Prime Minister Infinity – U.K. – Version Amundsen – 1.8.7

14 thoughts on “Prime Minister Infinity – U.K. – Version Amundsen – 1.8.7”

1. UKIP certainly need more surrogates (don’t know if this is the british word for it) and Clacton, Rochester & Strood are UKIP seats. Clacton with Mark Reckless (who would be a better than average MP 3/4 stars) would almost certainly be due a win.

   Further the percentages still seem to be a bit off. Especially in constituencies that have had by-elections or local elections that show a greatly reduced lib dem vote and an increased UKIP vote.

   I would also restate that libdems need a harsher drop in seats where they weren’t top three and a slight drop in areas where they were in the top two and then little drop in places where they hold seats. This is important because the lib dems are a party with particular strongholds that they can hold even in the face of a wipeout. At the moment they get taken down to 10 or less than 10 seats, which is a bit ridiculous even dispite the polling.

   Concerning the Cons, they have massive majorities in the south and south east which seem a bit out of odds.

   Also I would mention two things:

   1. I don’t know if you can implement it, but there is a spending limit in each constituency in the UK. This is designed to stop parties just pouring money into particular places and winning. If you could model this, that would be great.

   2. I don’t know if random news stories are in yet, but if not then don’t worry but if they are, i barely see them. No story about NHS nurses or waiting times, nothing about an EU law or about a big business dodging taxes. Just need more of that flavour.

   All in all, fantastic start, I loved my first game with this update. Decided to try out the kippers, got 4 seats and the Conservatives won with a super narrow majority of 330 around while Labour came second at 260 around. The SNP took scotland by storm and the Libs died a painful and quiet death. Greens held 1 seat.

   Keep up the fantastic work! 😀

2. The game already looks amazing but I’m having two issues that are stopping me from playing in an enjoyable way, perhaps somebody could help?

   1) What happened to flying into regions and why is it a specific seat now? Barnstorming a specific seat instead of a region means it’s harder to access a wider pool of voters I presume?

   2) How do ads work nationally? I keep creating national ads and when I press run at the side it asks which region and the only wy for me to run it nationally is to click all 650 constituencies? Why? What happened to regional ads and is there a quick way to select all?

   I will provide proper feedback once this is worked out,

   Thanks!

3. @Connor,

   Thank you for this feedback!

   Re percentages, I have made note of these points. Currently, the %s are based on the last election’s outcomes on a seat by seat basis, plus a universal swing based on the most recent national polling. I will be going through and fine-tuning on a regional and seat by seat basis.

   Any suggestions for UKIP campaigners (surrogates)?

4. @Required,

   Thanks for this! Barnstorming is usually done on a constituency specific basis. So, a leader will go to a particular constituency, meet with the local candidate, and so on. It transforms the game from a region-based strategy to a seat-based strategy, which as far as I can tell is more realistic for things like barnstorming.

   You can select all constituencies at once for an ad by clicking the ‘hand’ icon at the bottom of the screen. I have added a pop-up text saying ‘Select All’ in the latest internal when a player hovers the mouse cursor over this button, to make it clear what it does.

5. Percentages are the one major issue preventing me from enjoying this update to any great extent. I try to bring my real-world knowledge into my targeting strategy, but this is rather difficult given how little correlation there is with the game.

   As for UKIP campaigners, I’d say people such as Suzanne Evans, Douglas Carswell, Mark Reckless and Diane James would fit the bill. They are all parliamentary candidates as well though.

6. 1. It takes way to long to target seats or build up footsoldiers. The election only runs for two months, so you can only properly target a handful of seats.

   2. You have a choice of running ads in 1/650 seats, or nationally. No regional option. That is a bit silly for regional parties like the SNP! And unrealistic anyway – seats are geographically small

   3. No option for billboards, despite this being the number 1 paid for form of advertising

   4. Remember that political adverts are ILLEGAL on UK TV!! UK TV is heavily regulated in an election period with a legal requirement for equal coverage of all parties.

   5. More invitations to appear in radio and TV are needed – these should be almost daily, especially for things like “Today” on Radio 4

7. I have created a percentages file. It tries to simulate Ukip support based on support for immigration and anti-EU around the UK. It doesn’t have bigger Lib Dem support in strongholds because there’s mixed evidence for this (see bad Lib Dem polls in Sheffield, Hallam; Manchester, Withington; Twickenham; Inverness). It’s more realistic to me. The admins can contact me and I’ll give it to them.

8. @anthony_270admin

   Great to hear about the percentages, I look forwards to being able to actually win Clacton :L If you don’t mind, how far is the data going? are you using by-elections or going deeper and looking into local council elections?

   On UKIP campaigners I would say that Michael has got it pinned down, all of those he mentions are also candidates for the leadership as well. However a controversial but interesting one would also be Neil Hamilton because he is currently trying to take the leadership off Nigel and is currently the leader of the conservative faction of the Kippers, whereas all the mentioned peeps in Michael’s post are by and large Nigel’s allies bar Douglas and Mark who are somewhat independent in their views.

   I would say that Neil wouldn’t be used by Nigel as a surrogate because of controversy and rivalry but hey that’s your choice! 😀

   By the by it would be interesting to see more endorsers at a local level but I understand if you’re not going that far (forgive me if I seem demanding, I can go too far sometimes in my desire to make things realistic). I was thinking of something like the Hereford Times in herefordshire or the Gloucester Citizen in Gloucester and so on and so forth.

   Also I would reiterate I think it is too easy to complete the process of getting endorsements from the big newspapers. Especially as some didn’t endorse anyone last election. I wonder what the development position would be on this?

   Again great work! I just played a game without the conservatives and tried to deprive labour of a majority, great fun (didn’t win though :L)!

9. Names.
   “UKIPs” -> “UKIP”
   “Lib-Dem” -> “Lib Dem”
   “Lib-Dems” -> “Lib Dems”
   Labour’s generalelection_description, “Milliband” -> “Miliband”
   Lib Dems’ generalelection_description, “Lib-Dems” -> “Lib Dems” and the discussion of a majority should be removed. The discussion should be whether he can stop his party losing half its seats.
   It’s strange that Lib Dems are positioned to the “right” of Conservatives instead of to their left.
   “SNPs” -> “SNP”
   DUP’s generalelection_description: “increase DUP’s seats” -> “increase the DUP’s seats”
   SF’s generalelection_description: “the Sinn Fein” -> “Sinn Fein”
   Alliance generalelection_description: should not be about becoming the leading party in Northern Ireland.

10. @Michael,

    Thanks for the UKIP surrogate suggestions – noted.

11. @John Birch,

    Thanks for these suggestions! All noted.

12. @EPG,

    E-mail sent.

13. @Connor,

    Thanks for the Neil Hamilton suggestion – noted.

    Yes, regional newspaper endorsers will be added. They’re not in yet because a change has to be made to the game engine first in order for them to work.

    Endorsements too easy from big newspapers noted.

14. @EPG,

    Thanks for these suggestions – implemented in the latest internal.