Suggested fixes Fall 2022

[Willthescout7]

1 hour ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Hey! YOU’RE insanely stupid!

 

haha, just kidding.  We have a difference of opinion, not a big deal.  For me, the fact that you need to either draft more politicians for that state or work your way towards getting a kingmaker there is a feature, not a bug.  It’s a strategy game.

This rule kept Abraham Lincoln and William Seward from having political careers. 

[OrangeP47]

2 minutes ago, Willthescout7 said:

This rule kept Abraham Lincoln and William Seward from having political careers. 

I'm pretty sure they failed on his own cause Tyler's been using the other rules, and I would like to see him continue to do so.

[Willthescout7]

The issue is that since factions are limited in who they can draft, oftentimes they don't get a chance to expand in certain states. The Red 5 faction has never had a shot at any of the big swing states due to draft ideologies, and so doesn't get to participate in anything, all game across 3 eras. 

In addition, most of the kingmakers are in the moderate factions, once again making it impossible for 2 or 3 factions in each party from gaining any ground. The Red 3 faction has literally every single New York Kingmaker since they are all moderate.

The second set of rules doesn't take away thr kingmaker advantage. Most often the faction with the most kingmakers wins regardless (Red 3 gets a +5 to every roll in the New York primary, plus incumbent +2) so you're just giving an opportunity for people who aren't draft blessed with the opportunity to draft kingmakers to occasionally steal an election in states where the kingmaker numbers are close. 

Option 2 is the best option as it ensures balanced gameplay, the participation of every faction, and a controlled occasional randomness that makes an intriguing and unpredictable game.

[pman]

I just think it's a game. It'll never be completely realistic. Is it realistic to nominate a 26 yr old fresh out of law school to the Supreme Court? Of Course not. But I think we left realism behind in  the 1948 Playtest a long time ago. Taft ended Jim Crow. We currently have an African American President and Vice President in 1957. Just won a war with Franco's Spain and are friends with the Soviet Union. Realism and our playtest do not go hand and hand. 

[OrangeP47]

3 minutes ago, Willthescout7 said:

The issue is that since factions are limited in who they can draft, oftentimes they don't get a chance to expand in certain states. The Red 5 faction has never had a shot at any of the big swing states due to draft ideologies, and so doesn't get to participate in anything, all game across 3 eras. 

In addition, most of the kingmakers are in the moderate factions, once again making it impossible for 2 or 3 factions in each party from gaining any ground. The Red 3 faction has literally every single New York Kingmaker since they are all moderate.

The second set of rules doesn't take away thr kingmaker advantage. Most often the faction with the most kingmakers wins regardless (Red 3 gets a +5 to every roll in the New York primary, plus incumbent +2) so you're just giving an opportunity for people who aren't draft blessed with the opportunity to draft kingmakers to occasionally steal an election in states where the kingmaker numbers are close. 

Option 2 is the best option as it ensures balanced gameplay, the participation of every faction, and a controlled occasional randomness that makes an intriguing and unpredictable game.

Yeah, this is basically what I mean.  I'm trying not to be rude, but rule option number one is basically playing a game of baseball at a birthday party and telling your friends you don't like they have to play without a baseball glove.  Why are they even here?  It'd be different if it was the results of choices in game, but it's not, it's fundamentally the rules will screw over certain players more than other players by game design, because the draft is on rails.  Now, in terms of who gets what pol, sure, the draft can be on rails, but in terms of other mechanics, that's where I'm saying it's bottom tier game design.

Edited April 16, 2023 by OrangeP47

[Willthescout7]

2 minutes ago, pman said:

I just think it's a game. It'll never be completely realistic. Is it realistic to nominate a 26 yr old fresh out of law school to the Supreme Court? Of Course not. But I think we left realism behind in  the 1948 Playtest a long time ago. Taft ended Jim Crow. We currently have an African American President and Vice President in 1957. Just won a war with Franco's Spain and are friends with the Soviet Union. Realism and our playtest do not go hand and hand. 

Part of me thinks the lack of realism comes from a group of humans playing together. Evefy playtest with all humans has eventually gone bananas like yours have. Once a majority of CPUs are involved, it tends to stay grounded a bit more (though it gets weird sometimes in a realistic way). 

[OrangeP47]

I also had the thought it might be a bad idea to take away 2nd choice auto confirm for those things because it was specifically put in place to avoid the CPU getting stuck in a loop and locking the program.

[MrPotatoTed]

29 minutes ago, OrangeP47 said:

Perhaps let me make my point less verbose:  The only way to offer the player control over what states they draft for, truly, is to scrap draft ideos.

Honestly, I’ve never liked draft ideos.  That’s V’s thing.  He does make the valid point that without it, you’ll have Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin on the same faction voting in unison, which is a good point.  But that’s where you lose player control, in my opinion.

Ideally, draft ideos might be something that is toggle-able, in an effort to let players choose for themselves between “historically accurate” and “you can do anything if you’re skilled/lucky enough to pull it off”

[OrangeP47]

4 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Honestly, I’ve never liked draft ideos.  That’s V’s thing.  He does make the valid point that without it, you’ll have Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin on the same faction voting in unison, which is a good point.  But that’s where you lose player control, in my opinion.

Ideally, draft ideos might be something that is toggle-able, in an effort to let players choose for themselves between “historically accurate” and “you can do anything if you’re skilled/lucky enough to pull it off”

It's a conversation we can have, however, I think following the philosophy of "do the least radical thing", using the second set of non-primary rules would be the ideal solution, at least for now, and we can revisit draft ideos later, as that would be something that could possibly upend even more things.

[MrPotatoTed]

Basically, a lot of the choices we’ve had to make in this game design comes down to:

Is it better to give players control over everything and let them go wild having fun…

…or better to make Washington FEEL like Washington, Obama to feel like Obama, Trump to feel like Trump?

Are we making a strategy game or a simulator?  
 

is it fun when things go crazy off the rails, or frustrating?

The answers will vary for every player. So the more options we can give, the better.  But also the harder to program and test.

Edited April 16, 2023 by MrPotatoTed

[OrangeP47]

1 minute ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Basically, a lot of the choices we’ve had to make in this game design comes down to:

Is it better to give players control over everything and let them go wild having fun…

…or better to make Washington FEEL like Washington, Obama to feel like Obama, Trump to feel like Trump?

Are trying for a strategy game or a simulator?  
 

is it fun when things go crazy off the rails, or frustrating?

The answers will vary for every player. So the more options we can give, the better.  But also the harder to program and test.

Well I mean technically I think we agreed a long time ago to have an option to not have draft ideos, but I don't think "just turn draft ideos off" is really an acceptable solution to this problem, when draft ideos are the intended way the game is to be played yet will still basically make the game unplayable.

[Willthescout7]

So I found this old exchange with Vcczar regarding the two different sets of pre-primary rules. I'll attach the screenshots. Essentially, he told us in 1840 to use the second set. When asked about the duplicate rules, he said they were part of the second set. Granted there was some confusion, but it seems to confirm that the second set is the preferred method of Vcczar.

[OrangeP47]

8 minutes ago, Willthescout7 said:

So I found this old exchange with Vcczar regarding the two different sets of pre-primary rules. I'll attach the screenshots. Essentially, he told us in 1840 to use the second set. When asked about the duplicate rules, he said they were part of the second set. Granted there was some confusion, but it seems to confirm that the second set is the preferred method of Vcczar.

What?

[Willthescout7]

We asked this question to Vcczar last year, and this is what he said. The second set is the right one, with the first set part of the second set. 

Confusing, yes. Important, also yes. 

[MrPotatoTed]

V’s pretty clearly contradicting himself in those screenshots, given that he also says in that same conversation that the kingmakers “force” the adoption of their preferred nominee. Haha.

He’s a busy guy, I think he was answering off the top of his head rather than rereading the pre-primary rules line by line.

At the end of the day, it’s @vcczar’s game and I defer to him.  I just don’t know that you’re accurately capturing his intent there.

[Willthescout7]

8 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

V’s pretty clearly contradicting himself in those screenshots, given that he also says in that same conversation that the kingmakers “force” the adoption of their preferred nominee. Haha.

He’s a busy guy, I think he was answering off the top of his head rather than rereading the pre-primary rules line by line.

At the end of the day, it’s @vcczar’s game and I defer to him.  I just don’t know that you’re accurately capturing his intent there.

Which is why I shared them.

To me, what is being said is that the second set is correct, and the kingmaker rules are a part of it. 

The contradiction does exist like you point out (and I think I pointed it out too) but doesn't actually change what he said; but still, I agree that the final ruling needs to come from him.

[OrangeP47]

Reading very carefully now, I see what Will means... but also... I don't know why the first set of rules would even be needed, as a faction just picks the candidate, unless it's a backdoor way of saying protoges are always selected.

[vcczar]

1 hour ago, MrPotatoTed said:

V’s pretty clearly contradicting himself in those screenshots, given that he also says in that same conversation that the kingmakers “force” the adoption of their preferred nominee. Haha.

He’s a busy guy, I think he was answering off the top of his head rather than rereading the pre-primary rules line by line.

At the end of the day, it’s @vcczar’s game and I defer to him.  I just don’t know that you’re accurately capturing his intent there.

I speed read through it and what it most likely was is that an old rule and a new rule are existing on there together. Perhaps one wasn't deleted. It could also be that I came up with it off the top of my head without reading through the rules as you say. A lot of my changes are based on feedback and then I just make the change. I strangely have no memory of how this happened. 

I'm probably not going to fix it until Anthony gets closer to those rules, so just do whatever you think makes most sense. 

If someone could please flag the part in the rules that are in contradiction, I can potentially jump over there earlier, otherwise I'll just go through the rules and make all my adjustments right before he gets to those rules. Overall, I'm probably not going to make any edits until right before Anthony starts working on a section. I'll leave it to the people leading playtests to adapt and/or flag contradictions. I do appreciate you all pointing this stuff out. 

[Willthescout7]

I'll highlight and comment in the rules for you. 

[Willthescout7]

@MrPotatoTed @vcczar @OrangeP47

I went through and highlighted the contradictions for both pre-primary and CPU actions. In the comments I described each position. Should be easy to go through them now.

[MrPotatoTed]

I currently have the week off from school and just finished the play, so I have more time than usual on my hands right now.  I'm working to clean up language in the rules for a bit.  Generally speaking, I'm just trying to make our original intentions clearer for Anthony and others.  Per V's request, I'm not making any major changes to the rules right now, unless I spot rules that actually conflict with each other, etc.

As a side note, I am keeping copies of the original rules just in case V hates any of my edits, even though I'm mostly only fixing wording, making things clearer.

So far, I'm about half way through cleaning up 2.2.  Other than wording things a little more consistently, the only actual change I made so far:

1)  It is no longer possible to nominate a politician to multiple congressional leadership positions.  IE, you run for Senate Majority Leader "or" Senate Majority Whip, not both at the same time.

2)  If Senate is tied 50-50, the majority party is chosen randomly.  (This was already the rule for the House, but the Senate had no rule for it.)

3)  Clarified that Senate President Pro Tempore earns points each term regardless of whether the Senate Majority Leader position exists as a separate entity.

4)  Clarified that Senate President Pro Tempore is allowed to serve as Committee Chair (this was already the rule), as long as they are not also the acting Senate Majority Leader (this is new).

5)  CPU factions will choose their own eligible delegate for Continental Congress president, when possible, 100% of the time.  Those greedy bastards.

6) Removed a conflicting rule about whether CPU would ever vote for someone of the opposing party for a leadership role, if minority party leadership offices haven't been created yet.  (Originally, rules said both yes and no).  I've clarified that yes they will, 25% of the time, if the candidate from the other party matches their own ideology.  Note that this is only applicable if majority/minority offices haven't been created yet.

7)  Ranking members get the same trait bonuses, etc, that Chairs get.


 

[ShortKing]

5 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

2)  If Senate is tied 50-50, the majority party is chosen randomly.  (This was already the rule for the House, but the Senate had no rule for it.)

Shouldn’t the majority party be the party of the Vice President like irl? That reminds me, does the VP get to cast a tie breaking vote in a 50-50 vote?

[MrPotatoTed]

1 minute ago, ShortKing said:

Shouldn’t the majority party be the party of the Vice President like irl? That reminds me, does the VP get to cast a tie breaking vote in a 50-50 vote?

Yes, VP casts tie-breaking votes. That’s already in the rules.

Committee assignments, etc, however are not impacted by VP votes. There have been real life scenarios where the parties were split 50-50 in the senate and they had to make power sharing agreements.  The VP appeared to be irrelevant in those agreements.

[ShortKing]

5 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Yes, VP casts tie-breaking votes. That’s already in the rules.

Committee assignments, etc, however are not impacted by VP votes. There have been real life scenarios where the parties were split 50-50 in the senate and they had to make power sharing agreements.  The VP appeared to be irrelevant in those agreements.

The VP was irrelevant as a negotiator but the last two times I can think of, in the first term of the second Bush administration and the Biden administration, the Senate Majority was given to the party in the White House. 

[DJBillyShakes]

56 minutes ago, ShortKing said:

The VP was irrelevant as a negotiator but the last two times I can think of, in the first term of the second Bush administration and the Biden administration, the Senate Majority was given to the party in the White House. 

Yeah, in both modern cases, committees were evenly split but the Senate Majority Leader went to the VP's party.