What does âfiscally conservativeâ really mean? Like, if you care about fiscal stability, all that means you want to be, like, neutral, right? End with near 0 but-err-on-positive surplus?
Because if thatâs all that means, paradoxically, high taxes can also be a solultion.
The democracy series are the best in teaching on how to respect democracyâŠhoweverâŠthere is a catch⊠the games in recent times only show western countriesâŠThere are some democratic countries which I add is suggestable to add inside mostly outside the western world like Singapore, Japan , India (which is highly recommended) or some other not so great nations as new challenges like Malaysia ,Brunei ,Philippines , Brazil, South Africaa and possibly MexicoâŠthis will make the game more challenging and More educational.
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I agree that more âexoticâ (to the audience) democracies would be better. Iâd go so far as to say in place of the rather samey Italy, Spain France, etc.
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If you are going to have a bunch of Europeans, at least make them different. D3 had the issue that all the countries were pretty much exactly the same.
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Ha. Ginny (who does the statistical research) is always telling me the same thing, and FWIW, I agree. I would lvoe to include Bangladesh, Venzuella and South Korea, also Russia. And maybe we will! The game isnt even in Early Access yetâŠ
But the harsh reality of the economics of making a game is that MOST players are really keen on plaing their home country, which means you really have to include USA/UK/Canada/France/Germany/Italy/Spain/Australia.
So basically canada, plus 3 more countries to go before we can get more interesting :D. There is also the âawkwardâ situation of modelling a country like Korea/Bangladesh when the majority of the characters in the game are white/western looking 
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Donât I remember you making the character art way less white for this exact reason?
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Yeah, he said theyâd made an effort to make the voter graphics more diverse because what each group looks like stereotypically differs between cultures (e.g skateboards vs soccerball)
Thats true, and I think it gives us a lot of flexibility for representing nations that are more diverse than those we covered in democracy 3, but theres no escaping the fact that the average cabinet in nigeria or japan looks VERY different to the average D4 one.
Maybe if the game sells well, we can get multiple minister art sets done.
It says something that just including Spain and Italy massively improves the gameplay variety from D3.
Hi there,
Iâve just bought the game and I like it a lot but as a German Iâd like to suggest some things:
Political Parties:
1.) The parties available arenât the oneâs that we have. T.Ex CDU, FDP, SPD, AFD, Die Linke, BĂŒndnis GrĂŒne, and many more.
2.) Shouldnât the choice of party affect the people that voted for you and thus the ministers in your cabinet? I found it strange that one minister is supported by capitalists while you are a socialist party. The next is supported by enviromentalists while yet another is supported by motorists etc. Thus the politics you chose will anger the ministers and make them less supportive and step down. And your popularity decreases aswell eventhough you are making decisions according to your political orientation.
3,) Shouldnât you be more popular when youâve just been elected? I mean why would anyone elect you and then straight away be displeased although you havenât done a thing yet.
4.) It would be great to see the popularity of a party at the beginning. Like the last voting results. Choosing a less popular party makes it more difficult while a popular party is easier etc.
Popularity:
It is a bit harsh that one unpopular decision can cost you a lot of popularity. Itâs not really steady. Sometimes you have to make decisions that are unpopular but still your voters understand it. In my case the crime decreased, unemployment went down, health was great and yet I was like 10% popularâŠ
These are just some things I noticed. I hope it helps.
Party names are 100% flavor. You can rename parties freely if you wish.
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Hey
Iâm a big fan of the Democracy series.
Thanks for making this great game.
Here are a few ideas and comments from a German that might help to improve the overall picture of Germany and the âfeeling for Germanyâ.
Economy:
-
High productivity situation.
Should be activated from the beginning / or early unlocked
(The German economy is one of the most competitive and productive in the world) -
Technology Advantage situation.
Should be activated from the beginning / or early unlocked
(According to the Global Combetetiveness Index 2019, Germany is the most innovative country in the world) -
Private Sapce Industry situation.
Should be activated from the beginning / or early unlocked
(Germany already has a private space industry. The construction of an offshore spaceport is currently being discussed) -
GDP should be higher
(Germany is the fourth largest economy in the world) -
Unemployment should be lower
(Germany has one of the lowest unemployment rates ever. Even the corona crisis has been weathered relatively well so far) -
uncompetitive economy situation.
Should be removed
(Is in direct contradiction to the reasons mentioned above) -
Internet speed.
Should be significantly lower
(Germany has great difficulties in advancing its digitization and is falling behind most countries) -
Multinational Tax Evasion Situation.
From the beginning
In general, I would say the German economy is portrayed as a paradox.
In the introtext it says:
âGermany has a strong, growing economy which is one of the best in the worldâ
In the game, however, Germany has GDP and unemployment in the âyellow areaâ and suffers from an uncompetitive economy and all the positive situations mentioned above that have led to this strong economy do not exist.
Wellfare:
-
Poverty
Should be higher.
(The income difference is growing in Germany and many people have no share in the growing prosperity) -
One could add a special situation for Germany.
âEast Germansâ or something like that.
The wages in East Germany are still lower than those in the West and the economy is also not at the same level even 30 years after reunification. This can have a number of negative effects.
For GDP, technology, wealth gap, equality, poor and middle income etc.
Foreign Policy
-
International Trade.
Should be significantly higher. (Germany has the highest current account surplus in the world. This dependency on exports should be clearly noticeable) -
Foreign Relations.
Should be higher and their influence on the German economy clearer.
(Germanyâs dependence on good relationships to do good business should be clear here too.) -
You could insert special situations here in which a player is repeatedly forced to decide whether he prefers good (trade) relationships or, for example, moral values.
-
Military Force
The German armed forces are in a miserable condition. Two and a half decades of saving with more and more commitments and missions have broken the armed forces, even though the budget in 2020 was increased again to 45.2 billion euros (approx. 1.4% GDP).
The maximum possible amount in the game is just ⏠33.55 billion.
Since Germany wants to achieve the NATO quota of 2% of GDP by around 2030, expenditure will rise to ⏠70-80 billion.
A special situation for Germany can perhaps also be worked out from these circumstances. -
International Fusion Research Project.
Should be there from the start.
(Germany is not only part of the International ITER project but also has its own national Fusion Research Project)
Public services
-
Education
Should be lower. (Germany has an excellently trained workforce BUT the school system has to struggle with many problems and falls far below expectations. Particularly in an international comparison, German schools score only mediocre) -
Hospital Overcrowding
Should be removed.
(Germany has no problem here. Even in the corona crisis there was no shortage. Germany was even able to offer other nations to send their patients to Germany) -
Obesity
Should be higher.
(Germany is one of the âfatestâ nations in the world)
Law and Order
-
Crime
Should be lower.
(Germany is not without problems but the crime statistics have shown a clear downward trend for years) -
CCTV cameras
Should be removed.
(The only places that are usually allowed to be monitored by cameras are public facilities such as airports and train stations) -
ID cards
Should be biometric.
(ID cards are biometric in Germany) -
New Policy idea: Mandatory name tags for police officers.
(A controversial topic in Germany. Nameplates were introduced in Westphalia, for example. A later government abolished them again. Liberals see this as a method to curb arbitrariness and police violence. Conservatives and police officers, however, see the protection of their person and their privacy as endangered)
I hope this can help.
But its clear that game design and balancing have priority.
Stay healthy 
Thankyou for the detailed feedback. I know its taken a while, but Iâm finally catching up 
We have already made some changes which reflect what you have said, so currently Germany does not start with hospital overcrowding, GDP is fairly high, and obesity is in from the start.
I am going to adjust some figures to push technology/productivity higher and crime lowerâŠ
Does Germany really have a noticeable private space program though? we are only really triggering this for countries that are regularly privately launching rockets, which currently AFAIK is just the USA.
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So I have no idea but I suspect a lot of European space programs are essentially covered by ESA?
ESA - Funding Apparently thatâs funded at 6.68B
Interestingly, Canada is also part of ESA Enlargement of the European Space Agency - Wikipedia
And according to this video,
a number of European countries are in the top 11 (top ten without USA which is #1) of funding space agencies. Russia, France, Germany, Italy, and UK.
Maybe you consider those contributions too small, but Iâd argue that, perhaps, the funding range should be expanded such that USAâs NASA isnât literally the only space program in the world that matters
These top ten together actually spend slightly more than the US (according to that video)
According to the video:
-
the UK fund 10% of ESA with a budget of $900M
-
Italy spends 1.1B on ASI and ESA (funding 13% of ESA)
-
Germany spends $2.1B (which is certainly a reasonable chunk of budget) on DLR and funds 20% of ESA
-
they also specifically contributed to some Mars programs so technically there is a Mars Mission too (although Iâd argue the game vastly oversimplifies this by pretending those are two different things. In reality, lots of countries collaborate on lots of missions - like, these Mars things were collabs with NASA)
-
France spends $3.1B on CNES and funds ESA to 27%
-
Together, UK, Italy, Germany, and France fund ESA to 70%, with the remaining 30 coming from, in alphabetical order:
Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. -
Russia spends $3.4B (so not actually that much more than France)
This is only European countries. I left out South Korea, Japan, India, and China in Asia, as well as Canada. (China is the biggest spender by far if we donât include the US, with $5.8B - but for that large and ambitious a country, thatâs not much more than twice what Germany spends!)
Hmmm very interesting. Maybe i need to revisit this an apply it for some of those countries but at a low level. currently the minimum for the UK would be ÂŁ5 billion a year
Thing is, space research doesnât have to involve actual rocket launches. You can go in with FAR less by simply designing bits and pieces of research equipment. These are massively collaborative projects (so one of the biggest benefits is consequently gonna be foreign relations - this literally doesnât work if the countries involved arenât on speaking terms) and lots of countries have small contributions.
I think itâd kinda make sense to merge the current regular space program and the mars program and basically put this on an exponential slider similar to nuclear policy.
- Low funding is basically just, you contribute a small piece of specialized equipment to a single mission once in a while.
- Mid-Funding means you are part of multiple missions with multiple crucial pieces of equipment. You donât necessarily launch stuff yourself though.
- High funding means you actually launch rockets yourself.
- Very high funding means manned missions which need a ton of extra safety and resources (you gotta make the trip livable! You need to plan a return trip!)
- Extreme funding means (literal) moon-shot missions where you actively build bases on the Moon and/or Mars, and perhaps even work towards space mining.
And in fact, foreign relations should work the other way: It should go up a lot at first (even fairly small contributions probably are gonna show a benefit there) but later it shouldnât change that much anymore, I think. (Once your space program is big enough to basically do stuff entirely on its own, you no longer rely on the good will of other nations to get things done)
Meanwhile, Patriotism should probably scale more or less exactly like spending. Low space programs barely even get mentioned in the media so mostly people arenât even aware. But once you start launching your own rockets, patriotism is gonna shoot up quite quickly.
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Come to think of it, it might even be the case that the effect could be the opposite way round too: Better foreign relations are gonna make space programs cheaper for individual countries.
This may well be one reason why China and Russia are the two biggest spenders besides the US: They count less on collaboration. (they totally do collaborate still. But things are often kinda rocky) - For them itâs often (not always) a matter of showing off. Prestige and dominance on the worldâs stage. (This is somewhat true for the US efforts too but, even if current times have taken a backburner on this, the US tries more to collaborate, at least in Europe. Iâm not sure how strongly linked the Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and South-Korean programs are in comparison. And Europe literally made ESA to collaborate)
Better foreign relations mean you donât have to do as much all by yourself. So you can get more done with less money. So the effects of the space program become bigger with less investment.
I still think the space program should boost foreign relations. But foreign relations should probably also reduce space program costs by a few percent. Or else modulate the effects of it.
Oh, another thing about the space programs:
Perhaps they ought to make the climate adaption funds cheaper.
Think weather satellites and such. They would help with early warning systems and stuff like that.
I had to create an account just for that because it bothers me much.
The quote above is far from reality.
I always wondered why there is an obesity crisis for Germany in democracy 3 and 4 because when looking at other people here in Germany (I live in Berlin) I cannot see people with obesity like in the USA, not even close to that.
Please consider this link for reference:
According to that Germany is on one level with Hungary, Israel and Peru. As far as i know these countries arent known for their obesity.
According to the numbers and what the BMI considers as ânormalâ Germany has obesity. But itâs far away from a crisis. Nobody here has to drive in scooters when going to the supermarket. 
Edit:
The same page in german shows how many people are considered adipose percentage wise.