Currently corruption only has negative effects in the game. I don’t think that’s very realistic nor interesting. Corruption may be unwanted by most people, but the fact that it exists in every country (and is rampant in 80% of countries) it means it is beneficial for a large enough minority. Just look at Italy. Maybe the country isn’t so rich in spite of corruption but because of it?
Some sources speak of its supposed merits:
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Should this be dependent on how low-high democracy is in game? It’d be good to see that sim value be fleshed out as well.
Corruption could give you higher benefits when there’s lower democracy, but also feed into itself more (and vice-versa).
Quietly make big profit comrade.
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I agree. I too think what Corruption effects should be dependent on the context. Just like in real life - if the elected leader of a 1st world country diminishes Press Freedom or increases Corruption the people will rise against him and he simply won’t be in charge anymore. If the leader of an ex Soviet state, still in transition diminishes Press Freedom or increases Corruption this will only add to their power.
So it sounds a bit like “the more you have the more you need” and “the less you have the less you need” at the same time, so it should be balanced out. So even for a despotic leader, Corruption should still either:
- Pose problems i.e. increasing it is not so easy
- Lead to problems i.e. increasing it is just as easy but it still has some downsides
I guess my personal bias is that I was born, raised and reside in an ex Soviet satellite state and I feel like the game is biased towards 1st world countries, where things like corruption and freedom are taken for granted. It’s not like that for 80% of the world.
Also @Chantern15 makes a good point about the Democracy value. Personally I can’t say if Democracy itself needs more attention, but I do think there should be some general Power value. As in how easy it is for the leader to pass new policies. As in a leader who has managed to destroy all opposition, who has the people under his thumb will not be liked, for sure. But he will be feared, or at least have access to all the political and economical “levers” and thus more Power. It comes at a cost, of course, and it doesn’t last forever (not in even in ex Soviet satellite states 
) but it is a factor.
It’s a bit naïve to think that “just do what makes the people happy, coz a happy people is an obedient people”. Nope. If that were the case every country in the world would be a 1st world country.
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I think Cliff restricts himself to Western Liberal democracies because he understands them best, as he said in the past, but maybe the upcoming dlcs will change that.
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I think so too. Which is reasonable, as he has stated in one of the FAQs he is a UK-based developer and is always open to feedback.
I just read a little about the Africa expansion and I think all of my suggestions lead to that. There Democracy is a stat, there is also Stability and you have a Political Capital bonus from Corruption, which is pretty close to what we were discussing.
So maybe that was the goal all along. To fine-tune Democracy 4 for Western Europe and if there is ever an Africa expansion everything we suggested will be reflected there. It might be that the models are too different, hence the different games?
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Some elements of D3 Africa made it into D4, so there’s no reason why this could not happen.
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Happy to hear that, I hope you are right my friend 
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