Maybe I got the games mechanics wrong, but it looks like there is a hard limit on
education, health, and GDP which seems illogical to me.
There shouldn´t be any reason why you can´t have more education right?
On a side note it seems you can go broke by runnig a constant deficit even when your
GDP is growing. As long as the economy is growing faster than the dept that should not
happen.
It a great game. Keep the good work up!
The only hard limits in there are basically 100% on the graph. If you get GDP to 100%, then no, it can’t go higher, it’s a relative, not an absolute indicator. Effectively saying you are the top economy in the world per capita :D.
I’m not 100% sure what you mean regarding going broke TBH. You have can a high GDP but still have your expenditure cause a budget deficit and an eventual debt crisis. The USA and UK both have high real world GDP and huge deficits and debts.
The argument is that as long as a country does not increase the debt in relation to GDP it is not a problem. This because the same amount of taxes in theory should cover the interest on the loans. Or put another way as GDP increases the ability to repay loans increases and thus increasing debt is not a problem. I don’t subscribe completely to this theory but it to a large extent how loans to countries in the real world works.
Now as GDP in the game is relative this makes it hard to know if this is the case or not.
But why would you stop at relative 100%?
You should be able to increase your relative health compared to other nations. Just being the best does not stop you from being MUCH better.
If you have the best educated workforce, there is no reason to me why you shouldn´t be able to educate them even better.
In gameplay terms it means for me that huge investments just disappear. I understand the concept of diminishing returns, but just gone seems harsh.
I know it would be hard to simulate absolute values with the gamplay mechanics, but it would improve the simulation.
About the dept problem. If a government runs a deficit at 1,5% of GDP every year and the economy grows at 3% the dept to GDP ratio will stabilize at 50%.
The dept burden will not get any heavier. You can not go broke as long as you ability to pay grows faster then dept.
larlin, I think the answer to your question is that the ability to repay your loans is built into the calculation of your surplus/deficit. Your loan repayments are one of the budget items on your expenditures, so if your loan repayments are manageable it’s fine, but if they get too big you end up with a deficit and problems.
MartinF, I get where you’re coming from but I think, within the short times the game looks at, realistically there are hard maximums on how good education can get, or healthcare. Larger improvements that would push beyond that would take time to come in, there’s only so many quick wins you can make. e.g. Coalition (EDIT: UK government for clarity) has promised to get everyone studying maths to 18 (a notable change that’s supposed to improve attainment, but not earth-shattering) and that’s only been promised to be delivered in a decade’s time. Getting to 100% on either of these is already really powerful too, so I think being able to push above that level would really just be game breaking. As such, I don’t really see this as being a problem.
-El
This is exactly how the game models it. If you look on the income/expenditure/GDP chart page, you can see your debt/GDP ratio. This is the main factor that the games credit ratings agencies use to decide whether to up or downgrade your debt. So if your debt level doesn’t change (balanced budget) but your GDP nose-dives, you can get down-rated anyway, due to sudden concerns about you servicing what used to be a perfectly manageable debt level.
The game works with a fixed range of GDP for every country. The GDP of country x can only move between say 1-5.
The Effect is that even if GDP stood at five for many many turns (years) you have 0 grows. Your economy is perfect but it does not grow and neither does your income.
One bad year (event market meltdown) and the value is back at 2,5. This means your GDP has halved! Not Grows has halved, it didn´t go negative, GDP has halved.
The recent Great Recession has shrunk the US economy 5% by comparison…
The effect of policy decisions and events and on GDP is way to strong in the game. I think it would be better if you split the current GDP value into GDP and GDP grows
with policies affecting grows.
Unemployment, Capital Gains taxes, Corporate taxes, happiness with the economic situation and the like are mostly correlated to the GDP grows.
Sales taxes, spending on health/education infrastructure are mostly correlated to the GDP level.
I know it would be probably to difficult to change the game mechanics, but maybe its easier than I think.
It still stands that with the current setup even with the best economy you go broke eventually when you run a tiny deficit. Which is a joke.
I find the largest issue with the static GDP is that when you max it’s value out it cannot grow anymore and neither can the values associated with it (Taxes).
in the midgame once I finally get the country out of its funk of crime/poor economy etc. I get the GDP growing and doing so rather quickly, the tax rate is at ~25-30% and every cycle I can afford to add $10-30Bn of new policies to the budget .
this continues for a bit.
then the GDP maxes out, growth stops and that all important tax growth Which I am using to fund my Technological Socialist paradise comes to screeching halt. education is high, efficiency is high, production is high and I have enough inputs (especially after all of the policies really get going) to legitimately have 130-170% GDP but my tax credits stay the same and the education -> industry&tech -> GDP -> health&wellfare pipeline comes to a screeching halt and I have to raise funds through other means instead of by taking advantage of my superior production.
the other effect of this is that external conditions are meaningless. the global economy crashes? no effect on GDP or tax credits. my minister has been shagging the secretary? no effect. nobel prize? you guessed it, no effect.
as a follow on this also kills any further negeitive effects of rising GDP/industrialization because since the GDP is static no increased polution/immigration/alcoholism so on and so forth.
it would be nice to have the game be able to model society reaching a point where the amount of free cash starts to get noticably detrimental to society.
Health at 100%: effectively no disease, the vast, vast majority of people are healthy and fit.
Education: everyone knows as much as a college graduate in any field they are likely to encounter. College graduation or functional equivalent rates approach 100% of the population.
GDP: I guess this probably shouldn’t have a limit.