After a bit more faffing about, including some stress testing, there are some balancing tweaks and changes I’d recommend. Relevant policies are in bold for ease. Where necessary, I’ve added justifications for the change.
FOREIGN POLICY
The Nuclear Weapons prerequisite is no longer necessary with a Nuclear Weapons policy now included.
Foreign Aid should reduce Global CO2 Emissions, and Immigration Demand, while increase Global Economy. This accounts for decarbonisation programmes for developing nations, the improved quality of life abroad reducing immigration push factors, and investments abroad boosting foreign economies.
WELFARE
UBI should be an opposite to Unemployment Benefit. While the two could technically exist simultaneously, realistically UBI would replace employment based benefits. UBI should also reduce Private Pensions at the same rate as State Pensions do, since people would have less need for saving to a pension pot.
ECONOMY
Worker Dividends at the minimum setting seems overpowered. Requiring all businesses to have some level of employee-owned shares doesn’t strike me as quite the overhaul the current impacts suggest.
The effect of Unemployment on Productivity seems backwards. Shouldn’t lower unemployment increase productivity, since there are more people in work? At the extreme, the current set-up would suggest a nation would achieve maximum productivity when everyone is unemployed!
Sunday Trading Laws should reduce Working Week rather than GDP directly. For sure, GDP would be reduced, but as a result of shops being open for one fewer days.
Strikes should be dependent on Trade Unionist happiness as well as percentage. “0-(Trade Unionist*TradeUnionist_perc)” works well. Having lots of TU members won’t lead to strikes if they’re all happy as Larry.
TAX
Financial Transaction Tax should be negatively influenced by Limit Automated Trading.
Wealth Tax should have a small increase on GDP to match the research that it encourages wealthy to spend and invest rather than save.
Income Tax should be negatively impacted by Unemployment, and positively influenced by Population and Wages.
The Mortgage Tax Relief should have an initially positive effect for Youth happiness to account for first-time buyer/Help to buy schemes governments have. This would decrease for high values of the policy to simulate providing tax breaks for larger home owners annoying young people.
I wonder if voter groups’ happiness in general should correlate with their income. If a group sees their incomes rise, that should surely make them happier, no? This could vary for different groups (Capitalists, Poor, Middle, Wealthy perhaps influenced the most).
PUBLIC SERVICES
Food Price should increase Poverty. I know that Food Crisis already does, but a direct influence would better simulate the gradual increase in poverty rising food costs cause.
LAW & ORDER
With a Press Freedom policy, the General Media Censorship policy is now redundant, since no press freedom by default means there is a general media censoring. I’d move the effects of GMC to the very low end of Press Freedom. Also, I’ve trialed adding a Fake News effect to Press Freedom >0.9 (the logic being, maximum press freedom means no regulation for truth and more accurately maps the USA).
Very High Judicial Independence should mean the “Pick Judge” dilemma never comes up; since if the judiciary is completely independent, the player shouldn’t get to pick!
I managed to trigger the Alcohol Abuse Situation despite Alcohol consumption being 0. Go figure.
Maximum Gun Controls makes Farmers unhappy, since they can’t hunt/protect their farms from pests etc. Including a reduced effect for “Strict Controls” also fits nicely, as some rural non-farmer citizens may disapprove.
The effects of Prison Regime should be proportional to prison population. No prisoners = no benefits to Education etc.
TRANSPORT
Clean Fuel Subsidies drop as Electric Car Transition increases.
I can’t figure out why Oil Demand increases when Ban Low MPG Cars > 0.5. Also, Bus Usage should increase Oil Demand less as Electric Car Transition goes up.
I’m also going to do a separate thread for Nationalisation policies, as there’s a lot more there, and it’s more open to discussion.
