📜 Government Contracts
The Prime Minister can hire the public. A government contract is paid work posted by the PM: a title, a budget, and a player who takes the job and gets paid for it. The budget comes straight out of the treasury, so contracts are real money — track them like any other public spending.
Shortcut: plain /contract works exactly like /hideoutia contract.
For everyone
/hideoutia contract list— the open and in-progress contracts (the live board)/hideoutia contract info <id>— the full detail of one contract: title and brief, budget, status, who posted it and when, the contractor and when they accepted, how and when it was resolved, plus how to accept it while it's open/hideoutia contract mine— the contracts you've accepted/hideoutia contract accept <id>— take on an open contract; it's now yours to deliver
When a new contract is posted, everyone online sees a one-line announcement with its number, so you can jump on the good ones early. You can't accept a contract you posted yourself.
For the Prime Minister
/hideoutia contract post <amount> <title> | <description>— post paid work. The description is optional: put a|after the title and everything after it becomes a longer brief shown in/hideoutia contract info. No|means a title only./hideoutia contract payout <id>— pay the contractor (the job's done)/hideoutia contract retender <id>— kick the current contractor off and reopen it/hideoutia contract cancel <id>— scrap it and reclaim the budget
The money — escrow
The budget is debited from the treasury the instant you post the contract. That's the whole trick: the money is set aside (escrowed) up front, so a posted contract can never bounce.
- Payout simply hands the escrowed budget to the contractor — the treasury already paid at post, so payout moves no extra money. Posting then paying out costs the treasury exactly the budget, and the contractor receives exactly the budget.
- Cancel gives the escrowed budget back to the treasury. Net cost of post-then-cancel: zero.
- Retender moves no money at all — the budget stays escrowed while you find a new contractor.
Two things to know, same as welfare: contract payouts are not taxed, and the treasury may go negative if you over-commit. Every movement is in the public ledger (reasons contract:post and contract:cancel-refund).
Lifecycle
OPEN ──accept──▶ ACCEPTED ──payout──▶ PAID (terminal)
▲ │
└─── retender ─────┘
│
└────────── cancel ──────────▶ CANCELLED (terminal)
(ACCEPTED can be cancelled too)
A PAID or CANCELLED contract is finished — it can't be paid, retendered, or cancelled again. If a payout ever fails to reach the contractor (a rare economy hiccup), the contract stays ACCEPTED so the PM can simply try the payout again.
Notifications
Government mail keeps everyone informed: the PM is told when their contract is accepted, and the contractor is told when they're paid, returned to tender, or cancelled.