Countries

Countries are the hapless polities that banks are manipulating to their advantage. In Evil Bank Manager, they're particularly hapless, as they cannot take action against banks and are routinely manipulated by them.

Overview
Countries can go to war with each other and require money all the time. As the bank, you can profit from all of those needs, by selling weapons to warring sides and manipulating the outcome of conflicts, by issuing loans, buying real estate, industry and other goods, and of course, using countries as proxies to do your bidding.

You need a banking license to operate in a country and control any permanent assets there. Keep that in mind when buying and investing. In general, licences are cheaper on a per-region basis in larger countries, but you need a lot money up front. Conversely, smaller countries are cheaper to enter, but do not offer as many options - that is, unless you invest in them heavily and groom them, taking apart other countries piecemeal.

Other banks may open up their branches in a country. You can retaliate by freezing their assets through diplomacy... Though that requires good relations.

Relations
All countries start neutral when you open up a branch and it's up to you to improve their opinion of you. Relations will decay over time, as they grow suspicious of your intentions and operations, so you will need to expend influence through espionage to improve your standing. You need them to like you, as without that you cannot use any of the special actions.

You can convince them to invest in agriculture, industry, or luxury products at any time (and foot the bill), which increases the production of any assets you own in the target area in that category. Once they improve higher, you can convince them to declare war on a target country, devaluate other banks' holdings or at top levels, completely freeze their assets.

List of countries
The values in the table below are the starting values at the beginning of the game. The license cost is approximately the correct value, but may deviate from the real value by a few thousands. Note that these values do not take into account the Conqueror Bonus (25% cheaper licenses).