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KnightAV
KnightAV
Join Date 02/2004
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[Bug] Custom Candidates Not Receiving Party Platform on Issues

June 18, 2008 4:05:37 PM from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums

When starting a new game as a custom candidate, that candidate's initial issue situation is defined only by the 100 point pool they set at candidate creation.

To test, I created a new candidate called "Test Guy" and gave him 50 points in Withdrawing from Iraq and 50 points in Improving the economy.

As you can see in this screenshot, those are the only two things affecting his issues.  His opponent, Mr. Grant, has a full battery of stances on many issues.

This discrepancy only occurs when using a custom candidate.  When  using the pre-made candidates everything works fine.

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KnightAV
mittens
Join Date 06/2003
+6
Reply #1 June 18, 2008 4:13:54 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
Yup yup yup. I saw your other posts and have been looking into it.
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KnightAV
KnightAV
Join Date 02/2004
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Reply #2 June 18, 2008 4:19:51 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
Sorry to post so much, I was just worried about it getting lost in other threads so I wanted to post it somewhere unambiguous.

Thanks!
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KnightAV
lhartsock
Join Date 06/2008
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Reply #3 June 18, 2008 5:57:46 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
I agree, this is something that definitely needs looking into. It's almost not worth it to play custom, and that was a big draw towards this game.
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KnightAV
KnightAV
Join Date 02/2004
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Reply #4 June 18, 2008 6:11:39 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
This appears to be fixed in version 1.02.024 which is on Impulse now.

I checked both a Republican custom and a Democrat custom candidate and saw issue stances across the board.

Hooray and thanks!

-KnightAV
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KnightAV
mittens
Join Date 06/2003
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Reply #5 June 18, 2008 6:27:28 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
This appears to be fixed in version 1.02.024 which is on Impulse now.I checked both a Republican custom and a Democrat custom candidate and saw issue stances across the board.Hooray and thanks!-KnightAV

I'm not so sure that it is fixed.

I think I did narrow the issue down, though. When you create a new candidate and go straight into a game with him, he seems to have very neutral stances across the board; however, if you quit out of the game, restart it, and choose that same candidate and go into a game he should have far more party-specific default values.

Can anyone verify this? I won't complain if it is fixed, of course.
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KnightAV
Maxpower179
Join Date 06/2008
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Reply #6 June 18, 2008 6:59:09 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
This appears to be fixed in version 1.02.024 which is on Impulse now.I checked both a Republican custom and a Democrat custom candidate and saw issue stances across the board.Hooray and thanks!-KnightAVI'm not so sure that it is fixed.I think I did narrow the issue down, though. When you create a new candidate and go straight into a game with him, he seems to have very neutral stances across the board; however, if you quit out of the game, restart it, and choose that same candidate and go into a game he should have far more party-specific default values.Can anyone verify this? I won't complain if it is fixed, of course.


Verified. Launching the game, creating a custom candidate, and then starting a game right away will give you "5" in every category you do not allocate points to. But restarting TPM and starting the same game with the same candidate gives you the party default values.

There is another part to this bug: Even if you restart TPM to get the party default values, or you choose a pre-made candidate, taking any action that affects your position on an issue, (making a speech or buying an ad) will cause your position to revert to 5, or sometimes -5. Playing as Obama, my intitial position on high gas prices was -25. I took out a NP ad against high gas prices in NY, and my NY pos. changed to -8, but my position in every other state went to -5. The only positions that are not affected are the ones you, or the pre-made candidates, put points into in the candidate creation/selection process (for Obama, these are universal health care and withdrawing from Iraq. But many pre-mades don't have any points in specific issues).
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KnightAV
KnightAV
Join Date 02/2004
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Reply #7 June 18, 2008 7:50:45 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
Maxpower is a much more careful tester than me. I checked out his findings and they look accurate for the current build.

I've got one extra data point for your analysis. If you put 1 point in every issue, restart, and play a campaign, you will start with 1's in everything. So any personal stance you start with will override the starting party stance completely. This might not be a bug, but it's related.

-KnightAV
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KnightAV
kanedafx
Join Date 04/2008
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Reply #8 June 18, 2008 11:17:27 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
So if you leave the issue at 0, you'll take your party's stance, correct?
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KnightAV
mittens
Join Date 06/2003
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Reply #9 June 19, 2008 12:58:38 AM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
Maxpower is a much more careful tester than me. I checked out his findings and they look accurate for the current build.I've got one extra data point for your analysis. If you put 1 point in every issue, restart, and play a campaign, you will start with 1's in everything. So any personal stance you start with will override the starting party stance completely. This might not be a bug, but it's related.

That was definitely a bug and it is fixed but not in the update we released today.

So if you leave the issue at 0, you'll take your party's stance, correct

That's the case now, but that will change with a future update.
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KnightAV
kanedafx
Join Date 04/2008
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Reply #10 June 19, 2008 2:52:41 AM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
Maxpower is a much more careful tester than me. I checked out his findings and they look accurate for the current build.I've got one extra data point for your analysis. If you put 1 point in every issue, restart, and play a campaign, you will start with 1's in everything. So any personal stance you start with will override the starting party stance completely. This might not be a bug, but it's related.That was definitely a bug and it is fixed but not in the update we released today.
So if you leave the issue at 0, you'll take your party's stance, correctThat's the case now, but that will change with a future update.


If there has been an update since the game was first available on Impulse, it's not showing up for me when I look at My Games or the Update page in Impulse.

I downloaded TMP 2008 literally seconds after it was available on Impulse, but I seem to be unable to get any update for it.
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KnightAV
kanedafx
Join Date 04/2008
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Reply #11 June 19, 2008 3:01:53 AM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
'So if you leave the issue at 0, you'll take your party's stance, correct?' That's the case now, but that will change with a future update.


Unfortunately I could not get this to work for me. I reset all my issues to zero and only spent points in two issues and left the rest at zero. On turn one, I was completely undefined (5 points in everything) except for the 2 issues I put points again, and once again McCain had tons of points in almost every issue.

Is there a way around this until the patch?
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KnightAV
mittens
Join Date 06/2003
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Reply #12 June 19, 2008 10:41:03 AM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
Is there a way around this until the patch?

There is not. If you create your candidate, quit out of the game, and then go back into the game then he should be given stances on all issues, but outside of that there's really not much that can be done until the next patch as the fix has to come from the codebase.
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KnightAV
kanedafx
Join Date 04/2008
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Reply #13 June 19, 2008 3:05:40 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
Is there a way around this until the patch?There is not. If you create your candidate, quit out of the game, and then go back into the game then he should be given stances on all issues, but outside of that there's really not much that can be done until the next patch as the fix has to come from the codebase.


So I need to create a new candidate and leave all issues at zero, then quit the game without playing a scenario or campaign and then log back in? Is that correct?
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KnightAV
mittens
Join Date 06/2003
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Reply #14 June 19, 2008 3:35:09 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
Is there a way around this until the patch?There is not. If you create your candidate, quit out of the game, and then go back into the game then he should be given stances on all issues, but outside of that there's really not much that can be done until the next patch as the fix has to come from the codebase.So I need to create a new candidate and leave all issues at zero, then quit the game without playing a scenario or campaign and then log back in? Is that correct?

Yeah. For now. This won't be a standard practice, though. I just checked in all of my changes to fix this issue and it's just a matter of when our next update comes.
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KnightAV
keithLamothe
Join Date 11/2006
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Reply #15 June 19, 2008 8:29:08 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
By the way, worst to worst you can edit your candidate's issue values manually by editing the xml file, but that is a bit of a pain and of course allows you to cheat with massive values if you're so inclined.

Glad to hear the fixes are done, thanks so much for responding promptly.
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KnightAV
mittens
Join Date 06/2003
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Reply #16 June 19, 2008 11:17:29 PM
from PoliticalMachine ForumsPoliticalMachine Forums
By the way, worst to worst you can edit your candidate's issue values manually by editing the xml file, but that is a bit of a pain and of course allows you to cheat with massive values if you're so inclined.Glad to hear the fixes are done, thanks so much for responding promptly.

I was going to suggest that but it's kind of a cheap maneuver that people could also use to breach various stat/issue limits.
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