INSTRUCTIONS FOR 1984 - A GAME OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT

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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

