Transparent campaign rules

How the conquest score is calculated

Every result starts from the same fictional rules. Your cabinet earns score through role fit and strategic combinations, then faces a small, declared battlefield swing.

Test a cabinet in Classic Draft
The score framework

Five components, one score out of 195

Base and role fit

A run begins at 125. Each cabinet role compares the assigned category with that role’s full weight table. The average fit can contribute up to 100 more points.

Specialist combinations

President, General, Treasurer, and Propaganda Minister each have category tiers. A top-tier match earns 11 points; the next tiers earn 8 or 5.

International coalition

Two represented countries add 4 points. Three or more add 8. Variety helps only when the underlying appointments are sound.

What can reduce a run

Penalties matter more than lucky picks

No authority in the room

A cabinet without a Politician, Dictator, or Military Commander is multiplied by 0.65. Keep at least one authority category somewhere in the five seats.

Critical seat mistakes

Putting a Poet or Porn Star in General applies a 14-point penalty. The same categories in Treasurer lose 10 points. Save flexible roles for risky experiments.

Battlefield variance

After cabinet decisions, the campaign receives a small 0–20-point variance. It adds replayability but cannot repair a weak cabinet.

Read the weights, then make the trade-off

The cabinet roles guide shows exact category weights for every seat. Test those rules in today's locked Daily Challenge or pair them with the optional weekly doctrine. When your score is final, compare it with the conquest result tiers and publish a verified record on the leaderboard.

Worked comparison

Why changing the cabinet beats changing a name

These illustrative cabinets are calculated with the live scoring function and battlefield variance fixed at zero. They are examples, not today's puzzle answer. Candidates come from each category’s first curated country pool, using a different pool position for each seat.

Entertainment-only cabinet: 115 / 195

  • President: Adele — Pop Stars, United Kingdom
  • Vice President: Ed Sheeran — Pop Stars, United Kingdom
  • General: Dua Lipa — Pop Stars, United Kingdom
  • Propaganda Minister: Elton John — Pop Stars, United Kingdom
  • Treasurer: Harry Styles — Pop Stars, United Kingdom

Role fit 41% · Tier bonuses +11 · Coalition +0 · Authority multiplier 0.65 · Critical penalties −0.

Specialist cabinet: 195 / 195

  • President: Abraham Lincoln — Politicians, USA
  • Vice President: Vladimir Lenin — Dictators, Russia
  • General: Ferdinand Foch — Military Commanders, France
  • Propaganda Minister: Elton John — Pop Stars, United Kingdom
  • Treasurer: Mark Zuckerberg — Billionaires, USA

Role fit 95% · Tier bonuses +44 · Coalition +8 · Authority multiplier 1 · Critical penalties −0.

The specialist cabinet reserves its finance pick for Treasurer. The Billionaire Treasurer strategy guide explains when to keep that seat open and when President is a useful fallback.

The engine adds base score, normalized role fit, tier bonuses, and coalition bonus; applies the authority multiplier; subtracts critical-seat penalties; then adds variance, rounds, and caps the result at 195. A cabinet can reach the cap even with zero variance. Two different cabinets can therefore share the same final score.

Picking a winning cabinet

How do you win 195-0?

Compare a capped specialist lineup with a limited set of pools in the best cabinet and 195-point examples. Both use these same scoring rules.

A full 195 is possible, but a famous name is not a hidden cheat code. Keep an authority category in the cabinet, compare each available category’s fit for the vacant roles, and protect General and Treasurer from critical-seat penalties. Add country diversity when it does not sacrifice stronger role fits.

Candidates from the same category and country score identically in the same seat. For example, choosing a different person within the USA Billionaires pool does not change role weights, authority status, or country diversity. The scoring engine does not look up anyone’s real-world wealth or biography.

The specialist cabinet above is an illustration assembled from several source pools, not a promise that those five categories will appear together. In Daily, plan around the actual fifteen displayed choices in the dated mission archive; do not assume a universal answer works every day.

Compare every role’s weights, then try today’s Daily Challenge.

Playable analysis

Try the five-seat assignment puzzle

This practice board starts with round 1 as President, round 2 as Vice President, and so on. Change an appointment to swap its occupant with another seat. In a real draft, appointments lock; use this board to plan or review, not to edit a submitted run.

Your practice score: 110–130 / 195

Average role fit: 37%. Specialist bonuses: +0. Critical-seat deductions: −0. The range includes the game's minimum and maximum battlefield variance, rounding, and the 195 cap.

Another assignment raises the minimum score by 39 points. No practice result is submitted to the leaderboard.

Reveal the exhaustive comparison and an optimal assignment

All 120 seat permutations were evaluated with the same scoring engine used by the game. Their minimum-variance totals range from 92 to 149; 2 assignments tie for the best minimum score. The difference comes from role fit, specialist bonuses, and critical-seat deductions. Country coverage and authority remain fixed because every round contributes one candidate.

President
Round 5: Chefs · France

Vice President
Round 1: Poets · United Kingdom

General
Round 4: Athletes · USA

Propaganda Minister
Round 2: Pop Stars · United Kingdom

Treasurer
Round 3: Billionaires · USA

We use the first candidate from each pool as a representative: all three names share the same category and country, so their scores are identical in the standard rules. This is a full-information solution; it does not predict unseen Classic pools or guarantee a particular battlefield roll.