The following events happen periodically during the course of the game.
Advertisement Backfires
Every time you run an attack ad, there is a chance it will backfire. This causes a negative news article.
Big Mo’ (Big Momentum)
Big Momentum occurs when a candidate gets an average of 10 or more momentum points nationwide. This generates a positive news article.
Campaign Too Negative News Article
If your theme consists of issues where you are attacking another candidate, there is a chance a news article will run about your campaign being too negative. The more issues where you are attacking another candidate in your Theme, the greater the chance.
Change Platform and Supporters Leave Candidacy
If you change your platform, there is a chance core supporters will leave your candidacy. The more you change the platform, the greater the chance.
Debates
Debates involve any candidate receiving 5% or greater nationally in the latest public poll. Charisma, issue familiarity, debating skills, and energy points affect how well a candidate does in a debate. Issue familiarity and debating skills are more important than charisma and energy points, however.
Debates take 10 Energy Points from each candidate.
Economy Changes
The economic indicators might change. If the economic indicators get better, the candidate from the incumbent party (the candidate from the party that is currently in power) gets a bonus to Barnstorming (or less of a penalty). If they get worse, the candidate from the incumbent party gets a penalty to Barnstorming (or less of a bonus).
Election Night
On election night, any undecided voters will vote in part based on each player’s momentum in their region. Also, any foot soldier unit has a 50% chance of getting an extra percentage for their candidate (due to get out the vote activity by the foot soldiers).
Endorsement
Endorsers will gradually move toward the candidate(s) who are close to their own position on whichever issue the endorser is about. Endorsers will move quicker towards more established candidates.
Gaffe
Gaffes can occur by chance when you are Barnstorming, or when you have less than 50 Energy Points.
Insight from Barnstorming
Every time you Barnstorm, there is a chance you will receive an Insight into some issue in your Theme, if that issue is a platform issue and not a candidate attribute issue. (You don’t get insights into issues that are candidate attributes, that is: Leadership, Integrity, Experience, or Issue Familiarity.)
Interviews are either successful or unsuccessful. The higher the Criticality rating, the less chance they will be successful. The higher the Profile rating, the higher the profile of the news story after the interview. Charisma and issue familiarity affect a candidate’s chances of being successful in an interview.
Issue Profile Increases/Decreases
When an external event (see News Articles) occurs, it can increase the profile of an issue. Any time a national news article is run on an issue, that issue’s Profile Progress points can go up. After some time, that issue’s Profile Progress points will start to decrease. Profile Progress points can be viewed on the right side of the Momentum screen.
Run Out of Money
If you run out of money, your ads are halted, and your candidates, crusaders, and foot soldiers will be ineffective. This lasts until you have a positive amount of money again. The candidates can still fundraise, however.
There are three kinds of news articles:
- Normal. Starts at a given profile, and then drops each turn by one profile point (unless successfully spun by a candidate). For example, “Noisy Protesters At Merkel Event” might start at profile 3, and go to 2 the next turn, 1 the turn after that, and then disappear. For information on spinning Normal news articles, see Spinning News.
- Scandal. Similar to a normal news article, except for the following:
- You can spin a scandal every turn until the scandal is exhausted (there is a 10% chance this will occur every turn).
- Scandals cannot change to positive spin for the person they are about. The best they can get is neutral.
- External. Appears for only one turn, and cannot be spun. This kind of news article may change the profile of the issue it is about, change the issue centres in various regions for the issue it is about, and give momentum bonuses to players with certain issue positions. For example, “Terrorists Caught in Yemen” will increase the Terrorism issue profile.
Polls
Public polls happen once a week. Although free, they are not always reliable. Private polls (which also happen once a week, on the same day the public polls occur) are accurate, but have a cost / week, and 1 CP/day or 3 CP/turn during the primaries.
Scandal Released
When a scandal is released, the profile of the resulting news story is random but based to an extent on how damaging the scandal is (low, medium, or high).
Spy Caught
Each turn, there is a chance one of your spies will get caught and trigger a scandal.