Everything you need to know before taking office
You lead a real country for 8 half-year turns. Each turn you enact or repeal policies, then dice rolls determine what happens. An AI Dungeon Master narrates the results as a newspaper. On Turn 8, the nation votes on your reelection.
If you’ve played D&D or other tabletop RPGs, this will feel familiar: you declare actions, the DM sets a difficulty, dice decide the outcome, and the story evolves from there. If you haven’t — all you need to know is that every action has a random element. You can make smart choices, but you can’t control the dice.
Choose one of three difficulty levels when creating a game:
Every action rolls a die against a Difficulty Class (DC). Roll equal to or above the DC to succeed. The AI chooses the die size — from a D4 for trivial matters up to a D20 for major legislation — based on how politically significant the action is. It also sets the DC based on your approval, how radical the action is, and how well it fits your nation’s politics.
You enact Universal Healthcare. The AI sets DC 14. You roll 12 — missed by 2, partial failure. The bill passes with major concessions and cost overruns.
Policies are permanent laws. Your nation starts with 40–50 across seven categories, about half already active. Each has three implementation options from cautious to radical — bolder choices face higher DCs. You can also draft custom bills.
Directives are one-time executive actions — crisis responses, emergency measures, diplomatic moves. They roll dice but don’t persist.
Repeals also roll dice. Established policies are harder to overturn.
Reading the Front Page
Sections below match the layout of your newspaper, top to bottom, left to right.
The lead article is written by the AI Dungeon Master each turn. It weaves together everything that happened — your policy outcomes, world events, character moves — into a narrative. Read it carefully; it often hints at emerging crises and shifting alliances.
Ongoing national and global situations that affect your country — economic downturns, geopolitical tensions, public health crises. Each has a severity (minor, moderate, major, or crisis) and momentum (escalating, stable, or easing).
Every turn, each pressure rolls dice. Your active policies can modify these rolls. Successes ease pressures; failures escalate them and hit your stats. New pressures can emerge and existing ones can resolve. Click any story to see its dice details.
A summary of every dice roll this turn. Click any result for the full breakdown — die type, DC, roll, and consequence. Results include your policy actions, maintenance challenges on existing policies, and character-driven events.
When your active policies interact — reinforcing or undermining each other — synergies appear here. A universal healthcare law paired with preventive care funding might boost both; conflicting economic policies could create drag. The DM factors these into your turn outcomes.
Your nation tracks 8–15 statistics (Economy, Healthcare, Crime, etc.) on a 0–100 scale. Each turn, events produce numerical impacts on these stats. A successful trade reform might give Economy +5, while a failed infrastructure roll might hit it for −3.
Stats update deterministically from impacts — no hidden AI magic. Click any stat to see its history and why it changed. Some stats are inverted (Crime, Poverty, Corruption) where lower is better.
Your nation has 4–10 voter groups (e.g. Business Owners, Working Class, Environmentalists), each weighted by political influence. Like stats, approval changes through numerical impacts each turn. Click any group to see why they shifted.
Your overall approval is the weighted average of all voter groups. This is your health bar for the election.
Persistent characters — your opposition leader, chief of staff, lead journalist, and others — who act independently each turn. They may trigger events you didn’t choose, with their own dice rolls. Click any character to see their disposition (ally, neutral, rival) and full event history.
Turn 8 is election day. Your overall approval — the weighted average of your voter groups — determines the outcome. Above ~45% generally wins reelection. Below ~40% or with crises dominating, you get voted out. In extreme cases you can be removed early.
Know your country. The AI rewards strategies that engage with your nation’s real dynamics. Generic policies face more resistance.
Start moderate. Cautious implementations face lower DCs. Build wins before going radical.
Don’t overextend. Every active policy can face maintenance challenges. A few well-chosen reforms beat a dozen fragile ones.
Read the article. It tells you what’s actually happening — character moves, voter shifts, and emerging crises.