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The year is 2025. It has been five years since NATO forces conducted a short but effective war on the tiny Pacific nation of Tanoa. Faced with mounting international pressure after news of atrocities spread across social media and the internet, NATO decisively acted to remove the Tanoan dictator Waqa Vunakece. Since the downfall of the Vunakece regime, Tanoa's economic situation has declined, and efforts to transform the country into an independent democracy have failed. Earlier this year, Tanoan pro-democratic movements had begun to rapidly expand on social media sites, and by March the hashtag #FreeTanoa was trending yet again.
Various protests soon followed and although the demonstrations started out small, the number of protesters quickly grew to hundreds, garnering international attention. Though the many of the groups who came to prominence in this period shared different ideologies and backgrounds, a popular Tanoan vlogger known as Boroboro rose to prominence with a message of unity. His impassioned pleas for liberty for all Tanoans went viral at the beginning of July 2025, culminating in his call for all groups and all Tanoans to attend a protest in the nation's capital under the one unified banner of "Free Tanoa" on July 26. It was on this day that Boroboro was assassinated by an unidentified gunman.
You awake on the morning of Sunday, July 27, 2025 to a strange new feeling of insecurity and uncertainty. Neither NATO or Tanoans have these islands under control, that is obvious, and you could sit around and watch it all fall apart, or you can make a difference.
Main article: Stability
Each town in Tanoa has a stability rating that affects local prices and the garrison strength of the town. NATO will decide to abandon a town if it drops too low and they are unable to establish order. When stability is low, criminal elements will move in and attempt to destabilize the town further and keep it unstable for their nefarious deeds.
Stability in a town will drop quickly if NATO soldiers are dying there. Civilian deaths will also hurt stability but nowhere near as much.
Each island also has at least one broadcast tower marked on the map, if NATO does not control this tower stability will drop in all towns within broadcast range.
##Money Main article: Money
Making money can be done many ways. Stores are marked with a ($) on the map when you zoom into a town and will contain a shopkeeper that will buy legal items from you (radios, rangefinders, watches etc) as well as sell them back to you at a highly inflated cost.
If you can get to one of the two major ports in Tanoa (Lijnhaven or Blue-Pearl) you can drive up to the marked building, press 'Y' and export the contents of your vehicle. If the resistance controls the port you can also export illegal items such as weapons and ammunition.
Upgrading your Trade perk in the character sheet will get you cheaper buy prices.
Black market dealers can be found in most towns but might not be easy to track down if there are a lot of houses, just ask shopkeepers about them or go to door to door looking for a man dressed in camo. Boats can be purchased at some jetties. Residential houses and apartments can be purchased and leased for passive income.
In Multiplayer, 25% of your money will be lost on death. In your starting home is a safe that you can use to safely store money.
Main article: Recruits
Walking up to a civilian, pressing 'Y' and choosing 'Talk' will allow you to recruit that civilian for between $200 and $400 depending on your standing and the town. Once recruited you can command the AI by selecting them with F2, F3 etc and using standard Arma AI commands. Special Overthrow commands (such as the ever-useful Loot command) can be accessed by pressing 'Y' with the unit selected.
Building a Barracks at captured objectives allows you to recruit entire squads into your High Command bar fully equipped using items from your Warehouse.
Main article: Standing
Each player has a local standing that affects prices in that town as well as your fame/infamy amongst NATO, criminals and civilians. Your standing will drop severely if you kill civilians. Standing can be gained by neutralizing criminals or completing missions that help the town. Your 'global standing' is a sum of your standing in all towns across the country and does have an effect as well.
Main article: Influence
You earn influence every 10 minutes, and will earn more according to how many towns, radio towers and objectives the resistance controls. You will also receive an injection of influence when any of the above are captured. Influence can be spent on perks that improve your character.
Main article: Real Estate
Most residential buildings can be purchased and used as fast travel points for yourself, or leased out for passive income. Rents will be much lower in towns that NATO controls or where stability and/or population is low. A mansion in a stable, resistance-controlled Georgetown will fetch the highest rent whereas a shack in unstable Namuvaka won't get you much.
Main article: Placing Items
In your main menu under 'Y' there is an option to 'place' smaller items for a small cost around the world such as a Map, Ammobox, Safe, Camp, FOB and more.
Main article: Building
In your main menu under 'Y' there is also an option to 'build' useful buildings such as a House, Warehouse, Barracks, Workshop and more!
#What to do
Say 'yes' to the tutorial to get some further background and direction for where to go.
Try our [YouTube playlist] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfeIfiiBTfY&list=PLUrzXEa-EVEfOuskTrGAqQK3UUpoUDgrJ)
##Destabilize The game begins with a relatively stable Tanoa, and the magic happens when there is instability, especially when there is a gradient between different regions allowing you to take advantage of the above mechanics. Therefore you need to cut stability. There are plenty of ways you can do this, don't follow this guide in order just use it to give you some ideas of what YOU might have fun doing.
##Getting around Cars can be purchased from most fuel stations and other workshops. There are also plenty just laying around on the side of the road that can be used if you don't care about stealing someone else's wheels.
You can also utilise the fast travel system to effortlessly move between your built structures, purchased homes, or conquered locations.
##Scavenge Find any towns with less than 50% stability using your map. You can be assured that there are criminals in these towns, already or there will be soon. Go there and 'PLACE' a camp nearby and wait for the fireworks to begin. After shootouts between NATO and gangs there will be plenty of items just laying around for you to pick up and take to the closest store for sale, while also building your own armory which might come in handy later. Depending on the state of the town garrison (and pure luck) the stability in this town may also drop, opening up further opportunity.
##Hunt bounties In your starting house there is a map, scroll your mouse wheel on it and choose "Most Wanted". Any towns that have active gangs will have a gang leader. Local businessmen will put a bounty on the gang leader's head if it's hurting business and they feel that NATO is not doing anything about it. This can be very good money early on, but note that killing criminals and especially gang leaders will raise stability in that town very quickly, however criminals carry a much wider assortment of weapons for your collection.
Stability and your standing affects local prices, as well as the population of the town. Buy where stability, population and your standing is high, sell where stability/population is low and your standing is high/neutral. Most (but not all) shops in Tanoa are open 24/7 and have an inventory they will keep track of. Trade does not affect stability but buying legal items does have a slight positive effect on standing.
Black market dealers will sell you various drugs that can be sold to civilians by approaching them and asking but be careful, if NATO see you or find any using their "stop and search" powers they will confiscate it and you will forfeit any funds used to acquire them. If criminals see you they will just open fire, as you are dealing on their turf.
##Radio towers Every major island has at least one broadcast tower that NATO uses to broadcast Fox News 24 hrs a day. Capturing these towers will drop stability for all towns in range as we use them to broadcast roots reggae music and show people what's really happening in Tanoa and the world.
The brute force method is to simply kill the NATO Gendarmerie forces and attempt to capture the many NATO bases around Tanoa, but it won't be easy because Babylon's too tough.
#Development and where this mod is going Check our public roadmap and task board at https://github.com/armazac/Overthrow/projects for the latest information on what's happening with Overthrow.
#Need more help? Join our public discord channel! https://discord.gg/R3ghxge