I was looking through English.str using the text editor, and it showed a number of fields that I couldn't find anywhere else in the game. I saw the following in descriptions about the state voting population: age, demographic appeal, political philosophy, and religion. The following seemed to relate more to individual candidates, but I didn't see any such attributes in any candidate file: base loyalty, scandal, incumbency, and appeal. I wonder if these are fields that you could add into the candidate files. For instance, shouldn't George W Bush be running as an incumbant? Can you set some new descriptor in his candidate file that says "incumbency 1" to make that boolean value true, and what would the consequence be? I looked through the fantasy game set-up (the table which i think the game considers it under) but I didn't find an option in the actual game that you could set accordingly. The election might have been very different, after all, if Kerry and Bush were both running as first-run presidential hopefuls. Kerry might even hold the name recognition bonus that George W Bush had at the beginning of this election (a major advantage) because he was a national figure (senator) versus a state figure (governor.) Any thoughts? And is this something that exists in the game?
I haven't seen scandal as a major element (depsite its place in that table in English.str.) Could we add that to a Clinton-type character? Finally, is there some way to incorporate the base loyalty described above? The religious right would never have voted for Kerry - even if he had swept in every other issue. Can we give Bush a "zealous" or equivalent base loyalty to reflect this? I don't bring these things up as hypothetical elements. I simply saw them in the file, thought them promising, and hoped they might be usable for some candidates.
Finally, what are Bush advantage and Kerry advantage? Can we give those to other candidates as well? Would adding "Bush advantage" as a special trait to Reagan reflect Reagan's popularity?
On another note, I love the game and have bought three copies as Christmas gifts for my fellow political enthusiasts. I encourage others to do the same (rather than copying the cd.) If we can create a strong market for the game, it will give Ubisoft financial incentive to come out with updates (including some of the features discussed in other blogs) or a new version. Doesn't everyone want to see Political Machine 2008 or one for the intermediate House Campaigns in 2006? Maybe they could create a game that makes you battle in your constituency for a seat in the house.
V/R
adio
