this is a list of some little things that seems absurd in the game :
gender equality has no effect on equality at all.
GDP boost tobacco usage. I still dont’ understand the logic.
legalizing drugs boost crime. I think it’s the most absurd thing listed here. Because the legalization reduce a large number of crime. If drugs are legal, it’s no more a crime to have drugs or selling them and legal drug dealers don’t shoot up each others. So it should lower crime and violent crime. Maybe the solution is to use a “drug consumption” stats that have an effect on anti-social behavior, so it can be independent of legal/illegal situation.
If you have your border policy set up to “open borders”, you can still have an “illegal immigration policy”.
poor hate restriction on game hunting. But hunting is usually a pleasure of the wealthy or the high middle class (example : fox hunting). At least in France.
Free bus passes boost retired(income) and Generationel wealth gap : I think it’s more a question of what policy is it. In Franc, there is some town with free buses (Niort and Dunkerke for exemple) and usually there is low cost passes for young, student, retired people, poor, large family and unemployed.
Events :
If you have secularity of education on atheist, you can still face the dilemma of “ban religious symbol at school”, it’s a bit weird.
The equality metric in the game is simply a measure of income/financial equality. Its description mentions this as well. It does not take into account the many other forms of equality. There are other metrics (racial tension, gender equality, etc.) that take into account other forms of inequalities in your country.
In general, the richer a country and its citizens are, the more they are able to afford tobacco. Historically, this was certainly the case, but this relationship is a little more fuzzy now, with smoking rates on the decline in most rich countries. However, I would argue the relationship between wealth and tobacco usage is still solid, and that the decline in smoking in rich countries is mostly due to policy (banning of public smoking, tobacco taxes, advert bans, etc.) that can all be emulated in-game.
This is one I struggle with as well. It’s not that big of a deal, but it does seem odd that a decision like the legalization of drugs, which should reduce the incidence of crime, actually boosts it. I am curious to hear Cliffski’s thoughts on this and why he made it this way. I would imagine it might have to do with the idea that legalizing drugs will lead to more addiction, and therefore to people committing more crimes to be able to afford the drugs to feed their addiction? If so, that would make sense. Otherwise, I agree that the relationship should be changed.
There have been a couple of discussions on this. I think the general consensus is that the wealthy are usually able to get away with hunting regardless of restrictions in place (especially since they can afford to do it abroad). So tightening game hunting restrictions will mostly affect lower-income people who still rely on hunting for income and/or food. This is a small minority in rich countries, but it certainly still exists. I can confirm there are still a good amount of lower-income people who partake in game hunting for survival here in Canada, especially among our First Nations (indigenous people).
The free bus pass policy only represents senior passes, which is why it only affects retired income and boosts generational wealth gap. I agree that there is certainly room for improving this policy by adding different levels of free passes: the lowest can be seniors only, the next can be seniors/students, then seniors/students/poor people, and finally free passes for all (which would be extremely expensive, of course).
The event makes sense. Just because your curriculum is secular/atheist, does not necessarily mean you are banning people from wearing their own personal religious attire, which is what the “ban religious symbols” dilemma is about. Canada is a good example of this. Whereas our public school curriculum is entirely secular, we do not practice laïcité to the extent that the French do, in that students can still express their religion through wearing crosses or hijabs.
I would really like to see the free bus pass policy expanded as described. Maybe it’d make more sense to call it “Free Transit” because who cares what the local uses are?
It would also be great to see the policy ramp up. For example, at the beginning it would most impact bus usage but as the policy gets more extreme it covers smaller than longer rail trips. The higher the policy, the more it includes longer rail trips and would boost rail usage at increasingly higher rates
The impact of game hunting restrictions should vary by country more. Particularly there should be a difference between North America and Europe. Who hunts on these two continents is very different, as already pointed out by BloodySoap. I gather in Europe hunting is an elitist hobby, but in rural North America it’s a food source for some people who are living on thin margins.
I’ve already added my 2 cents regarding free bus passes elsewhere, so I won’t repeat myself here.
I fully agree that legalizing drugs directly increasing crime is ridiculous. This ought to fall into the group of “it’s not a crime if the government legalizes it” things. It should upset conservatives, but that’s about it. Canada recently proved the point that basically nothing changes when you legalize pot. The doom-saying conservatives have been made to look like fools by the sky still being up there. Visions of a tax windfall have been proven false, as most people keep buying from established suppliers, and the expected savings on policing haven’t really happened either as cops were already largely ignoring pot. Basically, other than some people’s opinions getting favored or disfavored, nothing changed when Canada legalized pot.
Speaking on tobacco and GDP, there are a number of things in game driven by GDP, that really ought to be driven by other metrics. To represent the bulk of tobacco consumption in western countries, it should be driven by poor earnings, and a little bit of middle earnings, not GDP. That said, is this a valid point or a nit pick?