President Infinity – Version Ericson – 2.3.8

23 thoughts on “President Infinity – Version Ericson – 2.3.8”

1. Is there any possible way that you can show primary/caucus/general election results down to the county level? Now THAT would complete this game (along with governance post-election).

   Joshua

2. I think having county level results would be fun, yet I can only the imagine the strain that it’ll put on the game, and cause the game to run at a much slower pace. There’s roughly 2000 counties in the US. Imagine 2000 ‘elections’ being programmed, now imagine that multiplied by 2 or 3, or even more(Depending on the number of parties you have active). The amount of work trying program this feature- I love it, just so I can recreate Obama running up the score in Cleveland, and through that winning Ohio).

   Now, I’d love to see the game have voting blocks sometime in the future. But this update will help make my custom scenarios alot easier to create.

   Thanks, 270 staff

3. @Joshua re counties,

   It could be done, but a lot of work. You would have to add variables for each county, so instead of 50+ regions you are dealing with (as Dylan said) a much larger number.

4. Yeah, I think that would slow the game down too much. It’s also probably unnecessary to have in the game until every county gets its own electoral vote or something. As for me, I don’t really think I’d pay attention to a county map.

5. For the next update, could you change Jill Stein’s running mate to Ajamu Baraka?

6. @Jonathan,

   If something like that were to happen, by CD sounds more feasible in terms of the game engine as it stands. Some E.V.s are apportioned by CD, also.

7. @EAY,

   Yes, noted.

8. I would like an option that allows one to run as a third party if they lose the primaries instead of kicking one out of the game. Also have it where it would split the party vote. Just to make it more interesting and I like adding voting blocks.

9. @Scott,

   Request for ability to run as third-party noted.

10. hi admin its possible activate with button ”endorses” of 2008 i like minor candidate endorsed by mayor candidate the percentage go auto to minor

11. during election nights could you add the news feed from president forever 2008 in to the game

12. @Anthony,

    I’ve been playing a long time with the president infinity, also president forever and I noticed the following scenario:

    EXAMPLE I have tested over and over again:

    They are three parties in the primaries: FREEDOM PARTY, LIBERTY PARTY AND JUSTICE PARTY.

    They are four candidates: A, B, C and D. Candidate A is alone in the primaries for FREEDOM PARTY, candidate B and C are contesting LIBERTY PARTY nomination, and finally candidate D is alone the primaries of JUSTICE PARTY.

    I am candidate A. Candidate A offers candidate B for it’s endorsement after seeing B will loose by a razor thin margin his party nomination to candidate C. Candidate A and B have 100% same platform, but also note that candidate B and candidate C are from the same party but do not share any platform at all. Let’s not forget about candidate D, who also happens to NOT share anything with candidate B on platform. After candidate B endorses candidate A, LIBERTY PARTY looses 50% of the share of the vote, AND THE PROBLEM IS THAT SHARE GOES TO CANDIDATE D! Not me(the one who is getting the endorsement) and obviously not candidate C, who is from the same party as B. On a real-basis, I will think that the votes of candidate B will AT LEAST split between the person he is endorsing (in this case candidate A) and perhaps candidate C, who is from the same party as candidate B. ¿Why the share of the vote goes to candidate D if they have no platform coincidences? Are they are other variables for that kind of the share of the vote move?

13. @Gabe,

    Election night will probably be updated.

14. @Victorraiders,

    Thanks for this idea – we’ll see.

15. @Andres,

    So you are talking about endorsements across party lines leading to counter-intuitive results? If so, then this sort of thing will change with Favorability.

16. Is there a tutorial or something on using the Map editor? I have an Illinois map that I installed, but I’ve no clue how to set the county names, populations, etc.

17. @Jeff,

    Can you tell me at what point you are exactly?

18. I have the map imported (got it from the forums)… I just don’t know how to name the counties, or set the stats for them.

19. Edit the existing regions, or add new regions and set their values.

    Editor > Regions > select region > Info and Editor > Regions > select region > Map.

20. So on a few things that I encountered:

    – There should be “How Well Known” system that would determine how likely a candidate is going to make it into the News or get associated bonuses, or even have a chance to get an interview. As it stands right now everyone is on level ground, so someone like say Jill Stein would receive the same amount of attention in the Game’s media as say Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, which really shouldn’t be the case. Conversely this would also affect the effectiveness of barnstorming given the candidate may be more or less likely to be covered in the local media. As a cost for this attention however you could make it so that a candidate missing from the campaign trail is more noticeable given the attention being given them, the inverse being true when the candidate is virtually being ignored. This “How Well Known” status would operate on a system similar to what exists for Issue Knowledge and Debating Skill, though with the caveat that it depletes far quicker.
    – – Actually, a way to turn off the “Not Campaigning” function would be very beneficial for some of the earlier scenarios, especially ones where it was uncommon, even looked down upon, for Presidential candidates to campaign themselves.

    – Party momentum seems to work as the momentum of all the candidates in that Party, which while making sense, sometimes leads to rather wonky results. An example is when I was running a user-made scenario where the Greens had primaries that concentrated on different States than the traditional Republican and Democratic early States. By the time those primaries rolled around and finished (in Massachusetts, Illinois and Minnesota), the sheer concentration and positive momentum caused by myself and the other Green candidates had made it so that the Party was polling in the double digits in all three of those States. This also proved true for the Libertarian Party’s early Primary States. Now I’m not all that certain how the game calculates the benefits of momentum, but as it stands it is awkwardly warping the set-up for the General Election, and often to the benefit of the Party which has more candidates in its Primary. At the very least it should be looked at and determined if there is some way to mitigate it, or make it so that Party percentages remain fairly static until a nominee is chosen.

    – There should be some sort of variance in the costs of using surrogates; as it stands right now surrogates can be prohibitively expensive for minor candidates not capable of raising a lot of cash, and I’ve found that surrogates are often quite vital when it comes to maintaining momentum that can’t be provided by advertising.

    – Organization and Footsoldiers should have their costs be adjusted based on the population within a political unit, they should not have a flat cost. It really shouldn’t cost the same to maintain a full infrastructure apparatus in Iowa compared to, say, California or Texas. This would actually strongly benefit smaller candidacies, initially, but if they can’t make it big in the early States then they’ll be liable to not be competitive in those bigger contests. This has historically proven to be the case with a number of different campaigns such as with Pat Robertson, Ron Paul, Patrick Buchanan, and so on.

    – The Ideologue and Ambition functions need to be looked at some more, as it seems candidates are still hanging on far later than they should be in the primaries, when often they should be dropping out around Iowa and New Hampshire at the latest; historically that is when most of the field clears up.

    – There should be some system set up for establishing sectional Parties or candidacies; if I were to create an 1860 scenario for example, I wouldn’t want the Republican AI to bother campaigning or creating footsoldiers in the South where they wouldn’t even be on the ballot; same for Storm Thurmond and the States’ Righters in 1948.

    – I REALLY wish I could still put in values like (49.96) in percentages, instead of having to round to numbers like (50) or (49). It makes sense when you are dealing with larger Parties, but when you are working with minor Parties who might often struggle to even get (0.50) in a State, and you are forced to choose between (0) or (1), it makes for a rather unsatisfying result.

21. In response to the part of the Reply I got:

    “Having said that, this isn’t how interviews work, and Jill Stein does not on average receive the same amount of interview requests or successful barnstorming as a Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.”

    – You’re right, but I don’t think that Stein should have a (16%) chance of getting an interview compared to say Donald Trump’s (24%) chance or Hillary Clinton’s (25%). However the interviews themselves work (I’ll freely admit I’m not sure how they’re done), I’d argue that the chances for getting an interview for most candidates should be much, much lower.

    Suggestions that I forgot to mention in my original post/Email:

    – Ability to Organize the News Stories – This is a big one in that it does take a “considerable” (in a sense) time to go through all the News stories in a Day to determine whether there are any you want to spin. If I could, I’d like a “Long-View” (showing the candidate and the Momentum Stats, with the possible actions, with six or nine stories visible at a time), a “Candidate-Specific View” (showing only those stories relating to the selected candidate), and a “Party-Specific View” (showing only those stories relating to Party candidates, primarily for the primary phase). If it were possible to not only able to organize the Stories this way, but to lock such an option in place so you don’t have to switch over to that view every turn, it would make that section of a game far smoother than it is presently.

    – It might be a good idea to set up an “Organizational” stat for Parties. What I’ve found is that at the start minor Parties, especially with their weak fundraising skills, struggle to even just cover the organizational costs that come with having basic organization in every Political Unit; they really have no business having an equal level of organization compared to Major Parties. At the same time, it would be useful for scenarios where a Party or Parties have better than average organization which the candidates does not need to spend precious CPs building up.

    – You should tweak Internet Advertising so that it’s running cost is ($0.01) per person in those areas covered, whilst also allowing it to run for the more traditional five days. This would allow for the pricing to be a bit more balanced and keep players or the AI from spamming its usage (nor should it be the first choice for better tiered candidates given its weak base power), but also hold back from needing to create a new Internet Ad every, single, day. When you are one of the weaker candidates and that is the only kind advertising you can do, the repetition of creation can get a bit much.

    – When an advertisement shows me the Broadcasting Budget, it should also show me the cost for running it through all its remain turns. So for example if I am running an ad for ($2.7 Mil) on the Radio, and it has (7) days left, then there should be another statistic saying the remaining cost to run this out would be ($18.9 Mil). When trying to plan for the long term, especially when preparing for an advertising splurge, it is especially useful to know the costs beforehand, and it saves people from having to do a little extra math. Our brains could all use the exercise of course, but why not make it simpler eh?

22. A few comments

    1. Having some sort of default Org. Strength by region for each party is a good idea. We’ll see.

    2. Sum of ad costs a good idea also.

    Thanks for these.

23. Hi!
    Is there any way of slowing the election night down. I would say it’s the most exiting part of the game and I’d love to follow how the votes come in, how many precincts are reporting and so on. Thanks for this amazing game.

    Axel