Basic Description

Democracy 3:Electioneering is an official expansion for the game, produced by the original developer: Positech Games. To check you have the expansion installed correctly, you can navigate to the mods link on the games main menu:

 

 

This screen shows you mods you have installed alongside the official expansions. If the expansion is installed it will be listed here, and will be colored green if set active. Note you can disable a mod/expansion without uninstalling it if you want to load a saved game you started without the new features, or want to try a game without them.

 

 

Democracy 3:Electioneering adds a bunch of new features to the game, which are mostly accessed by the familiar 'parties' icon at the top right of the main interface. This now opens a more complex and larger screen than before, with some new tabs:

 

 

Manifesto pledges

Manifesto pledges are promises you make to the electorate in the run-up to the election. You only get ONE chance to make these promises and it happens in the turn just before an election. These promises are for the *next* term of office, on the basis that you promise to do certain things IF you get elected. The manifesto tab is accessible from the main electioneering screen and looks like this:

 

 

There is a scrollable list of both promises you made before the last election, AND potential promises for the next election. You have to ensure you meet the active (colored) promises before the election, and choose new ones (if you wish...this is optional) for the next term. Note that in the start of the game, its assumed you made no promises before being elected.

Each manifesto promise has a cost in political capital, and an amount by which you promises to raise or lower a specific value (could be policy or simulation value) during the next turn. Clicking one gets you this:

 

 

That shows you the effect your promise has had *immediately* on the voters. Its not as good as really delivering those changes, but its effectively 'for free'!.

Once the promise is made, assuming you win the election, you can revisit that screen to see the progress you are making on your promises. In addition, you can also view the progress of them in the actual policy and simulation data screens:

 

 

That image shows a policy pledge that has currently been met. We pledged to reduce this slider to 23% or lower, and we are currently at 17%. The box turns green, and the rosette icon on the slider is also green. This is good news as the election is due in one turn! Failing to meet our pledges will mark down our party as being 'untrustworthy' but more on that later...

Speeches

Unlike manifesto pledges, Speeches can be made in the 3 turns leading up to an election. Speeches are a great way to make voter groups happy...without actually doing anything concrete. To make a speech, you choose up to four sound-bites from a prepared list. The soundbites have been randomly created for you. Each one has an effect on one or two voter groups (icons show whose these are). The effects may be large (3 arrows) mild ( 2 arrows) or weak (1 arrow). You need to select the soundbites based on which voter groups you think it is most sensible to make happy, and which you can afford to annoy.

 

 

Choose carefully. At first, you may think that its crazy to upset anyone, but when you have a voter group that is fanatically supportive of you, it may be a strategic move to risk alienating them a bit in a speech, if that same soundbite gets you positive support from a group who currently dislike you.

Also, be aware that speeches let you say something, but do something else. For example, if your economic plan for the country relies on cutting welfare and social programs, you can still do it, but keep socialists and the poor on-side by pandering to them purely through speeches :D.

Once you pick your soundbites, you have to spend the cost of the speech (in political capital) and then you get to see the results:

 

 

This screen shows you the speech progress through the different soundbites, along with a graph that measures country-wide opinion regarding the content of the speech. In this case, the speech seems to be pretty disastrous in general, with low approval, but the exact effects shown at the end of the speech below show that we pleased four specific voter groups and angered another four. This *may* still be a smart move, if we can afford to reduce the support of our core vote in order to win over floating voters.

Be aware that the effects of speeches (which show up on the individual voter groups details screens) Do not last forever, and will slowly fade out over time.

Fundraising

Fund raising is a vital part of electioneering. Depending on whether you have a higher or lower amount of funds for the final campaign, the electorate may swing their votes towards you, or away from you. Thus keeping funds rolling in during your time in government is vital.

The fundraising tab is split into three sections. On the top left is a chart showing the relative funding situation of you (in green) and the opposition(in red). Obviously you want to out-spend the opposition at election time if possible, so this chart is a warning of how desperate your funding situation is. The vast drop in funds takes place at election time, when your party empties its coffers to win the vote.

 

 

On the top right are two pie charts showing where you, and the opposition are getting their funding from. Some funding comes from ordinary party members (and this depends obviously on how many people you have in your party, which is shown on the normal 'parties' screen as before), and some of it comes from wealthy party donors. Donors tend to be less fickle than party members, so even when you have no members in your party, you are likely to still have a handful of wealthy donors helping you out.

The third section is the party donors. There can be up to four donors at any one time. Each donor has affiliation with two voter groups, and depending on those groups opinions of you, their own happiness will fluctuate. If it gets too ow...those donors will abandon your party. Eventually other donors may shows up, but that could take time.

Note that the donors 'generosity' is independent of their happiness, and is just a sign of each individuals wealth. The money each donor gives is always the same, right up until the moment they abandon your party and leave you penniless!

Perceptions & Media Stunts

Along with the effects of your policies, and the impact of your speeches, and with the persuasive efforts afforded thanks to your fundraising, the electorate now also have another factor that they take into account when forming an opinion of you, and that is what they think of you as an individual. To see what people think of you, there is a new 'perceptions' tab for you to check:

 

 

From this screen you can see that the electorate think that I am slightly untrustworthy, a moderately strong leader, but extremely compassionate. If you click on any one of those three progress bars in the middle of each section you will get a breakdown of why they think this:

 

 

It looks like my actions on policies, such as Child benefit and Food Stamps make me come across as compassionate, but somehow a media event (more on this soon...) has backfired and the 'help at food bank' idea has actually made me seem *less* compassionate. The effects of such things do degrade over time.

As well as changing policies, I can improve the voters perceptions of me by launching media spin events. These are carefully choreographed (we hope!) media photo-opportunities designed to give me a good image. Each one costs political capital, has a potential upside, and a chance of going wrong. Note that effects of media stunts wear off, so its something worth saving until you are close to the election.

 

 

When I select an event, I will get an immediate reaction to it depending on how lucky I am and if the event goes well, or is somehow an embarrassing disaster. In this case...it went well!

 

 

it looks like I've managed to convince the electorate that I am a particularly strong leader! Lets just hope that there is an election very soon while they have this image in their heads...

Ministers & The new election screen

There is also the matter of our ministers popularity. You will notice they also have a new 'campaigning' stat for each minister. Choosing ministers who are good at campaigning is a wise move, as they are better at 'selling' your vision of your policies. You can see the ministers campaigning stats on the cabinet screen:

 

 

And when you check a voters details in a focus group you can see a summary of how these new elements are effecting their decisions...

 

 

Finally, this all comes together in a new election screen which now gives you a breakdown of those new variables and how they contribute to the result:

 

 

(Fun fact: each of the voter icons that animates and drops into the appropriate column is actually a proper simulated voter, with their graphic chosen to represent the voter group they have the strongest allegiance to :D). And that's it! Those are the new features in Democracy 3:Electioneering, I hope they add a lot to the game and make the run-up to election time more interesting :D