Statecraft is the political layer through which factions interact with one another. It governs treaties, alliances, sanctions, embassies, and the political consequences of military action. 

Much of statecraft is conducted through direct player negotiation, but the mechanical effects of formal agreements and political acts are codified to ensure that decisions carry real weight.

Treaties are formal agreements between factions with binding mechanical effects. Players negotiate the terms freely, but once a treaty is signed, breaking it carries real political and economic consequences.

The terms of any individual treaty are entirely down to player negotiation. The mechanical layer below defines what a treaty is and what category of effect it produces; the specific commitments, durations, exit clauses, and so on are agreed between the players involved.

There are seven recognised treaty types:

Galactic Standing is a faction-level numerical stat that measures how the wider galaxy perceives your faction. It does not affect direct negotiations between player factions, which are resolved through their own political agency. It does affect how NPC factions, neutral sectors, independent planetary governments, and procedural galactic systems respond to your faction.

Galactic Standing increases when a faction completes prestige projects (Academies, Wonders of the Galaxy, Transformation Projects), upholds treaties under pressure, or wins major political victories that the galaxy at large recognises.

Galactic Standing decreases when a faction breaks treaties publicly, loses major battles, or commits politically costly acts such as unprovoked invasions, planetary bombardment, or ethnic targeting of populations.

A faction's Galactic Standing directly affects procedural outcomes throughout the galaxy. High-standing factions find NPC powers willing to grant trade access, military access, and political cooperation. Low-standing factions are politically isolated by the wider galaxy and may find NPC factions unwilling to deal with them at all, neutral worlds defecting to rival influence, and similar procedural penalties.

Casus Belli is the formal political justification for war as recognised by the wider galaxy. 

Each faction maintains a list of valid Casus Belli against each other faction, accumulated through historical events. 

A faction may always attack another faction, but attacking without a valid Casus Belli imposes a Galactic Standing penalty, as the wider galaxy considers the attack unprovoked.

Unprovoked attacks without any valid Casus Belli are not prohibited, but they carry significant Galactic Standing penalties and may trigger NPC factions to respond defensively or align against the aggressor.

The four standard Casus Belli are:

Embassies are physical buildings representing one faction's diplomatic presence on another faction's planet. They require the host faction's consent.

An embassy provides the sending faction with passive intelligence on the host planet's activities, reduces espionage costs against the host planet, and serves as a formal channel for negotiations and treaty discussions.

Embassies may be closed by either faction. Closure by the host is considered a serious political act and reduces Galactic Standing for the host. Raiding an embassy is functionally equivalent to a declaration of war. 

Declining the construction of an embassy may also harm your standing with the faction in question, player or NPC. 

Sanctions are formal economic and political pressure short of war. A faction may impose sanctions on another faction at any time, with the effects taking hold immediately.

There are two recognised sanction types:

A war between two factions is the absence of any active Non-Aggression Pact, Defensive Pact, or Alliance. War is not formally "declared" mechanically; it is simply the state of affairs when two factions are actively engaged in military operations against each other.

However, the manner in which a war begins matters in the eyes of the galaxy. Attacking with a valid Casus Belli is politically free. Attacking without a valid Casus Belli imposes a Galactic Standing penalty proportional to the scale of the attack. Major unprovoked invasions of well-established factions impose substantial penalties; minor border skirmishes against fringe holdings impose smaller ones.

War ends when both factions agree to a Peace Treaty, which is itself a treaty type that may include terms such as territorial cession, war reparations, military restrictions, and the like. The terms of the Peace Treaty are negotiated between the players involved.

Statecraft is fundamentally a roleplay system. 

The mechanical layer above exists to give weight to player decisions and to define how the wider galaxy responds, but the substance of relations between player factions (negotiations, character relationships, internal faction politics, religious or cultural exchanges, marriage alliances, summits and councils) is conducted through direct player roleplay. 

The mechanical layer determines what consequences follow from formal acts at the procedural level; the roleplay layer determines what those acts mean between the players involved.

Trade between factions is conducted through Trade Agreements following established Trade Routes. 

Two factions negotiate what is to be exchanged (units of materials, credits, military hardware, or anything else) with the terms entirely down to the players involved. 

Each Trade Route connects two planets, with each planet supplying its end of the deal and receiving the other side's contribution every turn. 

The physical path the route takes through galactic space must be mapped out, and that path determines how vulnerable the route is to piracy and what protections it can receive.

A Trade Route may only be established under specific infrastructure conditions.

Either both planets involved must have an available trade slot, or one planet must have a Free Port Authority along with an available trade slot. Trade slots themselves are granted by Trading Posts, Convoy Yards, and Sector Trade Offices, all of which sit within the Trading District.

Both planets must also have sufficient Stockpile Capacity to receive the materials being traded. Trade does not cancel if a planet's Stockpile Capacity is exceeded, but the excess materials are lost rather than stored. The rate at which materials may flow through the route is capped at the lower of the two planets' production or supply rates.

Trade Routes are not safe by default. Pirates may attack established routes and steal a portion of the goods being transferred. Each Trade Agreement is subject to a piracy roll every turn, with the chance of being robbed determined by the route's current Piracy Level.

The Piracy Level is checked through a roll out of 10,000. If the roll comes in below the route's Piracy Level, the route is robbed that turn, with a random percentage of the goods being lost to the attackers.

The base Piracy Level of any new Trade Route is 1,500. This figure increases under several conditions:

• Every time the route passes within one square of a Pirate Haven, the Piracy Level rises by 500.

• For every six grid squares the route covers in total, the Piracy Level rises by 500.

• For every six grid squares the route travels through the Outer Rim, the Piracy Level rises by an additional 500. This stacks with the base distance modifier.

• For every three grid squares the route travels through Wild Space, the Piracy Level rises by an additional 500. This stacks with both the base distance modifier and the Outer Rim modifier.

The Piracy Level cannot be reduced below 1.

Piracy can be countered by committing fleet assets to escort duty. Ships assigned to a Trade Route patrol it rather than being stationed at a single location. While committed to escort duty, the ships are entirely unavailable for any other use, including defence of their home system.

Each ship committed reduces the route's Piracy Level based on its size:

• Ships under 500m reduce the Piracy Level by 10 each.

• Ships between 500m and 1,000m reduce the Piracy Level by 25 each.

• Ships between 1,000m and 2,000m reduce the Piracy Level by 50 each.

• Ships between 2,000m and 4,000m reduce the Piracy Level by 75 each.

• Ships over 4,000m reduce the Piracy Level by 100 each.

Either faction in the agreement may commit escort ships, or both may contribute jointly. The reductions stack regardless of which faction provides them.

The Trade Federation maintains permanent fleet presence along certain Major Hyperlanes. Any Trade Route making use of these hyperlanes receives substantial protection.

A Trade Route passing along any Major Hyperlane has its Piracy Level reduced by 100 for every grid square travelled along that hyperlane. If a Trade Route travels entirely along Major Hyperlanes, or if it deviates from a Major Hyperlane by no more than a single grid square in total while still using at least one square of a Major Hyperlane, its final Piracy Level is reduced to 1, with no other modifiers applying.

The Trade Federation may revoke its protection on any Major Hyperlane at its discretion, but doing so carries substantial political consequences and is a rare act.

The recognised Major Hyperlanes currently are: the Hydian Way, the Corellian Run, the Corellian Trade Spine, the Rimma Trade Route, the Perlemian Trade Route, the Triellus Trade Route, the Namadii Corridor, and the Celanon Spur.

The Republic and the Confederacy both extend protection to trade routes passing through their own territories, as both have active agreements with the Trade Federation. Any Trade Route passing through Republic and/or Confederacy space has its Piracy Level reduced by 50 for each grid square travelled within that territory.

This protection does not stack with the Major Hyperlane modifier. If a route is travelling along a Major Hyperlane within Republic or Confederacy territory, only the Major Hyperlane reduction applies.

Any Trade Route conducted entirely within Republic and/or Confederacy space, or travelling for at least one grid square within their territory and no more than one square outside it, has its final Piracy Level reduced to 10, with no other modifiers applying.

Any faction may request for the Trade Federation to police their hyperlanes, at cost to both parties involved. 

Certain systems are formal Pirate Havens. These are planets controlled by piracy organisations, on which the highest influence is held by the pirates themselves rather than any conventional faction. They are marked as pirate-controlled on the galactic planets sheet.

Pirate Havens cannot be eliminated through brute force alone. An attempted occupation is costly and high-risk, and rarely succeeds without significant preparation. Eliminating piracy from a Haven requires extensive resources committed over multiple turns, typically through unique plans tailored to the specific Haven in question. Each Haven represents a different scenario and must be addressed accordingly.

If a faction does successfully destroy a Pirate Haven, all Trade Agreements involving that faction have their Piracy Level reduced by 500 for the following two turns.

New Pirate Havens do not arise easily. Over time, however, developments and decisions across the galaxy may produce conditions in which one forms, usually under unique circumstances.

Pirate Outposts are smaller, more temporary developments compared to Havens. They are bases from which pirates operate, capable of forming relatively spontaneously, particularly along established Trade Routes.

Each turn, there is a 50% chance that one to four new Pirate Outposts will form at semi-random locations across the galaxy. If a Trade Route has been targeted by piracy recently, any new Outpost forming has a higher chance of being placed near that route.

Outposts do not directly affect Trade Routes themselves, but their destruction does. To destroy a Pirate Outpost, a faction must launch a military attack and overcome its defenders in naval combat. The attack must be calibrated to the target. If the attacking force is too large, the pirates may simply abandon the Outpost and re-establish it elsewhere nearby, in which case the attack does not count as a destruction.

When a Pirate Outpost is successfully destroyed, any Trade Route that passes within range of the Outpost's location has its Piracy Level reduced by 500 for the following turn. This reduction applies regardless of which factions hold the Trade Agreements along the affected routes.