U.S. Presidential Election!

[FlyingSquirrel]

Wanted to post this separately because I'm not sure how many people would wade through the first post on the subject to find the new version that's actually possible with XML.

Here's the new plan:

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*EDIT: Updated plans (see below):

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OR

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(THIS ORIGINAL SECTION WOULD PROBABLY BE REMOVED):

"Basically we would want to try out different combinations of Swing States required for either Blue or Red to win the Election, and make it as even of a chance as possible for either side to win. The game would be over once a player took over all Red States plus certain Gray States, or all Blue states plus certain Gray States.

Also, Gray States would be able to bombard certain other States -- we'd need to try out different combinations for that as well, to see what created the most balanced gameplay. Also, we might want to autoplace 3 neutrals on each Swing State, and add a bonus of 1 army for each Swing State held."

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So what do you all think? I probably should donate to this site huh. Can someone post a poll to see if there's sufficient interest to move forward?

P.S.

Blue and Red States were chosen based mainly on the following real-life election results:

Blue = States won by Democratic Party in each of the past 5 Presidential Elections;
Red = States won by Republican Party in at least 3 of the past 5 Presidential Elections.

(FL actually fits into the Red category, but since there's controversy surrounding the 2000 election and since it probably works better as a Swing state for purposes of balanced gameplay, I decided to make it Gray. Also, I originally has Iowa as a Swing state and Missouri as a Red state, but in the first map, I changed Missouri to Swing and Iowa to Blue to balance the board a bit more.)

AK connects to ID instead of WA because otherwise it would be a red state within a blue region - so the connection is more ideological than geographical.

[MarshalNey]

The map is a good start, this is an idea that can be built upon.

I would start trying to add in some of the thoughts you had earlier (or new ones) to spice this up.

Also, a biggie is impassibles. This map is wide open right now. How will they be represented? (will they be political/cultural/regional 'barriers'?

As for the victory conditions, it'll be like a fair number of maps- they're just so huge that they'll never really come into play. By the time somebody has all of the Blue or Red states, they'll probably have already effectively won the game.

I'll think on this, there's possibility here... I still think including other parties might help. If you're looking for real-life justification, voter apathy is very high and there's a great deal of historical voter dissatisfaction with the two major parties, as evidenced by George Wallace in the 1970's, Ross Perot in 1990's and recently with the Tea Party movement. It's just that the independents get shot or get their families mysteriously threatened when they acheive national prominence.

Anyway, if you're sticking with the red/blue/swing states idea, I think you'll have to work out a victory scheme that isn't quite so huge.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Ok. How about this - I added six more swing states, for a total of 12. Neutral armies will autodeploy on them at the start of the game, perhaps 8-10 armies on each. This will create a barrier to movement in the beginning of the game, allowing players to control regions more easily. The northeastern blue region has been divided in two; red has been divided into four sections instead of three. No bombardment. No region has more than 6 states in it. Bonuses are smaller. The object of the game is simply to control all 12 swing states, or perhaps it could be a smaller number of them.

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[Industrial Helix]

.... Does Alaska connect to Idaho?

[FlyingSquirrel]

.... Does Alaska connect to Idaho?

Yes. I know it makes more sense geographically to connect it to WA, but that created a situation where there was a red state within a blue territory - while Blue was not similarly handicapped anywhere on the board. So it's more of an ideological connection than a geographical one.

[jsholty4690]

Question: Is this going to be based on future presidential elections or recent ones?

If it is about recent past elections, I don't think you should include Indiana, North Carolina, and Virgina as swing states, being that they only went Democratic in the previous election. If its about future elections then you should be okay with leaving them as swing states.

My second question is, why does Alaska connect to Idaho and not Washington? Just seems more logical to me that Alaska would connect to Washington via the Pacific Ocean, than to Idaho via crossing the vast Canadian wilderness.

Not sure if you used this website to get your info, but I've found it very helpful when researching past presidential elections. http://www.270towin.com/

Final point (for the moment), Maine and Nebraska have laws inacted that they can split their electoral vote (as seen in the last election with Nebraska) you might want to add this feature to spice up the map.

Like that you split up the bonus structure with your second draft. Good luck with your map.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Question: Is this going to be based on future presidential elections or recent ones?

If it is about recent past elections, I don't think you should include Indiana, North Carolina, and Virgina as swing states, being that they only went Democratic in the previous election. If its about future elections then you should be okay with leaving them as swing states.

Future ones.. One thought I had was to have two different color swing states - light gray and dark gray. Dark gray would be swing states that generally trend Red: AZ, CO, MO, IN, VA, NC; Light gray would be more truly swing-ish: NV, NM, IA, OH, FL, NH. Dark gray would be autodeployed 9 neutrals each, light gray would be autodeployed 6 neutrals each. To win the election, you'd have to take all dark gray countries plus FL, OH and one other gray state. That's similar to the conditions for Republicans to win the election in real life.

Here's how that would look:

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(Theoretically, it should be much simpler for Democrats to win in real life, since they start out with 248 EV on the board and only need 21 more. For purposes of this game, however, that would make it too easy to win -- since any player would only need to take OH and one other swing state -- so I've ignored the real-life scenario for Blue to win the election at this point. In any case, the election will not be deemed to have been won by either party, since it will be irrelevant which red or blue states you control at the end of the game. All that will matter is that you control the requisite swing states.)

My second question is, why does Alaska connect to Idaho and not Washington? Just seems more logical to me that Alaska would connect to Washington via the Pacific Ocean, than to Idaho via crossing the vast Canadian wilderness.

I originally had it connected to Washington, however would then be the only red state within a Blue territory, while Blue is not similarly handicapped anywhere on the board. So it's more of an ideological connection than a geographical one.

Not sure if you used this website to get your info, but I've found it very helpful when researching past presidential elections. http://www.270towin.com/

Thanks! I've done a lot of this in the past so I know about that website, but appreciate your input.

Final point (for the moment), Maine and Nebraska have laws inacted that they can split their electoral vote (as seen in the last election with Nebraska) you might want to add this feature to spice up the map.

Ya, I did pretty much ignore that fact but perhaps it could make things more interesting - I'll think about it some more.

[Industrial Helix]

Ok, having two threads about the same map is kind of ridiculous, so I merged them. Flying Squirrel, Update the first page with the essential info about the map. A new viewer should be able to read the first post and figure out what's going on. Also, use the [img] tags so your image is readily available for viewing on the first page, as well as the pages throughout the thread.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Ok, sorry about all that. Had to change the objective slightly, because requiring FL to win would give too much of an advantage to anyone controlling the South. Instead there's the option to control either FL or NH, both deep within opposite colored regions, plus OH. Still somewhat close to the current political landscape.

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