Constructive Results of AMPU Summer Playtest

[vcczar]

I'm noting constructive results of our Summer AMPU Playtest here, just so you can see how helpful you are all being by taking part in this:

• Peyton Randolph Legis ability increased from 1 to 2
• Prior to governor's elections, delegates will be selected by 6-sided die roll modified by their legis ability, rather than by legis ability with a roll for ties. This update won't take effect until after this first delegation "election" since we've already started the nomination process. 
• CPU will vote for their nominee for President of the Continental Congress in the first round of voting. If the vote goes to a 2nd round, they will vote for their candidate 25% of the time, will vote for the candidate with the earliest draft year 25% of the time, will vote for the candidate with the highest value 25% of the time, will randomly vote for any nominee of their party 25% of the time. 
• Becoming President of the Continental Congress earns 50 pts. 
• The winning party's top player will lose 25% of their score if their party has the lowest scoring faction as part of their party, and the other factions (minus the last faction) will lose 10% of their score 
• Election to the CC nets 50 pts. 
• Previous offices requirement for Faction Leader does not play a roll in Era of Independence. 
• Remove "obscure" requirement for Faction Leader in the Era of Independence. 
• When choosing faction leaders, a faction without an ideology card will need to choose a leader with a personal ideology that is a dominant ideology for the Historical Era. 
• The Populist Card holder will, when LW or RW Pop score points differently, be awarded points based on which kind of populist has the majority in that faction. If tie, they get both points. 
• Lingering Phase in Era of Independence does not start until end of Revolutionary War, but the chart will still show what would be/will be lingering. 
• Filled in some Era of Independence legislation that had not yet had their lingering effects 
• Legis and actions will have immediate effects as well as lingering
• Added rules for Ideological Enthusiasm in Special Rules
• Added CPU movements for picking faction leaders.
• CC Congress elections will revert to taking place when Gov elections do after the inaugural CC elections, including the 1774-1776 election period again. The inaugural election will represent the 1st CC that met at Carpenter's Hall. The next election will represent the long-lasting 2nd CC that met at Independence Hall. May need to flesh out when CC appointments are made, including military, and Pres Elections. 
• Place a notification that the 1774-1776 is a 2nd half-term. 
• After Ideology Cards are handed out, any faction without an ideology will gain the dominant ideology for that party of the era. If there are multiple dominant ideologies, the ideology will be randomly assigned. 
• "there are no rules that I can see for who a CPU faction votes for if they don't have a horse of their own in the race. "
   
• consider domestic stab modifier for not having regionally diverse CC Presidents. 

[vcczar]

Added two new items. 

[vcczar]

Two new additions. 

[vcczar]

Updated the list. 

[vcczar]

Updated

[vcczar]

@MrPotatoTed added the new populist rule here. I haven't added most of these to the rules yet. I'll do that when I can get the most recent update of the rules, but probably won't have time to add these until sometime next week. 

[vcczar]

Updated this list. @MrPotatoTed Most of this hasn't been added to the rules yet, but I plan to do that the next day that I don't have a lot of other things to do. I'll cross them off on the list above when I did. Ideally, I'll get it done before the events and legislation for 1776-1778, but that might not be the case. I'm also behind on paid work, but I can catch up on that quickly, I think. Speaking of which, I gotta jump to that until TMP gets his candidates in. 

[vcczar]

On 7/21/2021 at 11:20 AM, vcczar said:

The winning party's top player will lose 25% of their score if their party has the lowest scoring faction as part of their party, and the other factions (minus the last faction) will lose 10% of their score 

@MrPotatoTed There's the rule I was talking about. Not officially part of the rules yet until I add it in. 

[MrPotatoTed]

9 hours ago, vcczar said:

@MrPotatoTed There's the rule I was talking about. Not officially part of the rules yet until I add it in. 

Interesting!  I'm a little worried that it could create a nosedive effect.  If one party is in the minority, they don't have as much opportunity to control their scores, and thus the lowest score stays the lowest score, while the rest of the party is hemorrhaging points as a result.  

I think the "faction enthusiasm" may already achieve what you're trying to achieve here, but of course I'm happy to test out anything you want tested.

[vcczar]

23 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Interesting!  I'm a little worried that it could create a nosedive effect.  If one party is in the minority, they don't have as much opportunity to control their scores, and thus the lowest score stays the lowest score, while the rest of the party is hemorrhaging points as a result.  

I think the "faction enthusiasm" may already achieve what you're trying to achieve here, but of course I'm happy to test out anything you want tested.

Ok. Let’s not use this rule. Might have to insert it or something like it if one ideology is in last place the entire game. 

[vcczar]

As much as I'd like to wait until the rules are done, I may start reaching out for developer for an alternative to Anthony as soon as things settle down for me in real life, hopefully in about 3 weeks. @MrPotatoTed If we can get the rules done by then, that would be great, but if we don't that's okay too. I'm guessing no one will want to read the rules right away. If they do, we can hopefully maybe work on them together via zoom so we can expedite the back-and-forth and get them done quickly, hopefully in like 2 hours or less at a time of your convenience. 

[vcczar]

Just an update on this thread. I haven't listed the last improvements on here mainly because they're coming in more regularly than I have time to update them for the moment. I'll just note big changes--if any--that are made to the game here. It's mainly just small stuff since we're almost "done."

[vcczar]

Added "Controversial" to Andrew Cuomo in the master spreadsheet. 

[vcczar]

Reminder to myself to do this to the rules: 

• Make Populist Card to LW Pop and RW Pop scoring clearer
• Remove requirement that everyone must propose a bill. Make it clearer that repealing a bill is an option, so that people remember that that is a good option, especially for Traditionalists. 
• Add some of the spreadsheet rules into the rules doc so all the rules are in one place. 

@MrPotatoTed not sure if there is any other rule change I agreed to that needs to be reflected in the rules. If there are any, let's just use this thread for discussing rules. Nothing so big that it's going to require a huge overhaul. I think the core of the rules is done. I think just clarity, user-friendliness, things that can easily be taken out and adjusted. If something leads to a real problem in the game, then certainly I'll change whatever needs to changing. 

Once I can get these bloody rules "done," I can get back to screens and flow charts. Hopefully, you can handle flow charts while I do the screens since you have that flow chart program, but I understand if you won't have time. 

[MrPotatoTed]

Yep, I've been working to simplify the rules for players -- just what they actually need to know (including a stand-alone "Independence Era" rule set since there's so many differences).  I've been making minor changes as I go, changing percentages, simplifying, making traits matter a little more.  Once I have that done, and if you're happy with it, we could cross reference it with the master rules and easily change the master rules to accurately reflect the simplified rules (if they meet your approval of course).

One broad stroke idea I've been thinking about is whether we should drop the faction cards.  I know we had a really good reason for creating them, and at first I loved them, but they don't swap hands very frequently, and lead to weird things like a faction with 60% moderates being "The Traditionalist Faction", etc.  Plus a lot of confusion about when the faction ideologies(etc) matter versus the individual politician's ideology.  It would simplify the game to drop them, I think...though you raise a valid point in asking why anyone would bother to propose/pass traditionalist laws if every faction has mostly moderates.

Maybe the answer is Moderate laws award 50 points to moderate statesmen, Liberal/Conservative laws award 100 points to Liberal/Conservative statesmen, Traditionalist/Progressive laws award 250 points to Traditionalist/Progressive statesmen, and LW/RW Populist laws award 500 points to LW/RW?  So yes, it's probably easier to pass moderate laws -- but it's higher risk/higher reward to go for something farther to the right or left.

[ConservativeElector2]

On 8/22/2021 at 10:48 PM, vcczar said:

Added "Controversial" to Andrew Cuomo in the master spreadsheet. 

Adding Kathy Hochul might be necessary, if it wasn't done already.

[ConservativeElector2]

I could do it btw

[vcczar]

23 minutes ago, ConservativeElector2 said:

I could do it btw

Yeah to the master statesmen tab. If you can access it. 

[vcczar]

1 hour ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Yep, I've been working to simplify the rules for players -- just what they actually need to know (including a stand-alone "Independence Era" rule set since there's so many differences).  I've been making minor changes as I go, changing percentages, simplifying, making traits matter a little more.  Once I have that done, and if you're happy with it, we could cross reference it with the master rules and easily change the master rules to accurately reflect the simplified rules (if they meet your approval of course).

One broad stroke idea I've been thinking about is whether we should drop the faction cards.  I know we had a really good reason for creating them, and at first I loved them, but they don't swap hands very frequently, and lead to weird things like a faction with 60% moderates being "The Traditionalist Faction", etc.  Plus a lot of confusion about when the faction ideologies(etc) matter versus the individual politician's ideology.  It would simplify the game to drop them, I think...though you raise a valid point in asking why anyone would bother to propose/pass traditionalist laws if every faction has mostly moderates.

Maybe the answer is Moderate laws award 50 points to moderate statesmen, Liberal/Conservative laws award 100 points to Liberal/Conservative statesmen, Traditionalist/Progressive laws award 250 points to Traditionalist/Progressive statesmen, and LW/RW Populist laws award 500 points to LW/RW?  So yes, it's probably easier to pass moderate laws -- but it's higher risk/higher reward to go for something farther to the right or left.

I think the last paragraph thing is a good plan. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow when I have more time to consider it. Would require going through every event and proposal etc and editing those. May need a volunteer to help with that. 

[MrPotatoTed]

3 minutes ago, vcczar said:

I think the last paragraph thing is a good plan. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow when I have more time to consider it. Would require going through every event and proposal etc and editing those. May need a volunteer to help with that. 

Maybe @Cal or @ConservativeElector2?  Or just having that be a blanket rule, so you wouldn't have to tweak every proposal.

[vcczar]

31 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Maybe @Cal or @ConservativeElector2?  Or just having that be a blanket rule, so you wouldn't have to tweak every proposal.

I’ll think of something. 

[ConservativeElector2]

39 minutes ago, vcczar said:

Yeah to the master statesmen tab. If you can access it. 

I've added her to the AMPU Statemen XML file. Hope that's the one we are still working on.

There are headlines which indicated she's defined as a moderate. Because she praises her ''big Irish catholic family'' I marked her as a Catholic as well.

[vcczar]

4 minutes ago, ConservativeElector2 said:

I've added her to the AMPU Statemen XML file. Hope that's the one we are still working on.

There are headlines which indicated she's defined as a moderate. Because she praises her ''big Irish catholic family'' I marked her as a Catholic as well.

Thanks. She also called herself a Biden Democrat. I might move her to “liberal” I think of Sinema and Manchin as moderates. 

[MrPotatoTed]

Random idea that it probably maximum effort for minimum reward.  Haha.

But maybe (someday) various laws and events would have a "memorability" score.  When we think of Nixon, we think Watergate, China, maybe Checkers....think of JFK and it's the assassination, Cuba, perhaps the leadup to Vietnam.  LBJ gets Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement.  Teddy Roosevelt gets National Parks.  Grover Cleveland gets just winning election non-consecutively.  William Howard Taft gets getting stuck in the bathtub, which is still more than say Benjamin Harrison gets remembered for.

I'm imagining a "US History" screen that would show the various (presumably ahistorical, mostly) Presidents and the most memorable things about their presidency -- could be fun to reflect on at the end of a 1772 - 2020+ playthrough.  It would be automatically generated with the top 3 or top 5 things that happened during that presidency.

[Cal]

20 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Random idea that it probably maximum effort for minimum reward.  Haha.

But maybe (someday) various laws and events would have a "memorability" score.  When we think of Nixon, we think Watergate, China, maybe Checkers....think of JFK and it's the assassination, Cuba, perhaps the leadup to Vietnam.  LBJ gets Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement.  Teddy Roosevelt gets National Parks.  Grover Cleveland gets just winning election non-consecutively.  William Howard Taft gets getting stuck in the bathtub, which is still more than say Benjamin Harrison gets remembered for.

I'm imagining a "US History" screen that would show the various (presumably ahistorical, mostly) Presidents and the most memorable things about their presidency -- could be fun to reflect on at the end of a 1772 - 2020+ playthrough.  It would be automatically generated with the top 3 or top 5 things that happened during that presidency.

Some kind of “leaderboard” menu could also have a tab for most powerful politicians of all time, those who overperformed starting draft values most significantly, biggest failures, biggest landslides, most overwhelming bills, etc.