Expansion Suggestions

Published on August 16, 2004 By Baze0195 In Political Machine

Finally got the game on Saturday, my local Best Buy never got it in, but luckily CompUSA did. Anyway, I'm having a great time with it, although I havent gotten the chance to play online yet (I cant figure out how to start up an internet game, only option I see is to join one). Anywho, here's some suggestions I have for an expansion:

- Third Parties - Obviously, playing as a third party you won't be able to "win", but you can set other goals (5-25% of the vote). Personally, I would love to play as any of the number of Third Parties in the US. Theres a lot more strategy involved (getting that 5% requires a lot of campaigning on a miniscule budget), and I think would be a lot of fun, and harder. Some parties I'd like to see: Libertarian Party, CPUSA (Communist Party), Constitution Party, Green Party, American Party, Prohibition Party, Socialist Party. Mainly, the Libertarian and Green Party. Possibly, maybe even the option of running as an independant. The game mechanics would also expand to attempting to get on each states ballot, which is very important in third party campaigns.

- Historical Campaigns - Self contained campaigns that recreate past campaigns (political climate, historical issues, etc.)

- Primaries - Primaries for Republican and Democratic parties

- Conventions - Going a bit out there, but being able to plan out your parties Convention (i.e. getting speakers, celeberties, media exposure, picking out who attends (bloggers, left or right reporters, etc.), etc.

- Internet Advertising - Setting up a campaign site. The more money you put into it, the more donations and national exposure you get out of it

- Debates - Somewhat similiar to TV Interviews, following the standard debate format they use

Just some ideas. Reply with your own!

Comments (Page 4)

Weatherbottle

on Sep 01, 2004

Primaries would be a nice addition to the game. It think that it would be great to include it, but keep it to a 10 week sprint. It would be limited, and you won't be able to build Hqs, but everything you do would have more impact. The primaries would also be centered on "character issues" because since you're from the same party, your views would be pretty much the same. This way, primaries would be a nice and easy? addition, but won't take anything away from the game.

Also, I think it would be cool to have single-"mission" scenarios. You can unlock other historical characters playing them and they range in difficulty. Most issues would be more historically accurate and with a different breakdown of des/reps. Maybe you will be placed into the campaign at week 20 and try to outwit them even though the opponent already has strong leads in some states. Anyways, these are just my suggestions.

KoopaTroopa211

on Sep 16, 2004

Things that should be added/changed:

-Definitely the addition of debates between the 2 candidates, somewhere inside of week 30.
-Maybe the inclusion of party conventions, get more awareness countrywide?
-Would be nice to see the VP's have some greater role in the election than just increasing awareness.
-See random events that pop up (example: Bush catches flu, all actions take 2X stamina until end of week)
-Give an advantatge of awareness to whoever is the incumbent (determined randomly). Conversely, they should see a slight decrease in stamina due to the fact that they have to campaign AND run the country simultaneously.

BTW, can someone tell me where to find the button that lets me talk to the state's media?

Scotticus41

on Sep 20, 2004

IMHO the most important addition this game needs is random events. Big ones, like a foreign war or an attack on a US military base or a Columbine/Waco-type event. These dramatically change people's opinions and often cause candidates to switch positions. I would buy an expansion of just random events.

LagunaDave

on Sep 21, 2004

1) Convention; as a somewhat more streamlined interface, I thought the convention could be run like this: you get a certain number of "message points", say 100, and you allocate these to different issues. Just like you were giving a speech or running an ad, you have the "I support/I oppose/Opponent Supports/Opponent Opposes" options for each issue. The number of points you put into each determines how much of you convention and/or acceptance speech emphasizes those messages. Probably there should be a maximum limit of, say, 25 points per issue. You should be able to include your personal qualities and those of the opponent in the message (e.g. I'm experienced, opponent lacks integrity, etc)

2) For debates, a scripted interview model might work, as long as there were enough different questions (the importance of different issues nationwide, and issues where the candidates vary, should be weighted into the choice of questions).

3) In general, I think there should be a lot more money floating around, and it should be possible to run the same ad in several places, paying the startup costs only once. Giving the players more options would be a good thing.

4) Add more endorsements, and make it cheaper to get them if your position aligns with the interest group. Additional groups to add: AARP (Social Security, Prescriptions for Seniors), Teachers Association (Public Education, Unions), Chamber of Commerce (Lower Taxes?, Government Regulation?), Police Officers (Fighting Crime, Homeland Security?), VFW/American Legion (Strong Military, War on Terror, etc)

5) Making the VP like a mini-candidate is a good idea. A nifty wrinkle would be the option to leave him under AI control, if you want a faster game.

6) Random events would be good, especially if they are not overwhelming. Some of these could involve interactivity, like your position on pending legislation (e.g. Congress is considering a new defense/jobs/tax bill; do you support it?)

7) Primaries would be nice; particularly if the AI is controlling a bunch of candidates who fight it out with each other first. Then your eventual opponent may have staked out positions to win the nomination that will damage (or help) him during the general election.

8) A scenario editor and a scripting interface into the AI would also be good. Many other strategy games have these.

9) I don't think the game should be made a lot longer; I like being able to finish a game in one sitting. If things move in that direction, I hope there will be an "arcade" mode. Another option would be to have choice of one-day or one-week turns. After all, it's very common for candidates to visit a different state every day. Stamina and money costs could just be scaled accordingly.

Fun game, and it could be the starting point for something truly mind-blowing.

Frogboy

on Sep 21, 2004

We intentionally don't have such big random events because we feared it would make people feel they're at the mercy of blind luck in winning.

Even in GalCiv we stayed away from random events.

dean4us

on Sep 22, 2004

I love a lot of the ideas I read above. Here are the ones I REALLY like.

PRIMARIES Definitely! It's be so awesome to run candidates in primaries. For it to be really fun, you'd need to have more than two candidates running.

Third Parties This would be fun. Not a whole lot running at the same time. Just maybe one or two Third Parties running with the Democratic and Republican. I'd especially love to be able to run as Ross Perot!

New Candidates I know you can make your own and others have put theirs online (I especially like the Dean and McCain ones), but I really think new ones should be made by the company. Why? Well, the real reason I'm bringing it up is because I really want the cartoon portraits for the new candidates. There aren't really any ones that come in addition with the game that remotely look like new candidates people are making. And using photos? They're nice, but they don't look right next to the cartoons. And they don't have transparent backgrounds. (Also, it wouldn't hurt to take a look at the portraits that come with the game. I mean, they really screwed up on Rics's hair.)

Also, maybe, just maybe there should be a way to make custom Campaings ( you know, the ladder thing you where you get new candidates) to fill with your own new candidates.

And to address the talk about endorsements, remember, Democratic Moderate Howard Dean received support from the NRA. That didn't hurt him.

dean4us

on Sep 24, 2004

Whoops. I mean Rice's hair. Not "Rics's hair".

DarthVeda

on Oct 01, 2004

My thoughts since I play mostly multiplayer:

1. It would be nice if you could design your own party like you can with the candidates. A party logo selection would be good too. There could be a triangle-stlye slider with conservative, independent, and liberal values on the vertices of the triangle. Of course this would be directly proportional to your party's stances on issues. Or you could alter the issues which would move the position in the triangle. All the way into the left corner would of course be far left. Of course it could just be a slider from left to right too.

2. More than two players at a time! It would be fantastic to have more than two players playing the game at a time in multiplayer.

Rikolus

on Oct 04, 2004

I have one that I think would go a long way to extending the "life" of the game. The Fantasy game is an interesting idea, with the random assignments of Electorals to the states. However, with totally random numbers, there is almost no rhyme or reason and one must keep clicking to check the values.... annoying, so I don't play fantasy. However, I would LOVE to go back and replay elections from years past. This could be done by Offering a YEAR selection button, and then the map will accurately portray the Electoral numbers of each of the states from that exact year. So you could replay the '60 Nixon v Kennedy election with each state having the value it historically had that year. Yes, I realize the issues would be all different. Ideally, creating databases of states issues for years past would be a gem. But that would also be incredibly time-consuming. But even just the option of picking an Election Year and having the states values as they existed then (with today's issues) would open a whole new set of challenges that wouldn't seem so wildly ridiculous as Texas with 5 electorals and Rhode Is with 17!

Sam David

on Oct 06, 2004

Put D.C. in the game. And add an option which would allow for one to play the map at the time of the oppent that they are playing. The electoral college was different during Washingtons time then today. This should be fixed. As for most people out there, I do not think anybody has experianced this, but what happens when two candidates 269 electoral votes in this game. Does the house happen to decide this in the game or what? If not, then it should be added.

Honolulu Blue

on Oct 07, 2004

* DC should be separate and unwinnable for Republicans except under the most unusual circumstances
* Debates, definitely
* Real-life scenarios from past years
* Third parties - start 'em with less $$$ and much less recognition
* Primaries & conventions
* Veeps that act as more than poor man's Consultants
* More candidates, of course - past and future
* More increments in economic/foreign/domestic settings
* Endorsements normally won by Democrats should be much tougher to get for a Republican and vice versa (the latest patch makes a start toward this - keep going)

Surf Control

on Oct 08, 2004

Scandals: rather than being completely random, consider allowing political capital to be used "digging dirt". This would allow a weighted random factor to be introduced at the expense of other options. More experienced politicians probably have better mechanisms for this anyhow. Rivals with low integrity scores would be more likely to be "caught with their pants down", or have events in their past resurface. A successful scandal would be tied to media awareness of the victim candidate. The result would probably raise awareness of both candidates due to the media frenzy but create a bias against the victim candiate. Additionally it would probably raise the profile of family values/integrity (and other soft campaign issues) in terms of importance and accessability. The risk in this type of activity is that it has a high chance of simply wasting the political capital points invested.

Third parties: There have been some excellent ideas in this regard, make for a fun variation of the game as well as a political consideration. Their degree of influence could vary as a startup effect as well. They may not be on the ballots in all states, but could certainly gather a percentage of the vote. Parties which have achieved majority status in their state may lock up a percentage of the votes, or have to be swung to the major parties.

Ceilings: These are essential. There is no way a presidential candidate (except possibly from a third party) is going to have a zero awareness rating. Their are opinionated hardliners in every state who always vote along party lines.

Issues: Agree that issues should not appeal to everybody, the idea of having two approaches to the same idea (ex: privatization of social security, etc.) An issue where everyone agrees is not really an issue. Some issues are deeply tied to portions of the political base (minorities, religious groups, privacy groups, unions, industry and so forth). Competition for those factions (sometimes divisive within the party lines) should be an important factor of the game. Some issues are highly devisive. For example, coming out with a high profile campaign (ads, speeches, etc.) such as advocating a strong pro-life/pro-choice stance may alienate members of your constituency, while swinging votes from the rivals political base.

To a large degree, the issue choices of the candidates has a tendancy to shape what is important in the voters minds. If one candidate relentlessly campaigns about an issue, it is going to become an issue whether it was on the radar of popular media and the voter's minds or not. Advertising (especially nationally) on a controversial issue is going to bring it much higher on the awareness radar as the media will automatically dissect it. If a presidential candidate starts throwing around words like "constitutional amendment" or "we will learn the truth about the alien conspiracies" in a high profile barrage of advertising and speech making, it WILL gain national media attention and become a top issue, especially if almost everything they say about a subject is on that one issue.

Raise Awareness: Unusable action points should either have a portion carried over to the next turn or raise the candidates awareness in the state they end the turn in. Alternatively, their could be a one point option to "rally supporters" or "get out the vote" type activity. They are probably doing something in that state. Might also be useful for generating small amounts of support while barnstorming the smaller states. Another option would be to have a candidate use points to "sharpen skills" for example apparent intelligence might be raised by working with advisors/coaches, etc.

Media Influence: I like the ideas in this thread on the influence of the press on current issues, and the concept that the media or current events may force events/issues onto the political radar.

Debates: Must have. Candidate should be able to select the ability to use while handling an issue or have the option to force the opponent to defend based on an ability (charisma, integrity, intelligence, experience, etc). Alternatively responses could trigger reactions based on this. Media Bias may have an effect on post debate spin. Lots of interesting possibilities here, definitely effects the election. This may be a good opportunity to raise awareness of specific issues in the national awareness, as well.

Vice President: I like the idea of using this as a second character (with optional control by computer.) This piece is far more powerful than a simple agent. The vice president is considered by the voters and can be a significant asset or liability.

Map shading: Would like to see a higher hot/cold range for the states so that it is easier to identify which states are closely contested (not quite battleground states) and which are very solidly in the other candidates grasp. The wealth chart might be tinted so that you can tell which states you've hit hard with fundraising.

Advertising intensity: Would be nice if there was a way to have more control over the ads.... Ex: hard hitting, degree of negativity, controversy of position, etc. Harder hitting ads would tend to polarize voters to a higher degree and might be riskier. Ads that are too tame might have a tendancy to have low impact. Have to think about the specifics of this more, but there seems to be potential for improvement in this area. An ad which did not have the desired effect might have to be changed (action/financial) cost or pulled altogether.

Voting Blocks: Rather than an issue appealing to Democrat/Republican/Independent this should be reconfigured to affect perhaps five or six voting blocks (demographic segments) or something. Endorsements would affect these as well. Would make the issue choices more interesting.

TOTD

on Oct 11, 2004

Add AARP endorsement to raise prescription for seniors and social security ratings

I like this idea from above, there's only a few issues with no possible endorsement - this is one, UFT (Teachers Union for Education would be another, something for the "More Jobs" issue "Chambers of Commerce" or some endorsement.

Anyway having an Endorsement avilable for these big issues would be good.

Also, why is LBJ in the game and JFK is not. There are fans of JFK who would love to use him, and yet who wants to "Take LBJ" to the White House". Also, it'd be neat to put in more losers like Mondale and Goldwater

Log2000

on Oct 17, 2004

this may have already been said, but you can give a max. of 3 speechs a week.
This summer I attended a Kerry Rally in the afternoon, he had given one that morning
and planned on giving one that evening. What i'm saying is make it less stamina
points for speeches, like 2 or 3.

Fireball1244

on Oct 17, 2004

I posted this in my own thread, but I can't seem to find it, so I'll post it here as well, since it seems to go hand in hand with this topic:

fter playing for quite awhile, I still really love this game. Thank you all for all your hard work. However, I do think there are a few changes you could make to make the game more satisfying.

1) Debates. Debates. Debates. Look at recent presidential history: the debates have been critical time and again. They decided the election, most likely, in 1960, 1976 and 1980. They provided the most memorable moments in 1984, 1988 and 1992. They were critical in Bush's resurgence in 2000 and look like they're doing the same for Kerry in 2004. Absent the debates, the game feels lacking. I've given some thought as to how the debates should best be handled, and here's what I've come up with.

At the ten week mark or so, the candidate who is leading in the national poll should offer to debate the trailer a certain number of times (1 - 3). The challenger can take or leave the offer. The debates would take place on weeks 34, 35 and 36. You could use the same questions as the TV interviews, only this time we see our opponent's responses, too, and there's an option for "Attack opponent" or somesuch which deflects any gain the opponent has made on the issue, but lowers your integrity score a bit. The week of the debate, the player sets how much stamina they want to save for the debate, and that determines the number of response options you have, and how "on your toes" you are.

Each debate should raise the nationwide awareness of both candidates by 10%, and should have the same impact as television advertising in terms of moving people towards you.

2) Awareness Issues and the 0% Vote. It really irritates me when I see a candidate getting 0% in a state. That's just impossible. John Kerry is not going to visit Wyoming this year. He's still going to get around 40% of the vote there. There should be a natural awareness that accrues over time in all states, even when we're not visiting them or running ads. Perhaps 1 point a week. Even that might be too low. But let's face it, by November 2, virtually every informed American will know who both John Kerry and George W. Bush are.

There should also be a floor on how few votes you can get in a state... say, roughly half of those who identify with your party are guaranteed to vote for you, unless your opponent has 100% awareness and you have very little, in which case you may slip down to only a third of your partisans voting for you. This would ensure that everyone gets votes in every state, which is much more real than the current situation.

This would help cut down on the way-too-common split between the popular and electoral vote winners. That's happened less than five times in American history, but it can happen easily in the game because of the awareness issue.

3) Be able to set the party in power and whether or not that party's candidate is the incumbent would be very cool, as well.

4) Conventions would be cool. At the start of the game you pick your convention state. For the non-incumbent party, the convention is in week 28, for the in power party it's in week 30. Basically you pick five issues, and a position on them, and whether or not to bash your opponent, and it's like a huge speech, only it has a major impact on nationwide views of your campaign. 15% boost in national awareness in every state, 25% boost in the host state, and major movement towards your position by the public. Also, instead of having the Veep candidate bring you a certain amount of cash, both candidates get the same amount ($5 million?) at their conventions.

5) Set candidate positions on top 15 issues at start of the game (for premade characters, these can be preset though give us an option to change them). Then, start counting off on integrity and leadership if we change those positions during the campaign.

6) There should be Character ad options which are fluff ads that make you look all "I love America" or which attack your opponent. Instead of moving issue positions, they should have double awareness impact and influence on public perceptions of integrity and character.

7) Election night shouldn't be the same order every time. States where you have bigger leads in should come in faster than states where it's closer in the same time zone. A running popular vote talley, and the option to control the speed (say, either flowing like it does now, or having us manually click "next state" or "forward 1/2 hour" or something like the old Presidential election game in the 1980s) would be quite cool.

A lot of those ideas are probably stupid, and as I say I love the game. These are just some things that I've thought of as I've played that would make it more tangibly real and fun for me. thanks again for all your hard work.

A neat spiff would be downloadable candidates. Republican leaders from today (potential running mates or 2008 candidates), more recent presidents (Kennedy, Truman, Eisenhower, etc).

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