Money, Money, Money

 What is more thematic in a political setting than a big pile of money! Adding money donations was an idea that I had been kicking around for quite a while, but never included. It adds a layer of complexity so I have to be careful that it really does solve issues to justify its existence.

Donations address the following:

• 
  Action Paralysis
  Players have immediate short-term goals now. Don't know where to go? Why not go for a pile of money?
  
• Fun Factor
  It is fun collecting things!
  
•  Thematic
  Part of running a modern election campaign is raising large sums of money. So it does feel good on some level that it is a necessary factor.
  
•  Balancing
  I found it difficult to convert some of the character abilities to persistent or always in effect abilities. Once they were tied to money it became easy to implement. 
• Attack Ads
  Attack Ads always felt a little like a ping-pong ball. You put in the effort to win a large state like California only to have it stolen by two lucky rolls by other players at the end of the game. I do not want to completely remove this, but it needed retooling. With the new change it takes more effort to unseat someone.
  
  

Attack Ads re-work

The game is fun when you can flip states. Attack Ads provides the mechanic to do this. It also helps the game scale. If there were no way to flip states the board would soon fill up and you would run out of areas to play in. 

    Old Attacks Ads Rules:

• The odds to get into the state are the same odds to pull them out.
• If you get a 6 you can replace instead of just remove the piece with your own. 

    New Attack Ads Rules:

• The odds to get into the state are the same odds to pull them out. (unchanged)
• Rolling a "magic" 6 no longer automatically does anything special. 
• You must pay a certain amount of money before rolling to upgrade the Attack Ad from a remove only to a possible replace. Now if you get the necessary roll you can replace instead of just removing. 
• For example: Play 4 money and now a 4,5,or 6 could replace them with your token instead of just removing.
  
  

Bonus for being first!

The top of the board started to get under-used and under-appreciated in recent playtests. I needed to come up with a way to incentivize it even more. So now the first player to go there can do so at no cast. However, subsequent players must now play a fee. This rewards players for choosing it first, but it does not completely prevent others from going there as well.

 

 Upgraded Character Abilities

Each character now has two abilities! The default ability is free and can be used whenever the specific condition is met. Given that the player has enough money they can now use a even better upgraded version of that same ability! This should tug at your money pool. 

Here is an example:

The regular ability only allows the player to roll a bonus +1 in Blue States without any other delegates present. This focuses the player to go into empty Blue States. However, each time they spend 2 money they can use this ability in a Blue State even with Delegates in it. Time to fly into the action!

See you around the table! Thanks for reading!