| PEC |  |
HOW TO PLAY
| PEC | |
Copyright (C) 1999 Timothy S. Klugh. All Rights Reserved.
CAMPAIGN SCREEN
After clicking the Start Campaign button on the Candidate Status Screen, you will be taken to the Campaign Screen. Now the real fun begins! This screen in now your play screen for the rest of the campaign up until the election occurs. It may look a little complex at first but it is really easy to understand if you keep this simple concept in mind. You want to travel, campaign, and win as much state support as you can! You especially want to get the support of the states with the highest Electoral Votes value. To achieve this goal to the best of your ability, everything on this screen is vital to you. It is your control panel, so to speak.
Let's break this screen down so it won't be so monstrous. You actually have several areas of data on this screen. They are the following: Candidate Identity, State Political Support Map, State Political Support Status, State Political Support Comparison, Week, Day, Candidate Options, Candidate Status, Unpopularity, Current Poll Results, and Weekly Journal. If any of these names seem overwhelming, it is only the name that sounds that way. It's functionality is pretty straightforward.
Candidate Identity
In the caption of the window (at the very top) is the Candidate
Identity. It shows the candidate's profession, name, and political
party. The Republican Candidate always gets to start first and the
Democratic Candidate always follows. This is showing no favoritism in the
game. It is just the way we set it up. The Replublican play his
whole week than a window (called the Candidate Alternation Window) appears
making a white "R" disappear and a red "D" appear.
Following this the Democrat will get his chance on the same week. When the
Democrat is finished the Candidate Alternation Window will do the reverse to
signify the Republican's turn on the next week.
State Political Support Map
This is a map of the continental United States with smaller boxes for
Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington DC. Each state indicates its support by
what color it is displayed in: Red for Democrat, White for Republican, and Blue
for Undecided. At the beginning of the game, the United States is balanced
between the two candidates. This is a merciful situation that is
definitely unlike the real world. The Democratic Candidate and Republican
Candidate have three states that currently support them. These states
together give both candidates the same amount of Electoral Votes.
State Political Support Status
This portion of the screen parallels what is seen on the map by changing the
color of each state name. In other words, it is a text representation of the
State Political Support Map. Each state name shows its support by the
color it appears in. As before Red for Democrat, White for Republican, and
Blue for Undecided.
One additional piece of information is a yellow arrow that points at the current state that the candidate is in. At the beginning of the game, both candidates are in Washington DC.
State Political Support Comparison
This graph is used as a quick reference for how much state support each
candidate has and how many states are still undecided. The horizontal
lines show a visual representation of the state support comparison while the
percents at the right of the lines show the actual comparison value.
Week
This serves as an indicator of what week is current. It is in the
format current week of total weeks in the campaign. When the weeks are
completed, the election will occur. Each candidate gets a turn at the same
week. The Republican gets the first chance and the Democrat follows.
Day
A players turn is not over until the current week is finished. This
indicator shows the current day in the week. As each day passes, it is
recorded in the Weekly Journal (discussed later in this page.)
Candidate Options
Here are the actions that the candidate can perform. Depending on how
the candidate uses these actions will determine the candidate's performance in
the game. The actions Campaign, Travel, Fund raise, Rest, Debate, and
Public Service all take one day to complete. They also all affect the
candidates Treasury and Health. Research can be done as many times as the
candidate wants without taking any days of affecting Treasury and Health.
The Game Options are not actions of the campaign but rather utility procedures
for the game itself, such as: saving, loading, and quiting. All of the
actions are described below:
| ACTION | SYMBOL IN WEEKLY JOURNAL |
DESCRIPTION |
| Campaign | SPEECH |
When you campaign, you are doing the most effective action to sway the support of a state. This is the actual speeches and the other actions the stir up state interest in the candidate Even though the candidate may campaign in a state, it doesn’t mean he will be carried there. Most states will not support the candidate in one campaign attempt, especially if there's something the state is not fond of in the candidate. Still, diligence in your campaigning can be profitable. Multiple campaigns in a state may win the state's support, and keep in mind that each state remembers how much work you put into them at election time. A state is interest in your view on the issues. This always affects how the state will react to you. Some states are even affected by your political party. Some states can just be plain tough to win and indecisive when it comes to giving or maintaining support. Campaigning cost money and can be exhausting. Expect and decrease in both Treasury and Health. |
| Travel | » » » » » | Traveling from state to state is the life
of the candidate throughout the campaign. In the weeks that you have
before the election you will want to travel to all the states you deem
crucial to win support of.
When you click the Travel button, you will be shown the Travel Screen, which displays the states, their information, and the cost to travel to them. Choosing the state to travel to is hardly on a whim of fancy. Electoral Votes is an obvious influence on your choice of what state to travel to, but there are other factors. The Travel action is discussed further on the next page called Travel Screen. Click the NEXT button to view it. Like Campaigning, Traveling can be expensive and exhausting. Expect and decrease in both Treasury and Health. |
| Fund Raise | $ $ $ $ $ | Money goes fast in this game
for the prices to do things is admittedly false. Costs have been
simplified in this game so that the players can concentrate on the
election. Basic rule is that everything is expensive!
Your candidate have to fund raise quite a bit, as this is the only action that can refresh the candidate's treasury (aside from Discrete Opportunities.) The candidate may a lot of money from a fund raiser or no money. It is just the roll of the dice. Don't think you can work off no money either. If you won't fund raise when your money is low, the game will force the issue. See Must Fund Raise Screen later in this user manual. A plus about fund raising is that it has been known to win the support of the state on occasion, but this is certainly infrequent. Fund raising can only add to the Treasury, but it will decrease the Health. |
| Rest | Zzzzzz… | No candidate is
immortal. To be an effective candidate, you must rest. At a
Health of 500, your candidate will give his best performance at whatever
action is desired. Any value lower is just that much more unsuccessful
the candidate will be.
Don't be fooled by the reassuring "Outstanding", "Excellent" or "Good" that is displayed beside Health. After all, an "Outstanding" 490 will do better than an "Outstanding" 410. As your Health points get lower so will your candidate's performance. You will fall all the way down to "Critical" (50 points or lower.) Naturally, your candidate will be extremely ineffective in this situation as the public will be concerned whether death is on the line. Nevertheless, your candidate will not die but will be very useless to you. The game does have a way of forcing you to take care of yourself. The lower your Health points, the more chance you have of the game forcing you to rest. Read about the Hospital Stay later in this user manual. Resting is free. No money will be deducted from your Treasury, and your Health can only increase as a result. |
| Debate | Debate | If both candidates are in the
same state, they may choose to debate each other while there. This
option is a way of giving the candidates a chance to "duke it
out" from time to time. Both players must agree to a debate
before the action can be made.
This debate is localized to the state the two candidate's are located in. The state will judge which candidate is more supportive of their concerns, which candidate has worked harder for their support, and which candidate has the better reputation. The winner is immediately announced and rewarded. The loser is in turn penalized. |
| Public Service | Public Good | Is there an easy way to make ammends with the
nation when you are unpopular? No, but there is a quick and costly
way. Public Service is the only grand way of decreasing your
Unpopularity percentage. You gain little else from it but the
nations forgiveness.
Public Service is a very expensive and tiring endeavor. Expect large decreases in Treasury and Health. |
| Research | (N/A) | Research is a freebee as far as time
goes. You can do as much research as you want without taking any
days to do so.
The Research Screen appears once you click the Research button. From here you have access to a wealth of information of the states and the opposing candidate. The state information is the same as you would see when using the Travel action, but you don't risk accidentally traveling to a state you don't want to go to. For more information on the action, read about the Research Screen later in this user manual. As the Research action doesn't take days from you, it also doesn't affect Treasury or Health. |
| Game Options | (N/A) | This area is specifically for game utility
procedures. It has nothing to do with the campaign.
When you click on the Game Options button you are
presented with a screen that allows you to save the campaign, load a
previously saved campaign, or quit PEC |
Candidate Status
This is your view to the variables that make up your candidate's
performance. First is the issues that you set for your candidate on the
Candidate Status Screen. These issue points are unchangeable throughout
the campaign.
Below the issues are the candidates Treasury and Health status. Monitor Treasury and Health always. Treasury is the money that your candidate has to spend. Health affects the performance of the candidate in each action made and in the election. The maximum amount Treasury can be is $5,000,000. Health of 500 is considered perfect. The candidate can do no better.
Unpopularity
This percentage is definitely not to be ignored. After all, it tells
you how much of the people don't like you currently. Don't let state
support fool you, the polls don't tell how affective you are going to be on your
next move. Only the Unpopularity percentage reveals the ugly truth.
Unpopularity increases when there is reason for the nation to not like your candidate. Examples of this is losing a debate, declining a National Debate Opportunity, getting busted for accepting a Discrete Opportunity, offending the religious population, or through the dreaded Slander Articles. Still, unpopularity may spring up in other ways to.
How do you decrease the Unpopularity percentage? By winning state support, debates, or other praiseworthy achievements. But the best way to decrease unpopularity is through Public Service.
Current Poll Results
The current poll results are not the final election results. After
all, who will know that until after the election? The current poll results
are a snapshot guess based on state support of how many Electoral Votes and
Popular Votes each candidate would have if an election was to occur. Keep
in mind that this is only a guess based on the way the nation looks at the
current time. The election could be different but, most of the time, not
too far from the current poll results.
The current poll results measure state support only and does not take into consideration the Unpopularity percentage. Only the election is altered by the Unpopularity percentage.
Weekly Journal
This is your log of the current week. This list fills with notes of
the actions your candidate made over the week. For example, if your
candidate campaigned on Money, the word SPEECH would appear next to Monday in
the Weekly Journal. The notes for each action is shown in the table above
under Candidate Options.
As each week starts, the Weekly Journal is cleared.
"The Creations of Timothy S. Klugh", "PEC", and "The Presidential Election Campaign Game" are trademarks of Timothy S. Klugh.
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Copyright (C) 2000 Timothy S. Klugh. All rights reserved.
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