To play House of Cronies, each player’s Cabinet consists of up to 6 cronies; each carrying a set number of votes, plus an optional foreign ally. All cronies, besides the foreign allies, can be elected as president or vice-president. Other positions such as Finance, Justice, Service Delivery and Communications, can only be filled by specialists. Two decks of cards are placed on the table: the main deck and the tactics deck. The main deck consists of influence, corruption and crony cards and the tactics deck contains only tactics cards. Players start with seven cards from the main deck and two tactic cards each. Any cronies or foreign ally in the initial hand must be placed in the cabinet immediately (and any crony or ally that can not be placed is discarded). In each round of House of Cronies, five cards are drawn from the main deck and placed face up in the middle of the table. In turn order, players can either pick up an influence / corruption card OR bid influence, corruption or a combination of both for a crony. Players can only gain one card per round, so any player who outbids another forfeits their turn. Players that are outbid, get their turn and their influence / corruption bid card back. The end of the game occurs when there are no cards left in the deck or fewer cards than needed to draw for a new round. A final round is played for players to buy and used tactics before the election takes place and the player with the most votes wins!