Election Night Suggestions (Improve the drama of the final night)

from PolMach Forums
Per Brad's suggestion, here's a thread for our suggestions. Sounds like Stardock will improve this part of the game if we can come up with some good suggestions. So ADD yours people!

Here are some of mine:

When a state is voting, and after we've zoomed in have the game display an overlay that displays the state along with it's population and other details, pretty similar to the state info screen only add some room below for: running the popular vote counts up (or to the side if screen realestate is precious) on bar graphs as the returns come in. Republican elephant on one side, dem. donkey on the other.... if people withhold or vote indy that's in the middle.

If a state is NOT in contention the returns come in FAST- so if it's 80%-20% then this goes FAST. IF it's a state like Florida and it's 53-47... the returns come in slower... so the drama is played out a little bit.

So, non-drama states= FAST
high drama states = slow....

Leave DONE button on overlay so player's can skip a state or cut to it's results quick.

ADD a button, something like: RESULTS which cuts this whole process out for those players who want the end to go by really fast like it does now. Or maybe make this an option in the game setup- DETAILED election night or QUICK election night. Although I think players who don't want the details ought to be playing some FPS or something.

That's all for now.
23,794 views 27 replies
Reply #1 from PolMach Forums Top
Also, make it so that if the margin is rediculous early, let's say 60-40, 70-30, 80-20, the state gets a color as a projection to the winner. If it's closer, it doesn't get projected until later that night.
Also, if the margin changes dramatically as the night goes on in a projected state, there should be some deal where it gets taken off the board and the media has made a mistake(thus 2000 election).
A news anchor(like from one of the national shows) and a victory and defeat speech set up would also be great!

By the way, other suggestions, not dealing with election night

1. add party conventions to the process(like doing a speech in a state, except you have to pick multiple topics and order of importance, gives automatic boost nationally if you play your cards right).

2. add a debate(set up similar to interviews, except both candidates answer, and one can blast the other.

3. for those that want to invest alot of time in one campaign, to give it more legitimacy, instead of a 41 week set up, do a 287 day set up, where you get a few less stamina points, but you run the campaign daily.

Thanks!
Justin
Reply #2 from PolMach Forums Top
Election Night thoughts:

1. A speed button is almost necessary and more data would be good...watching running totals is fun in real life and would be a hoot in the game as well.

2. Weather effects. What if the hurricane had hit the eastern seaboard on election day? The balance of power would be heavy in the west and a candidate that seemed to be cruising to victory in polling would end up losing because his eastern base didn't hit the polls and he lost a few key eastern states. Also, Democrats tend to vote early, Republicans late. Rain in the midwest halfway through the day could swing vote totals. Weather is completely random in real life...none of us know what the weather in Iowa is on election this November for sure...so the game can randomize weather and be realistic.

3. Early returns should influence the late returns. I.E. If Democrat Billy Joe Jim Bob seemed to be running away with it ... sweeping some key eastern states...it would energize the base for Republican Flora Mae Sally Sue and result in higher Republican turnouts in the midwest and west.

4. Election day interviews can have a last minute swing on voting. Have an option where the candidate can do election day media blitzes that would sway independents 1-2%. It could be the margin of error to win or lose.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from PolMach Forums Top
Response to #3:

It has been proven that when one candidate does well early, it depresses the turnout of his opponent in the Central, Mountain, and Pacific States. This is the strongest argument for not allowing the networks to "project" winners.

I don't want to sound too controversial, but many people believe that George Bush only lost the popular vote in 2000 because of the early projections that had him losing Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan within a few minutes of the election coverage starting, thus reducing Republican turnout in California (where Gore ran up a much more impressive margin of victory than polls predicted) and other key western States.

I would NOT implement this suggestion since it runs counter to real life.
Reply #4 from PolMach Forums Top
In the short run, I would simply like to see the election results slow down and give me a popular vote count state by state, perhaps delaying reporting results in close states for a while and moving on through the map. For instance, if New York were 51-49, but Ohio was 65-35, Ohio's results should be reported ahead of New York's rather than simply moving the map East to West. I see no reason why the results have to come in East to West anyway, since that's not really how it works in real life (I'm pretty sure the networks projected Idaho a lot earlier than they projected Wisconsin despite the time zone difference).

In the long run, I'd like to see the election night system completely revamped. Perhaps turned into more of a news report style presentation where a news anchor reported results more in an ongoing way rather than giving me the state's final result only. Perhaps it could be a real time format where state vote totals slowly accrue and the networks project at different points depending on the results. That might be too complicated and too much work, but it would certainly be gratifying. Election night should be the longest "turn" of the game. Its usually the shortest for me, since I put more thought into any random week than I do watching the results zip in fast.
Reply #6 from PolMach Forums Top
You should make suggestions. I just didn't agree that early bad results spurred turnout for the trailing candidate. I think it depresses his turnout and I think that's been shown to be true in past elections.
Reply #7 from PolMach Forums Top
how about adding random news events like a terrorist attack or a natural disaster etc. Something like that where the issues suddenly change in a state because of this, offering the canidate with quick feet to take advantage of it. Also maybe have the media protray a canidate in a bad light if they have less media bias would be cool. Also it would be to have your VP go on TV and do speeches fundraisers ect.. Also have the option of designating one canidate the incumbent which would give them more money but create random issues that they would have to deal with as president which would help or hurt them. Such as getting blamed for the bad economy or Iraq orr a scandle in the white house etc. Finnally create the ability to have independant canidates running controlled by the cpu who could possibly take votes away from your canidate but not have a chance to win the election. PS. maybe have 3 networks with media bias representing fox news, cnn, and msnbc and have them spin canidates in a republican democratic or a independant way. The debates, party convention is really cool and more info on election would be neat as well. I hope these suggestions help, thanks PS I need a job
Reply #8 from PolMach Forums Top
I would like to see the option of moving your candidate to a state to have his victory rally, maybe giving you a point or two more in that state. If you know California is going to be close you could have your rally there and perhaps pull out that last minute win.

Also, we need more stats on the states as they come up. As it is we only see red or blue. The state info at the bottom of the screen remains on the last state your candidate was in leaving you to go back and disect, which I would do anyway, the final results. It would be nice to get this info as the states are decided. And along with this an option to have the results come up automatically like they do now or set it so that the user has to click an ok button to go on to see the next state.
Reply #9 from PolMach Forums Top
I think we're getting too much into micro managment type of details. It's just a fun game, not an election simulator.
Reply #10 from PolMach Forums Top
I agree. And a lot of the topic is wandering. Keep it focused on the election night: that's where Frogboy wanted the sugegstions and implied that Stardock was looking into making some changes and improving things.
Reply #12 from PolMach Forums Top
You can. Wait for the patch. Did you not read the title to this thread?

Geez.
Reply #14 from PolMach Forums Top
Would really like to see voting results by state. I've played a number of times where the state was too close to call, going down to the wire, spent oodles of time and cash, only to see it pop up at the end with the other guy winning. OK, maybe he did a better job, but how close was it? That is added drama the game could use. Perhaps a little more analysis on why someone won or lost might be helpful, too. That could utilize mechanics already within the game, such as the candidate's characteristics playing a roll, a last minute gaffe or event that tipped the results, etc.
Reply #15 from PolMach Forums Top
I, too, would love to have an 'election night' media style report as the delivery method for the end of a campaign. Perhaps the anchorman could even do a little analysis of the exit polls as the votes came in, ie. If the state is Florida, and the number 1 issue in Florida was Social Security, the media man could analyze the results by saying something like 'Candidate George Washington seems to have reached voters on the issue of 'Insert Issue name (Social Security)' according to early exit polls, this could be key in Washington's winning of the State's 'Insert Electoral Votes (25)' Electoral Votes.

It could continue on like this for the top three issues in the state, and then the media would make a projection if the exit polls favored one candidate particularly. After the projection (if there is one) the final result would be displayed with the total % before moving to the next important state. (States that are landslide victories don't have to be 'highlighted' like this, but for the battleground states, this could improve the 'drama' instead of having the state blink the final result instantly)

PS. I want Presidential Debates too!
Reply #16 from PolMach Forums Top
I really like the election night ideas in this thread! Sound great! I'd like to see election night dramatized more as well. You work so hard to get to that point, it's be nice to have it draggged out longer to create more suspense.
Reply #17 from PolMach Forums Top
I think that the game is more 'fun' than we actually think it is...of course, it is less advanced, because then people wouldn't want to buy it. I like the expansion suggestions though, and it would make a much more exciting game. Hopefully, if everyone rushes out and buys it: we'll see an expansion...
Reply #18 from PolMach Forums Top
Someone may have said this but I think it should skip around giving you little updates on the popular votes in several states. Maybe you could even choose like, long version, short version etc. With the long version maybe even having 'analysts' drop by to add their two cents. Or you could choose what channel to watch. If you want biased new watch OX News(Knock off of fox;)) Balanced CNC(Cable News Channel;)) or NewHavenTimes.Com (knock off of New York Times). Those types of things so that you can get any type of view you like~
Reply #19 from PolMach Forums Top
I really like the idea of calling wide-margin states early and leaving close states for later. I played a game last night and I had most of the west coast states wrapped up. Most of the drama was in the mid-atlantic states, particularly Ohio and Pennsylvania. But since those got called early (we each took one), there wasn't a lot of drama since I knew I'd be winning the west coast.

So it should still go east to west, but when it comes to a battleground state, it should color the state pink. Then, if there's a winner before those states are counted, just call the winner and end the game (you'd still be able to check how they turned out afterward if you're curious). Otherwise, go though each battleground state slowly and show the votes being counted. When a state is called, do the same check to see if one candidate's won, and then end the game if they have.
Reply #20 from PolMach Forums Top
make election night less exciting for those of us who just want to hit a button and find out who won.

Reply #21 from PolMach Forums Top
Make election night more like election ever in power politics. You had a map of the country and you waited one by one as the states submitted their final tallies. I had some real nailbiters with that game. I hate how political machine zooms all around the map at breakneck speed and just tells you whether the state is red or blue. Follow the power politics example.
Reply #22 from PolMach Forums Top
[quote ] Follow the power politics example. ...or better yet the President Elect example. That was how election night should be run. One state at a time.
Reply #23 from PolMach Forums Top
Game Support

I happened to think how in the event of a rare occurance in the game, a electoral tie, what if instead of the computer just declaring a winner on the spot, what if an animation of the House and Senate comes up and a random vote of the states decides the election? Let the computer roll the dice state by state. So, if it's a tie in the House animation, let it go to the Senate animation to decide. Also, let a occurance of states being tied happen so that if there is a lack of a majority of votes for either candidate to be President so that it'll go to House and Senate random rolls.

I thought since reading other posts where people had lost the Popular votes and won the election or visa versa, why not add something else in the mix to make it interesting.

/Reagan's Clone/
Reply #24 from PolMach Forums Top
While I don't like the game as much, I think Power Politics III does a much better job in building the suspense for election day. The map should bring up the state view when its turn comes up so you can see the difference in the victory. Instead we have to click on every state to find out the polling for that state. Perhaps instead of showing the night, they should show a screen like the networks do with a picture of the candidate and his margin of victory for the state.
Reply #25 from PolMach Forums Top
Maybe use one of the Interview Program Hosts project the election results per state, descending from the largest precent victory to the least. Such as "Barry King Lives projects John Kerry to win Massachusetts" and "Barry King Live projects George W. Bush to win Texas" and ending with the battlegrounds states such as this year with OH, NM, and NV.