Smuta

The Smuta (Russian for Time of Trouble) refers to the political situations in Russia following the end of the West Russian War. The name recalls a similar time of chaos in Russian history in the early 17th century. Similarity Russia lays divided between various warlord of various political stripes seeking to reunify Russia under their control.

In Game

In game, Smuta refers to a gameplay mechanic available to all Russian Warlords with content other than the ones in the Urals. The gameplay mechanic allows various warlord states to declare war on one another and start the process of reunifying the shattered Russian landscape

In this mechanic, two meters are to be maintained, supply and chaos. Supply is a currency like mechanic which is required to declare war on the other warlords, and to assist in acquiring buffs such as increased breakthrough or defence for units during combat. Chaos meanwhile, affects stability and war support. Too high of Chaos may lead to severe debuffs, potentially leading to ruin.

Completing relevant focuses and decisions can help influence the mechanic.

Behind the Scenes

The dev team of TNO introduced the Smuta mechanic in the Unfinished Business update of TNO. The mechanic was introduced to work around issues that appear in the original version of the mod. That issue being that the original focus tree based method of warlords invading one another tend lead to many case of the region not unifying because two unexpected warlords were the last ones left standing.