Here are some house rules I was planning on implementing when I ran it. Since you've been thinking about the game longer than I have, maybe you know better ideas or think I shouldn't use these? Anyway, comments appreciated (and if it's because of one of my alterations that the game didn't work it wouldn't be fair to you!).
1. Population. There are 50 population chits which are distributed randomly to states. 1x15, 1x14, 1x13, 1x12, 1x11, 2x10, 3x9, 4x8, 5x7, 6x6, 7x5, 8x4, 10x3. Fundraising in 11-15 gives 2x, 7-10 gives 1.5x, 4-6 gives 1x, and 3 gives 0.5x.
2. Stances. There are 10 chits of each possible stance (ie, Red 6) which are drawn randomly for each state. It isn't rolled. This ensures a more divided country which makes for a more interesting battleground.
3. Home states. Each candidate starts in a different state (of population 9 or below). That state's stances are initially set to the candidate's stances, no matter what those stances are (though during the game they can change just like any other state's).
4. Regions.
There are 9 of them.
5. Debates. At the beginning of the 4th, 5th, and 6th months, there's a debate. Starting from the new first player, each candidate assigns a die to one of the issues (red, white, or blue), to negative advertising against another candidate, or to positive image advertising. Once each player has assigned 3 such dice, all of them are rolled; if a candidate has no dice in a category, they get a value of 2 automatically. Image dice can cancel any one negative die of equal or lesser value pointed towards you (so lets say I got a 5 on my image die and there's a 4 negative at me; both are removed). Negative dice can cancel any one issue die of equal or lesser value of the target's (so lets say, despite my image advertising, there's still a negative 3 pointing at me. It can cancel my white 3, but not my blue 4). Finally, remaining image dice (and automatic 2s) influence each state as if they were advertising (but a state can't move more than 1 on each issue, and if two candidates try to influence a state in both directions on an issue, neither works). Then play resumes as normal.
6. Ties. When it's time to elect, if a state is equidistant from two candidates, it entirely abstains, no matter how many votes it would've cast otherwise.
