The potential DLC design ideas thread

At some point, I think I may do some expansion packs for the game. Quite a way off, but I thought I could start a conversation about it.
My two main idea for expansion right now are:

The Elections Expansion :ballot_box::bar_chart::chart_with_upwards_trend:
This would add a bunch of extra stuff relating to elections, such as modeling what electoral system was in place, and policies to encourage turnout on election day (campaigns, but also a policy for mandatory voting, with various levels of enforcement). There could also be the option to choose between appealing to your base (encourage turnout) versus trying to appeal to non-voters, or appeal to people who normally vote for the opposition.
It might be interesting to allow you to choose (with some element of risk of it backfiring) to use dirty tricks and smear campaigns, with negative ads.
(FWIW I do not think we can go into the detail of individual states/provinces/constituencies, because that requires too much per-country work, which wrecks mods, and also requires too much in-depth knowledge from players)

The Situation Room :military_helmet::policeman::rotating_light:
This would be in addition to the existing system of assassination threats, but deal with terrorism and serious crime/threats that may not directly target the head of state, so it could be threats to blow up power stations, or disrupt the internet, or suicide bombings in the streets etc.

I think of this as a sort of decision-tree, where events that crop up would be intelligence about potential threats, and a series of options, and outcomes and further complications, which would apply to each one. Each situation and decision would involve trade-offs, and some options might be greyed out if you do not have the appropriate policy in place.

For example, there may be intelligence that there is a threat to the electricity grid from terrorists, but unless you have wire-tapping enabled, you wont get the option to round up the suspects, and will have to deploy the army to power stations.

Just musing right nowā€¦but opinions most welcome :smiley:

5 Likes

Every large enterprise has its sacrifices, comrade.

:slight_smile:

I largely think that youā€™re on the right track, maybe these will get included in D5, hmmā€¦?

As for situation room, you could add hurricanes to that too.

An DLC that add different years in start game? For example USA 2000 2001 2010 2020

1 Like

I think different starting conditions are interesting, but something easily done by modders, and Iā€™d like to use the opportunity of DLC to bring something to the game that modders couldnā€™t do.

Natural disasters are interesting, but they donā€™t involve much in the way of decision making by a president/prime minister. The game uses them partly to balance the difficulty, and partly to reflect climate change, but apart from maybe the politics of disaster-preparation, there isnā€™t that much ā€˜politicsā€™ in a hurricane*

*katrina suggests otherwise, but Iā€™m not sure what mistakes were made there which would also be chosen by a player in the game. Iā€™ve read stuff that suggests the response was poor due to racism, but no player will tick a ā€˜provide racist responseā€™ option (I hope).

1 Like

modders canā€™t make nations be in several years I said when you choose a country in the screen that you choose the names of the parties I said that there is an option with the different years. I know it is very difficult to replicate America from 1960 to 2020, for example Iā€™m not saying you have to do 1960 1961 1962 ā€¦ 2000 2001 2020 I say like the important years like for the usa 1980 2001 2018 2020 and make it possible for the nations of the mods as well

1 Like

Maybe going into de detail of provinces may be too much, but could we get the posibilities of indirect voting sistems, like that of the USA, where the winning candidate may not be the one with more votes, like Trump in 2016?

2 Likes

You can do that by changing the country ā€˜.txtā€™ file easily. E.g. You could simulate post-WWII USA with things like; not having the Race Discrimination Act, GDP cycle starting at ~0.75 (since sin(3Ļ€/2)=-1), high CGT, etc.

Sure you have to do it manually, but itā€™s time consuming rather than difficult. Thatā€™s what @cliffski means by ā€œsomething easily done by moddersā€. For example, Iā€™ve made a private Airstrip One mod.

1 Like

I donā€™t speach that there are more nations in different year but one nation and when you star and select the name of the party in this foldere there is different options of years.

1 Like

No, I know what you mean. Iā€™m saying that it, or something equivalent, can be made by users.

1 Like

The Elections Expansion

  • Though it may sound similar to the Electioneering of D3, itā€™s always an interesting matter. More tricks to elections can add another layer of strategies. Democracy the game is about letting players know why so many real-world politicians donā€™t do something seemingly good in my eyes, by giving a chance to put themselves in politiciansā€™ shoes. Letting them to have a chance to mess with elections will be a good one, too.
  • However, I want to point out that they might end up being another first-term shenanigans. While I actively use electioneering contents in the first term, they start losing their value very quickly after that. I donā€™t even make any speech after the first election, needless to mention pledges. High-Campaigning ministers are broken strong at the first term but it doesnā€™t matter when my approval soars. All I need are effective & loyal ministers who can help me achieve +23 PC/turn for either Satellite Road Pricing or Faith School Subsidies. For campaign funds, I donā€™t really care about it for the whole game. New electioneering tools wonā€™t be any different from them if over-90% vote share victory is a norm.
  • Another worrying point is, that Iā€™ve never seen any shenanigans involving political apathy slider. Players can set political apathy level before starting the mission but itā€™s rarely touched. If manipulating voter turnout was important in this game, thereā€™s a high chance that someone has already tried exploiting that setting.
  • I hope it to include vague notions of parliamentary elections or intra-party conflicts (possibly primary/caucus). Introducing needs to care about party loyalty can be a good way of adding more difficulties for widely-supported governments. While it can be said that minister loyalty kinda does this, losing their loyalty wouldnā€™t be as damaging as losing the confidence of your party.
  • Nonethelss, Iā€™d say that itā€™d be better to take my feedback with a pinch of salt since I was skeptical when D3: Electioneering was released. Currently Iā€™m actively appointing high-campaigning stat ministers at least in the first term.

The Situation Room

  • I guess you should remember that Emergency & Terrorism mod or something from Democracy 3. It was one of the best mods in D3 for me. It would be nice if I can see a DLC expanding its features.
  • I hope this to become a chance to make the conservative voters more important. Iā€™ve recently tried laissez-faire capitalism and ended up employing lots of policing & security measures (even including racial profiling, which I have neglected until then) since it was quite hard to suppress crime. It was the first time I felt that it might be helpful to go with the conservatives. But itā€™s not the case for more paternal governments, which tend to have near-zero poverty. Though this may mean that the poverty & game difficulty need to be addressed (as it has been recently discussed here), introduction of more general terrorism can also be a key.
  • I personally liked just a bit of predictability on terror attack frequency in that mod. Terror attacks were more likely to happen if you have high racial tension and poor security. It gave me choices - will you look at the bigger picture and hope for good results or take a hard-line approach and achieve victory? Though actual links between a societyā€™s racial tension and terror attack probabilities can be disputed, it was interesting for a game mechanic in D3.

Just a bit about Modding Tools

  • I understand what you mean by ā€˜let modders do what they can do while developers doing what only devs can doā€™ and it could be seen as something quasi-feasible to add ā€˜missions by starting years.ā€™ But modding tools are still rather restrictive.
  • I had several modding ideas and have actually implemented some of them. But it wasnā€™t possible to do so without directly modifying some .*csv files. Sometimes the targets werenā€™t up for modding via overrides (LIS mod). There also have been some cases that some specific overrides didnā€™t work at all (income adjustment). And now I canā€™t find any example how to modify existing dilemma/event results (CreateGrudge ones) via overrides. Attached related forum post links below.
  • +Iā€™m still not sure whether circular links between 2 factors is okay to have or not.
  • I appreciate your efforts to make moddings more accessible for broader users. But I hoped more powerful tools in my hands. I donā€™t really want to distribute my mods with download links and tell them how to install them (also, *.csv modifying mods need to be updated every time the game gets an update :/).

[My modding projects discontinued because of limitations]:

4 Likes

I like both of these ideas.

Would the Situation Room happen all in one turn? Would you include things like, to pick something totally at random, deciding how to respond to another nationā€™s military aggression towards a 3rd nation it claims to have historical connections to? Would there be the option to say one thing, but do something else? Like, saying you want to do everything to de-escalate tension while sending arms to the nation under attack? Again, a purely hypothetical example.

As for the Elections Expansion, have different election models gets a big ā€˜thumbs upā€™ from me. Things like Electoral College, gerrymandering, and FPTP make huge differences to election results, as well as reducing the democratic status of those nations.

One issue that springs to mind with this though is that most of these favour parties on the conservative end of the spectrum. How do you simulate that without accusations of ā€œLiBeRaL BiAsā€? Would they be fixed, or would it be possible to implement policies to introduce/remove them?

Adding policies WRT lobbying, donations, and election ads, could also make large differences. For example, restrictions on election ads in the UK might mean you only get to make campaign speeches in the final turn before an election, rather than the last 3. Restrictions on donations might lead to having no political donors at all. It would also be good if you could get ā€œco-operative big donorsā€ like trade unions rather than just individuals.

2 Likes

Reading this reminds me of a D3 mod adding lobbying situations & restriction. If I remember correctly, it was called Overhaul Mod or something. It had several lobbying situations varying from corporate lobbying (oil lobby, commerce lobby, etc) to pressure group lobbying (conservative/liberal lobby). They demanded some expensive or unpopular policies by threatening the next election with political ad campaigns. Players had Election Law and Public Campaign Funding, which can reduce lobbying power at a cost of liberals/capitalist approval or sizable expenses. It was another one of the best mod in D3 for me.

2 Likes

Well, itā€™s not just ā€œprovide racist responseā€, itā€™s also, ā€œnot build enough protectionā€, or ā€œnot provide aid fast enoughā€, or ā€œnot deploy army to bring orderā€, or ā€œnot mobilize FEMA fast enoughā€, among other things.

Interesting feedback everyone!
I absolutely want to reflect the impact of different voting systems. Apart from anything, a switch from a first-past-the-post constituency system to proportional representation should result in a huge boost for 3rd parties and smaller parties, and make coalitions more likely.

I do wonder about the possibilities of having a referendum option too? In some ways, this allows you to shift the blame for policies onto the electorate, and arguably makes a country more democraticā€¦ but then the brexit referendum shows how it can make things even more divisiveā€¦so not sure!

I definitely agree that more focus on party funds would be good. In my mind I have always imagined that some of the socialist donors are in fact bosses of unions, but it would be interesting if we could do that explicitly, and name the unions (and tie the funds to current union membership etc).
And caps on fundraising should totally be a thing!

4 Likes

Iā€™m glad you mentioned referendums (referenda? please advise on Positech style guide) it reminded me to set out how I think it could work.

To choose a completely neutral and undivisive example. A referendum on EU membership.

The dilemma would appear as usual with 3 options; side with membership, side with independence, no comment/hide in a fridge. Or more generically, ā€˜Side Aā€™, ā€˜B-sideā€™, ā€˜Neitherā€™.

The direct effect on your decision would depend on current popularity, cynicism, trustworthy rating. So, if you are popular, trustworthy, and have guillible uncynical voters, that will increase the chances of the referendum going in your favour, regardless whether you choose ā€˜Aā€™ or ā€˜Bā€™. The opposite will occur if you have low ratings for these; a cynical population who donā€™t like you might be put off by your endorsement. Choosing ā€˜Neitherā€™ would have a negative effect on strength (like the current 3rd runway dilemma does) potentially galvanising whichever option is not currently the case. E.g. Not committing either way on an EU ref in existing in game EU states would increase turnout for leave, but in the UK, it would boost pro-membership turnout. This choice would also please/annoy voter groups as current dilemmas do already.

Separate to this, voter group complacency, sizes, cynicism, happiness would influence the actual outcome. If youā€™ve got 99% patriot membership, this makes independence far more likely, even if youā€™re 100% popular and side with membership. However, if they are very complacent, they might all stay home and lose the result. High cynicism and unhappiness might prompt voters to vote for change regardless of their surface level preference. So, you might have a 99% Liberal and Capitalist population, but if they are unhappy and/or very cynical, they may vote for independence anyway.

Situations and policies will also have an effect. For example, Fake News, Media Monopoly, high Press Freedom, might sway the result against you, whereas Media Censorship and low Press Freedom would boost your choice coming out on top. Low Foreign Relations, high Immigration of both types would increase likelihood of independence and vice versa.

This might seem obvious, but the result would change existing policies. E.g. Abolishing the monarchy would remove the monarchy situation, joining/leaving the EU would make the availability of Import Tariffs, Capital Controls change.

I do think that theoretically any policy/situation can be put to referendum, although there would be a natural weighting towards policies with high political capital cost (e.g. Gay Marriage, Death Penalty, Nuclear Weapons).

Combined with the potential Elections Expansion, referenda should be more/less likely based on Democracy value, and things like how representative the nation is. I.e. very direct democracies, like Switzerland, might see a referendum every term, if not more. I also think a brief spike in polarisation would make sense too.

Finally (IKR? Thank goodness), Iā€™d like to see ā€œSingle Currencyā€ referendum, but I realise modelling the impact of that would be HUGE.

ā€¦Aside from that, I have no thoughts on the issue. :smile::smile:

1 Like

Interesting thoughts, thanks. I think there is definitely some scope for introducing referendums to the game, and we already have lots of mechanics to tie into it, as you point out.

Maybe they could be implemented as a special case of a dilemma? Right now, dilemmas are distinct from everything else, but a referendum demand could be like a dilemma, but related to (and conditional on) existing policies.

So for example if your country has the death penalty, and abolition referendum is proposed. The player chooses between:

  • Deny referendum (reduced democracy, angers the pro-abolition group)
  • Accept the referendum neutrally
  • Accept and choose a side

This could all happen in a single turn, and then we get the outcome of the referendum, which shows how all the various influences you outline (cynicism, minister campaigning, the issue itself etc) come together to select the actual outcomeā€¦

ā€¦and then you can agree with the result, or ignore it, with obvious ramifications for democracy, cynicism (with the everyone group maybe?) and voter perceptions.

I think having the game pick referendum targets will keep things manageable, as like you say, they are usually on very divisive issues, like nuclear disarmament, EU membership, monarchy, death penalty, maybe also firearms legislation and abortion (especially for the USA).

There would need to be special note made of any referendum-determined actions, so there are severe cynicism impacts if you overturn the referendum result within X years.

2 Likes

Coming back to what @Franztroll suggested i agree that we should have different start dates, but what i want to suggest is adding a menu where you can actually do diplomacy with other countries directrly rather than trough policies, for example you can have protectionist tarrifs but then make trade deals with other countries that bypass the tarrifs, also the ability to do things like emargo, sacntion and even declare war (it would really give you more of a reason to have a maxed military and make it less of a waste of money) there should be a grand strategy map style menu for doing these things.

This idea would fit in well with having historical start dates because then you could do things like fight the Vietnam war or deal with cold war tensions as the US, fight the Falklands war as the UK or even do subversive activities with your intel agency, this would also give great potential to have alternate history outcomes to those conflicts depending on what the player does.
Just to make it clear iā€™m not talking about having HOI4 style map painting, you would not control the military directly but you would appoint generals like you appoint ministers and going to war would have really serious reprocussions. (anti-war movements, sanctions, economic problems and so on), you could also add the ability to make manifesto pledges to go to war or end a war.

You would also have meetings with the military and intelligence top brass each turn to discuss the current strategic situation and make warplans.

you could call it the Foreign Policy expansion or something like that

2 Likes

I appreciate that you support my idea but the map thing is very difficult.

I thought IF there will be a map to put it in the party menu a card of its own called world tension colored with the state with more tension in red and with less in green

however declaring war is better in HOI4. I was just saying different dates for dealing with economics and politics. at most one event with which he says war is over if it is the one in Vietnam but not one that declares war. we must also be a little realistic.

a middle ground would be given for example from 1935 1940 every 20 years or 40 years type for Italy (where I live there) 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 and if there are wars in progress only if you have won and if you have lost and then a dilemma with which you decide the peace treaty but here we are going towards HOI4.

1 Like

Extremely ambitious idea here, but here goes. If we have a Foreign Policy expansion (piggybacking off of @boreal_dragon ā€˜s idea), what about multiplayer? Could there be a way wherein players can play nations and then my actions as America can influence another player playing the UK? I imagine two or more players joining a server instead of it being random.

1 Like