Game review: Margin of Error

The presidential elections of the United States of America might seem a bit complicated, but it's simply a majority vote, although the final tally is through votes in the electoral college as determined by what the state votes for. Election cycles are wild rides where every eye is looking at the future of the country.

Here's a question few ask: Man, I really want to reenact the election, how can I do it? And if you want a simulation of the American elections without the bloodshed, here's Margin of Error by Jack Neal.

Margin of Error is the American presidential elections boiled down to numbers and swinging electorates. The board represents a bunch of states up for grabs, and one section for your resources and the timeline. Extra equipment include tokens, dice and a maybe a calculator.

A Very Long Rundown

You start the game with a bunch of states practically up for grabs, and you take the role of either the campaign of the GOP or the Dems and you have nine weeks to get at least 270 electoral votes. Each party has their sure states and therefore start with some electoral votes, obviously that's not enough. The swing states for the taking have a poll scale and start with a token indicated by a mark, and these tokens will move depending on campaign moves with the starting point being a deciding factor in case of the state finishing in the middle.

You start with seven itinerary tokens and some funding, ten moneys to be exact. To get things going you have to set the week's itinerary to raising funds, media presence, campaigning and advertising, putting as much as three tokens to each action per week. Also included are some political capital actions you can use once per game, one a week. After scheduling the week you start rolling dice to see how well it goes. We'll now look at every aspect of the week of the campaign. 

First off is fundraising, where for every token you roll a die and get the amount rolled for one token spent, the amount plus three for two tokens and six added to the roll for three.

For campaigns, roll a die a token spent for every state you campaigned in, factoring the amount of media presence you spent. How much the state swings to your favor depends on how much you rolled and whether you rolled a double or a triple, which can set you back unless you exchange the ability to use a political capital action to ignore one of the dice. Each campaign costs $1. 

The vice presidential candidate can also campaign on one state for free but doesn't get much media attention and your roll will always be reduced by one. If your presidential candidate campaigns on a state worth less than ten points for the first time that isn't in your favor, place a token next to that state. A state is safe if the poll token is within a dark-colored zone and will always move one space toward the opponent until it's in the light zone.

Advertising affects a region and costs $5 a token. All states within that region will be affected by the rolls made for each advertising move, which work like campaign rolls without the extra caveats of small states. You have to campaign in at least one state within that region before you advertise.

After that, it's your opponent's turn to do some swinging, with dice rolls determining any changes of mind in some states and sometimes a whole region, adding another uncertainty to your campaign team.

This goes on for nine weeks, with a gradually increasingly aggressive opponent and after a last-minute campaign based on your small state tokens, your sure votes are added with the votes from the states you've won. 270 to win.

Review proper

For an election game, this game does make what seems to be a sordid affair simple. What a better way to simplify elections than going straight to how the whole affair works, disregarding the chaos that surrounds it?

The upside is that players that aren't familiar with how the United States elections work need not worry, as any road bumps of the campaign trail are ironed out. Any successes and failures are covered by the dice, and the electoral college votes as willed by the people.

Half the game is planning out the week and the other half is letting your campaign be at the mercy of the dice. This is a game that involves a high degree of chance, then again, you can't wholly convince a voter base that easily.

The strategy here is mostly using your resources and skills to maximize the voters' swing to your favor and being able to handle the results of such actions. The chance aspects of the game makes any strategy worth using, as the dice will ultimately decide if what you did was a good idea or not.

Political actions give you more power when you'd otherwise be stirred by the winds of chance and adds extra decision-making. While on the basic set the actions are general, variations can be made depending on historical context, something the creator of the 2016 version missed out, then again you might as well add an option to set the board on fire.

Other past elections are yet to be created, but if you want a quick rundown of how the US elections work without the dumpster fire, Margin of Error is the game for you.

Any board game based on elections are way better than actual elections, but we must still vote.