Elections and law

Every government in Imperix is run by players. Presidents, party leaders and members of Congress win their seats in monthly elections, and the laws that follow are written by whoever holds power.

Elected offices

Office	Who votes	Nominations	Voting day	Results
Party President	The party’s members	Days 1 to 4	Day 5	Day 6
Country President	The nation’s citizens	Days 6 to 11	Day 12	Day 13
Congress	The nation’s citizens, one vote for a party	Days 16 to 24	Day 25	Day 26

Every race runs once a month on the UTC calendar and is tallied automatically. You get one vote per race, and a tied presidential race goes to the candidate with more experience. To stop last-minute party hopping, you cannot leave your party on a voting day or the day before it (the 4th, 5th, 11th, 12th, 24th and 25th).

How candidates reach the ballot:

• Party President. Any member can stand during nominations for 1 gold, which is not refunded.
• Country President. Only the presidents of your country’s 5 largest parties (by members) can put a candidate forward, one per party, and the candidate must belong to that party. A candidate can pledge a cabinet (Defense, Economy, Foreign Affairs, Justice); pledged ministers who accept take office if the candidate wins.
• Congress. Party members ask to stand, and their party president approves and ranks the party’s list. Only ranked names reach the ballot, and the list locks when voting opens.

Congress

Congress gets one seat for every vote cast, up to 50 seats, so a low turnout makes a small chamber. Seats are shared out between parties in proportion to their votes and filled from the top of each party’s ranked list. The new Congress sits from results day until the next month’s results day.

A member can resign at any time, and leaving your party gives up your seat; either way the next name on that party’s list takes it. A player holds one office at a time: the president and the ministers cannot run for Congress, a congress member must resign before the president can make them a minister, and a member who becomes president gives up their seat.

Laws that hit your wallet

Officials pass laws that shape everyday play. The ones you feel most directly:

• Work tax and income tax. Both come out of every wage (see Working): work tax goes to the country that holds the company’s region, income tax to your own country. A few percentage points here is real money across a nation.
• VAT and foreign tax. VAT is set per market category (food, ammo, components, raw materials) and taken out of every sale; sellers trading outside their own country also pay the foreign tax. Both shape the market. A tax law can set each rate from 1% to 40%.
• Minimum wage. The lowest wage a job in the country may offer.
• War and peace. Wars are declared by law, and never on a country you hold a protection pact with. Peace is a treaty that must pass in the Congress of both countries before the war ends.

Laws are voted in Congress, where every sitting congress member, every cabinet minister and the president has one vote. Ministers propose laws in their own field, and the president can propose any of them. A vote stays open for 24 hours and is settled within a minute of closing: ordinary laws need 50% of the votes cast, while impeachment, embargoes, cancelling a protection pact and trials need 66%. Tax and minimum wage laws can pass early, as soon as yes votes reach that share of the whole chamber.

Impeachment is Congress’s check on the president. Any congress member can table it, naming a citizen to take over; it needs 66% and always runs the full 24 hours. If it passes, the president is removed and the named citizen takes office. Congress members can also move to revert a tax or minimum wage law that is in force.

Because these rates touch every citizen, national politics is never cosmetic. Who you elect changes how much you earn and what your wars cost.

Getting into politics

To do this	You need
Found or join a political party	Free, any level; one party at a time, in your own country
Found a newspaper	Level 2, free (one per player)
Write an article	Your own newspaper
Run for party president	Party membership and 1 gold
Run for country president	A nomination from the president of one of your country’s 5 largest parties
Run for Congress	Party membership and your party president’s approval
Call an uprising (resistance war)	Any level, standing in the region, costs 5 to 25 gold (double for foreigners)

Parties are how players organise: a banner to run under, pool votes and push a shared agenda. Joining one is the usual first step. Newspapers and articles are the other half of politics, the way campaigns, propaganda and public opinion actually move between elections.

Resistance wars

When a region is under foreign occupation, its people can rise up. Calling an uprising (any level, paid in gold, called from inside the region) opens a battle for the occupied region from the inside, a way for citizens to fight back without waiting for their government to march an army over. Win it and the region returns to the nation it originally belonged to.

An uprising is not a normal war, and the differences matter:

• It runs 6 hours, not the usual 12. It starts the moment it is called, so the side that calls it picks the hour, and a smaller, well-organised nation can concentrate its strength.
• The occupier fights alone. Mutual protection pacts defend homelands, not conquests, so the pacts back the uprising, not the country holding the ground.
• You have to be there. An uprising can only be called from inside the region itself, so travel there first.
• The cost depends on the region’s prosperity. It is 5 gold in a freshly conquered region and climbs to 25 gold as prosperity rises to 100; a region worn down by fighting is cheaper. Watch a region’s prosperity before you commit. Anyone who is not a citizen of the region’s original owner pays double (10 to 50 gold).
• Your nation fights one uprising at a time. Pick the region that matters. (Other dispossessed nations are unaffected: several can rise against the same occupier at once.)

After a region changes hands, or after an uprising there ends, that region is sealed for 12 hours. For the next 12 hours after that, only citizens of the region’s original owner may call the next uprising. Beyond that it opens to anyone except the occupier’s own citizens, so a nation that has been overrun and has no one left to fight for it can still be liberated by its friends.

Beta rules

While the game is in beta, a party president may put themselves forward for country president, and a presidential candidate does not need a pledged cabinet to stand or to win. Both relaxations may be lifted later, so expect politics to keep changing.