Low popularity at beginning

I don’t understand why popularity starts low… wouldn’t starting first term have a higher than 50% popularity considering you were voted in by the majority??

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It’s the only way to balance things in the current engine. Voters react to current conditions, not to changes. If you started out popular enough to get elected, you would be able to take your hands off the controls, other than clicking next turn, and win re-election without actually playing.

Think of it as “if you don’t change things, this will be your popularity on voting day”. Unfortunately this does create the issue of the cabinet all abandoning you in the early game, which I have brought up as an issue before.

Well this is interesting. In real life, people like you to start and, even if you do nothing and nothing changes, tend to tire of a leader. Also IRL, massive changes are not needed to shift opinion.

I think a general increase in cynicism would be effective for counteracting the increase in popularity over time.