Constructive Results of AMPU Summer Playtest

[vcczar]

1 minute ago, Cal said:

I think these could potentially be dumbed down to “strategist” and “naive” respectively. The only issue with that is that being more general terms might open them up to being interpreted to do things outside the very narrow scope you’ve prescribed.

Honestly, a lot of these traits you’re wanting to add are very minor and more about implementation style and ability modifiers than anything else. Should those be traits or be something else, like how you’ve separated expertise, interests, and personalities? 

Naïve is too general a term. Basically, the terms can be changed. What I want is the traits. I'm okay with the names changing. 

I'm not sure I'm understanding your 2nd paragraph. I got like 30 traits and most of those are rather minor. 

[vcczar]

Added a few more traits:

• Passive (kind of an opposite of Iron Fist)
• Predictable (kind of an opposite of Manipulative)
• Illicit (kind of an opposite of Cop). I really don't like these terms. Basically, "Cop" is for someone that is not only an expert in Judicial stuff but would be seen as a president that would be hyper-focused and vigilant in implementing judicial policies. Illicit is someone that would be lazy in these policies. I really don't like my term "illicit"
• Domestic Apathy (kind of an opposite of Domestic Warrior). These are similar to Cop/Illicit but for domestic policies implementation. I don't really like these names either. 

[vcczar]

Also added Overeager and Late Bloomer. This will provide some positives/negatives for these politicians being placed on the career track.

[ConservativeElector2]

1 hour ago, vcczar said:

• I really don't like my term "illicit"

How about lenient?

[Cal]

1 hour ago, vcczar said:

Passive (kind of an opposite of Iron Fist)

Maybe this could be added to pliable?

[vcczar]

7 minutes ago, Cal said:

Maybe this could be added to pliable?

Nah, because not all passive people are pliable. 

[vcczar]

Added "Carpetbagger" election penalty that can be gained for moving to another state. 25% chance of -1 for a period of 8 years. After 8 years, the attack strategy wouldn't work anymore because they'll have been a "long-term" resident.

[MrPotatoTed]

16 hours ago, vcczar said:

@MrPotatoTed @ConservativeElector2 @Cal

Added some traits that will help/hurt with implementation while serving as president. Won't have any non-presidential role. Having the expertise will be required for some of these extra bonus effects. So if you have a guy with bookkeeper, you want to get him economics expertise to fulfill that:

• Bookkeeper (helps further with economics implementation)
• Numberfudger (hurts economic implementation)
• Cop (helps with Judicial implementation)
• Geostrategist (helps with foreignaffairs/mil implementation)
• Strategically naive (hurts with foreign affairs/mil implementation)
• Domestic Warrior (helps with domestic implementation)

Might make more negative ones.

 

15 hours ago, Cal said:

I think these could potentially be dumbed down to “strategist” and “naive” respectively. The only issue with that is that being more general terms might open them up to being interpreted to do things outside the very narrow scope you’ve prescribed.

Honestly, a lot of these traits you’re wanting to add are very minor and more about implementation style and ability modifiers than anything else. Should those be traits or be something else, like how you’ve separated expertise, interests, and personalities? 

I feel like some of these are already covered by efficient/egghead/easily overwhelmed/incompetent.  And maybe even the cards.  Liike a "Law and Order" faction would naturally include those who are hard on crime, etc. 

[vcczar]

Just now, MrPotatoTed said:

 

I feel like some of these are already covered by efficient/egghead/easily overwhelmed/incompetent.  And maybe even the cards.  Liike a "Law and Order" faction would naturally include those who are hard on crime, etc. 

They're slightly different. 

[vcczar]

Slightly changed the pre-primary rules for selecting the party nominees for US Gov and US Sen races. It's quasi-corrupt now, so those that have the power in the states will generally keep power, which will make attempts at reform and progress more of a conflict. 

1. The rule is, whomever has the most Kingmakers from the state will get the nominee. If there is a tie in the number of Kingmakers, 

2. then it goes to whichever of these has the most politicians in the state. 

So if JViking has 1 kingmaker in NY and Conservative Elector also has 1 kingmaker in NY, then they can't both be the nominee for the Red Party. There's no primary system for them to compete. Therefore it is state influence. Conservative Elector has 16 NYers to JVikings 12. ConservativeElector can expect to hold the power over the nomination until:

1. JViking gets more NYers or Conservative Elector loses NYers.

2. JViking supports the primary system at the national level. 

3. JViking gets lucky because Conservative Elector hasn't an available NYer with GOV. JViking takes the governorship and institutes primaries in his state. 

NY will be a consistent battleground at all levels. No state has carried more weight for most of our history. Most of the pres elections hinged on who would win NY. 

[MrPotatoTed]

1 hour ago, vcczar said:

Slightly changed the pre-primary rules for selecting the party nominees for US Gov and US Sen races. It's quasi-corrupt now, so those that have the power in the states will generally keep power, which will make attempts at reform and progress more of a conflict. 

1. The rule is, whomever has the most Kingmakers from the state will get the nominee. If there is a tie in the number of Kingmakers, 

2. then it goes to whichever of these has the most politicians in the state. 

So if JViking has 1 kingmaker in NY and Conservative Elector also has 1 kingmaker in NY, then they can't both be the nominee for the Red Party. There's no primary system for them to compete. Therefore it is state influence. Conservative Elector has 16 NYers to JVikings 12. ConservativeElector can expect to hold the power over the nomination until:

1. JViking gets more NYers or Conservative Elector loses NYers.

2. JViking supports the primary system at the national level. 

3. JViking gets lucky because Conservative Elector hasn't an available NYer with GOV. JViking takes the governorship and institutes primaries in his state. 

NY will be a consistent battleground at all levels. No state has carried more weight for most of our history. Most of the pres elections hinged on who would win NY. 

I like it!

[Cal]

1 hour ago, vcczar said:

Slightly changed the pre-primary rules for selecting the party nominees for US Gov and US Sen races. It's quasi-corrupt now, so those that have the power in the states will generally keep power, which will make attempts at reform and progress more of a conflict. 

1. The rule is, whomever has the most Kingmakers from the state will get the nominee. If there is a tie in the number of Kingmakers, 

2. then it goes to whichever of these has the most politicians in the state. 

So if JViking has 1 kingmaker in NY and Conservative Elector also has 1 kingmaker in NY, then they can't both be the nominee for the Red Party. There's no primary system for them to compete. Therefore it is state influence. Conservative Elector has 16 NYers to JVikings 12. ConservativeElector can expect to hold the power over the nomination until:

1. JViking gets more NYers or Conservative Elector loses NYers.

2. JViking supports the primary system at the national level. 

3. JViking gets lucky because Conservative Elector hasn't an available NYer with GOV. JViking takes the governorship and institutes primaries in his state. 

NY will be a consistent battleground at all levels. No state has carried more weight for most of our history. Most of the pres elections hinged on who would win NY. 

Can you endorse another faction? Let's say this is the scenario

Progressive team: 3 kingmakers
Liberal team: 4 kingmakers
Moderate team: 5 kingmakers. 

Could the progressive faction opt to endorse the liberal faction nominee? Or could they do so if they did not have an eligible governor candidate? That may be something for the CPU game rather than the forum game to consider. 

[vcczar]

11 minutes ago, Cal said:

Can you endorse another faction? Let's say this is the scenario

Progressive team: 3 kingmakers
Liberal team: 4 kingmakers
Moderate team: 5 kingmakers. 

Could the progressive faction opt to endorse the liberal faction nominee? Or could they do so if they did not have an eligible governor candidate? That may be something for the CPU game rather than the forum game to consider. 

I don't know yet. I'll have to think about it. It sort of just adds another step to the whole process. 

[vcczar]

@MrPotatoTed @ConservativeElector2 @Cal

I've created CPU rules for rejecting cabinet appointments. There's also some cases in which a politician has a chance to reject a position even if you want them to take it. For instance, a fellow micromanager might reject working for a micromanager president. 

[Cal]

7 minutes ago, vcczar said:

@MrPotatoTed @ConservativeElector2 @Cal

I've created CPU rules for rejecting cabinet appointments. There's also some cases in which a politician has a chance to reject a position even if you want them to take it. For instance, a fellow micromanager might reject working for a micromanager president. 

Nice! Are these rules going to affect this playthrough at all? It might be nice to get some testing with them but it also might make things a bit mucky trying to make modifications to our spreadsheet that is mostly a remnant of Mark's old work that we've repurposed 😉 

If you do want to get testing in, one possibility would be to begin new rules/trait additions with new eras in our current playthrough. That way traits can be added to new draft classes and players are already expecting some changes with the era change anyway. 

Just food for thought!

[MrPotatoTed]

6 minutes ago, Cal said:

Nice! Are these rules going to affect this playthrough at all? It might be nice to get some testing with them but it also might make things a bit mucky trying to make modifications to our spreadsheet that is mostly a remnant of Mark's old work that we've repurposed 😉 

If you do want to get testing in, one possibility would be to begin new rules/trait additions with new eras in our current playthrough. That way traits can be added to new draft classes and players are already expecting some changes with the era change anyway. 

Just food for thought!

I’ll defer to @vcczar of course but I don’t think there’s an easy way to add more traits to a current playthrough, even if you limit it to future draft classes.  But if there is a way, that’s fine.

I am excited to try out the new pre-primary system though.  I can start using that right now.

[vcczar]

16 minutes ago, Cal said:

Nice! Are these rules going to affect this playthrough at all? It might be nice to get some testing with them but it also might make things a bit mucky trying to make modifications to our spreadsheet that is mostly a remnant of Mark's old work that we've repurposed 😉 

If you do want to get testing in, one possibility would be to begin new rules/trait additions with new eras in our current playthrough. That way traits can be added to new draft classes and players are already expecting some changes with the era change anyway. 

Just food for thought!

 

7 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

I’ll defer to @vcczar of course but I don’t think there’s an easy way to add more traits to a current playthrough, even if you limit it to future draft classes.  But if there is a way, that’s fine.

I am excited to try out the new pre-primary system though.  I can start using that right now.

Yeah, there's no easy way to do that because the master spreadsheet for politicians now has way more columns. I wouldn't say any of these new traits are so major that they'd require playtesting. I also don't want to slow down the playtest for something that is more for flavor than anything.

[vcczar]

@MrPotatoTed @Cal @ConservativeElector2

Implementation has some changes, although most of these won't effect your playthrough. Basically, I remember their being an issue in which it was too easy to bungle implementation. While I've added some things that might make it harder, the bulk of the additions make it harder to fail or at least fail frequently. 

• The rule allowing an "efficient" cabinet member to roll for everyone stands. 
• A president with "delegator" now has a chance of getting out of a implementation roll. This is good because generally it is the president that causes implementation failures because they're the one that generally lacks the expertise & etc. in something eventually. 
• A president with "micromanager" now has a chance of rolling for a cabinet officer. This can be very bad and it accurately reflects micromanagers such as Carter and Hoover. 
• A president with "crisis manager" (possibly the rarest trait of all now) has a chance of boosting everyone's abilities just for the implementation, including their own. This only occurs if it is implementation for Legislation or Pres Action that deals with a crisis. I think Washington, Lincoln, and FDR are the only ones that start with "Crisis Manager," but others can earn it. 
• If implementation fails, there is a Blunder roll. The president has a high chance of avoiding a blunder roll if he has (depending on the genre of what was implemented) Bookkeeper, Cop, Geostrategist, Domestic Warrior. However, he's almost assured automatic blunder if they have Numberfudger, Illicit, Strategically Naïve, Domestic Apathy and the genre of the thing being implemented relates to one of these. 
• Similarly a cabinet officer with "Crisis Admin" has a high chance of avoiding a blunder roll. If they also have "efficient," then there's a chance they get everyone out of a blunder roll. 
• If the blunder situation is not resolved by any of the above, then there's the standard blunder rolls. 
• Rules for what to do if Blunder does occur are basically the same. 

[vcczar]

To help prevent crises from lasting too long, the lingering phase has two new additions:

• Relevant cabinet officers with "Crisis Admin" have a 10% chance of pulling a meter out of crisis during this phase. If the president also has "Crisis Manager" then this is upped to 20%. This would be in addition to standard rolls for cabinet member influence on the meters. 

[vcczar]

A Governor with "Crisis Gov" will get a boost for actions that help deal with a crisis. 

There's now a chance that a president with "passive" will block his own attempt at federal intervention during Gov Actions with their own passivity. 

There's now a chance that a "predictable" president will automatically fail in their federal intervention attempt. 

There's a chance a "micromanager" president will get multiple federal intervention attempts (one of the few upsides to this trait). 

A president with "Delegate" has a chance of the Att Gen picking where to get involved if the Att Gen has "egghead"

A president with pliable will get manipulated in this stage.

[vcczar]

A Chief Justice with "Jurisprudence" can increase the vote conversion chances of all justices with their same personal ideology. This would include the Chief Justice. Thus, a 5-6 die roll for vote conversion is a 4-6 roll. 

[vcczar]

Passive Justices won't attempt vote conversions. 

Predictable Justices can only be converted by Chief Justice

[vcczar]

There's more nuance with diplomacy now based on the new traits. Having a "predictable" president is a huge weakness when one is at war or hostile with another nation. A micromanager could undermine a strong Sec of State, etc. 

[vcczar]

A player gets some help if they are one loss from defeat in the military phase. A president with crisis manager or Sec of War/Defense (or Navy/Defense for Naval) gains 10% boost in a in planning a battle. A general or admiral with "decisive general" will gain 10%. If you have someone on the planning stage and on the field, that combines for 20% boost. 

[Cal]

Throughout history, we’ve had a few repeat nominees and it seems likely that President Trump will run for office in 2024. William Jennings Bryan, Trump, and George Wallace are the three that come to mind. All fit into the populist category. In fact, these are really the only populists that ran for President in any serious manner that I can think of, so it’s significant that ALL of them did not retire after electoral defeat.

It seems to me that retirement rolls should be modified to reflect this. Populists with controversial have the option of using the military to overturn an election in game, but I would argue that the chance that a populist nominee or president retires from the game after electoral loss should be lower than a non populist given the sample of populists IRL. I’m not sure exactly what would be the exact numbers, but here is what I would consider.

Losing populist presidential nominee 50% -> 25%

Losing populist President 95% -> 75%

is it a huge change? No, but it is still significant and gives populists a bit more realistic flavor IMO. Without this sort of change, it’s difficult to see WJB seeking office the amount of times he did IRL or for Trump to even have the possibility of running again in game.