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McCain is ahead by 9% in Ohio. Spooked by 2004, I send a media darling out there, accompanied by a consultant and an intimidator. The media darling, an Obama girl I found in West Virginia, improves Obama's standing on all issues. The consultant raises awareness of Obama, and the intimidator lowers awareness of McCain ("You've never heard of this McCain guy, got it? Because I'd hate for something bad to happen to your dog."). After a speech and some TV ads running out of California, universal health care and the environment are the leading issues in Ohio. Needless to say, neither is McCain's strong point. By the end of the month, Ohio is a dead heat. That, boys and girls, is how you deal with a 9-point lead.
After the jump, you can read about McCain's revenge.
The Political Machine is a turn-based game. But there's one instance when your reflexes matter. Sometimes, at the start of a turn, a question mark will appear in some random state. If you're the first candidate to get to that state, you'll uncover a mystery person, usually a helpful one. So when a question mark appears in Hawaii during the first week of March, Obama makes a beeline for the state where he grew up while McCain does another do-nothing visit to Nebraska.
It's a money man from Hawaii! This guy boosts considerably the amount of money you get from fundraising. And you can move him to whichever state you want. So I immediately send him to California with Obama following close behind, ready to avail himself of loyal Californian campaign contributions. With the vast wealth I earn with my money man, I will build a network of election headquarters and launch a barrage of television ads such as the world has never seen!
But the very next week, McCain does something eminently sensible. He uses his political capital to hire a consultant called a fixer. The fixer can be used to destroy any single "operative" on the map. McCain's fixer immediately "fixes" my money man. So I instead spend the rest of the week beating back McCain's Ohio lead. I'll teach him to fix my money man.
By the end of the March, I've further widened Obama's lead to a projected 303 to 235 electoral votes. At this rate, it's going to be a painful summer and fall for John McCain.
(Click here for the previous Political Machine game diary entry.)
Frakjack
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Carter's Car Dodge
By andrei.dumitrescu at 5:07 AM ON 07/04/08
The random characters I seem to get are about 50 - 50 bad and good. And the AI is very good at taking out your political operatives, especially on challenging...
By somedude at 9:43 AM ON 07/04/08
Can the game randomly generate candidates and key issues? Or is it only geared to the current election?
By Wednesday at 1:07 AM ON 07/05/08
Eh, Political Machine is ok (the AI is pretty solid) but President Forever is way better.
However I'm totally enjoying these diaries.
By Tom Chick at 1:41 AM ON 07/07/08
Somedude, there's no randomness in the game at this point. Which is weird, since that was an option in the 2004 version. The developers have hinted that it might make a return in a patch.
By somedude at 1:43 PM ON 07/08/08
Ahh, thanks. That's unfortunate because this kind of game is ripe for creating your own politician with his or her own set of perks and disadvantages you select at the beginning of the game. They could even add a primary season and post election play, except that'd kind of be like a mini-civ game or something.