How to play
The two sides
Every level is played by both sides at once: you, and the game's other side, which follows the same rules.
| The Revolution | The Law | |
|---|---|---|
| The start | Harder start | Stronger start |
| How it plays | Cheap, fast and fragile. Spread ideas in the salons, raise the faubourgs, and stop your radicals before they burn the city you want to win. | Rich, strong and slow. Keep order without turning every street against you, and watch your own generals and spies. |
| Spends | Influence | Treasury |
| Watches | Heat | Legitimacy |
| The goal | Raise the city | Hold the city |
Money
The Revolution spends Influence and the Law spends Treasury. Both come in every turn: a base income, more for each district you hold and more for some buildings, less the upkeep of every unit. When the money runs out, your most expensive units are disbanded until the books balance, and their factions take it badly.
Heat, for the Revolution
Heat is how much the police know. Many of the Revolution's acts raise it, and so does each of its units that is revealed; it falls by 3 in every turn that nothing raises it. A level starts it at 10 unless its chapter says otherwise.
- At 50 or more, the Law's informants find hidden units more often.
- At 80 or more, the Law gets a free raid each turn on a revealed Revolution building, or finds one.
- At 100, once a level, one of your faction leaders is lost: wounded for 3 turns, or killed on Hard, and Heat falls back.
Legitimacy, for the Law
Legitimacy is how far Paris accepts the Law's right to rule. A level starts it at 60 unless its chapter says otherwise; many events and orders move it, and a devoted Government faction adds to it every turn.
- Below 30, everything the Law buys costs 50% more.
- Below 15, the Government faction may attempt a coup, once a level. The stronger it is against your Command, the likelier it is to succeed, and a coup that succeeds loses you the level.
Opinion
Opinion is the mood of the city, counted from the Revolution's side: above zero it favours the Revolution, below zero the Law. It pulls on influence in every district, makes the Revolution's recruits cheaper when it is high and the Law's when it is low, and many objectives count it.
Violence
Each side has its own Violence Index. Riots, assassinations, charges and the like add to it. It carries from level to level, is halved between chapters, and at the end of the campaign it helps decide the ending; see The endings.