Upcoming President Infinity – Version Ericson – 2.2.6

120 thoughts on “Upcoming President Infinity – Version Ericson – 2.2.6”

1. Hey, think I found a bug. Whenever I create an ad, it disappears. Just goes away. I’ve replicated the problem a few times on the most recent version of President Infinity.

2. Happens on both the 7 day turns, and 1 day turns. The day the ad is finished, it disappears.

3. An idea I have to better simulate the effects of camping out in a single state (John Kasich) would be to add a town hall option. It would not give as big a boost as barnstorming/policy speech but if you have town halls daily it would shore up support in the same way it did for John Kasich in New Hampshire this year as it has others in the past. Basically I would envision it giving very small but consistent momentum boost and it would also help slow down any negative momentum (from opponents negative ads or negative policy speech) and the more town halls you do the more it would help slow negative momentum.

4. @Chris,

   I like the Town Hall idea, but I imagine it as being included in the ‘Barnstorming’ activity. It’s true that it’s different – more of a focus on Issue Familiarity, say.

5. @Nick,

   By when the ad is ‘finished’, do you mean when it is created, or when it has run for the max. turns?

6. I think Jeb charisma should be degraded to 2, and his leadership to 3. Since the race has begun he actually never showed strenght and energy. His campaign is a disaster despite the support of the establishment.

7. @Anthony

   Stats like charisma or leadership could change with the start date, like the new poll feature. What are your thoughts on that? 🙂

   P.S. Shouldn’t be the color of the corruption bar the other way round, red indicates a bad number, but 1 is the best at corruption. Isn’t ist? 🙂

8. *it

9. @anthony
   I agree that barnstroming basically covers town halls but the more you barnstorm the less effective it is.
   The way I would see town halls working is that its effect would be very small unless you do it a lot in a single state to give you the same effect that John Kasich got from just practically living in NH.

10. @Rophil,

    I’ve been thinking that myself. Perhaps the next SC vote.

11. @Luki,

    Charisma and Leadership are meant to be static.

    Yes, corruption color should be other way around – noted.

12. @Chris,

    Yes, but doing townhall after townhall probably also decreases their effectiveness, since a lot of the boost is local media coverage as far as Barnstorming is envisioned.

    I do have modifying the penalty from doing repeated Barnstorming on the to-do list, though, so that it regenerates (similar to the Fundraiser system).

13. Do you plan to improve the drop out system in the primaries so that candidates sometimes drop out before the primaries and tend to drop out after poor showings in early primaries?

14. @anthony
    I’m satisfied with that (modifying the penalty)
    Another idea would be joint campaigning with a surrogate (like Bush is doing with his brother in SC)

15. The primary or pre-primary drop out thing would be hard to implement, I think. How do you take into account someone like Gilmore or O’Malley, who are barely in the polls, not dropping out until after at least one primary, then someone like Jindal or Perry, who probably have more actual support, dropping out before the primary.

16. @Jonathan That is supposed to be factored in by the Ambition attribute.

17. Antohny – On the day or week the ad is finished, it disappears. I never have a chance to deploy the actual ad.

18. @Nick,

    I will attempt to recreate this.

19. @Officerpup,

    Yes, improving the drop-out algorithm is on the to-do list. However, as Jonathan noted, this is more tricky than it might seem.

20. Scalia is dead. That’s a new event to add for sure.

21. @Jonathan,

    Yes, event should be added in next update.

22. Shouldn’t Ben Carson’s home state be changed to Florida?

23. I also believe Bernie Sanders campaign attributes should be
    strengthened. I would put his spin, strategic and command strenghts to 2.

24. And I find Trump so much better debater than Jeb. His debating should be upgraded to 4.

25. Trump is definitely not a 4 in debate.

26. @Jonathan: Why not? He is better than Bush, and they are both at 3. I think it is a mistake.

27. @Anthony

    What do you think about adding the middle initials of Trump, Kasich and Graham?
    I’ve read a while ago, that they had requested to appear with it on ballot.
    It would be:

    Donald J. Trump
    John R. Kasich
    Lindsey O. Graham

    I know it’s not a big issue, but anyway I wanted to mention it. Thanks! 🙂

    Luki

28. I think they’re both a 3 in debate. I think Trump has more charisma than Bush. Bush has actually done alright in the last two debates. Trump really can’t articulate anything very well. He speaks in generalities. It’s hard to really score Trump accurately because his issue knowledge and debate skill really should be low, but he somehow “wins.”

29. I wouldn’t have voted for Donald Trump but Donald J. Trump…now we’re in business hah

30. Haha Nick 😀

31. Could Lincoln Chafee be included in this version? I admit his presence was basically insignificant, but i am a completist…

32. Please. PR in general elections!
    Regards

33. I think turning on the PR feature for general elections would be cool as well for modding

34. A few points. Minor suggestions, both of them, but I thought I’d bring them up anyway.

    1. The Democratic primary would also include a “Democrats Abroad” primary. I know it’s a minor detail, but – as one of those Democrats living abroad – it bugs me that places like Guam/NMI/Puerto Rico are included, but DA isn’t. 7-8 million Americans live abroad – almost the population of Virginia – so it’s hardly an insignificant primary.

    Yes, we only have 17 voting delegates, but that’s another matter. And fundraising trips abroad are quite common for some political candidates – especially Congressmen and/or Senators, so including the state would make sense for that reason as well.

    The Republicans don’t have a global primary, but if every territory needs primaries for all parties, you could just set the delegates awarded by their foreign primary to 0.

    2. I just found out I can run web ads in 1968. And 1912. Neat! Plus, everyone is taken in by my TV ads in 1912 because they take them for magic.

    Maybe change this? Don’t know how easy it would be, but figured I’d bring this to your attention.

35. I instantly think of Tropico, (Genalissimo! We have oil, our cars will no longer run on magic!) when I see web ads, or tv ads before their time. It isn’t a big deal in my eyes, since I lampshade it.

    Though I wonder, how one can campaign for the Democrats Abroad? Because, the laws of a foreign politician going to another nation for campaigning purposes is fuzzy; and I’m not factoring in ads- as the laws for political ads are different than America’s.

36. Today is Presidents’ Day. I say we all mention the game on any social media we use today.

37. @Jonathan

    Done. 🙂

38. @Dylan

    As it happens, there are actually quite a few issues facing US citizens abroad. The main one is a law called FATCA, passed in 2010 by a bipartisan majority and designed to catch tax cheats with offshore accounts.

    The theory: Make US citizens living abroad (and their banks) report assets, so nothing can be hidden from the IRS.

    The practice: Reporting is a PITA. A lot of people fail to report their accounts by accident. Some had US parents, but have lived abroad all their lives. The first a lot of people know about FATCA is when a lawyer from the IRS contacts them.

    That’s without mentioning banks, which find the reporting requirements so costly and onerous that many aren’t taking US clients anymore. Without a bank, good luck taking out a mortgage/loan, saving for retirement, paying monthly bills, etc. Record numbers of Americans are giving up their citizenship because they’re sick and tired of it all.

    Anyway, I digress. The point is, there are a lot of issues specific to Americans abroad. The candidates have each addressed some of them in response to questions from Democrats Abroad, and DA holds “global town halls” online. That’s how most primary campaigning among US expats happens (in addition to local organizations like “Germany for Sanders” or – back in the day – “France for Obama”). You may also recall Obama’s trip to Germany in ’08, when more than 200,000 (!) turned out to see him speak in Berlin. So candidates can campaign abroad the way they would in the US.

    With that said, foreign events are less frequent due to the logistics, campaigns wanting to avoid a week of jet lag for their candidates, etc.

39. Would it be possible to have super delegates in the game?

40. @Anthony
    Could you ad Trump to 2012 campaign? It would be so funny!

41. @Anthony

    Is it possible to order regions alphabetically yet, if this is not the current order? 🙂

42. @Luki re ordering regions,

    Are you referring to anywhere in specific?

43. @Rophil,

    Re trump for 2012 – maybe, we’ll see when the 2012 campaign is updated.

44. @Jesse re superdelegates,

    I want to add them as endorsers, it’s on the possible to-do list.

45. @Jonathan,

    Thanks for this – and thanks to everyone for your support!

46. Ive noticed the game crashes around December whenever you play as certain candidates in 2016. I played as Christie and Kasich and the game crashed in December with this new update.

47. @Ben,

    Do you have a save game you can load to consistently cause this bug?

48. @John Doe,

    1. DA noted – we’ll see.

    2. Thanks for this – noted.

49. @Os,

    Chafee is on the to-do list, maybe this update.

50. @Luki re middle initials,

    You can always add the initials in a modded campaign, but changing their first name to include it.

51. @Rophil re Sanders attributes, noted.

52. @Jesse re Carson homestate,

    As far as I can tell, you’re right in that he now lives in Florida – it seems he is well known in Maryland, though, where he worked. Feedback welcome on this.

53. @Anthony re ordering regions,

    Yes, when I developed my Austrian scenarios I made this wrong and now the regions are not in the right order in all three scenarios… Before working on the next historical Austrian election (1998) on my list, I would like to solve this problem. 🙂

    Here’s the link:
    http://campaigns.270soft.com/2016/01/24/austria-2004-2010-and-2016/

54. @Anthony re middle initials,

    Ok, cool! Thanks 🙂

55. @Anthony

    More and more articles are talking about a possible brokered convention. I hope conventions in the game will be fleshed out before the real conventions occur. One thing to consider, would be the possibility of a candidate not running for president to be nominated, such as Romney.

    This would also be helpful for the old elections, when a dark horse becomes president. Perhaps, if no one gets a large enough majority after all but three candidates drop out, then whatever candidate has the best relations with those top 3, even if they aren’t an ON candidate, would be the nominee.

    Let’s say Trump, Cruz, Bush and Rubio make it to the convention, with votes in that order. Rubio drops out at convention, his votes go primarily to Cruz and Bush, but no one locks it up. Trump and Cruz have terrible relations with Bush and vice versa. Trump and Cruz are too ambitious to endorse each other and they have terrible relations with each other. The game, then looks at all Republican candidates set to OFF for one with the best relations with all three. If there is a tie, it randomly selects a compromise choice.

    I’m not sure if this will be hard to program. For old scenarios it could help accurately portray the elections, especially if you create a ballot screen, sort of like the debate results, if you want to show each ballot at a deadlocked convention.

    You could also let the user select the compromise choice from the list if that’s easier. This also brings up another thing. How about letting the user play as the nominee if they lose the primary? Or at list have it simulate the rest of the election so we can see the result. For now, it’s like your candidate gets executed for losing and never knows what happens.

    I’m excited by this game’s possibilities.

56. @Luki re ordering regions,

    Ok, I understand what you’re saying. I’ve added changing ordering in the Editor to the to-do list.

57. @Jonathan,

    We’ll see – it’s something to closely consider when implementing the new conventions feature.

    “How about letting the user play as the nominee if they lose the primary?”

    Yes, it’s on the to-do list, hopefully for the next update.

58. @Anthony re ordering regions

    Ok, thanks for that! 🙂

59. Anthony, have you seen this?
    http://www.vice.com/read/weve-used-video-games-to-predict-the-next-president-of-the-united-states-900?utm_source=vicefbus

60. @Jonathan,

    Thanks for this – took a quick look at it yesterday.

61. @Anthony,
    Every time I create a new campaign and I go to leaders and click on to give somebody a new picture it gets a bug and freezes up.
    This is with every campaign no matter where it came from and this is a little upsetting because I can’t add my own pictures or update because it always gets a bug.
    This just started happening when the new verison update came out.

62. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/poll-finds-bleak-outlook-for-a-bloomberg-independent-bid/ar-BBpDcK5?ocid=spartanntp
    Bloomberg poll

63. @Clayton,

    What button are you clicking, and what is the exact message? If possible, e-mail me ( http://270soft.com/contact/ ) with a screenshot.

64. fixed bug in modded campaigns where candidate flags could draw off edge of map, causing error.
    screens should now center properly on multi-monitor setups.

65. Would it be possible to consider enabling the PR method of electoral ballots in the general election?

66. @Anthony

    Is there a possibility to implement the endorsements of Jindal, Santorum, and Pataki (if you add him) for Rubio, Perry’s endorsement for Cruz and Graham’s for Bush, when starting with them as OFF? 🙂

67. @Luki,

    For pre-Jan. 1st, could add them as endorsed when add the date-specific endorsers feature. Some of them aren’t endorsers, though, so would have to add them as endorsers as well. We’ll see.

68. @Streiner,

    It’s on the to-do list, no ETA on it yet.

69. Okay. So I’m not sure this is a bug, but it is something that has been bothering me, so I’m mostly asking to make sure this is intended.

    I like to, for fun, create a custom campaign, make a custom candidate for myself and maybe a handful of others, turn off polling, Set their regional totals to about 5 percent (with a large home state bonus), and then set all candidates on on, January 1st Start date, and see whether I can win, usually with an ideologically out there candidate: now this works great at the start, even when things aren’t going my way: it’s fun and seeing this ideological spread and quite a few candidates winning delegates just amuses me. But then candidates start dropping out. And here the frustration begins: when we get down to maybe 5 candidates, suddenly one candidate will get a 20-30 percent bump sometime on election week (since I play with 7 day turns on), which back of the envelope math tells me is about all the undecided voters and voters for candidates who’ve dropped out, with only bumps of maybe 3 percent tops for other candidates).

    Now the first time I noticed this, it occurred in Clinton’s favour rather consistently, so I presumed that I had forgotten to address some strength of the Clinton campaign that the game had in the background, or there was built in strength that I couldn’t see; after all I didn’t work particularly hard on designing the campaigns and I was going to do more thorough testing using more sensible campaigns at first. And while it bothered me a bit (since it neatly countered my strategy of aggressive and overwhelming use of delegate math instead of popular vote, since I was on th far left wing of the Democratic Party), I figured that Clinton was a close second in many of the states and lead the national vote, and my campaign had some serious financial and scandal problems going on. So then, I naturally was curious and restarted the exact same campaign, except Clinton was off. But it happened again: this time in favour of Kristen Gillibrand, who would be polling at about 0 to 3 in a state but earning 30 to 35ish percent.

    But the weirdest thing about this tale is not that: after all, her wins were not overwhelming like Clinton’s. Instead, it’s when I forced her out of the race, by offering her withdrawal in exchange for all the PIP’s I had (around 15), suddenly there was chaos: while enough delegates from Gillibrand had swung my way that I was technically the nominee, the next couple of races went to multiple candidates who suddenly got large 30sh percent bumps in states, which I found curious.

    So my question is: is this an intended feature of the game, is it something that hasn’t been quite fixed yet, no one knows what’s causing it or I’m the only person who’s ever noticed it, which suggests that something is wrong on my end. Sorry for the long description, just it’s something that bothered me as I repeatedly tested it.

70. @Dylan K,

    Probably a bug – thanks for this.

71. @Anthony

    No problem. Now that I’m looking back on it, I’m mostly a bit amused, just for the anarchy that it causes during the race.

72. When undecided candidates change to “not seeking”, why don’t they drop out? They keep showing up in the crystal ball and polling and then they drop out (again/for real?) during the primaries.

73. @Anthony

    Is there any chance in the future on adding Al Gore as playable candidate in the 2016 scenario? 🙂

74. @Luki,

    No intention to do this officially, as he has (up to this point) not been someone who has a) been seriously considered, or b) seems to be seriously considering a candidacy.

75. @officerpup,

    Noted – thanks for this.

76. @Anthony
    An Alabama poll for GOP released from December 10 to 13 could be used. Trump leads with 35%, Cruz 15%, Rubio and Carson both at 12% and Bush and Huckabee at 4%.
    http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/01/poll_shows_trump_and_cruz_in_l.html

77. Any plans to do another version of Infinity for the Australian election this year? Would get the old one but looking for a Mac version.

78. @Matt,

    No plans at this point – we’ll see.

79. @Rophil,

    Thanks for this – noted.

80. 1968 > added more historically accurate demographics.
    1968 > replaced incorrect Michigan Senate endorser.
    1968 > significant changes to George Wallace platform.
    1968 > Edward Kennedy attributes adjusted.
    1968 > endorsers adjusted.
    1968 > general election start %s adjusted.
    1968 > revised regional issue centers.
    1968 > redesigned states with state conventions to make them easier to get some delegates but more difficult to sweep the states.
    1968 > added random economic effects for enhanced replayability.
    1968 > candidates removed from ballots they were not on historically, but are allowed to get themselves on ballots in game.
    1968 > added real primary results.

81. 1968 > replaced generic populations with intercensal estimates for 1968 as well as adding correct voting eligible populations
    (this reduces the cost of ads to a more reasonable amount and provides more accurate historical vote totals).
    1968 > raised the money coefficient from 15 to a number based off 100 for 2016 (subtracting four for each general election).

82. 1968 > ads > removed ‘web ad’ type.

83. 1968 > Lyndon Johnson > primaries blurb > fixed typo.

84. @Anthony

    I really appreciate you fixing the 1968 scenario. One of my issues with it is that the candidates are too powerful in relation to the 2016 candidates. Lots of 4s and 5s among the candidate abilities.

85. @Anthony
    Do you think it would be possible to show the total votes during the primaries, or just add a option for total votes by region for democrats and republicans?

86. @Anthony

    Same here, excited to test the ‘new’ 1968 scenario. Thank you for working on it. 🙂

87. @Anthony
    How about making it impossible or difficult for Cruz or Trump to get any mainstream endorsements? I”ve had Kasich endorse Trump, and I don’t think he’ll ever do that, for instance.

88. @Anthony
    GOP schedule for Super Tuesday should updated. Georgia, Wyoming, North Dakota and Alaska vote on March 1st.

89. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016#Schedule_of_primaries_and_caucuses
    Here is the list in order for the Republican primaries

90. @Anthony – I haven’t been able to replicate the glitch I mentioned earlier in subsequent games.

91. Ok, thanks for this.

92. @Jonathan,

    I think it’s an open question whether someone like Kasich would eventually endorse Trump if he won the nomination. I think it should be tough, but not impossible. We’ll see.

93. @Rophil,

    Noted.

94. @Jesse,

    Thanks – noted.

95. @Jacob re vote totals for primaries,

    I haven’t looked into this. Programmatically, it would be fairly simple (just use past primary data, modify by momentum and GOTV, say). But I’d have to look at it. We’ll see.

96. 1968 > Robert Kennedy > Charisma 5 -> 4.
    1968 > George Wallace > Leadership 5 -> 4.
    1968 > Hubert Humphrey > Experience 5 -> 4.

97. @Anthony

    Can you make it possible to adjust a VP for reelection?
    For example in a 2016 Simulation Clinton won with Klobuchar, I’d like to make a rematch with Clinton ON on the Democratic side and several Reupublicans ON.

    I bet she’ll not choose Klobuchar again, thus it would be nice to make it possible to set a certain VP for special circumstances like rematches. 🙂 Of course this should only be optional as it is not necessary for elections with no incumbent Presidents. 😀

98. Is it possible that wen your playing the 1968 scenario that RFK could actually get assassinated? And then you could continue the game as becoming one of the candidates who supported RFK.

99. There currently is no ability to do that in the game, but allowing scripted events to specify candidates withdraw or what have you might be implemented – we’ll see.

100. @Luki,

     Can you rephrase this? I’m not sure what you’re saying here.

101. @Anthony,

     Sorry for writing so weird, English is just my 2nd language. I’ll try it again. ^^

     I just wanted to know if you can make it possible/optional to give a candidate a certain running mate while simulating the primaries. This would be a decent option for reelections with incumbents in order to give them the same VP they chose in their first election.

     I hope it is clear now, if not I try it another time. 😀

102. 2016 > Reps > updated primaries schedule.

103. @Luki,

     Yes, the Veep selection system could be upgraded to include, say, chances a given running mate is chosen. We’ll see.

104. 2016 > Dems > updated primaries schedule.

105. 2016 > Reps > updated FPP or PR and % thresholds for primaries and caucuses.

106. 2016 > Dems > set all primaries and caucuses to PR, 15% threshold.

107. 2016 > Dems > updated specifics for primaries and caucuses (delegates, primary or caucus, open or closed).

108. 2016 > Dems > updated primaries news story profile bonuses.

109. 2016 > Polls > Primaries > Reps > Alabama > added AL.com poll, set date to Dec. 12th, 2015.

110. Help file updated.

111. 2016 > Events > added event ‘Democrat Edwards Wins Louisiana Gubernatorial Runoff’.

112. 2016 > Events > added event ‘San Bernardino Terrorist Attack’.

113. 2016 > Events > added event ‘Justice Scalia Passes Away’.
     2016 > Events > added event ‘Justice Scalia Funeral’.

114. 2016 > Events > added event ‘Obama State of the Union Address’.

115. @Anthony

     Just a thought. Nikki Haley’s response to Obama’s State of the Union Address could be perhaps an event too.

116. Hey @anthony!

     First, terrific game. Can’t stop playing this. And I love how close you are to the community, and are willing to listen to our suggestions. One I think you should consider, is the possibility to leave your party and run as an independent.

     The Atlantic did a piece recently detailing how there might be a possibility for a 3rd party run[1] and politico also did a piece detailing the anger from the conservatives and Trump and how the GOP might launch a 3rd party candidacy[2].

     So, in a possible future update, is this something you might consider?

     [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/will-conservatives-mount-a-third-party-challenge-if-trump-is-the-nominee/470499/

     [2] http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/12/donald-trump-2016-third-party-bid-213449

117. @Luki

     I really didn’t think it was that newsworthy. I barely remember it even being mentioned in the news.

118. @Dylan,

     Thanks for this feedback – outside of 1912, I can’t think of another major candidate where this has happened.

     In 2016, though, the possibility of running third party was used by Trump as a way to neutralize potential attacks by the RNC, and was a major issue.

     So, it’s something in this campaign that has been important. We’ll see.

119. I think that Bernie Sanders’ campaign attributes could be improved. I do not think that O’Malley should have a higher spin rating than him.

120. @Jesse,

     Feedback noted – or perhaps O’Malley’s should be decreased.