A Thread for small, low priority changes and errors.

[ebrk85]

So I do think it might be more of a later era issue then earlier eras.  Not that is a huge issue in any way. But it is something that is coming up. 

[ebrk85]

We can choose to disagree but one thing I think we all can agree on is the rule saying any faction without an eligible pol can generate a candidate needs to be changed. That is way too extreme.

[OrangeP47]

I think the middle ground is this:  We delete the rule about everyone being able to generate a pol in the era of primaries.  Replace it with a rule that in the era of primaries, if there's an uncontested race, the lowest scoring faction of that party can generate a pol to run.  If they lose, the generated pol is deleted (this is actually already in the rules somewhere).  This would keep the generation to a minimum and also keep the bloat down by removing the losers.  Generated (non-alt-state) pols are only supposed to stick around if they win one race on their own.  This will be differentiated from convention (non-primary) where generation only occurs if neither party can put forth a candidate.

[OrangeP47]

Just now, ebrk85 said:

We can choose to disagree but one thing I think we all can agree on is the rule saying any faction without an eligible pol can generate a candidate needs to be changed. That is way too extreme.

Only I am allowed to triple post as fast as you just did, I'm going to have to pull you over for speeding.

[ebrk85]

2 minutes ago, OrangeP47 said:

I think the middle ground is this:  We delete the rule about everyone being able to generate a pol in the era of primaries.  Replace it with a rule that in the era of primaries, if there's an uncontested race, the lowest scoring faction of that party can generate a pol to run.  If they lose, the generated pol is deleted (this is actually already in the rules somewhere).  This would keep the generation to a minimum and also keep the bloat down by removing the losers.  Generated (non-alt-state) pols are only supposed to stick around if they win one race on their own.  This will be differentiated from convention (non-primary) where generation only occurs if neither party can put forth a candidate.

I would favor this. I think it fits what we both were thinking about.

And yes deleted if they don't win which is somewhere in the rules already. Just don't ask me where right now lol

[pman]

I think this is the definition of a small change but am I the only one that thinks we have too many ex-Presidents hanging around. Don't get me wrong, it's fun to see Edward Brooke and Claire Booth Luce (former Presidents) for example run and lose Congressional seats, just like it was fun to see President Washburn run and become House Whip. But the reality is, with apologizes to John Quincy Adams- when someone is President, runs and lose, they usually retire. They certainly don't kick around at a rate as high as they are in different play tests. They for sure don't go through the indignity of running and losing something like a Congressional seat. 

Edited December 30, 2023 by pman

[OrangeP47]

22 minutes ago, pman said:

I think this is the definition of a small change but am I the only one that thinks we have too many ex-Presidents hanging around. Don't get me wrong, it's fun to see Edward Brooke and Claire Booth Luce (former Presidents) for example run and lose Congressional seats, just like it was fun to see President Washburn run and become House Whip. But the reality is, with apologizes to John Quincy Adams- when someone is President, runs and lose, they usually retire. They certainly don't kick around at a rate as high as they are in different play tests. They for sure don't go through the indignity of running and losing something like a Congressional seat. 

We've run our playtest for 60 years, 9 presidents, and only twice has a President managed to do anything other than key-advisor post-presidency.  The rate is fine.

[Euri]

1 hour ago, pman said:

I think this is the definition of a small change but am I the only one that thinks we have too many ex-Presidents hanging around. Don't get me wrong, it's fun to see Edward Brooke and Claire Booth Luce (former Presidents) for example run and lose Congressional seats, just like it was fun to see President Washburn run and become House Whip. But the reality is, with apologizes to John Quincy Adams- when someone is President, runs and lose, they usually retire. They certainly don't kick around at a rate as high as they are in different play tests. They for sure don't go through the indignity of running and losing something like a Congressional seat. 

Here’s my count for how many presidents IRL at least attempted to do something after their presidency:

JQA, Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Johnson, Grant, Cleveland, Roosevelt, Taft, Ford, Trump

It’s not that low of a rate, all things considered

[pman]

17 minutes ago, Euri said:

Here’s my count for how many presidents IRL at least attempted to do something after their presidency:

JQA, Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Johnson, Grant, Cleveland, Roosevelt, Taft, Ford, Trump

It’s not that low of a rate, all things considered

Interesting!

[OrangeP47]

Furthermore, it's something I'd regard as a "Fool's errand" if we started tweaking it.  I think it's good now.  Is it perfect?  Maybe not.  But if we insist on perfect, we will NEVER be happy, and we just have to leave it alone at some point.  Messing with it will not substantially improve anything.

[DJBillyShakes]

The current probabilities are also pretty accurate. Excluding presidents who died in office (and Biden), nine presidents who served one term or less have formally sought or held office after leaving the presidency. A total of 18 presidents served one term or less without dying in office. So 50% of one-termers have remained in politics historically. Under the current rules, a one-termer has a 50% chance of retiring, which is spot on.

Only two two-term presidents who didn't die in office formally sought office again (Grant and Teddy Roosevelt). A total of 19 presidents served more than one term and didn't die in office. That's about 10% of two-termers seeking office again. Under the current rules, there is a 95% chance that a two-termer retires. Historically, two-term presidents have retired at a lower rate, but I think that a 5% chance of staying active is still perfectly reasonable.

So agreed that it's not a big deal and shouldn't receive too much attention, but if people are concerned about the probabilities, they're pretty good based on history.

[pman]

15 hours ago, DJBillyShakes said:

The current probabilities are also pretty accurate. Excluding presidents who died in office (and Biden), nine presidents who served one term or less have formally sought or held office after leaving the presidency. A total of 18 presidents served one term or less without dying in office. So 50% of one-termers have remained in politics historically. Under the current rules, a one-termer has a 50% chance of retiring, which is spot on.

Only two two-term presidents who didn't die in office formally sought office again (Grant and Teddy Roosevelt). A total of 19 presidents served more than one term and didn't die in office. That's about 10% of two-termers seeking office again. Under the current rules, there is a 95% chance that a two-termer retires. Historically, two-term presidents have retired at a lower rate, but I think that a 5% chance of staying active is still perfectly reasonable.

So agreed that it's not a big deal and shouldn't receive too much attention, but if people are concerned about the probabilities, they're pretty good based on history.

Thanks for this. That's super interesting. I never would have guessed that 50% of one-term Presidents stayed in politics. 

[Ich_bin_Tyler]

For contingent elections, there is really no downside for having an election go to the house and/or senate. 

Suggestion would be to have the candidate that wins have a 50% to gain controversial and 50% chance for domestic stability to drop. This would make it so that a “corrupt bargain” scenario would be reflected in public sentiment.

Thoughts, feedback, comments?

[OrangeP47]

2 minutes ago, Ich_bin_Tyler said:

For contingent elections, there is really no downside for having an election go to the house and/or senate. 

Suggestion would be to have the candidate that wins have a 50% to gain controversial and 50% chance for domestic stability to drop. This would make it so that a “corrupt bargain” scenario would be reflected in public sentiment.

Thoughts, feedback, comments?

Make it apply to the VP to *throws a steel frame chair*

[matthewyoung123]

10 minutes ago, Ich_bin_Tyler said:

For contingent elections, there is really no downside for having an election go to the house and/or senate. 

Suggestion would be to have the candidate that wins have a 50% to gain controversial and 50% chance for domestic stability to drop. This would make it so that a “corrupt bargain” scenario would be reflected in public sentiment.

Thoughts, feedback, comments?

I think that's an accurate reflection and given that it's 50/50, it's not an AUTOMATIC hit, just a shot at one.  Like, in the contingent election of 1800, I don't think there would have been a stability drop.  But I think after 1824, one could make an argument that there was over the so called "corrupt bargain".  There's your 50/50 historical precedent right there.

[OrangeP47]

1 minute ago, matthewyoung123 said:

I think that's an accurate reflection and given that it's 50/50, it's not an AUTOMATIC hit, just a shot at one.  Like, in the contingent election of 1800, I don't think there would have been a stability drop.  But I think after 1824, one could make an argument that there was over the so called "corrupt bargain".  There's your 50/50 historical precedent right there.

Fun fact, IRL 1836 went contingent for VP but it was basically a formality because some electors were rowdy (our man Granger was the loser).  It's so uncontroversial, in fact, I'm pretty sure nobody here but me remembered that.

[OrangeP47]

Just now, OrangeP47 said:

Fun fact, IRL 1836 went contingent for VP but it was basically a formality because some electors were rowdy (our man Granger was the loser).  It's so uncontroversial, in fact, I'm pretty sure nobody here but me remembered that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingent_election#1837_vice_presidential_election

[ebrk85]

The electors couldn't bring themselves to vote for a man, Richard Johnson, who had a relationship with a black women.

[OrangeP47]

1 minute ago, ebrk85 said:

The electors couldn't bring themselves to vote for a man, Richard Johnson, who had a relationship with a black women.

I mean, uncontroverisal at the time, I should be clear.

[OrangeP47]

While we're here @ebrk85 another rule change we'd like that's just a minor tweak.

Instead of death retirements being 2 retires/1 death per faction, we'd like to make it tied to 5% of the faction max (so if it's 6.3, that's 6 full number pols).  Split 50/50 between retires and deaths, if it's an odd number, the extra is a retire.

That seems more balanced in later eras when there are more pols in the game.  Three works fine at game start... but less so as time goes on and more people enter.  I calculated it and at our current time in 1900 for our playtest, it'd be about 6-7 pols per cycle per faction as opposed to 3, so it really isn't that big a change, and it's much needed, as we're flooded with old fogies.

[DJBillyShakes]

20 minutes ago, Ich_bin_Tyler said:

For contingent elections, there is really no downside for having an election go to the house and/or senate. 

Suggestion would be to have the candidate that wins have a 50% to gain controversial and 50% chance for domestic stability to drop. This would make it so that a “corrupt bargain” scenario would be reflected in public sentiment.

Thoughts, feedback, comments?

It could also be a product of whether the contingent election chooses the popular or electoral vote winner. 1824 and 1876 were more controversial than 1800 because they didn't elect the candidate who won the popular vote and had a plurality in the Electoral College. If the House in 1800 had elected Burr or deadlocked to make Marshall acting president, the reaction would've been very different.

[matthewyoung123]

1 minute ago, OrangeP47 said:

While we're here @ebrk85 another rule change we'd like that's just a minor tweak.

Instead of death retirements being 2 retires/1 death per faction, we'd like to make it tied to 5% of the faction max (so if it's 6.3, that's 6 full number pols).  Split 50/50 between retires and deaths, if it's an odd number, the extra is a retire.

That seems more balanced in later eras when there are more pols in the game.  Three works fine at game start... but less so as time goes on and more people enter.  I calculated it and at our current time in 1900 for our playtest, it'd be about 6-7 pols per cycle per faction as opposed to 3, so it really isn't that big a change, and it's much needed, as we're flooded with old fogies.

I'm going to start using this calculation in my 1856 game!

[ebrk85]

39 minutes ago, OrangeP47 said:

While we're here @ebrk85 another rule change we'd like that's just a minor tweak.

Instead of death retirements being 2 retires/1 death per faction, we'd like to make it tied to 5% of the faction max (so if it's 6.3, that's 6 full number pols).  Split 50/50 between retires and deaths, if it's an odd number, the extra is a retire.

That seems more balanced in later eras when there are more pols in the game.  Three works fine at game start... but less so as time goes on and more people enter.  I calculated it and at our current time in 1900 for our playtest, it'd be about 6-7 pols per cycle per faction as opposed to 3, so it really isn't that big a change, and it's much needed, as we're flooded with old fogies.

I am curious to see how this turns out. I am not finding the same issue in my playtests. In the 1948 playtest (currently in 1974) I have several factions who don't have a single active pol at 75 years of age or older.  And in the old modern test I found everyone retiring too young for what is now common with people serving well into their 80s and beyond. Although that one didn't run long enough into the future to really see the long-term effects. But all the current IRL Senators that we started with like Grassley and Feinstein, etc all retired very quickly after the 2016 start.

[OrangeP47]

2 minutes ago, ebrk85 said:

I am curious to see how this turns out. I am not finding the same issue in my playtests. In the 1948 playtest (currently in 1974) I have several factions who don't have a single active pol at 75 years of age or older.  And in the old modern test I found everyone retiring too young for what is now common with people serving well into their 80s and beyond. Although that one didn't run long enough into the future to really see the long-term effects. But all the current IRL Senators that we started with like Grassley and Feinstein, etc all retired very quickly after the 2016 start.

The beauty of it is it self-corrects, because 5% isn't a fixed number, it's a ratio.  It's possible the *super modern* era actually has less pols... because we don't know who's going to be hip and happening in the 2030s yet, and that could influence things.  

[Arkansas Progressive]

CPU Things - Again

• When CPUs decide to do gov actions and the chance lands on something to help an ally, the ally is the lowest scoring faction (75%) or closest ideology (25%), if tied - randomized.
• If unable to do governor action to help ally, default to solving crisis (75%) or helping own faction ((25%)