President Forever results thread...

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I suck at this game.  I mean, I really suck at this game.  I've gone through every strategy in the book and I always end up losing badly whether the momentum is on my side or not.  Even when I'm leading in the polls on the last day, I lose.  The last game I played, however, came extremely close, with Idaho (!!!) deciding the election, and I only got there by playing as Richardson in the primary and purposely losing to Hillary by pressing the spacebar until it was over (a strategy which sometimes gives me an advantage at the start of the general election for some reason).  That said, I'm kind of proud at how close I came, so I decided to post the map anyway.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY)/Vice President Dick Cheney (R-WY) - 270 EVs
Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY)/Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) 268 EVs
(I forget what the popular vote was, but Rudy was leading me by about 5% or so.)

What really pisses me off is that Florida was consistently in my column until the last week, when it turned white.  I flooded it with footsoldiers and released all four of my ads up to the last day and still lost.  The fact that Giuliani found a level 6 scandal on me and I could only find two level 3 scandals on him is probably what did it.

This game hates me.

Also, whoever designed it clearly knows little about state trends.  How in the hell did I carry Arkansas and Arizona, but lose Pennsylvania and Oregon!?

Anyway, unless I come by a guide that can help me guarantee or almost guarantee a win for once, I probably won't come back to this game for a while.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

United States presidential election, 1992

Governor Bill Clinton (D-AR)/Senator Al Gore (D-TN) - 363 EVs (44.9%)
President George Bush (R-TX)/Vice President Dan Quayle (R-IN) - 175 EVs (39.9%)
Businessman Ross Perot (I-TX)/Former Vice Admiral James Stockdale (I-IL) - 0 EVs (15.2%)

I finally won!  The closest state was Minnesota.

I started out fairly ahead, and I kept my momentum up by, strangely, using the same strategy I've used in my last failed attempts.  This map makes no sense, but whatever.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

United States presidential election, 2004

Governor Howard Dean (D-VT)/Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) - 288 EVs (49.1%)
President George W. Bush (R-TX)/Vice President Dick Cheney (R-WY) - 250 EVs (50.9%)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Christie's pretty competitive in the general, I've found.  Not so much in the primary.

United States presidential election, 2012

Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ)/Governor Bob McDonnell (R-VA) - 395 EVs (55.2%)
President Barack Obama (D-IL)/Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE) - 143 EVs (44.8%)

Started out even, spent all my final resources on Oregon, California, New Jersey and Delaware.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

2012

Former Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR)/Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) - 401 EVs (54.5%)
President Barack Obama (D-IL)/Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE) - 137 EVs (45.5%)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

2008

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL)/General Wesley Clark (D-AR) - 317 EVs (54.9%)
Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO)/Former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) - 221 EVs (45.1%)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Yeah.  Whoever makes these games sure has a wild imagination.

1980

Former Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA)/Governor Bob Graham (D-FL) - 442 EVs (55.7%)
Governor Ronald Reagan (R-CA)/Congressman George Bush (R-TX) - 96 EVs (44.3%)

This one was almost too easy.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

2012

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN)/Governor Susana Martinez (R-NM) - 482 (60.5%)
President Barack Obama (D-IL)/Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE) - 56 (39.5%)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Yeah, he is, but I thought winning as Bachmann would be difficult on its own.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I started looking around for different scenarios, and I came upon a blog that has plenty of them: mayoral, senatorial, gubernatorial... pretty much everything.  So I downloaded a Texas 2014 gubernatorial scenario.  I played on easy mode without the primary, and I led Perry throughout most of the game.  Somehow, Perry "won" because he had more "electoral votes" than me.  Don't know how the hell that works, but I ended up winning the popular vote at the end.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Played it again, this time with the primary.  I thought Parker was certain to get the nomination thanks to his ten-point lead in the polls, but a series of concessions and horse-trading at the convention allowed me to clinch victory.  This time, I had a huge advantage over Perry from the start, who had come out of a fairly easy, yet brutal, Republican primary.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I played on Medium as Tommy Lee Jones and lost in the primary (even though I was leading by a lot for most of the game then), but I was able to beat Perry/Straus by a very good margin with Kirk/Castro.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

...I don't know what happened, but somehow I ended up running against every single Republican candidate for Governor of PA.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Won with a character I created in the TX 2014 gubernatorial scenario.  I'll admit I tried skewing the game a bit with Wendy Davis because she's my first customized player, but it was a tough race even on easy mode.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I wanted to see what the map would look like if I ran the most conservative Democratic ticket against the most liberal Republican ticket.  Here's what happened.

2016

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV)/Fmr. Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) - 322 EVs (54.8%)
Fmr. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA)/Fmr. Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) - 216 EVs (45.4%)

I thought Manchin would sweep the South and Brown would sweep the North, but it isn't too different from a 1992/96 map.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Does anybody know how to create a Texas scenario for the 2016 version?

You mean 2014?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Does anybody know how to create a Texas scenario for the 2016 version?

You mean 2014?

Yes, but I have President Forever 2016

You don't have to create a brand new scenario.  You can find the Texas scenario here.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Does anybody know how to create a Texas scenario for the 2016 version?

You mean 2014?

Yes, but I have President Forever 2016

You don't have to create a brand new scenario.  You can find the Texas scenario here.

No, you don't understand. I can only play using the 2016 scenarios, not 2008. The programs using President Forever 2008 cannot be used on President Forever 2016.

Oh, I see what you mean.  Unfortunately, I don't know if or how you can play these scenarios on your version.  Have you tried contacting 270soft about this?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

1988

Evangelist Pat Robertson (R-VA)/Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) - 323 (49.9%)
Governor Michael Dukakis (D-MA)/Senator Al Gore (D-TN) - 215 (41.2%)
Fmr. Congressman Ron Paul (L-TX)/??? - 0 (5%)
Activist Lenora Fulani (New Alliance-NY)/??? - 0 (3.9%)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I've downloaded the scenarios for New York City, how do I get them to run? Do I add them to a game?

It should already be in your scenarios folder.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

1948

Governor Earl Warren (R-CA)/Fmr. Governor Harold Stassen (R-MN) - 380 EVs (50.1%)
President Harry Truman (D-MO)/Senator Alben Barkley (D-KY) - 113 EVs (39.6%)
Governor Strom Thurmond (DX-SC)/Senator Burton Wheeler (DX-MT) - 38 EVs (8%)
Fmr. Vice President Henry Wallace (P-IA)/Thomas O'Brien (P) - 0 EVs (2.3%)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

2008

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY)/Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) - 464 EVs (60%)
Senator John McCain (R-AZ)/Vice President Dick Cheney (R-WY) - 74 EVs (36.7)
Mary Ruwart (Libertarian) - 0 EVs (.3%)
Chuck Baldwin (Constitution) - 0 EVs (3%)

Question for whoever has the 2012 version:
Do you find it hard to ever keep the General Election close, especially when you sim to the convention? Even on Hard, I find it incredibly difficult to lose.

I played Christie last night on that scenario and led Obama by a huge margin at the beginning of the game, but I was headed for a landslide defeat by the time the general election started.