pman

On the campaign bus leaving New Hampshire: Tip O'Neill- "Where am I taking this thing?" Hubert- "Let's go to Illinois, I want the challenge of beating those other guys face to face. I really think I am finding my sea legs here guys." Franklin Roosevelt Jr- "Honestly, shouldn't we just go to Wisconsin, everyone else is ignoring it." RFK- "Plus, didn't you just talk about how you like cheese and union workers?" Hubert- "But seriously guys, I think I can win Illinois." Tip O'Neill- "We're going to Wisconsin, we'll probably still lose but at least the cameras won't be there to document it." Tip and the Hubert crew will focus on Wisconsin.

I forget, do kingmakers impact primaries the way they do the convention?

Oh Hubert, you can’t even debate. That’s ok, keep fighting the good fight.

On the way out of the Howard Johnson's the depressed men from breakfast are suddenly buoyed by a trifecta of friendly faces. Over walks the surprisingly hansom face of Robert Kennedy Jr, Franklin Roosevelt Jr and Adlai Stevenson the Third. These group of un-elected kids are called the legacies. RFK says "lets go fight this fight for the working people of America." The men from before say "you're right, lets do this." Meanwhile in the campaign bus parked across the lot, Tip O'Neill hunks the horn and screams "hurry the hell up." That's right, Tip is driving the damn bus. The others sprint towards the bus, nobody makes Tip O'Neill wait, not even JFK's younger brother. In the bus, the candidate, the one the waitress didn't know (she served him coffee 10 minutes before being asked about him) wakes up in a cold sweet. Is Tip honking at him? He's confused but that's ok, he's Hubert Humphrey. He goes back to sleep in his seat.

Somewhere in a cool, hip Howard Johnson's cafe on the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border, a bunch of nondescript moderate-liberal Democrats chat over eggs and bacon. "Can you believe the group of candidates the Red team is throwing out there" one says. The other says "yeah, what do you want, nuclear war or economic collapse?" A third chimes in "thank God Patton died or they'd be trotting him out in front of America." Then they remember Hubert Humphrey is their faction leader and they go back to their eggs and the table remains silent for far too long before one of them finally says "honestly, I think we might win this." The rest of the table laughs until the waitress comes to the table, the optimistic one asks "hey, can I get one of those cheese danishes and by the way, have you ever heard of Hubert Humphrey?" The waitress says "no, but I do like the two actors running for President". The optimistic one mutters to himself, "Kennedy's a Senator". At least the danish was good. Good morning everyone!

I edited my actions

Change that, Hubert Humphrey focuses his campaign on New Hampshire--- he loves snow and trees.

We, the Liberal Democrats understand that our faction leader is about as likable as an old potato and he's running against two of the most charismatic figures in American political history in Reagan and JFK however, we'd like to give Humphrey a chance to prove himself before we replace him with someone better suited to for the spotlight. Who knows, maybe he'll surprise us. With that said, my faction is mostly just playing for fun here, we're the Timberwolves, just happy to make the playoffs, we don't expect to win it. Therefore, we will run Hubert Humphrey as a major candidate and Governor Michael DiSalle as a minor candidate (O-HI-O)

Bring it on Nixon, we’re ready for you !

President Butler isn't out of it yet folks! 😉

Cal's the comeback kid. Don't count him out. The Monroe Doctrine always made sense it's so much easier for the USA to defend this continent than it is for European powers to control lands an ocean away. I hope my friends in the 1960's playtest don't get the wrong lesson from this. It's one thing to control the sphere of influence in your own continent and the adjoining continent. It's another thing to try and control a jungle in a different hemisphere. Hopefully whoever is President in 1960 doesn't try and repeat Cal's wars but in Asia!

Man, one crisis just leads to another crisis.

A good fashioned wave election. Of course if the wars turnaround and the economy recovers we could be looking at an entirely different wave in 2 years. Clearly you guys are in a period of political (and economic and military) volatility. Interesting.

Interesting!

A lot of pretty conservative amendments like the Christianity, English official language and military funding bills are all very close to passing going into the vote swaying. Somehow against all odds, it seems like the USA is becoming a more conservative country in this version of reality.

Yeah, that’s how I am. What attracts me to this game is in attempting to create a more perfect union, even if that means I have to lose a few elections in the process. It’s obviously a balancing act between ideological purity and pragmatic politics but I lean more towards ideological purity. Though I do respect Cals strategy of playing to win each round.

I am impressed with the sheer amount of strategy Cal plays with. I know you have to be in power to promote your ideology therefore every effective politician has to play to win but Cal is definitely giving off some serious Machiavelli vibes with his gameplay! Impressive.

Jimmy’s really running hard from the start, I like it!

Yeah, very true! I definitely see the usefulness of this game in a government class. Students really struggle to understand the electoral college and the inner workings of our system. In the old days I could do a simulation or role play but the computer game gets to the heart of the matter faster and more efficiently with a greater amount of personalization and outcomes.

Truly enjoyed following this today. Can't wait to see how things turn out. If Cal's faction win these 3 wars, I pity the opposition.

It's hard to keep track ,lol. But again, realistic based on the principals of manifest destiny. I know manifest destiny was about North America but eventually we decided to extend our sphere of influence into the whole hemisphere. It's not unbelievable, in fact it's almost surprising that we didn't start more wars throughout the western hemisphere earlier.

Long-term question. Has there been any thought about creating a version of this game aimed specifically at high school government classes? I know I read on the Kickstarter forum that one of the goals of the game is to eventually be used in classrooms. I totally see the usefulness of this game in a government and politics class, even more so than in a history class given the fact that this game does a fabulous job of showing students firsthand how just about every aspect of government works. I just wonder if it's possible for an educator to buy a classroom license which allows them to eliminate certain laws/scenarios from the game to make it more school appropriate? Just something to consider, the game will be an easier sell to school administration if the classroom teacher can turn on and off certain pieces of legislation, especially considering how different the state standards/curriculum is throughout the country.

3 wars at once, unbelievable. I'll tell you this, it's certainty making this playtest very interesting. However in reality, it's kind of surprising that a country that so strongly believed in manifest destiny didn't start more wars and push for more territory. So Cal is actually being true to manifest destiny. I really thought initially the purpose of this game was to let us live the dream of making this country into a more perfect union. Now I am starting to think the goal is to make us respect the historical leaders of our country and just how talented they were just to keep the country together, lol.

Quick question for the play testers. Out of curiosity did you play to win (stay in power the longest) or did you play to be ideological faithful to your faction?

Totally agree with everything here. Presidents that start a war while prepared should have the chance for their party preference to gain. I don't think it should be an automatic negative.