Baze0195 Baze0195

Expansion Suggestions

▼

Expansion Suggestions

from PolMach Forums
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!
46,695 views 71 replies
Reply #51 from PolMach Forums Top
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.
Reply #52 from PolMach Forums Top
Whoops. I mean Rice's hair. Not "Rics's hair".
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #53 from PolMach Forums Top
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.
Reply #54 from PolMach Forums Top
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!
Reply #55 from PolMach Forums Top
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.
Reply #56 from PolMach Forums Top
* 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)
Reply #57 from PolMach Forums Top
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.
Reply #58 from PolMach Forums Top
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
Reply #59 from PolMach Forums Top
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.
Reply #60 from PolMach Forums Top
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).
Reply #61 from PolMach Forums Top
I of course wouldn't mind seeing more canadiates. *dies* But of course, I'm sure you'll be adding them anyways.
Reply #62 from PolMach Forums Top
Add Independant candidate Raplh Nader, his VP candidate Peter Miguel Camejo and Green Party candidate David Cobb with his VP candidate Pat LaMarche!
Reply #63 from PolMach Forums Top
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.
Reply #64 from PolMach Forums Top
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.
Reply #65 from PolMach Forums Top
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.
Reply #66 from PolMach Forums Top
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
Reply #67 from PolMach Forums Top
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.
Reply #68 from PolMach Forums Top
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.
Reply #69 from PolMach Forums Top
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.
Reply #70 from PolMach Forums Top
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.
Reply #71 from PolMach Forums Top
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