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 O.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.