Anyone can approve a few loans and watch the money roll in during a Boom. Building a bank that survives every recession, cyberattack, and bank run on the way to a billion dollars takes discipline. This guide covers the tactics that separate a bank that compounds from one that quietly goes under. If you're brand new, start with the How to Play guide first, then come back here.
Every decision in Meridian Bank is a trade between return and survival. Lending more, paying up for deposits, and buying equities all raise your expected return — and all reduce your margin of safety. The players who reach the top milestones aren't the most aggressive; they're the ones who take exactly as much risk as their reserves can absorb, and no more. Grow fast when the economy gives you cover, and pull in your horns before the downturn, not during it.
The economy moves between three states — Boom, Neutral, and Recession — and it doesn't jump randomly. It follows a transition pattern: a Boom is most likely to stay a Boom or cool to Neutral, while a Recession tends to linger before recovering. Use that persistence. When you enter a Recession, assume it may last several quarters and position defensively rather than betting on an instant rebound.
| Phase | What changes | How to play it |
|---|---|---|
| Boom | Low defaults, strong loan demand, rising deposits | Lend aggressively, tilt toward equities, expand the loan book |
| Neutral | Stable, no tailwind or headwind | Keep rates competitive, hold reserves, take selective bets |
| Recession | Defaults up ~70%, deposits shrink, equities fragile | Tighten lending, rotate to T-bills/bonds, protect reserves |
Your reserve ratio is your health bar. The regulatory floor is 10%, but the floor is not a target — it's a cliff edge. The distance between your actual ratio and that floor is your margin of safety, and the single biggest cause of a game-ending bank run is chasing yield right down to the edge just before a bad event.
Your deposit rate is a lever, not a set-and-forget number. Every point you pay savers is a point of cost, so only raise the rate when you have somewhere profitable to put the incoming money. The right move is usually to price relative to your rival: undercut them slightly when you're flush and don't need growth; outbid them when you're capital-starved or when an event has left them weak and their customers are looking to move. When a rival stumbles or fails outright, that's your moment to capture deposits cheaply.
Loans are your engine, but a loan book is only as good as its worst borrowers. A few principles:
Idle cash earns a small yield, so deploying reserves into investments is free money — until it isn't. Match the asset to the moment:
A simple rule: the deeper into a Recession you are, the more of your investment allocation should sit in T-bills and bonds rather than equities.
Organic growth compounds slowly; acquisitions let you leap. Buying a failing or undervalued rival instantly adds their deposits and footprint. But two cautions: acquisitions drain cash exactly when you spend it, so never buy if it would push your reserve ratio toward the floor, and a cheap bank can be cheap because its loan book is full of defaults you're about to inherit. Buy when you're strong, not when you're stretched.
Business ventures are a longer play — they tie up capital but diversify your income and add to enterprise value. Fund them once your core banking operation is stable enough that the locked-up capital won't be missed in a crisis.
Events are where games are won and lost. The pattern to internalize: the event fires this quarter; you react next quarter. A Fed rate hike tells you bonds will soften and deposit competition will heat up — adjust before the damage compounds. A cyberattack or failed stress test is a signal to rebuild reserves immediately.
Once you pass roughly $100M in assets and beyond, systemic events unlock — failed stress tests, congressional hearings, breakup threats, and contagion. At this scale you also carry a capital surcharge for being systemically important, so the reserve discipline that got you here matters even more. Being "too big to fail" is a milestone to celebrate and a target on your back at the same time.
New to the mechanics? Read How to Play. Unsure what a term means? The Banking Glossary defines every concept in the game. Common questions are answered in the FAQ.