Pax Autocratica Beginner Guide: A Verified First-Run Plan

The first-run priority order

1. Follow the current tutorial objectives. Recent official patches repeatedly improved early quests and guidance, so old demo videos can now be out of sequence.
2. Repair essential state infrastructure. The Command Center and Victory Square are progression anchors; AG-12 fixed a bug where their research interfaces could unlock before repair.
3. Keep production legible. Use the research queue and, after the Warehouse is available, choose Order, Stock, or Auto crafting based on whether the item is a one-off, a reserve, or a continuous input.
4. Prepare a field squad. Your colony manufactures weapons, armor, food, and supplies; combat returns blueprints, Core Fragments, resources, and possible captives.
5. Read every Core choice. Weapon Cores change gun behavior, Combination Cores create synergies, and some choices affect your soldiers. Exact values can change between maintenance updates.

What not to optimize yet

• Do not follow guides built around turns, taxes, GDP, a senate, cabinet factions, or province stability. Those claims describe a different game.
• Do not copy Prologue costs or balance numbers into Early Access. The Prologue store explicitly says its scale and balance differ.
• Do not assume an old ‘best build’ survived AG-12. The launch-week update changed progression, difficulty, research time, and enemy balance.

Three reliable early habits

• Check the date and build context. This manual shows a verification date on every page.
• Preserve saves. AG-12 added automatic save backups, but it did not publish the backup count, retention policy, or a universal manual restore path.
• Use official reports for breakages. Start with current patch notes and Steam file verification before applying older workarounds.