2010 Swedish Parliament

Play as the Socialists, the Conservatives, the Farmers, the Liberals, the Christians, the Communists, the Greens, the Nationalists, the Pirates or the Feminists and partake in the 2010 elections for the Swedish parliament.

The goal is to beat your 2006 election result with as many percentage points as possible.

You play cards to shift parties' positions on the 10 issue scales:

• Consumption vs Environment
• Employers vs Workers
• Equality vs Family
• Europe vs Independence
• Fair Market vs Free Market
• Globalism vs Nationalism
• Net Salary vs Safety Net
• Peace vs Security
• Privacy vs Safety
• Religion vs Secularism

Event cards can also be played to shift a whole spectrum. For example, a spectacular scandal in a government-run service will make all voters slightly more positive towards privatization, which will benefit parties on the "Free Market" side of that scale. Likewise, a huge oil spill would be beneficial for the greenish parties.

Positioning yourself on different scales gives you points with the different demographic groups: the young/old, the men/women, the educated/uneducated, the rural/urban and the working/non-working. You can't win them all, so concentrate on your niche and keep a watchful eye on your ideological neighbors.

If parties move in the same direction on some issue, they strengthen their relation; if they move apart, they weaken their relation (if they have one). A strong relation means an alliance, and alliances are crucial as voters first choose which alliance that suits them best, and then which party within that alliance. A lonely extreme party has a small chance of presenting a complete and appealing policy package, while a large and stable alliance will harvest many voters. On the other hand, sacrificing your party identity to suit your allies might also mean losing your core voters to the more radical parties.

The game is thus cooperative/competitive; take one for the team, but make sure you're not doing all the work in keeping together - don't forget to grab a bunch of voters for yourself!