Die Macher

Die Macher is a strategy board game that simulates a German general election. It was first released in 1986 by Hans im Glück.

Karl-Heinz Schmiel designed the original four-player game, which focused only on the states of West Germany and used political issues from the mid-1980s. A 1998 revision improved production quality, added the five new states from the former East Germany, introduced a fifth party (the PDS), updated the issues to the 1990s, and made extensive rule changes. The game itself was nominated for the 1998 Spiel des Jahres award. In 2006, Valley Games of Canada released another edition with language-independent parts, revised issues, the PDS renamed to 'Die Linke.PDS' or similar, and a few minor rule tweaks.

The game mirrors Germany’s electoral system. Each player controls a major political party: originally the CDU/CSU, FDP, SPD, and Greens. The 1998 edition added the PDS, which became Die Linke.PDS in 2006.

Players earn victory points through four methods: winning a regional election (worth 1–80 points), gaining media-control points if their party has media influence in that region, accumulating points for national party membership, and matching their party platform to national opinion at game’s end. The highest total wins.

Gameplay involves seven state elections, each a self-contained "mini game." Each state has its own interests, and parties perform better when their platform aligns with local concerns. Players deploy limited "party meetings" (grassroots activists) to a state; more meetings generate more votes when the election resolves. "Shadow Cabinet" cards allow special actions, and each party tracks its "trend" (favorability) on a sliding scale. Votes are calculated as (trend + interest alignment) multiplied by the number of meetings, with a maximum score of 50. Seats (victory points) are awarded based on this score and the state’s actual parliamentary seats. The seven states are randomly selected from Germany’s sixteen Länder, so some elections carry more weight. Players can adjust their party’s platform and, by controlling local media, influence what issues a state cares about. Winning a local election lets a party advance its media control nationally and shape the national issues list. Players see elections developing in advance and must decide how to allocate resources between current and future elections.