Parties

Party System#

Current Implementation#

• Multi-Party System: Democrat, Republican, and custom third parties are supported
• Default Status: Players are Independent by default. Independents use the independent-primary route where that race supports it; party members enter their party's primary.
• Party Formation: Players can create custom parties; new parties start with the base organization cap (15) in all states, which grows based on election performance

Party Membership#

Joining a Party#

• Timing: Anytime before running for office
• Requirement: Party membership is required for a named party's primary, not for the independent-primary route
• Default: Independent

Switching Parties#

• Allowed: Yes
• Penalty:
  • Favorability drop
  • Political Influence drop
• No Cooldown: Can switch anytime (but penalties apply)

Party Affiliation Effects#

• Primary eligibility (can only run in your party's primary)
• General election ballot line
• Voter perception (party loyalty demographics)
• Endorsement opportunities

Endorsements#

NPP Endorsements#

• Players can influence NPPs to endorse candidates via the NPP Influence system (see NPP System)
• Effect: NPP publicly endorses a candidate in an election; boosts that candidate's appeal
• Cost: 5 actions, success chance based on relationship, stubbornness, etc.

Player-to-Player Endorsements#

• Status: Implemented for active presidential elections
• Eligibility: A human-controlled character may endorse another active candidate in the same country's presidential election. Candidates cannot endorse themselves, and a suspended presidential candidate cannot issue an endorsement.
• One active endorsement: Posting a new endorsement replaces the character's previous endorsement in that election. It can also be withdrawn.
• Effect: Endorsing a player candidate applies a one-time Support bump. Replacing or withdrawing the endorsement reverses the prior bump. NPP candidates can be endorsed, but do not receive that character Support adjustment.

Primary System#

Party Nomination#

• Primary elections select party nominee
• Only one candidate per party per office advances
• Resolution uses primary score (alignment to party position + favorability + influence), not vote accumulation
• Winner becomes party nominee for general election

Primary Timeline#

• Duration varies by race type (see Election Mechanics)
• US House: 48h primary / 96h total
• US Senate: 240h primary / 288h total
• US Governor and State Senate: 144h primary / 192h total
• US President: 144h primary / 192h total
• Most parliamentary races: 24h primary / 48h total. Japan's regular Shūgiin and Sangiin races use longer country-specific windows.

These are active-election windows. The gap between regular elections is controlled separately by each office's turn cycle.

Primary Rules#

• Uncontested: Single candidate wins automatically
• No Entrants: Party has no nominee for that race
• Multiple Candidates: Highest primary score per party advances

Party Dynamics#

Intra-Party Competition#

• Players compete within party for nominations
• Primary elections determine party candidates
• Party unity vs. personal ambition

Inter-Party Competition#

• Parties compete in general elections
• Bipartisan cooperation possible on legislation
• Party loyalty vs. cross-party coalitions

Fund Generation & Party Taxes#

Each turn, characters receive funds from:

• Base rate: By state population tier (small <2M: $5k/hr, medium: $10k, large: $20k, mega >20M: $40k)
• Donor base bonus: +$500-$4,000/hr per level (scaled by state tier)
• Office bonus: House +$5k, State Senate +$3k, Senate +$15k, Governor +$15k, VP +$25k, President +$50k

Party members pay taxes (0-33% each):

• State tax → state party treasury (set by State Chair)
• National tax → national party treasury (set by National Chair)
• Independents pay no taxes

Treasury: National and state parties both have treasury controls. Treasurers own the planning layer (reserve targets, dashboard, and budget posture), while Chairs and Vice Chairs retain emergency access to move funds and adjust spending when needed.

Party Organization#

Organization Cap System#

Each state party has an organization level (0-100) that affects electoral performance. The organization cap limits how high organization can grow.

Cap Calculation: The cap is the sum of contributions from each election type plus a base:

• Base: 15 (always present)
• Governor: Up to 25 (based on seat share)
• Senate: Up to 25 (based on seat share)
• House: Up to 17.5 (based on seat share)
• State Senate: Up to 17.5 (based on seats held)

Total potential cap: 100 (15 + 25 + 25 + 17.5 + 17.5)

Dynamic Updates: Cap contributions adjust over time:

• Target: Set when an election resolves, based on the party's seat share in that race
• Rate: How quickly the current contribution moves toward the target (faster for shorter election cycles)
• Next Election Turn: When the next election of this type will resolve

Presence Requirement#

Organization building requires party presence in the state:

• At least one player character in the party in that state, OR
• At least one elected official (player or NPP) from the party in that state

When presence is lost:

• orgBuildingPercent resets to 0
• Momentum cannot accumulate
• Organization decays toward 0

Momentum System#

Organization grows through momentum, accumulated by spending party treasury on org building:

• Cost: $100,000 per momentum point
• Growth: 0.25 organization per momentum per turn
• Drift: -0.125 momentum per turn when no budget is allocated (only applies when not actively building)
• NPP Factor: NPP-driven momentum is half as effective as player-driven

Note: Momentum decay was removed to make treasury investment more effective. Drift only applies when no org building budget is set.

UK Commons Support#

The party organization system extends to UK House of Commons constituencies. UK parties have state party org records for each UK region (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, London). The same cap, momentum, and election integration mechanics apply. Stale party ID healing automatically fixes org records that reference outdated party identifiers after the sequential ID migration.

Election Integration#

When elections resolve:

• Wins: Increase momentum (+3.0 for Governor, +2.5 for Senate, +2.0 for House/State Senate)
• Losses: Smaller momentum penalty (half of win values)
• Cap Targets: Updated based on new seat share

NPP Recruitment#

Third parties can recruit NPP candidates to build their political bench through two mechanisms.

Party Creation Spawn#

When a player creates a new custom party, NPPs are automatically spawned across selected states:

The party creation modal shows alignment indicators for each state (good/neutral/poor fit) based on how the party's positions match the state's political lean.

Ongoing Recruitment#

Party leadership can recruit additional NPPs through the party Actions tab:

Recruitment Slots#

Per-state maximum slots based on state party organization:

Available slots = Max slots − Current party NPPs in that state.

Recruitment Costs#

Base cost by state NPP count:

Party-wide modifier (applied to base):

• Actions: +1 per 20 total party NPPs (capped at +5)
• Funds: +10% per 20 total party NPPs (capped at +100%)

Cooldown#

• Duration: 24 turns (24 hours)
• Scope: Party-wide (shared between state and national leadership)

After any recruitment, the entire party must wait 24 turns before recruiting again.

Party Leadership#

Positions#

Each state party (and national party) has three elected leadership positions:

• Chair - highest authority; controls tax rate adjustments and treasury transfers
• Vice Chair - second-in-command; assists with NPP influence operations
• Treasurer - view-only treasury access

Elections#

• Leadership elections default to 72 turns (72 hours) (NATIONAL_ELECTION_DURATION_TURNS / ELECTION_DURATION_TURNS) and are resolved by the turn system. Founding-phase windows are 12 turns. National parties may set a custom duration of 168-420 turns.
• All state party members may vote in all three elections simultaneously
• A member may only be a candidate for one position at a time
• Ties are broken by earliest declaration time
• New elections are created automatically when a term expires

Admin Controls#

• Admins can directly appoint or vacate any leadership position from the state party page (bypasses election)
• The admin Elections tab offers Batch-Create (spawn missing elections) and Process Now (force-resolve) controls
• All admin appointments are written to the admin action log

Chair Office - Purge Member#

The national party Chair can expel a regular member from their party via the Chair Office tab.

Rules:

• Only the national Chair can initiate a purge.
• Leadership roles (Vice Chair, Treasurer) cannot be purged - only regular members.
• Cost to chair: +25 infamy, minus floor(target.partyInfluence / 2) from the chair's own party influence (floored at 0).
• Effect on target: party → "independent", partyInfluence → 0; existing candidacies and state party positions cleaned up via withdrawFromMismatchedPrimaries + cleanupPartyPositionsOnSwitch; any electedOfficials records for the target are updated to party: "independent"; target receives a party_kicked notification.
• Cooldown: 6 turns per party, tracked via PoliticalParty.lastPurgeAtTurn. Constant: PURGE_COOLDOWN_TURNS in src/lib/constants/partyActions.ts10d ago.

API: POST /api/country/[code]/parties/[id]/purge - auth: requireAuthWithCharacter (chair only); body { characterId: string } (MongoDB ObjectId hex).

Speaker of the House#

The Speaker is elected by the full House of Representatives using a real-life multi-candidacy model:

Process#

1. Any sitting House member (player or NPP) may declare their own candidacy at any time.
2. Multiple candidacies can be active simultaneously.
3. Each House member casts one vote for one candidate; switching votes is allowed.
4. The first candidate to reach a simple majority of all filled House seats wins and is confirmed Speaker.
5. All other active candidacies are marked failed.

NPP Voting#

See NPP System for full documentation. US congressional leadership voting is currently player-only in live NPP behavior.

• NPPs do not autonomously vote in Speaker, House leadership, or Senate leadership elections
• leadership pages and player whip tools still exist for player coordination
• the older NPP Speaker-voting design is no longer the intended current format

API#

• GET /api/congress/speaker - returns activeCandidacies[], houseTotal, majority, isHouseMember, hasActiveCandidacy, myVoteId.
• POST /api/congress/speaker - actions: declare, withdraw, vote.

NPP Influence#

See NPP System for full documentation.

Player Actions#

Players can influence individual NPPs through deterministic direct-interaction actions on the NPP's profile page (/npp/[id]). Live costs are in CAPITAL_ACTIONS (src/lib/capital/actions.ts6d ago): Request Endorsement 6 AP / $0, Private Meeting 3 AP / $0, Boost/Reduce Favorability 5 AP / $10k, Boost/Reduce Influence 6 AP / $20k. There is no chance roll. Withdrawal, opposition, and leadership-support asks are party-level influence actions (3 AP each; see party-influence.md), not profile actions.

Party-Level Influence#

• State / Regional Party (Chair/Vice Chair only) - local Recruitment and Management surfaces for same-party NPPs in that geography
• National Party (Chair/Vice Chair only) - broader party-management tools, endorsements, withdrawals, and relocation

Success Calculation#

State / regional management now explicitly uses the local four-action subset:

• Boost Favorability
• Boost Political Influence
• Strengthen Party Loyalty
• Improve Cooperation

The loyalty / cooperation asks are hidden-roll style discipline requests rather than guaranteed stat nudges, and state / regional leadership gets a small local edge on those two asks.

Whip System#

Party leadership can issue whip directives to both players and NPP legislators. The key intended distinction is that NPP congressional leadership voting is no longer a live turn-system behavior, so the important NPP whip gameplay is now bill-facing rather than leadership-facing.

Access#

• State / Regional Party (Chair/Vice Chair only) - local NPP whip authority in their own geography
• National Party (Chair/Vice Chair only) - federal whip authority plus whatever local fallback the route supports
• Caucuses - caucus-only whip surface for caucus members

Targets#

• Bills - the primary active NPP whip target for party NPP legislators
• Player leadership votes - still relevant on the player side of the whip system

Mechanics#

• Maximum 2 whip attempts per target / chamber combination
• NPP bill whips now support Soft and Hard
• state / regional whips take precedence over national whips where both apply

Compliance#

NPP whip behavior is now split:

• Hard bill whips -> hidden loyalty / stubbornness success roll; immediate vote write on success
• Soft bill whips -> advisory pressure only, fed into later autonomous cross-pressure voting

The party pages also surface active Defiance instead of a permanent compliance history. If an NPP later comes back into line, that defiance entry clears.

API#

• GET /api/parties/[id]/whippable-bills - federal bills where party has NPP legislators
• GET /api/parties/[id]/whippable-leadership - player-facing leadership whip targets
• GET /api/state/[id]/party/[partyId]/whippable-bills - state-level bills for state party
• POST /api/state/[id]/party/[partyId]/whip - issue whip directive; returns compliance estimate

Party Influence#

Every party member has a Party Influence score (0-100) that accrues passively each turn they are an active member. At the start of each turn, the party distributes bonus actions to all members proportional to their share of the party's total influence pool.

How It Works#

1. Total pool = partyInfluencePoolMultiplier × number of player members (configurable; default 3×)
2. Each member's share = their partyInfluence / total party influence (across all members)
3. Closeness scalar: Members whose policy positions (economic, social) are close to the party's official platform extract more value from the same raw influence score - up to a 2× multiplier
4. Bonus actions = share × pool × closeness scalar, capped at partyInfluenceMaxBonus per turn (default 6)

What Drives Party Influence#

• Passive accrual each turn while actively engaged in party operations
• Maintained by staying active; neglected members see their influence stagnate relative to active members
• Leaving a party resets your Party Influence to 0; rejoining starts fresh

Visibility#

• Profile page: Party Standing card shows your current party influence and bonus actions per turn
• Party members table: Party influence column visible for all player members
• Party page header: Shows total bonus actions granted across all members this turn

Strategic Implications#

• Members ideologically close to the party platform get more out of the same influence score - this rewards picking a party that matches your character's positions
• A single highly active member in a small party can dominate the bonus action allocation; larger parties distribute more evenly
• Party Influence is a long-term investment: switching parties loses all accumulated standing

Party Analytics#

National and state / regional party pages now use an Analytics tab as an internal command-center surface.

Current phase-one areas:

• Org & Growth
• Discipline & Compliance
• Slate & Race Coverage
• national pages also surface Caucus Health

Analytics is internal-facing rather than public. Non-members only get the public-facing Overview and Members views.

Slate#

Party Slate is now a real assignment surface rather than a concept-only note.

• national parties can view and manage a map-backed state / region race board
• state / regional parties get the same scoped race board without the national map
• same-party NPPs can be Slate-assigned
• state / regional chairs and vice chairs get a small hidden acceptance edge on local Slate assignments
• defending incumbents can still auto-file, so Slate can intentionally create a same-party primary against an incumbent NPP

Caucuses#

Caucuses are no longer planned-only.

Current intended caucus systems:

• player and NPP membership
• caucus treasury and caucus tax
• caucus whip
• caucus chair elections
• caucus health surfaces
• relationship-driven NPP recruitment and retention

See Caucuses for the dedicated system doc.

Coalitions#

Cross-party alliances where national party chairs band together under a shared banner. Coalitions are still lighter than parties, but they are no longer only organizational.

Formation#

• Who can create: National party chairs only (party-level chairId)
• Cost: 25 actions (no monetary cost)
• Requirements: Party must not already be in a coalition
• Creator chooses: Name, abbreviation, color, optional logo
• Result: Creator's party becomes the first member; creator becomes coalition chair

Membership#

• A party can belong to at most one coalition at a time
• No cap on how many parties a coalition can have
• Invites: Coalition chair sends invites to eligible parties (same country, not in a coalition). The invited party's national chair receives a notification and can accept or decline from the coalition page.
• Join requests: A non-coalition national chair can request to join a coalition. Only one pending request at a time (across all coalitions). The coalition chair accepts or declines.

Leadership & Succession#

• The coalition chair is always a national party chair of a member party
• If the chair's party leaves, is kicked, or is deleted: chairmanship passes to the member with the earliest joinedAt (seniority)
• The chair can voluntarily transfer ownership to another member party's national chair
• When a party's national chair changes (election, admin), the coalition chair auto-syncs if that party is the chair's party

Disband Vote#

• Only the coalition chair can initiate a disband vote
• Runs for exactly 24 real hours, no early resolution
• Each member party chair gets one vote (yes/no); votes can be changed during the window
• Majority threshold: >50% of total members must vote yes (abstentions count as no)
• Resolved by a turn processing phase that checks for expired votes each hour

Leaving & Kicking#

• Any member party chair can leave voluntarily
• Coalition chair can kick any member
• Coalition is deleted when zero members remain (the last party can leave)
• Kicked party's chair receives a notification

UI#

• Nested under the Political Parties page as a Coalitions tab (alongside Parties tab)
• Coalition detail page with tabs: Overview, Parties, Priorities, Chair's Office (chair only), Admin (admin only)
• Overview shows averaged economic/social positions, leadership list by seniority, active disband vote panel
• Invite acceptance banner follows the CEO acceptance pattern (warning-colored banner with Accept/Decline)

Data Model#

• coalitions collection with embedded members, pendingInvites, joinRequests, disbandVote arrays
• coalitionId field on PoliticalParty for quick lookups
• Per-country sequential IDs for URLs (/parties/coalition/3?country=uk)
• 10 notification types for coalition events

Ongoing Systems#

Coalition Priorities#

Coalition priorities are now live.

• up to 3 active priorities
• policy, bill, or leadership-goal targets
• public or internal visibility
• member-party chair voting
• cohesion summary (Strong, Mixed, Fractured, Unaligned)

Treasury Planning#

Party treasury surfaces now include a planning layer rather than just raw send / transfer controls.

• reserve targets
• preset postures
• state-funding visibility
• override history for party leadership

Party Platform#

• Official party policy positions recorded as a platform document
• May affect voter perception and member voting expectations
• Status: Planned

Related#

• Coalitions - Full coalition system documentation (formation, priorities, invites, disband votes, chair mechanics)
• Getting Started - Party membership overview for new players
• Elections - How party affiliation affects primaries and generals
• Core Systems - Turn processing, party elections phase