vcczar Posted June 30, 2021 Author Share Posted June 30, 2021 Update: @MrPotatoTed @ConservativeElector2 @Cal @Hestia @Timur @themiddlepolitical @WVProgressive @Rodja @SilentLiberty and anyone else interested. I've added a few new mechanisms: As I now have the dates and # of moves a politician moved historically, politicians will have a relocation #, which is how often they can relocate. Someone like James Shields is fun to have because he can move 3 or 4 times. As I now have the dates and # of times a politician party flips. Instead of allowing flippable politicians a one time flip, some politicians can flip two or three times. Donald Trump is one of three politicians marked to flip 3 times. One has to consider this when drafting him. You might lose him, you do have a chance to get him back, but then you could lose him permanently once getting him back. If anyone has ever played the war strategy game Romance of the Three Kingdoms, you are aware of Lu Bu. Very interesting, and in some ways, powerful character to control, but you spend most of your energy trying to prevent him from defecting or trying to get him back. Note: Trump is no Lu Bu. Lu Bu has some necessary talent. I've added a mechanism to make presidents and party leaders and faction leaders more aware of the satisfaction of allied factions. That is, there is a 25% of a politician eligible for "flipping" to flip automatically (without a conversion attempt) if the ideology satisfaction meter attached to that flippable politician's faction is at the lowest level. I did this to replicate Southern Democrats being unhappy with the Democratic Party post 1964. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted June 30, 2021 Author Share Posted June 30, 2021 Update: I'm going to go over the rules three times before they are "ready." I'll do one pass through the rules, making some changes. I'll do another pass through adding in more information where I see information missing. This will include changing the info boxes to text boxes. While the info boxes look nice, I can't edit the text inside of them, so I'll type them out as text. I'll then do a final pass through on the rules, which will also involve adding any extra information that a player might want to see at the very end of the document--Things that might clutter the main part of the rules but a player or GM might need to look at occasionally. The rules which were at 80 pages when I started working on them yesterday will probably be inflated to 100 or 120 is my guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themiddlepolitical Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 2 hours ago, MrPotatoTed said: Not sure yet. I think the game is more fun with more players -- but the challenge is finding enough committed players. I'd rather have two committed players than 20 players who I have to chase down, even though the game would be more fun with 20. Only real requirement numbers-wise is that it be an even number of players. As for rules, it's not an easy game -- the rules document is more than 80 pages right now, and could grow beyond that. But you don't have to memorize the entire document -- I haven't memorized it, and I wrote part of it. ;c) You just go section by section -- if we're currently in the legislative phase, read that and maybe the next phase or two so you can strategize ahead. Count me in! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted June 30, 2021 Author Share Posted June 30, 2021 I'll create a poll at some point to see who can commit to being reliable and active participants for the AMPU playthrough. @MrPotatoTed 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrPotatoTed Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 4 minutes ago, vcczar said: I'll create a poll at some point to see who can commit to being reliable and active participants for the AMPU playthrough. @MrPotatoTed Do you have a certain era you need us to start in, for testing purposes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted June 30, 2021 Author Share Posted June 30, 2021 5 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said: Do you have a certain era you need us to start in, for testing purposes? Yeah. I need to test the Era of Independence. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted June 30, 2021 Author Share Posted June 30, 2021 Just now, vcczar said: Yeah. I need to test the Era of Independence. @MrPotatoTed I should also add. If that goes smoothly. I'll let you restart in a later era or continue from 1788 on, depending on whatever y'all want. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrPotatoTed Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 Sounds good, we’ll plan for that then. My next preference after that might be to try a 2020 playthrough as that’s what I’d be most interested in for the computer game. Rewriting history is fun, but I’m even more interested in exploring the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted June 30, 2021 Author Share Posted June 30, 2021 3 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said: Sounds good, we’ll plan for that then. My next preference after that might be to try a 2020 playthrough as that’s what I’d be most interested in for the computer game. Rewriting history is fun, but I’m even more interested in exploring the future. Yeah. We can do that once y'all get to 1788. It might be worth testing Era of the Future. What we could do is play to 1788. Pause that game. Play 2020-whenever. Then go back to your 1788 game and go forward. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrPotatoTed Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 5 minutes ago, vcczar said: Yeah. We can do that once y'all get to 1788. It might be worth testing Era of the Future. What we could do is play to 1788. Pause that game. Play 2020-whenever. Then go back to your 1788 game and go forward. That's an interesting idea. I'd be willing to do that, if the players are interested. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted June 30, 2021 Author Share Posted June 30, 2021 Update: I've made it so that the size of Committees increases as the number of states increases. The game starts with a Chair, Majority Member, Ranking Member of the Minority Party. That is 3 people per committee. Once the US is 20 states, add +1 member for each party, and +1 after 10 new states thereafter. As such, with 50 states, committees will have 11 members. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrPotatoTed Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 5 minutes ago, vcczar said: Update: I've made it so that the size of Committees increases as the number of states increases. The game starts with a Chair, Majority Member, Ranking Member of the Minority Party. That is 3 people per committee. Once the US is 20 states, add +1 member for each party, and +1 after 10 new states thereafter. As such, with 50 states, committees will have 11 members. This is great. How many members after I conquer Canada, Mexico, and half of Indochina? ;c) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrPotatoTed Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 Random idea (and I totally understand if it's too late to even think about implementing) Perhaps players can choose one overarching stretch goal -- something very hard to do, but if you pull it off, you get $$$$ points. - End Slavery By (year) without causing a civil war - Ban all guns without causing a civil war - Make the Presidency a Lifetime Appointment - Conquer Canada and Mexico - Get a Woman In Your Faction Elected By (Year) Ideally, there'd be stuff in there that would appeal to Conservatives, Liberals, Moderates, etc, so everybody has something that would be appealing to them. Once the player chooses their goal, they're locked into it regardless of era or what ideologies they control. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted June 30, 2021 Author Share Posted June 30, 2021 3 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said: Random idea (and I totally understand if it's too late to even think about implementing) Perhaps players can choose one overarching stretch goal -- something very hard to do, but if you pull it off, you get $$$$ points. - End Slavery By (year) without causing a civil war - Ban all guns without causing a civil war - Make the Presidency a Lifetime Appointment - Conquer Canada and Mexico - Get a Woman In Your Faction Elected By (Year) Ideally, there'd be stuff in there that would appeal to Conservatives, Liberals, Moderates, etc, so everybody has something that would be appealing to them. Once the player chooses their goal, they're locked into it regardless of era or what ideologies they control. This is kind of similar to platform goals (If I still have those). Been so long since I've looked at the rules. By the way, creating the poll for player interest. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted July 1, 2021 Author Share Posted July 1, 2021 Update: Added the new rule that gives a 25% chance of increasing ideological enthusiasm when selecting a chair of a committee. The reason I did this is that historically, once the more moderate and liberal Democrats took control of the Democrats--arguably with WJ Bryan, but definitely by FDR, Democrats tended to appoint very traditionalist chairs of committees as a mean to appease the Solid South. I think generally, you'll see Traditionalists placed in the Chair positions in AMPU because players tend to want to pass a lot of spending bills, which makes Traditionalists unhappy. The chair positions will increase Traditionalist enthusiasm, but it will also help Traditionalists achieve some balance on legislation. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted July 1, 2021 Author Share Posted July 1, 2021 Update: This is what I see as the time schedule for starting the playtest @MrPotatoTed I'll finish this first draft of the rules, hopefully by tomorrow (Friday). If not, not until the end of Monday because I'll likely be busy over most of the weekend. The 2nd draft of the rules, when I fill in some information gaps, will probably take two or three days. The 3rd draft of the rules, when I put important but less-essential information on the bottom will take like two or three days. Following this, I'll have you ( @MrPotatoTed ) go through the rules one time and make sure nothing is confusing or non-sensical. While you do this, I'll put the Playtest spreadsheets together. If all goes smoothly, we could be ready to begin in 10-15 days. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted July 1, 2021 Author Share Posted July 1, 2021 2 hours ago, vcczar said: Update: This is what I see as the time schedule for starting the playtest @MrPotatoTed I'll finish this first draft of the rules, hopefully by tomorrow (Friday). If not, not until the end of Monday because I'll likely be busy over most of the weekend. The 2nd draft of the rules, when I fill in some information gaps, will probably take two or three days. The 3rd draft of the rules, when I put important but less-essential information on the bottom will take like two or three days. Following this, I'll have you ( @MrPotatoTed ) go through the rules one time and make sure nothing is confusing or non-sensical. While you do this, I'll put the Playtest spreadsheets together. If all goes smoothly, we could be ready to begin in 10-15 days. @MrPotatoTed Actually, after the 2nd draft, it makes more sense for you to look at it before I do the 3rd draft. This way you can let me know if there's some information that needs to be handy (isn't missing) at that moment or somewhere in the rules or something like that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted July 1, 2021 Author Share Posted July 1, 2021 Update: I'm about done with the first draft of the rules. I'm going start the 2nd draft tomorrow but also incorporate some things I intended to do in the 3rd draft. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrPotatoTed Posted July 2, 2021 Share Posted July 2, 2021 Awesome! I’ll have my phone but no computer access from this evening through Monday, but excited to look at them as soon as I get back! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted July 2, 2021 Author Share Posted July 2, 2021 4 hours ago, MrPotatoTed said: Awesome! I’ll have my phone but no computer access from this evening through Monday, but excited to look at them as soon as I get back! I'm starting to think that I won't have it ready for you until Monday at the earliest. I'd say, expect Monday or Tuesday. This means I should be--or could be--done with the playtest spreadsheet a week from today. This means we're on the fast track, although I know you still have FF going on. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodja Posted July 2, 2021 Share Posted July 2, 2021 @vcczarAnything from Anthony? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcczar Posted July 2, 2021 Author Share Posted July 2, 2021 27 minutes ago, Rodja said: @vcczarAnything from Anthony? Not yet. Last time I talked to him he was having issues with updating PI. He's redoing the polling and apparently it's really time consuming because he has to change a lot of the coding throughout the game. I'm honestly not in a rush because 1) I've got to finish this draft of the rules, which I'm almost done. 2) I gotta playtest Era of Independence and Era of the Future to see if I can even include them. 3) I've gotta finish fleshing out the Era of the Future while you are playtesting Era of Independence. I'm going to casually look at more developers on August 1st. I'll ping him on September 1st and if he's still busy, I'll starting approaching other people. I'm a little concerned he won't see the value of AMPU and keep doing these slow-moving, seemingly minor updates to his games. I think AMPU will pretty much make his games secondary if it is made correctly. It's going to be more of a money-maker I think. It will also probably require way more attention. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themiddlepolitical Posted July 2, 2021 Share Posted July 2, 2021 3 hours ago, vcczar said: Not yet. Last time I talked to him he was having issues with updating PI. He's redoing the polling and apparently it's really time consuming because he has to change a lot of the coding throughout the game. I'm honestly not in a rush because 1) I've got to finish this draft of the rules, which I'm almost done. 2) I gotta playtest Era of Independence and Era of the Future to see if I can even include them. 3) I've gotta finish fleshing out the Era of the Future while you are playtesting Era of Independence. I'm going to casually look at more developers on August 1st. I'll ping him on September 1st and if he's still busy, I'll starting approaching other people. I'm a little concerned he won't see the value of AMPU and keep doing these slow-moving, seemingly minor updates to his games. I think AMPU will pretty much make his games secondary if it is made correctly. It's going to be more of a money-maker I think. It will also probably require way more attention. I always imagined it as him implementing a version of his election engine into AMPU's elections..that'd be neat. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ConservativeElector2 Posted July 3, 2021 Share Posted July 3, 2021 @vcczar I had an idea on how to add flavor to the career track until we have enough fan-made politicians to fill virtually every important state office. Maybe there could be the CPU randomly assigning an office to the people on the different career tracks. It's not mattering much, but would be nice to have it listed in the politician's info box for those who love statistics or writing out careers in a forum or so. There would also be no need to fill every office in every state by doing it that way. The Judicial track could have: State Supreme Court Justice, State Chief Justice, District Judge, Circuit Judge and so on. Governing track: Lieutenant Governor, Mayor Legislative track: State Senator, City Councilor Admin track: State Secretary of State, State Attorney General Military track: all lower ranks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrPotatoTed Posted July 3, 2021 Share Posted July 3, 2021 2 minutes ago, ConservativeElector2 said: @vcczar I had an idea on how to add flavor to the career track until we have enough fan-made politicians to fill virtually every important state office. Maybe there could be the CPU randomly assigning an office to the people on the different career tracks. It's not mattering much, but would be nice to have it listed in the politician's info box for those who love statistics or writing out careers in a forum or so. There would also be no need to fill every office in every state by doing it that way. The Judicial track could have: State Supreme Court Justice, State Chief Justice, District Judge, Circuit Judge and so on. Governing track: Lieutenant Governor, Mayor Legislative track: State Senator, City Councilor Admin track: State Secretary of State, State Attorney General Military track: all lower ranks Interesting idea. Or just tie it to how long they’ve been in the career track. Entering the military, you’re a “lieutenant”, four years later you’re a Captain, four years later you’re a Major, etc. On the other hand, the rules are 100 pages and I feel we probably need to look at ways to trim it a bit without losing anything, not adding much more to it. Haha 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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