Apologies for putting this everywhere.
I’ve played the game for 12.4 hours, and I can say that I like it. However, there are several ways it can be improved upon.
1. It’s great there are debates, but we need the interviews like we had in all the versions going back to 2008. And a great idea would be to throw in press conferences.
2. Ideology Trees. I see that you have the ideology trees in the XML file, but you don’t feature them in the game. If you are going to swap that mechanic out for the card decks, then you should make them more comprehensive.
3. You should also provide modding tools to modify the ideology card decks, and make them intuitive. I have autism and poor eyesight and I would have loved to create my own ideology trees, but the means to do so in the 2020 game is just too difficult.
4. You need to reformat some of the ideology trees in the XML file. “Tulsi’s Better World” is one example; she is no longer a Democrat. She has increasingly moved to the Right and may even be Trump’s VP. Plus, the “Kennedy Democrat” label for RFK Jr, provided you put him in the game, is also historically inaccurate. While he may share certain themes with his father and uncles, his ideology is clearly a departure from the “New Frontier” “Ripple of Hope” and “The Dream Shall Never Die”. He is a conspiracist, and most of his family thinks he is a kook. Best to describe him as “anti-Establishment Democrat” or “Conspiracy Democrat”.
5. You need to update the issues. You still have the Republicans as hawks on Putin and Ukraine. While we still have some notable exceptions, the majority of Republicans are either indifferent, or are endorsing Trump’s positions.
6. The “War on Terror, Fighting ISIS, Escalation with Iran,” are missing. Regardless of how hard the US tries, we still are stuck with whatever comes out of the Middle East, and we may have a new “Yemen Mess”.
7. There are other issues and policies you could have included, like “CHIPS and Science Act”, “Dreamers”, “Indo-Pacific Engagement”, “Diplomacy” “Homeland Security”, “Expanded Child Tax Credit”, “Anti-Trust”, “PEPFAR” “Support for Democracy” and “NASA Funding”. Also, you may need to include “Missile Defense” and “Cybersecurity”, especially if Russia and China advance in developing new weapons.
8. You could make it easier to make female candidates by providing a generic female as well as a generic male for us to select. I’ve tried creating some women, and they ended up looking weird.
9. Introduce Scenarios to spice up the game. We could have “Adams v Jefferson”, “Andrew Jackson v John Quincy Adams”, “Abraham Lincoln versus Scott McClellan” “Woodrow Wilson v Teddy Roosevelt v William Howard Taft”, “FDR versus Hoover”, “JFK versus Nixon”, and so on. This could create new ideologies and themes. Also, we could have campaigns.
10. There should be a distinction between “Establishment Democrats” and Bill Clinton’s “New Democrats”. Today’s “Establishment Democrat” are further to the left than the 90s era.
11. You could put four candidates in the primaries. Now, you can adapt the format to third parties. Like I said, it would be great to have Wilson, TR, and Taft all running against each other. It is more realistic.
12. You still have the Vice-Presidential candidate bug where they get stuck in one state.
13. It would be nice if the candidates in the primaries could be more dynamic. When one of the candidates realises that they have no shot at the nomination, the remaining three or two could deploy political capital towards lobbying that candidate and persuade them to drop out and endorse them, just like how Kamala, Klobuchar, Beto, and Pete rallied around Biden ahead of Super Tuesday.
14. I understand this may be difficult as Republican National Convention delegate allocation rules are different, but the Democratic Primaries should offer proportional delegates as in real life, not winner take all. Would be exciting to see a contested convention.
15. The primaries should lead straight to the general, and there could be a mechanism to decide if the parties enter the general election period as relatively united and strong, or divided and wounded.
16. The primary schedule could be flexible, like it is in real life, with the Democrats moving around their South Carolina Primary in this cycle and the dispute over Florida and Michigan in 2008. The last primaries seem to be almost as big as Super Tuesday.
17. Update the state demographics. Some states are too easy for Democrats to win, even at easy levels. Should make them redder, including swing states like Florida and Ohio. Also, the intimidator should be beefed up and be given a new name like “Voter Suppressor” or there should be a Gerrymander Political Action Card that allows either party to restrict ballot access, throw people off the voter rolls or manipulate district lines.
18. Election night results should come in the real life order, with possible room for recounts.
19. Down ballot candidates and Congressional Coat-Tails. Create a random event where the presidential nominee in the general election is invited to stump alongside Congressional, Senate and Gubernatorial candidates to earn political capital, extra Political Action Cards or some other benefit. If it doesn’t go well, it could be a disastrous, humorous story. If it goes well, both the presidential candidate and the down ballot candidate benefits. At the end of the game, there should be a Congressional Coattails score, simulating real life.
20. What happened to the townhalls?
