The Presidency (game mode)

The Presidency is the original game. The player chooses a scenario and becomes a President, either a real historical figure or an invented one, and plays a four-year term one month at a time. Each month brings an event, a policy that the player types in plain words, the civil service's analysis of that policy, the verdict of a focus group of voters, the reaction of the stakeholders, three newspaper front pages, a state map, and that month's changes to approval, government stability and party stability. A midterm election and a presidential election are on the calendar. The term can end in several different ways, described below.

Setup

The Start New Career button opens the scenario picker, headed President Simulator. The picker is a column of folding categories, each holding scenarios with a name, a year and a one-line blurb:

• Modern Era, 2013 to 2025: Barack Obama 2013, Donald Trump 2017, Joe Biden 2021 and Donald Trump 2025. These four are free.
• The 2000s, 2001 to 2013: George W. Bush 2001, George W. Bush 2005 and Barack Obama 2009.
• The Nineties, 1993 to 2001: Bill Clinton 1993 and Bill Clinton 1997.
• The Seventies, 1969 to 1980: Richard Nixon 1969, Richard Nixon 1973 and Jimmy Carter 1977.
• The Sixties, 1961 to 1969: John F. Kennedy 1961 and Lyndon B. Johnson 1965.
• The Fifties, 1949 to 1958: Harry S. Truman 1949, Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953 and Dwight D. Eisenhower 1957.
• Alt Candidacies, the presidencies that never were, from Harris 2025 back to a wide field of losing and hypothetical nominees.
• Challenges, including Can You Save Biden?, President Perot and the Bidenism Challenge, each of which sets an unusual starting situation or an added restriction.
• Designated Survivor, a presidency inherited after a decapitation attack.
• Create Your Own, a custom president built from scratch.
• Workshop, community scenario packs; see Workshop.

A Career Mode tile is also shown at the top of the picker; see Career Mode for more about it. Every scenario outside the Modern Era category needs a premium account.

A custom president is built on the character screen, which sets the president's name, party, communication style, ideology and mandate strength, along with profile details such as marital status, education, wealth, background, military service, scandal history and home region. The party's strength in Congress is chosen at the foot of the screen. The scenario's era decides which cast of personas and stakeholders judges the term; see Eras for more about this. Below the profile are the toggles, described on Toggles and its linked pages, and the Difficulty card. Switching on Custom Bio adds a guided form about the new President, and the answers feed extra events into the term. A Vice President is then chosen and a cabinet is seated. A named scenario uses its own cabinet. A custom president can have a cabinet generated automatically, which is a premium feature, or can build one post by post.

The month

Each turn opens with a check of the calendar. If an election falls this month, election night runs first. If a State of the Union is due, it is delivered. In campaign season, the campaign page comes before the month's event. Otherwise the month goes straight to the event screen.

The event screen shows the month's briefing: the economy strip, showing GDP growth, unemployment, inflation, fiscal balance and national debt when Economic Simulation is on; the event card, with its headline, description and context; and the response box. Suggestion chips appear above the response box unless No Hints is switched on. The player types the policy into the response box, up to 1,200 characters, with an optional line of public messaging beneath it, and, if Covert Operations is on, a covert order as well. Submitting the response starts a loading wheel while the game works out that month's results, including every persona's reaction, the checks and balances, and the rest of the month's effects.

The results are revealed in a fixed order:

• The analysis screen shows the official federal briefing, including an executive summary, the key implementation risk, the fiscal impact, delivery and politics, and the agencies' recommendation. It also shows the morning press reaction from The National Standard, The American Herald and The Patriot Tribune, and the Checks and Balances card, with the congressional, judicial and executive verdicts.
• The map shows the fifty states, coloured by their reaction.
• The focus group screen shows every persona's score and reaction, sorted from warmest to coldest.
• The stakeholders screen shows every stakeholder's movement on the policy, with the three that moved the most listed on top.

The Return to Dashboard button closes the month. The dashboard shows the This Month card, net approval, government stability and party stability, the approval breakdown, the economy strip, and the Congress card with its House and Senate charts. It also shows cards specific to the era, such as Civil Rights Progress in the 1960s or The Red Scare in the 1950s. Every month is autosaved to the player's account.

Elections

A standard first term has two elections: a midterm election in month 23, with campaigning starting in month 17, and a presidential election in month 47, with campaigning starting in month 41 and debates in months 42, 44 and 46. A scenario can set its own calendar instead; Can You Save Biden?, for example, puts the presidential election in month 11 and the midterm in month 35. During campaign season, a campaign page appears before each month's event, and the reactions to campaign events count towards election night alongside the reactions from the term's governing months. If the Presidential Debates toggle is on, the debates are played as that minigame; if it is off, they are ordinary campaign events. The Podium Clock times the player's answers in the debates.

Election night takes place during the election month itself. A midterm election resolves the House and Senate races, using the harder or easier model described on Difficulty. If National-Vote Elections is on, a simpler model reads national approval directly instead. A presidential election is either won or lost. A win moves the game into a second term, which lasts 48 more months and has a midterm election in month 23 of the new term. There is no further presidential election in that term unless the 22nd Amendment has been repealed, in which case the whole schedule repeats. A loss ends the game with the ending Voted Out of Office.

Term end

A presidency that reaches the end of its clock ends on a graded card. A second term ends with the grade A Consequential Presidency at high approval, A Complicated Legacy at moderate approval, and Good Riddance at low approval. A scenario that begins in a second term, such as Trump 2025, which is marked "no re-election, legacy only", ends the same way after 48 months. A Designated Survivor career ends on a graded epilogue of its own, whether or not it went on to an elected term. When a term ends without the presidency having collapsed, and a Vice President is in place, the end card offers a Continue as the Vice President option. Choosing this archives the outgoing President, makes the Vice President the player's character, and begins a new term with the cabinet, wars, economy and Congress all carried over.

What ends a presidency

• Collapse. The game watches three meters: approval, government stability and party stability. If any of them falls critically low, the game ends. The ending depends on which meter or meters fell: Presidency Over if only approval fell, Government in Collapse if only government stability fell, Ousted by Your Own Party if only party stability fell, one of Constitutional Crisis, Total Political Collapse or Isolated in the Oval Office if two of the three fell together, and The Worst President in American History if all three fell together.
• Removal. A conviction at an impeachment trial under Dirty Tricks ends the game as Removed From Office. In Designated Survivor, the reseated Congress can remove the accidental President in the same way.
• Resignation. The Resign button on the dashboard ends the game as You Resigned, after the player confirms the choice.
• Assassination. An event in the game can kill the President. If a Vice President is in place, the game continues with the player controlling the Vice President. If there is no Vice President, the career ends there.
• The ballot. Losing a presidential election ends the game, as described above.
• The clock. Reaching the end of the term ends the game, as described above.
• The free cap. A free account's game ends after month 12 with the ending Year 1 Complete, and the save is marked as finished.

Access

The four Modern Era scenarios are free. Everything else on the picker, and every premium toggle, needs a premium account. A free account can start two games a day, with one new game token returning every 12 hours. It may hold one active save at a time, and each game can be played to month 12. A free account also builds its cabinet by hand; the auto-generate option is premium.