Dev Log: The Contract Exchange – Why Everything in Colonies – From Mining to War to Diplomacy – is Just a Contract

In most strategy games, you manage your empire with queues and build orders.

In most simulations, agents act based on schedules or scripts.

In Colonies: Genesis of E.D.E.N., you do something different:

You write contracts.

Every action—whether it’s launching a satellite, delivering food, researching a cure, or sending a drone strike—is expressed through the Contract System. And it all flows through the beating heart of the simulation:

The Contract Exchange—a living market of intentions, needs, obligations, and negotiations.

Let’s break it down.

🧱 What Is a Contract?

At its core, a Contract is:

• A data object that declares an intended action
• With a fulfiller (who performs it) and a client (who benefits from it)
• Governed by:
  
  • Requirements
  • Deadlines
  • Resource flows
  • Reputation risk
  • Rewards

It’s not a unit order.

It’s not a fixed event.

It’s a binding simulation statement:

“This faction intends to do X, and here are the rules for how it will happen.”

🧮 Anatomy of a Contract

Field	Description
ContractType	What kind of action this represents (e.g., Launch, Manufacture, Research)
ClientFactionId	The one who needs the work done
FulfillerFactionId	The one who commits to doing it (may be null initially)
OriginLocation	Where the task begins
TargetLocation	Where it ends (if applicable)
ResourcesRequired	What it costs
Deliverables	What the result will be
Deadline	Optional time constraint
ReputationPenalty	What happens if it fails
IsDelegated	If it was assigned from a superior faction

All of this is handled systemically. Factions bid, negotiate, or refuse based on capability and trust.

🏛 Enter: The Contract Exchange

The Contract Exchange is the global marketplace for all contracts. It allows:

• Factions to broadcast needs
• Other factions to submit bids
• The system to match tasks to capabilities
• The simulation to unfold through negotiated action

It’s where:

• Tribes post research requests
• Megacorps hire logistics fleets
• Governments delegate planetary development
• Superpowers outsource orbital strikes

This is what replaces workers, queues, missions, and orders in other games.

🔄 How It Actually Works

Let’s walk through a full loop:

1. 

Need Emerges

A faction lacks food. It creates a LogisticsContract to acquire 100 units of biomass from a neighboring region.

2. 

Contract Is Posted

The contract enters the Contract Exchange. It’s marked as open, with a deadline and a reputation reward.

3. 

Factions Evaluate

Nearby factions evaluate:

• Do I have the capability? (Vehicles, workforce, access)
• Is it worth the reward?
• Is the reputation value beneficial or dangerous?

If one agrees, it places a bid and becomes the Fulfiller.

4. 

Mission Is Executed

The selected faction routes the job to its internal agents, who handle the task using their infrastructure and resources.

5. 

Result Is Logged

When fulfilled, the Contract is marked complete, reputation is updated, and the simulation progresses.

Failure? Late delivery? Undelivered resources?

→ Consequences follow: memory updates, trust loss, diplomatic fallout.

🧠 Why This System Matters

The Contract System is more than a fancy task queue.

It’s a unified simulation abstraction for every type of goal.

✅ It Unifies Gameplay Systems

Domain	Example Contract
Logistics	Deliver 100 food to tile X
Manufacturing	Build 50 steel at this facility
Research	Complete genome sequencing by day 120
Warfare	Destroy this structure before launch
Diplomacy	Honor alliance treaty by resupplying base
Space	Launch this payload into LEO

Everything, from a dirt hut to an orbital mirror array, is driven by contracts.

✅ It Enables Emergent AI

Factions don’t need to be “smart.”

They only need to:

• Know their needs
• Post contracts
• Evaluate incoming bids

This allows AI to:

• Specialize
• Collaborate
• Exploit weaknesses
• Form economic and military coalitions

✅ It Scales—Massively

In a galaxy with:

• Thousands of facilities
• Dozens of factions
• Billions of agents

You need a system that doesn’t melt. The Contract Exchange is:

• Decentralized
• Parallelizable
• Serializable
• Auditable

And it handles hundreds of thousands of contracts over the course of a playthrough—each one telling a piece of the simulation’s story.

👁️ What This Means for You, the Player

You don’t micromanage.

You strategize:

• Need supplies? Post a contract.
• Want to strike an enemy? Fund a third party.
• Can’t reach orbit? Hire someone who can.
• Overburdened with jobs? Delegate to your vassals.

The game world moves because of negotiated intent, not forced execution.

And you’ll watch it unfold not as a turn order…

…but as a living web of needs, trades, obligations, and betrayal.

🌐 In the End, Everything Is a Deal

Your empire isn’t a list of buildings.

It’s a network of fulfilled contracts, pulsing like synapses in a planetary brain.

Whether you’re a Paleolithic tribe or a spacefaring hegemony—

You thrive by learning how to coordinate intention at scale.

That’s what the Contract Exchange simulates.

That’s what Colonies is about.