General suggestions

Hello, I’m new to the board. I purchased the game ad so far enjoyed it. I’m a long time fan of political simulator (supreme ruler, super power, many paradox games) and find Democracy 2 one of the most intriguing and well-thought, The policy system is very clever, and the number of options in amazing. Thre are some issues, too:

• i find investing in technology and education far too cheap and rewarding in the short time. Even countries that are considered poor (Zambesia) can develop from agricultural economies to hi-tech ones in a matter of few years, with ther GDP skyrocketing. According to me, the developement of new technology must be slower and must rely mostly on private companies and corporations, with free-market states getting an edge at the expense of economic regulation, facing the problems of a growing society (disparity between rich and poor, mostly)
• once the things are up and running, the game is far too easy. Past a certain point, your party membership ensure you victory even if you actively try to destroy the nation
• the political capital now is stored as a sort of currency. I feel that in real life the political power of a government to force decisions and implement reforms fluctuate overtime, as the electorate forget past achievements and the political situation changes. It would be nice to have events that dimish political capital, or even a system where unspent political capital erodes after a few turns.
• inflation should be an issue. Is a major social problem (here in Italy, truly a terrible thing :mrgreen: ) and influence the economy
• it would be nice, as far as dilemmas goes, to have some proposed by lobbies and pression groups. Like, “the union of small factory owners propose a revision of the strike right”. It would feel more real, and the pressure groups more vocal.
• minor parties could also be considered, via dilemmas or events that erode party membership or influence small portions of the electorate (causing it to vote for neither of the major parties)
• it would be nice to have an option to rig elections, or even abolish them if you obtain the “police state” achievement. Also, an option to change electoral law and to limit mass suffrage (spending enormous political capital) would be cool. Perhaps this is beyond the scope of the game, but it is just a proposition.
• I understand that international politics are abstract, but a little revamping of the system, with more dilemmas, more UN resolutions and a policy stance about interventionism-isolationism (linked with military budget, and with grave internal consequences), would go a long way about making the game more realistic. Even a breaking of “foreign relations” in different areas like relations with first world, second world and third world countries could be a good idea.

Well, enough for now :mrgreen:
I understand fully that developing a game like this is a daunting task, and Democray 2 already does a superb job. But I look forward to a ever-developing game, for this title has the potential to be a masterpiece even outside the indie scene.

Hi, thanks for your kind words about the game. I like the idea of events that would reduce your political capital. The game isn’t setup to do this right now, but It’s certainly an interesting idea. I am also a bit concerned about the game being too easy past a certain point, although you always have the option to increase the difficulty under options. Many people find games like this horridly complex, so if you are a diehard sim-game player (like me) you might want to tweak the difficulty, and the global economic volatility a bit higher.

well, Democracy 2 seems very difficult at first, even I was almost clueless for the first hour. Once you have learned the basics you can handle almost any level of complexity, because the policy system is very straightforward and logical, and every policy is fundamentally a slider. So I don’t think the game will become too much complex, even if you build up the amount of options. Perhaps, the screen may become too crowded with icons…

Hello all…

First of all, I want to congrulate game makers (cliff or if someone else exist )

I had played democracy 1 for long time too… So I can comapere them… And as I see there is really beatifull upgrades, even at graphical side or at programming side…

I’d like to say to the game like “just perfect”. But there is something deficient for me at this game… And that’s at election part…

It’s really sad thing to loose game after 10 12-16-20 years of govern times, or even after just 4 years… I think If rival party waits to take govern from us for years… We Should too… I mean game shouldn’t end if we loose election. If we loose , we could see the same screen, a.l. should govern the country with some randomization, people of country should feel something for our rivals too, and that feeling could be go up or down with rival a.l 's decisions. And also we could do something to take people votes to us on next elections…

For example there could be yearly speech from 2 of parties… And It can be like question to answer… Like wills before election.Or there could be another ways to improve people votes while being far from govern.

I know these ideas are part of main codes , and not possible with a simple patch. But If you think any add pack… I think you should also think about this idea too … I hope you like my idea… With this idea, you can make a.l even harder, game even harder… Beceause there will be a chance to catch seats again.So this means more excited more combative games… And sandy games will wait us(perfect, isn’t it :mrgreen: )…

Ah also If too many people like this idea and too many don’t , so It may be a option to turn on or off this challange with rival option.

Erm, I’m from Turkey. So If I made spelling errors, forgive me… But I think you can still understand me with my bad english.

Hey that’s quite an interesting idea, and to be honest, one I had never thought about. It would be really depressing to watch that huge rail subsidy you had taken long to build up being cut year after year by the evil opposition party or to watch as your rivals abolished the ID card scheme you saved up your political power to impose
What do other players think?

I’m happy you to like this idea… I think It would be great. I wonder also other players’ opinions about this idea.

Also we can improve this idea with talking like this… To decide, It’s logic part, like how can this idea integrated to game , and what kind of functions could It have …

By the way I know visual basic, also a bit c++… If there is anything that I could help to you about programming , I’d like to.

It’s something I have felt since Democracy 1 that this feature should be in the game (I suggested it a few months ago viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1066&p=5123#p5123), although I think it would be difficult to implement. Also, in real life, once you lose power, your party will generally replace you with a new leader, so you personally are unlikely to ever regain power.

Pandaman has done a mod to add inflation into the game: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1424

Also, in response to your comments about the game getting easier over time, you may like to try my upgraded situations file, which makes situations harder to deal with as the game progresses: positech.co.uk/democracy2/ho … pgrade.zip

Erm, In Turkey, It’s not like that … There is leaders which became head again after 10 years…

I just read your suggest. Yep we had felt similar things :mrgreen: …

In fact I don’t want to push cliff, I mean It maybe a bit difficult programming than patching, and also he just finished his second project, of course he could want a rest.If I were, I’d :mrgreen: .

I mean I’m greatfull with this game… But there is just an opinion , maybe you may use this opinion at democracy 3 .

Hi everybody

Tried the demo yesterday, bought the game 2 hours after… thanks for the really good work!

Basically what I thought thought about after my second loss (2 years election term to win in the demo is a bit of a challenge ) is that it could be a good thing to have another part to the game, that is your party (call it hotkey F7 if needed).

This part would have two uses. In power and out of power.

While you’re ruling the country, you could pick options to steal government money to fund your party, to promote ministers from your own party, to use the party’s money for support campains (more political power) or to decrease certain pressure groups. Beside, you could use the party to get more field information (quotations from members about their main problems, possibility to fund -with party money- advertising or surveys giving percentages of the main issues…), you could use it to fund “counter-strikers” (not linked to a similar named game :p) that would, very illegally, go to strikers and hit them, insult them, all in al break the strike (and would have a risk of getting caught depending on you police spendings). All this sort of out-of-govenment-but-not-of-politics things that only a well shaped party can do. And of course you could use your party to give benefits to members so that you get more members

If by any unluck you lost power, then your party (and the amount of money you saved in it) would be one of your only active tools to regain it. Funding advertising campains, gaining field information (to decrease the support of target groups to the government), bribing ministers to decrease enemy govenment’s political power, gathering enough approval to even overthrow the government (or funding terrorist groups to attacks/assassinations, but that means when you regain power they’re not weaker), getting new members, creating unhapiness and strikes… acting as an opposition to motion against certain actions (such as motioning against any change of the rail subsidies), which would increase their political cost for the enemy government…

All in all, I think the -very good- suggestion of being able to lose power without losing the gamecan be solved this way. Your options are drasticly reduced, but you’re still active, and if you’ve seen far ahead enough (meaning you’ve got cash) by making big public fundings of parties (but then the opposition gets the possibility to make it harder for you too 'cause they get money), black funding of party (the more the press is free, the harder it is to hide, with the related problems if caught) or membership price (which would have a direct impact on the number of members of course)… if you have planned well enough, losing just means you’re going to use your party to break hell loose until the next elections, or on the contrary that you motion against any change and reduce the governments political power, effectively blocing the country until the next elections… the choice being there

I don’t think that would be extremely easy to implement but gosh, it would nearly make me drool

Just resurrecting this thread – I agree that an “opposition mode” would be very interesting. Another thing you could do would be to allow the opposition to suggest alternative policies while out of government to try to win over public support. While it’s true that, in real life, the same person often doesn’t stay in charge of a party after an election loss, if you think of the player as controlling a party rather than a single candidate, then it’s actually pretty realistic – it takes quite a bit to destroy a major political party altogether.