For the record... you are all participating in a playtest of a game called Politiq. Politiq has been in the work since 1995. In 2003, it came to life, using a very different system than the one I was planning. Politiq (Canada) became Politics Canada, and ran, mostly successfully, until this past month when it folded. That game was run under the 'Pol Engine'. In short, each player was an MP, while the GMs/Admins played all the backbench MPs in one's party, as well as the nation and all it's voters. Elections were not decided by the players, but rather, by the admins based on the strength of each campaign. Many parts of the 'Pol Engine' worked well with the idea I had in mind, but many did not. I've decided to hit the reset button, and go back to my pre 2003 ideas, and see if my original idea for a game would indeed work.
The current playtests are as follows...
http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=139946Playtest of the general election system. Parties will run against one another in a unguided election. They will make speeches, do other events, spend money, and the like. The main objective of this playtest is to refine the election system itself, without any under-lying mechanisms.
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=104620.0Playtest of the underlying mechamisms that work during elections. In this playtest, each riding will be assigned values on a number of scales. Social, Economic, Liberty, so on and so forth. This will determine which ridings are "left" which are "right" and just how. Parties will then need to piece together the strongest platform in order to win over a majority of seats and win the election.
http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=139410https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=104367.0Failed playtest due to lack of interest from the latter.
More information will come out with regards to the progress of the playtests, what is next, and all that fun.
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The final game will be run with what I call a single interface point. What does that mean? It means that multiple players are playing as a single entity. Imagine if you will a game of chess. You and your friends challenge someone and their friends to a game. All of your friends, including yourself, play White. You all discuss what move you will make, and then make your move, while your opponent does the same. In chess you have 16 pieces on the board. If you happen to have 15 friends, and so does your opponent, it means each side has 16 players. It does not mean that each player is one piece, it means everyone works as a single team, everyone on your side is 'white'. Another example, you and a friend are playing the computer game Civilization as a single civ. Although you might decide that cities in the east half are yours and on the west half are his, the computer game only recognizes your civ as a single "player", even though there are two of you. Trivial pursuit is one game that can be played in this manner.
Much the same, Politiq recognizes each party as a team, as a single player. This means that a party can function as well with a single player, or with 100 players. So why get more players? The answer that if your party is successful enough, there will be too much to do for a single person to be able to do it all. Your party can organize itself however it wants. You can have someone role playing the Prime Minister, and someone else as a Governor, but in the end, you make decisions collectively.
You will be given tools to help you. Many of your elected members are presumed to be nameless and faceless supporters. You will be given characters with certain abilities. During leadership races, many of them will run to become leader. As a party, you will chose who you wish to become leader, and if your party wins that election, that character becomes Prime Minister. Each of these characters has abilities in different areas, some may be very good with money while others are not. Part of the difficulty will be slotting them into the right spot. You might have someone with top notch financial ability, who also happens to be your best political organizer. Do you want to make him the Minister of Finance, or your back-room Chief Fundraiser? Each of these characters also have their own opinions. You can and do write speeches for them, and tell them how to vote, but if they get angry enough, they can speak out of turn, and go against the plan.
