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 5)

Ashkihyena

on Oct 17, 2004

I of course wouldn't mind seeing more canadiates. *dies* But of course, I'm sure you'll be adding them anyways.

jklbi

on Oct 18, 2004

Add Independant candidate Raplh Nader, his VP candidate Peter Miguel Camejo and Green Party candidate David Cobb with his VP candidate Pat LaMarche!

hamsandwizh

on Oct 25, 2004

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this or not, i'd read'em all but I've got a midterm tomorrow and I've yet to study. Anyways, an add on or just a completely new game where you can run for verious offices. LIke Congress, Senate, President, you pick which one you want to go for, it'll have all the congressional districts in it so you can pick your own district if you'd like and a fairly realistic voter registration advantage, or disadvantage depending on what side your on. And with the actual candidates in it and primaries, so say one congressional district is held currently by a republican and you can run in the primaries against that congress person and try to unseat them in the primaries (which would be tough, of course). And the voter registration thing realistic, if not to hard to do. I'm working on a campaign for congress currently and democrats hold the seat, and have, last I checked,, 8 point lead. So make it fairly realistic like that, so it's harder to win in a district with more democrats than republicans or the other way around. As it is in real life (like the campaign i'm working on) and harder to raise money as well when going up against a strong opponent (as it is with our campaign as well, we got like $40,000 where as she has over $500,000 in the bank and can get a lot more easily).

So you can pick to start off with etiher congress or senate, or president. And OF COURSE it'd rock even mroe hardcore if you could also run for state assembly, state senate, and governor, as long with congress, senate, president, so you can build your way up but I'm sure that's way to much to ask for.

But then again, maybe not if someone puts a lot of like time and i guess money into it as wlel and sells it for like $50 a game or whatever just as new P.C. games go for now. That's be sssoooo awesome!.

It'd rock even more hardcore if there was acctual issues and stuff to work on when in congress, senate, state assembly, state senate, etc, after winning the election, like bills to vote on, etc, and work your way up to majority or minority leader, ect. while still holding our seat in the elections. I guess that'll be even tougher to do but figured i'd toss it out there.

Palomar

on Oct 28, 2004

I'd love to see more endorsements, too. Maybe it could be issues based and include a number of endorsements for each issue. I.e. under "environment" you could have a range of possibilities, from safe, wonky options like the National Resources Defense Council to the militant Greenpeace options. Each one would have different political capital costs and would mobilize the issues ratings accordingly.

I think that a police organization endorsement would also be a good one, as it would help with the fighting crime ratings and also probably affect your civil liberties ratings.

Finally, how about a deeper understanding of the demographics involved? Issues are a good start, but an overlay of particular segments of the population -- nationally and in each state -- would be really cool. Want to address religious minorities because it solidifies your base? Here are their issues and regional concentrations. Want to appeal to NASCAR dads? Work on "stronger military" and "more jobs."

The regional distribution of issues (social security in Florida, environment in California) clearly gets close to this, but a demographic breakdown would be really cool.

Darviathar

on Oct 28, 2004

I for one would like to see more of a difference between candidates on the issues. From looking through the core candidate file, I can see that George Bush and John Kerry have "points" on some issues, but other candidates, such as Lyndon Johnson, have no special stance on any issue, making them a "vanilla" candidate. It would also be interesting to see a conservative/liberal scale used....if you come out TOO strongly on Iraq (say 100 points?) you might be labeled as a conservative bomb-thrower. Whereas being too soft on issues could get you the dreaded "Liberal" label.

Alex Haladay

on Nov 03, 2004

Reading these suggestions I have some of my own and some that I like:

3rd Parties- They would help alot. But It would be great to create your own thrid parties so that you can have control on the issues. I'd have them also be like "Clans" which would fit in well. Where groups of people would join the same party and play online, with online stat tracking to show which parties do the best. Some more later.

Candidate creation expanded-I would liek to see you to be able to select which issues you want your candidate to follow.

Difficulty on Campaign-I am having trouble beating Nixon with my created character! I could edit him but whats the fun in that. You should be enouraged to tweak the difficulty, not your candidate

Additions to a campaign-Debates and Primaries, but this falls under the new campaign modes below

Career Campaign-Where you start out running for a mayor spot, then work on senate or gov'ner, then primaries then president. Mayor mode would take a little work, but State offices could be run just like the president one where you have a map of the state instead of US. issues are not as diverse (making it easier than US) and you need the popular vote not the electoral vote. Mayor mode, you might have to deal just with four of the states top issues unable to chaneg them and with a lot less money.

America Campaign-This campaign is where it starts way back in the 1700's and you go through each election. An option to select different candidates along the way, or select a party from the beginning. What happens if you keep Lincoln from winning? Issues would cascade from the outcomes, course a major random effect would have to be added, this is about the campaign, not the 4 years inbetween after all.

Grand Campaign-This would be more for multiplayer Where each person of the "clan" party would run for certain offices. The "clan" party leader would choice who was president, who would be vice president, where each person would run for state senate. The score at the end would show how each person did against either their AI opponent or human opponent if 2 were placed in the same states. as senate players are playing, they can also spend money and stamina to help their president candidate

Free For All Campaign-This campaign is where it would have the democratic and republican stregnths be ignored so that evberyone had a chance but every player would be going around trying to get votes from the states. 16 man election! it would be nuts! As to how it would end, I'm not sure. Maybe who simple had enough votes or have run offs for the top 2 or 3

zaldar

on Nov 23, 2004

Let me start by saying that I love this game! One complaint was in the manual, it was a little breif and left out some things that were important. For example took me a while to figure out that the changes to position for all advertizements were just in that state (thought the weekly changes for TV adds were national, not just the begining bonus). As for the ideas presented here. Some are obviously not possible but they would still be nice (campagin mode where you have to get different offices that would be cool but I don't see it happening). Others need to be added if an expansion is made (which I hope it is, how is it selling?). Debates are a must they are an incredibly important part of the campagin. Conventions would also be nice, through in a third party as well especially when you are playing the computer (perhaps that's a way to make it harder, most people think nadar lost the election for gore). I would also add random events, with an option to turn them off. What would have happened in the last election if bush had caught bin laden in october, or Iran tested nucler missles? An incumbent addition as wel as an incumbent report card as mentioned earlier would be great. With these additions along with new canadiates and historical campagins I would pay 30 dollars for an addon.

latour999

on Nov 24, 2004

I'd like it for you to be able to choose your opponent's VP in quick play, because sometimes I try to play a game with some historical accuracy (say, Kerry/Edwards vs. Bush/Cheney), but the computer picks a different running mate. It just aint right to see George W. Bush campaing alongside a Canadian Prime Minister who has been dead for over 100 years.

adembroski

on Nov 30, 2004

Considering the length of the game, it almost seems to me that this game was a sort of 'market test' for a political strategy game. One can easily play, and win, a normal difficulty election in under an hour...

I like the primary idea, that seems to be the best option for expantion, but I think I'd take it a step further... a political "career mode". Take a guy from city council, to Mayer, to governer, to senate, and into the white house. In some way, you'd actually have to deal with your actual career AS a politician, not just running for office. Perhaps the decisions you make while in office have permanent effects on your attributes (for example, being a tell-it-like-it-is abrassive type might win some respect in small town elections, but in the long run it will hurt your Media Bias... going back on campaign promises will hurt your credibility and integrity).

Just a thought, I have no idea how one would organize it.

whoman69

on Dec 25, 2004

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.

IMO awareness does not only show that the voters are aware the candidates exist. That certainly is impossible that voters could not know who a major party candidate was. Awareness shows how well the electorate know the candidate and what he stands for. TV and radio ads raise national awareness, and I believe speeches do too. There are states I may visit only once or twice and not put an HQ there, but my awareness there is higher than 2.

latour999

on Dec 26, 2004

I'd like to be able to attack my opponent on things that are not issues, but his characteristics. For example, make an ad attacking John Kerry's military experience to simulate the Swift Boat Jerks. Or say that a candidate is not experienced enough to become President, like Cheney tried to do to Edwards in the VP debate (would work well against the Bush first lady candidates (Laura and Barbara)). Just a thought

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