Agreed on the first three, though I still like the idea of a more detailed options screen for those who really want to tweak the playing environment, including these areas.
For the fourth: legal aid should be an irritant, but in my opinion, a minor one. It was never mentioned here in the US even when the conservatives were screaming about “big government” in the Carter years.
I’ve added a change (for the next patch) that will make the minimum wage decision affect the probability of cheap imports hurting your economy. Cheap Imports don’t seem to trigger much in the current game ;(
Edit:
And heres some other stuff I’m trying out:
There will be changes to the teacher shortage, teacher strike and rail strikes so they make more sense, and only trigger if you have state schools and subsidised railways. This is part of a general new system where there are pre-requisites for stuff to trigger.
I’m changing the petrol protests so they are discouraged by curfews and detention without trial 
Eventually I hope you can have a fascist state with less protesters
I’m changing the DNA database dilemma to trigger influenced more by Internet Access (technology). it will also be requested by the police chief now, not the chef
I’d like to see more labor legislation, such as working week, overtime regulations, what benefits should be offered, and maybe union regulations and such.
Just on a sidenote I would like to add that the “Pay As You Throw” system is in place in Switzerland and working quite well. Maybe you could add Switzerland to the encyclopedia page and make a few Swiss guys very happy with this 
I got one thing about the tobacco tax: How can it be possible to earn 1.3 bn in tobacco tax, when at the same time there are 0 smokers in my population? Shouldn’t these two things be linked together?
That should not be possible at all, they should be linked. I’ll investigate…
You are absolutely right. I have tracked this down and have a fix for it. But I need to replay a lot of the missions before I submit a patch, because I’m concerned that this may affect the balance of the game in some places. it may have affected a number of different taxes and policies whose incomes are determined by the size of a voter group…
Just a thought for two new polcies. (and if this isn’t the place for this, let me know ok?). 1. Legalizing Abortion. This could have an effect on Religous, Liberal and Conservative groups. Not entirely too sure what it should be linked to. 2. Ressearch into bio technologies. You sorta do this with Stem Cell Ressearch. I suggest a second tier of polcies. So if you enable Stem Cell, Cloning might come up. Or perhaps you need both Stem Cell AND Technological Advance. This might be an event as well. Something to encourage late game playing.
I like the idea of stem cells unlocking cloning. unfortunately there is no way to prevent you then cancelling the older policy (stem cells) and keeping the new one)
ugh. Well that’s unfortunate. I do like the idea of a second tier of policies, that have to be unlocked. But the fact that there’s nothing to keep you from cancelling the older policy sucks. Perhaps when you approve the second policy it replaces the older one? Just a thought.
Is it just me or are rail strikes almost impossible to solve?
In my situations file, the influences on rail strikes are default,1.0+(0x), RailSubsidies,0-(0.5x), AverageIncome,0-(0.2x), LabourLaws,0+(0.3x).
As to make a situation disappear you need to get it below 0.4, this means that to get rid of this situation, you would need to put rail subsidies up to full, have a high average income and employer friendly labour laws.
Is there something I am missing/something wrong with my situations file? If not, I suggest that this needs to be tweaked, as it seems almost impossible to deal with (without cancelling rail subsidies entirely, which seems like a bizaare solution to me).
Hmmm. assuming rail subsidies at 0.8, and 0.5 for labour law, and 0.5 for average income, that gives us
1.0 - 0.4 - 0.1 + 0.15 = 0.65. hmmmm
I think the labour law thing should have a double effect, so it should probably be LabourLaws,-0.3+(0.3x). Maybe the subsidies themselves need a stronger effect too, possibly RailSubsidies,0-(1.0x)
That would give (with the same settings)
1.0 - 0.8 + 0.15 = 0.35
And with rails subsidies at 0.4 we get
1.0 - 0.4 + 0.15 = 0.75 which is triggered.
I think that seems better. Thoughts?
Hey, I like the idea of unlockable policies! Is there a way to make them dependent one one another (remove one, it removes the other?)
I found equality confusing 
I kept getting “Class Warfare” and it was caused by equality (well, equality was “greeninig” aka causing Class Warfare). I believe it’s inequality that causes it but the visual was confusing me.
What if there are temporary crisis/events they would act like a policy or something having some effects but would only last for a while (dependent on your actions and policies). An example would be a Military Conflict, it would last only a while depending on your policies. If you have a high spending military it could last 3-6 months but if your average it could last a couple years or so.
Ideas for Policies:
Secret Service Spending- Costs money but prevents terrorist attacks and assassinations from succeeding against you. Basically a mini-Intelligence Agency to make you feel safer, otherwise not a huge effect.
Secret Police- Lowers crime but everyone hates it
Special Forces- A bonus military spending. Lowers terrorism, Patriots like it, and it offers more defense.
Missile Defense Spending- Another military thing, a tiny drop in foreign relations but boost in military.
Diplomatic Spending- Increase in foreign aid
Emergency Response Spending- Better prepared for emergencies (less chance of event?), public boost, maybe wealthy dislike it?
Thats all the ideas I have for now but I’ll be back with more…
I think there are certain groups who have very little effecting them. People like the Smokers only care about one policy (Tobacco Tax), Middle Class only care about income taxes, Wealthy only care about Taxes and Tax Shelters, and Parents care about a few school policies and busing. Maybe they should have a few more influences? For smoking what about a public smoking ban (lowers smokers, raises life-exp). Maybe smokers care less about pollution?
there is a public smoking ban dilemma but suggestions for more influences on these groups are most welcome.
My thoughts:
1, free school meals and eye tests are too effective, so it is too easy to deal with poverty.
2, Poor and socialists are too easy to please, wealthy too difficult - I think that in the real world, poor and socialists just keep wanting more and more welfare, wealthy are happy with low taxes and don´t care that much about things like “free eye tests”(but I am neither wealthy nor poor nor a socialist, so I am not sure 
).
3, Economy - too easy to stimulate growth, especially rural developement grants are too good, but technology grants and small business grants also - on the other hand, an impact of level of taxation is underestimated.
4, after a few election cycles, everybody in my population retires.
5, Generally, too many easy, soft solutions to problems - why should we care about pensions, when we can have free bus passes…
Excellent feedback, thanks.
I’m not really a big fan of the dilemma system as it stands. I think it should really only apply for actual events that you have to respond to. There should be a separate category for events that you can cause.
Speaking of effects and policies in general, i think there should be some change made in the Drug Addiction situation to make it possible to appear even when drugs are not legalised.
After all, there have been many major problems with drug addiction in various countries throughout the history even with drugs being totally illegal and/or severly punished. Even now marijuana consumption, for example, is highest in Spain , not in the Netherlands, with its policy on drug use tolerance, as one may suppose (statistics say the Netherlands are 8th in Europe regarding cannabis consumption, which is even lower than in France) (these data are based on wikipedia however, so i am not totally sure of them).
What should be inputs into drug addiction? poverty I guess, and maybe the same inputs for the stress level event? But maybe also border controls, as many governments have problems with drug smuggling.
Recycling has too little effect, and legal aid looks to be a no brainier. Everything should upset someone. Also, I think recycling would improve the enviroment (Air quality, which stands in for the whole enviroment)
… never mind, that was recycling from Demo, I guess. Still legal aid is all positive. Perhaps increased crime?