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
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
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