PAX AUTOCRATICACompendium

Beginner guide: your first hour

The fastest way to lose an opening colony is to treat it like a city builder and spread out. Here is the order that works, and the traps that are specific to this game.

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Step 1 — feed them before anything else

Your food chain has two halves and people only build the first one. The Greenhouse and Animal Farm produce raw food. The Kitchen turns it into meals. The in-game alert is explicit about this: when Low Food Reserves fires, the instruction is to replenish food reserves at the Kitchen.

So the opening build is a production pair, not a single building — and both need a body assigned to them.

A greenhouse interior with crops and a resource acquisition log in the corner
A working Greenhouse. The log shows acquisitions arriving and the Kitchen completing a batch of meals. Official screenshot © Multiverse

Step 2 — assign by the number, not by the portrait

Open Soldier Management. Every citizen shows a per-hour figure for the job they are on, and their detail card breaks out every job they could do. The spread is not subtle — one screen shows citizens working at 130/H and 10/H side by side.

These are the stat lines you are sorting on:

StatWhat it gates
Construction SpeedHow fast they raise and repair structures.
Research SpeedFeeds the research-points-per-day pool.
Production SpeedManufacturing throughput at workshops.
Mining SpeedOre and Titanite extraction.
Logging SpeedWood harvesting.
Gathering SpeedSurface resources and herbs.
Cooking SpeedKitchen output — directly gates your food reserve.
Planting SpeedGreenhouse / farm work.
Breeding SpeedAnimal Farm output.
Carry LoadHow much a hauler moves per trip.
The Soldier Management screen with 23 citizens, their assignments and a detailed trait card open
The detail card shows every rate at once. This citizen mines at 164/H but gathers at 13/H — that is a miner, permanently. Official screenshot © Multiverse

Step 3 — the clock is a resource

PhaseWhat it is for
Work HoursAssigned jobs produce at their per-hour rates.
Social HoursCitizens talk, argue, and try to learn skills from each other.
Rest HoursStamina recovers. Skipping rest is how Overwork and Exhausted alerts pile up.

Skipping Rest Hours to squeeze out production is the most common self-inflicted wound. The game tracks it and tells you: an Exhausted alert names the individual, an Overwork alert gives you a headcount. Both are warnings before a productivity collapse, not after it.

Step 4 — your first expedition

Do not go early and do not go big. Every citizen you take stops working at home for the entire duration. The specific disaster is taking your only cook, coming back with prisoners and loot, and finding the colony in a food crisis you caused by winning.

Before you launch, check three things:

  1. Is every production chain still staffed without the people you are taking?
  2. Do you have cells for prisoners? If not, capture nothing.
  3. Are you carrying something that can capture rather than kill? See the prisoner guide.
Squad members advancing across open ground with Move, Attack and Follow Me order prompts visible
You get direct squad orders — Move, Attack, Follow Me. Using them is much cheaper than tanking damage yourself. Official screenshot © Multiverse

Five mistakes that end first colonies

  1. Killing what you could have captured. Explosives and heavy kinetic weapons are the fastest way to destroy your own labour supply. Damage is not the goal on a capture run.
  2. Leaving on a long expedition before you understand what dissent does while you are away. The colony keeps running. So does discontent.
  3. Doing everything at once. Every building has a construction workload and a material cost shown at placement. Starting five is slower than finishing two.
  4. Crushing the opposition completely. Suppression radicalises rather than removes. The loyalty guide covers the alternative.
  5. Assuming approval equals stability. A content population and a stable regime are not the same variable, and the game separates them.

Frequently asked

What should I build first in Pax Autocratica?

Food and the Kitchen that processes it. A Greenhouse with nobody cooking still triggers the Low Food Reserves alert, because the alert points at the Kitchen.

Why are my citizens so slow?

Because you probably assigned the wrong ones. Every citizen has a separate per-hour rate for each job. Gaps of 10× between two citizens on the same job are normal.

Should I take prisoners early?

Only as many as you have cells for. Captives sit in a Pending Imprisonment state when capacity runs out, and they are not working for you while they wait.

Is fear or kindness better early?

Both are supported. Fear is faster and cheaper up front but breaks Faint-hearted citizens sooner. Pick one and be consistent — flip-flopping gets you the downsides of both.

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