The 🇺🇸 USA map feedback & balance thread

I still think we should have a situation for just how much US unions suck, which lowers union membership, because no one in their right mind would want to join one.

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Gotta note, it’s gonna be high turnout by US standards which really has quite a bad track record, in part of pretty anti-democratic rules. For instance, voting day is, iirc, a Tuesday, and it’s not a national holiday. So automatically, poorer folks are disadvantaged 'cause they might actually get fired if they leave their work in order to vote.

Of course you can mail-in vote but clearly, for the coming election, that has been deliberately sabotaged.

In light of issues like these, I’d genuinely argue that the US should not start with maximum Democracy. They do a lot to make it hard for “the other party” to win.

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I think US should probably start with Trade Union Restrictions. Not set to very high - they are not banned by any means - but definitely not at 0

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Agreed. Although the sitting president stands down after 2 terms, their party will still run again. Therefore I think that the US game should continue in the same way as the UK version. The two term executive option can still be in place, just that there is a different leader at the helm (with leader traits being reset every 2 elections).

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See, I find explanations that American unions are dysfunctional because of government repression unsatisfactory because the big anti-Union measure people are scaremongering about are right-to-work to laws… which pretty much every other country has as a matter of course. The EU Courts even consider it a human right to not be forced to join a union to work in a particular business. It’s hard to square “Oh, US laws are super anti-union” with “US unions have almost unique privileges in the half the country”. Hence why I think a “labor aristocracy” situation to represent dysfunctional unions (and which reduces membership) fits the US.

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So I’m in a game right now with a Fake News dilemma but the increasing factors of Fake news are Technology and Internet Speed which seems fair, but the next one is Education. Education in my game is 7 out of 11 on the line graph grid, so the people are educated.

LOWER education should have an increased effect on Fake News, not the current where more education increases Fake News

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Education effect on fake news:
Education,0.6*(1-x)^2
At 0 its 0.6
At 1 its 0

So maxed out education won’t increase it.

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Are there any dilemmas around say NIMBY? e.g. Yucca Mountain nuclear storage.

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There is a housing related planning dilemma, but not a specific policy yet.

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Some policies that are missing:
free school meals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_meal_programs_in_the_United_States)
rural development grants (subsidising rural airports and train stations, mostly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_Air_Service)
healthcare tax credits (employee health insurance is tax deductable under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafeteria_plan)
mortgage tax relief (well known federal thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_mortgage_interest_deduction#United_States)
university grants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pell_Grant)
gambling (very much a thing in the US, im not sure why it isn’t active in the UK either)
secret courts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court)
drone strike act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix)
body cameras (47% of police agencies in the states have at least one now)
police drones (hundreds are in use: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenrice1/2019/10/07/10-ways-that-police-use-drones-to-protect-and-serve/#4cc19ce56580)
fuel efficiency standards (https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/brief-history-us-fuel-efficiency)
school tax credits (private schools are classified the same as charities for the purposes of income tax in the US)

maybe a little more controversially, I’d suggest including racial profiling, since we are representing all levels of government here

Fair enough if you don’t include all of these, but I figure the starting policies are a tad generic atm

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Tacking on to what you posted, I’d also suggest this:

  • Rubber Bullets automatically active on a medium scale
  • Water Cannons automatically active on a low scale
  • If Flashbangs are/become an option, also have those active on a medium

Also, with whatever factors contributing to it, the US should also have a higher degree of corruption than the UK that’s equal to France. If the same countries from Democracy 3 will be included, this is how they should be scaled according to the Corruption Perceptions Index:

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Eh, by global standards all of those countries should have very low corruption rates.

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Aaaaaahhhhhh… :anguished::wave:t2: Be that as it MAY, when you compare them to most African countries and totalitarian governments, I believe there is a spectrum of nuances that reminds us that each country has generally its own unique set of problems and give us a rough idea of what needs to be done to fix them. That’s always been the ebb and flow of the games. It was good to see it come back from D3 Africa and applied to the original nations.

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New to playing the game, been fun so far, thanks!

Military spending seems quite low. I don’t know if you are scaling or want actual numbers, but should be more in the neighborhood of 700 billion, not 177 billion as the game starts.

Spending on healthcare too seems quite low. Spending for healthcare is around 3.5 trillion I believe according to national expenditure reports.

Conservatives absolutely hate anything liberal or government provided more than other countries in my opinion. You only need to go on conservative US political sites or watch Fox News to see how the degree of polarization in the United States.

Fake News should also be higher to start out with and contribute negatively to Education, Racial Tension, Equality, Gender Equality, conservatives should like it, and liberals should absolutely hate it.

I also believe the Corruption starting point should be higher and make everyone dislike you to a higher scaling and make democracy go down to a higher degree. Maybe also contribute to antisocial behavior.

Democracy is far too high to start out with. If you research “gerrymandering” in the United States you will understand what I am talking about. Look at the state of Georgia recently to see how voter rights have been suppressed and how elections have been rigged. Recently it was announced by our own Republican controlled Senate that the Russians did aid Donald Trump in getting elected as President. Look up the Supreme Court ruling of Citizens United. The NRA (National Rifle Association) was recently indicted for money laundering. There’s more there for Democracy, but I’ll move on.

Any more restrictive change to firearm law should absolutely piss off conservatives and capitalists and lead to mob behavior, and other negative modifiers. Just look up what happened when a simple mask law was implemented in Michigan when armed protesters stormed the statehouse. With guns its 10x worse.

Our initial space program starting mark should be higher. When a pandemic hits, there should be a higher hit to job losses. Look at the reports from the Covid-19 outbreak in the US.

Armed police should be 100% and contribute more to police brutality and racial tensions. Look at John Oliver’s reporting piece on how police are trained in the United States.

I think Intelligence services should start at the maximum. Look at the Patriot Act and realize that was over a decade ago and it is only worse. Maybe add negative modifier for foreign relations, corruption, and democracy.

Private prisons should actually contribute to heavily positively for crime because the prisons are in the market of making money, so more crime is “found.” These crimes could be as simple as not being able to pay court fees, thus stuck in a cycle of being in the system and learning only to rely on fellow criminals. Liberals should absolutely hate private prisons and dislike any scaling up, not approve it as the game currently indicates.

Increasing the executive term length or amount of terms should be at least 50+. Amendments are hard to change, especially in such a currently divided nation. Income tax is it’s own beast. I believe the starting point is too high and the loopholes in the system make it very hard to navigate.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading

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Thanks for all the feedback. Its wrth pointing out that spending is shown per quarter, not per year, so multiple by 4 to get the annual spending equivalent levels.
I’ve been messing with simulation equation stuff all day but should have time to update the US mission with some of these policy adjustments tommorow

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Went lib unity in USA campaign.
Funding state everything + military + welfare + science/tech is expensive, but my IRS is airtight.
Pissed all wealth classes with taxes tho :smiley:

Also liberals are simply incompatible with religious and conservatives, there is partial incompatibility with patriots too.

By the way technology, or technological advantage should reduce uncompetitive economy situation - you technically can learn to make stuff cheaper.

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hahaha omg that income distribution. I think that’s the most insane one I’ve seen to date

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Yeah, 8 dollars per 10 goes to government on each exchange on average :smiley:
Usually tax income to GDP is 50% in most taxed countries.

Had to max out public tax returns, capital flow controls and rebalance tax loads (among other things) to remove all bad situations.
Now I have only one bad situation: Rare earth crisis.
3 TN income quarterly is 12 TN income yearly.

By the way income distribution will get crushed into one of walls after long enough gameplay :smiley:

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I mean, we’re not Mexico. Changing term limits is not at the “will be shot if you ever consider it” level.

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I’d still argue it doesn’t actually make sense for the US to have this be the president’s term lengths. Some congress position would make more sense, and governors and state-congresses could also be considered.
Issue is that conventions seem to vary wildly. Some of them have no term limits, others are very restricted, much like the president.

It’s difficult to pin down mostly because the game covers policies that would normally be considered at a wild range of locality/federality. And actually, only very few of them, as far as I understand, would be under the president’s direct control. Mostly, like, the military?
Executive Action only gets a president so far.

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