You run a challenger's campaign against a sitting mayor. Every week the undecided voters drift his way on name alone, and every week you get three plays to stop it. This is the operative's guide: what each play buys, what it costs, and how the votes actually get counted.
Every city has the same three kinds of ground. Learn to see them and you know where each play belongs.
The strongholds and the establishment wards. The mayor's people live here and they vote. Every undecided who makes up their mind here goes to him, and your credibility counts for less.
Not locked to anyone. Each week some of the undecideds here pick a side, and most go to the mayor unless your credibility gives them a reason not to.
The open wards, friendlier to a challenger. Votes are there for the taking, but only if your people actually show up.
Your supporters only count if they vote. In every ward, your firm supporters turn out at your rate, which starts around 70%. The mayor's people already turn out at 85% or better.
Persuasion times turnout. Not plus. Times. A ward full of supporters at 70% is worth a lot less than the same ward at 90%.
Whoever is still undecided on election night splits between you, and the split leans on three things you built: your credibility, your name recognition, and your signs in that ward.
A challenger nobody has heard of struggles to win the undecideds, even in the wards that like her.
Each week you see the mayor's move before you make yours. You pick one focus neighborhood, where the focus plays land, and then spend three plays. Your war chest starts around $175K, a little less on the harder difficulties.
The best turnout play in the game. Door knocking mostly turns out the people already with you, the way it does in real campaigns, and it works harder the more supporters you have there.
Cheap, and cheaper still for the candidates whose volunteers show up for free.
It persuades very few people. In a ward where you have no base, there is nobody to turn out, and the play does almost nothing.
Turnout in every neighborhood at once, for the cheapest paid play on the board. It lifts your people wherever they live.
A thinner lift than a door knock in any one ward, and it persuades almost nobody.
The strongest persuasion play you can aim. It wins over undecided voters in your focus ward, and some candidates are built for the room.
It also raises your name recognition.
If the mayor is working the same ward that week and you haven't done a press interview earlier that week to cover yourself, the room turns hostile. You still gain some ground, but your candidate fumbles a question and you lose credibility.
Faith outreach persuades in the city's faith wards and adds a little credibility. The pastor makes it land much harder.
The issue event is built around the city's defining fight, and it hits harder than almost any other play in the wards that care about it.
You don't choose where they land. If those wards aren't the ones you need, the play is spent in the wrong place.
Persuasion everywhere, including the wards you can't put the candidate in. It reaches the people who will never come to a town hall.
Expensive, and spread thin. In any one ward it moves less than a town hall, and it does nothing for turnout.
It doesn't win a vote this week, but it raises your name recognition, the signs keep adding to it every week after, and on election night the undecideds in that ward lean a little more your way.
The most expensive play on the list, and the slowest. Nothing moves in the poll the week you buy it.
Credibility and name recognition for no money, and it blunts the mayor's move that week. Put it ahead of a town hall and the room can't go sideways.
Credibility decides how the undecideds break and which way a scandal sticks, so this quietly pays all race.
It moves no votes directly, and it uses one of your three plays.
Roughly $80K to $110K, the exact amount varies a little, more for the candidates donors like and less for the ground-first types, plus a point of credibility. Enough to pay for several plays.
A play that moves no votes, in a race where you only get twelve.
Money left over on election night wins no votes. If you win, it does add to your final score.
Whether there's anything to find depends on the mayor and on your candidate. The machine boss is dirty, and a dig always turns something up. The journalist finds things nobody else can.
Breaking the story is a real hit: support peels off the mayor where he's strongest, and your credibility and name recognition rise.
Against anyone but the machine, only the journalist finds anything. If your credibility is low, the digging leaks and the story becomes that you're desperate.
Break a story on the beloved mayor and it lands on you instead.
Peels support off the mayor in every ward that isn't already yours, and puts those voters back in play.
Against the ideological opposite it pays best. He takes the bait, melts down in public, and nobody holds it against you.
Against the machine boss it works, but it costs your clean reputation, which comes off your final score. Against the beloved mayor it backfires: you lose support and credibility, and become the villain.
Peeled voters become undecided, not yours. You still have to win them.
Most of them keep paying every week for the rest of the race. Bought in week one, a field office or internal polling works four times for the price of one play.
The ad blitz is the one-time buy: a big jump in name recognition, right now.
Most of a war chest, and each buy uses one of your three plays that week.
The mayor answers the recurring buys. The machine spends about 70 cents for every dollar you put in. The beloved mayor barely bothers.
In week one and week four your candidate tells you which neighborhood they want to work. Make it your focus and belief rises, and a block walk there persuades a little more.
Belief cashes out on election night as turnout: up to about 10% more of your people vote when your candidate is all in.
Overrule their read and belief slips. At the week-three forum, make them give an answer they don't believe and it drops harder, more so if they already doubt you.
A candidate going through the motions costs you turnout everywhere at once.
Dirty, organized, and he spends. Opposition research always turns up something on him, and attack mailers work, at the cost of your clean reputation. He answers your recurring investments with about 70 cents on the dollar.
The city likes her, and the undecideds drift to her much faster than to anyone else. Going negative on her backfires. Beat her on credibility and name recognition, not on her record.
A hothead. His press attacks hit your credibility harder, but an attack mailer gets under his skin, peels real support off him, and carries no stain for you.
Undecided voters drift to the incumbent every week you don't give them a reason not to. Name recognition slows the drift.
Town halls and mail win people over. Doors and phones get them to vote. You need both, in that order.
It tilts the undecided break, decides who a vague scandal sticks to, and decides whether a crisis makes you look ready or makes him look in charge.
You see what the mayor is doing before you choose. Cover the ward he's working, or work the one he left alone.
Very little here is a dice roll: which mayor you draw, one late-race surprise, and the size of a fundraising haul. The mayor reads the board and answers you. Lose, and you can usually name the plays that lost it.
Persuade early, turn out late, keep your name clean, and read the mayor's move before you make yours.