Min Maxing

Democracy 4
1

This has been an issue for a while, that it is too easy to max out or zero out a bunch of stats in game. The following are a list of things that are at either 100% or 0% in my current game.

GDP
health
education
crime
poverty
foreign relations
racial tension
foreign investment
foreign aid received
immigration
plant based diets*
tobacco consumption
alcohol consumption
charity
equality
democracy
gender equality
carbon emission
technology
energy efficiency
lifespan
stability
food price
population
violent crime
corruption
oil demand
electric car transition

*plant based diets is not actually fully maxed out, but it is close, and for some reason environmentalist membership is not delivering its input here, even though it indicates it should. If it were applying, then this stat would be at maximum

Not included in the list were industries for which I have a socialist version active.

Now, yes I’m a few terms in by now to make this list happen, and some of these are bigger deals than others, and some happen sooner than others. My point is that many policies have too strong of an effect, that it happens too quickly, and there is ultimately too little benefit to maxing many of these out. Take GDP for example, there is such a thing as an “over heated economy”, where rapid growth causes some resources to get depleted, driving inflation, which then creates other problems. There is no point however, where the economy has hit a hard speed limit and cannot grow any faster. I would advocate reducing the impact of many policies which have a GDP output, and increasing the benefits (and other outputs) of a high GDP. The fact that GDP has no link to inflation is odd. Education is another example of something which runs out of potential benefit. I hit a limit early on where my people are apparently as educated as possible and have nothing more left to learn. Health is an example of something which is too responsive. These countries start with terrible health, but I consistently have health maxed out by the end of my first term. I also achieve it without touching the health care system, so I somehow have a super healthy population with over crowded hospitals and the doctors are on strike. Policies with health benefits should take longer to achieve that benefit, and high health should decrease health care demand more.

Anyways, that’s my post for today’s play.

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2

I really aprpeciate this post. Perhaps because I am reading the book “1 Billion Americans” I am pertually struck by limits to population growth! I think the ranges of all of these should be much more elastic, but I’d prioritize the following:

  1. GDP
  2. Population
  3. Health
  4. Education
  5. International Relations

For me, these would allow for a far more realistic ability for the game over many terms to keep being interesting and growing.

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