GENERAL ELECTION
(Bug-Byte Software)


INTRODUCTION
The object of the game is to win more seats than your opponents in
Parliament. Each player chooses a Political Party to lead, and unless
otherwise stated, all parties have equal turns of play.
To keep the game to a practical size there are only 100 Constituencies
(seats). These are split up into five regions. As in real politics,
seats are VERY SAFE, SAFE, MARGINAL or VERY MARGINAL. In non-political
terms, the very safe seats give an advantage to the owner of the
Constituency, as they are harder for other parties to gain. The very
marginal seats are much easier for the other parties to gain, although
there is still a small built-in advantage to the owner of the seat.

TO PLAY
To load the program use:
LOAD""
Enter the number of players and choose the Parties people will lead
during the game.
The main board appears as a large grid of 100 squares; these are the
Constituencies. At the start of the game these will all be coloured
white. Around the grid there is an outer track, and the Headquarters
of the Political Parties who are competing in the game appear at the
four corners. The Party HQ which is flashing is the first party to
have a turn. 'R' is pressed and a die is thrown which appears on the
left of the screen. The marker corresponding to the colour of the
Party will move around the outer board to the number of the die thrown.
After this move, the marker will land on one of the following:

i) SEATS (marked with an arrow)
The main board will disappear and the 20 seats in the relevant region
will appear. It should be noted that the Very Safe seats are those on
the right of the screen. The next column from the right are the five
Safe seats, then the five Marginal seats, and the five Very Marginal
seats are on the extreme left. The top row of the 20 seats (seats 1 to
4, although they are not numbered as such) form a 'City' in each
Region. It can be a distinct advantage to hold all four City seats.
For more about this, refer to the section on Tactics, below. Press 'R'
and the marker of the Party concerned will randomly select a seat. 'R'
must be pressed again and a second seat will be selected. The
selection is random, but two points should be noted:
(a) The program will only select a vacant seat.
(b) There is a weighting factor to ensure that the more marginal seats
    are usually chosen first.
After two seats have been chosen, the main board will return to the
screen. After a short pause, the computer will beep, signalling the
turn of the next Party. When the main grid re-appears, it will be
noted that two squares are now coloured in for the Party that gained
them. This Party now has the advantage of being the incumbent Party in
these two constituencies.

ii) If you land on 'S' this signals a Regional Swing. At the left of
the screen the relevant region will appear in a small box correspond-
ing to the colour of the Party. It will either show 0% or 1% on a
first landing. Each time this square is visited there is a 75% chance
of increasing a swing in this region. Should you already have a 1%
swing and on a second visit the regional swing still shows 1% then the
25% chance has come about that the swing has not increased. It is more 
probable that on a second landing the swing will show 2%. There are
five 'S' squares, one for each of the five regions. Swings are important,
as explained in the Tactics section below.

iii) There are five 'P' squares. When you land on a 'P' square five
policies will appear on the left of the screen. Your Party has to
select the policy which you think the 'Voters' at the General Election
will consider to be crucial. Choose one of the five policies, type in
the first three letters only and ENTER.
At the very outset of the game the computer randomly weights each of
the policies as follows:
A = 50% chance of a 1% National Swing
B = 33% chance of a 1% National Swing
C = 25% chance of a 1% National Swing
D = 20% chance of a 1% National Swing
E = 17% chance of a 1% National Swing
eg. Suppose the computer has selected INDUSTRY to be the 50% chance.
This means that every time you enter 'IND' for a policy you have a 50%
chance of a 1% National Swing at the General Election.
As the game progresses it may be deduced by yourself and the other
players which policy is the most sensitive issue. See (iv) below.

iv) If you land on your own HQ a bar graph will appear of all Regional
and National Swings of all Parties. As far as the policies referred to
above are concerned, it may be assumed that if one Party has been
typing in 'IND' as a policy on several occasions and no National Swing
appears for that party, it is likely that INDUSTRY is not a partic-
ularly sensitive policy. On the other hand, if a Party has been typing
in 'DEF' regularly and a few % swing points appear on the bar graph,
it is reasonable to assume that DEFENCE is a more sensitive issue.

v) Early in the game, if you land on 'O' you will more than likely
receive a Party Fortune. This is a type of "Chance Card". It may be
good or bad. Later in the game (when more seats have been taken) there
is an increasing likelihood of receiving an OPINION POLL. This is
different from the bar graph referred to above, as the swings acquired
during the course of landing on the 'P' squares are shown above each
policy. This will help in deducing how sensitive the various policies
are. However, remember that if one policy, say Economy, shows a large
swing and the others nothing, you must consider two things:
a) How many times you have typed in ECO.
b) How many other policies you have chosen.
Remember that this Poll only refers to the Party which landed on the
'O' square.

vi) Landing on the 'F' square relates to the Party Fortune explained
in (v) above. "Playing" the Party Fortune is explained in the Tactics
section.

vii) Landing on a blank square or another Party's HQ gives you a free
move to any square of your choice. Just count the number of squares
forward that you wish to move and ENTER this number. These free moves
or PARTY STRATEGY are vital, as they give each Party a chance to
control an aspect of the game by moving to some advantage of their
choice. The Tactics section will explain how this can be used to the
most telling effect.

viii) The 'E' square causes a BY-ELECTION in any chosen seat - vacant
or taken. This can be crucial to win Cities. See Tactics section.

GENERAL ELECTION
When all 100 seats have been taken a GENERAL ELECTION is immediately
called. Each seat in turn from 1 to 100 is elected. By pressing the 'C'
(continuous) key you can toggle between automatic advance to the next
constituency and being asked to press 'R' for each new seat. Before
this process commences, all players note that state of the parties
chart prior to the General Election. Each Party and the number of
seats it holds is displayed. In addition, the order of sensitivity of
the five policies is revealed. The top one in the list is the most
sensitive.

HOW THE VOTING PROCEDURE WORKS
The vote gained by each Party in each seat is weighted by the
following factors:
a) There is an in-built advantage for the Party defending the seat.
This advantage is naturally greatest in the VERY SAFE seats, next
greatest in the SAFE seats, less in the MARGINAL seats and least in
the VERY MARGINAL seats. The factor is worth about 2000 votes for a
VERY SAFE seat, down to about 500 votes for a VERY MARGINAL one.
b) National Swings increase the vote for a Party proportionally; eg. if
a Party were set to get a basic vote of 20,000 then a National Swing
of 5% would give them 5% more votes - an extra 1000 votes.
c) Regional Swings act in the same way as National Swings, but only
act on seats in the relevant area.
d) City Swings are only gained when a Part owns all four seats in any
one City. The bonus for this is a 10% swing in that City, but as soon
as one of the City seats is lost to an opponent, the swing is lost.

RECOUNTS
Should two or more parties fall within 100 votes of each other, a
Recount takes place and the election process in the seat effectively
takes place again.


TACTICS

NATIONAL SWINGS
Swings are a vital ingredient in winning an election. The National
Swing is the most potent weapon in this respect as it affects every
seat. A player who wants to achieve a satisfactory National Swing
should study the following:
a) The policies chased by all parties.
b) These should be compared with the swings which show up on the
Opinion Polls and the Bar Graph.
c) To achieve maximum swings, keep moving to a policy square on your
free moves and keep trying the policy you believe to be the most
sensitive.
Sometimes it is fairly obvious early in the game which policies are
the most sensitive, but often these are not easy to identify. In the
latter case it may be more fruitful to consider other tactics until
the situation becomes clearer.

REGIONAL SWINGS
These affect only 20 seats but are relatively easy to obtain. Regional
Swings also affect By-Elections, whereas National Swings do not. It is
desirable to gain a high Regional Swing in areas where you own a few
seats as the combination of the advantage of holding seats and the
Regional Swing makes constituencies easier to retain. An additional
tactic is to try to gain the four City seats in any one region. Should
an opponent own one or more of the City seats you are seeking, advance
to By-Election on a Free Move.

SEATS
The ownership of seats gives an advantage, especially if they are SAFE
or VERY SAFE, so an acceptable tactic is to "campaign the region" and
gather seats. This is especially telling towards the end of the game
when the majority of safe seats remain vacant.

PARTY FORTUNE
Landing on a Party Fortune is a gamble. If you are in a poor position
in a game, you might get lucky. Games, as well as real-life elections,
have been won and lost through Party Fortune. As Harold Wilson said "A
week is a long time in Politics.". After you have played General
Election, you will agree with this. Five minutes can be a long time in
the politics you are shortly to enjoy!


(c) Bug-Byte Ltd. 1983