Suggested fixes Fall 2022

[vcczar]

Just post any suggested fixes below. I won't look at them until Anthony says he's working on the game again or is about to work on the game again. 

[vcczar]

I created two new Scripted Events since Robert Gould Shaw has been added to the game. This is necessary has he can't enter the game until 1864 and he died in 1863.  

Sacrifice of the 54th Massachusetts

54th Massachusetts Takes Pivotal Fort

The former is the historical event, which means Shaw is killed and removed from the game. 

The second is the ahistorical event, which means Shaw lives and earns celebrity

There's also the chance that neither event strikes and Shaw just enters the game but without celebrity, obviously. 

[vcczar]

Abolitionist John Brown has been added to the game. He's an interesting but not a good politician. More negatives than positives for a politician role. While he led a slave uprising, I'm not giving him military ability as he hasn't that experience. He was basically an armed charismatic. So he has charisma. His only government experience is as a postmaster, so he has 1 admin. 

The John Brown events, whether he is killed or is pardoned, will take him out of the game. The only way he stays in the game for a full life if the events don't fire. There's now a possibility they don't fire if John Brown somehow dies before they can. 

[OrangeP47]

Despite rerunning with correct rules in 1840, it seems we might still have to revisit cabinet confirmation.  Let me preface by saying I do really like the rules as written. However, we're running into situations where it's seeming legit impossible to actually get ANY cabinet.  Lesser players than Matt would have rage quit by now.  I think I have a "simple" fix that keeps the rules mostly intact while also emulating actually working with the AI, which I think is the type of thing everyone wants.  Have a "dummy" round of nominations with all the original selections and see how many times each faction would be "satisfied" by nominees simply with the suggested slate (satisfaction defined by a nominee meeting faction leader approval).  If a faction gets satisfied twice, their Senators become way more likely to stop blocking nominees.  Note, this isn't a confirmation vote, just a check to see, if the vote was held in a vacuum, if the faction would vote yes/no independently.  Then, once we know if all factions are satisfied or not, we move on to the REAL set of votes, now hopefully with several factions being a lot less obstinate.

This would not be difficult to code, if that's a concern, it'd just be one extra set of checks and a counter function. It's week 1 stuff in any coding class.

 

[matthewyoung123]

13 minutes ago, OrangeP47 said:

Despite rerunning with correct rules in 1840, it seems we might still have to revisit cabinet confirmation.  Let me preface by saying I do really like the rules as written. However, we're running into situations where it's seeming legit impossible to actually get ANY cabinet.  Lesser players than Matt would have rage quit by now.  I think I have a "simple" fix that keeps the rules mostly intact while also emulating actually working with the AI, which I think is the type of thing everyone wants.  Have a "dummy" round of nominations with all the original selections and see how many times each faction would be "satisfied" by nominees simply with the suggested slate (satisfaction defined by a nominee meeting faction leader approval).  If a faction gets satisfied twice, their Senators become way more likely to stop blocking nominees.  Note, this isn't a confirmation vote, just a check to see, if the vote was held in a vacuum, if the faction would vote yes/no independently.  Then, once we know if all factions are satisfied or not, we move on to the REAL set of votes, now hopefully with several factions being a lot less obstinate.

This would not be difficult to code, if that's a concern, it'd just be one extra set of checks and a counter function. It's week 1 stuff in any coding class.

 

Thanks for the note of confidence, Orange. 😉

What's happening is the AI is treating every vote like it's happening in a vacuum.  It can't take into consideration that it already has two nominees for cabinet posts, it just always votes NO on anyone not in its faction when it comes up to vote. 

What Orange is proposing here would help to correct that.  Thanks.

 

[Murrman104]

Small problem with trait canceling. What happens when a rolled trait conflicts with 2 traits at once. In the 1916 playtest Henry Morganthau rolled to gain easily overwhelmed, that trait conflicts with both efficient and Crisis admin. I would personally suggest that in these cases the rolled trait should be automatically blocked but a roll order of some kind should be implemented as it's unclear in what order the traits should be rolled for removel.

[Arkansas Progressive]

4 minutes ago, Murrman104 said:

Small problem with trait canceling. What happens when a rolled trait conflicts with 2 traits at once. In the 1916 playtest Henry Morganthau rolled to gain easily overwhelmed, that trait conflicts with both efficient and Crisis admin. I would personally suggest that in these cases the rolled trait should be automatically blocked but a roll order of some kind should be implemented as it's unclear in what order the traits should be rolled for removel.

In the case of what I did, I went by alphabetical order, so crisis admin, then efficient.

[MrPotatoTed]

7 hours ago, OrangeP47 said:

Despite rerunning with correct rules in 1840, it seems we might still have to revisit cabinet confirmation.  Let me preface by saying I do really like the rules as written. However, we're running into situations where it's seeming legit impossible to actually get ANY cabinet.  Lesser players than Matt would have rage quit by now.  I think I have a "simple" fix that keeps the rules mostly intact while also emulating actually working with the AI, which I think is the type of thing everyone wants.  Have a "dummy" round of nominations with all the original selections and see how many times each faction would be "satisfied" by nominees simply with the suggested slate (satisfaction defined by a nominee meeting faction leader approval).  If a faction gets satisfied twice, their Senators become way more likely to stop blocking nominees.  Note, this isn't a confirmation vote, just a check to see, if the vote was held in a vacuum, if the faction would vote yes/no independently.  Then, once we know if all factions are satisfied or not, we move on to the REAL set of votes, now hopefully with several factions being a lot less obstinate.

This would not be difficult to code, if that's a concern, it'd just be one extra set of checks and a counter function. It's week 1 stuff in any coding class.

 

I do agree confirmations might be an issue as I haven't had any that go to an actual confirmation hearing pass yet either.  That said, I'm not sure what your process does differently than the current system does, other than say "Oh that didn't count".  Maybe I'm not understanding your proposal fully?

[ConservativeElector2]

I am not sure if this has been already fixed, but what happens if politicians who are labelled as right-wing/left-wing activist are converted to the center? Do they lose these attributes when becoming more centrist than being prog or trad? Like is it possible for people who are Lib to Cons to hold these odd seeming categories?

Furthermore, should there be a roll to potentially get these attributes, if people are converted from lib to prog and beyond (cons to trad and beyond)?

[Murrman104]

3 hours ago, ConservativeElector2 said:

I am not sure if this has been already fixed, but what happens if politicians who are labelled as right-wing/left-wing activist are converted to the center? Do they lose these attributes when becoming more centrist than being prog or trad? Like is it possible for people who are Lib to Cons to hold these odd seeming categories?

Furthermore, should there be a roll to potentially get these attributes, if people are converted from lib to prog and beyond (cons to trad and beyond)?

There's a number of LW activist traits marked for moderate pols already. In the 1960 playtest I've had Daniel Patrick Moynihan with that exact combo. I had the most LW activist's I believe or at least enough to get the card but since my only ideology card was moderate I couldn't have it haha. It still had a benefit of course as Govs with that trait had extra options for actions which was nice.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Murrman104

[OrangeP47]

5 hours ago, MrPotatoTed said:

I do agree confirmations might be an issue as I haven't had any that go to an actual confirmation hearing pass yet either.  That said, I'm not sure what your process does differently than the current system does, other than say "Oh that didn't count".  Maybe I'm not understanding your proposal fully?

Before the actual vote happens, the game checks what would happen in a "trial run", and if a faction "votes" for "some" of the nominees they stop blocking all of the nominees, basically.

[MrPotatoTed]

Note for all playtesters: I've added draft rules limiting the Key Advisor to only be able to influence meters where they have relevant experience.  So a key advisor who has no Army or Naval experience won't impact the military preparedness meter, for example.

[Pringles]

I think once again we need to up the chances of gaining +1 momentum in the event of endorsements. They’re proving themselves useless again in the 2020 primary. It’s nearly impossible to drop out and endorse a candidate to their benefit during the race.

[MrPotatoTed]

1 hour ago, Pringles said:

I think once again we need to up the chances of gaining +1 momentum in the event of endorsements. They’re proving themselves useless again in the 2020 primary. It’s nearly impossible to drop out and endorse a candidate to their benefit during the race.

"Should" endorsements really matter that much, though?  It's a pretty open question on whether endorsements actually matter at all in the real world.

[matthewyoung123]

2 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

"Should" endorsements really matter that much, though?  It's a pretty open question on whether endorsements actually matter at all in the real world.

Biden won SC pretty much based on an endorsement by James Clyburn.  He was 3rd or 4th going into SC...and he won the nomination.

Endorsements...certain ones anyway...DO matter.

[Pringles]

18 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

"Should" endorsements really matter that much, though?  It's a pretty open question on whether endorsements actually matter at all in the real world.

I'm pretty sure they do... especially in primaries. General elections are a different equation. 

[MrPotatoTed]

1 hour ago, matthewyoung123 said:

Biden won SC pretty much based on an endorsement by James Clyburn.  He was 3rd or 4th going into SC...and he won the nomination.

Endorsements...certain ones anyway...DO matter.

Agree, except Clyburn wasn’t a candidate who dropped out. You could make the case that he’s a kingmaker.

[MrPotatoTed]

Question for the playtesters:  In my current playthrough, I'm finding it's become too easy to boost the meters, especially in the Lingering Phase with the cabinet.  I just had multiple meters that would have improved by +3 each in that phase alone, if they hadn't hit their caps (either maxed out or a prereq that wasn't met).

I'm thinking about implementing a rule that a meter can only move +/- 1 within the lingering phase, but wanted to check in with the other playtesters first to see if you've encountered the same issues.

[10centjimmy]

3 hours ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Question for the playtesters:  In my current playthrough, I'm finding it's become too easy to boost the meters, especially in the Lingering Phase with the cabinet.  I just had multiple meters that would have improved by +3 each in that phase alone, if they hadn't hit their caps (either maxed out or a prereq that wasn't met).

I'm thinking about implementing a rule that a meter can only move +/- 1 within the lingering phase, but wanted to check in with the other playtesters first to see if you've encountered the same issues.

Sorry I'm too awesome, Ted

[OrangeP47]

6 hours ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Question for the playtesters:  In my current playthrough, I'm finding it's become too easy to boost the meters, especially in the Lingering Phase with the cabinet.  I just had multiple meters that would have improved by +3 each in that phase alone, if they hadn't hit their caps (either maxed out or a prereq that wasn't met).

I'm thinking about implementing a rule that a meter can only move +/- 1 within the lingering phase, but wanted to check in with the other playtesters first to see if you've encountered the same issues.

I don't know how I feel about this, if only because our experience is the exact opposite, train wreck after train wreck rather than actually doing well.  That said, this would moderate that too. On the balance, I think it's probably fine as is, and our small sample is just fluke-y.

[MrPotatoTed]

1 hour ago, OrangeP47 said:

I don't know how I feel about this, if only because our experience is the exact opposite, train wreck after train wreck rather than actually doing well.  That said, this would moderate that too. On the balance, I think it's probably fine as is, and our small sample is just fluke-y.

Interesting!  Are your cabinet members not helping with the meters? Is it bad rolls, bad cabinet members, not enough qualified candidates?  

Edited October 12, 2022 by MrPotatoTed

[Hestia]

1 hour ago, OrangeP47 said:

I don't know how I feel about this, if only because our experience is the exact opposite, train wreck after train wreck rather than actually doing well.  That said, this would moderate that too. On the balance, I think it's probably fine as is, and our small sample is just fluke-y.

I feel the same way.

[OrangeP47]

1 minute ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Interesting!  Are your cabinet members not helping with the meters? Is it bad rolls, bad cabinet members, not enough qualified candidates?  

To be fair, *recently* things have gone better.  We've clawed our way back up again. It's been... a trip though, but unfortunately I don't remember the details too well. It might have been "early game" lack of quallified candidates coupled with bad dice rolls (Matt seems to have terrible dice luck to be fair).  I still contend the career track is just fine (let's not get side tracked) but cabinet selection has been quite brutal for us *before* people start coming off it.  Part of that might be era too.  There just aren't that many stand out administrators in this era, and it didn't help that both Clay and Calhoun (and some others) had... unfortunate accidents...

[OrangeP47]

Just now, OrangeP47 said:

Matt seems to have terrible dice luck to be fair

To really drive this point home, as a gambler, I'm gonna throw him under the bus and say ya'll should invite him to poker if you want to make a quick buck, he's had that bad of luck.

[Ich_bin_Tyler]

1 hour ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Interesting!  Are your cabinet members not helping with the meters? Is it bad rolls, bad cabinet members, not enough qualified candidates?  

It has mainly been luck of the rolls. We've generally seen solid cabinets tank meters because of bad rolls or good cabinets not move the meters because of neutral rolls. I think a cap makes sense to prevent a runaway meter in either direction.