The USA mod

This mod starts out with zero percent of the electorate willing to vote for the player and zero members of the players party, with an enormous opposition party (which seems odd, as fifty percent of them just did vote for the player, to get him into term… oh well). From playing around with both this mission and several of the included countries it seems to me that getting this number to even approach fifty percent is insurmountable.

I’ll assume that I’m just doing a very poor job and ask if anyone there has been re-elected in the USA mod and ask them what steps they took.

Also, there doesn’t seem to be anyplace in the text file that you can adjust the starting membership in the two parties or the percentage of the electorate intending to vote for you. Is there a place to alter these in missions?

Hi,

Have you tried decreasing the difficulty level in the options or increasing the length of the terms to give yourself a better chance of getting the required support before the next election?

As for your issue re: support, you will notice that (I think) all the standard countries and probably all the “real” countries (except those that have been modified to be more realistic) start with significantly less than 50% of the support. This is deliberate, to make the game more challenging. If you started with, say, 60% of the support, which is entirely possible in real life, there would not be much of a challenge involved.

There would be little point in changing the starting level of support, as the level of support is worked out as a result of the policies that are in place, so even if you could force it to be unrealistically high, it would quickly adjust down to an accurate level based on the policies that were in force. The easiest way to alter support is to alter the policies that are in place - look at the difference between the UK mission which is a direct conversion from Democracy 1 and the modified one which is more realistic. In the latter, support begins far higher than in the former, because of what the policies have been set at. By altering the starting policies, you will alter starting support. However, as I said above, don’t overdo it as otherwise you will remove the challenge.

Thanks for the quick feedback!

So support is derived (which is obviously sensible), which means that I am very curious as to how it is computed. From the in-game text, voters join your party “when they are particularly happy with your policies, and have been so for some time.” What constitutes “some time?” I have experimented with catering to specific groups, gotten them to max out in the first year or two of my term, and then watched as the group simply shrank in size (environmentalists) or otherwise didn’t really seem to sign up for my party (The Middle Income, Liberal). I don’t expect a group made happy one month before the election to suddenly all be on my side (well, maybe in some real world cases, but the game indicates it takes time, which seems reasonable), but if I made them ridiculously happy years ago and kept them that way, why are they all still aligned with the opposition?

I tried this after a less targeted approach (eliminating the top problem issues that “Everyone” was troubled with failed to get me even a few million votes.

I have toyed with the difficulty level, but I am seeking a greater understanding of what’s going on. It’s true I think that you would sensibly have a greater slice of support at missions’ beginnings, since you won the vote somehow… perhaps with those supporters being from the “naturally” happier groups (by which I mean those who are very pleased at the outset) more fickle and easy to drive off since they seem to think you owe them. That would make it easier to maintain the status quo and harder to make sweeping changes in a single term.

But focusing instead on the game as it is: I have begun to be adept at solving huge numbers of the biggest “Red Button” issues and catering to large groups, but those skills don’t seem to make me electable. I’m not particularly sure what the electorate is looking for if they are unsatisfied with a president solving their major crises and bettering the lot of the largest groups.

Hi,

Firstly, although it is difficult to do, winning an election (and even multiple elections) is definitely achievable as I’ve done it! Some of the missions are harder to play than others. Freedonia for example is one of the easier ones.

While I cannot identify what your exact issue is, a few points I would make. Firstly, all voters fall into a number of groups - a voter is not just a socialist, he may also be a smoker, a liberal and a motorist. Thus it is all well and good pleasing your socialists (if you, say, have a large percentage of them), but remember that all the socialists may be annoyed because of your policies on motoring, or smoking, or whatever. You can see the full implications of this in the “focus group” section, where you can see a focus group of, say, socialists, and you will see that their support can vary significantly, depending on what other groups they fall in to.

Also, do not focus just on dealing with situations. Have a look at how much of an impact the situations are actually having. For example, I always find that contagious diseases has one of the most significantly negative impacts, so focus on solving this quickly. If a situation is only having a small effect, or mainly affecting groups that do not really matter to you, you may wish to focus on other things. Increasing the GDP or literacy or decreasing poverty, etc. etc. may be more worthwhile in the short term than dealing with a particular situation. It all depends on what effect the situation is having and what your priorities are. My priority generally is a really high GDP, which probably reflects my political views, but you may decide to have a different focus.

Also, have a look at what effect events and dilemmas may be having. A terrorist attack will have a significantly negative effect on your support in the short-term. If you seem to be underachieving, it may be that an event such as this has occurred and is therefore depressing your “true” support.

As for party support, again, I can only go off my own experience that it is doable - try to maintain consistency by focussing on the same groups and the same aims for a length of time to help increase party membership. In many of the scenarios you do have a long way to go to catch up with the other party, and this can take a few terms, but, as I said in my previous post, if this was not the case then the game would not have much longitivity. Basically, be aware that things will not change overnight - it will take years (in game terms!), maybe even decades to put everything right and turn your country into a utopia. Remember, in real life voters can be very reluctant to desert a party that they have supported for many years, maybe their parents and grandparents before them supported also. You will have to work very hard to win them over.

On the subject of groups shrinking, have a look at what policies you have in force that may be causing that and at what policies may increase group membership. For example, with farmers, there are a number of policies under the “economy” heading that both increase support from farmers and increase the number of farmers - a winning combination!

Hope this helps.