President Forever 2016 v. 1.5.4 has been released! It adds a new Endorsers GUI, a new Primary Results GUI, many new endorsers for 2016, a new candidate Ben Carson (second in the Presidential poll at the Values Voter Summit), adds several surrogates, fixes several bugs including a load game bug, and more.
Want to shape the future of President Forever 2016? The Steering Council is coming! More info here.
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To update:
http://270soft.com/updates-redownloads/
Version information:
http://270soft.com/updates-redownloads/president-forever-2016-version-information/
I love the new primary screen
This endorsers screen is a huge improvement.
I’m getting this error message in a custom scenario. It says 12/31/2014 is not a valid date. I changed the date but I’m still getting the error message.
@Jonathan and SANC,
Thanks for the feedback!
@SANC,
Can you compress (zip) the scenario up and send it ( http://270soft.com/contact/ )?
@Anthony will you make a new debate and candidate withdrawl/endorsement screens as well?
Also, I don’t think Cruz would ever endorse Christie. I notice you did make King mirror his sensibilities, which is good. I think there should be some relationship problems overall between Tea Party and Mainstream Republicans. Also, I wish there was a way to make people never drop out of the race–like Ron Paul, for instance. I think Cruz might be another guy that would never drop out.
@Jonathan,
Yes, new Debate Screen is coming. Not sure what you mean about withdrawal-endorsement screen – the game just had a new Offers Screen added with v. 1.5.0.
You’re right about more general relations – I’ll think about it.
^ that should read, new Debate Results Screen. No changes yet to the Debate Activity Screen.
Sent.
Oh, I mean the screen that might say, “Cuomo endorsed O”Malley. Withdraws from race.” It could mention how many delegates go to Cuomo and how many may refuse to endorse Cuomo, for whatever reason.
Also, having an option to make a candidate never withdraw until after the convention will make the older elections more realistic. Candidates in the past, especially since they didn’t really campaign, never withdrew. Everyone would have a certain amount of ballots at the convention and the fight began then. It would make the convention more realistic for these older elections when you might have 8 people in an unsettled convention.
@Jonathan,
Re: endorsement screen, it won’t happen in the next release, but noted.
Re: conventions, yes, there will probably be a variable added to determine the likelihood of a candidate withdrawing before the convention. It deals with these sorts of situations, but also candidates like Ron Paul.
I have a question about the update and installing process. Could you possibly provide the option to download the game from the website and create software that can automatically update the game, or detects if their is a new version to update to and download the update through that software?
I was looking at all the potential VPs:
I’d change Bachmann to 3 in EXP (she did run a primary, part of one). I’d also make her Issue Familiarity a 3, but make her debating a 2, instead of a 3. Her integrity should drop from 4 because she’s being investigated for some things.
Governor Kitzhaber (Oregon) is shown as Left but leans to the Republicans. I don’t get this.
Just got an idea: should we add a straw poll before the election? Some people vote in Iowa earlier in the election trying to predict who would get the nomination at that point.
One more thing. In the primaries regardless of scenario if you click the jigsaw piece the day after the weekly polls come in the game crashes.
*headdesk So focused on other things and making a new scenario to a fair degree from scratch I put the day and month in each other’s slots. Sorry Anthony.
Ha! Another guy to add: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/19/arnold-schwarzenegger-2016_n_4128022.html
I think National Right to Life is off in the settings. Santorum scores a zero at the beginning and Hilary Clinton is in the lead for their endorsement.
He’s still at it? You’re kidding me…I heard about that though. I thought he wanted to go back to acting?
@Anthony What about my straw poll idea though?
There could be the one in Iowa, or there could be several with different voter group samples, Values Voter Summit and Moveon polls for instance.
I can see how it could be unnecessary though since we already have weekly polls.
Straw polls almost never reflect reality. The mainstream republicans who always get nominated generally do poorly on the poll and fringe people like Ron Paul win them.
@Jake that is a great idea. Adding several straw polls would make the primaries more interesting.
If the game is going to have straw polls, they should have any real bonus for winning them. Again, winners of straw polls almost never do well in the primaries. Perennial winners have included Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. I say this as someone who loves Dennis Kucinich as a politician., but he, Paul, and any of the people who win these polls do not win primaries. I’d almost consider it a curse to win them. Also, I don’t know how the game will implement a poll that will be completely inaccurate with the real polls. It has to create results that would favor extremists. I guess one way to do it, is to have the poll based off of momentum rather than real poll%s. However, I think it would be easier to accomplish if the whole voting system was broken down by voter idealogies– Very liberal, liberal, mainstream democrat, moderate democrat, independent, moderate republican, mainstream republican, conservative, very conservative, libertarian, etc.
The game as a whole should be broken down this way. At the moment one undecided is treated the same as any other so charisma makes even more of a difference, really I think too much of the game is based on that and not enough on policies; at the moment all changing them does is cost you votes and momentum for nothing in return except a more popular position makes you harder to attack. Putting in voter groups would also help with leaders like instead of +5 in that candidate’s home state maybe +1% support from minorities for Obama (in 2008 anyway) for example or +1% support from religious fundamentalists for Sarah Palin (and a decrease among people that don’t go to church often).
Of course we should keep the home state bonus too. Candidates typically have an advantage in the state they’re from.
On top of different voter demographics, there’s also single-issue voters over different issues.
Indeed. A cartogramed map (states are the size of their electoral votes) would be handy too. That famous map of the Bush/Kerry race makes it look like a Bush landslide even though it was actually pretty narrow in the popular vote.
@SANC,
Thanks for this idea – I like the idea of an electoral-vote sized map. It would be fairly straightforward to have a scenario with this instead of the regular map. In terms of game mechanics, having optional maps wouldn’t be too difficult to implement, but right now it’s not on the top of the to-do list.
Re: voter blocks, this is a design idea that might be implemented soon. It’s a bit trickier than I think one initially might think, and of course it adds another layer of complexity to the game. It’s a possible to-do.
Re: straw polls, they are a good idea – they at least could be a scripted event. The problem is that they tend to occur very early – earlier than the game starts. Iowa is in the summer of 2015, the game currently starts in October.
@Tom re: National Right to Life, thanks for this – noted.
Re: Straw Polls,
One way to simulate this is to make an Endorser (for example, “Iowa Straw Poll”), with an issue position (say, “Right” or “Far-Right”), the winner getting momentum and so on.
When will the next update be released? What can we expect in the next update?
I think Schwarzenegger would be a great what-if character as he said he’ll push to have the rule changed that will allow him to run. I don’t think he’ll do it, but it would be interesting.
Also, I think Ted Cruz (as much as I dislike him–he’s scary) should be a 4 or 5 in debate. He was the top debater in the US when he was at Princeton. At Harvard, Alan Dershowitz said he won every debate, even against teachers. I also think his charisma should go down to 2, because he’s viewed as a pariah now by both the opposing party and half of his own party. Rand Paul is currently a 2 as well. It would make sense that they’re both a 2.
I’m sure this question has been asked, so I’m sorry to bother you again with it, but when will scripted events be added to the editor? I’m making a comprehensive 2008 scenario (which I’d like to upload, once it’s done), but I don’t have any way to simulate the stock market crash. Is this something to expect in the near future?
@Jonathan,
Re: next update, probably end of this week. New Debate Results GUI + initial 2008.
Re: Ted Cruz, agreed on Debating. He’s already at 4, but Presidential debates are different from Princeton debates, so I think an increase to 5 would depend on seeing him in an actual primaries debate.
Schwarzenegger: if he makes more serious noises, then maybe.
@Jonah,
Currently, the way to edit scripted events is to open the events.xml file in a campaign folder with an XML editor. Event editing capability should be added, but I don’t have an ETA at this point.
I’ve just played a 2012 game as Gingrich, and the Nebraska Caucuses have just occurred, leaving me with 1112 delegates and Romney with 1112 delegates. A message popped up saying that I had secured the nomination, despite the fact that the two major candidates both had the same amount of delegates. I haven’t played through to the convention yet, but as the previous times there has been a brokered convention, the candidate with the most delegates has won, I don’t know what will happen here.
Speaking of 2012. Santorum, as much as I dislike him, needs to be improved on the 2012 scenario. He never gets close to achieving the brief success he had in 2012.
@Jonathan,
I’ll look at 2012 again once the 2008 Beta is done.
I think candidate are to eager to drop out and endorse candidates when the field is large. I’m playing as Bloomberg and I’m attacking all the Republican candidates in a way to make them all even in the polls. The delegate count is also about even at the end of January. The race is completely undecided. Despite this, they’re dropping out and backing one candidate. While this would be necessary at some point, I doubt they’d do it so early when they’re all ambitious enough to run for president. Cruz ended up getting the nods, also from people who would never endorse him, like Huntsman and Christie. King refused to endorse him, which is accurate, though.
Can you build something that sets a level on how likely someone will drop out? Also, I think the Republican relationships should be re-worked as the party is completely split into two—some may endorse either side, like Rubio or Ryan.
It’s necessary that some of them drop out in the early primary elections to narrow down the field towards the candidates that remain. For instance, in the last election by February only Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, and Paul were left. After dropping out, they should endorse candidates they have a good relationship and/or ideological compatibility with though.
Maybe on the events scenario you can be left with different choices you can make about the event? Like in 2008 both Obama and McCain chose to support the bailout. You could take different positions on the event.
@Jake
The difference is that those 4 candidates in 2012 were clearly still in the game and the others were not. My scenario involves at least 8 candidates for one party that are dead even in the polls and delegates. They wouldn’t narrow the field if they are basically tied for 1st, they’d wait out at least through the big primary days in March.
I can’t think of any of the 8 that would self-sacrifice while they’re tied at 1st.
In the 2008 scenario, can you add Al Gore as a what-if candidate? Many were hoping he would run. He might have been in the 2008 scenario in one of your older versions of President Forever. Wikipedia has a list of candidates who declined to run in 2008. Russ Feingold, John Kerry and some others are also on the list.
I do not believe that Ted Cruz,s charisma should be tampered with, everywhere he goes he steals the show, so to speak he always has a huge crowd whether it is in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Colorado, or Texas.
He’s stealing the crowd for people that already agree with him. He isn’t making any converts and he’s isolating more people. I can’t see him with even a charisma of 3 anymore. He isn’t appealing anymore and he’s driving people away from him and even from his own party. He’s disastrous for the Republicans.
Ho ho, I just noticed something. If you go to Program Files – President Forever 2016 – text – specific there’s some text for Australia 2013. Removing this in the next update would be a good idea apart from moving the Plato quote to President Forever’s text file.
The only republicans that he is driving away are the old Rhinos, the McCain’s. The young republicans continue to embrace him. People like the fact that he is willing to stand up for their basic rights. Going back to a poll by the democratic polling firm PPP he jumped from 8% to 21% in one month. how can you say people are running from him.
That was before his shutdown fiasco. The “rhinos” aren’t all old Republicans. There are a lot of young Christie-Republicans. Cruz has a charisma of 2.
The young people are either Cruz Republicans, Paul libertarians or liberals. The McCain/Rove RINOs are old, that’s the only kind of Republican he’s alienating.
You also can’t say he’s more divisive than Hillary, people already have their minds made up about her and she’s certainly not going to get new converts. Everything you said about Cruz could be said about her: she has no crossover appeal.
No crossover appeal? You do realize RINOs will vote for her over Cruz? She gets over 60% in polls vs Cruz. The only way that means she hasn’t crossover is if 60% of the people are Democrat, in which case, a Republican would never win. Maybe she hasn’t true crossover appeal, but that also shows you how unappealing Cruz is if people will back Clinton just to not have Cruz in the White House. Cruz = charisma 2.
From what I’m reading here the issue seems to be more about his percentage than his charisma. If he’s got less crossover appeal then reducing the number of people leaning Republican would sort the problem I think.
@Anthony
I think the Santorum, Palin and Huckabee should have lower poll #s. When the three of them run with Christie, they all have 20% (Huckabee 19.9%). Some polls include one or all of these candidates and they don’t do nearly as well as Christie.
Christie 14%
Huckabee 11%
Palin 7%
Santorum 4%
Even in a 4 way match between Christie, Bush, and Rubio, Santorum gets a distant 4th place in one poll.
Currently, if everyone one of the candidates in the game runs, the #s are:
Christie 7.8%
Santorum 7.7
Palin 7.7
Huckabee 7.7
Paul 6.2
Rubio 6.1
Ryan 6.1
Bush 5.9
McDonnell 4.8
Cruz 4.6
Jindal 3.0
Walker 2.4
Thune 2.3
Sandoval 2.2
Martinez 1.5
Perry 1.1
Huntsman 1.1
Carson 1.1
King 0.5
Santorum, Palin, and Huckabee should probably drop below Cruz on this list, and McDonnell should drop below them. Perry would probably move up to below Walker. I think Huntsman is should probably be about tied with Sandoval. Carson would probably be last on the list. But overall, I think Santorum, Palin and Huckabee should be lower in the polls.
Here’s a new poll:
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/poll-republican-presidential-primary/2013/10/10/id/530476
Christie, 11.4 percent; Bush, 11.2; Paul 10.1; Paul Ryan, 9.1; Sarah Palin, 6.9; Ted Cruz, 6.5; Marco Rubio, 3.7; Rick Santorum, 2.8; Rick Perry, 1.6; Scott Walker, 1.5; Allen West, 1.4; Ben Carson, 1.3.
Next on the list of candidates, Bobby Jindal, 0.9 percent; Mitch Daniels, 0.8; John Kasich, 0.8; Rob Portman, 0.8; Jim DeMint, 0.4; Bob McDonnell, 0.3; Susana Martinez, 0.2; Nikki Haley, 0; Jon Thune, 0.
When respondents were asked who their second choice would be in the primary, Paul Ryan led all potential candidates with 12.6 percent, ahead of Bush’s 7.7 percent and Christie, who garnered 5 percent.
And when survey respondents were asked which two candidates on the list they would never vote for, Sarah Palin was cited by the most — 29.1 percent of those polled.
She’s too busy writing messages on dead bears anyway. Haw haw haw.
Hillary alienates right of center voters just as much as Cruz alienates Democrats. McCain’s support for her isn’t going to deliver his affiliated voters, just like Zell Miller’s didn’t deliver Kerry’s.
McDonnell’s #s should be way down.
@Jake re: McDonnell’s numbers, it’s on the to-do list, along with Jindal.
@Jonathan, yes, I think Santorum and Huckabee’s numbers should be lowered. It’s on the to-do list.
@Anthony
I’d lower Palin’s #s too because she’ll be tied with Christie if she isn’t. I don’t think anyone would consider he a possible front-runner.
I bet you will see a higher republican turnout if Cruz or Paul wins the Primaries than if Christie or Rubio do. That is why republicans have lost the last two elections, moderate candidates, and you cant tell me the RHINOS are going to vote for a democrat over a REPUBLICAN.
@SANC You mean she is to busy spreading commonsense solutions.You have a proud Sarah Palin supporter and a Tea Party conservative right here 🙂
@Dallas
I’m not arguing for or against her beliefs. I’m just saying she isn’t polling nearly as well as Christie or the other Republicans; however, the game puts her at a tie with Christie. Whether one prefers Christie or not, he is the front-runner for the Republican in most, but not all polls. And she isn’t tied with Palin in any poll that I know of.
@Kevin
You may be right about moderate Conservatives still voting for Cruz or Paul over Clinton; however, I don’t think any independent centrists would vote for Cruz or Paul (as the polls show– 60% Clinton victory over Cruz). I don’t think it is impossible that a centrist 3rd party runs to try and take moderate Republicans. I do think some Rhinos might not vote at all. I can’t see King, McCain, etc voting for Cruz. I’d wager even Bush Sr might not vote, if he’s still alive. Cruz will have to make some compromises to get votes, that will be heard for him. I think he’s very intelligent, which is why he scares me. But his America isn’t what I want to ever see, and I think that goes with 60% or more of Americans.
His knowledge doesn’t scare me. I guess we can agree to disagree on this. In the latest polls Paul and Cruz get the majority vote of people who describe themselves as very conservative and very liberal. I also believe that if put into the choice of a senator who actually cares about his constituents, and i can say that because i am from Texas and live in a small town where most of our city and county representatives are democratic and voted for Obama in 2008 and Romney in 2012, and Cruz in 2012 (who won with more votes than Romney in my county), that most people here would vote for a senator over a former secretary of state who says why does it matter if Americans were killed in a terrorist attack or a street side violence act, which we can all agree, i hope, that it was indeed a terrorist act. Also people want to go back to the true american dream where you have to work hard to earn money, not just get it handed to you, the same with healthcare. I myself believe that there would be more of a turn out with a young gun republican instead of the moderate RINOS who have lost the last two elections.
@Dallas
I don’t think much of either party or any of the parties to say the least though with my views that’s inevitable. I’m not an anarchist it’s just statism doesn’t go down well in America to say the least…
Actually, Paul has more independent appeal, even with some liberals, than Hillary will ever have. Hillary is like the Democrats’ GW Bush, the old guard who only appeals to party loyalists, not centrists. McCain’s support for her won’t deliver his party any more than, ironically, his pal Lieberman delivered his own party to vote for McCain.
Hold the presses, Christie has praised Obama again. About Hurricane Sandy. Again.
@Kevin
I’m from Texas, too. I live in San Marcos. I was in NYC for 5 years, but recently moved back.
@Jake
I think you discount that many people like Hillary because they liked the economy under her husband and they know he’d be involved. I’ve heard many Republicans in Texas mention liking Clinton more than Bush (towards the end of Bush’s term) or Clinton more than Romney. In fact, I know one card carrying Republican that hasn’t voted Republican since Reagan; yet, he refuses to join the Democrats. He says he’s waiting for his party to drop the lunatics. His favorite candidate is Huntsman. Once he dropped out of the race in 2012, he decided to support Obama, because he thought the rest of the Republican candidates would only hurt the country.
I don’t think Clinton has as broad of an appeal as her husband, because of some of the scandals she has been involved in since then
I know there’s many Democrats who are bothered by the direction their party has taken.
Again, Hillary has no appeal to Republicans, if Cruz alienates Democrats (and I know there’s Democrats who aren’t partisan who he would appeal to vs Hillary), Hillary does the same thing to the other party. She’s been involved in a lot of scandals.
As for McCain’s support for Hillary, to quote her what difference does it make? His friend Lieberman’s support for him didn’t deliver Democrats to his ticket.
Why would a liberal Republican not support Bush I, Dole, Bush II, McCain, or Romney though? They’re liberal Republicans like Huntsman, and Reagan was more conservative than all of them.
@Jake
Yeah, they need to clarify what they mean by liberal. It doesn’t make any sense. I know they can’t mean a Democrat or Green Party member, because they are at total odds with Cruz.
@ Anthony
A new poll is out by Harper. You can find it on Real Clear Politics in the poll section.
Republican South Carolina Primary:
Christie 19, Cruz 17, Paul 13, Rubio 12, Ryan 12, Jindal 6