One of my biggest criticisms of both D3 and D4 is a lack of dynamism in the retirement/pension system. There is so much potential here for greater depth in gameplay mechanics regarding retirement.
A retirement age policy would be a great addition to the game. It could:
-Reduce unemployment at lower levels (below 65) and raise it at higher levels to reflect older people in the labour market
-Reduce the retired membership at higher levels, which should reduce the cost of state pensions
-Slightly decrease productivity at lower levels and slightly increase it at higher levels to reflect highly-skilled older people leaving/remaining in the labour force for longer
It would also be interesting to add some sort of upside to the population simulation as well. Currently, all I can see are negatives from having a higher population, but perhaps it would be good to add something like slightly increased tax revenue from it as well, to reflect more people in the workforce?
Please consider this, Cliff! It would be much appreciated.
4 Likes
This is a pretty good idea, as its something that could be used to affect the cost of state pensions, and be a nice trade off with trade unions, who generally are furious about the retirement age being raised…
I will add this to the trello board so we can give it some further thought 
1 Like
There are some quite different models around the world concerning this afaik. Might wanna look around to see if there are like a couple different ways to accomplish this general goal. It’s a good idea though, even if it’s just kept as simple as a single age capping policy.
1 Like
Exactly. Trade unionists and retirees would likely have an opinion impact from this. It might be good to add a discrete slider to it, with let’s say 62-68 on it, instead of the default, continuous none-to-maximum slider for most policies.
Thanks for taking this into consideration!
I guess it would have to be framed as a law regarding when pensions pay out from the state but also from which someone with a private pension can automatically claim the pension, so it still works when you are running a capitalist country with hardly any state employees. I’m wondering if this works best as a policy, or as a dilemma concerning raising the age…
Too many policies might be cluttered…whereas a dilemma springs an instant (potentially awkward) decision on you…but then… surely the government gets to decide when/if it makes changes like this? It could always crop up as a coalition or donor demand.
I think the biggest differences are in where funding comes from.
Under some models you basically fund it through taxes, under others it’s more like, you’re legally required to put away part of your income in savings and you end up paying your own pension, and if you work longer you end up with higher pensions, so it’s up to you (to a point) when you leave for retirement. - The payout sum is calculated based on life expectancy, and if there is a surplus at the end of your life, it’s used to fund pensions that run longer than expected. If the calculation is done just right, it’s exactly zero-sum in terms of the entire population.
If you work long enough under a model like that you might end up with pensions higher than your pay check.
This still is a sort of tax, so it’d have effects similar to income tax, but the state gets no costs or income from it. (Unless you actively subsidize it, which effectively means mixed funding)
The way that savings account is being managed may also differ. Either it’s literally just sitting money, simply gaining regular interest over time, or it’s used in relatively save long-term bonds, so if things go well, you may get quite a bit more pension quite a bit faster but if things go poorly you might end up with a loss. Etc. etc.
Call me crazy but I think the more policies and clutter, the better 
And I bet the majority of players agree too!
1 Like
I’m not so sure about that.
I don’t want crazy clutter if it doesn’t add any value. I would like a far more complex system which considers far more details about the real world though.
But to be entirely fair, this forum is gonna be somewhat of a self-selecting group. And so are gonna be alpha-players. Even if cliff did a poll about this and asked the current alpha-player base, and that poll quite clearly showed what you said to be true: It’s not clear that the actual hypothetical full player group agrees with this!
I also think that some design considerations the game currently follows would eventually be impractical if you keep adding stuff. IMO it should be possible to either hide some policies to make others more clearly visible, or zoom in/out of the main screen, or support scrolling if too many policies are on screen, or any other such UI overhaul to make it more practical to show more stuff.
Towards the end game most of the time, even on my 1440p screen, symbols start becoming quite tiny as so many policies are being added, and it can take quite a while to find the one I’m looking for.
A search on the main screen could also help here though.
So yeah, imo, more stuff would be great, it would, however, probably require a UI that doesn’t force all information into a single screen (elegant as that may be), and I’m unsure the true average player would want this.