Growth-rate heats, and a season board that pays nothing
Some heats now score how much you grew against your OWN size, so a small corporation growing by half beats a large one growing by a twentieth. And a season board tracks placings across heats — for prestige only; it pays no licences.
Every heat until now rewarded absolute output: the most new hires, the most new cities. That is a fair race between similar corporations and a hopeless one for a newcomer against an established operation.
Some heats now run a growth-rate category instead. They score what you added against the size you started the heat at, so growing a workforce from four to six (+50%) beats growing one from a hundred to a hundred and five (+5%). Starting from nothing counts every unit you built as growth, so a first hire is a real result rather than a division by zero.
- A heat is one category or the other, announced before you join. You are never scored twice for one week's work. - The absolute categories are unchanged and still run. - Going backwards scores zero, as it always did.
Season standings now appear on the Completed tab. They add up your placings across every heat in a 90-day season — 5 points for a win, 3 for second, 2 for third, 1 for a participation finish.
The season board is prestige only. It pays no licences and mints nothing: every heat already paid its own rewards when it finished, and paying again would just hand more capacity to whoever was already winning. It is a record, not a second competition.