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This part will delve into the (basic) process of creating a map - but first, we will go over issue scores.

Step 15: Issue Scores

Issue scores are a system in which states can be assigned stances on (typically) 5 key issues and topics of the election. They can be seen in the State Summary, and are generally a guide for how your answers effect each state during each question. When I started making my 1876 mod, the code 2 still has the Issue Scores of the original 1896 scenario, so let's first lay out the issue scores of the states.

Issues	Stance 1	Stance 2	Stance 3	Stance 4	Stance 5	Stance 6	Stance 7
Currency	Gold Standard	Gold Standard	Leans Gold	Moderate	Leans Silver	Free Silver	Free Silver
Tariffs	Strongly Supportive	Supportive	Slightly Supportive	Moderate	Slightly Opposed	Opposed	Strongly Opposed
Business	Very Conservative	Conservative	Leans Conservative	Moderate	Leans Liberal	Liberal	Very Liberal
Labor	Very Conservative	Conservative	Leans Conservative	Moderate	Leans Liberal	Liberal	Very Liberal
Temperance	Strongly Supportive	Supportive	Slightly Supportive	Moderate	Slightly Opposed	Opposed	Strongly Opposed

These are all the issues and their stances. The closer a state is to -1.0 in campaignTrail_temp.state_issue_score_json, the closer they are to stance 1. Likewise, the closer they are to 1, the closer they are to stance 7. Depending on your mod, you may keep most, some, or perhaps none of these issue scores. In Dan Bryan mods, Stance 1-3, which is closer to the negative scores, are for more conservative stances - while Stances 5-7, usually positive issue scores are for more liberal stances.

You'll also find 'weight' within the issue code. As you can imagine - weight determines how important an issue is. For example, in 1948, the southern states are all considered 'Segregationist' on the issue of Civil Rights. Alabama's score is -0.9, with a weight of 5. However, while Georgia's score is -0.85, the issue only has a weight of 2 there. This, mixed with Truman having a much better state multiplier in Georgia means that he does much better than Thurmond in Georgia compared to Alabama, and that focusing on Civil Rights will not cause Georgia to move away as much as Alabama (if the state wasn't already leaning heavily towards Thurmond by the start).

Candidates also have issue scores you'll need to define. It can be found under 'Issues' in Jet's TCT Mod Tool, and campaignTrail_temp.candidate_issue_score_json for manual modders. You'll wanna make sure these are accurate.

After that, I decided to table out my new issue scores. You can do more, or less if it works for your mod. Issue scores are important, so please - make good use of them!

Issues	Stance 1	Stance 2	Stance 3	Stance 4	Stance 5	Stance 6	Stance 7
Reconstruction	Radical Reconstruction	Supports	Slightly Supports	Moderate	Slightly Opposes	Opposes	Redeemer
Tariffs	Strongly Supportive	Supportive	Slightly Supportive	Moderate	Slightly Opposed	Opposed	Strongly Opposed
Business	Very Conservative	Conservative	Leans Conservative	Moderate	Leans Liberal	Liberal	Very Liberal
Civil War	Confederate	Confederate	Confederate	Border State	Union	Union	Union
Corruption	Strongly Opposed	Strongly Opposed	Opposed	Opposed	Slightly Opposes	Slightly Opposes	Indifferent

Optional: Custom Maps

There's two ways to make a custom map. I would highly, highly reccomend the function on Jet's Modding Tool. Some more complicated maps may require manual additions, but the method on the Modding Tool is automatic. Only reason I'm keeping this part is for documentation. Just use his map making tool.

The first step to creating a custom map is to obtain an SVG of the state and it's counties. I downloaded this SVG file from Wikimedia, which is where you can get all sorts of county maps. Just google "State county SVG" and you can probably find it with ease.

You'll then want to open it in... a text editor. Yes, that may sound odd, but you can open the svg file in a text editor. It's not a normal image file, as its designed for different web-based uses.

Make sure you have enough states for whatever divisions you'll be using - counties, states, etc. You can duplicate state code and add them manually if you need more.

If you're using less states - this is the tedious part (unless you're using Jet's Tool), you will have to remove all mentions of the non-existent states throughout your Code 2. It's not enough to remove it from "campaignTrail_temp.states_json", if the Code 2 is searching for a PK of a state not in the "campaignTrail_temp.states_json", it will throw an error out. It may take you a bit, but you only have to do it once.

Make sure you have enough states for whatever divisions you'll be using - counties, states, etc. You can duplicate state code and add them manually if you need more.

Once you have the rest of Code 2 set up, open up that SVG, grab this code, copy it, and put it into your Code 2. Locate the the r={} bracket, and then inside of it, fill in a template for each county like so.

If the map is too large or small, find this section in the code. You can shrink or enlarge the map. Larger numbers mean a smaller map. As of right now, I'm not 100% sure how to actually move the map around manually. You'll have to download Inkscape, edit the file, paste the new "d" codes in until it's to your liking. If there's something I am missing, I will edit this post to add any new information.