We finish the chapter by climbing up from the citizen's seat to the country's, because a government is not just a passive issuer of bonds - it has two real powers over its own debt, and both of them work through exactly the law-and-vote process you learned in the Politics chapter. Neither is something a single person simply switches on; each is a proposal that the country's citizens vote on, just like a tax or a bonus change. If you understood how laws work before, you already understand how these do too.
Issuing more bonds
A country begins with 10,000 bonds, and it can create more by passing an issuance law. That law does not merely say "make more bonds" - it writes the terms of the new debt, and this is where the three parts of a bond finally come together in one place. A single issuance law names how many bonds to create, anywhere from 100 to 1,000; how long they run before they mature, from one month to twelve; and the daily interest rate they will pay, from 0.1% up to 1% of face value. A citizen proposes it, the country votes, and if it passes the new bonds are minted and rested on the market at face value - the same $0.10 in national money as every other bond in the world - with the proceeds of their sale flowing into the state budget.
Those new bonds do not merge into the existing pile. They become their own emission: a distinct batch with its own rate and its own maturity date, listed separately on the market and tracked separately in your holdings. A country that has issued a few times is therefore carrying several tranches at once, each paying its own rate until its own maturity comes around, rather than one uniform block of debt. That is why the Market tab shows a rate and a date beside every offer, and why it pays to read them.
What a treasury needs before it can borrow
Three conditions guard new issuance. The state budget must hold more than 500 of its own currency, checked both when the law is written and again when it passes, so a country cannot borrow its way out of an empty treasury. No country may have more than 50,000 bonds outstanding at any one time, which puts a hard ceiling on how deep a government can get into debt. And emissions must be at least 5 days apart: a country that has just opened one cannot even propose the next issuance law until that wait is over, so debt cannot be stacked faster than the coupon bill it creates. The 10,000 bonds a country starts with count as its first emission, so a brand-new programme waits too. Only one issuance law may be in voting at a time, since each one eats into that same cap.
The logic here is worth appreciating, because it is rather elegant. Issuing bonds raises money for the treasury today, but every bond created is a daily coupon the budget must pay until maturity - and then the whole face value paid back on top. Borrowing here is genuinely borrowing: cheap money now, in exchange for a bill that arrives every single day and a lump sum at the end. That is exactly why the terms matter so much. A government in a hurry can offer 1% a day and find eager buyers within minutes, but it has signed its budget up to a punishing coupon for months; one that offers 0.1% pays almost nothing and may watch its bonds sit unsold forever. Choosing the size, the rate and the maturity together is the real craft of running a bond programme - and, pleasingly, it is a judgement the whole country votes on rather than one person's whim.
Buying bonds back
The mirror image of issuing is buyback: a country spending its budget to buy its own bonds back off the market, taking them out of circulation and reducing the coupons it must pay. The law says how many bonds to retire, and when it passes the treasury fills the cheapest player listings it can find until it has bought that many or run out of money - so a buyback needs player bonds actually on the market to work at all. Like issuance, it is a law the citizens vote on, and there is one firm condition: a country cannot run a buyback while it is in the Excessive Deficit Procedure. That restriction makes perfect sense, because a country in deficit has no business spending its scarce budget buying up debt when it can barely pay its bills; EDP is a time for rebuilding reserves, not spending them.
- A citizen opens the Laws composer - the Bonds page has handy shortcuts that jump you straight to the right proposal.
- To issue: the budget must hold more than 500, stay under the 50,000-bond cap, and it must be at least 5 days since the country's last emission; name the quantity, the maturity and the daily rate, and let the country vote.
- To buy back: the treasury must NOT be in Excessive Deficit Procedure, and there must be player bonds on the market; propose the buyback and let the country vote.
- If the vote passes, the change applies automatically - new bonds are minted, or market bonds are bought back into the treasury.
You will find friendly shortcuts for both of these right on the Bonds page, in a government-actions bar that appears when you are viewing your own country and an action is actually available to you. Tapping one jumps you straight into the Laws composer with the right proposal ready to go, so you never have to hunt for it. And do remember the golden rule of politics from before: proposing a law is a premium ability, and the proposal goes to the citizens of your own country to vote on. Bonds do not change that - they simply add two new things a country can vote about.
Private countries cannot borrow
Everything on this page belongs to public countries alone. A bond is government debt, and government debt needs two things a private country does not have: a parliament to vote the issuance law, and a national treasury answerable to citizens to pay the coupons. A private country is one player's property, so it never opens a bond programme - it will not appear on the bond market, in the issuer rankings or in the country selector, and the Excessive Deficit Procedure never applies to it. Owning a country means funding it from its own budget rather than borrowing against it.
And that completes the picture of treasury bonds from every angle. Every bond on earth is worth $0.10, charged in the issuing country's own currency; a country opens with 10,000 of them paying 0.25% a day for a year, and can vote to issue more on whatever terms it dares; you buy them from the treasury or from other players and earn that daily coupon out of the state budget for as long as you hold, until maturity hands your face value back; a credit rating from Prime to Default tells you how safe the treasury behind it is; a failing budget enters a recovery procedure and, at worst, a temporary default; and a healthy government can also buy its debt back off the market. You now understand the whole of the bond market - so open the Bonds page, read a rating, and buy your first bond with real confidence.