President Forever results thread...

[Gabu]

Whoa Gabu, would you mind telling me how's your strategy? Do you use the same thing when you're running as an indy or 3rd party candidate? Thanks!

Well, the main force of my strategy is always a two-part ad burst, preferably to the entire nation, but certainly to as many states at the same time as you can.  I throw out one about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way through the campaign to halt any advancements my opponent(s) might be making - if you let them go for too long, they'll have wrapped up too much of the nation for you to be able to win them back at the end.  I then throw out the second one as close to the end as I can such that I'll just run out of money right on election day.  This is for two reasons.  For one, positive momentum going into the election is huge; running out of money right on the last day after a massive ad blitz ensures that you have the maximum momentum on election day.  For two, the "X's campaign out of funds" negative newspaper headline does not appear until the day after you run out of money - if you run out of money on election day, it will never appear.

As a third-party candidate, my strategy has always been to win all of the endorsements right away, focusing on those with an attached monetary benefit first (as you can do this with no expenditure whatsoever) and then I simply spend the entire campaign fund raising.  This ensures that I will be able to run the ads when I go to do so for as long and to as many states as possible.

One thing to recognize about President Forever is that momentum is huge.  The more momentum you have, the more you can get later.  If one of your opponents is beginning to gain the edge, a one-day ad blitz to the entire nation can easily get you momentum well into the three digits, which will completely and utterly obliterate the advantage your opponent was having.  The ad campaign is not sustainable; once the ad stops and the momentum wears off, things will go right back to where they were before.  The trick is to time it just right so that the nation is right where you want it on election day.

Oh yes, and always be researching a scandal on your strongest opponent.  The best thing a third-party candidate can possibly have is for both major party candidates to have negative momentum.

[Gabu]

Whoa Gabu, would you mind telling me how's your strategy? Do you use the same thing when you're running as an indy or 3rd party candidate? Thanks!

Well, the main force of my strategy is always a two-part ad burst, preferably to the entire nation, but certainly to as many states at the same time as you can.  I throw out one about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way through the campaign to halt any advancements my opponent(s) might be making - if you let them go for too long, they'll have wrapped up too much of the nation for you to be able to win them back at the end.  I then throw out the second one as close to the end as I can such that I'll just run out of money right on election day.  This is for two reasons.  For one, positive momentum going into the election is huge; running out of money right on the last day after a massive ad blitz ensures that you have the maximum momentum on election day.  For two, the "X's campaign out of funds" negative newspaper headline does not appear until the day after you run out of money - if you run out of money on election day, it will never appear.

As a third-party candidate, my strategy has always been to win all of the endorsements right away, focusing on those with an attached monetary benefit first (as you can do this with no expenditure whatsoever) and then I simply spend the entire campaign fund raising.  This ensures that I will be able to run the ads when I go to do so for as long and to as many states as possible.

One thing to recognize about President Forever is that momentum is huge.  The more momentum you have, the more you can get later.  If one of your opponents is beginning to gain the edge, a one-day ad blitz to the entire nation can easily get you momentum well into the three digits, which will completely and utterly obliterate the advantage your opponent was having.  The ad campaign is not sustainable; once the ad stops and the momentum wears off, things will go right back to where they were before.  The trick is to time it just right so that the nation is right where you want it on election day.

Oh yes, and always be researching a scandal on your strongest opponent.  The best thing a third-party candidate can possibly have is for both major party candidates to have negative momentum.

I just ran as Nader in 2000 with the above strategy and this was the result:

Basically I did all the endorsements and made four ads: Leadership/Nader, Experience/Nader, Leadership/Attacking Bush, and Integrity/Attacking Gore.  I then put all these ads into the states with 3-5 EVs and calculated how long I could run them for (it came out to 5 days).  So I then ran all four ads once a week for five weeks (I realized that since it takes a while for your momentum to die down, it's actually better to spread out your ad blitzes instead of running them for consecutive days).  Then I blasted the whole nation with all four ads on the last day.

[Gabu]

I also tried with Nader using about the same strategy except I didn't only target small states with my ads. I made them national ads every time I put them up.
Here are the results:

Nader managed to win Alaska and Nebraska, also he came pretty close to winning in Georgia, New Mexico and Conneticut. Oh and California was really weird....
National vote:
Bush: 38%
Gore: 36%
Nader: 15%
Others: 11% (Buchanan was able to get 6%!)

Targeting small states I've found is better than making it national as a third party because since you don't have the money that the major party candidates have, you get severely restricted on how long you can run your ads, and just running them for a single day doesn't do that much.  I've found that your best results come from running your ads in as many states as you can, but making sure you can run your ads for at least four to five days in the states that you've set aside.  You'll never win as a candidate who was totally irrelevant in the actual election in real life, but if you use this strategy, you can pick up quite a fair number of states and play spoiler (as I did above).  I think that Nader hit 22% nationwide in my run.

[Gabu]

I just played as Orville Faubus for kicks in 1960 (he got 0.07% of the vote in real life) and got this:

I got 16% of the vote, good for 15 EVs, and thus spoiling the election for Nixon, who only managed to get 267 EVs and then Congress voted for Kennedy.

[Gabu]

Speaking of Faubus, once I managed to get 243 Electoral Votes as him! But of course the United States Congress voted for Senator Kennedy, who only received about 90 Electoral Votes.

How on Earth did you manage that?

Do you play using the Primary mode or General Election mode? Anyways, I always try to have my crusaders barnstorm in as many states as I want (usually it's every state except NH) and this helps me when I'm raising money. I always run my ads in the smallest states and sometimes I barnstorm there as well. When I get the pro-gun rights endorsement, I see if any states where footsoldiers are located focus on the small states I'm targeting. If so, I keep the ads running there and barnstorm in the other states. Anyways, I will admit that I always play using the Primary mode and I self-endorsed Badnarik (playing as Gore, Warner, Bayh, Frist and Allen). How about you Gabu, do you do the same thing or are your results thanks to the GE mode?

General election mode; I rarely bother with primaries.  Primaries are an entirely different matter, obviously.

[Gabu]

I think I once played as Debs and actually managed to win.  I should try that again; it was awesome.

[Gabu]

1912 - Wilson vs. Taft vs. Roosevelt vs. Debs (me)

Debs: 490 EVs - 57% PV
Taft: 41 EVs - 16% PV
Wilson: 0 EVs - 13% PV
Roosevelt: 0 EVs - 12% PV

LOL DEBS

[Gabu]

1968 - Humphrey vs. Nixon vs. Wallace (me)

Wallace: 517 EVs - 56% PV
Nixon: 19 EVs - 23% PV
Humphrey: 3 EVs - 20% PV

lol

[Gabu]

1968 - Humphrey vs. Nixon vs. Wallace (me)

Wallace: 517 EVs - 56% PV
Nixon: 19 EVs - 23% PV
Humphrey: 3 EVs - 20% PV

lol

How much money did you give George Wallace Gabu? $999,000,000 dollars? I just realised that Wallace won DC! LOL .

I didn't change the scenario one bit.

[Gabu]

Just for fun, I decided to see how ridiculous a victory I could get as Reagan.

1984 - Mondale vs. Reagan (me)

Reagan: 538 EVs - 78% PV
Mondale: 0 EVs - 21% PV

And then the Democratic Party disbanded.

I just missed getting 90% in Utah; I won there 89.5-10.4.

[Gabu]

Just for fun, I decided to see how ridiculous a victory I could get as Reagan.

1984 - Mondale vs. Reagan (me)

Reagan: 538 EVs - 78% PV
Mondale: 0 EVs - 21% PV

And then the Democratic Party disbanded.

I just missed getting 90% in Utah; I won there 89.5-10.4.

what is your strategy to get these crazy wins???

It's basically a blatant abuse of the way the game overdoes the effect of momentum.  I make four ads and then just blast the entire nation with them intermittently such that I go hard in the negative cash on the very last day of the campaign.  That basically keeps my momentum up at such a ridiculously high level that I just roll over the other guys.

[Gabu]

1968 - Humphrey vs. Nixon vs. Wallace (me)

Wallace: 517 EVs - 56% PV
Nixon: 19 EVs - 23% PV
Humphrey: 3 EVs - 20% PV

lol

AK?

Yeah, I really don't know.