We've been hard at work on The Political Machine - some cool v1.2 stuff that I can show you now, but also some super secret stuff that I've sworn an oath to keep under wraps!
Our next update is v1.2, where we'll be updating the game with new issue tweaks, candidates, ideologies, and fixes. Our two big additions are Barack Obama and John McCain, the stars of the 2008 Presidential Election, each with their own Ideology Trees.
Barack Obama is back with his "Hope and Change" tree, complete with a branch completely devoted to political smooth talk (items with a high Ideology Cost to get voters excited, but no downside).
And yes, Obama gets the coveted "Tingly" Media Bias stat, where get gets up to 6 pts per town hall. Very powerful.
John McCain's Ideology is the "Straight Talk Express", with some unique Military Issues ("Caring for Veterans" and "Humane Interrogation"). Unfortunately, Straight Talk often comes at a cost, so several of his starting Ideologies will actually boost the Enthusiasm of his opponents base, so you'll have to be careful with those first few choices.
Testing these historical matchups always gives us a chance to verify the simulation. Since we have real-world data to test against, it's fun to see how things unfold in AI vs. AI mode.
In my first test of the McCain v. Obama rematch, you can see things didn't go well for the former president. Looking at the polling you can see where the AI went wrong, going all-in with Gun Control when those issues fired up the Republician Base. He also seems to have picked Bloomberg as his Running Mate...interesting choice.
So there's definitely some work to be done to get these two simulating properly, but in the meantime we'll keep plugging away at v1.2 and let you all know when it's ready!