Political Games Forever

New Jersey Gubernatorial - 2009, by Zion, has now been added to the scenarios page for our election game simulation.

From the scenario designer: “With Corzine’s popularity flagging, and the political mood in the country slowly coming to terms with the outcome of the ‘08 Presidential election, things don’t look good in New Jersey. With fresh young Republicans rising to face a tired and old Democratic establishment, who will bring the bloom back to the Garden State?”

Version 1.6.x of President Forever 2008 + Primaries, a major update, has been released.

You can view version information and download the update here.

The latest Beta version of President Forever 2008 + Primaries has been released, here. (The non-Beta version is available here.)

This version includes Electability, a new fundraising model, adds the 1980 scenario (bringing the total number of official scenarios to 5, including 2008, 2004, 2000, 1992, and 1980), makes a large number of changes to the existing official scenarios (including 2008), enhances the AI, adds online Help, and includes an experimental multiplayer feature.

Once we’ve Beta tested these features for a bit, they will be added to the latest release version.

In the game, there are several ways to fundraise. (Note: this describes the upcoming version of President Forever 2008 + Primaries’ fundraising model.) 1. Background fundraising. 2. Fundraisers. 3. Footsoldiers. 4. Unused CPs. (Note: all the equations given below are for illustrative purposes only. The actual equations are more complex and involve additional factors. The values 1, 2, and 3 in the equations are meant to illustrate the relative weighting of the components.)

1. Background fundraising. We wanted to capture several components of fundraising. In order of importance for background fundraising, first, momentum. The higher the momentum, the higher the fundraising. Second, national percentages. The higher the national percentages, the higher the fundraising. Third, the Established value for a candidate. The higher Established, the higher the fundraising. A simplified equation is

Amount = (momentum * 3) + (percentages * 2) + (Established * 1).

2. Fundraisers. Fundraisers are a little different from background fundraising, because they tend to focus on small groups of people who donate large amounts of money. These typically involve an event with the candidate, such as a dinner, where the donators get to be closer to the candidate. A candidate can still pack a fundraiser, even if their national percentages aren’t stratospheric. The emphasis for the purposes of the game is on Established first, percentages second, momentum third.

Amount = (momentum * 1) + (percentages * 2) + (Established * 3).

3. Footsoldiers. When Footsoldiers are set to fundraising, they do so in a regional (by state) way. The emphasis for the purposes of the game here is on percentages first, momentum second, and Established third.

Amount = (momentum * 2) + (percentages * 3) + (Established * 1).

4. Unused CPs. If your candidate’s campaign has CPs left over at the end of the turn, they are used for fundraising. This is effectively like having a fundraiser, but without the candidate’s own EPs being used. Similar to 2., then, the emphasis for the purposes of the game is on Established first, percentages second, momentum third. Unused CPs are simply Fundraisers, at a quarter the effectiveness per CP.

Amount = ( (momentum * 1) + (percentages * 2) + (Established * 3) )/4.

For any of these cases, the value is then multiplied by the party’s fundraising coefficient. In the upcoming version, in 2008 the Republicans have a coefficient of 1.0, and the Democrats have a coefficient of 1.5. For example, if Barack Obama and John McCain had identical percentages, momentum, and Established values, Obama would still out-raise McCain by 3:2. This applies in both the general and primaries phases of a campaign, and reflects (in the case of 2008) voter disenchantment with the Republican party.

Feedback welcome as always!

With Obama’s announcement that he will not accept public financing for the general election, foregoing about $84,000,000 in public funds to not only carry over funds from the primaries but also to raise as much as he would like during the general election, the upcoming version of President Forever 2008 + Primaries will allow for players to accept or decline a federal block grant for the general election.

The next version will also have a different fundraising model, where leading candidates in 2008 typically will raise more money than they were doing in the previous version.

We are close to releasing the next version of President Forever 2008 + Primaries as a public Beta. I anticipate within a week.

In the upcoming version, we’ll release Multiplayer as a public beta feature. This will be available to all owners of President Forever 2008 + Primaries for testing purposes. Once the testing phase is over, Multiplayer will become it’s own product.

A President Forever 2008 + Primaries Tutorial has been posted here.

Feedback appreciated as always!

In the upcoming version, we have introduced a new variable called Electability.

In the 2008 scenario’s primaries, Ron Paul tends to do better than people think he should do. Part of the problem with Ron Paul in particular was that in the scenario he receives large amounts of money (reflecting his real-world fundraising success). However, it was also a trend with other candidates that people did not expect to do that well. This has become known as the Ron Paul Problem.

To address this, we have introduced Electability in the upcoming version. Each candidate has an Electability value, from 0-100. It is determined by 3 things. The candidate’s attributes (such as Leadership, Issue Experience, and so on) weighted for the attributes’ profiles, the candidate’s distance from the center for various issues weighted for the issues’ profiles, and their momentum.

The lower the Electability value, the less likely potential voters are to move to that candidate’s camp.

Here are some sample values from the upcoming 2008 scenario for various candidates:

Obama: 84

Clinton: 76

Edwards: 75

McCain: 83

Romney: 92

Paul: 35

(Note: These can and do change as a game progresses.)

Electability goes part of the way to solving something that was missing from the game (a voters’ reluctance to vote for someone who was not “Electable” in some way), and therefore part of the way to solving the Ron Paul Problem.

Feedback appreciated as always.

Just an update:

For the upcoming version of President Forever 2008 + Primaries, we’ve added Bob Barr to the 2008 scenario (as well as Ruwart and Root). The Libertarian party vote at the beginning of the scenario is split 3 ways right now between Barr, Ruwart, and Root.

We’ve also added 2 Romney money events, because of his self-financing. He now receives $18M on October 22, 2007, and $9M on January 1, 2008.

We’ve also added Charles Baldwin for the Constitution Party.

We’ve also added some Democratic and Republican Veeps to the 2008 scenario. These include (Democrats) Gen. Anthony Zinni, Sen. Jim Webb, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, and Gov. Janet Napolitano, and (Republicans) Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Gov. Charlie Crist, Gov. Sarah Palin, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

We’ve also changed some attributes based on a retrospective evaluation of candidates. In particular, we’ve strengthened Obama’s Leadership 3 -> 4 and Stamina 3 -> 4. This reflects his campaign’s demonstrated organizational strengths.

Feedback appreciated as always!

We have released a fun office game called Crumby & Co. For 1-4 players, work your way up the office ladder. The game is about cooperation and hard work, or back-stabbing and Machiavellian office politics … You get to decide. Fun for the whole office.

Crumby & Co. is a cross between Monopoly and Scruples, where you navigate the office waters by collecting projects and gaining points for promotion. Collect underlings, steal opponent players’ projects, shred files, and much, much more.

Here is a screenshot where the player Brad has just been promoted up the office chain:

It even includes a special Boss Key for emergencies.

You can get the demo from here.