Updates

This article is a list of updates for The Political Process.

Release
November 22, 2019

Version 0.118
-Fixed a bug that prevented the week display from updating and froze the game when the 'Running Elections' overlay was visible. (The bug was related to federal budget/expenditure for educational programs such as tutoring grants and professional development grants).

Version 0.1181
-Fixed bug where the city wheel tax was not set to true, even though it was passed by the legislature and the mayor.

-Fixed bug where a city gasoline tax legislation was created with a tax rate of 0, even though it should not have been created.

Version 0.1182
-Fixed a bug for where the election results did not display for mayor elections. I believe the issue was specific to mayor elections where the incumbent lost the election.

-Fixed an issue where the legislature would not vote on hunting license legislation.

-Fixed an issue where a committee hearing was not created for hunting license legislation.

Version 0.1183
-Fixed issue where trying to withdraw from mayor or city council election caused an error. -Made some changes that could reduce the chance of variables displaying NaN during elections. I still don't know what is causing issues related to NaN values, so the changes I made may not fix the issue.

Version 0.1184
-Fixed an issue where a federal student tutor law caused education approval rating to be NaN, in turn causing politician approval ratings to be NaN, which in turn may have influenced elections. -Fixed an issue where foster care legislation caused the foster care budget to be NaN.

Version 0.1185
-Fixed an issue where poverty effect and homelessness could go below 0.

-Fixed an issue where player would be asked to run for senate reelection 2 years after winning first election, even though senate terms are 6 years.

Version 0.1186
-Fixed an issue where politicians would not vote on student welfare committee legislation.

-Fixed an issue where cannabis/marijuana legislation was not set to true even though it had been passed into law.

Version 0.1187
-Fixed missing Connecticut button on volunteer page for presidential election campaigns.

-Fixed an issue where the independent voter enthusiasm for opponent in school board elections was NaN, which also would have fixed issue of NaN election results in school board elections.

Version 0.1188
-Removed universal health care from governor budget process. During development, universal health care had been added to the game at the state level, but then it was removed, but I forgot to remove it from the governor's budget process, which would cause errors if the legislation was passed into law.

Version 0.1189
-Fixed an issue where changing state or county would show the wrong number of elections in the elections tab.

-Fixed an issue where the incorrect election year was displayed in election menus.

-Fixed an issue where politicians created an amendment to social security legislation that set the eligibility age very low.

-Fixed an issue where total increase to turnout was not displayed for school board and city council rallies.

-Fixed an issue where resigning from office, while running for reelection, did not remove character from election process, allowing for the possibility that the player could run against their own character in a future election.

-Updated advanced options so values cannot be set to 0, as setting values to 0 could cause NaN errors or other issues.

Version 0.119
-Fixed an issue where changing advanced options could set some public opinion values to 0, which could cause NaN values in elections. There may still be more issues with advanced options.

-Fixed an issue where a high tobacco tax could result in a negative number of smokers, which could create negative tax revenue from the tobacco tax.

-Fixed an issue where coal power, and other types of electricity, could become negative.

Version 0.1191
-Fixed an issue where city council districts and school districts could be generated with 0% democrats or 0% republicans, which could cause errors during elections.

-Fixed an issue where an empty caucus could produce a broken schedule event (where the event would open with a blank screen), when player becomes party leader of a legislature.

Version 0.1192
-Updated door-knocking and fundraising sliders so that their max value is now based on player's remaining hours (instead of a default value of 40).

-Fixed an issue where the player would receive a challenge to reduce homelessness even though the percent of homeless individuals without shelter was 0%.

-Fixed an issue where state-level computer politicians would create and pass gasoline tax legislation with a tax rate of NaN, causing issues in the budget process that prevented the game from progressing to the next week. (This occurred when the state gasoline tax was set to false).

-Changed wording in marketing menus to clarify that marketing influences voter enthusiasm instead of voter trust.

-Updated advanced options so that max voter turnout could be set to 100% instead of 95% or 99%.

Version 0.1193
-Fixed an issue where the Connecticut polling button did not work properly in the presidential campaign map.

-Fixed an issue where city and state budget processes were not estimating the correct population when calculating the road construction budget, resulting in an increase in road congestion.

-Reduced the cost of road construction based on changes to population estimates during the budget process.

-Updated code so that pathway to citizenship legislation would be reset to false after becoming law, so that it could be legislated again in the future.

-Fixed an issue in advanced options where changing public opinion support for a policy at the national level would set support for the same policy to 100% at the state level.

-Fixed an issue where player could click the staff training button while the staff training overlay box was already open.

-Fixed spelling errors in the candidate introduction news item for presidential elections.

Version 0.1194
-Update game so that it is less likely to create negative values for metrics.

Version 0.1195
-Removed the option to run for city level elections in 2017 (when starting the game in 2017), as this could cause problems with the election after loading a saved game.

-Removed 2017 as a starting year for the game, since the removal of city level elections from 2017 meant there was nothing for player to do if starting in 2017.

-Fixed an issue where a news item about player running for election was created without any content.

-Fixed an issue where wheel tax legislation was given a negative tax rate.

-Fixed an issue where the game might display an excessive amount of decimal points for minimum wage legislation and gasoline tax legislation. This could still occur for other types of legislation.

Version 0.1196
-Added a "Toggle Full Screen" button to the menu that allows player to toggle between full screen and window mode.

-Fixed an issue where hitting enter would activate a button that had already been clicked, possibly bringing up the same menu multiple times, which could cause errors.

-Fixed an issue where hitting enter allowed staff to be trained over the training limit.

-Fixed an issue where state vehicle registration tax would not be set to false, even if it was approved by the governor.

Version 0.1197
-Fixed an issue where primary elections would not occur if running against an incumbent president in the presidential primaries.

-Fixed an issue where an incumbent president had delegates before any primary elections occurred.

-Fixed an issue where small screen sizes (or using window mode) could push some buttons off the screen in the campaign overview menu.

Version 0.1198
-Fixed an issue where both/all candidates received 0 delegates during republican primary elections in states with open primaries.

Version 0.1199
-Fixed an issue where the chairperson of a committee would deny a hearing for legislation that they created.

-Fixed an issue where all members of congress would vote against the budget resolution. The current solution is to make it so all members of the majority party support the budget resolution. This is probably not the best solution, but it seems more realistic than the alternative.

-The game now remembers hours spent doing door knocking and fundraising, so that these sliders do not need to be adjusted every turn. When the game is loaded, the variables are reset to 0 and will need to be adjusted.

-Fixed an issue where hunting gun legislation says that it is establishing a sport-shooting gun license instead of a hunting gun license.

-Increased the max value for savings in the advanced tab of character creation from 1,000,000 to 100,000,000.

Version 0.12
-Fixed several instances where a continue button would not appear on low resolution (small) screens.

Version 0.121
-The game now remembers the states in which the player ran a marketing campaign (during a presidential election campaign), so that the states do not need to be re-selected every time the player does a new marketing campaign. Whenever the player loads a game, these values are reset.

-Fixed an issue where it was not possible to change social security tax rate when creating social security legislation.

-Fixed an issue where the police chief says the police budget is too low, despite creating a police budget well above the budget request.

-Fixed a possible issue in which some values could become NaN if any national ancestry variable was 0%.

-Fixed an issue where the description of staff training did not show effect on event expenditure for event manager and event coordinator.

Version 0.122
-Fixed an issue where the commerce appropriation bill did not display sliders if the national drug court law was true.

-Fixed an issue where the description for the National Institutes of Health budget item was listed twice on the education appropriations bill; one of the instances should have been a description for high school equivalency grants.

-Fixed an issue where not all marketing types were visible for the environmental marketing category depending on the size of the screen.

Version 0.123
-Adjusted the budget resolution code so that it is less likely to produce legislation with rates of 0 or NaN.

-Fixed an issue where player would receive a challenge to reduce drug jail lengths even though jail lengths were as low as they could go.

-Fixed an issue where the budget request for drug rehabilitation programs (at the city level) was incorrect.

-Fixed an issue where player history showed the wrong years if player started in 2019 already holding a political office.

Version 0.124
-Fixed an issue where the "Conduct A Poll" button did not work in the campaign map menu.

-Fixed an issue where some state house districts were not saved or loaded if playing in New Hampshire, which could have caused issues with elections.

-Added an "Attend All Rallies" button to the Rallies tab in the Events menu, so that player no longer has to click on each individual rally to attend all rallies.

-Added an "Attend All Rallies" button to the campaign overview page, when rally opportunities are available, so that it is no longer necessary to click on each individual rally.

-Added an "Attend All Fundraisers" button to the campaign overview page, when fundraiser opportunities are available, so that it is no longer necessary to click on each individual fundraiser.

-Increased the size of some check boxes found in the campaign menu.

Version 0.125
-Fixed an issue with universal health care legislation that could prevent the next turn button from progressing the game.

Version 0.126
-Fixed an issue where the player could open an indefinite number of field offices, even though there is supposed to be a limit based on the population of the district.

-Fixed an issue where a new candidate would not replace the player in a presidential election campaign if the player withdraws from the election campaign after being selected as the party nominee.

-Added a button/menu to open or close multiple field offices during election campaigns, so that the player does not have to open and close field offices one at a time.

Version 0.127
-Fixed an issue where the political history of politicians showed the wrong years if starting the game in 2019.

-Fixed several issues where moving to a new state towards the end of an election year could cause problems.

-Added "Attend All Rallies" and "Attend All Fundraisers" buttons to the office summary page if the player has rally or fundraiser opportunities while not participating in an election campaign.

Version 0.128
-Fixed an issue where city council members would support a budget amendment even if it would create a deficit.

-Updated federal, state, and city budget processes so that it is less likely that budget calculations will divide by 0.

-Added code that may fix an issue where a protégé's district did not match the district of their next election. This may have also fixed an issue where player congressional elections would not work if two politicians had the same congressional district (resulting from a protégé having the wrong district).

Version 0.129
-Fixed an issue where the U.S. Senate job would not appear in the list of jobs if the player was playing in Missouri.

-Fixed an issue where Lackawanna County, PA and Baltimore City, MD were not playable.

-Improved code so that protégés will be assigned to the correct district prior to elections, if for some reason they did not already belong to the correct district.

-Fixed an issue where calculations for road funding in the city council budget amendment process were incorrect, resulting in less funding being deducted from road expenditure when there was a budget deficit.

Version 0.13
-Fixed an issue where changing the vehicle registration tax rate at the state level would create legislation that eliminated the vehicle registration tax.

-Added options to change the election difficulty between Very Easy, Easy, and Normal difficulty. This can be done when starting a new game or at any time during an election campaign (by clicking the difficulty button under the campaign manager's portrait).

Version 0.131
-Added a button to the staff page that allows the player to Train All Staff, so that the player does not have to train each staff member one at a time. If the player does not have enough campaign funds to train all staff, only some of the staff will be trained.

-Fixed an issue where the player sometimes would not be allowed to run for a particular office if the player had resigned from that office.

-Fixed an issue where trying to amend social security legislation would not work properly, and may cause the player to receive a message that the game could not be saved while a menu was open (even though no menu was open).

-Fixed an issue where updating a tax rate during the budget process did not update the tax revenue or the treasury value.

Version 0.132
-Made adjustments so that NPCs will no longer be able to create gasoline tax legislation with tax rates over $1 per gallon. This is to prevent instances where absurdly high gasoline tax rates were created by NPC legislation.

-Fixed several misspelled words.

Version 0.133
- Added a new poll to the game that shows voter intention (which candidate the voters intend to support in the next election).

- Added a new poll to the game that shows voter support for candidate policies.

- Fixed an issue where it was possible for government approval ratings to be negative.

- Fixed an issue where advanced options did not show correct values for U.S. House districts after loading.

- Removed the advanced options button from the main menu until the game has been set up. This was to prevent the possibility of changing advanced options before all of the districts had been calculated, which could have caused districts to calculate incorrectly.

- Fixed an issue where the political history for state senate party leaders would show the politician holding the leadership position for two years even though the position lasts for four years.

- Fixed an issue where the election map for governor and senate elections would show the results from the previous election before updating to the correct election results.

Version 0.134
- Fixed an issue where the poll menu did not work properly during reelection campaigns.

- Fixed an issue where voter enthusiasm polls did not work for state level polls, during presidential elections, if there were more republican candidates than democratic candidates.

- Fixed an issue where the player would not be fully removed from the presidential election if they chose to run for reelection for a different political office.

- Fixed an issue where the next turn would not update if a specific Medicaid legislation was created that did not make any changes to the current Medicaid law.

Version 0.135
- Fixed an issue where the player's political party would change to Democrat if the player conducted a voter intention poll while playing as a Republican during a presidential election campaign (if the nominee for both parties had been selected).

- Fixed an issue where foster care legislation, at the state level, would receive a hearing and then nothing else would happen.

Version 0.136
- Fixed an issue where it may have been possible for underemployment to become negative.

- Fixed an issue where gasoline tax revenue could be a negative number.

- Fixed an issue where gasoline tax legislation was missing from the legislation menu while playing as a city council member or mayor.

- Fixed an issue where changing turnout values in advanced options could cause turnout to go above 100%, which could cause rallies to produce negative turnout.

- Updated the legislative process so NPCs are less likely to create tax legislation with a tax rate over 100%.

- Fixed an issue where an NPC state house election in the player's state house district could cause one of the candidates to receive negative votes.

- Fixed an issue where federal legislation for Drug Courts indicated that the legislation applied to city funding, even though the legislation actually applied to both city and state funding.

Version 0.137
- Fixed an issue where NPCs would create an amendment to increase universal health care benefits when they should have been decreasing benefits.

- Fixed an issue where the game would create legislation to eliminate Medicaid Expansion and Veteran Health care whenever Universal Health care was created during the presidential budget.

Version 0.138
- Added automated office events to the game. At the end of the turn, any remaining hours will automatically be used to participate in the events that the player specifies in the Automated Office Events Menu (which can be found in the events tab of the office menu). By default, automated office events are turned off. This addition applies only to events done while holding political office. (Automated campaign events are planned for a future update).

- Added district numbers to the politician pages for school board and city council members. Also added district numbers to political history for school board and city council.

- Fixed several issues with voter turnout in school board, city council, state house, state senate, and U.S. House general elections. Voter turnout from rallies may not have had an impact on elections.

- Fixed an issue where a meeting with a department head would show an inaccurately large decrease in homelessness percent. The same problem has also been fixed for department reports.

- Fixed an issue where certain gun legislation would cause handgun ownership to increase an absurd amount.

- Fixed an issue where it was possible for there to be negative legislative votes for school board and city council legislation.

Version 0.139
- Fixed an issue where the state police budget would increase every year at an almost exponential rate.

- Fixed an issue where registered voters, midterm turnout, and general turnout variables were not updated correctly for counties during the load process. This could cause voter turnout in certain elections to be over 100%, which could cause inaccurate election results. This may partially explain why Republicans had difficulty winning the presidency as the game progressed. The problem was related to population, so as the population increased, the problem had a more significant effect.

- Fixed an issue where the amendment process for commerce appropriation legislation would not work if the legislation included funding for drug courts.

- Fixed an issue where military approval rating and government approval rating would become NaN if the military budget was $0.

- Made a small adjustment to how the military approval rating is calculated.

- Fixed an issue where school tutor funding at the state level could become negative if the federal government also had a school tutor program.

- Fixed an issue where Medicaid and Medicaid expansion may have behaved strangely in the governor budget process.

- Fixed an issue where gasoline tax revenue would show a negative number during the budget process.

- Updated the candidate creation process so that city council and mayor candidates will not select health care as part of their campaign platform. This is to make city elections more fair since the player cannot select health care as part of their campaign platform. Also, there are currently no city level health care policies, so it does not make sense to include health care in city level elections.

Version 0.14
- Added automated campaign events to the game. If automated campaign events are set to true, any remaining hours at the end of the turn will be used to attend campaign events, as specified by the player. Automated campaign events can be found under the events tab in the campaign menu, under the portrait of the event manager. There will be a button called "Automate Events". By default, automated campaign events are set to false.

- Fixed an issue where pollution could become negative and possibly cause other problems.

- Fixed an issue where politicians would not vote for high school equivalency programs if free community college had become law.

- Improved Alabama congressional districts so that they are more accurate. Districts now include all of the correct counties, and party demographics have been adjusted slightly.

Version 0.141
- Improved the protégé next election menu so that it now includes party demographic information below each district.

- Fixed an issue where the next turn would not update when the program tried to create an amendment for the commerce appropriations bill.

- Fixed an issue where voter enthusiasm polls would show NaN values for presidential incumbents.

- Fixed an issue where the player could select themselves as a running mate after winning the presidential nomination.

- Fixed an issue where the game would show the wrong congressional districts in the next election menu of the protégé menu. It was showing districts from the player's state instead of showing districts from the protégé's state.

Version 0.142
-Fixed an issue where the transportation department report showed an incorrect value for estimated expenditure on road construction.

-Fixed an issue where a politician's age could increase by 2 at the end of an election year.

-Fixed an issue where protégé age would not increase if the protégé did not hold political office.

-Fixed an issue where changing Bangladeshi ancestry at the state level (in advanced options) would not update the national value correctly.

-Fixed an issue where immigrants were not added to state populations correctly.

Version 0.143
-Fixed an issue where the secretary of transportation's estimate for road construction costs did not match the budget request for road construction.

-Fixed an issue where road construction and maintenance may not have calculated correctly if the family immigration law was false.

-Fixed an issue where the budget request for road construction did not provide a value that would maintain current road construction levels (resulting in the possibility of road congestion increasing indefinitely).

-Fixed an issue where conducting a state poll in Delaware did not work during presidential elections.

-Fixed an issue where the population for the player's state was updated twice, creating a population slightly larger than it should have created.

-Added voter percentages to presidential election exit polls.

-Added Arlington County to the map of Virginia.

Version 0.144
- Added a policy preset menu to the character creation menu, player profile page, and campaign policy page. It is now possible to select from four policy presets, instead of choosing every policy individually.

- Fixed an issue where NPCs might create an income tax rate of NaN if the previous income tax rate was 0, causing tax revenues to become NaN, causing tax and government approval ratings to become NaN.

- Adjusted national road congestion calculations slightly.

- Adjusted the NPC amendment process for social security.

Version 0.145
- Updated the election page to include data about seats gained.

- Added a national map to the senate other elections tab (to display which party won each state).

- Added a national map to the house other elections tab (to show percentage of seats won by each party in each state).

- Removed the initial expenditure for opening volunteer field offices during presidential elections (now the cost is based solely on rent and salary, which is consistent with non-presidential elections).

- Fixed an issue where the presidential election page would show election results based on the electoral college, even if the electoral college had been set to false.

- Updated corporate tax legislation so it is no longer possible to create a tax rate of 100%.

Version 0.146
- Adjusted presidential elections between NPCs so that incumbents are more likely to win reelection.

- Adjusted presidential elections between NPCs so that party control over the presidency is more balanced between democrats and republicans. This also influences congressional elections.

-Added shading to the senate election map to indicate seat gains.

- Fixed an issue where tax revenues would decrease significantly at the federal level if the national debt became 0.

- Fixed an issue where the tab sound would still play even when sound volume was set to 0%.

- Fixed an issue where trying to move to Alabama would show a map of Arizona.

- Fixed an issue where trying to move to Arizona did not work.

- Fixed an issue where the player could run for senator of Mississippi during the wrong year, causing an error.

Version 0.147
- Fixed an issue where it was not possible to vote on sales tax legislation at the federal level.

- Fixed an issue where the majority party could have less members in the senate finance committee than the minority party.

- Adjusted committee assignment calculations so that the majority party should always have at least one more member than the minority party in each committee.

- Fixed an issue where the amendment sponsor of legislation could be Undefined (if all of the members belonged to the same political party). This applied to city council and school board legislation.

- Fixed an issue where the health care pie chart and health care table did not show the same values.

- Fixed an issue where protégés could run for president even when their next election was set as something other than president. This lead to the possibility that they could hold the presidency and another elected position at the same time.

- Updated protégé political history so that it shows the year when player dismissed the protégé (previously it showed "Present" even after being dismissed).

Version 0.148
Additions - Added an Election History Archive for all player elections. This can be found by clicking the Profile tab and then clicking the Elections Tab. It will show the election results for every one of the player's elections. - Added Election History Archives for every election. This can be found by clicking the Elections tab and then clicking the Archive tab. - Added a button to display the election history for any politician. - Added a button to display every election in a specific district. - Added new candidates to the presidential election (including mayors, governors, and candidates without government experience). (More candidate types will likely be added in future updates). - Added a map to the senate summary page that shows the political party of senators - states with two democrats will be colored blue, states with two republicans will be colored red, and states with one of each will be colored purple. - Increased the protégé limit to 50 (it may be increased more in the future). Do not feel obligated to fill every protégé position. - Updated political history of candidates who run for president, to indicate that they ran for president, and to indicate if they became the party nominee.

(NOTE: if you load an old version of the game, while in the middle of a game, it will display the election history archive of the previous game, rather than resetting the election history archive. To prevent this, make sure to load the game from the main menu. This will be fixed in the next update, but will not cause any problems if you forget to load old versions of the game from the main menu).

Fixes - Switched the presidential primary election weeks for Nevada and South Carolina so that the Nevada primary now comes before South Carolina. - Fixed an issue where one of the counties in Utah would not be included in election results. - Fixed an issue with the state budget where the player opposing a budget amendment could cause some NPCs to change their vote to support the amendment (rather than oppose).

Version 0.149
Additions - Added a button to Contact All Organizations (it is no longer necessary to contact each individual organization and PAC). - Added a button to Attend All Available Organization events (where the player gets to know the policy interest of each organization). It is no longer necessary to contact each individual organization to attend that organization's event. - Added an option to sort the election type in the election archive menu; you can now specify if you want to view all elections, general elections, or primary elections.

Fixes - Fixed an issue where the election history archive would not reset if loading a save file before version 0.148. (This occurred only when playing a game with election history data and then loading an old save file in the middle of the game). - Adjusted teacher salary legislation so that teacher salary cannot be set to 0. This is to prevent a possible error if the value is 0. - Fixed an issue where the history of cabinet members would not update if player won reelection as an incumbent. - Fixed an issue where details for the Cannabis Sales Tax legislation did not appear in the legislation news section.

Improvements - Adjusted general elections to account for "party loyalty". This will prevent a candidate from winning 90% of the opposing party's votes. It is still possible for a candidate to win voters from the opposing party, but it will be much less than 90%. - Adjusted the city council budget process so that a member of the majority party makes budget decisions. Previously, the highest ranking member of the city council, regardless of political party, made budget decisions, which could lead to the possibility that the city council rejected the mayor's budget even though the majority of them should have supported it.

Version 0.150
Improvements - Adjusted party demographics for Arizona, Missouri, and Nevada, to make them more accurate. (More states will be updated in the next update). - Improved Idaho state house and state senate districts so that their party demographics are more accurate. - Adjusted the Presidential Primary Results page so that names are now listed alphabetically. Previously their order seemed to be random. - Reduced the political points earned for winning a mayoral election. Previously, some large cities would award too many political points, resulting in some mayors having more political points then the governor in their state.

Fixes - Fixed an issue in presidential primaries where the number of delegates awarded did not match the number of votes won in open republican primaries. (This could have caused candidates to lose states that they should have won - in terms of primary delegate count). - Fixed an issue where voter intention polls did not take into account the party loyalty mechanism that was added in update 0.149. - Fixed an issue where playing in Baltimore City would cause the player county to become undefined after loading a saved game. - Fixed an issue where Baltimore City election results would not appear during governor or senate elections. - Fixed an Issue where Delegate Marketing Results would show Iowa in the title, even though marketing had been done in Multiple States.

Version 0.151
Fixes - Fixed an issue where the continue button would not appear on the legislation vote results page, if there were negative votes. (The negative votes issue has not been fixed). - Fixed an issue where portraits would not display, or would display the wrong portrait, in the election tab of the player profile - for presidential primaries.

Version 0.152
Additions - Added AutoSave to the game. By default, it is On and saves at the end of the in-game year. AutoSave settings can be changed in the Options menu (by opening the menu, and clicking the Options button). Improvements - Updated New Mexico party demographics to make them more accurate. - Updated Virginia party demographics to make them more accurate. - Updated Virginia congressional districts to make them more accurate. - Updated some congressional district demographics in Arizona to make them more accurate. (More updates to state party demographics may come in the next update). Fixes - Fixed an issue with advanced options where changing a congressional district would change the player's congressional district, if both districts had the same number - even if they were in different states. - Fixed an issue where NPCs would amend the social security age and the game would display a long decimal, even though the eligibility age should be a whole number. - Fixed an issue where a universal school lunch/breakfast program at the state level would display the wrong value for the cost of the program. - Fixed an issue where caucus chairs would have repeated history if the player joined a caucus (for the first time) after winning an election. - Fixed an issue where the graph for the carbon emissions tax rate showed the wrong value. - Fixed an issue where a Medicare challenge would not indicate that it had been completed, even if the player completed the challenge.

Version 0.153
Improvements

- Updated Oklahoma State House and State Senate districts to be more accurate.

- Updated Nevada congressional districts to be more accurate.

- Updated Indiana party demographics to be more accurate.

- Updated Indiana congressional districts to be more accurate.

- Adjusted (NPC vs NPC) presidential elections so that there will be slightly more variability in results.

Fixes

- Fixed an issue where an electoral college tie during presidential elections could show the wrong candidate as winning.

- Fixed an issue where the game said that a conference report passed both chambers of congress, even though it had passed only in the house.

- Reduced the likelihood that a player would run in an election against their own character.

- Fixed several congressional districts that had party demographics that added up to more than 100%.

Additions

- Added an advanced option to set a custom starting year. This has no effect other than changing the year displayed at the top of the screen and determining what jobs are available when the game starts.

Version 0.154
Additions

- Added automated marketing. This can be found under the marketing tab, below the portrait of the marketing director.

Fixes

- May have fixed an issue where a criminal justice reform challenge did not show as being completed, even though it had been completed.

- Fixed an issue where a protégé would run for senate reelection, even if they had been selected as the vice president.

Improvements

- Updated Utah state senate and state house districts to be more accurate.

- Updated Wyoming state senate districts to be more accurate.

Version 0.1541
Fixes

- Fixed an issue where automated marketing would not work if the player had 0 hours remaining at the end of the turn.

Version 0.155
Additions

- Added an option to retire and continue playing as a protégé. The "Retire" button can be found in the Office Summary tab, under the portrait of the Chief of Staff.

- Added an option to save and load advanced options. (The advanced options must be applied before saving; otherwise it will save the default/previous settings).

Fixes

- Fixed an issue where protégés might not retire even though the game said they would retire.

- Fixed an issue where the player could run against and incumbent protégé even if the protégé was moved to a different district for their next election. This allowed the possibility of the protégé holding two political offices simultaneously.

- Fixed an issue where the player could rally/fundraise with his or her own character, during joint events, even though joint events are supposed to be done with other politicians.

Improvements

- Adjusted party demographics for Wyoming state house districts, to make them more accurate.

- Adjusted party demographics for Alaska state house and state senate districts, to make them more accurate.

- Increased the likelihood that a candidate would support Medicaid Expansion if they also support Universal Health Care.

Version 0.1551
Fixes

- Fixed an issue where loading advanced options would overwrite the player's new city selection with the city saved in the advanced options, causing the player to play in the wrong city/county. This has been fixed for other districts as well.

- Fixed an issue where the 'Contact All Organizations' button did not display when playing as a protégé.

Version 0.1552
Fixes

- Fixed an issue where moving to a new state/county could prevent the game from saving, if certain federal education programs were set to true.

- Fixed an issue where election history archives would show NaN votes for primaries where a protégé ran unopposed.

Version 0.1553
Fixes

- Fixed an issue where retiring to play as a protégé could cause multiple problems, such as the budget resolution not working, and campaign funds becoming NaN.

- Fixed an issue where an NPC amendment to child tax credit legislation would create a value of NaN.

Version 0.1554
Fixes

- Fixed an issue where campaign funds could become NaN if playing as a protégé.

- Fixed an issue where city council members would not retire, even though the News tab said they would.

- Fixed an issue where the metrics page would show the incorrect carbon tax rate for years where there was no carbon tax law.

Version 0.156
Additions

- Added an option to change how effective rallies are at increasing voter turnout. This option can be found by clicking the "Difficulty" button under the campaign manager's portrait (in the campaign overview tab). By default, the rally effectiveness has been reduced from 100% to 25%. (If you liked the previous effectiveness of rallies, make sure to change the value back to 100%). (Note: this has not yet been changed for the party campaign chair position).

- Added an option to set initial name recognition (in the advanced tab of the character creation menu).

- Added an option to change the number of electoral college votes each state has (in the advanced options).

- Added an option to change the presidential primary election week for each state (in the advanced options).

- Added an option to change the number of delegates rewarded during presidential primaries (in the advanced options).

Fixes

- Fixed an issue where the city budget process would not work properly if there was a city income tax (the budget did not calculate income tax revenue, causing a perceived deficit, causing the budget to create negative budget values).

- Fixed an issue where automated rallies would not work if automated marketing was active (all campaign funds were used for automated marketing). Automated events now come first, so that money is first spent on rallies, then it is spent on marketing.

- Fixed an issue when changing states that showed the state population with decimals.

- Fixed an issue where president and vice-president histories could be incorrect if starting the game with a custom year.

- Fixed an issue where the vice president's history would not be updated if the player won a second term as president.

- Fixed an issue where the player's history would not be updated to indicate that the player was the presidential nominee for their party if the player was the incumbent.

- Fixed an issue where defense-wide military research would not be updated when adjusting the defense appropriation bill.

- Fixed an issue where defense-wide military operations would not be updated when adjusting the defense appropriation bill.

Version 0.1561
Fixes

- Fixed an issue where defense-wide technology funding would not update correctly if the player created the budget as president.

- Fixed an issue in advanced options where changing policy percentages would change the party demographics at the state house, state senate, and congressional levels (for example, reducing the number of independents who support minimum wage would reduce the number of independents in the district).

- Fixed an issue where the budget/appropriations process showed Marine Operational Funding twice and did not show Air Force Operational Funding.

- Fixed an issue where the president might not vote on all legislation by the end of the year, causing the legislation to disappear at the beginning of the year. If it is the end of the in-game year, the president will now vote on all remaining legislation.

- Fixed an issue where the governor might veto full-day kindergarten legislation after sponsoring the legislation.

Version 0.157
Additions - Party leadership positions (such as Speaker of the House) are now elected by the legislature (rather than selecting candidates with the highest political points). - The player can nominate themselves for party leadership positions. - Some names can now be clicked to bring up a profile menu. In other instances, Candidate Detail buttons have been added to bring up a profile menu. This has not been done everywhere. Other names may be made clickable in future updates. - Clicking on names in the committees and caucuses tabs will now create a pop-up profile, instead of redirecting to the profile page. This allows the player to stay in the committee or caucus tab while viewing details about a politician. - Clicking on the portrait of a politician in the news tab will create a pop-up profile, instead of redirecting to the profile Page. This allows the player to stay in the news tab while viewing details about a politician.

Improvements

- Changed the advanced tab in the character creation menu so that Savings can now be adjusted using a text box (instead of a slider). - While running for president, primary results are no longer automatically displayed after the primary. There will now be a button in the campaign overview menu to view results. This gives the player the option to view results, rather than be forced to view results.

Fixes

- Fixed an issue where the votes counted bar graph in presidential elections did not display correctly when using custom electoral college values. - Fixed an issue where the incorrect city name would be used when loading an advanced option preset. - Fixed an issue where the age of cabinet members would not increase. - Fixed an issue where politicians would not respond correctly to unemployment insurance legislation if the legislation changed only the taxable income limit. Prior to being fixed, politicians might say the wrong thing in committee hearings, and vote incorrectly; there was also the possibility of creating an "empty" amendment.

Version 0.1571
Fixes - Fixed an issue where the wrong candidate could become president when using popular vote to determine the winner. Before the fix, the winner was decided based on which candidate had the most votes in the last state to count votes, rather than the candidate with the most votes nationally. - Fixed an issue where the senate election results page would show too many senators in the New Senate section (occurred when the game was started using a custom year). - Fixed an issue where the senate history (under the office/districts tab) would not update to include any senator who replaces the president or vice president (if they leave their senate seat before the end of their term). - The history of the initial president now shows the state in which the president held various political positions. Previously, the history might have shown that the president was a governor, but not in which state the president was governor.

Version 0.1572
Fixes - Fixed an issue where the player would receive schedule items related to becoming party leader, even though party leaders had not been selected yet. (This would happen if the player had been Speaker of the House in the previous term of congress). - Fixed an issue where the speaker of the house (or state house) could belong to the minority party, even though the candidate from the majority party should have won the position. - Reduced the likelihood that NPCs will create empty corporate tax amendments. - Fixed an issue on the senate Other elections page, where the new senate numbers could be wrong. - Adjusted Nebraska state house and state senate districts to be more accurate. In reality, Nebraska has non-partisan elections and has a unicameral legislature, so the accuracy may be limited. The adjustments add more Democrats to the legislature (previously, the legislature (state senate) in the game had 0 Democrats, but in real life, the legislature has 18 Democrats).

Version 0.158
Additions - Added an option to customize politicians. - Added an option to customize protégés. - Added an option to customize the player's character (while the game is in progress). - Added an option to customize campaign staff members. - Added an option to customize political candidates while playing as party chairperson. - Added an option to manually replace party leaders such as Speaker of the House (if character customization is set to true). - Added an option to customize elections (in the elections tab, if character customization is set to true). - Added an option to select a protégé as a presidential running mate. - Added an option to select a member of the house of representatives as a presidential running mate. - Added persistent politicians to the game. If a politician loses an election, there is a chance that they will continue to exist so that they can run in a future election. - Added an option to change persistent politician rates in the advanced options (Politician tab). - Added an option to customize a candidate's traits. - Political History is now consolidated so that consecutive terms in a specific office are listed as a single history item, rather than having a history item for each term in office. - Adjusted party demographics for Georgia Congressional Districts. - Added an option to do marketing in Washington D.C. during presidential election campaigns. - Added an option to open/close multiple field offices in multiple states within a single menu. - Added text to the campaign overview page to indicate type of election. - Added an option to fill all empty positions while playing as party chairperson, so that hundreds of candidate positions do not have to be filled manually. - Added an option to fill all positions as party chairperson (not just empty positions). - Added an option to add politicians to a favorite list. The favorite list can be found in the Politician's tab. To add a politician to the list, click the 'Add to Favorites' button on the politician's profile page. - Added a text box to the advanced tab of the character creation menu, allowing the player to set initial political points. - Increased the likelihood that lower-level politicians will run in an election to replace a higher-level politician who is retiring, rather than generating new candidates to run in the election. - If a politician leaves office early, their political history should update accordingly, so that it shows the proper end date. - Added 3 new facial features - one hairstyle, one eye type, and one mouth. - Made more hairstyles available for each gender. - Added a variable for minimum retirement age (it can be adjusted in the Advanced Options - Politicians tab). - Added an option to replace committee chairs and ranking members. - Added an option to adjust committee membership (adding and removing committee members). - Added an option to replace caucus chairs and vice-chairs. - Added an option to customize a character's campaign funds (in the advanced tab of the customization menu). - Added an option to save/load entire groups of cabinet members (rather than saving one member at a time). - Added a hair aging option to the character customization menu. Now it is possible to set a character's hair color without it changing as they age. Fixes

- May have fixed an issue where a senator wins the presidency, but remains a senator while being president. - Fixed an issue with advanced options where it was possible for policies to have 0 or 100% support, which could cause NaN problems. - Fixed an issue where the legislative news section would sometimes show the wrong details for legislation. (It would base details on an old version of the legislation rather than the newest version). - Fixed an issue where the status of some challenges was not updated correctly. - Fixed an issue where some politician names would be displayed twice in republican caucus lists, and some politician names would not be displayed. - Fixed an issue where changing your caucus would cause all caucus leadership positions to become empty. Empty caucus leadership positions could have caused the game to stop progressing. - To prevent a (different) problem where caucus leadership positions could become empty, it is no longer possible to change caucus/party during the leadership election process (week 1 after an election year). - Fixed an issue where the game would display an empty screen during city council budget amendments.

- Fixed an issue where marketing for environment vs economic growth would have no effect. - Fixed an issue where the player could automatically be nominated for Speaker of the House, rather than being allowed to choose to run for the position. - Fixed an issue where it was possible to select a senator as a running mate during a presidential election, even if the senator was running for reelection. This allowed for the possibility that the senator could simultaneously be the vice president and a senator. - Fixed an issue where changing a protégés next election would change their district, and if they were an incumbent, would change the district number for their current district. This allowed for the possibility that two districts could have the same number. To prevent this, incumbent protégés are no longer allowed to select a different district (within their election type). So an incumbent state senate protégé in district 5 can no longer run for their next election in state senate district 8.

Version 0.1584
Fixes - Fixed an issue where the player could not be replaced as a party leader. - Fixed an issue where the player would not receive any campaign funds while playing as the state senate campaign chairperson. - Fixed an issue where the player would not become the chair or ranking member of a sub-committee, even if they selected that position. - Fixed an issue where the game would sometimes place the player in the wrong sub-committee. - Adjusted advanced options so it is now possible to set a state's electoral college votes and delegates to 0. There is a risk that doing this could produce NaN results, but no problems were observed during testing. Use at your own risk. - Fixed an issue where some former-governors running for president would not have the correct amount of political points. - Fixed an issue where state senators might run for the House of Representatives in the middle of their term, and may not be removed from their own office after winning.

Version 0.1585
- Added an election simulator tool - predict any election by adjusting public opinion, candidate attributes, party demographics, and more. (This tool can be found on the main menu, under Dictator Mode).

- Added 30 new policy positions to the game (these currently have no impact on election results).

- Fixed an issue where protégé senators would be displayed as retiring, even though they were not retiring.

- Fixed an issue where changing policy support in the advanced options, at the state level, would cause the corresponding policies at the city level to become 99%.

Version 0.1586
-Fixed an issue with the election simulator where selecting Infrastructure as one of the candidate's priorities would cause NaN values in the election results.

Version 0.1587
- Added three new trait options to the election simulator. These were already included in the campaign mode.

- Added an option to turn custom candidate colors on or off (in the election simulator tool). This is applicable only to presidential general elections. They are turned off by default. This means that, on the results page, candidates will be displayed with the color generally associated with their party (blue for democrats and red for republicans). This option can be changed in the Options Tab.

- Fixed an issue where the government aid policy (in the election simulator) would have a value of 0, instead of the correct value.

- Fixed an issue where governor elections (in the election simulator tool) were using the wrong vote factors.

- Fixed an issue where changing the turnout ratios for a single state would change the turnout ratios for every state. This was fixed in the advanced options and in the election simulator. Note: this refers to Turnout Ratios, not Turnout Percent.

- Fixed an issue where moving some persistent politician sliders in the advanced options would update the wrong percentage display.

Version 0.1588
Version 0.1588 - Fixed an issue where changing caucuses would not replace the player as the caucus leader (of the former caucus), which could have caused problems with saving and loading. - Fixed an issue where ancestry demographics would not update correctly in the election simulator. - Fixed an issue where governors would not run for reelection even when they should have. - Fixed an issue where a politician's history showed the wrong date range for caucus leadership positions (at the state senate level). It showed two years instead of four years. - Fixed an issue where it was possible for the player to select their character as a presidential running mate (when customizing presidential elections). Doing so could have caused other problems.

Version 0.1589
Version 0.1589

- Fixed an issue where moving to a new state would not work properly, causing the game to freeze when Calculating Metrics.

- Fixed an issue where increases to minimum wage would increase poverty.

- Fixed an issue where the election page would show the wrong popular vote, if the player participated in the presidential election. The value would become incorrect after loading the game.

- Fixed an issue where need-based preschool legislation would create committee hearing testimony stating that the impact was 0, even though it should not have been 0.

- Likely fixed an issue where a vice-president protégé would have 'none' listed as their career in the protégé menu.

- Reduced the likelihood of state budget items having negative values.

- Reduced the likelihood of city budget items having negative values.

- Reduced the likelihood of federal budget items having negative values.

- Fixed an issue where clicking the Balance Budget button could cause some budget items to become negative. Now, in instances where the budget deficit is too large, the Balance Budget button may not be able to completely balance the budget.

- Fixed an issue where balancing the budget could produce a NaN value if there was a surplus, and if certain budget values were set to 0.

Version 0.159
Version 0.159 Fixes -Fixed an issue where saving would not work if the player resigned from office after creating legislation. -Fixed an issue where the election simulator would not work correctly when using a character preset. -Fixed an issue where the election simulator could display the wrong party color for a candidate when loading a character preset. -Fixed an issue where some minimum wage legislation would display the wrong number of decimal places.

Version 0.172
0.172 Additions: - Added new election mechanics. There are now more factors that influence election results. These election factors can be adjusted in the advanced options. - Added an option to endorse candidates during primary and general elections. - Added an option to campaign with any endorsed candidate (rallies and fundraisers), if the endorsed candidate has lower political points than your character. - Added an option to do limited marketing for any endorsed candidate. - Events with endorsed candidates will increase their likelihood of winning their election. - Marketing for endorsed candidates will increase their likelihood of winning their election. - Added an option to campaign with endorsed candidates even when your character is not running for election (for instance during a midterm election while your character is president). - It is now possible to skip appropriation bills (as president) without receiving a pop-up forcing a vote on the legislation. - Added a search function to the game. The search button can be found at the top of the screen, next to the other icons. Currently it only searches active politicians for a match. This might be improved in the future. - Adjusted save/load process (for campaign saves and advanced option presets) so that file sizes are smaller. - Added a treasury option to the advanced options so that it is now possible to change the school, city, state, and national treasury values at any time. - Added campaign funds to the profile tab, so that the player can see their campaign funds at any time (and not just during campaigns). - Added a button to "Skip Time" in the Office -> Summary Menu. This allows you to skip multiple turns at once, if you do not hold a political office, and are not participating in a campaign. - It is now possible to skip appropriation bills (as president) without receiving a pop-up forcing a vote on the legislation. - Added a search function to the game. The search button can be found at the top of the screen, next to the other icons. Currently it only searches active politicians for a match. This might be improved in the future. - Adjusted save/load process (for campaign saves and advanced option presets) so that file sizes are smaller. - Added a treasury option to the advanced options so that it is now possible to change the school, city, state, and national treasury values at any time. - Added campaign funds to the profile tab, so that the player can see their campaign funds at any time (and not just during campaigns). - Added a button to "Skip Time" in the Office -> Summary Menu. This allows you to skip multiple turns at once, if you do not hold a political office, and are not participating in a campaign. - Added new policy positions to the marketing menu. - Added new policy positions to the policy polls. - Added an analysis / advice button to the campaign overview menu that gives a simple analysis of the election and some advice about how to win. - Added new marketing types (for experience and traits). This isn’t fancy, but it is an additional method for influencing voter enthusiasm (which is useful if you can’t attack an opponent’s policies because they are too similar to yours). - Added an option to view politician details from the election results page (specifically the other elections tab). - Added an option to require player elections to have opponents. By default this is turned off. It can be turned on in the advanced options, under the Election -> General tab.

Fixes: - Fixed an issue where per capita income would decrease for no reason. Not all members of the labor force would be counted in the per capita income calculations, causing the per capita income value to be lower than it should have been. This in turn would cause the economy to get worse, which resulted in a cycle of the economy continuing to get worse. - Fixed an issue with campaign marketing where policy support would sometimes decrease if it was already at the 10% maximum (or if the default support added to the modified support was more than 100%). - Fixed an issue where a candidate might run against themselves in a primary (this may have been limited to senate primaries). - Fixed an issue where the number of criminals in a city could be absurdly large if the player moved to a new city. This would happen if jail length value had been decreased to a very low number. Now, the jail length value is set back to default if the player moves, preventing the problem. - Fixed an issue where vetoes would sometimes not be overturned by a 2/3 majority at the city and state levels. - Fixed an issue where independent voters might not be counted correctly (or may not vote correctly) in districts with Open primaries. - Fixed an issue where 100% of candidates would have mixed ancestry if moving to a new state/county, after loading. - Fixed an issue where custom election candidates were not reset at the end of the election, causing a situation where they would run again in the next election. This could cause an incumbent to run against themselves in the election. - Fixed an issue where TANF, SNAP, and WIC laws might be denied a hearing when they should have been granted a hearing. - Fixed various other issues.

October 2021 - December 2021

 * Beta 0.176 - Beta 0.2

Version 0.2
ADDITIONS

- Added an election night menu that displays all election results in “real time”. The menu includes interactive maps that display results at the state level and at the county level (for applicable election types). The speed that results come in can be increased, decreased, or paused. There is also a button to skip to the end of election night. In the options menu, you can select if the election night menu pops up automatically, never pops up, or creates a prompt. If you select for it to never pop up, it will appear as an item in your schedule.

- Added independent candidates to elections. (This can be turned off in the advanced options, under the Politicians tab).

- Added an option to play as an independent candidate. (NOTE – winning an election as an independent is very unlikely, but you can always adjust the election difficulty to increase the chances of winning).

- Added an option for your character to get married and have children. This can be found in the profile tab, under the Family sub-tab. When the children turn 18 years old, they will be added to your list of protégés.

- Added governors and governor elections for every state (previously it was limited to the player’s home state).

- Added the possibility that governors will run for president, or be selected as a running mate.

- Added an option for the player to select a governor as a running mate.

- Added independent pollsters. They can be found in the election tab, under Polls. Currently, independent polls are limited to senate, governor, and president elections. They can be turned off from the Polls menu in order to slightly speed up the time between each turn.

- Added a dark mode option/style (which makes the User interface darker). It can be turned on or off in the Options menu.

- Added a Favorites tab to the election page and the election night menu. This allows you to easily look at the elections of protégés, endorsed politicians, and favorited politicians. There are several sorting options that allow you to narrow down the list of displayed elections even further.

- Added an option to endorse multiple candidates at the same time, based on various parameters (including political party and policy agreement).

- Added an option to select "None" as your protege's next election.

IMPROVEMENTS

- Improved the politician summary pages. House and Senate summary pages now have interactive maps that let you quickly look at politicians from a specific state, instead of going through a long list of every politician.

- Improved the election results tab; included interactive maps where applicable.

- Adjusted county demographics so that they are more accurate. (Thanks to Somberg, js29095 (Dolor Mortis), RobbRouth, and Ian Reid for helping compile updated party demographics for every county).

- Adjusted governor elections so that current politicians from both parties will run for an open seat, if the state is competitive. Previously, only current politicians from the state’s majority party would run in the election.

- Adjusted senate elections so that it is more likely for minority party politicians to run in semi-competitive states. In this instance, semi-competitive refers to states where the difference between party demographics is less than or equal to 5%.

- Adjusted the custom election menu so it is now possible to add more than two candidates to each party primary. (There is still a limit of 3 candidates max in player elections).

- Adjusted term lengths and election years so that they are accurate for each specific state.

FIXES

- Fixed an issue where randomizing a politician during customization would randomize your character’s policies instead of the politician’s policies.

- Fixed an issue where the game would not progress, on week 1, if there was a surplus in the highway trust fund and road conditions were very good (under those circumstances, a missing variable prevented the game from progressing).

- Likely fixed an issue where some protégé policies would not match the player’s policies. This was specific to the “newer” policies added to the game.

- Fixed an issue where Medicaid Expansion would not be set to false at the state level when it was set to false at the federal level. This could cause problems when trying to make changes to the state Medicaid program.

- Fixed an issue with loading group presets that would allow a group preset to be loaded after week 6 during an election year. Week 6 is when the primary candidates are determined for elections. If the group is loaded after week 6, it could cause problems with the elections.

- Fixed an issue where the starting date on the house summary timeline graph would be incorrect if the player moved to a new city, or started playing as a protégé who lived in a different city.

- May have fixed an issue where a politician would create legislation to decrease the school property tax, but then vote against the legislation.

- Adjusted Arkansas congressional districts so that districts 3 and 4 have the correct counties. (If you have a saved game in Arkansas, the change could cause problems). If you encounter problems while playing an old Arkansas save file, you can play an older version of the game by right clicking on the game, selecting properties, and then selecting the Beta tab. In the beta tab there is a drop-down menu that will show a list of available betas.

- Added state senate district 35 to Arkansas state senate district (If you are playing a saved game in Arkansas, it is possible it could cause strange behavior).

- Fixed an issue where the wrong candidate would sometimes be displayed (if they had the same name as the correct candidate).

- Various other fixes.

January 2022 - February 2022

 * Beta 0.2

Version 0.211
ADDITIONS - Clicking the title of a poll will bring up a Details menu for all polls with the same title, showing weekly averages and a timeline graph of weekly averages.

- Poll results can be viewed from the election page and the election night menu, by clicking on the info icon for the election and then clicking the “View Poll Results” button.

- Added an option to add custom pollsters to the game. This can be found in the advanced options -> election tab -> polls.

- Added an option to edit current pollsters in the game.

- Added an option to save and load pollster presets. You can either replace all of the current pollsters with a preset or add preset pollsters to the current list of pollsters (this allows for making multiple presets and adding multiple presets to the same game).

- Added 4 new options to the Endorse Multiple menu: Protégés Only, Favorites Only, Minimum Policy Agreement Percentage, and Mandatory Policies. If you set the Minimum Policy Agreement Percentage, the game will not endorse any candidate whose policy agreement percentage is below that value. If you select any Mandatory Policies, the game will not endorse any candidate who does not share your position regarding those policies.

- If the Independent Polls menu is limited to showing a specific election (such as the Senate General Election in Michigan), it will display weekly averages and an average timeline graph for the specific election (essentially it shows everything that the Poll Details page shows without having to click on the Poll title).

- Added the “Add to Favorites” button to the details menu for politicians.

- Added party demographic percentages to the Politician Summary Pages (Governors, U.S. House, and U.S. Senate). These are the pages that show a map, and let you select a state to look at the politicians in that state.

- Your protégés will now change political parties if you change political parties – but only if they do not currently hold a political office and they are not currently part of an election campaign.

FIXES

- Fixed an issue with the multiple endorsements menu that would not allow you to endorse multiple U.S. House or U.S. Senate candidates if it was not an election year for state senate.

- Likely fixed an issue where withdrawing from multiple elections in a single year would cause duplicate candidates in those elections. For example, if you withdrew from a House election and then withdrew from a Senate election, the candidates from the senate election would run in both the house and senate elections, creating a possibility where the same candidate would win two elections and hold two political positions. This could also fix an issue where the game might freeze at the election screen, if a senate candidate was simultaneously running in a house election.

- Fixed an issue where you could not unselect an option in the Endorse Multiple menu.

- Fixed an issue where the election night map might not appear if you were looking at the politician summary page when clicking the next turn button.

- Fixed an issue where current politicians would not run for governor elections.

- Fixed an issue where party gender ratios would not save in the advanced option presets.

- Fixed an issue that prevented presidential national polls from being created.

- Likely fixed an issue where state-specific pollsters would not create polls.

- Likely fixed an issue that caused the game to freeze on week 19 under specific circumstances. Specifically, if a player used the advanced options to change the presidential primary election weeks or the presidential primary delegates, it could have produce results that caused an error.

- May have fixed several issues that caused duplicate candidates/politicians in specific circumstances.

April 2022 - June 2022

 * Beta 0.22 - 0.225

Version 0.225
ADDITIONS

-Added an option to conditionally endorse candidates. For example, you can tell a candidate that you will endorse them if they change their minimum wage position to match your minimum wage position. If they accept your condition, their minimum wage position will automatically change to your position once you endorse them. This can be done in several ways: you can set default conditions – every candidate will have an “Endorse (Conditions)” button – if it is green it means they accept your default conditions; if it is red, they don’t. If you click a green button, it will endorse them and they will adjust their policy positions accordingly. If you click a red button, it will bring up a menu where you can “negotiate” conditions specifically for that candidate (without changing your default conditions). There is also an option in the Endorse Multiple menu to only endorse candidates who accept your default conditions. -If you threaten to run a primary challenger against a candidate (part of the conditional endorsement negotiation process), and they still reject your conditional endorsement, you will be prompted about whether you actually want to run one of your protégés against the candidate in the primary. -Added NPC Campaign Influence to the game. Voter policy opinions will change each election based on the policy positions of candidates in their district. Essentially, politicians change the policy opinions of some voters through their campaign efforts. This already happens in player elections, but now it also happens in elections that do not involve the player. The purpose of this addition is so that voter policy positions will change over time, making the game slightly more interesting. There is also a strategic aspect - the more proteges you run in a state, the more voters in that state will move towards your policies (assuming your proteges have the same policies as you). This option is on by default and is called Dynamic Policies. It can be turned off in the advanced options menu under the politicians tab or under the elections -> general tab. It can also be turned off when starting a new game, in the menu where you enter the city name. -Added advanced options to change various dynamic policy variables. -Added a “Policy Support History” button to the laws tab in the Metrics menu. It displays how policy support has changed compared to the initial policy support value and the previous policy support value. -Added a relationships mechanic that will allow you to gain relationship points with other politicians for things such as endorsements and attending rallies/fundraisers. Other events are planned that will add more ways to increase relationships. In future updates, it will be possible to use relationships to influence politicians. -When selecting a new protégé, it is now possible to select “None” as their district; this is essentially creating a protégé without assigning them to an election. You can also select "None" as a protégés next election, if you want them to sit out several elections. -Added an option to select “President” as a protégés next election. -Added Protégé Leadership Opportunities – on week 52, if any of your protégés have won an election in either state house, state senate, U.S. house, or U.S. senate, an event will appear in your schedule allowing you to select which protégés you want to run for party leadership positions (at the beginning of the next year). -Added an ‘Approval’ tab to the Rankings tab in the presidential politician menu. It shows an approval rating timeline chart for every president. There is a separate chart for each president, not a single chart with all presidents. -Added a “Presidential Approval” poll to the Polls tab in the Election Menu. This “poll” is updated every 10 weeks and simply records the president’s approval rating at that time. Currently presidential approval is unlikely to change as there are no events or metrics that currently influence approval; that will be added later. -Added a current news counter in parentheses as part of the News tab – so if there is any news for the week, it will show the number of news stories in parentheses – News (4). -Added (#) to Challenge tab to indicate how many challenges there are. -Added 1 new mouth type, 2 jaw types, and 2 hair types (1 male).

FIXES

-Fixed an issue with election page county maps where senate and governor maps could show incorrect colors in states with non-partisan primaries – if both candidates in the general election belonged to the same political party. -Fixed an issue where the election calculations were using the wrong variables for middle income and upper income tax positions – creating an incorrect score for politicians. -Fixed an issue where endorsed gubernatorial candidates would still be endorsed even after the election had ended. -Fixed an issue where protégés would retire at the age of 70 even if the minimum retirement age was set above 70. -Fixed an issue where presidential candidates would withdraw before the primaries, even if there was only one other presidential candidate. There now has to be at least 6 candidates to cause candidates to withdraw before the primaries. -Likely fixed an issue where the All Governors automated marketing campaign would remain in the automated marketing list even after the election had ended. -Fixed an issue in dictator mode that froze the game at the “Updating Metrics” screen when clicking next turn on week 52. -May have fixed an issue where duplicate candidates would appear in certain elections (if those elections were in one of the player’s districts). -Fixed an issue where player elections would not appear in the Favorites tab of the Election Night Menu or the Election Page Menu. -Likely fixed an issue where the game would not save if the chair or vice-chair variable for a caucus was missing. (I don’t know why the variable might go missing, but if it does, it should no longer cause a problem with saving). -Likely fixed an issue where the game would not create senate/governor polls if there were only two candidates and one of them was an independent. -Fixed an issue where a candidate’s name would not be displayed correctly during presidential primary election nights, if the candidate had a middle initial. -Likely fixed an issue where the player would run against an incumbent even if the game said that the incumbent was not going to seek reelection. This occurred only if the player applied for the position on week 6. -Fixed an issue where the wrong candidates would appear in the player’s election night results if the player applied for the position on week 6. -May have fixed an issue where policy support goes above 100% (or below 0%). It does not actually “fix” the issue; it simple resets the support value to 100% (or 0%) if the value goes above 100% (or below 0%). This fix is only applied at the end/beginning of the year. -Likely fixed an issue with custom elections where only two custom candidates (from each party) would be added to the list of candidates who can be endorsed. -Fixed an issue where the portraits of custom republican candidates would not show up in the presidential primary election page. -May have fixed an issue where numbers would display as NaN (which could have also created a situation where the game would freeze when clicking the next turn button). This could occur during election campaigns if specific policy support positions were 0 (0% of voters supported a specific policy).

ADJUSTMENTS

-Adjusted approval rating so it is more realistic. Party ID has a bigger impact on approval rating, and approval rating is adjusted each year so that previous approval is not as significant compared to new approval (an event that happened 20 years ago does not have as much impact as an event that happened yesterday). Currently presidential approval is unlikely to change as there are no events or metrics that currently influence approval; that will be added later. -Adjusted the User Interface (specifically in the Office -> Summary tab). Some events have been converted into messages (so it is no longer necessary to create a pop-up to see the event information). Some messages now include a portrait (of the person to which the message refers – or the person who is the source of the message – such as your chief of staff telling you something about an upcoming election). All events related to a specific legislation are now grouped together. It may take a while to get used to the new layout. -Moved the Challenge tab next to the Actions tab in the Office -> Summary Menu. More challenges may be added in the future, and it seems like it would be more convenient to keep track of them next to the other tabs in the Office Summary Menu. -The approval ratings of presidential candidates is now adjusted to represent their national approval rating (rather than their state approval rating – which could have given them an unfair and unrealistic advantage). This does not apply to the president, vice-president, or player. -Previously, 50% of support for a policy became permanent after an election. If you increased support by 10% (the max), 5% would become permanent. This value has been changed from 50% to 90%. So, now if you increase support by 10%, 9% will become permanent. This means that, conceptually, within 10 years (5 house elections), you could change support by 45% (previously it was 25%). But, it is unlikely that support would actually change that much.

Version 0.226
FIXES

-Likely fixed an issue where the game could freeze if playing a game saved prior to version 0.225. Specifically, this problem would occur if the old save file included character children under the age of 18. The load process would not update these characters with a new variable. When these characters turned 18 and became proteges, they would still be missing the variable, which would cause the game to freeze if the protégé participated in an election. -Fixed a misspelled variable, which could have caused issues when a protégé attempted to retire as a city council member.

Version 0.227
FIXES

-Fixed an issue where the game could freeze if playing a game saved prior to version 0.225. Specifically, this problem would occur if the old save file included an independent candidate in the player's election (prior to the primaries). The load process would not update these characters with a new variable, causing the game to freeze when it attempted to access the missing variable.

Version 0.228
FIXES

-Fixed an issue where presidential running mates, and potential running mates, would not be updated with a new variable if loading a game saved before version 0.225. This could cause the game to freeze if the game attempted to access the missing variables.

September 2022 - October 2022

 * Beta 0.23

Version 0.235
ADDITIONS

-Summary of main additions: politician endorsements during presidential primaries, option to select politicians as cabinet members, option to gain endorsements by promising a cabinet position to any politician who agrees to endorse you (during presidential primaries), death/retirement of politicians, option for governors (including the player) to fill any vacancies due to death/retirement, option to run as an independent after losing a party primary (does not apply to presidential elections). -Added simple inauguration events – text based events. -Pressing F11 now toggles full screen mode. -It is now possible to select current politicians and protégés for cabinet positions. -Adjusted the process for selecting cabinet members so that it now begins immediately after winning an election. They can be selected any time between week 46 and week 52. -If a cabinet member is not reappointed after an election, there is a chance that they will run for political office in a future election. -If the player, as a member of the executive branch, does not run for reelection, or loses their reelection, they will be prompted about whether they want their cabinet members to become protégés at the end of their term. If they say yes, all cabinet members will become protégés. If they say no, some cabinet members may choose to run for political office. -Added career histories for cabinet members, so they are no longer completely generic applicants. Their career history influences their experience level. -It is now possible for politicians to die (or retire) while in office (in the middle of a term). If this happens, the governor of their state will select a replacement. It is possible that the governor will select the player as the replacement. -If the player is a governor (or their protégé is a governor), the player will have the opportunity to fill any vacancies that occur in their state. -The death rate for politicians can be changed in the advanced options menu –> politicians tab. It is also possible to turn off politician deaths. -If the president-elect or vice-president-elect are a senator or representative at the time they win their election, the governor of their state will select a replacement to fill the vacant seat. -When a vacancy is filled, it will trigger a special election, which will either happen at the beginning or end of the year. There is no campaign process. There will be a primary and three weeks later there will be a general election. The winner immediately fills the seat. -Politician endorsements during presidential primaries can influence the outcome of the primaries. If a politician from a state endorses a candidate, that candidate will receive more votes during that state's primary. -If the player is running for president, the player can enter negotiates with politicians in an attempt to win their endorsement. The player can promise a cabinet position in exchange for the endorsement. Various conditions determine whether a politician is willing to negotiate. If the player is unlikely to win, or is too dissimilar from the politician, the politician will be unwilling to endorse the player under any conditions, and thus will not appear in the player's list of endorsement opportunities. The player can see endorsement opportunities by going to the Campaign -> Endorse -> Endorsers tab. -The player is more likely to be endorsed during presidential primaries if the player has set election difficulty to easy or very easy. -Added advanced options to set whether NPC endorsements are allowed, and to adjust various endorsement mechanics, such as frequency and impact of endorsements. These can be found in the advanced options, under the elections -> general tab. -When presidential candidates withdraw from the campaign, there is a chance that they will endorse one of the remaining candidates, which may increase the number of votes that candidate receives in upcoming primaries. If the withdrawn candidate does not have any delegates, they will only increase voter support in their home state. If they did have delegates, they will increase voter support for the endorsed candidate in all states, relative to the number of delegates they earned. -Added “View Politician Details” button to the presidential general election page. It is part of the table that shows electoral votes by state. -Added one beard type. -If you retire and play as one of your character’s children, your new character’s spouse (if they have one) will become a protégé. -Presidents continue to exist after leaving office, but currently do not have any impact on the game. -If you run for president, all of your proteges will automatically endorse you (if they are a governor or a member of congress (house and senate)). -If you endorse a presidential candidate (during the primaries), your proteges will automatically endorse the same candidate, increasing your relationship with the candidate. -If the player withdraws from a presidential primary, the player will be prompted about endorsing one of the remaining candidates. -Added an option for the player to run as an independent if they lose their party’s primary. This only occurs if the option to allow third parties is set to true. (This does not apply for presidential elections). -Updated saving/loading advanced option presets so that they now save/load some additional variables: allow-third parties, dynamic policy rates, maximum and minimum policy ranges, conversion impact ratios, persistent politician rates, politician death rates, and minimum retirement age. If you want any of your current/old presets to include these variables, you will want to load the preset, adjust these variables, and then save the preset again (maybe with a new save-name, in case something goes wrong).

FIXES

-Fixed an issue where pop-up messages would have the same message if multiple pop-ups occurred at the same time. -May have fixed an issue where duplicate/clone candidates could appear in elections. -Fixed an issue where Alaska would not update correctly when loading advanced option presets. -Fixed an issue where governor elections could have unrealistic results. -May have fixed an issue where the portraits of custom presidential candidates would not appear. -Likely fixed an issue where the player would start the presidential primary campaign with delegates, if they had run in a previous presidential election campaign. -Fixed an issue where some candidates would have duplicate traits. -Fixed an issue where proteges used as primary challenger threats during conditional endorsements (against senate candidates in a different state) could become the senator of the protégé’s home state, rather than senator of the candidate’s state. This would create a condition where one state would have three senators while the other had one. -Fixed an issue where going from the presidential election tab to the senate election tab could cause the senate election menu to be blank (under certain circumstances). -Fixed an issue where newer policy positions were not included in the main “Effect on Public Opinion” section of the Campaign tab Overview Menu. -Fixed an issue where the effect of marketing for Single Payer Health Care did not appear in the “Effect on Public Opinion” sub-section for health policies. -Fixed an issue where city drug use was based on the national poverty rate instead of being based on the city poverty rate. -Likely fixed an issue where the below poverty rate for non-player states would not update relative to the national poverty rate. This could create a situation where the national poverty rate was 0%, but all of the states still had a poverty rate of around 12%. This could have caused issues when adjusting the advanced options, and it may have had other impacts on various metrics. If you notice anything abnormal about the poverty metrics after this update, please report it in the bug reports forum. -Fixed an issue where poll result timelines would display incorrectly if two candidates had the same last name. -Likely fixed an issue where independent polls would not take into account name recognition (for presidential primaries that involved the player). This could create results where the player did better in the poll than they did in the actual election results (if their name recognition in the state was less than 100%). There may be sudden jumps in a support for a candidate in certain polls – this generally occurs if one candidate starts campaigning in a state before the other candidates. -May have fixed an issue where the districts tab would show that a candidate was not running for reelection, even if they were running for reelection. -Fixed an issue where independent polls could be inaccurate for governor elections in the player’s home state – if the player customized the candidates after the election campaign had already begun.

ADJUSTMENTS

-It is now possible for republicans to be identified as fiscally liberal (rare). -Adjusted the calculations that determine how republicans are identified in terms of social ideology. It is now possible for them to be identified as socially liberal (rare). The adjustments do not change the policies that candidates support, they just change how republicans are categorized based on social ideology. -Adjusted the face algorithms so that NPC faces are more likely to look “realistic”. -Adjusted mouth calculations so it is less likely that a candidate’s mouth and nose will overlap. -Adjusted facial hair calculations so it is less likely that a candidate’s facial hair and mouth will overlap. -Update calculations for staff facial features so that they look more “realistic”. -Adjusted presidential withdrawals. Previously, no one would withdraw on week 9. Now, there is a chance that some candidates could withdraw. This may make elections more interesting in that, if a candidate withdraws on week 9, and they have delegates, they could give a significant advantage to whomever they endorse going into Super Tuesday. -Adjusted how NPCs select running mates during presidential elections. Policy agreement now plays a bigger role in the selection process. -Fundraising from volunteers now uses the player’s new approval rating (the more realistic one) rather than the previous approval rating. -Changed Louisiana so that it now has non-partisan primaries, as this more realistically represents its election system. -Changed democratic primaries in Hawaii so that they are now open primaries. (Republican primaries were already open primaries). -There are no longer pop-ups after winning the presidential nomination for your party. Instead, there will be messages and events listed in the Office Schedule. These messages will still give away the fact that you won the nomination (before you have a chance to watch the primary results), but if you are in the campaign menu when you click the next turn, you should have a chance to watch the primary results from there before seeing the winner. -Removed news related to appropriation bills from the national news menu – it created clutter and is not particularly news worthy. News about appropriation bills can still be found in the Office -> Legislation -> News section. -Adjusted various text inputs so that they no longer use auto-fill. -Adjusted the amendment process so that if the vote is tied, the amendment does not become part of the legislation. -Made a slight adjustment to the presidential primary withdrawal process so that withdrawal is no longer based solely on delegate count. It now also takes into account approval rating and endorsements. This fixes an issue where a candidate with 0 delegates and many endorsements would withdraw before a candidate with 0 delegates and no endorsements. -Adjusted the presidential primary withdrawal system: it is now possible for more than one candidate to withdraw per week; there is more variability in the max number of candidates who will remain in the race at specific week numbers (for example, previously there was a limit of 5 candidates in the race after week 6, now it can range from between 3 and 7 candidates). -Updated independent polls so they take into account the election difficulty when calculating results for presidential primaries.

Beta 0.237
General Additions/Fixes:

-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.,br> -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 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. -Added two new facial hair types to the game.

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 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.

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.

January- April 2023
Beta 0.24

Version 0.249
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.