I have some suggestions for new or changed situations, simulations, and polices that I think would address certain areas that were boring or unrealistic in D3.
Law and Order:
The violent crime and crime simulations are too similar. Things that make one go up make the other go up, and vice versa. And since everything is linked together, crime is fairly trivial to deal with, as every crime targeting policy drives the same simulation values down. So, letâs add some push-back.
A third simulation value called âRecidivismâ. Recidivism is increased by policies that make life harder for criminals post release, or contribute to criminal activities. So prisoner tagging or street gangs would both boost it. It can be reduced by spending money on prisons (especially with a liberal regime), and other measures to reintegrate criminals back into society (or the death penalty). High recidivism is a major driver of crime.
Decouple violence and crime somewhat. Crime should still feed into violence, but various policies should address one or the other. Armed police should reduce violence more than crime (ensuring the police arenât out-gunned by criminals), for example. Liberal gun laws would be a matter of trading higher violence for lower crime (criminals are deterred by the armed citizenry, but when crime does happen itâs more violent), rather than the ten-millionth policy that trades liberal support for less crime.
Decriminalization polices should reduce the cost of prisons. Vice versa, making more things illegal should make prisons more expensive. This allows for a liberal anti-crime strategy where you do things like decriminalize drug use, prostitution, and gambling and spend the savings on an extensive prison regime.
A new negative situation: Police Brutality. This represents a widespread problem with the police abusing their trust at the expense of the citizenry. Boosts violence, crime, and racial tension. Also makes the countryâs voters more liberal, while pissing liberals off immensely. Boosted by heavily arming the police, other tough on crime measures, and making lots of things illegal. (No, not by police budgets. I have no idea whatsoever why the American left has suddenly decided to adopt the Reaganist idea that underfunded services are less corrupt and more responsive.) Decreased by community policing and other similar policies.
I think these suggestions would create much more interesting gameplay regarding crime in D4.
Hmmm, some very interesting feedback and ideas. I note that something we do not really track is demand for police services. The more laws, the more policing required, and for example legalizing prostitution, gambling and drugs should likely reduce demand for policing⌠maybe leading to a situation where high demand for policing and low funding leads to a stressed police force and arguably polcie brutality⌠this could be an interesting situation actually.
I do agree that violent crime and crime are too coupled right now
I did some digging in the sim, and although we do not explicitly track police demand as a blue icon, it is modelled in many cases. Iâve adjusted some of those values, to make crime and violent crime less similar and to make gun ownership increase violent crime but decrease normal crime.
Iâve also adjusted the sim so that both crime and violent crime rate have equal input to the costs of prisons, private prisons and the prison regimes, as some of them only had one input.
Iâm definiterly going to consider a police brutality situation at some point.
New Simulation: Business Consolidation. At low levels, your country has numerous small and regional businesses. At high levels, your countryâs economy is dominated by massive conglomerates. Provides a modest boost to productivity when high, but has an inverse relationship with membership in âSelf-Employedâ. Increased by regulations (big businesses can handle the added cost more easily), subsides to various industries (def. tech subsides), a high GDP, and nationalization. Decreased by grants to small business, anti-trust laws, and high corporation and capital gains taxes.
New Negative Situation: Monopolies. Triggered by a high level of business consolidation. Hurts wages, productivity, and equality. Increases corruption and self-employed income, even as it decreases its membership. Probably should have other effects Iâm not thinking of. Defeat it through price controls, anti-trust laws, nationalization, or simply beating consolidation back down.
Nationalization should have a faster effect on monopolies than on consolidation. This way if you drop nationalization without the measures to constrain monopolies, youâll get an effect similar to the oligarchs of post communist Eastern Europe.
Almost forgot: Consolidation should be the main driver of the âFake newsâ situation. You can trace a direct line from the rise of massive media conglomerates and the decline of local news to the current polarized media environment.
I really love the idea of these situations insisting on the importance of competition in capitalism. It slots right into small business grants and the mergers decision. As a filthy socialist I canât help but feel like provision for the self employed and support for mutalist systems could curb both red bubbles too.
Iâve always wanted to see a âland of opportunityâ green bubble signifying youâve created a boom era where those with little have ample opportunity to make their fortune, and those with preexisting fortunes and power canât systemically prevent them.
I wouldnât say so. Mutalism affects the internal structure of a company, not its market behavior. A mega-cooperative isnât going to behave differently from a mega-corporation from the outside. But this is an excellent segway for more suggestions!
Labor and Employment:
Union membership: Should have an inverse relationship with labor laws, and strict labor laws should make unions mildly unhappy. This sounds counterintuitive, but itâs how things tend work in the real world. If the government is setting the rules for employers, thereâs less need for unions, and unions prefer to be able to negotiate their own contracts.
More policies to interact with unions: Rules on striking, rules on closed shops, banning public sector unions, etc. Union members should also disapprove of immigration.
New negative situation: Labor aristocracy. Represents a country having unions that are just terrible. Keeping workers from being fired over murdering people, making union jobs literally require a parent in the union, the works. Decreases union membership, increases union income, hurts productivity, equality, and business confidence. Makes more capitalists, angry capitalists, and more angry capitalists. Encouraged by government support of unions, closed shops, etc. Fought with anti-corruption or anti-union polices.
New simulation: Cooperatives. Represents how much of the economy is run by (at least partially) worker owned businesses. Massively increases self-employed membership when high, makes socialists happy, boosts equality. Naturally pretty low, Iâm not sure what other simulation factors should naturally boost it. This provides an alternate left-wing economic strategy as opposed to nationalization.
Polices to encourage or discourage cooperatives. This could be as light as preferring them in government contracts, to giving them tax breaks, to legally mandating employee ownership at the other end. All of these polices would hurt productivity a bit, and make capitalists displeased, along with all the other common effects of business subsidies or regulations (see above).
Actually reading this has made me think that we dont, if i recall, have a policy to ban striking. Thats something we should probably remedy. Could lead to class war I suppose.
Isnât that implicit under the Freedom of Association slider which was added in Democracy 3 Africa? Setting it low ended general strikes quick and lowered trade union membership if I recall.
Freedom of Association probably had an effect, but Africa also had a Right of Demonstration policy, which could be fully reversed cutting into Rail, Teacher, Healthcare Worker, and General Strikes.
We didnât port that one over as I recall, but I think we may end up re-implementing it as a more western sounding âban strikesâ policy during early access.