If the challenge goes ahead, everyone secretly places a number of councillors into the fray, but this time instead of being worth just one vote each, they show their true worth by turning over to reveal their numbers. The totals are added up and compared, and if the challengers manage to make up the previous shortfall and surpass any councillors played by the previous winners, they are successful and bag the loot. The drawback, for all concerned, is that once revealed and used councillor cards are removed from the game, usually leaving you to lick your wounds and build up again from scratch. The challenges are therefore not to be taken lightly, but negotiations will usually indicate whether you have any chance. And that's it.
Money is allocated each turn, the game rolls on, and power shifts continuously.
Finally, there is a twist in the basic mechanism. In the bag with the building sections are three journalist counters. When one of these is pulled, the player with the lowest number of councillors is identified. Anyone with more councillors than the lowest loses the difference in millions - a major drawback to building up huge council forces. So given that you will only be playing this one if you enjoy negotiation games, you may now be concluding that this is a game to buy.