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Communication & Coalitions

Lawmaker runs on coalitions, and coalitions run on talking to other parties. Best of all, communication costs no Political Power — so use it freely. This guide covers the in-game tools for working with others, from private messages to formal international alliances. For how to negotiate and build coalitions, see the Strategy Guide.

Direct messages

The core tool is party-to-party messaging — private, persistent conversation threads, much like email inside the game. This is where deals get made: coalition offers, vote trades ("I'll back your healthcare bill if you back my education bill"), and relationship-building. Specific, concrete asks land far better than vague ones.

In a DM or a group chat, you can reply directly to a specific message — handy in a busy group chat where several conversations are happening at once. Hit Reply on the message (or long-press it on mobile) and your response carries a quoted preview of what you're answering; anyone who taps that preview jumps straight to the original message in the thread.

For anything that doesn't warrant a full reply, you can react to a message with a 👍 or 👎 — click the message bubble to open the picker, and click again to toggle a reaction off. Reactions from everyone who's reacted are collapsed into a small badge with a count under the message; hover (or long-press on mobile) a badge to see who left it. This works on any message, including ones from the game's own bots.

Group chats

Beyond DMs, several group chats are available:

Chat Who's in it
Country Chat All parties in your country
Government Chat Parties currently in government
Opposition Chat Parties not in government
Bloc Chat Members of an international bloc
Custom Group Chats Any group of players you create

Government, opposition, and bloc chats update their membership automatically as governments form, fall, and blocs change. Unread group messages count toward your navbar badge.

You can leave a custom group chat at any time — everyone still in the chat sees a "has left the chat" notice. If a custom group chat is ever left with fewer than 2 active parties, it's automatically deleted.

NPC messages

You'll also receive messages from automated game bot characters delivering notifications: LawBot (legal/law updates), GameMaster (administration), NewsBot (announcements), and EconBot (economic updates). They appear in your messaging drawer alongside player messages.

Vote reasons

Every vote cast on a proposal (and on budgets, early election calls, and constitutional changes) must state a public reason, shown in the page's voting record. Unlike private messages, reasons are visible to all parties and create a public record — so they're the place to argue your case, respond to criticism, or signal that you'd switch to Yes if an article changed (every vote change is logged, with its fresh reason). Use messages for private deals and vote reasons for public advocacy.

International blocs

International blocs are cross-country alliances of parties with shared political goals — a structured way to cooperate beyond a single country's borders. Find them under International → International Blocs; your memberships also show on your dashboard and party page.

  • Founding a bloc costs 50 PP. You set a unique name, description, SVG logo, membership criteria, and a defining pillar (one of your party's pillars). The founder becomes Leader, and a bloc group chat is created automatically.
  • Joining costs 20 PP to apply (not refunded if rejected), with a short rationale; a leader approves or denies it.
  • Leaders approve applications, promote other members to leader, and manage the logo. Stability rules keep blocs intact — founders can't leave their own bloc, the last leader can't resign, and a bloc with no members left is deleted.
  • Expelling a member is a leader's power too, for parties that drop the bloc's defining pillar or act against it at home. A written reason is required: it's sent to the expelled party and posted in the bloc chat, and the expulsion is reported by the press. The same stability rules apply in reverse — founding members can never be expelled, and a leader must resign their leadership before a fellow leader can expel them. An expelled party loses its place in the bloc chat immediately, but is free to apply again (at the usual 20 PP).
  • A bloc outlives its founder: if the founding party or its owner's account is ever deleted, the bloc carries on with its members and its defining pillar intact — only the record of who originally founded it is cleared.

Blocs carry an International Prestige score (and are ranked by it) that rises with a bloc's size, its ideological coherence (members who share the defining pillar help; opponents hurt), and its clout — members holding big legislature shares, heads of government, cabinet offices, and recent legislation.

What blocs are for

Use a bloc to formalise long-term cooperation, not one-off vote trades. Appoint several leaders before any leadership transition, and keep your description, criteria, and logo clear so prospective members can judge fit at a glance.

Staying notified

The notification centre gathers your unread messages in one place. The notification bell also surfaces votes — with their public reasons — cast by other parties on your own proposals, budgets, constitutional packages, and early election calls.

You can also get email alerts, controlled by two switches on the Email Preferences page. The Briefing bundles everything happening in your country — new proposals, constitutional changes, government-formation attempts, elections, proposal outcomes, cabinet appointments, bloc applications, voter demands, budget outcomes, and more — into a single round-up email sent at most twice a day, however much happened in between. Direct messages are a separate switch, since a person writing to you deserves its own alert rather than waiting for the next round-up.

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