Policy Effect change proposals, and your thoughts

Actually, that gives me an idea. What would be more interesting is if, instead of there being a high direct cost of a restrictive anti-drug policy, it added a multiplier to the cost of, say, police, prisons, and border controls.
…Being sort of a mac person, I haven’t yet gotten Democracy 2, but I assume this is impossible.
But maybe there are other things one could do to approximate this effect, like when drugs are illegal and crime reaches a certain level it triggers a “War on Drugs” event, or maybe a dilemma in which the drug policy has become increasingly costly to enforce, and so one has a choice of either spending more money/imposing additional measures or else facing an increase in voter cynicism.

Hey, first post here! Allow me to say that you have created a very good game. Hats off to you, sir! :slight_smile:

Now, I found something that would deserve a change. I currently have the “Petrol Protests” situation… and it is not affected at all by the actual oil prices. All that matters is the carbon tax and poverty level. Of course, oil price should affect it. After all, who cares if it’s taxed at 200% if the price is 10 cent per gallon?

Another thing that bothers me is the “Community police” policy. While it’s effects are right, the amount it does compared to the price you have to pay for it completely trumps the money that is gobbled by the actual police, prisons, and so on.

I remember seeing a couple other things, but I don’t remember them right now, so I’ll be back :slight_smile:

EDIT: Ah, yes, another thing. First, there should be an effect for the “Tax Evasion”. After all, that seems to be the only side effect of high taxes besides voters disliking you. Perhaps it should have an effect on income and corporation tax revenue?

Plus, if that happens, there should be a way to hire more inspectors to curb the problem without lowering taxes.

hi, good point about the oil price effect, I’ll try and get that changed soon.

Tax shelters help technological advantage. I don’t see a reason why that should be.

I was also thinking that maybe you could add something in regards to “tax competition” between nations.

For example, nations with tax shelters maybe should face some retaliation from other nations. Perhaps they should get a hit to foreign relations because a tax shelter is really just a nation being an accessory to tax evasion, letting foreigners hide their income in an accounting black-hole.

Something similar could be done with corporate taxes as well. Thinking of Ireland as my example, their low corporate taxes have caused a lot of businesses to claim more of their income in Ireland, no matter where the majority of the operations take place.

Maybe a combination of low corporate taxes and high amounts of tax shelters could create a problem. Maybe it’ll cause sanctions or tariffs to be imposed by other nations or an international body.

One last thing regarding taxes, maybe you could include VAT taxes as an option, which can have a high detrimental effect to GDP (or maybe more accurately, a penalty to international trade, representing higher priced goods and therefore less exports). Maybe there can be a dilemma where you can be invited to the EU, and will need to impose a minimum VAT tax, but enjoy certain benefits in return.

Great game very educational

I have only played the demo for democracy 2 but I already have ideas on how it can be improved.

Health policies need more development, their needs to be an option for a universal health insurance scheme, a universal pharmiceutical benefits scheme, and an option for increasing and decreasing public hospital beds

A universal health insurance scheme would cover any operation costs, hospital room (whether shared room or private room) and any doctor consultation costs (GP or Specialists).

A universal pharmiceutical benefits scheme would subsidise prescription medication bought at a pharmacy, this would include the level of subsidy and the range of medications available on the scheme.

An option for increasing or decreasing government expenditure on the availablility of beds in public hospitals and therefore all associated expenditure like doctors and nurses etc.

Environmental awareness in Democracy 2 is very high but it lacks a critical component that is largely being ignored by the environmental movement because it lacks broad public support, and that is a population and immigration policy. The game should incorporate a sustainable population policy. Policies like border controls, child benefit and mothers allowance (parent allowance) should affect population replacement, increases or decreases as well as the multicutural and homogeneous make up of the society, the unemployment rate and real GDP per capita.

The title sales tax could be modernised to consumption tax.

I have no idea on how to write software but if someone else is interested go for it. 8)

http://www.optimumpopulation.org/

its true that population size is a major missing factor in the games simulation design. Certainly one that would be addressed in any future versions of the game (like Democracy 3).

Having re thought the health policy issue it now appears better to have a universal health insurance scheme, a universal pharmaceutical benefits scheme and health promotion policies.

A universal health insurance scheme would cover or subsidise operation costs (core and elective), hospital room (whether shared room or private room) and doctor consultation costs (GP’s and Specialists).

A universal pharmaceutical benefits scheme would subsidise prescription medication bought at a pharmacy, this would include the level of subsidy and the range of generic medications available on the scheme.

Health promotion policies would involve community and research grants etc, to make the liberals giddy.

The more spent on these policies the less crowded the public hospital system becomes among other benefits due to more effective and efficient treatment or prevention of illness.

This appears to be a more realistic health policy to me.

The game has a strong economic componet to it which makes it realistic, I was just wondering whether economic statistics could be included in the game.

Have you thought about giving government expenditure and revenue a percentage figure as a proportion of GDP.

An unemployment rate would be nice.

A sales tax rate

A corporate tax rate

Foreign aid could be given a rate as well I know the United Nations have a recommended rate of foreign aid as a proportion of GDP.

I have no idea whether you can achieve this with Democracy 2.

I have bought the game and I really enjoy playing it.

I thought I’d mention that ID cards should affect tax evasion.

I know because many years ago the Australian government tried to introduce ID cards here in Australia using the tax evasion argument but failed and consequently decided to introduce tax file numbers instead without any community consultation.

That’s an interesting idea, cheers

  1. A geoist land value tax is a tax on the value of real estate, minus improvements. It would increase equality, hurt GDP significantly less than most other taxes. At high levels, could perhaps impact economic efficiency… but I’m not sure about that. The rich would hate it, and given it’s a relatively unknown policy option, nobody would be specifically for it, except maybe capitalists (Milton Friedman referred to it as the “least bad tax”). It could possibly result in greater energy efficiency, as people developed more compact communities in order to “evade” the land tax (by using less land).

  2. Someday, I hope for a monetary policy slider, going from a state issued fiat currency to absolute hard currency, with a “gold standard” (state regulated price of a monetary “base” in terms of a fiat currency) somewhere in the middle. Such a policy change would have a very high political capital expense, as to be done only by a president with great popularity and a “honeymoon” effect. Of course, this would only have any effect if inflation and monetary limits on deficit spending were introduced to the simulation, as well. That said…

  3. Inflation. Higher inflation could reduce the “value” of the public debt (as old debts are paid off in depreciated currency), but it would also widen the swing of the business cycle (making the booms bigger, the busts deeper), as well as reduce equality (as “first in line” spenders spend new currency into the market at old prices, with those further down the chain receiving it at its depreciated value).

I’d imagine that inflation would be bad news all round, as it would increase the costs of your exports and reduce global competitiveness, although its obviously way more complex than that, depending on exchange rates and balance of payments etc etc.
One thing the game doesn’t model in much detail is foreign trade. It would be so awesome to have a proper economic model that took into account every industry and its imports and exports to different nations. How cool would it be to not be able to upset a foreign country that imprisoned some of your citizens (upsetting liberals and citizens generally) because they were a dictatorship that supplied you with a lot of your food imports, or bought most of your oil exports :smiley:.

Of course, another reason not to interfere with such a government is a combination of a free trade policy with a non-interventionist policy. Put simply, it says, sure, go overseas, trade whatever, wherever you want, come back, trade whatever wherever you want, and we extend the same invitation to foreigners. However, when you are here, you abide by our laws, and are subject to our justice system, regardless of your country of origin… and we honor the same principle with regard to other governments. In other words, go abroad at your own risk; we will not step outside our jurisdiction, risking unnecessary conflict, for the sake of one who hasn’t the good sense to be a good guest.

Of course, we also will not aid those governments in prosecuting such crimes as, shall we say, smuggling. If you are on our soil, and have not violated any of OUR laws, we will not extradite (and under a true system of free trade, there is no such thing as smuggling). If you’re accused of murder, we’ll extradite. If you’re accused of selling cooking pots without paying the 75% tarrif, we will not. (And, of course, if our counterpart across the border has a history of making fake accusations to get around this policy, we’ll regard such requests with suspicion.)

Here’s is what i am thinking:

Draft/conscription policies( same as compulsory service but as it is said,its a full draft for a age period) in times of war or in cases of war…it should also have a dilemma if we allow woman which would help employment-GDP but with a bad rep with parents,conservatives,religious…someone would argue it could become a social problem aswell. Conscripts also dont get paid necesserly(that will be our choice) it could damage our economy byt drafting unless there is a dillema about WHO we conscript (fair one(traditional ones) or a one that takes all unemployed or certain types of criminals) ( could also be an other policy in which those criminals could be taken in the army to rehab them and freedom after service done(thats if they dont die) this would make the country save tons of money in taxes,jail money etc.etc.etc…

War policies,with foreign relations,it would be possible to become a conquering nation ( with taking advantages of their resources! ) you could be a U.S like one that would war for mostly economical purposes not for imperialistic purposes(altho some would argue that) War on terror policies, War on communism etc…

Inflation is definitely a good idea,which would mean that we should set an interest rate to change our purchasing power,monetary values and tourists…having a big inflation but a matched economy would put a great strength of purchasing power over all other countries. but exports would be damaged as a consequences.

Space program+Space militarization ( trips to moon and mars + purpose of it (military,self-centered goal, or mankind achievement))

I think Import tariff are way to strong than what they actually are. They have tons of market benefits ( competitiveness, free funding of target market, lower illegal immigration, increase local productivity and protectionism. )
it COULD spark retaliations (military or economically) depending on your economic strength or military strength + relations.
nobody wants to mess with a powerhouse but your people could hate you for this as some might perceive this has bulying.(economic sanctions that is)

Military Occupation+reconstruction(training,infrastructure,security and level of Occupation in foreign countries) costs.

Economic Globalization ( this is actually a consequence to all the other policies aka: Business and Sales taxes, Amounts of capitalists, rise of costs, very low illegal immigrants, Protectionist politicies, and labour laws. )

Private+public debate is a very important thing to add :

Private hospital for instance reduces unions, overall costs and increase productivity,jobs, and are taxed!(including all the new insurances companies that are made cause of that(and for cheap)) (since people dont go to hospitals as often for unnecessary reasons) helps to bring great minds in country, increase lifestyle and reduce costs to taxpayers and gov alike.

cons: prices may be impossible to afford( could be a possibility to fund some stuff as part of an other policy), could bring un certified foreign workers in the country, they can be selective of their clients. there is many more but im not thinking of anything else.

so we could go to a double speed health system: poor and middle(if no insurance) pay for public thru taxes, and rich who wont be taxed for this use the private one. whom are taxed to help the poor ones.

Private sponsorship in (events,transports,state employees uniforms etc…) (ill let you work out to pro and cons)

Wall Street Market ( laws about foreign or local investment )

Tax cuts for employing lots of people kind of policy.

State companies

Companies militarization ( letting industries and corporations build their own armies like the west indian trade comp for their interests which is an ultimate benefit for the country with some big cons)

there is more but im getting lazy :stuck_out_tongue:

oh and also getting events like the olympics and stuff.

It is utterly uncontroversial that decriminalizing drugs decreases crime! This is accepted even by those who insist on keeping the status quo!

For empirical data and arguments look at “Legalize This!” by Doug Husak

To summarize: due to drugs being illegal to sell - there are no official way to settle disputes; drug dealers are thus forced to take matters in their own hands and collect their money through violence. There are other factors which I won’t bother listing unless my proposal to change the game is considered.

Oh really!?
It is utterly obvious (at least from the example of America) that the “War on Drugs” is an immense money sinkhole. Regardless of the merits of this never-ending battle, fact is: BILLIONS OF DOLLARS get spent on prohibiting drugs. It is not just a ‘hi - don’t do drugs - k - thx - bye’ but a monstrous consumption of police officers’, courts’, jails’ etc time (and thus money).

In USA, 1 out of 100 people is currently in jail (that of course is expensive). Moreover, the number of people in jail that are there due to drug possession arrests is higher than the entire prison population of Europe. Keep in mind Europe has a larger total population than the United States.

And you thought … ?

I think creationism needs to be re-thought. In the real world, creationists are fighting to have creationism taught in schools, while in Democracy 2, creationism and evolution being equally treated is the ‘default’ position. I’d say it should more realistically be a cancellable policy to introduce creationism, ranging from ‘evolution started by God’ to ‘teach the controversy’ to ‘it’s only a theory’ to ‘creationism only’ or some such. The first mostly annoying liberals, the last pretty much everyone but the fanatics.

This makes sense to me.

This also makes sense. It is important to note the difference between the effect on morality and the effect on crime. If, say, 500 prostitution convictions occur, and then it is no longer illegal, then that makes for 500 less crimes. I’d imagine that the effect would be minuscule, though.

What other effects can come from legalizing the oldest profession?

  • Less Unemployment - If it isn’t illegal, you’ll find more people in the trade!
  • Trigger Contagious Disease situation - Which could be mitigated with a state-provided safe-sex program.
  • Happier Wealthy People - Because they can afford it, after all!
  • Decrease in the Parent Group - Why risk making a mistake with your high school sweetheart when there is an alternative?

I’d imagine that the positive effects here would be minimal at best, though the disease issue could be a real problem.

My father works with an immigrant from Japan, and apparently it is not socially unacceptable for a married man to hire a prostitute (note: Not necessarily a Geisha, as those are traditionally for companionship). Wives are for children and keeping the home in order; prostitutes are used for other reasons. That information comes second hand and I’m not an expert on Japanese culture, so. Keep your salt shaker handy.

Another policy you could implement is agricultural co-operatives or boards, single desks for agricultural exports usually very popular with farmers who don’t have the market power to favourably negotiate with buyers. Economic liberals hate the policy because it distorts the market.

These co-ops’ can be owned by the government or the farmers that use them.