Non-Player Politicians (NPPs)

NPPs are AI-controlled politicians who keep the world populated and politically active even when there are not enough players to fill every office. They can hold office, enter elections, vote on legislation, join caucuses, receive party pressure, and endorse candidates.

Overview#

• Purpose: Fill seats, create contested races, and act as strategic targets for player and party influence
• Display: NPPs appear across election pages, legislature pages, party surfaces, and state/region pages with an NPP badge
• Profile page: /politicians/npp/[id]
• Current offices covered: legislative, executive, and subnational offices across active countries

Core Data Model#

Core Fields (npps collection)#

Personality Traits#

Election Behavior#

Handled from src/lib/turn/nppBehavior.ts10d ago through the election-entry pass in src/lib/turn/npp/electionEntry.ts5d ago.

Entry Rules#

Current NPP entry is deterministic and priority-based, not a pure random ambition roll.

• NPP must not be retired
• NPP must not already be in another active race
• NPP must belong to the same countryId as the election
• NPP must match the race geography for subnational offices
• Presidential entry is blocked by default; the SP3 autonomy work lifts the bar only in autonomy-active, non-player-enabled countries (no player to contest the presidency there). See src/lib/nppAutonomy/featureFlag.ts10d ago (autonomy levels v0-v4) and src/lib/nppAutonomy/appointNppPresident.ts10d ago.

Geographic Scope#

• house, senate, governor, stateSenate: homeState must match the race
• commons, regionalCouncil, shugiin, sangiin: home geography must match the race geography
• Presidential auto-entry is blocked outside the SP3 autonomy-active case above

Entry Order#

NPP filing runs in a deliberate order:

1. Defending incumbents auto-file first for the seat they already hold
2. Accepted Slate NPPs file next, even if this creates a same-party primary against a defending incumbent
3. Fallback fill then adds at most one generic same-party NPP to an otherwise open primary

Priority Order for Generic Fallback Fill#

Cooldowns and Dropout#

• NPPs who drop out receive an electionCooldowns[electionId] timestamp
• Generic fallback fill respects the cooldown
• Defending incumbents can still auto-defend their own seat even if they previously dropped from that same primary

Bill Voting#

Handled by:

• src/lib/turn/npp/billVoting.ts9d ago
• src/lib/turn/npp/stateBillVoting.ts10d ago
• src/lib/turn/npp/crossPressure.ts10d ago

Scope#

NPPs now autonomously vote on:

• Federal bills in bills
• State / regional bills in stateBills

The local pass currently covers:

• stateSenate
• regionalCouncil

Cross-Pressure Model#

Bill voting is now a deterministic cross-pressure verdict, not a simple ideology roll. Each vote is the sum of four signed forces:

• ideology
• whip
• district / home-region sentiment
• donors

Verdict rule:

• total > +15 -> for
• total < -15 -> against
• otherwise -> abstain

Federal vs Local Weighting#

Federal and local bill voting share the same core structure, but local chambers weight home-region pressure more heavily and donor pressure more lightly than federal voting.

Whips in Auto-Voting#

Autonomous bill voting respects persisted party whips:

• hard whips contribute the stronger legacy force
• soft whips contribute weaker advisory pressure
• state-party whips outrank national-party whips for in-state NPPs
• caucus whips are scoped to caucus members only

Immediate Bill Whips vs Autonomous Resolution#

The Whip Room can also apply NPP bill whips immediately:

• hard whip -> hidden loyalty/stubbornness success roll; on success the vote is written immediately
• soft whip -> no immediate forced vote; instead it changes future autonomous cross-pressure

Multi-Seat Weighting#

If an NPP holds multiple seats in a chamber, their vote contributes their seatsHeld weight to the tally.

Leadership Voting#

US congressional leadership elections are now treated as player-only for NPP behavior purposes.

• processSpeakerVoting() is a deliberate no-op
• NPPs do not autonomously vote in Speaker, House leadership, or Senate leadership elections
• player whip routes and leadership UI still exist for player coordination, but NPP leadership fallback is not part of the intended current design

The helper logic in src/lib/turn/npp/leadershipVoting.ts9d ago remains as shared infrastructure, but the live turn pass does not cast NPP congressional leadership votes.

Influence System#

Players can still influence NPPs directly from the NPP profile page.

Direct Interaction Actions#

The live NPP profile panel now uses a deterministic player -> NPP interaction surface instead of the older hidden-roll request table.

These direct interactions:

• spend the player's normal actions
• spend campaign funds on all boost/reduce stat work
• are deterministic once resource gates and the hidden endorsement check are met
• write to the capitalActionLogs audit trail
• fully roll back on failure, including action/fund refunds on non-transaction fallbacks

Party-Led NPP Management#

See party-influence.md for the party-side surface. Current intended behavior:

• National Party gets broader NPP management and endorsement / withdrawal tools
• State / regional party gets local Recruitment and Management surfaces
• state / regional management currently focuses on:
  • boost_favorability
  • boost_influence
  • boost_loyalty
  • reduce_stubbornness
• local state / regional leadership gets a small hidden edge on boost_loyalty and reduce_stubbornness

Party Whips#

See party-whips.md for the full whip design. NPP-specific behavior to keep in mind:

• NPP whips use a hidden loyalty/stubbornness success roll when a hard bill whip is immediately applied
• soft bill whips are advisory pressure only
• active non-compliance is surfaced through Defiance views rather than a permanent shame ledger
• if an NPP later votes back into line, that active defiance disappears

Endorsements#

Endorsements are now manual-only for NPPs. They do not organically endorse, switch, or re-evaluate campaigns during the turn system anymore.

Request Flow#

Players request endorsements from the NPP profile panel, and the endorsement only applies to the player's currently active campaign in that election.

• the ask is hidden behind a deterministic willingness check
• the UI shows only Likely to Accept or Likely to Decline
• the minimum successful relationship is 50
• a perfect economic + social policy match lowers that to 40
• each policy step away from the NPP increases the required relationship by 1, capped at 50

That means the live requirement is:

• required relationship = 40 + min(10, |econ diff| + |social diff|)

Lifecycle#

An arranged endorsement stays active only while that specific campaign remains active and plausible.

• if the campaign resolves, the endorsement ends
• if the candidate withdraws or becomes inactive, the endorsement ends
• if the race stops being a plausible target, the endorsement ends

Because endorsements are election-scoped, the player must request them again in future races.

Mechanical Effect#

Endorsements currently do two things:

• contribute to campaign-action generation where the campaign system uses them
• add a small direct election-pressure effect through candidate enrichment

Caucus Interaction#

NPPs can also participate in caucus systems:

• they can be recruited into caucuses when the Chair relationship is high enough
• they can be ejected over time if their relationship with the caucus chair decays too far
• caucus whips and caucus health surfaces treat them as real faction members

Related Docs#

• bills-legislation.md
• campaign-manager.md
• caucuses.md
• parties.md
• party-influence.md
• party-whips.md
• party-slate.md