This is hilarious 
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I’m just going to use this post as a running stream of all the little things I come across:
One error I noticed pretty quickly: I started the game out as a Democratic president having picked a split Congress instead of a full trifecta, but the game acts like I’m playing with said trifecta anyway.
I also think the policy fight over the abortion thing could use for some tweaks, mainly, it goes beyond my suspension of disbelief when my conservative Democratic character pushes forward an abortion limit bill and the Democratic caucus gets behind it and the rest of the time is spent fighting with the GOP to get it through. If anything, it should be the opposite, More or less the entire GOP getting behind it because it’s something and the character fighting with their own party to get a few people to flip to squeak it through.
Also, an extremely specific case, but during the Berkovitz thing, if you’re playing as a character from Arizona, there should probably be some sort of special choice there, something something I still have power down there so don’t piss me off something something.
I gave Bill Cassidy the treasury secretary he wanted but when I called him up for a favor to help get my bill through Senate, he acted like I hadn’t been favorable towards him, especially since I also pushed for his preferred economic policy during the cabinet meeting.
The Game gives a general timeframe when the players kids were born, but that part should probably be dropped because depending on what age you choose them to be, they could be born anywhere from during your pre-legislative career, during your legislative career, or during your job as mayor/governor/congressman.
Some semantics, there’s a couple times where the player thinks about the 49 other people that have been president before them, but Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms, that should be 48.
I’ll try to get screenshots on this during other Playthrough’s, but there’s also a bunch of pronoun errors splattered here and there, so when you do your own reviewing, look out for those.
During the first meeting on the tropical storm, it’s mentioned that Hoffman was involved in cutting NASA funding, which is why they don’t have enough information on the thing, but I’m pretty sure that’s more NOAA territory.
Looking at the code, it doesn’t seem like personal popularity factors into the midterm result, but frankly, if you’re able to keep popularity above water after the fiasco of Irangate, it would be nice if we got a +1 or +2 to the midterm result variable. if that actually is there and I just missed it, my apologies.
The meeting with the FEMA administrator in chapter 4 said something about a forced evacuation and only 31 deaths, but when I sent my vice president down there to handle the thing while I stayed in Asia, she left the states to handle the storm on their own and asked for help from the feds if they needed it so there was never such a thing.
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One of my issues with the game is that there is little to no true means of keeping your hands clean, not to mention the lack of handling popularity when you get potentially impeached (which is questionable to begin with and laughable at best).
Think I had around 65% going into the Saudi issue, then got shafted by IranGate, which dropped that into the 45 range (serious bs there), then ImpeachGate happened and that went as expected. Going into reelection mode, even when I held true to my values and kept it honest and clean, I failed to even get back up 50%.
Not to mention the spouse family really doesn’t do anything or much to actually aid you other than ‘name’.
I feel like there could be more options/means to reward those who are trying to keep it clean campaign/legacy rather than hamstring and force players into avenues where they get the shaft.
Additionally, there could have been more for the President to do and handle in regards to the Impeachment issue, rather than sit back and let your party handle things. Releasing statements, handling interviews, hell even campaigning. Instead we just sat back and twiddled our thumbs.
The Spouse to me is really pointless and is essentially lame duck in use. Sure, it’s nice for the possible connection/little extra money semi early on but after that their pointless. Wanting an office next to use, even though I’m on solid terms with them, just cause they don’t see us that often or what not… Seems a tad extreme, else is goes down hill from there: Essentially leaving you, suggesting marriage counselling, etc. Like the hell?
Overall though… despite my grievences, it’s not a bad game, specially on the political side. But it could use some more options/handling of issues in areas, specially for those trying to be honest and clean.
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I appreciate the full thread and will do my best to reply to the bulk of these! To my knowledge, there isn’t any decision when starting the game to the makeup of Congress, you will always start out with a trifecta. You can decide to choose a Vice President of the opposing party, but your party will always control both chambers when starting the game.
I appreciate this feedback and agree completely, I’ll be sure to update this process.
Interesting, I’ll double-check the code here to see what the issue might be.
I do think NASA and NOAA operate a lot of weather satellites jointly but I can double-check or just remove the specific reference to NASA to simplify this.
I do think having a +50 popularity should boost your midterm result but I’ll double-check to ensure this is happening.
I do think your comments on the impeachment process are valid and will definitely add in the ability to have a more hands-on approach to it as you suggest a bit later in your comment. As to keeping your hands clean, this could just be a balancing issue I need to adjust on my end.
When balancing is done right, you should be able to avoid impeachment, get re-elected, and generally succeed without any corrupt actions. A key purpose of the game, though, is the balance of keeping your morals and winning political victories, so (in my view) allowing the best outcomes at most checks while keeping your hands clean would undercut that key source of conflict.
I will also look into he 65% to 35% drop, though the drop is meant to be severe to sort of signal the end of the ‘honeymoon period’ for your character. In modern times it’s really rare to see a President peak 50% approval rating, so I’ve tried to mimic that in my balancing, too.
Out of curiosity, which spouse option did you select? Picking either Walfort (wealth) or Richter (political connections) should both give bonuses throughout the story, not just at the beginning. I also will need to double-check, but either of those two spouse options should give you a bonus in the midterms and another bonus while running for re-election.
I really appreciate your feedback, it’s really informative higher-level stuff that I hope to incorporate in my rebalancing of decisions.
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Yeah, I read the conversation choices with the congress leaders during the inauguration day party wrong, my bad there.
In general, kind of related to the abortion thing, I really don’t think there’s enough party pushback if you deviate from traditional orthodoxy; to some extent, it makes sense that the GOP is going to target a democratic president and vice versa because that’s just partisanship, but I expected a lot more Angry phone calls from my party more often than not.
I don’t know if it’s too late to add any more stuff to the legislation or executive orders front, but it would’ve been nice to see something about cutting federal firearms regulations, Although with a second game coming, you could always push that kind of thing off for the future.
During the hurricane issue, if you choose to stay on the diplomatic mission and send your VP over to deal with it, as much as this is obviously going to give them a lot of independence, having options to give some final advice before they takeoff could be nice. I.e, Let the states handle it themselves/try to coordinate a unified evacuation/disaster relief protocol/stay out of it thing, and whether they take any of your suggestions under thought would be a relationship test or something.
The general election ballot should really have more than just the two major party nominees, throw in a libertarian, a green, it’s not gonna mean much, more a narrative thing.
That’s something that in hindsight would’ve been an interesting little election subplot, trying to get the support of a smattering of third-party/minor candidates to get a little boost here and there. Not much, but chapter 5 really could use for more choice branches and if you’d rather not code in anything complicated, something like that would help it feel a little bit more interactive.
As the game itself mentions, Florida is a semi red state, not fully Republican like the rest of the south, but still safe; but the game treats me running for and winning the gubernatorial election there as an upset where the odds were against me. I got the same text when playing with a character from Arizona, a completely swingy state
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I’ve typically had 65+ to 50ish as my approval rating drop at the beginning of Chapter 4 (which is what STWalfs is referring to). However, not firing Lilah has a heftier approval penalty attached (at that particular juncture, you lose approval either way, but you lose less if you fire her; the public wants a scapegoat), which may be where it fell from 50ish to the 30s in that particular playthrough.
I will try to get re-elected in a playthrough that doesn’t raise Corruption over 15 percent (AG is the only profession that drops it for PC), and see if that’s possible. It should be possible, but I’ll be very (unpleasantly) surprised if that gets me a landslide victory.
Hm, ending the game with PC’s re-election at 15 or less Corruption should get an achievement.
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I feel like there should be more chances for PAC money to increase; not like in the kind of 8-digit favors Bill Cassidy can give you, but even if you’re not favoring one of your allies directly, taking stances on various issues can and usually do lead to interest groups giving you a little drop here and a little drop there. it just feels strange to see the finances so static until suddenly something big happens.
For context, I ended on election day with $2 million in my election coffers, that was 2 million that had not changed since I blew 25 on the midterms and, well.
In general, that’s probably why Player preference seems to be trying to stay clean, so far, the only corruption opportunities that are open to the player right now or just beyond the pale; most people can justify to themselves handing away a grant or easing up a regulation here and there, small stuff that still has an impact, but vetoing extremely popular legislation or doing favors for a foreign government? that feels a lot less like balancing what’s practical with your morals and more just really really sleazy. Cassidy asking for that infrastructure grant? That’s the kind of thing that I’d figure should come up more often
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I tried all three spouses.
Walfort’s wealth, the whooping 50m, isn’t bad, specially later on having held onto it to for final pushes, though here is not really any means to invest said money, other than bribe(s).
Richter though, intitally the connects did work out though they felt more text flavored than actually impactful. Oddly though, the affair with the PM and opening up the marriage was a nice thing. But in terms of impact or sway, again it didn’t feel like it did anything other than for reference.
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So how do you romance the UK Prime Minister?
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It’s after your speech at the United Nations and you choose to stay back instead of head directly for the White House
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The First Gamer President
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“Francis P. Yockey”
Ouch.
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Any possible way or guide
To win midterm elections???
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The best you can do is keep the Senate and lose the house by single digits and the only way to really do that is to not piss off Bill Cassidy and have 50,000,000+ in your campaign coffers to spend.
Out of curiosity, has anyone yet managed to win reelection, and if so, has anybody got the landslide?
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I have played this wip, and while I mostly like it there are things that concern me a bit.
The first thing is that after I survive the impecheament process, I don’t felt like I was a strong player, I felt like I was too passive, and only trying to save my popularity and ensure my relection.
I’m the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the World, but in 4 years I can’t use this kind of power, not even for example to drone some Iranian general out of spite (of course whatever reference to irl event, it’s purely casual).
Other thing I find weird:
A) i made a run with a political wife, step back and endorsed her to become the next president of the U.S.A. My Mc claim he was very often victim of the press, yet my media approval was around 53% and my popularity around 50%. Won’t make more sense, for the press to being ambivalent and split toward my Mc?
B) Regarding the school, there are three option, with the last one being (“School is a State problem”), forgive my ignorance I’m not really an expert of a U. S. A. politics, but that shouldn’t be a Democratic postion?
C) The Mc can start a relationship with PM Bennet, and made his marriage open, yet in my run the press didn’t discover it. I find it weird.
Unless the press, can actually discover it, but it didn’t happen in my run because I made some specific set of choice (for example I always refuse to attack Hoffman), if that’s the case then I apology.
Of course those are just my two cents.
I wish you good luck.
P. S. I forgot it but for what I have seen, our original VP is useless during the electoral campaign.
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Agreed on your second point; school funding is, although granted by the federal government, usually allocated by the states however they want; you could take the middle ground of staying out of it entirely/trying to just get the teachers to work, or take a position on teacher pay/school choice but argue That it should be the states decision and try to push for your party to make individual statewide decisions instead of promising anything federally
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There is a in-text bug that George Hoffman always belongs to the same party as the MC in the character information.
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About balancing the game I have a few suggestion, first when we have to choose between “Implement an emergency evacuation order for impacted communities” and “leave it to the state” we loose the same amount of approval regardless of what we do, I think one choice should make you loose approval and the other not.
also if you don’t fire Lilah I think you should gain point with the US cabinet (because they feel more confident in you because they think you will not fire them immediately if you need to) right now the only reason to not fire lieas is to not loose a few relation point with your wife
also the promise to not use PAC money is useless, because you gain approval but the test that make you gain campaign point with the approval stats that you have was already made
So I reccomend putting this test just after the promise to not use PAC money
finally regarding the wife that doesn’t want you to run for reelection I think 65 needed of relation for her not to make you choose beween her and reelection is fine the problem is that choosing to run for reelection make you loose 30% of relation with her and make you automatically go under 65% percent of relation needed to her not to make an ultimatum
and after multiple test I can say that even if you do every dicision that make you gain relation point with you wife it’s still not enough because she still divorce you. My suggestion is to not make her loose 30% of relation if you choose to run for reelection.
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Let’s say money is not a problem , then what I should do?
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