Fictional US election with Austrian candidates (2016) is up!

[Conservative Elector 2 338]

Hi guys,

I started another fictional scenario. Austrian possible candidates for our presidential election next year in a US map.

Note: Don't play the primaries (only one candidates for each party, but I plan to expand that. Therefore I let some US candidates in the game to use them as basis for additional future candidates.)

When the map editor will be out, I plan to make some Austrian scenarios too.

Perhaps I can ignite your interest in Austrian politics at least I hope so. If you have any questions, please ask me

Have fun and any feedback is welcome. Thanks!

P.S. Please forgive me any grammatical errors in the blurbs, (which I plan to expand) as English is just my 2nd language. If you find something incorrect, I'll correct it asap.

Thanks,

Luki

[Patine 514]

If you actually want to do a proper Austrian election, I have a map of the country I used in my National Council 2008 election scenario for K4E, and I know how to redo regions (it has to be done manually mind, but I can help you with that). But PLEASE, putting it on a US map makes me cringe...

[Conservative Elector 2 338]

Of course I would like to do it in a proper way Do you really know how to import the map from K4E to PI? I thought that's not possible yet, therefore I put it on the US map, but I would be more than happy to have an accurate scenario

[Patine 514]

It is possible, but NOT with the in-game editor as it stands. I requires manual editing of the political_units.xml file (and all mentions of the states in any other .xml file).

[Conservative Elector 2 338]

Wow, ok! But I think it requiers much programming, doesn't it? So, if it's to difficult I wait for the editor, as I'm not really into this programming stuff. When you want to assist me, I'd be happy and we could do it of course. It's all about getting the map into the game and the regions (just 9) working. With party editing and candidates I'm really familiar yet.

[Patine 514]

I can see what I can do with the version you've released.

Another important question, though. What do candidates for a purely ceremonial, almost entirely powerless head-of-state position akin to Germany, Italy, Portugal, Greece, or the Republic of Ireland's current presidents (none of whom are directly elected) or most remaining European monarchs or viceregal/gubernatorial representatives of the British, Dutch, and Danish ones in independent but ceremonially attached nations abroad, actually campaign on. This is usually why I feel the National Council elections to determine the Chancellor are really the elections that matter in Austria today, and Wikipedia and an old friend of mine from Austria both confirm that. Such elections can be done quite well by K4E (though that engine fixes the threshold at 5% while Austria has a 4% threshold), but I think that game in it's latest form is available quite inexpensively on the TheorySpark game sales page. I'll still have a look at your Austrian presidential scenario, but I had to get my two-bits out there on that.

[Conservative Elector 2 338]

Thanks, that's really nice!

Yeah that's really true, National Council elections do in fact matter more than presidential elections, but to be honest I like the US political system with a powerful president and all those senatorial and gubernatorial elections as well as the representatives way more than ours. So that's the reason I'd like to simulate the presidential election. When I would have one version with an accurate map, I could do all the historical elections...

And personally I think editing in K4E or PM4E is a bit hard, I've tried that more than once but in the end it failed, so I'll make my future Austrian Scenarios mostly for PI.

[Conservative Elector 2 338]

Another thing is that we do not have an Electoral College system. If a candidate doesn't get 50% we have to hold a runoff election... Another thing I'm not really in fond of.

[Patine 514]

Well, in the US Electoral College system, it's even worse, in that if one candidate doesn't get more than half of the EV's, the House of Representatives decides, and thus you either get a partisan default from an outgoing House (most likely result today), or, in days past, a "Corrupt Bargain" scenario, or, in the case of a nasty primary season selecting candidates that didn't unify parties behind them, possibly endless wrangling and (Constitutionally possible) a Third-Party or Independent candidate chosen as a "Hugh Capet-style" compromise.

[Conservative Elector 2 338]

Yeah, that sounds not really good too...

In case you don't know it already, a president is able to serve two six-year terms here.. So that would be equal to three US terms, despite I think two four-year terms would be enough and we don't have an official Vice president. Those duties have to be fulfilled by the three National Council presidents (each of them represents one of the three largest parties, currently in the National Council) and we have the Federal Council (called Bundesrat) as 2nd parliamentary chamber, it's similar to the US Senate (members are representating their home state), but it's composition is elected indirectly through the state parliament elections. Many people here want to abolish the Federal Council; I'm not supporting that, but I would want to have direct elections for it.

[Patine 514]

Actually, I myself, am not for the inherent, catch-all idea of term limits. I feel if the elections are indeed verifiably free and fair with valid and legitimate opposition candidates, then the incumbent continuing can be seen as the people exercising their electoral will. It's only when the incumbent starts illegally rigging and controlling the elections and suppressing the legitimate opposition, like in many Third-World Countries, that problems truly arise.