This is just a quick update to address an issue that prevented the game from working for some players.

The "framework" used for this game has been updated to its most recent version. This should help prevent problems for some users. When you first start your game, you will likely receive a pop up notification stating that some features may be unavailable. You can click "OK" and the game should start normally. After this initial pop up notification, you should not receive any pop-up notifications the next time you start the game.

A Judicial Branch Update is currently in development. It is undergoing beta testing and new features are still being add. It should be ready for release in the next month or two.

The game has been updated to Version 0.31. This is just a small update to add a new preset to the Election Simulator.

Additions

-Added a 2024 Presidential Election Preset to the Election Simulator. The preset comes preloaded with the candidates and conditions for the 2024 presidential election. The purpose of the preset is to allow you to have the fun of trying to predict the election without the hassle of setting up all of the basic conditions for it. You can make your own adjustments and see how it influences the outcome. To access the preset, go to the Election Simulator, click New Election, select President, and then select 2024 Preset.

The game has been updated to version 0.308.

This is a small patch update to address some issues from the previous major update.

FIXES
-Fixed an issue where the game would not advance to the next turn if the player created a budget on behalf of a protégé and then saved the game. Upon loading, the game would not recognize the sponsor of the budget bills and would cause an error.
-Fixed an issue where the turn would not advance if the player (as a party/caucus leader) indicated support/opposition for a bill that eliminates universal preschool at the state level.
-Fixed an issue where the sponsor of city, state, and federal budget bills would be listed as the player when the player created the budget on behalf of a protégé. The protégé should have been listed as the sponsor.
-Fixed an issue where a politician’s legislative vote score would be influenced by a proposal even if that proposal did not make any changes to the current law.
-Fixed an issue where the “Delegate Count” vote factor was influencing presidential general election polls and the initial presidential calculations. It is supposed to be limited to primary elections. By default, the “Delegate Count” vote factor is not used, so most individuals will not have experienced this problem.
-Likely fixed an issue where the governor would try to eliminate universal preschool every year, even if the governor supported it.
-Likely fixed an issue where city level election simulator results would display as NaN.

The game has been update to Version 0.307.

ADDITIONS
LEGISLATIVE UPDATES
-Adjusted the legislation creation process. You can now create complex legislation - legislation with multiple proposals. You can also name your legislation.
-The process that politicians use to decide how to vote on legislation is now more sophisticated and nuanced.
-Added a way to see politician support for your legislation before you submit it. This information is available when you click the "Support Analysis" button in the legislation creation menu. It will allow you to interact with politicians and learn whether they support or oppose your legislation in its current state. The menu will also allow you to learn why a politician supports or opposes your legislation. You can use this information to adjust your legislation before submitting it.
-Changed the way that the player influences legislative votes. It is no longer based on your relationship with each caucus (where a caucus would vote for any legislation you proposed so long as you had a good relationship with them). You will now have indirect influence on politicians based on your party leadership position (if any), and you will have direct influence based on your relationship with each individual politician. See the notes below for more info.
-Party (and caucus) leaders automatically influence the legislative votes of politicians under their leadership. The amount of influence is not enough to automatically switch their vote, but it can sway politicians who are indecisive about how to vote. The amount of influence that party leaders have can be changed in the advanced options, under the Politicians tab.
-Added an option to directly influence a politician's legislative vote using relationship points. If you have enough relationship points, you can persuade a politician to change their vote. Your relationship points with the politician will decrease. This is particularly effective if you influence a party leader, as they will influence every other politician under their leadership. The number of points needed to influence the vote can be changed in the advanced options (under the Politicians tab).
-Added an Active Legislation menu which will show all active legislation in all jurisdictions. Clicking on an active legislation will bring up a Summary menu that shows the sponsor, bill proposals, bill history (including votes), and any relevant testimony for the bill. This menu also allows you to indicate support or opposition for the bill (which can influence whether other politicians support/oppose the bill - especially proteges).
-Proteges will automatically vote for legislation based on whether the player has indicated support or opposition for the legislation. This applies to all jurisdictions. If the player has not indicated any support/opposition, proteges will decide on their own how to vote. This is a significant update because it allows you to continue influencing city and state level policy (even if your character is a federal level politician).
-Added an option to create legislation on behalf of a protege (in any district/jurisdiction).
-Added “real time” legislative votes. You can now watch every politician vote on a bill in “real time”. You can adjust how quick the process is and you can skip to the end of the vote if you don’t want to watch the process.
-Added a Legislation Archive menu which will show all legislation that is no longer active. By default this menu only stores archived legislation for one in-game year. You can change this in the advanced options. The option is called Legislation Archive Storage Length and can be found in the Nation tab of the Advanced Options Menu. Legislation created by the player will not be reset at the end of each in-game year; it will remain in the archive indefinitely.
-Legislation can be temporarily saved so that you can come back to it later. It does not have to be finished within one sitting. Once you submit saved legislation, it will be removed from the saved legislation list.
-If there is a tied vote in the senate chamber, the vice president will cast the tie-breaking vote.
-Voting for or against a politician’s legislation impacts your relationship score with them.
-Adjusted the process that NPCs (Non-Player Characters) use to create legislation. Legislation should appear more often and be less predictable. The frequency that NPCs create new legislation can be adjusted in the advanced options (under the politicians tab).
-Legislative votes now influence approval rating with voters. Currently this is only applicable for major legislation (and does not include tax legislation). How much approval is influenced can be modified in the advanced options (under the politicians tab) – these variables are divided into executive branch influence, party leader influence, and regular politician influence.
-Added new entries to the Concepts documentation, under the Legislation category. These entries explain some of the new mechanisms in the update. To view the Concepts documentation, click the Concepts button under the portrait of your Chief of Staff (in the Office tab).

SENATE "FILIBUSTERS" (CLOTURE VOTES)
Background: In real life, Senate rules allow for endless debate. This can result in a filibuster, where a senator refuses to end debate in order to prevent a piece of legislation from receiving a vote. This is a tactic that the minority party can use to prevent the majority party from passing legislation. Historically, a senator would have to remain speaking for the filibuster to remain in effect. In recent history, the senate has adopted a practice of calling for unanimous consent to end debate. If any senator objects to ending debate, a floor vote is called to end debate. This vote is called a cloture vote and it requires 60 votes to pass. If 60 senators vote to pass the cloture motion, debate on the legislation will end and it can receive a vote. If there are not enough votes to end debate, the bill is tabled and the senate moves on to the next order of business.
-A simplified version of the cloture vote has been added to the game. Every bill that reaches the senate automatically receives a cloture vote (to end debate). This vote happens in the background (so as not to be a tedious feature for the player). If the player is a senator, the game will automatically vote on behalf of the player (based on whether the player has indicated support/opposition for the bill). If the bill receives 60 cloture votes, it will progress to a regular floor vote. Once the bill has a floor vote, it only needs a simple majority of 50 votes to pass. But, the 60 vote requirement to end debate on legislation essentially means that a 60 vote majority is required to pass any legislation through the senate. This new mechanism makes it significantly harder to pass federal legislation in the game. But, since it is a real life feature of the senate (that also makes passing legislation in the real life senate significantly harder), it has been added to the game. For any players who do not want to use this mechanism, it can be turned off (see the note below).
-By default, Senate Filibusters (Cloture Votes) are turned on. They can be turned off at two locations. When you start a new game, after creating your character and selecting your starting location, you can turn off the option in the "Game Options" menu (which is the menu where you enter the City Name and select election difficulty and districts). There will be a heading called "Allow Senate Filibusters". Under that there is a True button and a False button. Selecting False will turn off filibusters, which means bills will only need 50 votes to pass the senate. You can also turn off senate filibusters at any time in the Advanced Options menu. There is an "Advanced Options" button in the main menu (which you can access by pressing the Escape (Esc) key or by clicking the "Menu" button at the top of the screen). Once you are in the Advanced Options menu, click the Nation tab. Scroll down until you see a section called "Senate Debate Rules". There you will see a checkbox for "Allow Senate Filibusters". Uncheck that box to turn filibusters off.
-You can read more about the filibuster and cloture vote process in the Concepts page (under the Legislation section).
-You can use reconciliation bills to bypass the senate filibuster (as reconciliation bills do not permit endless debate). Learn more about reconciliation bills in the New Legislation section below.
-Added "legislation" to change senate rules regarding the filibuster and cloture votes. Generally, politicians are only willing to support this type of legislation under specific (advantageous) circumstances.
-Added an advanced option that allows you to support cloture votes even if you oppose the legislation itself. Essentially, your character will vote to give the bill a senate floor vote even though you intend to vote against the bill on the senate floor. The option is called "Player Filibuster/Cloture Vote" and is under the "Allow Senate Filibusters" option.

NEW LEGISLATION
-Added 7 new election laws to the game.
-Added 17 new proposals to the legislation menu. The majority of these proposals are related to election laws.
-Added the new election laws to the advanced options.
-Added ranked choice voting to the game. Given the current election results system, the game shows the final run-off election results for states with ranked choice voting (and none of the previous round results). That means that you will see some candidates with 0% of the votes. If it is a state level election (governor or senator), the county results map will show the first round of election results (as opposed to the final round of election results). This is done for technical reasons, but also serves as a way to see the first round results and the final round results at the same time. The current structure of elections cannot show multiple rounds of voting (which is why it shows only the final round).
-Added a simplified reconciliation bill to the game. This bill is only available if your character (or a protégé) is president, speaker of the house, or senate majority leader. Your political party must have a majority in both chambers of congress and the president must belong to your political party. You are allowed to create only one reconciliation bill per year. Reconciliation bills are limited to tax/budget proposals and cannot include Social Security proposals. A reconciliation bill cannot be filibustered in the senate, which means it only requires a simple majority to pass in the senate chamber.
-Added the potential for NPCs to create a reconciliation bill around week 6. This is semi-integrated with the budget resolution. If the budget resolution specifies that certain laws should be changed, those laws may be added as proposals to the reconciliation bill. (Previously, the budget resolution process would create individual laws for each proposal, now there is a chance that those proposals will be bundled into a single reconciliation bill.) The reconciliation bill is only possible if a single party holds the presidency and a majority in both chambers. If the player is a party leader (or president), NPCs will not create reconciliation bills.
-Added two new variables to the Universal Health Care bill: a tax deduction variable and a maximum taxable income variable. The tax deduction variable will reduce the amount of taxable income used for this program. If a taxpayer’s income is less than the deduction amount, they will not have to pay any taxes for the program. (This is one strategy for paying for the program without adding to the tax burden of low-income workers). Tax payers will not be taxed on any income above the maximum taxable income amount. It is also possible to set the payroll tax rate to 0% (previously the minimum was 2%).
-Added significantly more options to the abortion legislation.
-Update the legislative process so that electoral college, proportional electoral college, and presidential term limit proposals now require a 2/3 majority vote to pass in congress. Since these proposals require amending the constitution, they have been adjusted to require a 2/3 majority vote. There is currently no state ratification process. If it passes congress, it becomes law. You can always go into advanced options and change any of these laws if you think that the states would not ratify them. But, it is unlikely that they will ever receive enough votes in congress to pass anyway. The percentage of votes required to pass a constitutional amendment can be changed in the advanced options. The option is called ‘Constitutional Amendment Vote Requirement’ and can be found below the Cloture Vote options.

GENERAL UPDATES
-If the player’s protégé is mayor, governor, or president, the player will be given the opportunity to create the corresponding budget.
-Added a new tab to the Metrics menu called “Other”. It will be used to show a variety of metrics. Currently, it only displays a “Democracy” metric. A “+” button next to the name can be clicked to expand the menu and display all of the sub-metrics influencing the democracy metric. This should be a fun way to add significantly more metrics to the game in future updates.
-Added an option to move protégés to a new state. The protégé cannot currently hold an office and their next election must be set to ‘None’.
-Adjusted voter turnout mechanics for senate, governor, and presidential elections. Voter turnout laws now adjust turnout at the county level (rather than the state level), relative to national turnout metrics. For example, if county A has less voter turnout than the national average and county B has more voter turnout than the national average, then a state law that allows early voting will increase turnout in county A more than it increases turnout in county B. (County B will still have more turnout than county A, but the margin between the two will be smaller, which could be enough to sway elections).
-Updated default state laws so that the majority of states now have early voting (to match real life laws).

CHARACTER CREATION
-Adjusted the character creation process so that characters look slightly more realistic.
-Added a few new facial features: 3 hair styles, 1 mouth type, 1 eye type, and 1 eyebrow type.
-Added an option to change a politician’s relationship points with the player while customizing the politician. The option is part of the “Advanced” tab within the character customization menu. (The "Allow Custom Characters" option has to be set to True in order to access the Character Customization Menu).
-Added modifiers that influence how likely a politician from each party is to belong to a specific Ancestry. These modifiers can be changed in the advanced options, under the Nation tab, below the area where Politician Gender Ratios can be changed.

CUSTOM EVENT TOOL
-Likely fixed issue with custom events where targeted characters would not be evaluated based on gender (even though they should have been).
-Added an event trigger to the custom event tool that allows you to specify if the player belongs to a specific state. For example, the event will trigger only if the player lives in New York.
-Added custom event triggers for player personal funds, player campaign funds, and player remaining hours.
-Added a “Law Status” event trigger to the Custom Event Tool. The event will be triggered if the specified law meets the specified condition (active or inactive).
-Reminder: the ability to add custom histories through the custom event tool has been added to the tool.
-Fixed the wording in the custom event tool for “Custom Targeted Character Approval”. There were two options that said “Same as Player” and “Opposite of Player”. They should have said “Same as Character” and “Opposite of Character”.

FIXES
-Fixed several issues where the state labor force variable was being increased without increasing the corresponding job variables. Essentially, there were more people being added to the labor force, but they were not being given jobs. This caused the per capita income to decrease. You may have noticed this if the state per capita income suddenly decreased (usually in the later stages of the game), but the city and national per capita income values remained steady.
-Fixed an issue where adjusting the donation modifier for Hard Mode difficulty would actually update the turnout modifier.
-Fixed an issue where political points would not increase for some director positions.
-Likely fixed an issue where a senator could be placed into the wrong senate class if they were appointed to the position.
-Tied legislative votes no longer pass.
-Reduced the likelihood that the sponsor of a bill will vote against their own bill.
-Fixed several problems with dictator mode (related to budgets and legislation).
-Adjusted the code so that it should bypass any errors resulting from a missing (or empty) custom events file. Previously, if an error occurred, the game would not be able to progress to the campaign menu to start the game.
-Removed the “Political Influence” summary from the Concepts menu. It had outdated information that has been corrected in other areas of the Concepts menu.
-Changed the description when opening the Political Points/Influence menu (the star icon at the top of the screen).
-Fixed an issue where the state birth rate would not load correctly when loading an advanced option preset. It would use the default rate for the player’s home state instead of using the saved value.
-Fixed an issue where the game was using the state budget priority when calculating the vote score for national elections. This behavior is appropriate for every other type of priority, but the state budget priority refers to voter concern about the state budget and not about the national budget. Now, the game will use the national budget priority when calculating the vote score instead of using the state budget priority. (This issue could have affected federal elections by reducing the number of votes a candidate received if "Budget" was one of their top 3 campaign priorities.)
-Fixed an issue where the state legislature ignored several of the governor’s budget requests (when the state legislature majority party matched the governor’s party). For example, if the governor requested an increase in funding for libraries (above the default request), the state legislature would use the default request. Since the state legislature majority party aligned with the governor, they should have used the governor’s funding request.
-Fixed an issue with the state budget process where the budget request for emergency homeless shelters was incorrect (it is now higher).
-May have fixed an issue where vice president proteges would run for the presidency without being told to do so (if player was president and decided to not run for another term).
-Fixed an issue where the school board would spend too much money on the teacher budget if there was a budget surplus. The game assumes there is a point of diminishing returns where hiring more teachers no longer has an added benefit for academic achievement (in terms of reducing high school dropout rates). The school board was spending beyond this point of diminishing returns (even though it was not supposed to).
-May have fixed an issue where legislation was created without a sponsor, which could cause a situation where the game could not advance to the next turn.

NOTES
With any update, there is a rare chance of files getting corrupted. This can cause a black/white empty screen when starting the game. If you experience this problem, you can visit this forum post for instructions on how to fix it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/discussions/2/3085508296772338528/ If you experience any other problems, you can post a new discussion in the bug reports forum, by navigating to the community hub, clicking the Discussions tab, and clicking the Bug Reports link on the right side of the screen.

If you want to continue playing a previous version of the game, you can right click on the game in your Steam library, click properties, then click betas and select the version you want to play. (The most recent version was version 0.268).

The game has been updated to version 0.268.

This is just a small patch update.

ADJUSTMENTS
-Adjusted presidential primary colors so that it is easier to tell them apart.

CUSTOM EVENT TOOL
-Added new options to the Custom Event Tool: options to add/remove custom traits from the player and targeted characters, options to trigger an event based on custom traits, options to add/remove hidden variables and use them to trigger events.
-Added new options to the Custom Event Tool: option to add custom history for the player and targeted characters, option to trigger an event based on the caucus of the player or targeted character, option to trigger an event if an opponent in the player’s election is the incumbent.

FIXES
-Fixed an issue with Dictator Mode where the State of the Union event would prevent the game from progressing. The event has been removed from Dictator Mode (the event involves interaction with members of congress – but in Dictator Mode there is no congress, so it causes an error).
-May have fixed several issues with the state party chair positions if state election years did not align with congressional election years.

The game has been update to Version 0.267

MAIN FEATURES
- Added more events.
- Added a Custom Event Tool.
- Created a 2023 start year.

NOTES
With any update, there is a rare chance of files getting corrupted. This can cause a black/white empty screen when starting the game. If you experience this problem, you can visit this forum post for instructions on how to fix it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/discussions/2/3085508296772338528/ If you experience any other problems, you can post a new discussion in the bug reports forum, by navigating to the community hub, clicking the Discussions tab, and clicking the Bug Reports link on the right side of the screen.

If you want to continue playing a previous version of the game, you can right click on the game in your Steam library, click properties, then click betas and select the version you want to play. (The most recent version was version 0.253).

CUSTOM EVENT CONTEST
As a way to promote the Custom Event Tool, and help add more content to the game, I have created a friendly, just-for-fun Custom Event Contest. If you are interested in participating, scroll down to the bottom of this page to learn more.

ADDITIONS (Events)
-Added community/seasonal events. This includes things like attending a parade or visiting an apple orchard, opportunities for the player to interact with the community throughout the year (during different seasons and holidays). These type of events exist to create atmosphere and world building.
-Added campaign events, which help to create the experience of being part of a campaign.
-Added a State of the Union event.
-Added scandal and corruption events. Currently, these are limited to NPCs (Non-Playable Characters). Occasionally, NPCs will be involved in scandals, which could influence their careers or elections. The types and frequency of events can be adjusted in the advanced options (In the Nations tab, under the election and redistricting options). It is also possible to specify whether protégés and favorited politicians are eligible for scandal events.

ADDITIONS (2023 Start Year)
-Added a 2023 start year (it is the default start year). This changes congressional district demographics to match current districts. It makes some adjustments to state laws (where applicable). It makes adjustments to state populations. State House and State Senate districts have not been changed.
-In the 2023 start year, the game will attempt to create at least 50 democratic senators. And it will attempt to create a democratic president. It will also attempt to start with a congressional republican majority of 219 representatives. This is only applicable to the 2023 start year. This can be changed in the advanced options, see below.
-Added advanced options that allow the player to specify party majorities for the house and senate at the start of the game. This includes setting how many members the majority party will have at the start of the game. The game will attempt to reach this number, but it is not guaranteed. It depends on party demographics whether it is possible for the desired number to be reached. These options can be adjusted in the Advanced Options > Politicians Tab. It is also possible to turn off this option (so that the game does not try to adjust party majorities at the start of the game).

ADDITIONS (Custom Event Tool)
-Added a Custom Event Tool – it can be found by clicking the Tools button on the Main Menu. The tool allows you to create, import, and export custom events. You can use this tool to help customize your experience of the game, by adding all sorts of custom events. There is a Documentation button at the top of screen once you get into the Create Custom Event Menu; it helps explain how the tool works. At the bottom of the documentation, there are several tutorials.

ADDITIONS (General)
-Added Hard and Very Hard election difficulties.
-Added the presidential party color to the background of the congressional summary graphs, so it is easy to see which party held the presidency over the course of the congressional timeline.
-Updated city/state legislature timeline graphs to display the party color of the mayor/governor in the background of the graph.
-Added an option to select a new running mate if your current running mate is the vice-president. This option is only available after you have secured the presidential nomination – which usually happens on week 6 of the election year (if you are the president). If the option is available, there will be a “Replace” button that can be found next to the Vice-President’s profile picture or in the Elections tab (where the presidential nominees are listed). This option will also be available if your protégé is the presidential nominee and their vice president is their running mate.
-Added histories for governors and senators of all states. That means that you can see a history of every governor and every senator who has served in any state. Previously it was limited to the player’s home state. To view these histories, go to the Politicians > Federal > U.S. Senate > Summary tab (or governor equivalent), click on a state, and then click the History button next to the Details button. For senate, it will say something like “View Class 1 History”.
-In the endorse multiple menu, added an option to endorse incumbents (who belong to the player’s political party).
-Added the possibility that NPC incumbents will run as an independent if they lose their party’s primary. There is an advanced option to specify how frequently this happens, although an incumbent will not run as an independent if both major parties are represented in the general election.
-Added the possibility of presidents dying of old age in the middle of their term. The “Allow Politician Deaths” and the “Allow Death Events” options must both be true for this to have any effect. By default, they are set to true. The “Allow Politician Deaths” option can be found in the Politicians tab of Advanced Options. The “Allow Death Events” can be found in the Nation tab, under the title “Event Variables”. This event is rare: the president must be over 65 years old, it cannot be a presidential election year, and the likelihood of happening per year is 14/1,000.
-Added an advanced option to change the political party of the starting president. This is contingent on party demographics. The game essentially increases the chances of one candidate winning over the other, but if the party demographics are too unfavorable, this option may have no effect.
-Added events where politicians in competitive districts will sometimes ask you to make their districts more favorable during the redistricting process. The district will be considered “more favorable” if the politician’s party has an advantage of +4% relative to the opposition party. If you succeed, it will increase your relationship score with the politician. There are no negative effects for failing to improve the district (in some instances, it is not possible to improve certain districts).
-Added event histories for characters. Characters now have an “Events” tab that will show all notable events in their careers. Currently, notable events are limited to scandals.

ADJUSTMENTS
-Updated party demographics for OH, IA, TX, FL, MI, NC, NV, and VA.
-Removed presidential endorsement news from the national news tab (it took up too much space and distracted from more significant news). Presidential endorsement news can still be found in the Elections -> President tab.
-Changed the policy preset mechanism so that, if you select the socially conservative ideology preset, your character will oppose increasing the minimum wage and will oppose an assault weapons ban. Initially, the conservative preset supported both of these policies because a small majority of all republicans support them. But, conservative ideology and republican ideology are not identical. It is probably more appropriate for conservatives to oppose these policies.
-Added term limits for North Dakota Governor, State House, and State Senate. This is based on the results of a recent ballot initiative that changed North Dakota’s constitution.

FIXES
-Fixed an issue where there would be remaining voters during the redistricting process, even though there was nowhere to place the voters, preventing the player from leaving the redistricting menu.
-Fixed an issue where independent poll summaries would stop showing data for candidates who had withdrawn from the election.
-Fixed an issue where player schedule events would not display correctly. Specifically, portraits would not appear next to the text of the event.
-Likely fixed an issue where independent polls for the presidential primary would incorrectly place the player data on the graph if the player joined the campaign after week 18.
-Fixed an issue where city sales tax revenues would be incorrect (significantly lower) if certain other policies were true.
-May have fixed an issue where politicians running for governor could be selected to run in a special election, creating a situation where the same candidate held two positions.
-May have reduced the likelihood of duplicate candidates running in elections at the same time.
-May have fixed and issue where the same candidate would run in multiple special elections (specifically senate elections), creating the possibility that the same candidate could hold multiple positions at the same time.
-Likely fixed an issue with custom elections where the player could not select to run a current governor in a senate election if there were no house members in the state that shared the governor’s political party.
-Fixed an issue where Alaska counties would display incorrectly during elections (after loading or if using an advanced option preset).
-Likely fixed an issue where loading an advanced option preset would cause Arkansas to have 34 state senate districts instead of 35. This would cause the game to create 34 state senators in Arkansas. When loading a saved game, the game would load the correct 35 districts, but this mismatch between state senators and state senate districts could cause the game to freeze during elections.

Custom Event Contest
(Deadline: March 1st 2024): if you are interested in learning more about the custom event contest, click this link (it will take you to a forum post that discusses the details of the contest): https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/discussions/1/4364620643959956688/

The game has been updated to Version 0.253.

NOTES
If you are interested, you can follow the next update's development process by visiting this pinned forum thread (it is usually updated once a week, on Fridays): https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/discussions/1/3187989286464040136/


With any update, there is a rare chance of files getting corrupted. This can cause a black/white empty screen when starting the game. If you experience this problem, you can visit this forum post for instructions on how to fix it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/discussions/2/3085508296772338528/
If you experience any other problems, you can post a new discussion in the bug reports forum, by navigating to the community hub, clicking the Discussions tab, and clicking the Bug Reports link on the right side of the screen.

ADDITIONS
-Added a previous budget button to the budget menus (mayor, governor, and president); it will use the values from the previously submitted budget. It uses percentages (so it essentially saves the percentage of the slider value relative to the max value allowed – if last year you granted the army 50% of its max budget, then clicking the previous budget button will grant the army 50% of its max budget for this year).
-Added buttons to save/load budgets. After loading a budget, you have to click the Previous Budget button to implement it.
-Added text inputs to the budget process (they have not been added to the amendment process).
-Added a Relationships tab to the Politicians Menu. It displays all politicians with whom you have a non-zero relationship score.
-Added a “Census” to the game. Every 10 years, the game collects and saves population data from every state.
-Added population data for all states in the Metrics -> Nation -> Population tab.
-Added a Historic Census Data button in the Metrics -> Nation -> Population tab, which compares current state data to the data from the most recent census. It is also possible to look at a specific state and generate a timeline for specific data (for instance, a timeline that shows how population has changed over multiple decades).
-While playing as Party Chair, selecting a candidate for a position will increase your relationship score by 200 points. If you run a challenger against an incumbent, it will decrease your relationship score with the incumbent by 200 points. (200 points is equivalent to how many points you get for recruiting a protégé).
-The Party Chair Menu now displays policy agreement with each candidate (to help in the process of deciding whether to replace an incumbent with a primary challenger).
-Added a “Reset Treasury” button to the Mayor and Governor budget process. It can be accessed by clicking the Balance Budget button. Its purpose is to reset the treasury in instances where the treasury value has become so negative that the budget cannot be balanced (preventing the player from leaving the budget menu).
-During party leadership elections, proteges will now vote for the same nominee as the player.
-Added two new victory margin colors to the election maps (there are now 5 colors to distinguish different margins of victory – previously there were 3).
-Added an option to select the running mate of any protégé who wins the party nomination for president.

FIXES
-May have fixed an issue where buttons could not be clicked (or the screen might be black) when starting the game (if the player settings file was empty). The player settings file is never supposed to be empty, but in rare instances, it might be possible for the player settings file to become empty when the game updates (or for other unknown reasons). The game now checks for an empty player settings file, and if it discovers that the file is empty, it recreates the file (so that the game should work properly).
-May have fixed an issue where the game would freeze on election night if any states had been set to have 0 congressional districts (in the advanced options).
-Fixed an issue where the “Continue” button could not be accessed as part of the redistricting menu when playing the game on small monitors.
-Fixed an issue where educational metrics could become negative if certain policies were set to true.
-Fixed an issue where tax revenues could become NaN if certain labor force variables became 0.
-Fixed an issue where senators might run for gubernatorial and senate elections at the same time.
-Fixed an issue where carbon tax revenue was not added to the state treasury.
-Likely fixed an issue where the state budget process would over-estimate gasoline tax revenue, which would ultimately lead to a budget deficit, creating a negative state treasury value. The process was not taking into account future road congestion or fuel efficiency changes (rather than actually trying to calculate those changes, the game just reduces the anticipated tax revenue by a specific percentage). This reduction to anticipated tax revenue has also been applied for city and federal budgets.
-May have fixed an issue where gasoline tax revenue was not calculated during the city budget process (which means the city would have budgeted less for road construction/maintenance due to an anticipated lack of funding).
-Fixed an issue where the player would appear in independent governor polls twice if the player lost the primary and decided to run as an independent.
-Fixed an issue where the president would sometimes run for a third term (if they had mistakenly been added to another election at some point during their term).
-May have fixed an issue where a former-governor would run for president and senate at the same time, creating the possibility of duplicate candidates.

ADJUSTMENTS
-Political points for the Party Chair position have been significantly decreased. The requirements to be promoted to the next level of party chair have been updated accordingly.
-The congressional districts of the mayor, city council members, school board members, state representatives and state senators are now updated if their previous congressional district is eliminated during the redistricting process.
-Increased maximum gasoline tax rate from $1 to $4 (when creating legislation).
-Adjusted Ohio law so that it no longer has same-day voter registration.
-Adjusted the calculations used to determine number of retirees who are ineligible for social security. The previous method could have caused an issue where social security expenditure became negative.
-If the city population becomes larger than county population, the county population is set equal to the city population and the difference between the populations is added to the state population. (May fix an issue where the city population can become larger than the state population; may also fix an issue where the city is not assigned enough congressional districts because the corresponding county population did not increase as much as the city population).
-Increased the margin that politicians are willing to accept before moving to a more favorable district during the redistricting process. Previously an incumbent would move districts if the opposition party had an advantage greater than 3%. Now it is 5% for democrats and 4% for republicans. (Democrats have a slight advantage with independents, which is why they can accept a higher margin).
-Reduced the democratic turnout bonus during presidential elections – if the incumbent democratic president is running for reelection. Previously, the democratic incumbent was getting more votes in their reelection than they did in their first election (which seems unrealistic). This change also increases the possibility of a democratic incumbent losing reelection (which happened once during testing – although it is still rare). A consequence of this change is that democrats may have a harder time winning a congressional majority during election years where the democratic president is running for reelection (but that might be realistic – see the 2012 election). The specific variables that were changed can be adjusted in the advanced option; they are called “Democratic Turnout in Competitive States (Incumbent)”, “Democratic Turnout in Non-Competitive States (Incumbent)”, and “Democratic Turnout in Non-Competitive States (Incumbent) (Wave Election)”. These advanced options can be found in the Elections -> All States -> Turnout tab.
-Slightly increased turnout for democrats during midterms if the president is republican. The change may be small enough that its impact is minimal.
-Adjusted the advanced options so it is now possible to specify negative turnout for a specific party during presidential elections (for instance, you could make it so democratic turnout decreases if a democratic incumbent president runs for reelection). These options are in the Advanced Options -> Elections -> All States -> Turnout tab.
-Added a new advanced option to specify the “competitive state margin”, which is used during presidential elections to determine which states act as competitive states. Competitive states generally have higher turnout than non-competitive states (based on turnout variables in the advanced options); so this is another option that can be used to influence presidential election results. These options are in the Advanced Options -> Elections -> All States -> Turnout tab.

The game has been updated to version 0.25.

Summary: several fixes.

NOTES
With any update, there is a rare chance of files getting corrupted. This can cause a black/white empty screen when starting the game. If you experience this problem, you can visit this forum post for instructions on how to fix it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/discussions/2/3085508296772338528/

If you experience any other problems, you can post a new discussion in the bug reports forum, by navigating to the community hub, clicking the Discussions tab, and clicking the Bug Reports link on the right side of the screen.

FIXES
-Fixed an issue where party demographics would not update to the correct values when changing (moving) districts in the middle of the game.
-Fixed an issue where some state house, state senate, or congressional variables would become undefined if moving states during a redistricting year (after redistricting had already been completed).
-Fixed an issue with presidential election campaigns where public opinion would increase too rapidly and would go beyond the 10% max value.
-Campaign donation calculations have been moved before campaign debt calculations, so it is now less likely that a campaign will go into debt.
-Fixed two issues with special elections: first, a politician could die/retire before a special election occurred, causing an error with the special election; second, a politician could be selected to fill a second vacancy within the same year, causing an error in their first special election.
-Fixed an issue with the election simulator tool where the load menu would not update after deleting an election save.
-Fixed an issue where the loading screen would freeze if loading an advanced option preset under certain circumstances. Specifically, if you were loading a preset that had lowered the number of congressional districts in your character’s home state, it would be possible that your character was assigned to a congressional district that no longer existed, which would cause an error.
-Fixed an issue where state legislatures would not be gerrymandered as much as they should have been during the redistricting process (especially if the gerrymander amount had been increased in the advanced options).
-Fixed an issue in the Select Endorsement Conditions menu where the “Climate Policy” button would not stay checked after leaving the menu.
-Fixed an issue where passing the Pathway to Citizenship legislation would significantly increase per capita income and significantly decrease poverty.

The game has been updated to version 0.249.

Main Features: Redistricting.

NOTES
With any update, there is a rare chance of files getting corrupted. This can cause a black/white empty screen when starting the game. If you experience this problem, you can visit this forum post for instructions on how to fix it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/discussions/2/3085508296772338528/

If you experience any other problems, you can post a new discussion in the bug reports forum, by navigating to the community hub, clicking the Discussions tab, and clicking the Bug Reports link on the right side of the screen.

If you want to continue playing a previous version of the game, you can right click on the game in your Steam library, click properties, then click betas and select the version you want to play. (The most recent version was version 0.239).

ADDITIONS (Redistricting)
-Added redistricting to the game. This is applicable to congressional, state house, and state senate districts. Redistricting will happen automatically every 10 in-game years on week 47. (Redistricting occurs 1 year after the beginning of every decade - 2021, 2031, 2041). If the player - or the player’s protégé - is in a relevant position of power, the player will be given an opportunity to participate in the redistricting process. Redistricting can be turned off in the Advanced Options, under the Nation tab.
-Added a Redistricting Analysis – it will appear in the player’s schedule on week 49 of redistricting years. It is also available in the Politicians -> U.S. House -> Districts tab.
-Added Information about Redistricting to the Concepts Menu.
-Added an option to change districts from the Profile tab (if it is not an election year). The purpose of this is to change districts if the redistricting process made your current district unfavorable. You can move districts without losing your current position.
-Added a mechanism that adjusts approval ratings of party leadership based on gerrymandering. If a state commits gerrymandering, voter approval among independents and the opposition party will decrease (for the governor, and state house/senate majority leaders); voter approval among voters of the majority party will increase.
-Added New Advanced Options:
-Added advanced options to adjust many redistricting variables.
-Added advanced options that allow the player to change the number of congressional districts each state has.
-Added an advanced option to change which counties belong to which congressional districts. The counties in a district are used to determine that district’s demographics every 10 years during the redistricting process.
-Added advanced options to adjust redistricting laws for each state (or at the national level), including whether the state uses the state legislature or an independent commission to do redistricting.
-Added an advanced option to mandate Independent Redistricting Commissions at the national level – this will require all states to use independent commissions during the redistricting process.
-The game now creates “aggregate” state legislatures for every state. These aggregates list the number of politicians that belong to each party, but individual politicians are not created. They will be adjusted every election cycle based on relevant information, and they will be used in the redistricting process.
-Added advanced options to change the state legislature aggregates (for non-player state legislatures). These aggregates are used to calculate election results for state legislature elections (in non-player states). They are also used in the redistricting process to determine if the state legislature has the power to gerrymander districts. These aggregates can be changed at any time during the game by going to the advanced options, clicking the state house or state senate tab, and then click the “Other States” button at the top of the list of districts.

ADDITIONS (Other)
-Added an option for protégés to run for governor in any state (previously it was limited to the player’s home state). Protégés must reside in the state where they want to run for governor.
-Updated the protégé selection menu so that it now shows the current incumbent for each district and it shows if the incumbent is running for reelection (only applicable between weeks 2 – 6 during election years).
-Added the possibility for protégés to face primary challengers, if the protégé is not an incumbent. (Currently this is not applicable for school board or city council elections – so that protégés have an easier entry point into politics).
-Adjusted presidential primaries so that protégés will not withdraw before the first primary.
-County data is now saved and loaded.
-County population demographics are updated at the end of every in-game year.
-Added counties to the advanced options – you can now change variables specific to each county. In the advanced options menu, navigate to the States tab; at the top of that menu, there is a button called [State] Counties. Clicking on that will open a new menu to adjust county variables.
-Added an option to save Advanced Option Presets in the middle of a game. It is still not possible to load presets in the middle of a game.
-Added an option to save/load spouse presets.
-Added an advanced option to change the birth rate at the national, state, and city levels.
-Reduced the age penalty for city elections. Previously, anyone under the age of 35 was penalized by -5; now, anyone under the age of 22 is penalized by -2. Many players probably start as young characters, and start at the city level positions; it does not seem fair to penalize them when running for these positions when there are not any alternative positions for younger characters.
-Slightly reduced the democratic presidential incumbent turnout bonus for competitive states. For wave elections it was reduced from 0.38 to 0.3; for non-wave elections, it was reduced from 0.34 to 0.26. The expected outcome is that democratic presidential incumbents will perform worse in their reelection compared to their first election (instead of performing better). Another consequence is that democrats are less likely to win a congressional majority during democratic presidential reelection years. If you want to adjust these values, you can go to the advanced options, elections --> All States --> Turnout tab (under the section titled “Variables for Balancing Elections”).
-When the player is asked to fill a vacancy, the game now generates at least one random character, so that the player is not forced to select a current politician (or protégé) if they do not want to.
-Added a “Longest Serving” section to the Politician Summary page (similar to Oldest and Youngest Politicians).
-Adjusted initial governor calculations so that initial governors are more realistic. The new calculations are more consistent with how governors are elected throughout the game.
-Added a close (X) button to the options menu, so it is no longer necessary to scroll to the bottom to exit the menu.
-Added an advanced option to update city, state, and national populations in the middle of a game. Previously this was not allowed because it caused problems with economic variables, but those problems have been addressed in this update. A warning has been added to these advanced options to indicate that they are “experimental”. Once they have had sufficient testing, without any problems, that warning can be removed.

FIXES
-Fixed an issue where incumbent protégés would not be displayed as incumbents during elections.
-Likely fixed an issue where protégés would continue to run for reelection as a governor even if they were told to run in a different election (or no election at all).
-Fixed an issue where politicians would not be replaced as committee chairs/ranking-members if they vacated their position for any reason. This created a situation where committee chairs/ranking-members could become empty variables, which could prevent the game from saving.
-Fixed an issue where party leadership positions would not be replaced if the player appointed a party leader to a different position as part of filling a vacancy. This could cause issues where the game would not progress to the next turn (if the game was trying to access a party leadership variable that no longer existed).
-Fixed an issue where initial senate elections would not calculate correctly after loading an advanced option preset. The game was using default state demographics to calculate initial senators, instead of using state demographics saved in the advanced option preset.
-Fixed an issue where special elections would not run if the same candidate had been used to fill more than one vacancy within the same year. The solution was to prevent candidates from being selected for another position if they had already been assigned to a special election.
-Fixed an issue with the presidential primary election night where it would show the incorrect vote percentage when hovering over the national map.
-Fixed an issue where new candidates in governor elections had their voter enthusiasm calculated based on the policy positions of voters in the player’s home state, rather than in the home state of the candidate.
-Fixed an issue where several variables could become NaN if the poverty rate was 0%.
-Likely fixed an issue where the poverty rate could become 0% when updating advanced options in the middle of a game. This could have caused issues where variables became NaN.
-Fixed an issue where poverty and per capita income at the state level were calculated incorrectly (or rather were calculated based on incorrect variable values).
-Likely fixed an issue where a politician would not leave their current office if they won a special election.
-Fixed an issue where national name recognition would not update correctly – under certain circumstances – while using the easy or very easy election difficulties during presidential elections.
-Likely fixed an issue where the game would create a death event for the player’s character (as a former president) even if the player was still playing as the character.
-Likely fixed an issue with advanced options where Alaska counties would not load correctly when loading advanced option presets.
-Fixed an issue where certain schedule events would disappear if the player resigned from office, even if it was not appropriate for them to disappear. This could have caused problems. For example, if the player’s protégé was governor, and the player resigned as a senator, a schedule event would be created where the protégé would ask the player who should fill the senate vacancy. But, this event would be deleted before the player had a chance to complete the event. This would cause a situation where the player’s character is not replaced as senator.
-Fixed an issue where a candidate’s fiscal and social ideology would not be updated after their policies had been updated during the conditional endorsement process. This could create situations where a candidate could have very liberal social policies, but still be labeled as socially conservative.
-Fixed an issue where state cabinet members would not update when moving to a new state; the game would have continued using cabinet members from the previous state. (It is unclear what will happen to protégés who are state cabinet members when the player moves states.)
-Fixed an issue where Avery County, NC did not belong to any congressional districts. It has been added to NC-5. Any game saved prior to version 0.241 will automatically have Avery County placed into NC-5 when loading.
-Fixed an issue where Massachusetts state senate district 30 was not saved.
-Likely fixed an issue where candidates would not be updated correctly when customizing elections. This was specific to player elections (elections involving the player) that were customized between week 6 and 19. The candidate customized would not be the candidate used in the primary; instead the initial (un-customized) candidate would have been used.
-May have fixed an issue where governors would run for president and senate at the same time, creating the possibility of duplicate politicians. This could have also created an issue where a president would run for a third presidential term if they were duplicated as a senator.
-Likely fixed an issue where state (and national) populations would significantly increase under specific conditions (the result of a significant increase to the Medicaid eligibility rate). The increase to population would have come exclusively from senior citizens.

The game has been updated to version 0.239

ADDITIONS
-Increased the likelihood that the player will face a current politician in state senate, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and governor elections, rather than facing a new randomly generated opponent with no political experience. (If you wait until week 6 before joining the election, opponents will likely be randomly generated candidates with no political experience).
-Added gubernatorial election vote factors for each state. Each state can have unique vote factors that influence the gubernatorial elections in the state. These vote factors can be changed in the advanced options -> elections -> governors tab.
-Added two new facial hair types to the game.

FIXES
-Fixed an issue where government approval did not influence federal elections. This fix could have significant impacts on the game, depending on whether the approval rating is low and whether one party has control over the entire federal government. In one example: without the fix, the democrats lost 18 house seats in a midterm election; with the fix, the democrats lost 25 house seats. If anyone notices unrealistic behavior (or a lack of balance), please report it.
-Fixed an issue where clicking the Fill All Positions (or Fill All Empty Positions) button, while playing as a regional house party chair, would add candidates to every house election, instead of only those house districts within the player’s region.
-Fixed an issue in the campaign volunteers menu where the Anticipated Cost for yard signs would not say $0 even if 0% of volunteers were assigned to yard signs. This did not influence the actual campaign expenditure (which would have been 0); it only influenced the Anticipated Cost display.
-Fixed an issue where the player might not be replaced as a party leader if the player left office in the middle of their term.
-Fixed an issue where independent poll results would be inaccurate if the player became an independent after losing a primary.
-Fixed an issue where the governor in the player’s state would not be updated/replaced if the player selected the governor as a cabinet member.
-Fixed an issue where some city politicians could be too young when the game starts.

ELECTION SIMULATOR TOOL
-Adjusted the “Reset Approval Ratings” button in the election simulator tool so it uses the new formula for calculating approval ratings. The button also recalculates voter enthusiasm.
-Fixed an issue where the election simulator tool was not using the correct approval rating score for election calculations.
-Fixed an issue with the election simulator where government approval would not have an impact on senate, house, and presidential elections.
-Removed autofill from some text boxes in the election simulator tool.
-Fixed an issue with the election simulator tool where it would not save/load the value for “Years Party has Controlled Presidency”.
-Added the newest facial features to the character creation menu in the Election Simulator Tool.

NOTES
With any update, there is a rare chance of files getting corrupted. This can cause a black/white empty screen when starting the game. If you experience this problem, you can visit this forum post for instructions on how to fix it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1184770/discussions/2/3085508296772338528/

If you experience any other problems, you can post a new discussion in the bug reports forum, by navigating to the community hub, clicking the Discussions tab, and clicking the Bug Reports link on the right side of the screen.

If you want to continue playing a previous version of the game, you can right click on the game in your Steam library, click properties, then click betas and select the version you want to play.