Once workers arrive in your settlement in Pax Autocratica, a set of stats appears in the top-right corner of the screen. Three of them decide whether your colony keeps producing or turns against you: Loyalty, Fear, and Morale. Each stat is an average across every worker, so the on-screen number tells you roughly how content or how close to rioting your population is.
Quick answer: You cannot raise Loyalty directly. It rises on its own each day when Morale is healthy, so push Morale up with pay, food, barracks, and hospitals, and keep a small amount of Fear active to block strikes and protests.
How Loyalty works and why you can’t raise it directly
Loyalty measures obedience. Workers with high Loyalty are more efficient and finish tasks faster, which keeps your production lines moving. When Loyalty drops, workers start to question your rule, which leads to protests and, at the extreme end, defections where they abandon the settlement entirely.
There is no button or policy that adds Loyalty on its own. The stat moves as a result of the other two. High Morale nudges Loyalty upward each day, while Fear keeps workers in line even when they resent you. Because of that, the practical way to manage Loyalty is to manage Morale and Fear. You can also open an individual worker to check their personal Loyalty and see who is close to breaking.
Raise Morale with pay, food, and services
Morale reflects the mental state of your workers and tracks how well you treat them. Keeping it healthy is the engine that raises Loyalty automatically every day, so it is the stat you want to protect first. The core needs are barracks, food, and hospitals, along with fair pay and reasonable working hours.
Increase the pay. Raising a worker’s salary lifts Morale. Open the pay dialog and push the distribution rate higher to reward the population. Be aware that better pay draws from your budget, so it works best when your economy can support it.
Cook the right dishes. Food is one of the most reliable Morale boosters, but specific recipes have specific effects. Some dishes raise Morale while others lower it, so check the blueprint before you start production. A Morale-positive meal such as the StateBlessed Duo Salad is worth crafting when the number starts to slide.
Do not lean on pay and food while working people to exhaustion. Overworking your population pulls Morale back down, which cancels out the gains you paid for. Balance the workload against the perks you provide.
Morale thresholds to watch
| Morale level | What happens |
|---|---|
| Healthy | Loyalty rises automatically each day |
| Below 25 | Good chance workers strike the next day |
| 0 | Workers enter Frenzy |
These thresholds are easy to hold early on with a handful of workers. The pressure grows later, when a large settlement makes every food shortage or missed hospital felt across the whole population at once.
Use Fear to prevent strikes and protests
Fear is the tyrant’s lever. Where treating workers well raises Morale, ruling harshly raises Fear. A population that is afraid is less likely to strike or protest, which buys you stability while Morale recovers. The catch is that too much Fear pushes workers to defect or break down mentally, so it is a tool you apply in measured amounts rather than max out.
Execute at the Gallows. The simplest way to spike Fear is a public execution. Assign a worker to the Execution Gallows to make an example of them and raise Fear across the settlement.
Executions are not the only method. Certain dishes raise Fear instead of Morale, and you can jail workers and have them electrocuted for minor offenses to keep everyone else compliant. If you take none of these actions, Fear naturally decays a little each day, so it needs occasional reinforcement to stay useful.
Balancing Morale and Fear for a stable colony
The stable setup keeps Morale in good condition so every worker produces at full efficiency, while a low level of Fear sits in the background to discourage protests. Morale carries Loyalty upward over time, and Fear acts as a brake when discontent starts to build.
| Stat | Raise it by | Lower it by |
|---|---|---|
| Loyalty | Keeping Morale healthy each day | Letting Morale and Fear fall out of balance |
| Morale | Higher pay, Morale-positive food, barracks, hospitals | Overworking, Morale-negative food |
| Fear | Gallows executions, Fear-raising food, prison and electrocution | Doing nothing (decays daily) |
Leaning too far in either direction backfires. Pure kindness leaves you without the pressure to stop a protest, while pure cruelty pushes Morale toward the strike and Frenzy thresholds and drives defections. Watch the top-right numbers, top up Morale before it approaches 25, and reapply Fear only when the population starts testing your authority.
