1928 Moderate Democrats - A More Perfect Union [alpha version] dynasty thread.

[Umbrella]

I'm going to try and do a dynasty thread of my playtesting experience for A More Perfect Union. I was assigned the moderate Democrats, starting in 1928.

I'm just learning how to play, so I'm sure to make a ton of mistakes. I'm also playing with some more experienced playtesters controlling the other factions, so hopefully I'm not being fed to the sharks.

Right now, my faction control 9 senate votes, 31 house votes, 3 governors, and 1 Supreme Court justice. Some of the more prominent members include Congressman Cordell Hull (TN), Congressman Sam Rayburn (TX), and Senator Carl Hayden (AZ). In addition, I also have former Secretary of the Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo (CA), and a young judge named Harry S. Truman.

My first action is the 1928 draft. Yes, you draft politicians to your faction! There are limitations to who you can draft though. You have to draft towards your faction's ideology, or there is a high chance you lose your pick. This means I can only draft moderates or conservatives. The better democrats in this draft are liberal, and I don't think I want to risk losing a pick, so this will likely not be a strong draft for me. Adlai Stevenson II is the highlight of the draft, but since the draft order will be random for the first draft, my odds of getting him are slim.

I haven't decided what my overall strategy will be for this playthrough. Should I try just to maximize my score as much as possible, should I try to shape the country in the way I would like to see it go, or should I just try and get as many of my politicians elected as possible? Stay tuned.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Umbrella

.

careful with that if you want to stay true to history, bub

[Umbrella]

The first three rounds of the draft have been completed.

My first big break of the game, as I randomly got the #1 pick. Yes Adlai Stevenson, welcome to the moderate faction.

In the second round, I got Maxwell Taylor. In real life, his highlight was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after serving with distinction during WW2.

My third pick was Brien McMahon, who was a senator from CT in real life. He was the author of the atomic energy act. Unfortunately he died of lung cancer at age 48. Hopefully that won't repeat itself in this version of history.

In all, I have 13 new members of my faction. The next step is to determine career paths. There are seven different career paths you can place new draft picks on. However, you can only place one per path, so I have to choose carefully. These paths represent things like military service, private business, lower level judges, congressional aides, etc. This is a way to grow your politicians to become more powerful later.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Umbrella

In all, I have 13 new members of my faction. The next step is to determine career paths. There are seven different career paths you can place new draft picks on. However, you can only place one per path, so I have to choose carefully. These paths represent things like military service, private business, lower level judges, congressional aides, etc. This is a way to grow your politicians to become more powerful later.

\

So is this more like you drafted "future politicians", i.e. those with an interest in (and future in) politics as opposed to acquiring, say, first-term representatives and such?

[Umbrella]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

So is this more like you drafted "future politicians", i.e. those with an interest in (and future in) politics as opposed to acquiring, say, first-term representatives and such?

That's how I like to look at it. Think of it like the baseball draft. Most players go through the minors for a while before making the show. These career tracks are like the minor leagues. For example, think of someone on the legislative track as a representative at the state level.

In my case, I struggled with what to do with Stevenson. He's one of my better guys right off the bat even without upgrades, so I had to decide if I wanted to use a solid politician right now, or send him to a career track and possibly make an absolute powerhouse.

In the end, here is who I sent to career tracks:
John W Bonner - Private sector (catch all track)
Maxwell D Taylor - Military sector (future general, or military official)
Brien McMahon - Judicial track (future supreme court, but could be congressman)
James T Blair Jr. - Governing track (future governor)
Adlai Stevenson - Legislative track (future congressman)
Charles L Terry - Administrative track (future cabinet member)
Edith Sampson - Backroom track (unusual track, think kingmakers)

Blair was the governor of Missouri in real life, so that seems like the right track for him. I decided to put Stevenson on the legislative track. He's the type of guy who could do anything, but this seems the right spot for him. Bonner is a jack of all trades guy, and the private sector gives improvements all over the place, so I'll have to wait and see how he turns out. Sampson was an interesting one for me. She's a black woman, so the chances of her getting elected to anything in this era are unlikely. By getting her into backroom politics, I'm hoping she'll be able to exert influence indirectly for me.

[MoonlightGraham]

I bought A More Perfect Union recently, too. I haven't had much opportunity to play, though. I'll definitely be following along.

Good luck with your moderate Democrat dynasty!

[dubb93]

I assume this isn’t multiplayer only?

[Umbrella]

Originally Posted by dubb93

I assume this isn’t multiplayer only?

I know the computer version will be single player. I think the option for multiplayer is available as well, but not sure how it will be implemented.

[Umbrella]

The next phase is moving your politicians to different states. Some of them have alternate states listed to show their real life changes. None of mine do though. However, I can still attempt to move from overpopulated states to underpopulated states. This isn't guaranteed to work, and there is also a chance that they will get the carpetbagger trait. I'm taking the chance and relocating John J O'Connor from NY to RI.

Also, we can change ideologies. All factions can do this with 3 politicians, and depending on your faction leader, you can do more. Since we haven't elected faction leaders yet, I can only try 3. Once again, this isn't guaranteed to work, and there is the possibility of getting negative traits, such as flip flopper or two faced. I'll take the chance, and try and shift J Millard Tawes and Elbert D Thomas from moderate to conservative. I'll also try to shift Edwin Y Webb from conservative to traditionalist. I'm doing this to try and improve their election chances within their specific states.

There's a step that I am skipping, but normally we can have our faction leaders try and convert other politicians to our faction. Only one faction has a leader right now, because the president of the US is automatically the faction and party leader. I've got a couple of politicians that could jump parties, but they kind of suck, so I don't think they will be targeted.

The last part of this phase involves kingmakers. They can take a protege from their own state, and potentially transfer some of their stats to the protege. Protege's also do better in state elections. It's a pretty powerful tool. Unfortunately, I only have 1 kingmaker, and this guy is a character. James Michael Curley is the king of corruption, you should check out his story. I'm using him to take on Charles Sumner Hamlin as his protege. Here's hoping Hamlin doesn't get all the negative traits from Curley.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Question: 12 different start dates, but I don't see whether those are closed-ended or if you could take the earliest date and, with enough success at least, carry on all the way to the present day.

[Umbrella]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Question: 12 different start dates, but I don't see whether those are closed-ended or if you could take the earliest date and, with enough success at least, carry on all the way to the present day.

Yes, you can start in 1772 and go all the way into the future if you want.

The current playtests are being done by hand, so they are going slow. I know they had one that started in 1772, and went for months, only ending up in the 1820's. Therefore, they are testing different eras to see how significant events in history play out. For example, the civil war one found a lot of potential issues with how reconstruction works. I'm sure the one I'm in will focus on the great depression and WW2, and make sure these play out in a proper manner.

[Umbrella]

My movements were a mixed bag. O'Connor was able to move to RI, but gained the carpetbagger trait, which will hurt him in all elections for the next 10 years. Webb was able to shift his ideology to traditionalist with no penalty. Curley's mentorship of Hamlin wasn't bad. Hamlin improved his legislative skill, became more experienced in business matters, but also gained the controversial trait from his mentor.

Once this segment has been completed for the rest of the players, the next stage is determining the faction personality. Each faction will have an ideology based on its members (spoiler alert: mine will be moderate). It's possible to have more than one, but this won't be the case for me. In addition, there is also a faction interest. I'm not sure what mine will be yet, but I'm guessing either Reformists or Expansionists, depending on what happens with the other factions. And finally, there will be the lobbies. There are a bunch of them, and there are a lot of conditions that need to be met to hold the lobby card. As part of my draft strategy, I focused on education, so I hope that we get the public education lobby.

All factions will have at least one each of ideology, interest, and lobby cards. They can have more than one if they meet the requirements. These come into play for various things, but mostly for your score. Simply put, you get more points for passing legislation that satisfies your cards, and lose points for legislation that hurts your cards.

[Umbrella]

My faction ended up with the following cards:

Ideologies
Moderates

Special Interests
Expansionists

Lobbies
Public Education
Free Trade
Welfare (how?)

All the steps of the faction realignment phase are complete. Now we enter the next phase - Leaders Emerge

[Umbrella]

The first step of the next phase is to elect the congressional leaders. This includes Speaker of the House, House Majority and Minority Leader, House Majority and Minority Whip, Senate Majority and Minority Leader, and Senate Majority and Minority Whip. There are various requirements involving traits and abilities, but since this is a new game, nobody meets all of the requirements, so everyone is eligible to run.

I decided to run someone in all four positions. My choices are:
House Minority Leader - Cordell Hull of TN
House Minority Whip - Sam Rayburn of TX
Senate Minority Leader - Carl Hayden of AZ
Senate Minority Whip - Hugo Black of AL

I'm not 100% sure how the voting for this works, so I don't know how realistic my chances are of winning. I don't have a lot of House votes, but I do have some influence in the Senate, so maybe I can get one of them elected.

[Izulde]

Downloaded it and started in 1772. Couldn't figure out how to assign people to tracks after draft and accidentally quit the game.

[Umbrella]

Originally Posted by Izulde

Downloaded it and started in 1772. Couldn't figure out how to assign people to tracks after draft and accidentally quit the game.

The computer alpha is only the draft right now, so that's why it is as far as you can go at this point. The version I am playtesting is still manual (someone manually doing dice rolls, manually entering the data, etc.) which is why it is so slow.

I just wanted to add that I got the results for Carl Hayden's win. He gained the propogandist and debater traits. I have no clue what propogandist does yet, but I think debater helps with debates during presidential elections.

Also, there is a chance that voters like who was selected. In my case, moderate voter enthusiasm shifted more towards the democrats because Hayden was chosen as minority leader.

[Umbrella]

I did a little bit of a dig in the rules, and it looks like propagandist also helps with trying to convert politicians to your faction.

Here are my members of various committees:

House Domestic
Stanley H Kunz (IL)
John J McSwain (SC)

House Economic
Clarence Lea (CA)
Riley J Wilson (LA)

House Foreign/Military
Otis Wingo (AR)

House Judicial
Rene L De Rouen (LA)

Senate Domestic
Tom Connally (TX)
Hugo Black (AL)
Kenneth McKellar (TN)

Senate Economic
Lawrence D Tyson (TN) - Ranking Member
Elmer Thomas (OK)

Senate Foreign/Military
Henry F Ashurst (AZ) - Ranking Member
John B Kendrick (WY)

Senate Judicial
Vail Pittman (NV)

All of these committee members have a very small chance of gaining some abilities, and will gain a trait associated with the committee they are in.

[Umbrella]

All of the committee members got a new interest based on their committees. In addition, Ashurst improved his legislative ability.

The next step is selecting a faction leader, faction name, and then we'll vote for party leader. There are certain requirements that have to be met to be eligible for faction leader, but most of my politicians meet them for now. I selected Senate Minority Leader Carl Hayden as the faction leader. There are score penalties if one faction gets too far ahead of the others in the same party, so I decided to not run for party leader.

There are a list of eligible names you can choose for your faction based on the faction personality. I could have been the Moderate Democrats, as listed in the title, but that is a bit boring, so we will be the School Book Liberals.

I made a deal with the far right wing faction to vote for their candidate (Eugene Talmadge) as party leader. Of course after I made this deal, I looked him up on Wikipedia and found he was a white supremacist. We'll see how everyone else votes.

[Umbrella]

The party leadership was certainly a mixed bag of candidates. In other words, none of these I wanted to vote for. In the end, against my objections, the Democrats elected Huey Long for our party leader. I think interesting times are ahead for our party.

The next phase involves all of the presidential appointments. With a republican president, not a lot of chances any of my politicians will be selected for anything. However, I forgot that military leaders are part of this phase, and Matthew Ridgway was selected as a general, while Chester Nimitz was selected as an admiral. Both are very qualified candidates, so not a huge shock they were selected for a non-political role. I accepted both nominations.

After these selections, next comes the confirmation process. The rules for this are pretty complicated, but it boils down to traits and ideologies of the candidate and voters. There are certain situations where you are required to confirm or not. If none of those situations are met, you can vote however you want.

It starts with the appropriate senate committee, and if the candidate gets through the committee, then the whole senate votes. There are some possible consequences that can happen if you vote nay for a candidate that gets confirmed, and vice versa.

The whole confirmation process is kind of confusing when reading it in the rules, so I'll see how it plays out. It might not be as complicated as it seems on first glance.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Umbrella

The computer alpha is only the draft right now, so that's why it is as far as you can go at this point.

Yikes.

"Yikes" cause I looked at the site and didn't pick up on that at all.
Glad I didn't go with my initial whim & pull the trigger.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Umbrella

I made a deal with the far right wing faction to vote for their candidate (Eugene Talmadge) as party leader. Of course after I made this deal, I looked him up on Wikipedia and found he was a white supremacist.

Please forgive me if I can't help but laugh, simply because he's such a familiar figure to anyone from Georgia.

He was a powerful three-term governor (and would have had a 4th term had he not died from hepatitis & cirrosis before he could be sworn in) but he's probably best remembered today as the father of future Sen. Herman Talmadge, who had been long groomed as the next governor (indeed, most aside from Gene himself wanted Herman to run in his place for that eventual 4th term).

Herman would end up serving that term (after no shortage of controvery, the "three governors affair") at the age of just 33, and by 1957 would start nearly three decades in the U.S. Senate.

In the waning days of Herman's career, he survived a bitter primary against a young upstart ... Zell Miller... but lost to (R) Mack Mattingly. His downfall was the censure due to "financial irregularities" highlighted by his wife testifying that she routinely took spending money for decades from an old overcoat that her husband kept stuffed with $100 bills. (reportedly at least $45,000 worth of $100s were in that coat)

[JonInMiddleGA]

His role in the game seems well played. In real-life he explored an alliance with Huey Long based around their mutual hatred of FDR. That alliance failed however when the two discovered that they really had noting in common except that singular hatred. Each wanted to be President, each thought the other should be their VP. They would become bitter enemies & rivals for years to come.

(Long famously saying that Talmadge didn't have the brains to match his ambitions)

[Umbrella]

Learning out about these politicians is one of the reasons why I am looking forward to this game so much. I'm slowly finding out there was a ton of corrupt politicians during this time frame.

I'm sure most people don't know a lot about Carl Hayden (who I am trying to groom into making the president), but he's somewhat of a legend in Arizona, and specifically in Tempe where I grew up. Tempe was originally called Hayden's Ferry after his father, and his childhood home still stands. For years it was a very popular steakhouse which also served as a museum of sorts to the Hayden family. I grew up with the kids of the owner, and eventually my friend took over the restaurant. Another one of my buddies who died young is buried in the cemetery that Hayden is buried in, not very far away from him.

I don't think this playtest will make it that far, but another politician I hope to get to play as/with is Harry Mitchell. He was a long time mayor of Tempe, and eventually ran for congress. I don't remember how many terms he served (1 or 2), but he's the only national level congressman who knows who I am.

Our current playtest has been on a short hold for a rules discussion. We're wondering for games that start at a specific year, should we start with the presidential election, start with a president and let him choose the cabinet (what we're doing in this playtest), or start with the president and cabinet in place. It currently looks like across the various playtests there is no consistency in this, so everyone involved is trying to decide which works best. I guess this is a reason we do the playtesting. The people that have been involved in multiple playtests think it is better to already start with the cabinet in place. I haven't played enough to have a good opinion on it.
Hopefully it will restart again sometime today, and we can begin the confirmation process.

[Umbrella]

In a little bit of a surprise, the player who has Patton declined his promotion to general. The replacement was my player, Stanley Foreman Reed. In real life, he became a supreme court justice. He served in WW1, and went into private law practice after the war. In our alternate reality, he stayed in the army and worked his way up the ladder.

That was the last of the nominations, so now we are finally ready to do confirmations. I'm curious to see how this plays out.

[Umbrella]

Confirmation was a bit anti-climatic. Most candidates get auto-confirmed. We only vote if they're controversial or have a low skill level applicable to their position. In the end, everyone was confirmed, although in hindsight, we should have worked together better to block one of the ambassador positions so we could get an extra spot.

The next phase is where the game really begins to get interesting. This is the events phase of the game. This is where things happen. There are two types of events, random and scripted. Scripted events tend to follow along with historical events, while random events can be just about anything, from natural disasters to scandals hitting a random politician. There are probabilities to what events fire, and many of the scripted events have prerequisites that need to be met before they can fire.

We'll see if we start heading towards a great depression, WW2, or if we have a different alternate reality.

[Umbrella]

The first part of the events phase is deaths and retirements. Keep in mind that this "round" is actually a two year term from 1928-1930. It's not like everyone died at once, just sometime during the term.

For me, John Vandling Lesher died in a deadly accident. I don't even know who he was, and he's no longer on my roster, so not bad, I guess. In addition, Senator John B Kendrick of WY will retire at the end of his term to become a university president. This one hurts a little more.

From the other factions, the biggest names to retire at the end of this term were Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, and House Majority Leader John Q Tildon.

For the general events phase, most of them were minor. There is a labor strike which has turned violent, and a possible meeting with a foreign dictator, among other things giving some flavor and small politician stat changes. However, one is very major. President Hoover took a nasty fall, involving a long recovery period. In game terms, he takes a giant hit to his abilities, and has the option of stepping down and letting the VP take over the presidency. This looks like one of the defining moments of this term, at least until we get the scripted events.

[Umbrella]

The labor strikes resulted in moderate and conservative enthusiasm shift towards the Democrats. Hoover decided to continue on, so we'll see how this plays out.

One thing I have never mentioned is the meters. There are several meters in the game that reflect certain things within the country. Things such as the economy, quality of life, military readiness, relationships with other countries, etc. In addition, there are also meters for enthusiasm towards or against the parties based on ideology. There are many things which can affect the ideology meters. Ideology meters affect elections, as voters with certain ideologies will turn towards or against a party based on their actions.

In general, this is the stage of the game where the meters start to get changed. For example, the labor strike decreased the domestic stability meter one level. The levels of these meters impact a lot of different things, some of which are which scripted events are eligible to fire, which will be the next thing to happen.

Obviously, the meters will also change once legislation gets passed, when we get to that phase. It makes the balance tricky. Do I submit or vote for legislation which pleases my base and lobbies, even if it hurts the country? Or vice-versa? At this point in time, the country is in pretty good shape, so I am leaning towards pleasing my base and lobbies. This can (and probably will) change in the future, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

[Umbrella]

The scripted event phase was not good for my faction. Most of the events are for flavor, and also provide/remove points from factions. For example, Radio City Music Hall opening gives points to who controls the governor of NY. From an interesting worldwide standpoint, Stalin has gained control in the USSR, Hitler has risen to power, burned the Reichstag, and is restricting rights of Jewish citizens in Germany. He is moving a bit faster than he did historically. Spain has deposed their king and become a republic.

The only scripted event needing a decision was the option to purchase Iceland to use as a military base. Hoover chose not to, which really hurt me as an expansionist faction. The other playtesters were unhappy as well, as we wanted to go ahistorical and see if Iceland would become a state.

As a result, I was the only faction who ended up losing points in this phase, dropping me to 2nd place in the Democratic party. In addition, moderate enthusiasm shift towards the Republicans. All in all, a bad phase for me.

The next phase will be the internal affairs phase. During this phase, the first thing that will happen is lingering effects. Meters will move based on long term legislation, strength of the cabinet, as well as certain events with lingering effects.

After that will come governor actions. Governors can try and implement state legislation. What they can propose depends on a ton of different variables, and their success depends on their governing skill. I only have three governors, and they are all pretty terrible, so I'm not expecting much luck.

The final step of the internal affairs phase is Supreme Court decisions. As of now, this is automated based on the ideologies of the justices, but there is discussion that in the computer game, there will be an option to let the players vote for their justices.

[Umbrella]

For the lingering phase, our military prep increased, which takes us out of crisis mode. Honest government decreased, and planet health increased. The planet health increase is annoying because now one of the effects of the meter is liberals get a boost in the next election. If it stayed put, moderates would have gotten the boost.

I forgot to mention a couple of things that happen in the governor section of this phase. First, a random governor is chosen from each party, and that state holds the national convention. That governor then chooses delegates. This section looked tedious, and I'm glad I wasn't selected. Second, any player with a governor of a state which is leading in an industry gets points. None of mine are, so nothing for me.

For my governor actions, I used Billy Adams (CO) to improve the natural gas industry. If he's successful, Colorado will be the industry leader. John E Erickson (MT) will put emphasis on public schooling. As the Schoolbook Liberals, I feel this should be done. The only effect this has is giving me points. Finally, William Bulow (SD) will try to improve the high tech industry. No state has this industry yet, so I'm not 100% sure this is legal, but I didn't see anything in the rules preventing it.

As mentioned in the previous post, the success of these actions are based on the governing skill of the governors, and mine are all pretty low, so it's likely none of these will be successful.

[Umbrella]

None of my governors were successful, and none of the Supreme Court cases fired.

There is a chance that there could be some federal interference on some of the governor actions, but we haven't got to that part yet. This doesn't affect me, so I'm patiently waiting for the next phase. Also, I'm waiting for final points scored on this phase, but once again, I had another phase that didn't score well for me.

The next phase is where legislation happens. There are all kinds of rules and restrictions on this, but here's the big picture. A set number of bills can be introduced. The state of the meters will affect this number. Once that is determined, the congressmen who can introduce bills are determined. The higher your legislative skill and certain traits, the better your chance. Members of the president's party also have a slight advantage. There are also rules with crises (I think that is the plural of crisis) which can allow more bills to be introduced, but we don't currently have any. There are also rules which can allow leaders in congress to change some of these proposals.

Once bills are introduced, they go to the appropriate committee. Once in committee, the committee members vote whether to advance. Certain traits by committee members can also be used to try and flip votes. Chairs of committees also have the ability to block some of these bills if their legislative power is high enough.

Once all the bills get through committee, the committee chair can choose if/how to package the bills. However, if the ranking member has certain traits and stats, they can influence the packaging. I have two ranking members, so this could be something I do.

Once bills are packaged, they then go to the house for a vote, and if it gets through the house, then goes to the senate. There are rules which can make a congressman vote against your wishes if they have certain traits. If it gets through congress, then it goes to the president who can veto. If vetoed, then it goes back to see if the veto gets overridden.

The results of any legislation passed can affect many things, such as the meters, election results, industry, etc. It could potentially affect the lingering phase next time around. It also gives/removes points for factions, depending on which cards they hold.

For my guys, I will focus on points since there are no ongoing crises to deal with. But I have to see if any of my guys get chosen to propose bills first.

[Izulde]

Intriguing. Too bad about Iceland. That would have been awesome

[Umbrella]

I didn't get any points in the previous phase. The RNG is not in my favor lately. The odds of me having NOBODY pick a proposal was extremely small, and yet, it happened. Now I have to wait for everyone else to propose, and see if perhaps one of my ranking members has something to do.

[Umbrella]

Legislation has been sent to committee. Four bills have been pushed through committee already, due to powers of various committee chairmen. 18 more are still being voted on. Nothing has been packaged yet, but the bills that have already made it through are:

Expand Income Tax Loopholes: Bad for me, because it hurts Welfare.

Criminalize Advocating Overthrowing the US Government by Force of Violence: Good for me, because it helps Moderates.

Subsidize the Costs of Raising and Selling Products from Farms: Doesn't affect me immediately, but it would help politicians from agricultural states if I vote for it.

Set Average Tariff Rate to 40%: Bad for me, because it hurts Free Trade.

Currently, I'm doing terrible in the scoring. I'm in 8th out of the 10 factions, ahead of only the far right factions in both parties. The legislation could have a big impact on this though.

[Umbrella]

This is still going, albeit very slowly. Right now, the bills have been released from committee and packaged, and sent to the chambers of congress for voting. I had one ranking committee member eligible to change packaging, but only one piece of legislation came out of that committee, so no action from me.

The bills have been voted on in both the house and the senate. There is a mechanism to filibuster a bill, depending on certain traits. None of my guys were allowed, but another player did. However, there is also a mechanism to invoke cloture under certain conditions, which was used to defeat the filibuster. The next step involves trying to sway votes. For the first time in a while, I have politicians with the correct traits to do something. However, the votes were incredibly one-sided, so even if I were to flip some voters, it wouldn't make a difference. Therefore, I declined to take this action.

The bills that passed will now go to the president to either sign or veto. I don't think any will get vetoed since they passed with enough votes to override the veto. Once the bills are signed into law, I will list the ones that made it. However, before that happens, we move on to the next phase, foreign affairs. This mostly involves ambassadors, of which I have none, and wars, which we aren't involved in right now, so this phase should go fairly quick.

The phase after foreign affairs is the executive phase. As you probably guessed, this is where the president actions occur. This will be another slow phase for me.

[Umbrella]

Here are the bills. They all passed or failed overwhelmingly.

S.1 (Passed House, Passed Senate)

Create Federal Farm Board

Require that most positions within the federal government are awarded on merit rather than on party loyalty

Create a Land Grant for Agricultural Colleges

I voted AYE for this. None of these laws will impact my score, but voting AYE helps my congressmen from agricultural states.

S.2 (Passed House, Passed Senate)

Establish a system of Federal Loans to Local Government

Expand income tax loopholes

I voted NAY on this one. The federal loans help me, but the income tax loopholes hurts me more.

S.3 (Failed House)

Increase Punishments for Violating Prohibition

I voted AYE, solely because the passage of this hurts the other party in the next election.

S.4 (Passed House, Passed Senate)

Criminalize Advocating Overthrowing the US Government by Force or Violence

An easy AYE vote. Not only does this help my faction's score, in principle this should be law.

H.1 (Passed House, Passed Senate)

Create the Executive Office of the President to Increase the Agencies and Workforce of the Executive Branch

This was an overwhelming AYE for me. It scores for moderates, expansionists, and the public has a little backlash against the other party for strengthening their power.

H.2 (Failed House)

Ban Teaching of Evolution

Another easy vote for me. As the school book liberal faction, I had to vote NAY. Honestly, I was surprised this made it out of committee.

H.3 (Failed House)

Subsidize the Costs of Raising and Selling Products from Farms

I voted AYE for the same reason I voted AYE on the other farm bill. I'm a little surprised the other one passed easily, but this one failed.

H.4 (Passed House, Passed Senate)

Expand benefits for veterans, most notably benefits towards education, training, housing, and for starting businesses

I like when the game reasons coincide with my personal feelings. Moderates like this, so an easy AYE.

H.5 (Passed House, Passed Senate)

Set Average Tariff Rate to 40%

Ban US Employers from Bringing in Immigrants for Contract Work

Free trade doesn't like the tariff, so I voted NAY.

H.6 (Passed House, Passed Senate)

Federal Criminalization of Hard Drugs

Ban Child Labor in Industries with High Injury Rate

The drug law is popular with moderates. Even though banning child labor helps the other party, I still voted AYE.

[Umbrella]

Ambassadors went out and did their things. To be honest, this section is rather uninteresting to me. Our relationship with Japan, Russia, and Germany improved, our relations with France worsened, and our budget got a little worse through some trade deals that didn't go well.

This section will get more interesting if/when WW2 breaks out, but for now, it's just ambassador actions, and those are somewhat limited. Now the executive phase begins.

[Umbrella]

Originally Posted by Umbrella

H.5 (Passed House, Passed Senate)

Set Average Tariff Rate to 40%

Ban US Employers from Bringing in Immigrants for Contract Work

Free trade doesn't like the tariff, so I voted NAY.

Interestingly, this was the only bill that got vetoed. It passed easily in congress, but it will have to go back for an override vote. My senators that have skills to try and flip votes will use them, but it passed with about 93% in the house, and almost 80% in the senate, so I don't think it will help much even if successful. But perhaps the president is working on something within his party to try and prevent the override.

[Umbrella]

The scoring for the legislation has been completed, and it was an absolute bloodbath for the Republicans. It turns out HR6 gives a penalty to any politician from a manufacturing state, which is dominated by the Republicans. HR5 would have given a bonus to those same politicians, but the veto was upheld. Not only that but moderates loved these new laws, so I ended up with the most points from legislation, by quite a large margin. It's obvious none of us understood the implications of the scoring from state industries.

The downside of moderates liking the new legislation is since the Republicans hold both chambers of congress and the presidency, moderate voters are giving the credit to Republicans, which will hurt me in the upcoming midterm elections.

However, as crazy as it sounds, I'm now the overall #1 scoring faction. This will have some weird implications down the road.

[Umbrella]

The more I think about it, the more nuanced this game is than appears at first glance. The law which bans child labor hurts manufacturing. So now a politician from a manufacturing state has to decide between the moral issue, and what is best for his state. Just like in real politics, sometimes making the "right" decision will hurt you, and in this case, the Republicans got slaughtered from a score standpoint.

Also, specifically in my case, laws which please the moderates while the other party is in power will hurt me politically. So do I do what I can to help my base, or do I obstruct until we gain power, and then try and pass these laws? I opted for the former, but we'll see if that hurts me too much in the next election.

I really like this delicate balance, and I'm not experienced enough with the game to know if there's a best way to act.

[Umbrella]

Now that the legislative phase is complete, we move on to presidential actions. Hoover chose to tour America's farmlands, and also adopt a strict immigration policy. These actions turned out to be beneficial to me. While the farmland tour will help him in those states come election time, I still have a lot of politicians from agricultural states, so my score increased by quite a bit. Also, his immigration policy affected the budget slightly, and now moderates are happy with the budget, giving me a slight election boost. I didn't have any negatives this time, so a good turn.

The next step is to replace retiring Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendall Holmes. Hoover nominated Harold Hitz Burton from his own faction. Burton was also a justice in real life. The vote is ongoing, but Burton is a moderate, not controversial, and harmonious, so he should get Senate confirmation pretty easily.

Once that is complete, the next phase will be the 1930 midterm elections. This phase looks very complicated, so we'll see how bad I screw this up. I'm sure I will realize how to determine what candidates I should run in what elections after the fact. Just going through all these phases makes me realize my original draft strategy was pretty much non-existent. I have a much better idea how I will proceed for the next draft.

[Umbrella]

Burton was confirmed. On to elections! This part is pretty extensive, but here is who I am running. An "i" means incumbent. Not all governor and senate races are this midterm, but all representatives are.

Governors
Effiegene Locke Wingo -AR
Billy Adams (i) - CO
Francis T Maloney - CT
James Michael Curley - MA
Charles Fletcher Johnson - ME
Woodbridge N Ferris - MI
Stephen M Young - OH
Albert Schmedemann - WI

With the exception of Wingo, Adams, Curley, and Young. I should lose all of these handily, if I even get out of the primaries. There is a possible penalty to future elections if you lose a general election, but these are old candidates who I don't have any plans for. If I can steal a win, that would be great.

The other candidates are trickier. Wingo is a solid candidate, but she's a woman, and the AR field is really strong from the Democrats side. If she can get through the primary, I think she has a shot. Adams is in a state that is leaning Republican and not fond of moderates right now, but he is the incumbent, so there's a chance. An incumbent who loses causes a hefty points loss, so I'm worried about this one. Curley is a real wild card. He's catholic, controversial, and unlikeable. He could win by a landslide, lose by a landslide, or anything in between and I wouldn't be surprised. Finally, Young is a great candidate, probably the best in the field, so he has a shot at unseating the incumbent.

Senators
Hugo Black (i) - AL
Teller Ammons - CO
Bert H Miller - ID
Leo Kocialkowski - IL
M M Logan -KY
Charles Sumner Hamlin - MA
Sam V Stewart - MT
Edwin Y Webb - NC
John Morrow - NM
John M O'Connell - RI
Daniel Roper - SC
Lawrence Tyson (i) - TN
Harley Kilgore - WV

The non-incumbent candidates are long shots, but I didn't run anyone who I'm worried about getting a penalty for a loss. For both the incumbent and non-incumbent southern candidates, getting through the primaries will be difficult because the south is pretty far right wing right now. However, if I can survive the primaries down south, I have a real good chance of winning in the general election. If you remember, Hamlin is the protoge of my crazy kingmaker Curley (who's running for governor), so he gets a bonus because of that, even though he's not a great candidate.

Representatives
Oscar Underwood - AL1
William B Bankhead - AL2
Otis Wingo (i) - AR1
John R Murdock - AZ1
Jerry Voorhis - CA1
William Gibbs McAdoo - CA2
Clarence Lea (i) - CA3
Edwin C Johnson - CO1
Allen Frear Jr - DE1
Nathan P Bryan - FL1
Robert Ramspeck - GA2
William C Adamson - GA3
William Dieterich - IL3
Stanely H Kuntz (i) - IL5
Scott W Lucas - IL6
Sherman Minton - IN1
Arthur H Greenwood - IN2
Henry Schricker - IN3
Rene L De Rouen (i) - LA1
Riley J Wilson (i) - LA2
William P Connery Jr - MA2
A S J Carnahan - MO1
Harry S Truman - MO2
John C B Ehringhaus - NC1
Robert L Doughton - NC2
Raymond B Stevens - NH1
A Harry Moore - NJ1
William H Smathers - NJ2
George Silzer - NJ3
John E Miles - NM1
Key Pittman - NV1
Frazier Reams - OH2
Frank Lausche - OH4
Francis J Myers - PA2
John J O'Connor - RI1
John J McSwain (i) - SC1
Olin D Johnston - SC2
Cordell Hull (i) - TN1
Finis J Garrett - TN2
James Allred - TX1
Sam Rayburn (i) - TX2
Lee O'Daniel - TX3
Elbert D Thomas - UT1

House elections are a little different. First, there is no penalty for losing, unless you're an incumbent, so I ran everywhere I was eligible. Secondly, different seats within states can have different biases towards Democrats or Republicans. Thirdly, unlike senators and governors, there isn't a one-to-one correlation between how many representatives there really were, and how many there are in the game. For example, there were 435 house seats in 1930, but in the game, there are only 112. This is just to reduce the complexity. However, there is a ratio that matches real life. So California will have way more seats than Wyoming.

My only real goal in the house is to keep my incumbents in office, which is a little dicey, because there are a lot of good Democratic candidates in the south, and Lea's seat is in a heavily red area. I also really want to get Truman's career moving since he has HUGE potential to be a presidential star. I've got a message out to one of the other players trying to talk him into not running against Truman in exchange for me removing one of my candidates against him, so the list above could potentially change. O'Connor is interesting, because he is the politician I moved to RI from NY earlier, and got a carpetbagger penalty. He does have celebrity status though, so he's like this election's version of Dr. Oz.

[Umbrella]

Governor elections are complete. I didn't do too bad. All of my candidates won their primary except Wingo, who barely lost, and Schmedemenn. Wingo losing a close one hurt, because there wasn't a Republic candidate, so she would have been the first woman governor of Arkansas had she won.

General elections weren't as kind. Only Adams and Young won. I thought Curley had a chance, but he lost a fairly close race. If I could only have two winners though, Adams and Young were the ones I wanted. Adams improved his governing skill with the win.

The only penalty I got was Maloney, so all in all, not too bad. I kept my incumbent, picked up one governor, and scored some points.

[Chas in Cinti]

I'm enjoying this... have no idea what's going on... but enjoying following along nonetheless...

[Izulde]

Can't wait for this to be SP

[Umbrella]

Originally Posted by Chas in Cinti

I'm enjoying this... have no idea what's going on... but enjoying following along nonetheless...

Thanks! I thought this game might appeal to this message board. In hindsight, I probably should have linked to the kickstarter page for the game. It gives more info, and has some examples of what some of the visuals may look like in the computer version.

Kickstarter

But feel free to ask questions, and I'll try and answer best I can. I'm being purposefully vague on some of the details in the rules, as one of the conditions for me being approved as a playtester involves not spilling too much info.

I realized I made a rather major error. I misunderstood how the governor elections worked, and I didn't run my candidates correctly. In other words, I had two incumbents that didn't run for re-election. So instead of picking up one governor spot, I actually lost a spot. I'm also pretty sure I had a great candidate that would have won in New Jersey, but didn't run him. But even with my screw up, the Democrats are doing really well so far. By my count we picked up eight states. This is encouraging for the senate and houses.

Still waiting on senate elections. The election phase will take forever, since we have someone doing all of the rolls for every primary and general election for every race. It's a very complicated method, and is incredibly time consuming to do it by hand. The House elections will take even longer.

After the elections are done, the retirement phase happens. People voted out of office might retire, based on their age and the office they were removed from. Also, retirements for older unemployed politicians can happen. Finally, old politicians that don't retire can have a reduction in their abilities. And that's the end of the first round. We will then start over and do from 1930-1932. The early steps will play a bit differently since all factions have leaders now.

On a side note, in another one of the playtests, something interesting happened. Richard Taylor, father of president Zachary Taylor, died during a battle in the Revolutionary War. As a result, Zachary Taylor was never born, and will not be in their game. I didn't realize there is a dynasty rule, where if someone dies young, any of their children born after the date of death don't exist, and then their children won't exist, and so on. I thought that was pretty cool.

[Umbrella]

Originally Posted by Izulde

Can't wait for this to be SP

I assume SP means single player? That's how I assume the majority of players will play, including me. I've seen the AI rules, and so far in the playtests I've been following, it's done a decent job. In my playtest, each party has one faction controlled by the AI. Obviously, if you wanted to min/max everything, you could probably perform stronger than the AI, who does have some unpredictability programmed in.

Speaking of min/maxing, I've been giving some thought about if I should replace my faction leader next turn. If I was truly trying to get the absolute best person, House Minority Whip Sam Rayburn looks to be the strongest for me. But part of the fun for me is trying to create my own alternate history, and I'm trying to make Carl Hayden president someday. So far, my efforts haven't been great. Part of the problem is to run for president, you need to have at least 1 command point, and those are hard to get. Of course, Hayden doesn't have any. As a comparison, Truman has 5, which is the highest rating. If I was playing smart, I would be working harder to make Truman president. But we'll see how it all plays out.

[Izulde]

Yep, single player. Still have the 0.1.2. build where the only thing you can do is draft.

[Umbrella]

Originally Posted by Izulde

Yep, single player. Still have the 0.1.2. build where the only thing you can do is draft.

Yeah, and even the draft isn't done correctly. All it really does is give an idea of what a candidate card looks like. I'm still anxious for the next release also, although from what I understand, they are currently working on the faction cards. I don't know if the coding is being done in game sequence order or not, but it feels like it is still a while away from a beta release.

I took a look at how the AI factions were doing in our game just out of curiosity. The highest scoring faction is one of the AI factions. This could still change a lot with the elections, but they definitely aren't struggling. I'm the least experienced playtester, and I'm in second. Granted, I've been playing for score, so not a shock. That may not be the best long term strategy, but it's what I'm going with for now.

[Umbrella]

Senate primaries are done.

Hugo Black (AL-i) Won a tight primary. No Republican candidate, so he'll retain his seat.
Teller Ammons (CO) Got crushed.
Bert H Miller (ID) Lost a tighter than expected race.
Leo Kocialkowski (IL) Won the primary in a monster upset.
M M Logan (KY) Barely lost. Bummer, because I thought he had a good shot.
Charles Sumner Hamlin (MA) The protégé of crazy Curley gets the win.
Sam V Stewart (MT) Not a factor, finished last.
Edwin Y Webb (NC) Lost a close race in a very crowded primary.
John Morrow (NM) Did better than I thought he would, but still finished 2nd.
John M O'Connell (RI) Another very close loss.
Daniel Roper (SC) Got destroyed.
Kenneth McKeller (TN-i) Lost a very tight race. This one will hurt since he's an incumbent who lost in the primary.
Harley Kilgore (WV) Won an extremely close race.

Kocialkowski and Hamlin will be underdogs, but the Republican incumbent in both races was defeated in the primary, so they have a chance. I expected nothing from Kocialkowski, so this would be a very pleasant surprise if he can win. Kilgore is going up against an incumbent, but West Virginia is leaning blue right now, so this race should be very even.

[Umbrella]

The blue wave continues. After picking up 8 governor seats in the midterms, by my count we've picked up 10 senate seats, and for now, control the senate 48-47. However, there is an open seat in Pennsylvania that isn't accounted for, and the governor can choose to fill it, or leave it vacant. The newly elected governor of PA is a Democrat, so either way, we will retain control of the senate.

For my faction, Kocialkowski won by the thinnest of margins, and Hamlin and Kilgore both rode the blue wave to victories as well. I now have gained a net of two more senators, although losing as an incumbent means even with that, my net score for senate elections will be negative.

House results will be next, and I fully expect the blue wave to continue. Whether it is enough to gain control of the house remains to be seen.

ETA: I forgot to mention that for winning, Black picked up +1 legislative ability, and Kilgore and Kocialkowski gained +1 admin ability. Unfortunately, Hamlin didn't get anything. Also, from a scoring standpoint, Hamlin will get double points for being a protégé, and since we took the Senate, Hayden will get points for being the Senate Minority Leader for outperforming the opposition.