You are Chief of Staff to President Halbert Quist of the Republic of Marbury. He is not a bad man. He is simply a man who has never been correct about anything. Survive one month. Try not to end the world.
Keep President Quist in office for thirty days. Every morning a crisis lands on your desk. You pick one of three responses. There is no correct answer, only differently priced ones.
Each gauge is fatal at 0 and fatal at 100. The hatched red bands at either end of every bar are the danger zones. A Cabinet with zero loyalty deposes the President; a Cabinet with total loyalty becomes a doomsday cult. Stay in the middle.
Certain decisions escalate the nuclear posture. It starts at 5. If it ever reaches 1, the game ends in the traditional manner. Readiness above 90 makes the generals restless, and the number drops on its own.
You have three favors to call in across the whole term. Arm one before choosing and the harm from that decision is halved — the gains stay exactly as they were. Spend them well; there are no more.
The job erodes you while you sleep. Every morning the news cycle takes Approval and the Cabinet's patience takes Loyalty, while the Treasury quietly collects. It gets worse as the term goes on — one point each in the first ten days, two in the second ten, three in the last ten. The night's damage is printed at the top of each day's memorandum. The final week is meant to hurt.
You choose the course of action. The President then, sometimes, improves it — a remark in a doorway, a phone call at midnight, a figure announced from memory. It has its own effect on the gauges, it arrives after you have already decided, and a favor does not protect you from it. It gets likelier as the term goes on.
Each option carries a projected impact from your policy staff. Your policy staff are not always right, and they have never once accounted for the postscript.