Dirty Tricks

Dirty Tricks is a premium mode in which the president runs covert political schemes outside the normal channels of government. A back-room fixer turns each free-text order into a choice of routes. Every route pays a small monthly benefit for as long as the scheme stays active, and every scheme can leak. Exposure raises scandal heat, and enough heat can start an impeachment inquiry that can end in a Senate trial. The setup screen's own summary states that schemes grant political benefits, every scheme risks exposure, and exposure can bring impeachment proceedings.

The toggle is offered in every presidential era and starts off for each new game. It is forced off in the Designated Survivor scenario and by The Fourth Estate. It is not offered on the Career Mode builder. Dirty Tricks and Expanded Congress are independent switches, and a game can run either, both or neither.

The fixer

The dashboard carries a launcher for Dirty Tricks, which opens a situation-room screen. The first time it is opened, the president hires one of three fixers, and this choice affects every route offered afterwards: a former FBI agent, whose routes are aggressive and high risk; a career intelligence officer, whose routes favour surveillance; or an old private detective, whose routes are slow, deniable and low risk. In the Nixon and Ford starts, the three fixers are named after real figures from that history; in every other scenario they carry invented names.

Ordering a scheme

The president types an order describing what the fixer should do. Only one new scheme may be started per month, and no more than three schemes may be active at once. The fixer judges the quality of the order — whether it is a bare instruction, a real target and method, or a plan with real thought given to covering it up — and a better-judged order pays off faster once a route is chosen. The fixer then offers three to five routes, each a different way of carrying out the same order, each naming one benefit and carrying a risk rating of low, medium or high. A low rating means money and favours; a medium rating means espionage and pressure; a high rating means outright felonies such as break-ins, bugs, forgery or election tampering. The president picks one route, which starts the scheme, or walks away from the pitch at no cost. The fixer only refuses an order that has no real political content; illegality is never grounds for refusal.

What a scheme pays

Every scheme pays out slowly for as long as it is active, and stops the moment it is buried or exposed. A scheme can raise approval, government stability, party stability or the campaign war chest, or improve the loyalty of one named cabinet member, agency director, or the lean of one named Supreme Court justice. With Expanded Congress on, the menu also offers caucus loyalty, opposition attitude, and a named congressional leader's liking, influence or standing.

Exposure

Every active or buried scheme risks exposure each month. The risk grows the longer an active scheme keeps running, and falls for a scheme that has been buried, which eventually goes cold. When a scheme is exposed, it ends immediately, scandal heat rises according to how extreme its route was, and the exposure becomes the month's news event, which the president answers like any other. Any official the scheme was working loses standing with the president. Once heat passes a certain level, the dashboard shows a warning, which grows more urgent as heat keeps climbing.

Impeachment

Once heat is high enough, the House Judiciary Committee may open an inquiry, provided no proceedings are already under way and the president is not shielded by immunity earned from an earlier close call. In the Nixon-era starts the committee sits under Emanuel Celler; in the later Nixon and Ford starts it sits under Peter Rodino; otherwise the chairman is invented. Proceedings run in three stages, each presented as a document the president answers in free text before the month's main event: the inquiry can advance, collapse on its own, or continue without resolution; the articles vote can impeach the president with a majority of the House; and the Senate trial can convict with a two-thirds majority, removing the president from office. Failing to advance at any stage grants the president a period of immunity and caps how high scandal heat can climb for a while. A convicted governor in Career Mode is likewise removed from office, replaced by the lieutenant governor, and returns to the career as a private citizen.