UK Election 1987 Scenario (with more regions)

[Treasurer]

Hi there, just a quick introduction here, more pictures to come. This is the first scenario i've ever done and it's close to completion. All constituencies and names(most are not full names) i have typed up. I would say my map isn't the best. When i used the original uk map from the game i seemed to have a problem with, so i put in my own map. I've still to finish what platforms the parties stand on, and i need to make the ad's cheaper with so many regions. What i've done is some regions are the actual county or counties merged together, as i've heard having too many regions could make the momentum go high and the game becomes easy. However, i've seperated the main cities out into a region of their own, having to enlarge them as well to make it more interesting.

I've done the 1987 uk election just to be different as i've seen 1992 and 97 election scenario's here, the main challenge here is to of course win the election with Labour. I based constituency results on the previous election as i don't know what the predictions were before that election, but i could just reduce the gap of labour and tories myself as maybe the gap should be shorter as Labour had a better chance that in 1983. It's about a 10 per lead for the tories. I might try bringing the original map back to see if i can get the regions to work on that, i will tell more when i'm complete.

This was my first attempt as Labour and here's the result.

It seems like it's gonna be bloody hard to win with Labour but mind you, i didn't realise until then the ads were too expensive and i had gone bankrupt twice, so i couldn't use them much. I don't have a clue why the seats for a majority are a 1091, i'll need to see about that. Plus i need to move/shorten the N.Ireland regions.

One problem i can't explain is one region Tayside, one of the first regions i created, it stays solid blue if it's a tie, it never goes white just blue solid or blue striped. Plus when Grampian came up on this Election night, both Grampian and Tayside came up simultaneously which was strange. I have checked if it's the boundaries not joined but i don't see anything wrong with them. Anyway, see what i can do and i'll post when it's finished or nearly finished.

[gopprogressive]

Whoa! Sweet! Could you help me out with something then?

[Treasurer]

Whoa! Sweet! Could you help me out with something then?

Yeah sure, i'll new to this but i'll see what i can do?

[extreme_right]

Excellent work I look forward to playing it.

[Treasurer]

I've finished doing the issues for the region's, probably finished everything now apart from a few problems. I want to do some tweaks like improve the strength of some candidates who are involved in the cabinets, and get more full names for mp's.

Problems fixed:

The thing about the Tayside region colour not paying attention to the statistics( it's blue when it should be white as the region is tied). The problem was too many co-ord's i entered for the Grampian region. One co-ordinate must've overlapped.

Increasing the funds 3x(original funds from 2005 scenario) for every party, because of so many more regions, that makes the ads more expensie if you want to run them nationwide. When playing as Labour with these funds, you can advertise well, but you do have to space it out as still went "out of funds" near the end. However, you have got 8 WEEKS 1 DAY to campaign until the election, could be too long perhaps?

Problems i haven't fixed:

The bloody majority is still 1091 to win, which you shouldn't worry about. On Election night it gives a false number of seats for that region. For example it says "Glasgow: 84 seats" lol, but Labour and the Alliance only share 11 seats between them underneath. I think it has something to with the seat targets for the parties.

At one point in the game a box pops up with "Issue Number not found", don't know exactly why, but just click ok a few times and the game carries on.

Another thing 2nd time around, after changing alot of the polling clock times, on election night, the time would not stop at the regions and keep running. I couldn't pause or slow it down. I made the times of regions closer together, as i realised the first time around the election carried over into 2 nights. I'm thinking it was because many regions polling clock times were after 12 midnight, so i squashed them together before that time.

Tweaks/Improvements i should do(given time):

Independents didn't do well in this election so i just replaced them, for fun, with the Monster Raving Looney Party but their candidates don't appear much, only in south west England. I even put in an ulster party with just one candidate, but that was because that MP won a constitiuency in N.I I'm thinking it's a mistake to get rid of the independent's who would have more candidates. Then there's the BNP with only 2 candidates!

Split London in half: Because the Greater London region has the most seats by far, i'm thinking it would be interesting to see how that goes.

Make the results closer: I based my my statistics on the 1983 election results, but of course in reality, i would imagine the gap between Labour and Tory to be smaller. Make more constituencies marginal i say. However, as i've read, Labour did rise in support but they still weren't neck and neck by the time of the election. As for the SDP Alliance, the third party, they basically performed almost the same as in the 83 election so they don't need any change to their per cents.

I edited the newspaper storylines a great deal to give the feel that this is 1987, using a mixture of real life events happening at the time, but also humorous fictional ones like "TV-AM Love Triangle?", which has nothing to do with the game or affects the gameplay. If you're British, brought up in the 80s, then you''ll "get" what the headlines are referring to. If not, tough luck, lol.

I'm increased the number of interviewer's and give that 1987 feel. From an interview on "Wogan", "Saturday Superstore" to the old BBC One Nine O' Clock News. There's various BBC and ITV news interview's.

Secret hint in the game which isn't so secret now: If you play as the SDP/Liberal Alliance, you can run a campaign under their co-leadership, as it was in reality, however, to stand a better chance of getting results, choose either David Steel or David Owen as a single leader with better leadership and overall rating. The co-leadership is weak with a "2", because how can you run a party and the 2 leader's don't get on? For those who don't know, the party split up not long after this election.

Just for fun, there is a "Spitting Image" alternative picture you can put in for the 3 top parties. Spitting image was a TV show that satricised the leaders and more, in the form of exaggerated puppets if you didn't know. The ratings for the leader are just the same with the original version.

As i'm new, how do i e-mail a copy of the scenario? Do i just use yahoo mail, and put the folder in as a file attachment? thanks.

Anyway, another image of another game finished, my 2nd play as Labour. With the use of the ads and more money i've made a big improvement but still couldn't beat Maggie, but the map looks interesting...

I did receive the big mo' and i made substantial gains, but still i was not in front, but on my way, but then Maggie went on a comeback, she took back the South Midlands, and made Greater London blue again after i was actually in the lead in London seats and the region was white(tied). It's that hard for Labour to to make a dent in South England here, London is the soft spot. Yeah, i still need to move/shorten some of the region names here btw.

I managed to get Tayside despite i was tied with the SNP in seats and the Tories! Grampian i snatched too. The SDP-Liberal alliance did better this time around, snatching the border from the tories and central Wales. They almost had Northumberland which i gained, then lost, then gained again! I campaigned in Central Wales hard, but incredibly, lol, the Libs would not budge. If your wondering, Plaid Cymru took North Wales. So it seems possible you can beat Thatcher with Kinnock, maybe i just needed to spread the use of ads outwards more, as i was short for money by the end.

As you see in Northern Ireland, i've spiced things up, but the Ulster Unionists are really strong in this election. However, Sinn Fein won Belfast so there's hope? In some constituencies the Unionists are polling 70 percent. It's to do with the absence of Ian Paisley's party, the DUP not appearing in some constituencies which i think is because of the Anglo-Irish agreement Act at the time and the 2 parties, both unionists became sort of allies at this time, so the DUP basically gave up some constuencies. As for the situation in Scotland, the SNP are pretty low in the standings compared to these days. You would probably have to work your boots off to win 3 Scottish regions. Plaid Cymru are only strong in North Wales, they have a mountain to climb in the rest.

Anyway, i'll try and fix the minor problems with game soon. But i would say it's ready lol.

[Manic]

At one point in the game a box pops up with "Issue Number not found", don't know exactly why, but just click ok a few times and the game carries on.

Looking forward to this scenario, have you tried running the Scenario Checker and if so what has it found?

Independents didn't do well in this election so i just replaced them, for fun, with the Monster Raving Looney Party but their candidates don't appear much, only in south west England. I even put in an ulster party with just one candidate, but that was because that MP won a constitiuency in N.I I'm thinking it's a mistake to get rid of the independent's who would have more candidates. Then there's the BNP with only 2 candidates!

It is your scenario and I am a Loony , but I agree that getting rid of the Independents isn't a good idea. There are other parties which were stronger than the Monster Raving Loony Party and so it isn't really fair to include them- and there there is the “seriousness” issue for some, I suppose . If you really did want to put in a few Loony candidates you could do so by putting them under the Independents.

[Treasurer]

I've played the scenario 4 times now, and the issue number not found problem happens in every game but only once in a campaign. I suggest maybe it's something to with the events notepad. The Scenario checker tells me there's no error's found.

FINALLY, i managed to fix the majority needed to win the election. The majority is now 318 seats. I had to change the default electoral votes in "regional variables". I wasn't sure if you were to tamper with that or not, but i know now it's ok to change them. Election Night is running very smoothly, i just got confused with the pause control, thats why the timer kept running. I'm thinking about changing the running order of the regions. All the tory safe regions (South England- almost all of it) come at the end. My ideal would be having the most marginal seats at the end, as it does happen sometimes in real life with "too close to call" being announced.

I've bolstered the strength of all cabinet tory ministers and hopefully, all shadow cabinet Labour ministers with their full names(not neccessary their middle names). Most are at 4, some are 3. Also a few key liberal SDP MP's are bolstered to a 3 with full names. I think i will get around to squeezing in the Independents.

My self-critism of the game is that, god help you if you play this on hard mode, it's hard enough to achieve the goal on easy. For Labour, it's to win a minority government, that's fair enough, as for the SDP-Liberals to become the main opposition, that may be subject to change if you look/read on.

This is the result of my third game as Labour again, but with Kinnock, Thatcher and Steel/Owen in their Spitting Image forms. Once again i can't beat Maggie, i come close again, even closer this time but not the same results, see here:

I don't get quite as many regions in Scotland and north/middle england, however, i stop the liberals in Central Wales and even capture London by a good margin. But it wasn't enough! When using the ads and with the funds you've got, dont waste your money advertising in Northern Ireland!

On the 4th play, i chose the SDP-Liberal Alliance with the co-leadership and i did rather well with one surprise down south:

The Tories absolutely thumped Labour here. I had a large momentum swing in Cornwall & Devon. That was the surprise, the other regions were the most likeliest to fall to the SDP-Liberals. The goal as this party is to be the main opposition but despite drawing with Labour in the polls at 22% and in newspaper reports being reffered to as the second party i.e. " Thatcher ahead of Owen in Polls" headline, just take a look at the gap in seats. It seems maybe i should make it a seat target, rather than main opposition goal, maybe the goal of 40 or 50 seats? In my earlier image the SDP did reach 45 seats, s it's possible to reach a 50 target.

Oh yeah, i almost forgot to show you guys the actual issue's. I felt the Falklands war was out the picture by this time so it's not included, i actually had too many topics and had to cut them from 22 to 18 because of the limit. The issues:

Agriculture

Anglo-Irish Agreement

Business Privatisation

Crime

Defence against Soviet Union

Economy

Education

Environment

Equal Rights

Immigration

Jobs and Unemployment

Miner's Strike

National Health Service

Property Ownership

Social Security

Tax and Spend

Terrorism

Trade Unions

[Treasurer]

Hey! I finally solved the problem with the issue number not found, it was because in the events notepad, one news report didn't have a "capital L " for the Leadership issue. It did not comeup during my full game. It's pretty much ready to play, but i do want to finish off by putting the independents in.

Good news, you can beat Thatcher with Kinnock on the easy version at least! I've just done it and if you want to know how i done it, i'll post it up in the election play-by-play soon.

[Manic]

When you're done, can you please send it to gollyfever [at] yahoo.com?

[mz452]

Matty1019@yahoo.com

[Treasurer]

To the guys i've sent the scenario to, and in future, i would advise you raise the funds of each party a little more. I think giving 20 million pounds more to Labour and SDP-Liberals would help make it not too hard, not too easy, i don't want to make it too easy though, as in it's current state, the hard mode would be impossible to win with either party. I've also changed the electorate trends to see how that works out. In Tory dominated regions, i've made SDP and Labour supporter more committed that Tory supporter's which might help a great deal. Still to play a game under these conditions though.

[gopprogressive]

Sent it to me as well. kurtsg@umich.edu

I'd like to see the regionalism.

[extreme_right]

Send to me please peter.lucas@gmail.com

[Geraint]

Can you please send it to me aswell? geraintrennie@googlemail.com

[Treasurer]

I've played the game now after fiddling about with the electorate trends, and it has made a big difference. I managed a majority government without the help of the SDP-Libs. I got a couple of regions i never managed to get before but maybe i've made it too easy, look at the London statistics, i made a humongus momentum swing there. Once again i was doing regional and nationwide advertising and never ran out of money(the same amount as before).

Once again, judging by the rating and that it's my best ever score, that the game should be kept this way and it's not too easy? Because i suppose it will take more than one game to figure out how to defeat Maggie on medium and hard. I don't think the money needs to be increased now.

[bluetory]

Can you send it to me also? rmfb-2@cogeco.ca - I'd like to give it a run. Thanks for your help.

[tomas7]

tomastuscany@yahoo.it

thanks!

[Treasurer]

To the last 2 replies on this subject, i have modified the game some more, all the independents are in now and the region order in election night is made MORE EXCITING, and i'm just going to find out more full names for candidates and split London in 2. EDIT: I'VE SENT ALL, E-MAILS CONTAINING THE SCENARIO UPDATE NOW!

Hopefully if approved, i will add it to the scenario list on this website!

Edit: I've added a good few full names of constituency winners and some others but it's going to take too bloody long so forget that, and i'll split London in 2, East and West London.

[extreme_right]

Its a good scenario but purely as constructive criticism I would say that maybe 8 weeks is a little long. That's probably why you run out of money...

[Treasurer]

Well i say it serves as a good test of endurance and how to lay out your ads, however i would like to see if anyone else agree's with this so i can shorten the days/raise the funds for when/if i add to the scenario list. Thanks!

[Treasurer]

I'm not planning to do much with the scenario much now, but i've increased funds a little, increased Con and Lab. Party by 12 million, raised SDP-Liberal by 9million, the rest i'll increase too. Here's a really interesting map of a game i played with the shall-we-say, "improved" update i e-mailed to all the people here so far with a split-up London:

This was my second time as the SDP-Liberal alliance with a much better improvement. A total of 56 seats but i realise the goal of becoming the official opposition is bloody impossible with the funds, and only 3 CP's.

Can anyone tell me how the CP numbers can be changed?

I will though, change the goal to 50 seats as their claims during the real '87 election of becoming the 2nd party were too dreamy and over-ambitious. So, a total of 56 seats, mainly thanks to advertising all 4 of my ads nationwide. In the last 2 days you can drive yourself into bankruptcy but they don't halt your ads as it doesn't appear in the news.

I got the issue positions in the south west almost perfect as the Libs are most popular there and capturing the whole south west(2 regions) shows that. It's interesting seeing East London as Labour and West as Conservative too. Plus look at the 3 seat gap between the tories and Labour! Anyway, the Tories won because even with my 56 seats, Labour couldn't form a minority government.

[Treasurer]

I wasn't going to put up any more screen shots of this scenario but i just had to with this one. This is the worst thrashing i've seen the Tories get so far:

All of it, not due to me, lol. I was the SNP here, and i did rubbish! I was one seat short of their goal, if that's any consolation! Labour got the hard-to-get regions of North Yorkshire, Bristol and South and Norfolk, Sussex and Essex. It could of been worse if the SDP took Cornwall and Devon, which they're handy at doing.

[dr abc]

Do you really need that many regions?

I tried to play the scenario but there are so many regions that are almost impossible to click on. I also noticed that when you clicked on some regions, eg W London you'd get the blue blob thing which shows the region selected somewhere in the Atlantic ocean... wrong map coordinates in regional_variables?

What I would suggest is either:

-cut down the number of regions to something managable (no more than 15 I'd say)

-change the map around to better use the space

For example you don't have to use the default map. You could look at the British isles 'horizontally' ie with N-S being E-W. Better, split up Northern Ireland, Scotland and England&Wales and put them side by side so you can enlarge the different regions.

Here's what I mean, very rough five minutes in paint:

Means rewriting all the map coordinates but I think it would be worthwhile.

Could also add Bristol and the Newcastle area as City regions.

edit:

BTW, you might be able to use the Canada Forever beta editor to account for rough swings in between elections (swing from the last election result) - it only works for 13 (I think) parties and you might need to manually rename the parties (Liberals = Conservative, ProgCon = Labour or whatever) but you have 12 parties. Create a third insignificant dummy party (eg National Front, Socialist Workers), and it will automatically recalculate all riding/constituency %'s based on the figures you give.

Can anyone tell me how the CP numbers can be changed?

It's @base_cp in scenario.p4e

But I notice you already changed it to 6... so the libs/sdp should get 5.. maybe an additional -2 due to party strength I don't know. Problem is if you increase base_cp too much you'll overpower tiny parties. What about instead tweaking party strengths?

Or even, make SDP and Liberals two independent, weaker Coalition mode parties, competing in different seats. For fun, add an event that has a small chance of splitting the alliance... potentially completely throwing the election!

[dr abc]

Also, would you be interested in a Scotland 2007 scenario?

I have a half-made one, with 2003 (?) results as the starting points for each constituency and the basic list of issues (not regional centered). I was going to add an events file and port it to Chancellor Forever (closest to mixed PR/FPTP we have) but I will probably never finish it. Since you seem enthusiastic and know a lot more about Scotland than me you could continue it if you're interested.

[Treasurer]

Honestly, i got used to the map but i did have difficulty with one region at the start, in particular on where to click because of the names overlapping on the map like the Cambridgeshire region. I felt putting some names on the region itself might look too messy. As for the W. London blob, i was running out of space. What i should of done is put it directly under the kent region name, or shorten the kent region name and move it more to the left to give it space. It won't win awards for presentation, lol, but it's manageable.

Yes, i could merge some regions for yourself and others. I'm happy with the regions but i'll change it for others. The regions that needed merged the most is definetely the ones in central england. However i don;t think the regions outside of England need to be touched.

I would prefer making the countries side by side rather than the other way

I did think of adding Liverpool but it would just look too crowded and it would be better if the map was magnified.

I have 15 parties. I don't have the Canadian version just the British version so i don't know if the beta editor will work?

Thanks for telling me about where the CP number changer was. I've figured out why SDP-Liberal Alliance had only 3 CP's because i had all players at a leadership of 2 rating, i raised all players to 3 and now the party have 4 CP's. I think that might be good enough, so you can increase your target seats while still make policy speeches and fundraising. I will try that out.

Splitting up the SDP and Liberals does sound fun. In consituency results it does tell you who represents which side. I don't how you can make one party split up into 2 during the actual game though.

I should be able to make some of these updates to the scenario. I'm working on doing a London Local Elections 2006 scenario and it looks like it will take ages with so many seats! I have fancied doing a Scotland one in the long-term future. However, i'm not too desperate to finish the London one as quickly as, so send me the Scotland one and i'll see what i can do.