// POLICY BRIEFING
Central Banking, Run by Code
Merit Simulator is a competitive game about holding a monetary system to its peg while the market does everything it can to knock it loose.
You are the central bank. Not a committee, not a quarterly statement, but a controller you tune by hand. You set the policy, commit your reserves, and then watch a live market test whether your design actually holds. When it does, you climb. When it slips, you learn why and come back sharper.
This handbook is the field manual. It walks you through everything you can see and do in the app, from your first briefing in the Academy to head-to-head ranked battles, the season Ladder, and the Gold economy that ties it all together.
The Idea in One Minute
A healthy peg means two numbers stay close together: the market price of the asset and its redemption price, the value the system promises. The market pulls them apart. Your controller pushes them back. Reserves give you room to act.
Pressure pulls the two prices apart. Your controller, backed by reserves, brings them back together.
Spend reserves carefully, react without overreacting, and keep every side of the market healthy. Do that better than your opponent over the same conditions and you win the battle and the rating that comes with it.
What You Will Find Here
The Academy
A progressive course from the basics of a controlled peg through controller tuning, market conditions, and competitive play.
Arena
Ranked battles, solo practice, posting and accepting challenges, and reading a run as it happens.
The Controls
The controller and its safeguards, the market environments you face, your liquidity budget, and the four scoring pillars.
Ladder & Gold
How rating, rankings, wagers, emissions, and the season jackpot work, and how to read your profile.
What This Handbook Will Not Tell You
Some things are meant to be discovered through play, not read from a manual. The exact market conditions of a run, the precise way scores are calibrated, and the protections that keep ranked play fair are intentionally kept out of the game's surface and out of this guide.
That is on purpose. The skill is in reading the run in front of you and adapting, not in memorizing a formula. This handbook teaches you how to think, how to read the screens, and how to make better decisions. The rest you earn in the Arena.
New here? Read Getting Started next, then step through The Academy. Already playing? Jump to Ranked Battles or the Ladder.