pman

Smart- real smart

The price you pay for having an era still be massively tilted in your favor

So whose taking bets on who the Blue Party nominates? Clearly they're going to get to pick whomever they want, from whichever faction they want. Personally, I'd obviously pick Dr. King but are the others ok with letting Jnewt be President once again? Pick wisely, Senate Majority Stevens is feeling spicy. haha.

It's actually an attractive map that oddly enough makes sense. For the most part, the coast likes shopping at the Pottery Barn and the rest of the country doesn't know what it is.

Thanks Eric for running this- can't be easy running two of them at once.

Really smart campaign from @dkh64 . You nominated the strongest possible ticket. The era is stacked against our side but even with that, it's hard to win an election where you start down 49-15. I've never won re-election in a playtest so it's nice. Well, it's time to bring back the Pottery Barn! Let's hope down ballot is kind as well.

lol I'll stay out of it. I never should have complained in the first place. I am sure I am just nervous about potentially losing two Presidential elections in two days but it's just about having fun and testing rules.

Actually- I shouldn't have said anything, not my convention, not my play test. I obviously am just trying to get any advantage I can going into the general election. I'll stay out of it- my apologies.

Well Eric can obviously decide but I think the rules are pretty clear, in the primary era, you go speeches, 2nd ballot then the rules challenges (which you're doing), in that order and only if the 2nd ballot doesn't produce a winner, which I think it is about to do. Did Primary decide the winner?: If in the primary era, then the nomination is settled if the leading candidate has enough delegates for nomination. That is, the nomination is settled on the first ballot. If the primary failed to produce a winner because every state didn’t have a primary, then you will move to complete the First Ballot after the Nomination Speeches. If every state had a primary and the winner was not determined, then the Second Ballot will take place after nomination speeches.

Can he do this- you guys are mid convention, you go straight from momentum to voting. I would think he could only do this during the rules round.

Hoping for a repeat speech of the one he had irl

@Rezi solid platform, moving mods 1 spot closer to us is super important given the deals I believe will happen at the Blue Convention. Thanks!

lol I was right with the Shirley - LBJ election and I think I am right with this one. But it’s not a guess, the sheets currently add up to a Blue victory.

Look at the sheets-it’s possible but unlikely for us

Does a Convention that had 50 state primaries (52 in this playtest), go straight to the 2nd round? Aren't states bound by their primaries? Anyway, I've never seen a contested Convention in the Primary era before so it'll be interesting to see.

There's no penalty for starting a crisis, unless the incumbent President is on the ballot? Just want to make sure. So LBJ could start 5 crisis, if he's not running, there's no added penalty to his Party besides the built in incumbent Party penalties/ bonuses?

I'll take it, 7 points and a Con from Texas +1 in ag states and someone I don't morally despise? Sounds good. Now back to losing in 1800, haha.

I have this problem- I want to get Will's big ag card bonus (at least the +1) into the picture and I want to have a reasonable chance at winning the VP roll but I don't want to select someone I can't stand morally (most of Will's and to be honest a decent number of my pols). I also want to get a bonus in a winnable big state. Anyway, I feel like I am about to lose two elections in two days but I found someone who gets most of the boxes checked. Regardless, here we go: I'll select John Connally from @Willthescout7

Well, @dkh64, I think you're going to win. You could campaign in Quebec and still win looking at the sheets.

While Stephens is trying to figure out the VP pick @Rezi will handle the platform- we'll farm it out to him, let him pick the 5 platform points

I’ll look at some possible electoral maps and post later- if @dkh64 posts his moves and you have to run this election I am sure you’ll be preoccupied anyway, haha

Wrong election thread

lol on to the convention we go. With those numbers, it's Shapp's if Jimmy wants it. Not too hard picking up the extra 90 delegates. With that said, I am sure Jnewt can try to cut some deals to make things happen. He just has a long way to go.

Clay quite likes VA so he'll stay there for another speech, this time in Manassas VA. He'll campaign in his home region of the Upper South and we'll try "incumbents using the power of their office" for a second time. So basically, nothing changed from what I wanted to do last night. VA is way too important.

A recap of Eric's two Playtest going into two very contested Presidential elections. In 1800, you have the Federalists with a chance to do something they never did in real life, have a two term President/win two elections in a row. Really, one thing this game really gets right is how tough early American history is on whatever Party you call the Red side. The Red side in real life won 3 elections between Washington and Lincoln, that's 3 one term elections in a span of about 80 years. Every time they did win an election (Adams, William Henry Harrison, Taylor) they got crushed when going for re-election (at least in terms of electoral college vote, Clay was close with the popular vote when going for Harrison's 2nd term). Moral of the story is that, the Red Party has no business even being close to winning re-election, history was unkind to the Red Party until Lincoln. Yet here they are, close to winning re-election despite doing a meh job of running the country from 1820-1824. Then in 1948, well, it's just wild that no human has won an election for the Red Party in over a year. The crazy thing is, the Nuclear and Neo-Con eras are probably the most fun eras of the game to play because many states are toss ups. There's no reason that it didn't go back and forth the way it did in real life during those two eras. What do they have in common? The Blue Party in 1800 and the Red Party in 1948 are both divided, fractured and/or CPU heavy teams. Some have no strategy. Some have inconsistent strategy. Some have players who clearly aren't on the same page. In this way I'd contend that the multiplayer gameplay is actually more in-line with real life than the player vs cpu game. Yes, I just gave two examples of how the multi-player aspect of it deviated from the historical norm (potentially so in 1800, the Red Party could easily lose that election thus keeping things in line with real life) but the reality is that democracy is a multiplayer exercise. Parties struggle when they're divided and have bad strategy. I think the CPU version is probably going to be easy to game/ manipulate. No such possibility in these types of play tests. Anyway- we'll see if these elections bring us back inline with the norm (Blue dominance in 1800 and back and forth divided governance in 1948).