jscott991

Negative campaigning should be more powerful. I can't think of any reason to use it now, unless you allow yourself to fall behind in a key issue early and try to make up ground. Even then its too expensive to put both a positive and negative ad, given that two positives will probably be a better choice. I completely disagree that the game should include Third Parties. For some reason people think Third parties are more interesting than they

This is just annoying. I'm tired of losing the popular vote in elections that I control from beginning to end. The game needs a ceiling and a floor of support within an individual state. The 80-20 results in states where I don't advertise are unrealistic and hurt the realism of the results.

Doonesbury was both a heavily biased game in favor of the Democrats and was insanely buggy (it crashed repeatedly, even when you sent away for the new CD). But Doonesbury was deeper than this and more of a strategy game than just a fun romp. This game is very short and produces some very strange results. I also agree with Iceberg, until they make some changes, it is just a glorified chess game with a relatively few number of pieces and relat

I wasn't suggesting we pay for the expansion. I was really referring to the size of the update. GalCiv got a "bonus pak" on the first day of its release because of the one month delay in release due to MOO3. A bonus pak like that for Pol Machine could include more candidates and a better election night system. Altarian was a much more substantial update and that woul

Against the upper level AI opponents, the game is ruined anyway by their enormous money advantage. I still wouldn't cheat myself, but the game is pretty pointless when you lose by 10 or 20 million votes, but win with 271 electoral votes.

It isn't cheating anymore than someone playing Reagan against a custom candidate. The default candidates can have up to twice as many points as a custom. But the game has so few candidates. Do you really think that John McCain can be created fairly using only 5 points? JFK? I'm less interested in what's cheating in regards to candidate creation and what's available to let me put some real candidates in the game. I'm sorr

Personally, I feel that the AI's "cheating" becomes too annoying at any level above Clinton (I think he's the first tough candidate, as opposed to Gore who is challenging). If all you are trying to do is to win 271 votes, regardless of what happens outside your target states, the game becomes nothing like a real election. I agree with jdjefferson at this point. The is starting to lose its luster politically, though it can still be fun at tim

The AI does cheat starting at the challenging difficulty level and getting worse on tough and above. I asked in the polmachine chat room yesterday and this was confirmed to me. I'm abandoning the campaign for this reason. I see no reason to play 5-6 matches against opponents when I'm not trying to win the election, just piece together 271 electoral votes as cheaply as possible. I've seen how Frogboy and Dearmad won their upper level

Buying endorsements probably isn't the way to handle them, but it would take a very serious change to make it any other way. Would getting NOW's endorsement really hurt Bush among conservatives? Would they really then vote for the liberal party to just spite a conservative reaching out to different groups? No, they probably wouldn't. They might not vote for Bush in great numbers, but in Pol Machine turnout is measured by awareness and aware

Trust me, your home state is not automatically "counted", whatever that means. I always play as a custom GOP candidate from NY, and winning my home state takes a lot of effort. Being from a state gives you only one advantage: a high awareness to start. If you want to win NC from Edwards or California from Arnold, all you have to do is build a double HQ early and throw up one radio/tv ad in the early stages on an important issue. If the oppo

Yes, but Frogboy says that it will prevent you from playing multiplayer. Use notepad to open the .candidate file in the Data folder of the main PolMachine directory. You can then edit your candidate however you like.

The issue editor should let you create historical campaign situations, though not really as slickly as Stardock could. Historical scenarios would be kind of fun. I personally think the first expansion should focus on expanding the election night coverage (slowing down the pace, improving the presentation, and maybe increasing the drama), adding an incumbency advantage and, most importantly, adding in new candidates (the limited number of poin

I'm hoping that they will include it with a bonus pack that adds a little extra content. They did alot more for GalCiv after it was released, so I think they will do something with Pol Machine, despite its much lower cost. I'd love to know if they are planning a bonus pak for sure though.

You are essentially just cheating.

Veselin, I have no idea what is causing you difficulty. My only tip is to make sure you have your candidate selected when you try to move from state to state. Otherwise, talk to the designers. You might have a bug.

The tougher AI candidates do something to boost their national appeal easily (it could be just endorsements and TV ads I suppose) but that makes it nearly impossible to hold all the traditional "Red" states. Its just too expensive. Its much more economical and, actually, a lot easier to just win California as a Republican and forget about the popular vote and lots of the little states. This isn't realistic but its how to beat the AI

Very good initial post. I agree with most everything said.

My tip is always drop a webmaster, spin doctor, and smear merchant in New York and California if you are the GOP candidate. With smart ad placement, it will be very difficult for the Democrat to win either state. If the Democrats lose California and New York, its next to impossible for them to win the election. This kind of tactic is the only way I've been able to use a custom candidate and progress past Clinton. The game is a littl

I'd hope that patches and updates maybe make it more of an election simulator as time goes on. Certainly Galciv can't really be described as just a fun, superficial game and I'd like to see some more depth start to develop in Pol Machine.

Won't be able to play multiplayer with that character or won't be able to play multiplayer at all? I think a patch adding guys is going to definetely be necessary then.

I understood that. I'm really not sure that the moneyman gives any kind of increase at all. He certainly doesn't double the potential.

I'll post this here and see if I can get a response. Can you edit the .candidate files to increase the number of points available for a custom candidate? That would allow the creation of above average candidates like McCain, JFK, etc.

I actually think the game really suffers from a lack of credible present and historical candidates. I guess its neat to have the founding fathers and Lincoln in the game, but I'd much rather have had some more modern candidates. I really can't believe the game doesn't include John McCain! In no particular order I was shocked the game didn't include McCain, JFK, Eisenhower, Jeb Bush, Pat Buchanan, Gray Davis, Tom Daschle, Frist, Whitman, Gove

95 is too high since awareness is both name recognition and willingness to go out and vote (kind of like excitement about the candidate). I think a 5-10 bonus would be enough.

You are referring to Jim "Moron" Moran, aren't you? Blame the state Republican Party for Congressman Moron. Had they not lumped all the Democrats in Northern Virginia into one district, this rather sleazy and incompetent Representative would be long gone.