I’m doing these every two weeks, hope ya like em 
Hi Cliffski,
I’m a big fan of Democracy 3 - I think it’s a really great simulator and unbelievably addictive (you could really rival the Civ series for “Just One More Turn!”).
Having watched this blog, I suppose two things spring to mind - one is about the balance between realistic economics and not boring players to tears. I’m also an economic student (although only to a-level) and your economics modelling doesn’t make me scream “Oh god, it doesn’t work like that!”.
Having said that, is it particularly difficult to model a more dynamic population with floating age and tax takes depending on demographics? One problem with Democracy 3 is that once you’ve ‘balanced’ the budget, pretty much nothing can stop you steamrolling the game, whereas in reality we know that many events cause unexpected budget deficits and that government income and expenditure are never constant.
Secondly, have you considered methods of improving the climate elements of the game. In Democracy 3, it felt a little like you were doomed no matter what, with constantly rising temperatures eventually causing water shortages, precious metal shortages and a collapse of your entire country. This feels a little pessimistic and it would be nice to see some ‘counterbalances’ that actually help to curb and restore the environment over the long term.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the feedback. I agree that both the long term challenge of the game and the modelling of climate change can both be improved for Democracy 4. We have removed the automatic increase in temperature each year that happened in D3, so that the CO2 emissions are now the major factor in average temperature, which implies all other countries follow your lead (not likely, but better than assuming total failure :D).
D3 really only had one really bad event (stock market crash) that would upset things in the late game and cause you to have to re-adjust, whereas we hope to have more, and more importantly to have them much better calibrated and balanced in D4. Democracy 3 was never in Early Access and we didn’t have enough data to balance it as we will with the new game
This game already looks better than Democracy 3
By the way did you see my and others questions in main forum?