Three Degrees

Tips on how to become a successful GEO, and detailed walkthrough of Three Degrees scenario.

Chapter I Knowing Your Mission

The mission objective of this scenario is to reach the year 2020 with global warming below 3 degrees, without global HDI falling below 0.5 or getting banned from 7 or more regions. There are several possible ways to achieve this end, but because of my personal code I will not allow global economic depression, and absolutely no genocide.

Thus the top priorities for GEO should be kept in mind as follows:
1. reduce temperature
2. reduce emissions
3. steady economic growth
4. not lose any regions

Temperature reduction is the top priority because it is the ultimate goal and because higher temperature will bring more destabilizing weathers that require more budget to mitigate its effect. Emissions reduction is the second priority because temperature is closely related to atmospheric CO2 concentration. Third priority being steady economic growth because the budget required to influence the world population is huge. And finally, we cannot risk any rogue region burning coal savagely while not under GEO’s control.

During the game process, multiple major decisions will be made in accordance with the priories list. Always remember not to let impulse rule over this list.

Chapter II Getting Prepared to Becoming a GEO

2.1 Art of GEO Resources Allocation
As a GEO, you have two valuable yet scarce resources at your disposal: the budget and the slot (the regional agents). You may argue that the slot is not an independent resource since you can buy it with budget at a cost a $50. But it is true only at the beginning of the scenario. Towards the mid-late game you will find that a lot of regions have already reached its maximum of 6 agents, thus regional slots have become a scarce resource which can no longer be bought with budget.

At the beginning of the scenario, budget is tightly restricted. So you want to maximize effect of every budget dollar you spend. As the game progresses, the number of slots becomes restrained, and you want to maximize effect of every card you play. Basically this means cheap and effective cards first, powerful but costly cards later.

For example, on the starting turn, China has a coal usage in energy sector of 13512 TWh, contributing 4729 Mt of CO2 emissions. By playing the Decline Coal Power card on Turn 2, the coal usage in energy sector can be effectively reduced by 3000 TWh in one turn, equal to 1000 Mt reduction in emissions. The decline in coal power will be made up by oil and gas power to meet the regional energy demand, Roughly 2000 TWh more oil and 1000 TWh more gas will be consumed. Given the fact that coal power has an emission-power coefficient of 0.35 (MtCO2e per TWh), oil of 0.3 and gas of 0.2 (you can calculate it by checking the energy production pane and the individual resource use pane), this results in 2000*(0.35-0.3) + 1000*(0.35-0.2) = 250 Mt of net reduction in emissions in one single turn at the expense of $20.

On the other hand, by playing Protect Land, Soil & Forests card on Turn 1 in South Asia, 7070 sq km of forest will be saved from Turn 2 to Turn 3, contributing to 531 Mt of CO2 emissions reduction, meaning -531 Mt per $50 in one turn.


Protect Land, Soil & Forests vs. Decline Coal Power

Comparing these two card plays immediately gives the result that Decline Coal Power in China (-12.5Mt/$) is more cost efficient than Protect Land, Soil & Forests in South Asia (-10.62Mt/$) as the opening play.

Later in the game, slots becomes more valuable than budget, because you basically have doubled your budget and there are so many projects running in a region to keep it alive (Adaptation To Heat & Droughts, Market AI, Deploy Sulphate Aerosols, Deploy 2nd Gen Fusion, Protect Land, Soil & Forests, Desalination Programme, etc.). Emissions reduction per slot is a more relevant factor now. Still using the examples above, the Decline Coal Power card in China (assuming China is still using the same amount of coal as it did on Turn 2) now has an efficiency of -250 Mt/slot, while Protect Land, Soil & Forests in South Asia has an efficiency of -531 Mt/slot. The latter has become more efficient.

You don’t need to know or calculate these numbers. In fact, I didn’t know these numbers either before I wrote this strategy guide. All you need is to have a rough idea of cards' per $ and per slot efficiency and be able to understand why playing Decline Coal Power in China and North America will have significantly different impact on global carbon emission.

2.2 Understanding Tobin Tax
Tobin Tax is the most powerful way to get fast cash, at the expense of slowing down regional economy and lots of bleeding hearts. Essentially, it is a contingency to trade long term growth for short term effect, in cases where you need to kickstart a planet-wise project, such as a global Cap & Trade Carbon Emissions effort, or in dire situations where you accidently find that the economy is about to plunge into a global financial crisis.
Try NOT to use Tobin Tax as a hobby. You may be tempted to think that as long as you keep a region happy you can safely tax its people to death. 7 cases out of 10 you will find a sudden decline in regional support forces you to stall your Tobin Tax card and messes up your GEO budget and cripple your plan.

2.3 Toying with Outlook
The work as a GEO is tough. Sometimes you have to battle against rioting protestors to push forward a project that will benefit the globe. Sometimes you will even have to spend precious budget only to keep the population happy. Why not make them applaud your decisions instead? The outlook is the single most powerful tool to align your goal with theirs. When expanding resources production and deploying aerosols, consumerist population will applaud you; when declining coal power and conserving wildlife, green population will be ecstatic. However, the shift from consumerism to green usually takes 4-5 turns. Thus planning your next move beforehand is very important. Starting shifting regional outlook in advance will win you hearts and make your tough project a piece of cake.


Eco-awareness Campaign shifts regional outlook greener.

Chapter III Major Decisions

Decision 1: Cap & Trade Carbon Emissions or not? And when?



The Cap & Trade Carbon Emissions card is a project that can potentially last for more than 10 turns. The effect of this card is to shrink all three economic sectors as well as emissions if played in wealthy regions. In developing regions, all three economic sectors will expand while reducing emissions, and literacy and life expectancy will increase. The more green a region’s outlook is, the more effect this card will have. These combined effect make this card a fairly good hand to play. However, if ‘not enough wealthy regions have signed up for Cap & Trade’, cap & trade leak will happen where the regions playing this card will only benefit 50% from the card, and the regions not playing this card will enjoy massive economic boost. In my experience, at the start of the scenario, only participation of all regions will prevent a leak. But in later years, it seems not the case.

I have tried deliberately leak into developing regions, thus making them grow faster, or leak into developed countries, thus making them happy while cutting back developing regions’ emissions. Neither of these turned out well. In the first case, developing regions’ emissions just grow way off chart. In the second case, the developing regions destabilized out of control.

The opening global situation in this scenario is stable wealthy regions except for Russia, and unstable and destabilizing developing regions including Middle East, India, North & South Africa, and potentially South Asia and Latin America. The global Cap & Trade Carbon Emissions effort can help developing regions quickly build up their economy and thus stabilizing the regions. What’s more, developing regions will reduce emissions while developing, meaning their industrial efficiency will continuously increase (less emissions/GDP), and this effect will be valuable in the late game when the whole planet is having a booming economy. When Cap & Trade Carbon Emissions is in effect or completed, Industrial Carbon Regs and Business & Household Carbon Regs become available which can increase industrial and commerce efficiency (less emissions/GDP) respectively. This makes Cap & Trade Carbon Emissions an extremely strong hand to play in early game.

On the other hand, playing this hand late game will suffer major drawbacks. As I stated in the ‘Art of GEO Resources Allocation’ section, regional slots become a scarce resource in mid-late game. Despite the high per $ efficiency, its per slot efficiency is simply too low. Especially you usually want to play Cap & Trade Carbon Emissions, Industrial Carbon Regs or Business& Household Carbon Regs as a portfolio, the expense of 2 or even 3 slots is just too costly.

These reasons combined make the decision pretty straight forward to make. We will deploy Cap & Trade Carbon Emissions as soon as all the regions have outlook of balanced or greener, and we will start shifting outlook of all the regions as soon as budget permits.


Decision 2: Aerosols or not?



In the mid-21st century human race will have access to an extremely powerful technology called Deploy Sulphate Aerosols which can directly cool down the planet by reflecting incoming solar radiation back into space without affecting the atmospheric CO2 concentration. However each atmospheric CO2 concentration value corresponds to a ‘supposed temperature’ value, if the earth’s real temperature is lower than the ‘supposed temperature’ to a certain extent, the original weather pattern will be disrupted and global drought will occur. This will bring down agricultural output and cause global famine if not dealt with immediately and properly.

However if we do not deploy aerosols, the global temperature will continue to increase, releasing arctic methane into the atmosphere, adding a great amount into the greenhouse gas concentration pool, thus making global warming faster and soon out of control. This is simply a risk too high to take. If we have to deal with one of two inevitable global crises, we would rather deal with the one that is easier to cope with, namely drought and famine. Plus, if we prepare for the changing weather pattern ahead of time by playing Adaptation To Heat & Droughts globally several turns after we deploy aerosols, we can effectively prevent agricultural collapse and famine from happening.


Decision 3: Do We Launch Space Missions? And when?
Launching space missions requires fairly large amount of budget, and has a quite long zero return of investment period until the successes of two important missions: Space Solar Collectors and Extract Lunar He3. The space solar array can direct sun light from earth orbit to solar power stations on the earth surface, thus maxes out every region’s solar power capacity instantly one turn after the mission declared a success. Lunar He3 is an indispensable resource for the research and deployment of the 2nd generation fusion power, and once declared success, any regions running the Deploy 2nd Gen Fusion will have much faster fusion capacity growth every turn than Deploy 1st Gen Fusion, and be able to meet the whole region’s energy need within 10 turns (you don’t even need solar anymore).

We will launch space missions as soon as possible for its effect to start kicking in before the slowdown of fossil fuel extraction.

Chapter IV Walkthrough Part 1

North America (NA), Latin America (LA), Europe (EU), North Africa (NAF), South Africa (SAF), Russia (RU), Middle East (ME), India (IN), China (CH), South Asia (SAS), Oceania (AUS), Japan (JP)


Timeline

• 2035-45 expand oil NA
  
• 2045 CCT
  
• 2050 aerosol spread
  
• 2055 aerosol deploy, bid for GEO HQ, expand biofuel SAS
  
• 2060 new greendeal
  
• 2065 renewable NA, Japan, global ban clathrate exploitation, global ban 1st gen biofuel
  
• 2075 renewable LA, international space programme
  
• 2085 renewable China
  
• 2100 1st gen nano got, 1st gen nano spread
  
• 2105 artificial trees, space solar collectors, moonbase alpha, global ban shale & tight gas
  
• 2110 adaptation to heat and droughts, global ban nuclear
  
• 2115 synthetic feedstocks, lunar HE3 extraction (failed), global ban gas, start shifting ME,India,Africa to grey
  
• 2130 global ban coal
  
• 2135 global conventional & unconventional oil, lunar HE3 extraction (failed)
  
• 2160 lunar HE3 extraction (success), massive aerosol, start shifting wealthy regions to grey, massive use of market AI
  
• 2165 global ban 2nd gen biofuel
  
• 2170- 2nd gen fusion

(Note: This is only the timeline of my recent game. You do not need to follow it strictly.)


Phase 1 Opening Play
Turn 1, 2020
• Tobin Tax in NA, EU, RU, AUS, JP. We desperately need the money to boost our global presence; we need everyone on earth to feel our existence.
• Regional Technology Office in NA and JP. We want to immediately start energy and robotics research in Japan. Energy research helps the commitment of renewable and fusion power; robotics research is essential in rushing aerosol technology, and we can stop robotics research to save budget once aerosol is acquired. Materials research in North America must be in place all the time.
• Protect Land, Soil & Forests in LA and SAS. These two card plays are among the most efficient ones as an opening play, just like we calculated in the ‘Art of GEO Resources Allocation’ section in Chapter II.
• Regional Welfare Office in NAF, SAF, RU, ME, IN, JP. We want to start shifting the whole planet’s outlook towards communal/altruistic right away to pave the way for Cap & Trade Carbon Emissions.
• Regional Energy Office in CH and ME. We want to Decline Coal Power in China to reduce huge amount of emissions. We will Expand Oil Production in Middle East to provide necessary resource for continuous global economic growth by delaying the onset of peak oil production.

Turn 2, 2025
• Eco-awareness Campaign in NAF, SAF, RU, ME, IN, JP. Goal is altruistic in Africa, Middle East and India, communal or balanced in rest of the world. This will also stabilize the developing regions and save you budget from costly political policies.
• Regional Welfare Office in NA, LA, EU, SAS, AUS. We will start working on their outlook as well. No one gets left behind.
• Energy Research Programme and Robotics Research Programme in JP.
• Advanced Materials Research in NA.
• Expand Oil Production in ME.
• Regional Energy Office in India. So we can start Decline Coal Power to cut emissions and alleviate the local smog issue.
• Decline Coal Power and Coal-Free Industry in CH.
• Switch Transport to Electricity in NA. Because Decline Coal Power in China and India will increase oil and gas consumption to compensate the energy production need. We’d better spend less oil in NA so that global oil reserve does not drop too quickly.
• Environmental Protection Office in EU and SAS. We finally have some spare money. Environment office can help us fight wildfire in South Asia and win hearts.

Turn 3-6, 2030-2045
This period is relatively stable and peaceful. Continue shifting all regions’ outlook until you hit the goal. Expand Oil Production in North America and Middle East to support steady global economic growth. Your target is to keep the oil production bar at around 60% of the production capacity so that the production will neither increase nor drop too much each turn. You can check it in the production section of the data overview. Toggle on and off Expand Oil Production card depending on current production bar position.


Keep track of oil production.


• Start Cap & Trade Carbon Emissions in ALL REGIONS on the SAME TURN when everyone is balanced or greener.
• Biotech Research Programme in North America until 2nd Gen Biofuels is researched, and get ready to Expand Biofuels in South Asia. You need the mass production of 2nd generation biofuel in South Asia later to counter the oil and gas production drop.

• Put One Child Policy in India and North Africa to make their living standard grow faster. Switch Transport to Electricity follows up in Europe. Fight against storm and drought here and there. Play Educational Enrollment preferably in Africa and India. Coal Free Industry in Middle East to fight smog. None of these is essential, so play your own hands at will.


Phase 2 Planet Cooler Project
Turn 7-8, 2050-2055
If you robotics research in Japan from Turn 2, you should have the aerosol technology researched in 2045. Make sure China, Russia and North America have Regional Technology Office in place because we will let them Acquire Aerosol Geoengineering on the next turn, 2050.

[/previewicon]
Prepare to acquire aerosol technology.

• Deploy Sulphate Aerosols in Japan, China, Russia and North America. You can deploy them wherever you like, but do remember to deploy at least four. Three or fewer is not going to be enough to stop global warming. Target is to keep global warming below 2 degrees, yes, TWO DEGREES, though the mission is to keep it under 3, once warming reaches 2, some irreversible effects such as worsened arctic methane release will significantly increase greenhouse gas concentration and push warming rate faster than you can economically control. So keep an eye on the global warming each turn. Once it comes close to 2 degrees, it is time for you to deploy more aerosols on the planet.

During the whole scenario, global warming has never exceeded 2 degrees.

During this phase I also set up GEO Headquarters in Oceania, and started Expand Biofuels in South Asia. Because once we have successfully contained global warming, which is our first priority as GEO, we will move to our next objective, namely emissions control, by transitioning global reliance on fossil fuels to greener biofuel and renewables.

South Asia transition into world biofuel generator.

Chapter V Walkthrough Part 2

Phase 3 Towards Greener Planet
Turn 9-16, 2060-2095
Since you have already deployed aerosols, so congratulations! Your life is much easier now.
In this phase, global economy is sustained at quite a high level, so your budget is not so restricted.
• New Green Deal in Oceania, which reduces the contentment HDI to 0.8. This means as long as regional HDI is above 0.8, the population will not grow angry about the low living standard.
• Commit To Renewables in North America, Latin America and China. We must prepare for the impending oil and gas shortage, and these three regions have fairly good amount of renewables capacity.
• Global Ban: Clathrate Exploitation when Benthic Depressurization is researched to prevent clathrate burst.
• Global Ban: 1st Gen Biofuels after South Asia acquired 2nd Gen Biofuels.
International Space Programme, we want to explore the space when we finally have the budget to spare.
• Cap & Trade Carbon Emissions still in effect.
• Massive Technology sharing throughout the world. Priority is to get prerequisite technologies for 1st Gen Nanotech (Advanced Drilling, Super Tensile) everywhere. Get 2nd Gen Biofuels for South Asia and South Africa. Get Smartgrids preferably everywhere because it will instantly cut regional energy need and thus energy production emissions. Get Concentrated Photovoltaic Cells for regions committing to renewables. Get 1st Gen Fusion prerequisite technologies for developing regions where renewables alone will not meet the need, in my case India and South Asia.


Technology sharing around the world.


• Continue Advanced Materials Research Programme in North America. You may start Infotech Research Programme to acquire Super Smartgrids sooner if budget and slot permits. Keep Energy Research Programme running in Japan as always. You need the fusion technology to mitigate the energy shortage.


Phase 4 Zero Emission Campaign
Turn 17-18, 2100-2105
• Artificial Trees in every region. Now that North America has researched 1st Gen Nanotech, we can immediately start massive deployment of Artificial Trees around the globe. Make sure every single region on earth has acquired advanced turbines in 2090, so that in 2095 they can acquire 1st gen nanotech and deploy Artificial Trees in 2100. These trees instantly cut down on the regional annual emissions by 2000 Mt. When deployed in all 12 regions, that means a 120,000 MtCO2e reduction every turn! The global emission left now should be only a small fraction of what it used to be.


Huge emission cut thanks to global deployment of Artificial Trees.


• Global Ban: Shale & Tight Gas. The massive 2nd gen biofuel production in South Asia and South Africa we started in the mid-21st century should be more than enough to compensate for the ban of shale & tight gas production. We can now safely get rid of this energy inefficient production.

• Launch Space Solar Collectors. This is key to success of global transition into zero emission era. The collectors will let every single region on earth to reach maximum solar power capacity in just one turn after the collectors are deployed in earth’s orbit. If you play this card on Turn X, the regional solar power burst will happen on Turn X+3.

• Moonbase Alpha. Though not essential, when you have the spare budget, better play this card sooner than later. It will later enable you to Extract Lunar HE3 and let you enjoy 2nd gen fusion, an unlimited source of zero emission power.


Launching space missions.


Phase 5 Who says economy booming equals more pollution?
Turn 19-37 2110-2200
We have already successfully accomplished the first two priorities on our list, temperature and emissions. Now let us enjoy the booming economy while having every region happy and stable.

• Synthetic Feedstocks. Play this card in every region on earth the turn your Space Solar Collectors are successfully deployed in earth’s orbit. Because next turn your solar capacity will burst and will be more than enough to fill the energy need in almost every region, even if you add the extra energy requirement by turning to synthetic petrochemicals. This card will effectively remove all the oil and gas need from industry sector, and the emissions reduction resulted will be amazing.


The combined effect of Space Solar Collectors and Synthetic Feedstocks on global emissions.

Watch out though, that South Asia and India will almost definitely run short of energy because their lack of renewable capacity. Expect a huge GDP plunge following the Synthetic Feedstocks play. Don’t worry, it will only be regional, and it will actually be healthy for the planet.


GDP plunge in South Asia.

• Adaptation To Heat & Droughts. Due to the small amount of CO2 released every year and the global warming constantly kept under 2 degrees, the disparities between greenhouse gas concentration and global temperature will only get bigger and bigger. By now you should have already experienced ‘increased drought risk’ and have played your Improved Drought, Wildfire & Erosion Defences card to counter that. Now you will get more ‘greater drought risk’ messages and you only need Adaptation To Heat & Droughts every turn to prepare for that so your agriculture will not get crushed.


Aerosol, artificial trees and adaptation card need to be kept in place every turn, which occupy three slots.


• Deploy Sulphate Aerosols in every region. Lower temperature will reduce the chance of species lost, plus everyone will be happy.

• Encourage Consumption especially in greener regions including Africa, Middle East and India. Target is balanced or greyer because you don’t want them to get angry about your aerosols deployment.

• Global Ban the rest of the fossil fuels. Watch out for regions not yet 100% reliant on renewables. Each ban will give them a hit. Make sure that each ban will only deprive them of less than 5% of their energy production so you will not trigger a global financial crisis. For example, if South Asia has 85% energy coming from renewables, 10% from natural gas and 5% from oil, banning oil will be quite safe here, and banning gas will be risky unless you are playing grow agriculture or industry everywhere else around the globe.

• Desalination Programme in places running short of water supply or producing huge amount of agricultural emissions every turn. Late in the game I found that China’s agricultural emission just kept rising over 2700 MtCO2e. And the only way to get it right is to desalinize the region.

• Super Smartgrids everywhere because you want to further reduce energy requirement and more importantly, because you are so rich you can spend money any way you want.

• Protect Land, Soil & Forests everywhere where you have spare slots and budget. This is the final means you have to produce even more negative emissions, because in most of the regions you may already have very very high efficiency and produce very very low industrial and commerce emissions.

• Market AI if you have nothing else to do and want to avoid financial crisis without putting in any effort. From this point on, you can just sit back and press the Next Turn button until you reach final victory.


An example in late game where every slot is occupied by longterm projects.

Chapter VI Conclusion

The scenario finally concludes at 0.9 degrees warming and 591.1 PPMV. Emissions were cut significantly at the wake of 22nd century. Economic growth has never stopped during the whole game. The final global GDP is 3.5 times what it was at the start.

[Nicodemo Gommorah]

didn't CAT help make this game?

[Lasercar]

Interesting how your graph of pollution almost matches the CAT's policies and action warming projection seen here:
https://climateactiontracker.org/publications/despite-glasgow-climate-pact-2030-climate-target-updates-have-stalled/

[LtlMacMcG]

I don't know what I am doing wrong, but after the aerosol burst for one turn I quit using it. Then the temperature stabilizes for a turn, then drops for a turn. After that it suddenly SKYROCKETS from 1.5 to 2.5 with no explanation and I can't seem to understand why. Any ideas?

[Teppicommom]

Good guide for starting, as i have seen someone reaching less than 520ppm with expanding gas and restricting population growth.

[boomermojo]

I've found expanding nuclear in China and India turn 1. S/EA and the Mid East on turn 2 is very effective. Decrease coal and oil (in the Mid East) need to be played also. This virtually halts the growth of emmisions by turn 3. You need these countries to accquire 4th gen nuclear as soon as its researched and swap the expand nuclear card out for 4th gen nuclear incentives. Otherwise they'll be no uranium left by about 2060. Uranium will still run out, but by that time there will be more slots unlocked and tech researched that they can switch to renewables quickly.

[Kattenelvis]

Exelently written, nicely structured and very helpful :)

[PeaceAgent]

Good guide, thank you

[Chibi]

Have same problem like Mcrone the Hillary from Gensec said, any tip?

[tolbachik]

Oh my goodness, I've been needing something like this! Thank you so much for making this!

[markypoo]

Best tip from this guide - Try using aerosols early to prevent 2 degree snowballed climate change. I did not realize this trigger was so overpowering. The tradeoff of climate drought instability is significantly more manageable.