Campaign Manager System

The Campaign Manager is scoped to US presidential races only (more precisely: electionType === "president" AND the country's executiveFormation === "direct_election"). Senate, house, governor, UK commons, JP shugiin / sangiin, and other parliamentary races run candidates, endorsements, and vote tallies without a Campaign doc.

When a candidate enters a US presidential race (primary or general), POST /api/elections/[id]/enter calls createInitialCampaign, gated by isCampaignEligibleElection. The same gate is enforced in admin routes (start-general, place-candidate) so a future non-direct-election "president" office (e.g. parliament-appointed figurehead) will not spawn a Campaign Manager pool.

Each eligible candidacy has an associated campaign with a dedicated page at /campaign/[id]. The page adapts based on who is viewing it.

Access Tiers#

This creates a "fog of war" mechanic: players cannot see the full details of opponents' campaigns.

Campaign Resources#

Each campaign has two independent resource pools:

• Campaign Funds, Earned from fundraising income per turn, player donations, and party donations. Spent on upgrades.
• Campaign Actions, Generated per turn from endorsements (1 + floor(sqrt(endorsements) × 3), minimum 1). Spent on upgrades.

These are entirely separate from the candidate's personal funds and character actions.

Strategic Operations (Branch Trees)#

Campaigns invest in four levers, each a starter unlock + three branch sub-tracks (Strategic Operations v2), not a single flat 0-10/0-5 level. Unlocking a lever's starter node gates its branches; each branch then levels independently 1-3 (OPS_MAX_BRANCH_LEVEL = 3). Source: src/lib/campaigns/upgradeCosts.ts2d ago (OPS_TREES), owner-facing tree state in src/lib/campaigns/dto/campaignView.ts2d ago.

A legacy flat fundraisingLevel / mediaSpendingLevel / groundGameLevel / oppositionResearchLevel (0-10 / 0-5) still exists on the Campaign doc as a migrated summary (migrateCampaignOpsTrees maps old levels onto a starter + branch state); the branch trees are the live mechanic players invest in.

Upgrade costs are 1.5× higher once the election enters the general phase (primaryEndTime ≤ now < endTime).

Opposition Research#

Purchasing opposition research requires selecting a target. The target's favorability drains passively each turn based on your level.

• Retargeting, Change your target at any time via the campaign page. A 6-hour cooldown (oppositionResearchCooldownUntil) applies between retargets.
• POST /api/campaigns/[id]/retarget, Owner or manager only; requires oppositionResearchLevel > 0.

Campaign Season Multiplier#

In the final 4 turns before election.endTime, all passive effects from media spending and opposition research are automatically doubled (2×). No player action required.

Donations#

Any authenticated player can donate personal Cash on Hand to any active campaign (minimum $1). The national party chair can donate from the party treasury.

• Donation log, All donations are recorded in campaign.donationLog (last 100 entries). Fields: donor name, donor type ("character" | "party"), amount, turn number.
• POST /api/campaigns/[id]/donate, Body: { amount: number, partyId?: string }. Omit partyId for personal donation; include it for a party donation (chair authorization required).

Manager Assignment#

An admin can assign a campaign manager character to any campaign:

• API: POST /api/admin/campaigns/[id]/assign-manager
• Effect: The assigned character gains limited management access to the campaign
• Use case: Party leadership delegating campaign oversight

Endorsements#

NPP endorsements are now manual-only. They come from explicit asks in the player-to-NPP interaction panel rather than organic turn-time re-evaluation. The endorsement check stays hidden from players, but the panel shows a Likely to Accept / Likely to Decline chip based on current relationship and policy fit. For presidential elections, player endorsements also count toward the campaign actions formula. For all other race types, player endorsements are cosmetic only.

Active NPP endorsements now matter in two ways:

• they continue to feed campaign action generation
• they also add a small capped direct favorability boost in race calculations so endorsements are not purely an action-economy stat

Database Collections#

Key Campaign Fields#

API Routes#

Related Documentation#

• Elections, Elections Hub and candidacy rules
• Campaign Strategy, Action allocation and win strategies
• Stats & Actions, Action costs and campaign activities
• NPP System, Endorsement mechanics