From alliances to auctions — two weeks of building a browser geopolitical sim solo

Been heads-down on my browser-based geopolitical/economic sim (mechanics inspired by the old e-Sim/eRepublik/Politics&War genre, built from scratch — no copied code/text/numbers). Quick rundown of what shipped since my last update:

Diplomacy got real teeth. Countries can now form bilateral Alliances and full Coalitions (think EU/G7 — shared currency display, combined market, elected offices like President/General/Secretary of State/Economist, all voted 1-country-1-vote by national Presidents). Just closed the loop on this: joining a coalition now requires an invitation from existing members (majority vote) before the candidate's own Congress can approve — and members can expel a rogue country either by majority vote or unilaterally via the coalition President. No more "anyone can join and no one can kick them out."

Travel is a real system now. Players move between the 61 countries via an actual adjacency graph (real borders, some sea links for islands), takes ~10 min per border crossed. You can't route through or into a country your side is at war with — except your own war-torn homeland regions, those stay reachable. Also gated work (must be physically in your employer's country) and battle participation (defend from anywhere in-country, attack only from the front-line region) behind location.

Combat equipment, from zero. Renamed the old "Weapons" resource to "Bullets" to make room for actual gear: Weapon, Knife, Body Armor, Helmet, Pants, Shoes, Goggles — 7 slots, each item RNG-rolls 2 attributes scaled by quality (miss reduction, crit%, dodge-the-HP-cost-of-a-hit, etc.). Then built the whole economy around it: items drop after battles (more/better loot the bigger the fight, weighted toward top damage dealers and medal winners), 3 duplicates merge into 1 higher-quality item, and there's now a global Gold-only auction house with escrow bidding and a diplomacy-tiered export tax (0% same country → 15% if you're buying from someone your country's at war with — basically a smuggling tax).

Underpinning all of it: had to build a Gold treasury + bidirectional currency exchange system first, since alliances/coalitions needed a way to actually cost something in Gold.

Still solo, still no visual design (that's next), no automated test suite yet either — but the core loops (economy, politics, war, diplomacy, gear) are all interlocking now. Curious what genre fans think is missing from this list before I start polishing.