Constructive Results of AMPU Summer Playtest

[Rezi]

1 hour ago, Hestia said:

I think we should be able to decline general appointments. Especially since in this game, we're not coming from the military. Gerry just got appointed to General when I worked to get him to be Gov, and now we just lost the governorship since no one else in MA not in the Career Track is blue. It's just kind of frustrating knowing that he may die before I try and get him back in office again and I lost my only governor because I couldn't decline. It said "nominate", but I wasn't asked for a chance to turn down the nomination. 

Agree. It feels kind of overpowered that you can just appoint other players' best politicians to positions where they have a chance of dying without them even getting a chance to decline.

[Cal]

1 hour ago, Hestia said:

I think we should be able to decline general appointments. Especially since in this game, we're not coming from the military. Gerry just got appointed to General when I worked to get him to be Gov, and now we just lost the governorship since no one else in MA not in the Career Track is blue. It's just kind of frustrating knowing that he may die before I try and get him back in office again and I lost my only governor because I couldn't decline. It said "nominate", but I wasn't asked for a chance to turn down the nomination. 

Agreed. Additionally, denying appointments to the Continental Congress, cabinet, whatever else. I imagine that in most cases its just faster to move past and assume acceptance, but maybe give a time frame for the appointed player to be able to retrospectively decline if time is a concern. (Say, 4 hours) That way in the few cases it IS an issue it can be solved without having to pause the game for every. single. appointment. 

[vcczar]

14 minutes ago, Rezi said:

Agree. It feels kind of overpowered that you can just appoint other players' best politicians to positions where they have a chance of dying without them even getting a chance to decline.

 

9 minutes ago, Cal said:

Agreed. Additionally, denying appointments to the Continental Congress, cabinet, whatever else. I imagine that in most cases its just faster to move past and assume acceptance, but maybe give a time frame for the appointed player to be able to retrospectively decline if time is a concern. (Say, 4 hours) That way in the few cases it IS an issue it can be solved without having to pause the game for every. single. appointment. 

Yeah, in the game you can decline a post. For playtesting purposes we skip that step or we'd never get to the year 1800. 

[MrPotatoTed]

@Hestia Just saw this.  The rules don't specify, but yes you can decline it.  If you wish to, we'll need @Rezi to appoint a new General as Gerry declined.

[vcczar]

I may add some Era of Independence legislation that moves the capital between Philadelphia and NYC since these will likely be alternate capitals. NYC also became the capital in the 1780s before it went back to Philadelphia in 1790. 

[Hestia]

I know we've talked about Traditionalists before, so I just thought this was an interesting little point.

- Right now, I am the Traditionalists and I have the most points on the Blue Team at the present time by 600 points. This is largely due to victories in governor races and the like.

- Cal holds the Traditionalists on Red. While not doing super well, he is still not in last (second to last) on his team. 

I think this is showing that being traditionalists isn't really a death knell, at least through what we've played so far, as long as you keep factions as it is right now. 

[vcczar]

1 minute ago, Hestia said:

I know we've talked about Traditionalists before, so I just thought this was an interesting little point.

- Right now, I am the Traditionalists and I have the most points on the Blue Team at the present time by 600 points. This is largely due to victories in governor races and the like.

- Cal holds the Traditionalists on Red. While not doing super well, he is still not in last (second to last) on his team. 

I think this is showing that being traditionalists isn't really a death knell, at least through what we've played so far, as long as you keep factions as it is right now. 

That's an excellent sign. Thanks for pointing this out. Yeah, the difficulty of playing as a traditionalist has been the toughest thing to resolve while making this. 

[Cal]

Important to note is that Traditionalists are mostly hurt by legislation and we haven’t hit that part of the game yet. That will show us more of how it can be balanced if needed. 

Side note: I think the randomness of military command could be handled differently. It’s very arbitrary right now as far as I can tell and great generals can end up barely fighting while terrible generals get many battles. Maybe some way of assigning generals to battles or giving them priority. Maybe a seniority system could give higher chance of leading a battle? Unsure what to do but it does feel a little weird as of now, even if we are bound to win the war.

[MrPotatoTed]

2 hours ago, Cal said:

Important to note is that Traditionalists are mostly hurt by legislation and we haven’t hit that part of the game yet. That will show us more of how it can be balanced if needed. 

Side note: I think the randomness of military command could be handled differently. It’s very arbitrary right now as far as I can tell and great generals can end up barely fighting while terrible generals get many battles. Maybe some way of assigning generals to battles or giving them priority. Maybe a seniority system could give higher chance of leading a battle? Unsure what to do but it does feel a little weird as of now, even if we are bound to win the war.

For what it’s worth, there is a way to assign them — but off the top of my head I think it requires a Senior General who is efficient, and Artemis Ward isn’t.

[vcczar]

@MrPotatoTed and anyone else interested. I'm going to change the rules regarding the US Reps. They'll now also represent a portion of their state's US Reps. I think this will be more accurate, and we'll be able to use actual US Rep figures. 

So if a state had 21 US Reps, and the game allows for 3 influential Reps for that state, then each US Rep will get 7 US Reps. If there is an odd #, the US Rep with the highest Legis Power (randomized if tied) gets the extra Rep. 

[MrPotatoTed]

28 minutes ago, vcczar said:

@MrPotatoTed and anyone else interested. I'm going to change the rules regarding the US Reps. They'll now also represent a portion of their state's US Reps. I think this will be more accurate, and we'll be able to use actual US Rep figures. 

So if a state had 21 US Reps, and the game allows for 3 influential Reps for that state, then each US Rep will get 7 US Reps. If there is an odd #, the US Rep with the highest Legis Power (randomized if tied) gets the extra Rep. 

I actually thought that was how it already worked.  Haha.  Or are you referring to state legislature.

[vcczar]

3 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

I actually thought that was how it already worked.  Haha.  Or are you referring to state legislature.

No, I changed it once I created influential US Reps. This is kind of going back to that. There's nothing in the rules that mentions how US Rep totals are calculated actually, I think. 

[MrPotatoTed]

1 minute ago, vcczar said:

No, I changed it once I created influential US Reps. This is kind of going back to that. There's nothing in the rules that mentions how US Rep totals are calculated actually, I think. 

Yep, I meant that that’s what I thought the influential US rep system was.  But it was simplified to “small, medium, large” states based on historic population levels per era.

But regardless, looking forward to the new system!

[vcczar]

5 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Yep, I meant that that’s what I thought the influential US rep system was.  But it was simplified to “small, medium, large” states based on historic population levels per era.

But regardless, looking forward to the new system!

Ok, I updated these rules.

[vcczar]

Added Eric Garcetti. He was the mayor of LA and was expected to run for president in 2016 and 2020 but declined when LA constituents thought he was focusing too much on presidential ambitions. He's been nominated as an ambassador by Biden.

[vcczar]

@MrPotatoTed Constitutional Convention rules have now been added.

[vcczar]

@MrPotatoTed I made it slightly less likely that politicians will die during random death. I've also made it where a politician won't randomly retire during the random retirement phase if they are younger than 60. They still might retire at the end of 4-year phase if they are an outgoing president or etc.

[MrPotatoTed]

2 hours ago, vcczar said:

@MrPotatoTed I made it slightly less likely that politicians will die during random death. I've also made it where a politician won't randomly retire during the random retirement phase if they are younger than 60. They still might retire at the end of 4-year phase if they are an outgoing president or etc.

Ok, interesting.  I actually liked the current setup, but maybe I'll like the new setup better.  Only one way to find out!

[vcczar]

41 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Ok, interesting.  I actually liked the current setup, but maybe I'll like the new setup better.  Only one way to find out!

It won't be too much of a different. It will probably see like 1 less death per faction or at least deaths affecting older people slightly more. 

[vcczar]

I'm wondering if I should make the chances of gaining traits and abilities something that occurs every 4 years, rather than for election and reelection. The reason for this is that everyone will want 2 year terms since it will allow the easiest way to boost a politician. 

@MrPotatoTed @Cal @ConservativeElector2 and anyone else who seems really attune to the rules.

[ConservativeElector2]

1 minute ago, vcczar said:

The reason for this is that everyone will want 2 year terms since it will allow the easiest way to boost a politician. .

I haven't even thought about that yet. I am not even sure if I would want two year terms as player. My strategy would be to lock my guys into their positions for four years. More elections also mean more chances to lose.

However, it's a good point for sure and I'd be okay with the new rules. Whatever works best I guess.

[Cal]

35 minutes ago, vcczar said:

I'm wondering if I should make the chances of gaining traits and abilities something that occurs every 4 years, rather than for election and reelection. The reason for this is that everyone will want 2 year terms since it will allow the easiest way to boost a politician. 

@MrPotatoTed @Cal @ConservativeElector2 and anyone else who seems really attune to the rules.

I had already planned on abusing that. I had a conversation at some point about how two year terms and a chance to increase admin is currently the best way to create super administrators. That was before the career track changes, however. 

Changing the chance to gain traits and abilities to every 4 years doesn't make much sense, though. Why wouldn't a reelected governor have a chance to improve traits? Given the risk of reelection, that would make 2 year terms pretty much never beneficial. We would all immediately move to 4 year terms eliminate the huge risk that has absolutely no reward. 

Maybe a solution there would be that for the two year reelections, the chances are roughly halved after their first election. So a 1/6 roll becomes a 1/12 roll and two year terms and four year terms are equal. That would probably be the most fair way to do it. I'll demonstrate below. 

2 year term election 2000:
Chance of trait: 25%
(Overall chance so far: 25%)

2 year term reelection 2002:
Chance of trait: 12.5%
(Overall chance so far: 34%)

2 year term reelection 2004:
Chance of trait: 12.5%
(Overall chance of trait: 43%)

2 year term reelection 2006:
Chance of trait: 12.5%
(Overall chance of trait: 50%)

2 year term reelection 2008:
Chance of trait: 12.5%
(Overall chance of trait: 56%)

2 year term reelection 2010:
Chance of trait: 12.5%
(Overall chance of trait: 62%)

-----

4 year term election 2000:
Chance of trait: 25%
(Overall chance so far: 25%)

4 year term reelection 2004:
Chance of trait: 25%
(Overall chance so far: 44%)

4 year term reelection 2008:
Chance of trait: 25%
(Overall chance so far: 58%)

(New governor takes office 2012)

In this system, the overwhelming advantage of the two year terms is GREATLY diminished. It is still slightly superior to 4 year terms for maximizing gains by a few percentage points, but it comes with the added risk of constant reelection (5 reelections versus 2). It's much fairer than what we currently have going on and makes more sense than what you're proposing IMO. @vcczar

Edited September 13, 2021 by Cal

[MrPotatoTed]

@cal raises an interesting suggestion. But @ConservativeElector2 makes an interesting point too:  Yes, 2 years is easier to gain skills...but only if you can consistently win, which is twice as hard with 2 year terms.  So it’s a strategic balance between whether you want 2 or 4 terms, both have benefits and downsides.

[vcczar]

32 minutes ago, Cal said:

Maybe a solution there would be that for the two year reelections, the chances are roughly halved after their first election.

I decided to go with this. This is now a rule. Added it. @MrPotatoTed

[vcczar]

@MrPotatoTed @ConservativeElector2 @Cal

Think tank question: I'm considering making those that start with "celebrity" ineligible for the Career Track and available for office only once they are marked for "Obscure remove," which is a category I created for various start dates. 

That is, while Trump would be drafted in like 1976 or something, he would be eligible to use until 1984. 

Here's my rationale. Celebrities are only politician options in the game because they were famous for something not politically-related. At 25, Trump, Oprah, PT Barnum, etc. were not on any sort of political track. Much of there appeal and influence comes from their celebrity status. They were not celebrities at 25. They were celebrities later. 

I could make a setting that allows "celebrities" to go on the track or be usable immediately, but I think for the sake of making their "celebrity" status make sense, that something like this should be a drawback of drafting a "celebrity" politician. It's sort of like drafting a late-bloomer. They'll have payoff for you, but you have to be comfortable with waiting on them. Basically, they kind of come with a built-in career track, which is their "celebrity" trait.