President Forever sim

[Neecy]

This is an election sim that I've been playing since summer - it might be a bit too soon for some of us political junkies to sim Bush/Kerry, but you can plan strategy for Nixon/Kennedy, Bush/Clinton or Carter/Reagan.

Very realistic, and addictive (and cheap). They're planning on adding primaries to the next update, and they add features pretty frequently. You can download the demo and/or buy it here:

http://www.hotpotsoftware.com/p2000/p2000.htm

[Gore1FL]

1. It has to beat "The Political Machine"

I see it is now on the $9 rack -- where it belonged orignially.

[seg4527]

2. i bought the political machine, and then it didn't work

my computer is just 4 years old, and it's practically useless. :-P

[DrGonzoLives]

3. Really hard to win

I think some of the people submitting scenarios purposely stack the deck against Democrats - and the scandals really get on my fucking nerves, I hope they clamp down on those in the next version.

[seg4527]

4. re

I had trouble, and then I played as Bush, and had just as much trouble, so it's just a difficult game.

I have won twice in 2004, however. Once with Dean and once with Sharpton.

[GiovanniC]

5. I Have Won in 2004 Very Frequently

Using Wes Clark with a Dean VP or sometimes a lesser-known (Richardson or Landreau). However, the strategy that I use is not one that I think would work in real life.

I spend a lot of time in the beginning of the game creating foot soldiers and crusaders and barnstorming. But job #1 is to create at least two or three REALLY GOOD ads (the "highly successful" kind) with high power. I almost always use the main character traits: Leadership. Experience. Issues Knowledge. Integrity.

Then, I wait until about ten days before the election, making a couple speeches, barnstorming, debate prep, etc. I DO NOT AIR ANY ADS UNTIL TEN DAYS BEFORE THE ELECTION (unless I realize that I will have a surplus of cash, which basically never happens). I figure out how many states I can afford to run the two or three highly successful ads in. I will start at the ones I'm polling +3 or +4 and go down until I'm close to being out of money. I get a huge momentum surge as the election approaches and as long as there's no "scandal" or anything, then I usually kick Bush's ass.

[DrGonzoLives]

6. Yeah, that's a quasi-cheat

That is, even if your budget is low, run ads EVERYWHERE the last couple of days, since you can go over your funds for one day.

The scandals are what piss me off. They really need to turn those things down - I had a high-impact scandal regarding Leadership with a candidate with max leadership skill - how the hell does that work?

[GiovanniC]

7. I Don't Go Over My Funding

As in, I don't finish off in the red. However, blitzing the airwaves with advertisements only in the last week and a half of the campaign in states where you're semi-competitive in (even polling -10 or so ten days out) can win you an election and I can't really see that happening in real life.