Mr. President News

In the real world, India and Pakistan had a sequence of violent confrontations. There’s still a lot we don’t know about those events: the casualties and air kills, the course of the mediation and the degree of U.S. involvement in bringing about the current ceasefire, etc. In Mr. President, part of the fun for players is in imagining the narrative of such rapid and dramatic events when they occur in the game.



The most obvious model for the real-world conflict this month is Crisis card #90, “Violence in Kashmir Escalates.” It’s a sharp event, and not a Cascading Event, that adds tension to the map and also boosts the India/Pakistan Conflict Track by one box:



Conflict Tracks are how Mr. President models the closeness of serious armed conflict between plausible adversaries in 2000-2020, and who will start with a military advantage. There are ten of them, and India appears on two (India/Pakistan and India/China). The Status column is a 1-5 scale; if the marker moves to 5, war breaks out. For two of the tracks - China/Japan and Russia/NATO, if this happens, the game is over. For the rest, the war system is used, with an immediate War Progress check and then more such checks as long as the war is going on. The Relative Strength column is a bonus that one side or the other gets added to its base strength when the war begins.

Going back to the Kashmir Crisis card, we can see that the card immediately escalates this conflict track by one box, and adds tension to both India and China (with India engaged, China has two reasons to escalate its own actions - India’s distraction, and the danger posed to Pakistan, with whom China has been building a strategic and economic partnership during this period). It’s unlikely this card by itself will start a war, unless mediation fails. Note that the player has the option to bow out of mediation by declining to spend two Action Points - but even if they do, and cooler heads prevail, they’ll still reap some political benefits).

So this card all by itself has a few different narrative possibilities - and the card doesn’t specifically describe the violence. The player can use their imagination to fill in those specifics, as well as what happened in the ensuing clash. And whether or not the Conflict track was pushed to 5 would influence the story quite a bit! But what if the player had previously drawn this card as well?



Now the Kashmir violence could be imagined as a purely military retaliation, or a spark ignited from the heightened tensions generated by this border skirmish. The Regional Crisis increase seems like an afterthought, but a Regional Major Crisis could add more fuel to this fire, in the form of additional, or leveled-up, Terror Groups, refugee crises, or Stability penalties.

And what about all those tensions markers that are getting added by these cards? Well, if you don’t tamp that down, India is much more likely to get a high result on their Unilateral Action table - which will occur during their Ally Group activation.



See that 13+ result? And the fact that this d10 roll gets +1 to its final result per Tension value on India? Now it’s easy to see how what seems like a calm Conflict track, sitting at 2, can rocket up to 5 - and war - when the key events and actions happen in a fateful order. But if the order is changed, the scene changes, and so does the story in the player’s head.

James Dunnigan referred to historical tabletop wargames as “paper time machines.” But Mr. President is also a story-making machine. Each playthrough will prompt the player to envision new ways the movement of the pieces, the results of the table rolls, and the draw of the cards might have manifested as real life events. We hope you’ll have many hours of fun writing the story of your own presidency in digital Mr. President!

I’ve already written about the Crisis deck in Mr. President, but that post covered just the basics, and the concept of Cascading Events. Here I want to talk about even more specific types of Crisis cards: Natural Disasters and Terrorism events.

First, let’s look at some Natural Disasters.



This card represents a catastrophically severe drought in California. Natural Disaster cards share a format: they usually allow you to spend some Action Points on your initial response - and this is one of the key reasons to retain some Action Points throughout the year, in case of a natural disaster - and potentially make some political gains. Moreover, you’ll notice that on the best possible result (which is not available unless you spend at least 1 Action Point), the second stage of this card is skipped; it goes to the ‘3’ pile, so you can only draw it once more.

The drought is also rare in that in its future recurrences, there’s a chance you’ll just get bailed out by the weather, and the card goes straight to Discard with no further effect. Most natural disasters aren’t like that, though:



This card can’t get discarded by a lucky rain result (indeed, rain would make this one worse!). But, like the California drought, it’s a blow to the US economy, and the political fallout if you under-invest your Action Points (political capital) can be dramatic. The aftermath can also create a drag on your domestic tracks, which is very dangerous in year 2 when you need all the domestic track position you can get to maximize the chances of a good result in the midterm elections (or, in year 4, your re-election campaign!).

There’s also a hidden risk. Note that the aftermath effects can include Domestic Crises. If you don’t manage these correctly, you risk a Domestic Failure (that’s what happens if your Domestic Crisis level rises to 3). To control that risk, you’ll need to spend precious actions on “Address a Domestic Crisis.” So it’s not just public disapproval and tension with Congress and the Cabinet that these cards can drive - they’re also a subtle action drain.

Now let’s take a look at a Terrorism Crisis. These vary in structure much more than Natural Disasters do, and their effects and resolution depend on the target. For example, here’s a domestic terror attack:



Here, your Homeland Security level is paramount. A Homeland Security check is a d10 against the track rating, which ranges from 8 (robust capabilities) to 3 (compromised). If you pull this card, and pass that check, the attack is averted (well done!). You’ll get public approval and an RNG-free ding on a terror group anywhere you like.

But for an attack like this, the price of failure is severe. FOUR Tensions markers go on your Cabinet Priorities list, which means that anything but your top two priorities won’t even get rolls at the next resolution. And the Legislative Segment is skipped (possibly twice, if this is drawn early in the year)! However, you’re able to start an air campaign against the Rogue State you deem responsible, without needing to wait until an Action segment or spend Military actions to move the necessary air assets or actually kick off the offensive.

For a very different example, let’s take a look at this card:



This card represents a wave of terror attacks and operations in multiple African countries, rather than a single attack. As such, it’s handled as a Cascading Event rather than a one-time event. It leads to the buildup of African terror groups’ strength (represented in the card by Boko Haram), and pushes Regional Crises there pretty hard. Since a Major Regional Crisis in Africa can cause a refugee crisis, the spillover risk is significant. But you can play around this by aggressively assisting African states with anti-terror support - if you’re able to bring terror groups’ strength down such that there aren’t any at Level 2 or higher when you draw it again, this card will get pitched.



Here we have a dramatic terror attack against a highly symbolic target, but not in the U.S. In this case, the French will take unilateral action to deal with the attack, and will expect your support. If you don’t provide it, that’ll bruise relations with the EU - but in this case, the 2 Action Points provide a big die roll modifier, representing close collaboration and relationships between American and European anti-terror institutions and agencies. If the free Intel attempts result in identification and targeting of the responsible group, you’ll also get a free SpecOps raid against that group, likewise with a bonus.

I hope this deep dive on some of the nastier events in Mr. President has been exciting, if a bit worrisome!

Mr. President is a game about putting yourself in the Oval Office. We want to do as much as possible to ensure that players can envision themselves as POTUS, which means a variety of player avatars. Many strategy games don’t even have a player avatar; sometimes that’s because the player identity or gameplay and setting are abstract. Other times, the avatar is part of the game itself, and can change as a result of gameplay, as in dynasty simulators like Crusader Kings.

In Mr. President, the avatar itself doesn’t have any gameplay effect (although your Presidential Attributes certainly do!). So why invest scarce development resources into a beautiful selection of presidential portraits? Why not follow the board game and leave the president’s appearance to players’ imaginations?

It’s because Mr. President is an aspirational game, in which we want players to feel that someone like themselves could sit in the big chair. Mr. President is not a satirical game; it’s a serious treatment of a subject that’s both historical and contemporary, with an ultimately optimistic vision of the presidency as an institution. That optimism means we want players to feel as welcome and natural in the game as possible, and be able to realize the presidential fantasy of having a portrait in the White House. And that means players should have some choices about what that portrait would look like. Joshua Balcaceres, the art director for digital Mr. President - and whose specialty is character art - has some further thoughts to share.



In designing the Presidential Portraits for Mr. President, our goal was to reflect a broad spectrum of players while honoring the dignity and gravitas associated with the office. We began with a traditional image—a male, older president in the mold of historical figures like JFK or Teddy Roosevelt—but quickly saw the creative opportunity to expand that vision. Each portrait aims to present a leader who feels authentic, commanding, and worthy of being remembered—no matter their background or style. That meant pushing past convention, exploring diverse visual cues, and reimagining what a modern president might look like while still capturing the seriousness and stature of the role.

Some presidents might have a nontraditional style that hints at their individuality, but the core message remains the same: this is someone who leads a nation. The portraits are not just aesthetic—they’re invitations. They say: this could be you. And in a game that encourages players to step into the Oval Office, that sense of possibility is essential.

The stewardship of the U.S. economy is one of the most important political concerns for modern U.S. presidents, and American economic performance has a large and undeniable impact on election outcomes. Yet Mr. President isn’t, and doesn’t want to be, a macroeconomic simulator. The complexity of macroeconomic modeling, the limited effectiveness of most economic tools, time delays, confounding factors… the list goes on and on, and macroeconomics in particular (the study of aggregates, as opposed to microeconomics’ focus on how individual people and firms make decisions) has competing schools of academic thought. Mr. President is about a balancing act at a higher level, and the problems you’ll confront are more practical.



This Crisis card represents a major bank failure. Like many other Cascading Events it has a clear play-around: if you can rescue the economy and get it back to 6 or more, then its stage 2 and 3 events will fizzle. Many of the economy-themed Crisis cards adjust one of the four State of the Economy tracks modeled in the game - U.S., China, Russia, and the Eurozone.

Sometimes one power’s economic problem is another’s opportunity - here we see Crisis Card #79, Oil Prices Spike to Record Highs. This card shows a unique pattern: in addition to immediate political pain in the form of Domestic Crisis and a Public Approval penalty, the public demands specific action in the form of energy independence legislation. Russia, as a major gas exporter, gets an immediate economic bonus; and if China and the U.S. are on good terms, a deal can be struck to help both countries recover.



But why do these economic tracks matter? For you, as U.S. President, a strong economy will offer political advantages. At high levels, you’ll get continuous upward pressure on your approval rating, bonus Action Points, and Congress will warm to you (every elected official wants to be seen as part of the solution to economic problems!). You’ll also get Economic Assistance actions that allow dice-free improvements to relationships with foreign allies or Regional Alignment - and those are precious, because it’s often easy to miss on them with standard actions, and high Regional Alignment will help you counteract the spread of Russian and Chinese influence. But a poor economy will cost you in all of these things, particularly with respect to your relations with Congress.



For Russia and China, your peer rivals in Mr. President, economic success brings bonus actions during their activation segments. This generally leads to more headaches for you: more influence spread, more military growth, or even war.



The Eurozone’s economy mostly drives that region’s Stability - at high levels, there are a couple of phases where the Eurozone can improve its Stability just by having a good economic level. Stability, of course, limits the presence of terror groups and civil wars, so more stability almost always means fewer headaches for you as President.

TRADE AND SANCTIONS

Two economic elements that get some explicit handling in Mr. President are Trade Agreements and Sanctions. Trade agreements, created with the Make a Trade Agreement action, require good relations with Congress to have a reasonable chance at passing, and carry a host of benefits and risks. In high Stability regions, they can lead to a lot of American economic gains on the State of the Economy and Public Approval tracks. They can also directly remove Russian and Chinese influence. But they can also lead to friction in both the trade partner’s Region and at home. Maximizing the impact of Trade Agreements requires a close eye on actions that preserve or improve Stability, and a strong relationship with Congress.

Sanctions, conversely, can only be targeted at four specific nations: Russia, China, the DPRK, and Iran. Sanctions make it harder for the latter two to develop their nuclear programs, and consume critical actions from Russia’s and China’s action budgets (which may mean fewer actions to spare for greater mischief).

WRAPPING UP

That may have seemed like a lot, but the simple track-based approach for modeling economic health, and the relatively small but well-purposed suite of actions that allows the player to interact with them, give economic considerations a scope and complexity budget appropriate to Mr. President’s big-picture design approach. The most complicated economic phenomena are reserved for the Crisis Cards, who can use their individual text to inject economic uncertainty and drama into the game without requiring players to learn a complicated economic model.

China and Russia are major geopolitical competitors for the U.S. in Mr. President and as such, they have their own dedicated segments within the game turn called China Acts or Russia Acts.

Like our Oval Office painting, I gravitated towards the symbology and messaging with Presidential offices. This post is about painting a scene in the office of the President of China. We wanted to evoke that within Mr. President, the President/player could be anyone so we decided to not show the President’s likeness, but only his back.

Little is known about the office of the President of China, compared to the Oval Office, which leads to a lot of analysis and speculation. There are entire articles written about what pictures are displayed in the office. Meanwhile, some have even speculated that the office is actually a stage.



The main details I focused on were the pictures on his shelf, drawings, the beautiful minimalist artwork of the Wall of China prominently seen behind him always, and the People’s Republic of China flag.



His desk is also very minimal, with papers with text barely visible and an odd double-red phone and a white phone as well. It’s existence and functions have puzzled even the most avid of researchers, and its a high topic of discussions on Chinese forums due to it’s allure and different look.



Given the increase in political, economic, and military conflict, I wanted to depict him pulling a classic book, The Art of War. Written in the 5th century B.C., The Art of War is an ancient military treatise by author Sun Tzu. It is one of the most influential military strategy works.

It was first translated into French by Jesuit priest Jean Joseph Marie Amiot in 1772, and then translated into English in 1905 by Everard Ferguson Calthrop. Many political and military leaders like Takeda Shingen, Mao Zedong, and Norman Schwarzkopf have cited the importance of the book.



Great care was taken into drawing the characters into the painting, and I used the traditional Chinese colors of Gold and Red for the book’s cover to make it more visually poignant to the viewer. I also made sure the books are properly shaded to mimic the real look from his office and his desk.

The final composition included 35 layers of digital oil paint and it took around 12 hours to complete. As always, thank you for your time in this art journey of Mr. President.