Party Slate

Overview#

The Party Slate system gives national party leadership a central board for planning who should run in each state or regional race.

It is a national-party planning and assignment surface, not a separate election system. Slate helps party leadership:

• view every eligible race by state or region
• assign players or same-party NPPs to those races
• persist those assignments across cycles until manually changed
• coordinate candidate movement between same-state races

The current player-facing surfaces live under:

• the national party Slate tab
• each scoped state or regional party Slate tab

Scope#

Slate is designed around subnational and legislative races. Presidential races do not use the Slate board.

The board renders as:

• a country map for countries with map support
• a selected-state or selected-region race list beneath that map

Scoped state or regional party views can render the same race list without the national map.

State / Region View#

Each state or region can be selected from the map. Once selected, Slate shows every currently relevant race in that geography.

The map is meant to answer:

• where the party has player or NPP presence
• which places currently have active Slate-relevant races
• where leadership should click to manage assignments

Current hover summaries focus on party presence and race counts rather than old priority color signals.

Race Cards#

Each Slate race card currently includes:

• race name
• cycle / timing / phase context
• assigned candidates
• current assignment state
• integrated election phase strip
• embedded primary or general results when available

That embedded status data is intentionally sourced from the same shared election display pipeline used on the state and election pages, so Slate does not invent its own election-summary model.

Assignment Authority#

National and scoped state or regional party leadership can manage Slate assignments:

• National Party Chair
• National Party Vice Chair
• State / Regional Party Chair for races in that state or region
• State / Regional Party Vice Chair for races in that state or region
• admin override

Other players may still view Slate, but they cannot modify assignments.

Both the national page and the scoped state or regional page write into the same underlying Slate rows, so assignments and notes stay synchronized across both surfaces.

Candidate Types#

Slate supports assigning:

• player characters
• same-party NPPs

Assignments are specific to a race and geography.

Player Assignments#

When a player is assigned through Slate:

• the assignment appears on the board immediately
• the player receives an in-game notification
• the notification identifies the assigner and, when applicable, whether they are the National Party Chair, National Party Vice Chair, State Party Chair, or State Party Vice Chair

Slate itself does not auto-file the player into the race. The player still has to enter the race through the election flow.

NPP Assignments#

NPP Slate behavior is relationship-free and instead uses discipline/compliance stats.

Compliance Rule#

An NPP is considered Slate-compliant when:

• loyalty >= 40
• stubbornness <= 70

This threshold intentionally matches the current discipline-watch mental model.

State / Regional Leadership Bonus#

When a State / Regional Party Chair or State / Regional Party Vice Chair issues the Slate assignment for a race in their own geography, the assigned NPP gets a hidden compliance bonus:

• effective loyalty requirement reduced by 5
• effective stubbornness ceiling increased by 5

This bonus only applies to assignments made by scoped state or regional party leadership. National leadership uses the baseline thresholds above.

Acceptance Signal#

Before turn resolution, Slate shows a prediction chip:

• Likely to Accept
• Likely to Decline

This is a forward-looking signal, not a resolved state.

Resolved State#

After turn processing:

• if the NPP actually enters the race, the chip becomes Accepted
• if the NPP fails to enter, the chip becomes Declined

That avoids showing resolved acceptance too early.

Persistence#

Slate assignments are intentionally persistent.

Assignments remain on the board:

• across turns
• after election processing
• into the next race cycle

They only change when party leadership manually updates or withdraws them, or when a candidate actually files / resolves into a more specific state like Filed.

Same-State Candidate Movement#

Slate is designed to support moving a candidate between races in the same state.

When leadership assigns a candidate to a new same-state race:

• older same-state Slate rows for that candidate are removed
• the new assignment becomes the current intended race

For compliant NPPs, the next turn can:

• withdraw them from an old active race if necessary
• file them into the newly assigned target race

If another same-party candidate already exists in that target race, the Slate NPP can still join and create a contested primary rather than forcibly replacing the existing entrant.

Statuses#

Slate currently uses statuses such as:

• invited
• accepted
• declined
• withdrawn
• filed

considering is a deprecated legacy status. The NPP resolver no longer produces it (NPP responses are binary on compliance); the turn pass still re-evaluates any pre-existing considering rows so they resolve to accepted / declined by compliance.

Pending vs Resolved#

Fresh assignments should not immediately present themselves as fully resolved.

The important player-facing distinction is:

• pending assignment / pre-turn prediction
• filed or declined after actual turn resolution

Withdrawing from Slate#

Withdrawing a candidate from Slate is intended to remove that candidate from the Slate slot rather than leaving behind a stale placeholder row.

If a candidate is withdrawn from one same-state race, they can then become available again for another race in that state.

Election Display Integration#

Slate cards now embed:

• election phase status
• Primary Results when a race is in or coming out of primary
• General Results once the race is in general

This is meant to make Slate a planning tool that still reflects the live state of the election calendar without forcing leadership to leave the page.

Design Intent#

Slate is meant to function as the party's campaign bench-management board.

It should help answer:

• which races need a candidate
• who leadership wants in each race
• whether an NPP is likely to cooperate
• what the race already looks like in primary/general terms

It is not meant to replace candidate filing, election pages, or direct player campaign choices. It is a coordination layer above those systems.

Related Docs#

• party-building.md
• party-influence.md
• elections.md