The Political Process News

The game has been updated to version 0.25.

Summary: several fixes.

NOTES
With any update, there is a rare chance of files getting corrupted. This can cause a black/white empty screen when starting the game. If you experience this problem, you can visit this forum post for instructions on how to fix it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/discussions/2/3085508296772338528/

If you experience any other problems, you can post a new discussion in the bug reports forum, by navigating to the community hub, clicking the Discussions tab, and clicking the Bug Reports link on the right side of the screen.

FIXES
-Fixed an issue where party demographics would not update to the correct values when changing (moving) districts in the middle of the game.
-Fixed an issue where some state house, state senate, or congressional variables would become undefined if moving states during a redistricting year (after redistricting had already been completed).
-Fixed an issue with presidential election campaigns where public opinion would increase too rapidly and would go beyond the 10% max value.
-Campaign donation calculations have been moved before campaign debt calculations, so it is now less likely that a campaign will go into debt.
-Fixed two issues with special elections: first, a politician could die/retire before a special election occurred, causing an error with the special election; second, a politician could be selected to fill a second vacancy within the same year, causing an error in their first special election.
-Fixed an issue with the election simulator tool where the load menu would not update after deleting an election save.
-Fixed an issue where the loading screen would freeze if loading an advanced option preset under certain circumstances. Specifically, if you were loading a preset that had lowered the number of congressional districts in your character’s home state, it would be possible that your character was assigned to a congressional district that no longer existed, which would cause an error.
-Fixed an issue where state legislatures would not be gerrymandered as much as they should have been during the redistricting process (especially if the gerrymander amount had been increased in the advanced options).
-Fixed an issue in the Select Endorsement Conditions menu where the “Climate Policy” button would not stay checked after leaving the menu.
-Fixed an issue where passing the Pathway to Citizenship legislation would significantly increase per capita income and significantly decrease poverty.

The game has been updated to version 0.249.

Main Features: Redistricting.

NOTES
With any update, there is a rare chance of files getting corrupted. This can cause a black/white empty screen when starting the game. If you experience this problem, you can visit this forum post for instructions on how to fix it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/discussions/2/3085508296772338528/

If you experience any other problems, you can post a new discussion in the bug reports forum, by navigating to the community hub, clicking the Discussions tab, and clicking the Bug Reports link on the right side of the screen.

If you want to continue playing a previous version of the game, you can right click on the game in your Steam library, click properties, then click betas and select the version you want to play. (The most recent version was version 0.239).

ADDITIONS (Redistricting)
-Added redistricting to the game. This is applicable to congressional, state house, and state senate districts. Redistricting will happen automatically every 10 in-game years on week 47. (Redistricting occurs 1 year after the beginning of every decade - 2021, 2031, 2041). If the player - or the player’s protégé - is in a relevant position of power, the player will be given an opportunity to participate in the redistricting process. Redistricting can be turned off in the Advanced Options, under the Nation tab.
-Added a Redistricting Analysis – it will appear in the player’s schedule on week 49 of redistricting years. It is also available in the Politicians -> U.S. House -> Districts tab.
-Added Information about Redistricting to the Concepts Menu.
-Added an option to change districts from the Profile tab (if it is not an election year). The purpose of this is to change districts if the redistricting process made your current district unfavorable. You can move districts without losing your current position.
-Added a mechanism that adjusts approval ratings of party leadership based on gerrymandering. If a state commits gerrymandering, voter approval among independents and the opposition party will decrease (for the governor, and state house/senate majority leaders); voter approval among voters of the majority party will increase.
-Added New Advanced Options:
-Added advanced options to adjust many redistricting variables.
-Added advanced options that allow the player to change the number of congressional districts each state has.
-Added an advanced option to change which counties belong to which congressional districts. The counties in a district are used to determine that district’s demographics every 10 years during the redistricting process.
-Added advanced options to adjust redistricting laws for each state (or at the national level), including whether the state uses the state legislature or an independent commission to do redistricting.
-Added an advanced option to mandate Independent Redistricting Commissions at the national level – this will require all states to use independent commissions during the redistricting process.
-The game now creates “aggregate” state legislatures for every state. These aggregates list the number of politicians that belong to each party, but individual politicians are not created. They will be adjusted every election cycle based on relevant information, and they will be used in the redistricting process.
-Added advanced options to change the state legislature aggregates (for non-player state legislatures). These aggregates are used to calculate election results for state legislature elections (in non-player states). They are also used in the redistricting process to determine if the state legislature has the power to gerrymander districts. These aggregates can be changed at any time during the game by going to the advanced options, clicking the state house or state senate tab, and then click the “Other States” button at the top of the list of districts.

ADDITIONS (Other)
-Added an option for protégés to run for governor in any state (previously it was limited to the player’s home state). Protégés must reside in the state where they want to run for governor.
-Updated the protégé selection menu so that it now shows the current incumbent for each district and it shows if the incumbent is running for reelection (only applicable between weeks 2 – 6 during election years).
-Added the possibility for protégés to face primary challengers, if the protégé is not an incumbent. (Currently this is not applicable for school board or city council elections – so that protégés have an easier entry point into politics).
-Adjusted presidential primaries so that protégés will not withdraw before the first primary.
-County data is now saved and loaded.
-County population demographics are updated at the end of every in-game year.
-Added counties to the advanced options – you can now change variables specific to each county. In the advanced options menu, navigate to the States tab; at the top of that menu, there is a button called [State] Counties. Clicking on that will open a new menu to adjust county variables.
-Added an option to save Advanced Option Presets in the middle of a game. It is still not possible to load presets in the middle of a game.
-Added an option to save/load spouse presets.
-Added an advanced option to change the birth rate at the national, state, and city levels.
-Reduced the age penalty for city elections. Previously, anyone under the age of 35 was penalized by -5; now, anyone under the age of 22 is penalized by -2. Many players probably start as young characters, and start at the city level positions; it does not seem fair to penalize them when running for these positions when there are not any alternative positions for younger characters.
-Slightly reduced the democratic presidential incumbent turnout bonus for competitive states. For wave elections it was reduced from 0.38 to 0.3; for non-wave elections, it was reduced from 0.34 to 0.26. The expected outcome is that democratic presidential incumbents will perform worse in their reelection compared to their first election (instead of performing better). Another consequence is that democrats are less likely to win a congressional majority during democratic presidential reelection years. If you want to adjust these values, you can go to the advanced options, elections --> All States --> Turnout tab (under the section titled “Variables for Balancing Elections”).
-When the player is asked to fill a vacancy, the game now generates at least one random character, so that the player is not forced to select a current politician (or protégé) if they do not want to.
-Added a “Longest Serving” section to the Politician Summary page (similar to Oldest and Youngest Politicians).
-Adjusted initial governor calculations so that initial governors are more realistic. The new calculations are more consistent with how governors are elected throughout the game.
-Added a close (X) button to the options menu, so it is no longer necessary to scroll to the bottom to exit the menu.
-Added an advanced option to update city, state, and national populations in the middle of a game. Previously this was not allowed because it caused problems with economic variables, but those problems have been addressed in this update. A warning has been added to these advanced options to indicate that they are “experimental”. Once they have had sufficient testing, without any problems, that warning can be removed.

FIXES
-Fixed an issue where incumbent protégés would not be displayed as incumbents during elections.
-Likely fixed an issue where protégés would continue to run for reelection as a governor even if they were told to run in a different election (or no election at all).
-Fixed an issue where politicians would not be replaced as committee chairs/ranking-members if they vacated their position for any reason. This created a situation where committee chairs/ranking-members could become empty variables, which could prevent the game from saving.
-Fixed an issue where party leadership positions would not be replaced if the player appointed a party leader to a different position as part of filling a vacancy. This could cause issues where the game would not progress to the next turn (if the game was trying to access a party leadership variable that no longer existed).
-Fixed an issue where initial senate elections would not calculate correctly after loading an advanced option preset. The game was using default state demographics to calculate initial senators, instead of using state demographics saved in the advanced option preset.
-Fixed an issue where special elections would not run if the same candidate had been used to fill more than one vacancy within the same year. The solution was to prevent candidates from being selected for another position if they had already been assigned to a special election.
-Fixed an issue with the presidential primary election night where it would show the incorrect vote percentage when hovering over the national map.
-Fixed an issue where new candidates in governor elections had their voter enthusiasm calculated based on the policy positions of voters in the player’s home state, rather than in the home state of the candidate.
-Fixed an issue where several variables could become NaN if the poverty rate was 0%.
-Likely fixed an issue where the poverty rate could become 0% when updating advanced options in the middle of a game. This could have caused issues where variables became NaN.
-Fixed an issue where poverty and per capita income at the state level were calculated incorrectly (or rather were calculated based on incorrect variable values).
-Likely fixed an issue where a politician would not leave their current office if they won a special election.
-Fixed an issue where national name recognition would not update correctly – under certain circumstances – while using the easy or very easy election difficulties during presidential elections.
-Likely fixed an issue where the game would create a death event for the player’s character (as a former president) even if the player was still playing as the character.
-Likely fixed an issue with advanced options where Alaska counties would not load correctly when loading advanced option presets.
-Fixed an issue where certain schedule events would disappear if the player resigned from office, even if it was not appropriate for them to disappear. This could have caused problems. For example, if the player’s protégé was governor, and the player resigned as a senator, a schedule event would be created where the protégé would ask the player who should fill the senate vacancy. But, this event would be deleted before the player had a chance to complete the event. This would cause a situation where the player’s character is not replaced as senator.
-Fixed an issue where a candidate’s fiscal and social ideology would not be updated after their policies had been updated during the conditional endorsement process. This could create situations where a candidate could have very liberal social policies, but still be labeled as socially conservative.
-Fixed an issue where state cabinet members would not update when moving to a new state; the game would have continued using cabinet members from the previous state. (It is unclear what will happen to protégés who are state cabinet members when the player moves states.)
-Fixed an issue where Avery County, NC did not belong to any congressional districts. It has been added to NC-5. Any game saved prior to version 0.241 will automatically have Avery County placed into NC-5 when loading.
-Fixed an issue where Massachusetts state senate district 30 was not saved.
-Likely fixed an issue where candidates would not be updated correctly when customizing elections. This was specific to player elections (elections involving the player) that were customized between week 6 and 19. The candidate customized would not be the candidate used in the primary; instead the initial (un-customized) candidate would have been used.
-May have fixed an issue where governors would run for president and senate at the same time, creating the possibility of duplicate politicians. This could have also created an issue where a president would run for a third presidential term if they were duplicated as a senator.
-Likely fixed an issue where state (and national) populations would significantly increase under specific conditions (the result of a significant increase to the Medicaid eligibility rate). The increase to population would have come exclusively from senior citizens.

The game has been updated to version 0.239

ADDITIONS
-Increased the likelihood that the player will face a current politician in state senate, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and governor elections, rather than facing a new randomly generated opponent with no political experience. (If you wait until week 6 before joining the election, opponents will likely be randomly generated candidates with no political experience).
-Added gubernatorial election vote factors for each state. Each state can have unique vote factors that influence the gubernatorial elections in the state. These vote factors can be changed in the advanced options -> elections -> governors tab.
-Added two new facial hair types to the game.

FIXES
-Fixed an issue where government approval did not influence federal elections. This fix could have significant impacts on the game, depending on whether the approval rating is low and whether one party has control over the entire federal government. In one example: without the fix, the democrats lost 18 house seats in a midterm election; with the fix, the democrats lost 25 house seats. If anyone notices unrealistic behavior (or a lack of balance), please report it.
-Fixed an issue where clicking the Fill All Positions (or Fill All Empty Positions) button, while playing as a regional house party chair, would add candidates to every house election, instead of only those house districts within the player’s region.
-Fixed an issue in the campaign volunteers menu where the Anticipated Cost for yard signs would not say $0 even if 0% of volunteers were assigned to yard signs. This did not influence the actual campaign expenditure (which would have been 0); it only influenced the Anticipated Cost display.
-Fixed an issue where the player might not be replaced as a party leader if the player left office in the middle of their term.
-Fixed an issue where independent poll results would be inaccurate if the player became an independent after losing a primary.
-Fixed an issue where the governor in the player’s state would not be updated/replaced if the player selected the governor as a cabinet member.
-Fixed an issue where some city politicians could be too young when the game starts.

ELECTION SIMULATOR TOOL
-Adjusted the “Reset Approval Ratings” button in the election simulator tool so it uses the new formula for calculating approval ratings. The button also recalculates voter enthusiasm.
-Fixed an issue where the election simulator tool was not using the correct approval rating score for election calculations.
-Fixed an issue with the election simulator where government approval would not have an impact on senate, house, and presidential elections.
-Removed autofill from some text boxes in the election simulator tool.
-Fixed an issue with the election simulator tool where it would not save/load the value for “Years Party has Controlled Presidency”.
-Added the newest facial features to the character creation menu in the Election Simulator Tool.

NOTES
With any update, there is a rare chance of files getting corrupted. This can cause a black/white empty screen when starting the game. If you experience this problem, you can visit this forum post for instructions on how to fix it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/discussions/2/3085508296772338528/

If you experience any other problems, you can post a new discussion in the bug reports forum, by navigating to the community hub, clicking the Discussions tab, and clicking the Bug Reports link on the right side of the screen.

If you want to continue playing a previous version of the game, you can right click on the game in your Steam library, click properties, then click betas and select the version you want to play.

The game has been updated to version 0.235.

NOTES
With any update, there is a rare chance of files getting corrupted. This can cause a black/white empty screen when starting the game. If you experience this problem, you can visit this forum post for instructions on how to fix it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/discussions/2/3085508296772338528/

If you experience any other problems, you can post a new discussion in the bug reports forum, by navigating to the community hub, clicking the Discussions tab, and clicking the Bug Reports link on the right side of the screen.

If you want to continue playing a previous version of the game, you can right click on the game in your Steam library, click properties, then click betas and select the version you want to play. (The most recent version was version 0.228).

ADDITIONS
-Summary of main additions: politician endorsements during presidential primaries, option to select politicians/protégés as cabinet members, option to gain endorsements by promising a cabinet position to any politician who agrees to endorse you (during presidential primaries), death/retirement of politicians, option for governors (including the player) to fill any vacancies due to death/retirement, option to run as an independent after losing a party primary (does not apply to presidential elections).
-Added simple inauguration events – text based events.
-Pressing F11 now toggles full screen mode.
-It is now possible to select current politicians and protégés for cabinet positions.
-Adjusted the process for selecting cabinet members so that it now begins immediately after winning an election. They can be selected any time between week 46 and week 52.
-If a cabinet member is not reappointed after an election, there is a chance that they will run for political office in a future election.
-If the player, as a member of the executive branch, does not run for reelection, or loses their reelection, they will be prompted about whether they want their cabinet members to become protégés at the end of their term. If they say yes, all cabinet members will become protégés. If they say no, some cabinet members may choose to run for political office.
-Added career histories for cabinet members, so they are no longer completely generic applicants. Their career history influences their experience level.
-It is now possible for politicians to die (or retire) while in office (in the middle of a term). If this happens, the governor of their state will select a replacement. It is possible that the governor will select the player as the replacement.
-If the player is a governor (or their protégé is a governor), the player will have the opportunity to fill any vacancies that occur in their state.
-The death rate for politicians can be changed in the advanced options menu –> politicians tab. It is also possible to turn off politician deaths.
-If the president-elect or vice-president-elect are a senator or representative at the time they win their election, the governor of their state will select a replacement to fill the vacant seat.
-When a vacancy is filled, it will trigger a special election, which will either happen at the beginning or end of the year. There is no campaign process. There will be a primary and three weeks later there will be a general election. The winner immediately fills the seat.
-Politician endorsements during presidential primaries can influence the outcome of the primaries. If a politician from a state endorses a candidate, that candidate will receive more votes during that state's primary.
-If the player is running for president, the player can enter negotiates with politicians in an attempt to win their endorsement. The player can promise a cabinet position in exchange for the endorsement. Various conditions determine whether a politician is willing to negotiate. If the player is unlikely to win, or is too dissimiliar from the politician, the politician will be unwilling to endorse the player under any conditions, and thus will not appear in the player's list of endorsement opportunities. The player can see endorsement opportunities by going to the Campaign -> Endorse -> Endorsers tab.
-The player is more likely to be endorsed during presidential primaries if the player has set election difficulty to easy or very easy.
-Added advanced options to set whether NPC endorsements are allowed, and to adjust various endorsement mechanics, such as frequency and impact of endorsements. These can be found in the advanced options, under the elections -> general tab.
-When presidential candidates withdraw from the campaign, there is a chance that they will endorse one of the remaining candidates, which may increase the number of votes that candidate receives in upcoming primaries. If the withdrawn candidate does not have any delegates, they will only increase voter support in their home state. If they did have delegates, they will increase voter support for the endorsed candidate in all states, relative to the number of delegates they earned.
-Added “View Politician Details” button to the presidential general election page. It is part of the table that shows electoral votes by state.
-Added one beard type.
-If you retire and play as one of your character’s children, your new character’s spouse (if they have one) will become a protégé.
-Presidents continue to exist after leaving office, but currently do not have any impact on the game.
-If you run for president, all of your proteges will automatically endorse you (if they are a governor or a member of congress (house and senate)).
-If you endorse a presidential candidate (during the primaries), your proteges will automatically endorse the same candidate, increasing your relationship with the candidate.
-If the player withdraws from a presidential primary, the player will be prompted about endorsing one of the remaining candidates.
-Added an option for the player to run as an independent if they lose their party’s primary. This only occurs if the option to allow third parties is set to true. (This does not apply for presidential elections).
-Updated saving/loading advanced option presets so that they now save/load some additional variables: allow-third parties, dynamic policy rates, maximum and minimum policy ranges, conversion impact ratios, persistent politician rates, politician death rates, and minimum retirement age. If you want any of your current/old presets to include these variables, you will want to load the preset, adjust these variables, and then save the preset again (maybe with a new save-name, in case something goes wrong).

FIXES
-Fixed an issue where pop-up messages would have the same message if multiple pop-ups occurred at the same time.
-May have fixed an issue where duplicate/clone candidates could appear in elections.
-Fixed an issue where Alaska would not update correctly when loading advanced option presets.
-Fixed an issue where governor elections could have unrealistic results.
-May have fixed an issue where the portraits of custom presidential candidates would not appear.
-Likely fixed an issue where the player would start the presidential primary campaign with delegates, if they had run in a previous presidential election campaign.
-Fixed an issue where some candidates would have duplicate traits.
-Fixed an issue where proteges used as primary challenger threats during conditional endorsements (against senate candidates in a different state) could become the senator of the protégé’s home state, rather than senator of the candidate’s state. This would create a condition where one state would have three senators while the other had one.
-Fixed an issue where going from the presidential election tab to the senate election tab could cause the senate election menu to be blank (under certain circumstances).
-Fixed an issue where newer policy positions were not included in the main “Effect on Public Opinion” section of the Campaign tab Overview Menu.
-Fixed an issue where the effect of marketing for Single Payer Health Care did not appear in the “Effect on Public Opinion” sub-section for health policies.
-Fixed an issue where city drug use was based on the national poverty rate instead of being based on the city poverty rate.
-Likely fixed an issue where the below poverty rate for non-player states would not update relative to the national poverty rate. This could create a situation where the national poverty rate was 0%, but all of the states still had a poverty rate of around 12%. This could have caused issues when adjusting the advanced options, and it may have had other impacts on various metrics. If you notice anything abnormal about the poverty metrics after this update, please report it in the bug reports forum.
-Fixed an issue where poll result timelines would display incorrectly if two candidates had the same last name.
-Likely fixed an issue where independent polls would not take into account name recognition (for presidential primaries that involved the player). This could create results where the player did better in the poll than they did in the actual election results (if their name recognition in the state was less than 100%). There may be sudden jumps in a support for a candidate in certain polls – this generally occurs if one candidate starts campaigning in a state before the other candidates.
-May have fixed an issue where the districts tab would show that a candidate was not running for reelection, even if they were running for reelection.
-Fixed an issue where independent polls could be inaccurate for governor elections in the player’s home state – if the player customized the candidates after the election campaign had already begun.

ADJUSTMENTS
-It is now possible for republicans to be identified as fiscally liberal (rare).
-Adjusted the calculations that determine how republicans are identified in terms of social ideology. It is now possible for them to be identified as socially liberal (rare). The adjustments do not change the policies that candidates support, they just change how republicans are categorized based on social ideology.
-Adjusted the face algorithms so that NPC faces are more likely to look “realistic”.
-Adjusted mouth calculations so it is less likely that a candidate’s mouth and nose will overlap.
-Adjusted facial hair calculations so it is less likely that a candidate’s facial hair and mouth will overlap.
-Update calculations for staff facial features so that they look more “realistic”.
-Adjusted presidential withdrawals. Previously, no one would withdraw on week 9. Now, there is a chance that some candidates could withdraw. This may make elections more interesting in that, if a candidate withdraws on week 9, and they have delegates, they could give a significant advantage to whomever they endorse going into Super Tuesday.
-Adjusted how NPCs select running mates during presidential elections. Policy agreement now plays a bigger role in the selection process.
-Fundraising from volunteers now uses the player’s new approval rating (the more realistic one) rather than the previous approval rating.
-Changed Louisiana so that it now has non-partisan primaries, as this more realistically represents its election system.
-Changed democratic primaries in Hawaii so that they are now open primaries. (Republican primaries were already open primaries).
-There are no longer pop-ups after winning the presidential nomination for your party. Instead, there will be messages and events listed in the Office Schedule. These messages will still give away the fact that you won the nomination (before you have a chance to watch the primary results), but if you are in the campaign menu when you click the next turn, you should have a chance to watch the primary results from there before seeing the winner.
-Removed news related to appropriation bills from the national news menu – it created clutter and is not particularly news worthy. News about appropriation bills can still be found in the Office -> Legislation -> News section.
-Adjusted various text inputs so that they no longer use auto-fill.
-Adjusted the amendment process so that if the vote is tied, the amendment does not become part of the legislation.
-Made a slight adjustment to the presidential primary withdrawal process so that withdrawal is no longer based solely on delegate count. It now also takes into account approval rating and endorsements. This fixes an issue where a candidate with 0 delegates and many endorsements would withdraw before a candidate with 0 delegates and no endorsements.
-Adjusted the presidential primary withdrawal system: it is now possible for more than one candidate to withdraw per week; there is more variability in the max number of candidates who will remain in the race at specific week numbers (for example, previously there was a limit of 5 candidates in the race after week 6, now it can range from between 3 and 7 candidates).
-Updated independent polls so they take into account the election difficulty when calculating results for presidential primaries.

The game has been updated to version 0.228.

This is a minor update; to see the release notes for the most recent large update (version 0.225), visit this link: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/eventcomments/3418809548726959194/

FIXES
-Fixed an issue where presidential running mates, and potential running mates, would not be updated with a new variable if loading a game saved before version 0.225. This could cause the game to freeze if the game attempted to access the missing variables.

NOTES
With any update, there is a rare chance of files getting corrupted. This can cause a black/white empty screen when starting the game, or it might prevent you from clicking any buttons. If you experience this problem, you can visit this forum post for instructions on how to fix it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/discussions/2/3085508296772338528/

If you experience any other problems, you can post a new discussion in the bug reports forum, by navigating to the community hub, clicking the Discussions tab, and clicking the Bug Reports link on the right side of the screen.