INSTRUCTIONS FOR 1984 - A GAME OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT Document produced by rstuart@ukonline.co.uk ======================================================= From the tape insert: 1984 - A GAME OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT (N003) 48K SPECTRUM CHALLENGE FROM INCENTIVE SOFTWARE 1984 The British Economy with YOU at the controls! What soft of Chancellor would you make with several billion pounds to spend & five years to the next general election? Graphic Displays, Histograms & a annual performance rating are all included to show how you are doing. How many years will you last? Author: R.M.H. Carter LOADING Connect the ear socket on the spectrum to the ear socket of your cassette recorder. Insert the cassette label upwards into your cassette recorder and rewind to the beginning. Type LOAD"" and then press enter. Press play on your cassette recorder. The program will run automatically when loaded. If the program fails to load, rewind and adjust the volume level and try again. INCENTIVE SOFTWARE FOR THE 48K ZX SPECTRUM Available Now: N001 SPLAT! - A truly original Arcade game. Objectives: Exploration, survival & eating grass! œ5.50 N002 MOUNTAINS OF KET - A fiendish adventure that will drive you crazy! œ5.50 N003 1984 - A GAME OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT - How many years can you last as Prime Minister? œ5.50 Send a PO/cheque to: Incentive Software Ltd., 54 London Street, Reading RG1 4SQ 1984 - A GAME OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT (c) COPYRIGHT 1984 Incentive Software Ltd. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WORLDWIDE. The game and name 1984-A Game of Government Management and all of its Associated Software, Code, Listings, Audio Effects, Graphics, Illustrations and Text are the exclusive property and copyright of Incentive Software Ltd and may not be copied, transferred, reproduced, transmitted, hired, lent, distributed, stored or modified in form in full or in part without the express written permission of Incentive Software Ltd, 54 London Street, Reading RG1 4SQ, England. Included booklet "1984 - THE GAME OF ECONOMIC SURVIVAL - POCKET GUIDE TO RUNNING BRITAIN": (c) 1983 Incentive Software Ltd. 1984 - GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT How many times have you seen politicians on TV and thought "I could do better myself!"? Well 1984, the new game from Incentive Software, challenges you to do just that! Starting with the 1982/3 figures for the British economy you take the hot seat and the responsibility of guiding the nation's affairs. You will be asked to bring your judgement to bear on the complex inter-related network of factors that govern the performance of the national economy. Can you ride out three terms of office and survive into the 21st Century? Can you weather two General Elections? Will your Britain conquer Unemployment and inflation simultaneously? Or will you be forced to resign... The Play 1) GOVERNMENT BALANCE SHEET After the opening titles you will see a page itemising the money flowing into and out of Government coffers. As Prime Minister you need to know how your money is spent and what sources of revenue you are tapping. Each time you play 1984, you will inherit these figures: REVENUE (Money coming into Government (in millions of pounds)) 1. Corporation Tax - paid by companies on their profits. Mœ 5,600 2. Value Added Tax - paid on purchases and services 18,300 3. Income Tax - paid on wages 46,000 4. Customs & Excise - paid on imports from abroad 18,800 5. Loans - borrowing from the Banks 51,100 TOTAL REVENUE 139,800 NB The Program uses the convention of Bœ meaning Billion pounds = 1,000 million pounds. SPENDING (Money coming from Government, spent outside Government) 1. Government Contracts - awarded to Industry Mœ 5,000 2. Grants to Industry - subsidies to Industry 4,000 3. Public Sector Wages - Total wage bill for P.S. 13,000 4. Govt. Department Wgs - Total wage bill for Depts. 36,400 5. Pensions - Total OAP bill (for the year) 19,900 6. Unemployment Benefit - Total annual Benefit paid out 3,900 7. Child Allowance - Total annual Ch. All. Paid out 3,100 8. Foreign Aid - Aid paid yearly to 3rd World 1,000 9. Interest on Loans - Paid to Banks for past borrowing 53,500 TOTAL SPENDING 139,800 A summary of the money you will often be able to control, with a Surplus/Deficit statement at the bottom of the page. You will loose out if you allow the Surplus or Deficit to grow too large. And there is a bonus for keeping your budget in Surplus each year. 2) MAJOR INDICATORS Eight major indicators allow you to chart your progress through your terms of office. They are: 1. INFLATION starting at 4.8 (% per annum) - Try to keep it down. 2. UNEMPLOYMENT starting at 3 (million) - Try to keep it down. 3. GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT 400 (Bœ) - Try to make it grow. 4. GOLD RESERVES 34.5 (B$) - Try to make it grow. 5. INDUSTRIAL OUTPUT 100 (Bœ) - Try to make it grow. 6. TRADE BALANCE -2 (Bœ) - Try to make it +ve. 7. AVERAGE WAGE 7000 (œ/Yr) - Try to keep it DOWN. 8. EXCHANGE RATE 1.5 ($/œ) - Try to keep it stable. You are able to call up the history of any one of these indicators during your administration to see how you're progressing. 3) MINIMUM LENDING RATE (M.L.R.) Each year you must choose the MLR. This is the figure that sets the Interest rates the Banks charge. The 1984 figure that appears is means as a guide - it is different each time you play - and you should not be afraid to choose MLR freely. The program will keep you in check so feel free to experiment. 4) THE ECONOMIC HISTOGRAM The economic function of Government (which you control) is to regulate and direct the flows between five major 'blocks'. If you allow any instability to arise you must take steps to correct it, or else it will progressively grow larger and larger and force you to resign. The way you handle these dangerous instabilities is by using your Government funds to direct money into blocks that are losing out due to your policies, and to siphon off money from blocks that are growing under your administration. For example, if you find industry flagging you might choose to increase the Grant to Industry, or you might want to decrease the rate of VAT charged so that a consumer boom is provoked and money is transferred from Population to Industry. Or suppose you found the Banks choose to alter the bankrate in the hope that it may alter the deficit, or you could take 'direct action' and make a cash transfusion directly to the Banks by seizing your opportunity immediately after the Wages Round. The Five Economic Blocks are: i) THE GOVERNMENT - Which you have the most control over through taxes, grants, loans etc. ii) INDUSTRY - All business, industry, agriculture etc. iii) THE POPULATION - i.e. all 'consumers' in the country except businesses. All private individuals. iv) THE BANKS - All banks, savings institutions etc. v) THE REST OF THE WORLD - Everywhere outside Britain, reached by Trade and Foreign Aid etc. 5) WAGE ROUND Annually you must negotiate three wage settlements with the three main sectors of the economy: The Civil Servants (people employed directly by the Government), The Public Sector (people employed by nationalised industries) and The Private Sector (people employed by private industry - in fact, everyone employed in Britain except the other two sectors above). You must outwit a complex function that evaluates each sector's ability to claim and presents that claim. If you want to succeed at 1984 you must keep wage rises down, and since the Unions will try to secure a settlement greater than the rate of inflation (to maintain their member's living standards) you should offer a sum less than their claim. From your (Government's) point of view the smaller the settlement the better, (because inflation can best be brought down that way) but if you offer less than a certain (unknown to you) figure your negotiations will fail (because the Unions will consider you uninterested in pay-bargaining genuinely) and their claim will ultimately be forced through. Each pay-bargaining session you must remember that the outcome is either their claim or your offer, and the smaller your offer the less chance it has of succeeding. Naturally, if you offer a sum equal to their claim you will find that figure is accepted every time, but eventually inflation will take off and you will never make it to 1999. 6) GOVERNMENT INVESTMENTS This is an opportunity to bale out the Banks if they begin to lose money heavily. If you find the bank's fortunes suffering you can prop them up with government investment. But take care! Indiscriminate shovelling of money into the financial institutions will upset the delicate mechanisms of the economy and can lead you to the political gallows. Act only when necessary, and as sparingly as possible. 7) INDUSTRIAL LEVY If industry is growing and the Government is in need of a new way of raising funds without raising taxes, it can impose a levy on industrial profits. This is an opportunity that will make itself more apparent as you proceed into your administration. 8) DEPARTMENTAL FUNDING Clearly, it is the responsibility of Government to ensure its own departments are adequately financed. Consider this: the money that is annually apportioned to your departments must broadly speaking do two jobs. Firstly, it must pay the wage of the people it employs. E.g. the Defence Department must form out salaries for Generals and Privates, and secretaries in Whitehall. Health must pay nurses and doctors and the people who cook hospital meals and wash bed linen. Law & Order must pay the wages of the Police and so on and so forth. I'm sure you get the drift. Secondly, there must be money available for capital expenditure. The Army would be useless without new tanks every so often, or no petrol to put in them. The Department of Education would be stuck if Schools & Universities could not be built (or at least kept up). The program shows you the following resume in 1984: DEPARTMENTAL EXPENDITURE Bœ 0 SOCIAL SECURITY 32.5 1 DEFENCE 14.4 2 HEALTH 13.9 3 EDUCATION & SCIENCE 12.6 4 TRADE & INDUSTRY 5.9 5 TRANSPORT 4.3 6 LAW & ORDER 4.3 7 ENVIRONMENT 3.4 8 HOUSING 2.6 9 OTHER DEPARTMENTS 9.2 TOTAL 103.1 Each year you can opt to set the departmental budget higher to keep up with Civil Servant wages and the increasing cost of capital expenditure. The figure you are shown in the above table, and the one you are asked to specify in the program is the sum of wages and capital expenditure. If you go mad and give any one department an outlandish rise you will find yourself moving out of No. 10 Downing Street quite quickly. As you will if you persistently ignore pleas and warnings from the Departmental Accountants. It is a good idea to try to keep the departments funded adequately on a yearly basis as each time there is a warning issued it reveals your ineptitude and brings closer the day of your downfall! Experience will help you to judge this accurately. A safety net exists in that after you received your warnings you are asked if you wish to reallocate your budgets. 9) BUDGET Each year you also have the opportunity to fix tax rates and benefits, pensions and allowances. These are important, because the tax rates determine how much is available for the government to spend. Also the cash circulating in the Welfare State is only useful if it keeps pace with inflation - or more precisely the average wage. (If it does not then you find a Two Nations syndrome beginning to develop, where there are the 'rich' employed and the 'poor' non-employed.) So, to prevent this state of affairs arising you must keep your weekly rates of Old Age Pension, Unemployment Benefit and Children's Allowance topped up. The only actual restrictions on your decisions here are that you must not try to put up the rate of tax by more than ten percent of that rate in any one attempt. If you do, you'll see it has not stuck! E.g. Increase Corporation tax from 40 to 44% is OK, but to 45% is not. At the end of each round, when you have set the Budget requirements to your satisfaction, you get a warning if you have upset the balance by not increasing welfare benefits enough. You will get three of these warnings in each term of office, and if you ignore the third you will rue it! 10) FOREIGN AID You are obliged to allocate some money annually to help 3rd World Countries, and will receive due credit for it. But beware, these countries can become dependent upon your Aid, and in some circumstances it cannot be reduced. 11) INDUSTRIAL GRANTS Equally, the government gives subsidies to industry and agriculture each year, and again it is easier to increase than reduce them. Use the grant to trim the expansion of industry or bolster a sagging economy. 12) CABINET MEETINGS These are called from time to time to allow you to deal with an issue that has arisen, Often you will be asked for a decision and you must enter a Y for 'yes' or an N for 'no'. At the end of each year you will be given a congratulatory message on surviving (we hope!) or given the reason for your demise and a last look at your Economic Indicators. Supposing you have survived you will get a cumulative annual performance rating and this is important because if it is not good enough you will fail to be re-elected in 1988 and 1993. And that takes you into the next year of government. Experiment with the game, bear in mind that a small oversight can destroy a large part of the economy when multiplied by time and knock-on effects. Above all, try to steer the economy along the twisting road of change and don't get too ideological - your theory might not work well in this model! Oh, and... Good Luck Prime Minister! APPENDIX The Economic Model Model 1984 Value (Bœ) 1 Government Contracts Government -> Industry 5 2 Grants to Industry Government -> Industry 4 3 Corp Tax Industry -> Government 5.6 4 VAT Industry -> Government 18.3 5 Public Sector Wages Government -> Population 13.0 6 Departmental Wages Government -> Population 36.4 7 Private Sector Wages Industry -> Population 104 8 Dividends to Investors Industry -> Population 1.4 9 Income Tax Population -> Government 46 10 Consumption of Goods Population -> Industry 121.7 11 Tourists going Abroad Population -> Rest of World 3 12 Tourists from Abroad Rest of World -> Population 3 13 Old Age Pension Government -> Population 19.9 14 Unemployment Budget Government -> Population 3.9 15 Children's Allowance Government -> Population 3.1 16 Imports Industry -> Rest of World 57 17 Exports Rest of World -> Industry 55 18 Foreign Aid Government -> Rest of World 1 18a EEC Rebate Rest of World -> Government - 19 Customs & Excise Rest of World -> Government 18.8 20 Loans to people Banks -> Population 20 21 Interest Payments Population -> Banks 31 22 Loans to Govt. Banks -> Government 51.1 23 Interest payment Government -> Banks 53.5 24 Investment Abroad Banks -> Rest of World 17.6 25 Interest payments Rest of World -> Banks 1.8 26 Investment in industry Banks -> Industry 11.3 27 Interest payment Industry -> Banks 13.7