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flaja
08-22-2007, 01:43 PM
I. Game Objective
To travel the country from state to state in order to wind endorsements, debate other candidates and build campaign headquarters in order to claim electoral votes. Each state will have one available campaign headquarters for each of its electoral votes. Candidates may claim a state’s electoral votes by establishing a majority of the state’s possible campaign headquarters. Each candidate takes a turn in rounds until one of the candidates can claim 271 electoral votes and thereby win the game. Each candidate may remain in the game until either he no longer has campaign money or another candidate wins the game.
II. Game Set Up
A. Each candidate begins the game in his home state, which he must designate at the game’s startup and candidates need not choose different states to be their home states.
B. Each candidate must decide whether or not they will use smear tactics against their opponents.
C. Each candidate decides which endorsements he will accept and which he will decline.
D. Each candidate begins the game with $1000000 x (double die roll x $1000000) + $1000000 if the candidate takes the no smear tactics pledge.
III. Endorsements
At the start of each candidate’s turn their will be an even chance that an interest group will offer its endorsement. If an endorsement is offered it will be offered at random. Each endorsement will enable the candidate to open a number of campaign headquarters.
A. If only one candidate has expressed a willingness to accept a particular interest group’s endorsement, then only that candidate will be eligible for that endorsement, which will enable the candidate to open a certain number of campaign headquarters at no cost.
01. Some endorsements will allow the candidate to open campaign headquarters anywhere, while others will allow headquarters only in certain states.
B. If more than one candidate is willing to accept an endorsement it will go to whichever candidate it is offered to first and will then no longer be available to any other candidate.
C. If no candidate is willing to accept an endorsement of a particular interest group, then that endorsement will be available to all candidates throughout the entire game.
01. Any candidate to whom an unclaimed endorsement is offered may accept it when it is offered with certain conditions:
(a) The candidate will be offered only half of the usual campaign headquarters that the endorsement would otherwise provide;
(b) The candidate must pay the full price for opening any headquarters that is provided by the endorsement.
(c) Any candidate that rejects an unclaimed endorsement will remain eligible to receive it throughout the game.
IV. Game Play
A. Travel
01. If the candidate does not wish to travel he may conduct a fundraiser IV C, or proceed to Face the Nation IV E.
02. If a candidate does wish to travel he may choose one of three travel options:
(a) By bus
Travel by bus enables the candidate to move to any state that is adjacent to the state in which he starts. Bus travel will not allow a candidate to reach Alaska or Hawaii.
(b) By train
To travel by train the candidate rolls one die and then travels through contiguous states until he has traveled through a number of states equal to the roll of the die and he must pay the appropriate fees for train travel. When traveling by bus the candidate must travel the entire distance indicated by the roll of his dice as long as he can afford to do so. However, if he cannot afford to travel the entire distance he must travel the distance that his campaign account will allow. Whenever the distance indicated by the roll of the dice allows more than one state to be the destination, the candidate may choose which state to travel to. Train travel will not allow a candidate to reach Alaska or Hawaii.
(c) By airplane
To travel by airplane the candidate rolls two dice and then travels through contiguous states until he has traveled through a number of states equal to the roll of the dice and he must pay the appropriate fees for air travel. When traveling by airplane the candidate must travel the entire distance indicated by the roll of his dice as long as he can afford to do so. However, if he cannot afford to travel the entire distance he must travel the distance that his campaign account will allow. Whenever the distance indicated by the roll of the dice allows more than one state to be the destination, the candidate may choose which state to travel to. Travel to Alaska is only permissible when traveling by airplane from California, Oregon, Washington State or Hawaii. Travel to Hawaii is permissible only when traveling by airplane from California, Oregon, Washington State or Alaska.
B. Campaign Headquarters
01. Building
When a candidate enters a state he may build one campaign headquarters therein, but he may not build more than one headquarters in the same state within any three turns except by either participating in a debate or drawing a Face the Nation card.
02. Rents
When a candidate enters a state he must pay the other candidates rent for each campaign headquarters they have in that state.
03. Closing
When a candidate enters a state he may close any number of his campaign headquarters therein and receive a refund equal to half their construction costs.
C. Fundraising
In order to hold a fundraiser the candidate must decide to roll 1 to 3 dice and he must pay the appropriate fee for each die. The amount of money raised by the fundraiser is determined by this formula: [(Total amount rolled on the dice) [($x) (number of campaign headquarters in the state where the fundraiser is held) (half the number of campaign headquarters the candidate has in the entire country)]] – [(random percentage of the total amount rolled on the dice) ($x)].
D. Debate
Whenever a candidate enters a state he may call for a debate and any candidate that is in the same state when the debate is called may participate.
01. Procedure
(a) Candidates debate by rolling 1-3 dice.
(b) Each candidate must pay $x for each die they roll.
(c) Candidates need not each roll the same number of dice.
02. Results
After each player has rolled his dice his results are compared to the results of any other debater who rolled a lower amount. The results are made into a fraction with the higher amount serving as the numerator. The fraction is reduced to lowest terms. The candidate that lost the debate must close a number of his campaign headquarters equal to the value of the denominator of the fraction that is in lowest terms. Whenever a debate has three or more participants the candidates that lose the debate by having lower totals for their die rolls must have their results compared to each candidate who had a higher roll. In the event that candidates are tied, neither one will suffer any loss of campaign headquarters, but they may impose a loss on any candidate that rolled a lower amount.
E. Face the Nation
Before a candidate ends his turn he must draw a Face the Nation card and follow its instructions.
01. Any face the nation card that a candidate must surrender will be returned to the deck.
02. Any face the nation card that is of no effect on the candidate who draws it must be returned to the deck.
03. Any candidate that pledges to not use smear tactics during the game’s start-up phase may not impose any smear tactics penalty on their opponent(s).
04. Any Face the Nation card that may not be retained for use during a future turn must be returned to the deck at the conclusions of the current player’s turn.

Truth_and_Power
08-22-2007, 02:17 PM
Perhaps you could have different classes of candidates or speeches..

populism
nationalism
isolationism
religious

etc.

and you should have something about balancing the interests of the businesses and rich folks who pay for your campaign vs. the interests of the voters you hope to win.

flaja
08-22-2007, 06:19 PM
Perhaps you could have different classes of candidates or speeches..

populism
nationalism
isolationism
religious

etc.

and you should have something about balancing the interests of the businesses and rich folks who pay for your campaign vs. the interests of the voters you hope to win.


I realize that the game as it is designed now doesn’t address political philosophy or specific campaign issues very well, but I don’t know of any game that can do this because any game has to rely on simulated voters. Even the older games, like Strategic Simulation’s President Elect, that tried to use real life electoral data to determine how a given state would likely vote, wouldn’t come close to accurately depicting current voting patterns. Since 1992 the electorate has been too unsettled. States like Florida, that used to be solidly Republican, are now toss-ups in any given election. And because or recent migration from Massachusetts the state of New Hampshire may vote Democrat when it almost always voted Republican in the past.

The game, as it now designed, does allow for some realism in that receiving an endorsement would entitle a candidate to automatically open a number of campaign headquarters. Candidates could accept endorsement based on campaign strategy or based on whether or not the candidate supports the interest group’s agenda. This would be even more realistic if I used real world data and used existing interest groups to determine how many HQs would come with an endorsement and where the HQs had to be located. An NRA endorsement would bring more HQs than say a PETA endorsement would and the NRA would be concentrated in the South and West while PETA would likely be in the North and Pacific Coast.

Unfortunately, as it stands now, the entire game is moot because I don’t know how to use any computer language other than Quick BASIC and HTML. I don’t know how to write a program for this game in a format that everyone could use.

BoogyMan
08-22-2007, 06:31 PM
Kind of like a Sim-Politics type game? Interesting.

flaja
08-22-2007, 09:03 PM
Kind of like a Sim-Politics type game? Interesting.


Actually it is more inspired by Monopoly.

moses2792796
08-23-2007, 05:28 AM
To answer your question...No.

Labrocca
08-23-2007, 05:45 AM
Seems more like Risk than Monopoly but sounds interesting nonetheless.

bobbylien
08-23-2007, 12:25 PM
Interesting to us... yes. Interesting to most people... no.

jafar00
08-23-2007, 03:28 PM
Hmm, mixing RTS and Politics. As a game, I don't think it would work unless I was able to build a tank factory or two in the states I'd "conquered". Would I also be able to go into FPS mode armed with a Chainsaw, Shotgun, Nailgun and a BFG? :D