Toggles

The setup screen ends in a column of boxes, one per system that can be switched on or off before the game begins. Most default off, and most need a premium account. A few are shown only in the eras they belong to. This page lists them in the screen's order. Where a box holds more than one control, the controls are listed under it.

Simulation

• Economic Simulation: GDP, unemployment, inflation and the national debt, moved by the President's policies.
• Checks & Balances: Congress, the courts and the federal agencies can block or weaken a policy.
• Custom Bio: a guided form about the President after character creation, whose answers seed extra events into the term. Custom presidents only.

Persona Mode

One selector offers three options, and only one can be on at a time.

• Off: the era's realistic voters.
• Whacko Mode: the same voters in an exaggerated, satirical voice.
• Tweeter Is Not Real Life: 24 online commentators replace the voters, with randomised state weights.

Elections

• Classic: elections decided state by state and seat by seat.
• Alternative, see National-Vote Elections: a simpler model driven almost entirely by national approval.

Social Engineering Mode

• Social Engineering Mode: national statistics (demographics, crime, poverty, health and more) reshaped by policy.

Event Generation

• Classic: pre-written events.
• Hybrid and Dynamic: generated events, which the screen warns are not fully tested.

Deployments & War

• Off, Classic or Strategic: wars and troop deployments, with inherited conflicts by scenario.

Era-only boxes

• The Red Scare: Senator McCarthy's meters. 1950s only.
• Covert Operations: the CIA situation screen. 1950s and 1960s.

Dirty Tricks, Expanded Congress, Weekly Pacing

• Dirty Tricks: free-text covert political schemes that can end in impeachment.
• Expanded Congress: bills from the Hill, caucus loyalty and the party leaderships.
• Weekly Pacing: one turn per week, 208 turns a term instead of 48.

Presidential Debates

• Presidential Debates: the five-round debate minigame in the three debate months of a presidential campaign, or ordinary campaign events in its place.
• Podium Clock: answer against a countdown instead of a character limit.

Difficulty

• Difficulty: Easy, Medium or Hard, reaching the filibuster, the elections, the Red Scare and Designated Survivor.

No Hints

• No Hints: no suggestion chips on event cards or campaign events.

The Fourth Estate, the media mode, is not yet shown on the setup screen while it is being built.