface in scouted-sector intel.

Federal labor board notices historical broken-bias. Players whose lifetime resolutions are 70%+ broken (with ≥5 sample) take an additional +1.0/day FederalHeat — even between concurrent-strike events.

Workforce crisis tiers

Your portfolio’s overall workforce-pressure level is summarized into 4 tiers:

Signals counted: active strikes, federal pattern, sector contagion, understaffed buildings, low Loyalty, broken bias.

Sustained Catastrophe (5+ consecutive days) is a system-wide red flag — the labor board treats it as systemic abuse. Bots in this state suppress all aggressive workforce actions.

Sector strike contagion

When one building in a sector strikes, the non-striking unionized buildings in the same sector see Staff Loyalty drop by 1/day. Strike fear spreads through the labor solidarity network.

Bounded scope:

• Striking buildings skipped (own dynamics)
• Non-unionized buildings immune
• Drop magnitude small (1/day) — players who fix the original strike fast prevent cascade

Specialist counter: Sectors with an alive Teacher (Schul/Bildung specialist) get a +1/day Loyalty bonus on the same buildings — exact counter to contagion. Teachers hold the line until the original strike resolves.

Wage-Market actions

Three player actions interact with the strike system:

• UNIONIZE — flag building as unionized. Required for strike system to apply.
• PAY_OFF_WORKERS — cash settlement. Ends active strike (paid_off path); preventive bargaining when Loyalty 30-50.
• BREAK_STRIKE — violent dispersal. Ends active strike (broken path) but spikes Fear + heat.

Plus four Spieler-als-Boss actions for non-strike workforce management:

• RAISE_WAGE — cheap weekly Loyalty nudge
• BONUS_PAYOUT — monthly big Loyalty bump
• PERFORMANCE_REVIEW — monthly Productivity adjustment
• INTIMIDATE_STAFF — Fear-based suppression (no Loyalty improvement, but cuts quit rate)

All have per-building cooldowns to prevent spam.

Reading your portfolio

The dashboard’s Workforce Summary card surfaces:

• Active strike count + lifetime strike fires
• Chronic-broken / chronic-resolved shop counts
• Crisis level + 14-day rolling history (trajectory chart)
• Crisis trend (“rising” / “falling” / stable)
• Daily NPC payroll cost
• Federal pattern warning (“1 strike from federal escalation”)
• Days at Catastrophe tier (sustained-disaster flag)

When the trend turns “rising”, preempt with PAY_OFF_WORKERS or RAISE_WAGE before crisis hits Catastrophe — heading off the climb is cheaper than scrambling reactively.

Specialist effects

Specific specialist NPCs in a sector mutate strike-related mechanics:

Specialists spawn from landmark buildings (Gesundheit → Doctor, Behörden → Judge, Sicherheit → Guard) — building these landmarks shapes long-term strike outcomes city-wide.

Bot opponent behavior

Bot players adapt to their own strike history:

• broken-bias (≥70% broken resolutions): bot suppresses BREAK_STRIKE for variety
• paid_off-bias: bot dampens PAY_OFF_WORKERS preference
• chronic-broken portfolio (2+ shops): bot stops escalating
• chronic-broken sector exposure: bot avoids further BREAK_STRIKE in that zone
• rising crisis trend: bot boosts preventive RAISE_WAGE / PAY_OFF scores
• trusted portfolio (3+ chronic-resolved): bot dampens preventive scrambling
• emergency mode (5+ days at Catastrophe): bot suppresses ALL aggressive workforce actions

The bot adjusts mid-game based on its own history — so beating a bot once doesn’t lock in the same vulnerability twice.

Quick reference