• Chairman claim (instant victory, offered each Winter you qualify — including one last window before the Year-10 Final Election): you must control the Presidency, have 15+ LP (16 for the Heartland Alliance — Uninspiring), hold 4+ regions (5 in a 3-player game — your vassals' regions count), and stake 8 Influence (only 5 if the President is in DC and you hold DC). Rivals spend Influence 1:1 to cancel your stake — AI rivals block automatically (up to 75% of their Influence); when a rival claims, you are asked how much to spend blocking. If the whole stake is cancelled the claim fails (−2 LP); any uncancelled Influence makes the claimant Chairman on the spot.
• Final Election (Winter, Year 10): score = LP + Influence + 2 per region + military (units ÷ 3, max 5) + 3 per year of Presidency tenure + 1 per building − 2 per lifetime Exposure − lifetime War Exhaustion. Highest score wins. Wars and covert deals leave permanent marks — the nation remembers.
• Last one standing: if every rival is eliminated or vassalized, you win immediately.

A year has four seasons — Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter — and every faction takes one turn per season. Your turn: Event → Income → Recruitment → Movement → Actions (3) → draw a strategy card (hand cap 5, oldest card is discarded).

Season effects: Summer discounts follow-up attacks by 1 Influence. Winter allows only one attack action, and ends with the Winter Reckoning:

• Vassals pay tribute to their lords; lords gain up to +3 LP.
• Unit upkeep is due — units you can't pay for disband.
• Overextension: if you hold more regions than your Food production + 3, famine costs −2 LP.
• War exhaustion: your current gauge drops by 1 after a fully peaceful year; your lifetime tally never drops — the nation remembers it at the Final Election (−1 point each). The current gauge is a warning dial with no direct penalty in this build; the lifetime tally is what costs you.
• Presidential elections in even years; Chairman claims are resolved.

• Food / Energy / Commerce come from your regions every turn. Stockpiles are capped at the end of each of your Income phases: 3 × the regions you hold at that moment, overflow wasted then. Gains later in the turn (Open Market, tribute, cards) can ride above the cap until your next Income phase — spend them or lose them.
• Influence income = LP ÷ 2 (max 8), minus a governance cost of 1 per region above your fair share (20 regions ÷ player count). Presidential Mandate: while you control the Presidency the governance cost is halved (rounded down) — the legitimate government administers cheaply; occupation without legitimacy stays expensive. Legitimacy is the engine that funds both politics and war.
• LP (Legitimacy Points) come from capturing regions, Public Address (2 Inf → +2 LP), buildings (Heartland), the Presidency, and cards. Losing battles and famine drain it.
• Open Market action: sell 4 Commerce for 1 Influence (3 with a Commerce Center; Atlantic Federation pays 1 less).
• Buildings — one of each type per region; every building is +1 Final Election point (and +1 Winter LP for Heartland, cap +3). Exactly what each does:
  • Fortification (1 C + 1 E; Commerce free for Heartland): absorbs — and is destroyed by — the first hit against the region. One hit, one save, and the fort is gone; build a fresh one when you can afford it.
  • Commerce Center (3 C): improves your Open Market rate from 4 Commerce per Influence to 3 (owning several does not stack) and blocks the Chinese Cyber Op event.
  • Supply Depot (2 C): does nothing else yet — no passive income, no market discount, no supply role. It is not a Commerce Center.
  Buildings transfer with the region: capture it and its buildings are yours — they defend for you, count toward your Final Election score, and feed Heartland's Industrial Base.

Recruit up to 4 units per turn (fewer if you hold fewer regions), only in your own regions. No region may ever hold more than 3 units total — stationed vassal or lord forces count against the cap — and never more than 1 Armor.

Movement phase: each unit may take one step into an adjacent region you own or that is unclaimed (respecting the 3-unit and 1-Armor caps). Stepping into an unclaimed region claims it — except DC, which stays neutral until the first election. No unit ever moves more than one region per phase — there is no moving through a region (full or otherwise). Armor's "Movement 2" means exactly one thing: storm events that halt other units don't stop it, unless it starts the move in mountain/urban terrain.

• Attack an adjacent enemy region as an Action. The 1st attack each turn is free, the 2nd costs 3 Influence, the 3rd costs 5 (Summer: follow-ups 1 cheaper; Winter: one attack only). Every attack also burns 1 Food + 1 Energy supply.
• Battles run up to 3 rounds of dice. A 6 is a crit and kills the enemy's best unit; ordinary hits kill the weakest. A Fortification absorbs — and is destroyed by — the attacker's first hit; the fort is gone after that one save (its owner may build a new one later).
• Combat cards: each side may commit one per battle — attacker first, defender responds after seeing it. Card bonus dice hit on 5+, crit on 6.
• Victory (defenders wiped out): capture the region, +2 Influence +1 LP, and choose how many survivors advance. Repulsed: −1 LP.
• DC is special: attacking it costs −3 LP; successfully defending it earns +2 LP.
• Capturing a faction's last region vassalizes them instead of eliminating them — they keep the region but pay you tribute.

• DC and the Presidency start neutral/vacant. In the Winter of even years (2, 4, 6, 8) a sealed-bid election is held: every independent faction secretly bids Influence, all bidders pay, highest bid wins (ties go to higher LP). The winner controls the President and takes DC with one Regular garrison. Other factions' units in DC evacuate to an adjacent region their owner controls — or disband if there's nowhere to go. If nobody bids, a sitting President retains the office unopposed.
• Controlling the President pays every turn: +3 LP and +2 Influence if you also hold DC; +1/+1 if the President is in DC but you don't hold it; +2/+1 otherwise. Presidential wars cause half war exhaustion and no lifetime penalty, and the Presidential Mandate halves your governance cost — you're the legitimate government, and reunifying under it is meant to be affordable.
• The Coup d'État card steals the Presidency for 3 Influence if you hold a region adjacent to it. Vassalizing the office-holder vacates the office.
• The Chairman claim is the throne itself — see How to Win. Your progress toward the four requirements is tracked in your dashboard panel.

• A faction reduced to its last region becomes the conqueror's tributary vassal: constrained turns, Winter tribute, and its lord may direct its units. Vassal regions count toward the lord's Chairman claim.
• Gekokujo — the low overthrow the high. As a vassal with 3+ Influence you may rebel (all Influence is spent). If your lord has no forces on or adjacent to your home region, you walk free. Otherwise you fight with home-soil advantages: the first enemy hit is absorbed and you roll +1 defense die. Win: freedom, +2 LP, lord −3 LP. Lose: permanent elimination.
• Sponsored Liberation: an action to pay another lord's vassal free — useful for cutting a rival empire down before it claims the Chairmanship.

• You draw one card at the end of each turn; hand cap is 5 (oldest discarded).
• Hover any card in the Your Hand panel to read exactly what it does.
• Action cards are played from the Action menu on your turn. Combat cards are offered automatically when a battle involving you begins.
• A few cards are honestly labelled "(no mechanical effect yet in the digital build)" — they're placeholders from the tabletop design.