Feature You'd Most Like to See

[Rz9392]

also it would be cool if we could pick where we get our polls. For example, Rasmussen- lean republican, PPP-lean democrat, etc. It would change the game dynamics because depending on who you rely on for polling, most of you decisions will be made on those numbers (right or wrong).

[Rz9392]

also another idea is after winning an election, you can choose to press on and run for re-election. Continuing the game..

[Rz9392]

having the option to order a recount if the race is close in certain states. That's it

[mahaadoxyz]

If the multiple pollsters thing is implemented, the better pollsters should cost more. For instance, Rasmussen, which last year was inaccurate and pro-Republican biased, should be cheaper than PPP, which had the least bias of the prolific pollsters and was also highly accurate. (http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/rasmussen-polls-were-biased-and-inaccurate-quinnipiac-surveyusa-performed-strongly/) Maybe some pollsters with partisan affiliations, as Rasmussen is associated with the Republicans and PPP is associated with Democrats (though its polls are not biased in their favor) should be cheaper for candidates of their affiliated party, or something.

[Alfonzo]

also another idea is after winning an election, you can choose to press on and run for re-election. Continuing the game..

I've been thinking about this, and how it would work.

Firstly, I think a player should be able to 'save' their final election result, as some kind of file. This way, the more dedicated players can share their saved election files to brag about how awesome they did in much more detail than having just a screenshot.

From this, we can then generate more detail about election victories, such as the number of seats changing parties, the overall swing towards/against the incumbent party (of course, data about the previous election will have to be entered into a scenario), and even swings in individual seats/states.

The next big thing we can do with saved election victory files, is re-elections. After the election is over, a few random events generate, changing polls in various seats/states slightly. I figure scenarios should have a list of maybe 40 issues and state positions on all of them, and then each election year chooses some of those issues. So, when you come to re-election, some of the issues of the previous election are gone and replaced with randomly selected issues from the extended list. For PM4E scenarios, the party leaders can change to another from the lists (except for your party of course). For PM4E, you could also choose the date of the next election (calling an early election, double-dissolution, etc.). You could even choose between elections to have a double-dissolution, which itself would become an issue.

Something like this would greately expand the games potential, as well as expand competativeness within the community. Two players could take the same scenario, and see how many re-elections they could go for before they eventually lose.

Tie all this in with the suggestions I made about dealing with a hung parliament post-election in one of the PM4E Aus 2010 threads, and the game could really be taken to a whole new level without losing its core gameplay - being an election simulator.

[Rz9392]

I've been thinking about this, and how it would work.

Firstly, I think a player should be able to 'save' their final election result, as some kind of file. This way, the more dedicated players can share their saved election files to brag about how awesome they did in much more detail than having just a screenshot.

From this, we can then generate more detail about election victories, such as the number of seats changing parties, the overall swing towards/against the incumbent party (of course, data about the previous election will have to be entered into a scenario), and even swings in individual seats/states.

The next big thing we can do with saved election victory files, is re-elections. After the election is over, a few random events generate, changing polls in various seats/states slightly. I figure scenarios should have a list of maybe 40 issues and state positions on all of them, and then each election year chooses some of those issues. So, when you come to re-election, some of the issues of the previous election are gone and replaced with randomly selected issues from the extended list. For PM4E scenarios, the party leaders can change to another from the lists (except for your party of course). For PM4E, you could also choose the date of the next election (calling an early election, double-dissolution, etc.). You could even choose between elections to have a double-dissolution, which itself would become an issue.

Something like this would greately expand the games potential, as well as expand competativeness within the community. Two players could take the same scenario, and see how many re-elections they could go for before they eventually lose.

Tie all this in with the suggestions I made about dealing with a hung parliament post-election in one of the PM4E Aus 2010 threads, and the game could really be taken to a whole new level without losing its core gameplay - being an election simulator.

I was also thinking (after winning an election) picking what policies you want to concentrate on during the term. And then that will calculate a new scenario for the next term (approval rating, economy, etc.

[Anthony_270]

Most of this data is already available in the Congress Forever engine, and so it would just require writing it to a file ... noted.

Anthony Burgoyne

Lead Game Designer

http://www.TheorySpark.com

Games that spark the political imagination!

From this, we can then generate more detail about election victories, such as the number of seats changing parties, the overall swing towards/against the incumbent party (of course, data about the previous election will have to be entered into a scenario), and even swings in individual seats/states.

[Rz9392]

question to admin- How difficult is it to add features such as choosing different polling & ordering a recount? Could it be written into the html with the current P408 model or would a new one have to be made to format it. Thanks

[Anthony_270]

No, it can't be added into P4E8 scenarios. Feedback noted.

Anthony Burgoyne

Lead Game Designer

http://www.TheorySpark.com

Games that spark the political imagination!

question to admin- How difficult is it to add features such as choosing different polling & ordering a recount? Could it be written into the html with the current P408 model or would a new one have to be made to format it. Thanks

[Rz9392]

Im not html savy, so it would be almost impossible for me to write it. Thanks for the response.

[mahaadoxyz]

I think that you need to adjust where the game thinks the regions are before a new map will work properly. If it's P4E+P, Campaigns Forever has a nice automatic/easy way to do that; if it's one of the other games, you're going to have to go into the regions file and manually adjust the pixel locations within the map image of each region so that it's within the bounds you've drawn for it on the map.

[Rz9392]

Admin- What's the most amount of parties you are aloud to have during the General Election? I currently have four parties but when I add a third one, an error shows up. Thanks

[Anthony_270]

The limit is 16, I believe. Regardless, all games allow at least 4, so this is being caused by a bug in the scenario somewhere.

Please e-mail us for support on this ( http://www.theoryspark.com/interact/contact.htm ).

Anthony Burgoyne

http://www.TheorySpark.com

Games that spark the political imagination!

Admin- What's the most amount of parties you are aloud to have during the General Election? I currently have four parties but when I add a third one, an error shows up. Thanks

[POLLWONK]

I would like to see the option of leaving the race for your party's nomination and going third party (like Crist,Murkowksi)

[mahaadoxyz]

I was reminded of this issue by a post on a different thread, but it would be nice if the game knew how to identify different copies of the same individual. For instance, I'll sometimes get wacky headlines coming across the wire like "Sen. John McCain endorses Mitt Romney!" for the 2008 edition, because the game doesn't know to know that actually the endorser Sen. John McCain is the same person as the candidate John McCain, and would presumably endorse himself. Similarly, Presidential nominee John McCain wouldn't pick John McCain as his running mate, because they're the same person.

I don't know if it would be particularly easy to enable the game to recognize these identities (presumably the scenario designer would need to enter them on purpose), but if it is, it would be a useful little fix.

[Anthony_270]

With the new game engine, endorsers and leaders have IDs, so it's easy to make sure this doesn't happen. The bigger thing is: if John McCain is in the game as a leader, remove him as an endorser, I think.

Anthony Burgoyne

Lead Designer

270soft.com

Where gaming gets political!

I was reminded of this issue by a post on a different thread, but it would be nice if the game knew how to identify different copies of the same individual. For instance, I'll sometimes get wacky headlines coming across the wire like "Sen. John McCain endorses Mitt Romney!" for the 2008 edition, because the game doesn't know to know that actually the endorser Sen. John McCain is the same person as the candidate John McCain, and would presumably endorse himself. Similarly, Presidential nominee John McCain wouldn't pick John McCain as his running mate, because they're the same person.

I don't know if it would be particularly easy to enable the game to recognize these identities (presumably the scenario designer would need to enter them on purpose), but if it is, it would be a useful little fix.

[Anthony_270]

It would be fun to see what happens. Noted.

Anthony Burgoyne

Lead Designer

270soft.com

Where gaming gets political!

I would like to see the option of leaving the race for your party's nomination and going third party (like Crist,Murkowksi)

[level10peon]

There should be the option of buying internet ads.

[Anthony_270]

Thanks - I agree.

There should be the option of buying internet ads.

[Rz9392]

I know the game revolves around presidential elections, but it would be really cool if you could add in a optional feature for a Blanket primary or a runoff election. For statewide scenarios.

[Anthony_270]

Noted - thanks.

I know the game revolves around presidential elections, but it would be really cool if you could add in a optional feature for a Blanket primary or a runoff election. For statewide scenarios.

[jaminup93]

I'd like to see the ability to tie events into the outcome of primaries. Example: If I'm playing 1968 as LBJ and I dominate New Hampshire, then the event "LBJ Humbled by NH Results" should not occur. Also, it'd be cool if you do really really well in an early primary state, like say Iowa, you get a bigger bonus than if you just barely won it.

[Anthony_270]

"it'd be cool if you do really really well in an early primary state, like say Iowa, you get a bigger bonus than if you just barely won it."

Good point.

I'd like to see the ability to tie events into the outcome of primaries. Example: If I'm playing 1968 as LBJ and I dominate New Hampshire, then the event "LBJ Humbled by NH Results" should not occur. Also, it'd be cool if you do really really well in an early primary state, like say Iowa, you get a bigger bonus than if you just barely won it.

[jaminup93]

Another feature I think would be cool and rather easy to implement is the ability to choose how many delegates are required to win a nomination. This allows historic scenarios to be more accurate, back when it took like 2/3s of the delegates to win a nomination. This I think is what encouraged such divided, exciting conventions in the past and could in the game.

[POLLWONK]

I think a feature of drafting crusaders would be cool...let's say I'm Hillary Clinton in 2008 and I want to pickup some more crusaders...I see Barack Obama has Oprah as one of his crusaders...I could possibly try to bribe or woo in that crusader to campaign for me...it happened in 2008 with Colin Powell who started out as a McCain supporter, then switched to Obama