Bugs

from PolMach Forums
  • 1. Bank bailout, gas prices, and some other issues seem reversed. IE, if you campaign on them as being against gas prices the game thinks you are for high gas prices.
  • 2. Save games don't work properly with smear merchants and other political operatives. Ran into the slowdown stuttering glitch after 30 min, and reloaded a save game. All of the states that I had merchants in acted like they had no effect and the opponent was back up 10%.
  • 3. Save games weird behavior. Can load a game multiple times and each time get a different set of polling data and etc.
  • 4. State bug, I had about 8 smear merchants on Texas. It bugged out and said -256% for republicans and made the state red.
11,311 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from PolMach Forums Top

I've experienced issues similar to this as well. It seemed like the issues like the bank bailout, and others only reversed themselves late into the game.

Reply #2 from PolMach Forums Top

Thanks for the info.  We'll look into these.

As for #1, voter opinion can change over the course of the game based on what you or your opponent is campaigning on.  It doesn't always happen, but if someone is hammering on an issue it can.

Also, there is random margin of error in the polling data (as in real life), this  may be what you're seeing.

 

Thanks again!

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Reply #3 from PolMach Forums Top

This may not be a bug at all, but when I was playing, I was running the table on national issue polls --but state by state it was still extremely close. Is there a strong correlation between national issue polling and state by state polling in the game?

Reply #4 from PolMach Forums Top

Quoting cbray, reply 2
Thanks for the info.  We'll look into these.

As for #1, voter opinion can change over the course of the game based on what you or your opponent is campaigning on.  It doesn't always happen, but if someone is hammering on an issue it can.

Also, there is random margin of error in the polling data (as in real life), this  may be what you're seeing.

 

Thanks again!
End of cbray's quote

Here's a step by step recreation of the "reverse" bug on a brand new game:

http://imgur.com/a/iQaNs

  • Step 1: baseline shows -42 for both candidates
  • Buy oppose high gas prices ad for Obama, goes to -55
  • Buy oppose high gas prices ad for Palin, goes to -55 for her
  • Note that all the tooltips and thumbs show that it should move opposite

Additionally, on the save game bug, the error seems to be that the accrued advertising rating points don't get saved. I had -1200 on some things and upon save game resume it wipes them out back to 0 or near 0.

Here's an example: http://i.imgur.com/T0SM1.jpg

I have a lot of ads about unemployment, and right before I saved it, it said that "Republican voters strongly oppose Reducing Unemployment and it is a very important issue. (-1206)". The save game then shows +56 and that Republicans now approve of reducing unemployment.

When I end some more turns... the trend turns back the way it was before and it falls into "republicans strongly oppose reducing unemployment" and it drops about -100 per turn from my ads.

Reply #7 from PolMach Forums Top

We made a mistake in saying the '08 files are compatible, they are not.  

We've updated the other post now as you have to .zip a few files together.

 

Reply #8 from PolMach Forums Top

Quoting Eggplant999, reply 5




Step 1: baseline shows -42 for both candidates
Buy oppose high gas prices ad for Obama, goes to -55
Buy oppose high gas prices ad for Palin, goes to -55 for her
Note that all the tooltips and thumbs show that it should move opposite

End of Eggplant999's quote

 

In this case, I think that if you oppose a proposed issue, then it's supposed to go further negative since you're pushing your opposition harder.

 

In other words, the higher the negative the more opposed you are to it.  And if you support an issue then it'll be a positive number.  In that case the issue is "High Gas Prices" and in that case nobody wants them so they'll both be negative - the moreso the better for the candidates.

 

This is my understanding.  I've not seen a manual or anything explaining the mechanics past the pretty basic tutorial.

Reply #9 from PolMach Forums Top

http://tinypic.com/r/2mw9yc/6

 

I'm confused as to how it is possible to beat your opponent on every issue (on Painful mode) but still lose miserably in the electoral college. If the issues page is not linked to state by state issues and polling, then the issue page is pointless.

I only cut my characters name out of this, but I was down 45-52-3 and I ended up losing 53.4 to 46.6 --but the American people thought I was the better call on 94% of the issues that they cared about.

 

Edit: Didn't edit out my name entirely, oh well.