1 · The draft: weighted spins, honest luck

Each of the three dealt cards independently rolls a tier first — Front rank, Cabinet calibre, Frontbench, Backbench & intake, ranked by a figure's mean ratings — then takes a uniform pick within that tier. Tier odds multiply two things: your difficulty's appetite for stars, and the pool's own composition raised to the power 0.55, so a sea of four hundred baseline backbenchers can no longer drown twenty-five front-rankers, but big benches still feel big. No card is ever guaranteed: an awful round is always possible, and so is a jammy one.

The pity valve. Once at least four seats are filled, if your bench's per-seat strength sits below 56 the party grandees may intervene: the next whole deal is drawn from the best tiers going, and it is announced. Uses: Easy 2 · Normal 1 · Hard 0. Sometimes the game saves you; sometimes you never needed saving. That's luck.

2 · Cabinet → strength

Each filled seat contributes its weighted stat score times a fit multiplier (bonus in a job they held, neutral in a related one, a penalty truly out of position). Each despot multiplies the whole ticket by 0.75 — a national scandal — and each flagged figure (a conspiracist, say) by 0.92, a milder credibility drag. The total per seat is judged on the same 48–92 scale whether you took twelve seats or sixteen, so the sizes compete fairly.

3 · Strength → votes → seats

Per-seat strength maps linearly onto a national vote share (plus a small era-diversity bonus, your difficulty's shift, and any manifesto nudge). That share sets a per-seat win logit through a logistic curve inspired by the cube law: small vote moves swing many seats.

4 · Every constituency is its own contest

Each of the 650 real seats then adjusts that logit by: a persistent seat lean hashed from its GSS code (±0.45 — the same marginals stay marginal from game to game); the regional lean (a dynasty carries its tradition's real geography, including the Northern Ireland parties living and dying in NI; custom tickets get a mild random regional colour); your alignment tilt in custom modes (modest by design); a shared regional swing and one national swing per campaign; opposition pressure (below); and per-seat luck. A seeded draw decides the seat; lost seats are awarded to a rival, so the totals always sum to exactly 650.

5 · The random opposition

Every rival party drafts its own front bench each game from its party-locked, statesman-only figures, minus anyone you took — sitting MPs only in 2024 mode, never despots. Bench quality maps into a 0.82–1.18 strength band, nudged by campaign form and the difficulty's oppBoost. Its weight in the share-out of seats you lose is multiplied by strength², and the field's average strength above 1.0 leans on your own contests. Flavour, never the decider — and the same benches return if the run is replayed.

6 · Seeding

At the moment you hold the election a unique runId is minted and a seed is hashed from it plus your cabinet, mode, difficulty and size (FNV-1a into mulberry32). The campaign, the odds panel (800 simulated nights) and the rival benches all draw from that one stream — bit-for-bit reproducible, which is what keeps the leaderboard fair.

7 · Difficulty, in numbers

Easy: vote +4.5 pts · curve centre −0.020 · noise ×0.80 · rivals ×0.97 · tier appetite 3.2/2.6/1.6/1.0 · pity ×2.
Normal: the baseline · tier appetite 2.2/2.2/1.7/1.2 · pity ×1.
Hard: vote −3.5 pts · centre +0.022 · noise ×1.25 · rivals ×1.04 · tier appetite 1.3/1.8/1.8/1.5 · pity ×0. A quadruple squeeze: thinner stars, less support, a steeper hill, wilder nights, stronger rivals.

8 · After the vote

In office, gambles resolve at p = 0.30 + (minister's stat − 50) × 0.95% adjusted by difficulty; the mid-term Budget, your tracked pledges, by-elections, rebellions and confidence votes all feed the final legacy. In opposition the government you face decays at 0.6–2.2 a session, +2.5×(0.6–1.4) where your attack line lands on its weaker front; forcing the election is a single gamble priced off momentum, your support, their weakness and your front-runners — fail and the moment passes for two sessions.

Every number above lives in CONFIG at the top of js/data.js (and GOVCONFIG/OPPCONFIG in js/govern.js). Disagree with one? Edit it.