Draft tutorial

Tutorial
Welcome to Particracy, the best political simulation game on the web, where you get to role-play a political party in one of Terra's 58 fictitious nations. When you have the time, we encourage you to read the Rules and join our forum, but for now, we're going to show you how to dive into the game straight away.

Choosing a nation
To begin with, you need to decide what kind of nation to play in and what type of political party to role-play as. Different nations have different political set-ups and different cultural backgrounds. For more information on cultural background, peruse the Cultural Protocols Index. To find out further details about a nation, visit the Nations of Terra page and click on the nation you are interested in to go to its nation page, where you will be able to research more information, such as what political parties are there and what legislation is currently being debated and voted on.

Register an account
Click on the "Register" link at the top left of the screen in order to set up a user account. Fill in all of the details and then press "Create". Remember: only ONE active account is allowed at a time! Also, if you are logging in with the same IP address as another player then you should let Moderation know as soon as you can. In-game, we can be messaged at the Moderation account.

Click "here".

Then enter your user name and password and press "Login".

Party Overview page


You now come to the Party Overview page. At the moment, your party name is the same as your user name, your party colour is black and your party description is empty. Soon we are going to change all of that. But for the time being, let's scroll further down the page.

Here you can see your Political Positions. These are determined by how you vote on bills. So far you haven't voted on any bills, which means your positions are all "unknown" and your visibility ratings are all "close to none". This is no good at all, because without these ratings you will stand little chance of winning seats at elections. Soon we will show you how to go about changing that, but right now we're going to help you out with defining the details of your party.



Scroll further down the page until you come to the Party Details section. There are some very important things to do here, so pay attention! Your first task is to delete your party name, which is currently "[your-username] Party" and replace it with the party name you desire. Remember that you may list your party name in a language appropriate to the culture of the nation (remember looking at the Cultural Protocols earlier?). Google Translate could be useful here, or if you would appreciate more help, you can always visit our forum and post on the Language Assistance Requests thread.

Once you've entered the party name you want, press "Change Name".

Secondly, you probably want a party colour that is more imaginative than black. Go to the hexadecimal colours guide, find the code of the colour you want, enter the code into the second box down and then press "Change color".

Thirdly, now is a good time to fill out the names for your candidates for the different available political positions. Be careful: under the rules, your character names must reflect the culture of the nation you are playing in. Behind the Name's Random Name Generator can be a great help for coming up with non-English names.

Notice you also have the option to enter your candidate for Head of State, although remember this only applies to nations where the Head of State is a directly-elected position. To win on the first ballot, a candidate needs to win 50% of the votes cast. If the first ballot is inconclusive, then a second ballot is held between the two leading candidates. You can use the drop-down menu to select the party you would like to support in the second ballot (provided that party's candidate makes it to the second ballot, of course). If you would prefer to support another party's candidate in the first ballot, just leave your Head of State candidate box empty and use the drop-down menu to endorse a party for both the first and second ballots.

Fourthly, fill in your party's description. This is an opportunity for you to communicate to other players what your party is all about. Bear in mind that Particracy is set in the alternate reality world of Terra, so explicit real-life references should be avoided.

Developing a political agenda


Now we're going to start proposing legislation and getting the citizens of your nation to notice you! Scroll to the top of the Party Overview page and click on the name of your nation at the top-right of the page, on the second row down. This will open the Nation Overview page.

Now scroll down until you reach the section about "Legislation", and click "here" to "view the laws currently in effect". We are going to find a law your party wants to change, and then we are going to try to change it!

We have reached the "Laws of the Land" page, where you can see all of the currently enabled laws and all of the available options for each law. The laws are grouped according to categories, and you can use the links at the top of the page to visit any particular category of law you are interested in. There is a great deal of information available on this page that is well worth studying as you work out how to develop your party's political agenda. But for the time being, find just one law you want to change, remember the option you want to change it to and then return to your Party Overview page by clicking on the link to the name of your party at the top of the page (at the centre-left in the second row down).



In this example, I have examined the current law banning pesticides and decided my party is going to try to change it.

Making a law
Scroll down the Party Overview page until you reach the section about "Proposing a Bill", then click "here" to begin proposing your bill.



Give your bill a title and a description. Try to be persuasive, if you want the bill to pass! Then click "New Bill".



Click "Next" to add a new proposal.

Your bill will now look something like this.



Scroll down until you come to the option to add a new proposal, then click "here".

You now see a list of all the existing laws and the options to which they are currently set.

Scroll down until you reach the pesticide law option, then press next.



In this example, I am going to select the option to have the government approve and regulate agricultural chemical use. Now press "Next".



Click "here".

Your bill now looks like this. Notice the proposal is now attached.

Usually it is best to leave bills in debate for a while before putting them to the vote, but we're going to put this bill to the vote straight away to show you how it is done. Cliick "here" to start the voting procedure.

Click "OK" to indicate you want to move the bill to the voting stage.



Now scroll down until you come to the voting section.The options you can select are "yes", "no" and "abstain" (the default). I am going to vote in favour of my bill, of course. Normal bills require more votes in favour than against in order to pass, but consitutional laws require the support of two-thirds of the total number of legislators.



If you return to the Nation Overview page, you will now see your bill listed alongside all of the others.

Congratulations! You have now learned the rudimentary basics of playing Particracy, and if you keep proposing bills with Articles, you are likely to win seats at the next election. There is still more to learn, but this should be enough to keep you going for the time being. If you have any questions, you can always ask a Moderator, a fellow player or make a post on the forum - where registering an account would now be a great idea. All kinds of interesting role-play, discussions and general chit-chat goes on there. Welcome to the Particracy community. May your stay here be long and pleasant!