I’ve been finding that when I lose games, it is very, very rarely because I lose an election, and almost always because I’m assassinated.
Generally, it seems like the assassination mechanic seems rather extreme, and particular groups seem very prone to it. Multiple times I’ve been assassinated by liberals even while their bar is yellow, not even red, and they seem far more likely to try to kill me than even other groups I’ve angered more. I think this is particularly problematic because the liberals I’ve found very difficult to keep happy unless you really go out of your way to please them. If you’re trying to court the religious or conservatives, it seems all but impossible to not have the liberals plotting to kill you. Comparatively, catering to the liberals and ignoring the conservatives and religious doesn’t seem a path that is as likely to lead to sudden, bomb-assisted death.
This is particularly jarring when it can happen despite having incredibly good overall approval. My most recent game saw me assassinated by liberals while having a >90% approval rating, and even amongst the liberal focus group, only 4 people disliked me at all and only 1 had an approval of less than a third (and those that disliked me did so primarily because they were wealthy capitalists, not because they were liberals).
This seems to unreasonably pressure you into a particular play-style, as even relatively mild conservatism is harshly punished. More broadly, I also think that even among the other groups, assassination comes far too quickly, and is far too hard to avoid. I’d also be interested to know if policies can assist you, because I’ve tried running a strict police state (lots of police, police drones, wire tapping, lots of CCTV, high tech spy agency, well equipped military, etc.) but this didn’t really seem to do anything to prevent my untimely demise. It would seem like these kinds of policies should help you avoid the problems of terrorism, at least to a degree.
Something that may not be apparent is that the terrorists are actually voters, and individually modeled. They also have individual levels of radicalism, partly affected by age. Liberals tend to be younger, and therefore may be slightly more activist in nature. The issue you are seeing is likely because there are a LOT of liberals in your country, so the available ‘pool’ of potential radicals is much higher.
Terrorist tendencies build up and dissipate over time, slowly, so if you have at any point really angered some people, they will take a while to ‘calm down’, which is why you can be assassinated when you support is so high, although there should not be an assassination attempt if the source group is actively happy (green).
It sounds like you were unlucky on the prevention front, draconian police state policies should definitely increase your survival chances, although they will not prevent terrorist groups growing.
Thanks for this reply. I do wonder if there might be a couple too many policies that grow liberalism and not many that reduce it? However, I’ll keep these things in mind and have another go at running some more conservative governments.
I have now successfully run a draconian France for around 5 terms, so this is possible. However, I would note a couple of things I found from the experience:
Despite having the most draconian and anti-liberal laws I could manage, and eliminating everything that encouraged liberalism, liberal membership flattened out at 20%. I’ve not managed to find a way to drop it lower than this.
As a consequence of the above, I’ve also had assassination attempts almost every single turn for 10 years. Despite this, I’ve not got the ‘Survivor’ achievement? What is it you need to do to get this, because I’m now highly practiced at avoiding bomb blasts, but no luck.
Similarly, I’ve got 100% religious people, with their happiness at 100% but no luck with the ‘God’s Kingdom’ achievement.
Finally on the achievement front, I’ve got CCTV, internet censorship, wire tapping, ID cards, prisoner tagging, police drones, intelligence services, curfews and even satellite road pricing and speed cameras at their maximum values (my France is a delightful place to live) but haven’t triggered the surveillance society achievement either.
Not sure if the achievements are bugs or if I’ve just misinterpreted them, but if it’s the latter, possibly they could be a bit clearer?
version 1.04 changed so that liberals are less angry and socialists are more angry, so this may help you. regarding the achievements:
Gods kingdom requires high religious percentage, ban on Sunday shopping, creationism and abortion law in favor of the religious group for a full year.
Surveillance requires ID Cards CCTV Camera high Intelligence services, Internet censorship Wire Tapping Prisoner tagging speed cameras and police drones, all for a year or more.
You should get the survivor one if you survive 4 assassination attempts in one game.
Thanks. I will double check the others later, but I think the survivor achievement is definitely bugged. I have survived many more than four assassination attempts in this game without gaining the achievement. Happy to send save game if it would help? Or provide other details.
I’ve managed to trigger the surveillance society one now, but I think the ‘God’s Kingdom’ achievement is bugged. I’ve had a total ban on abortion, sunday shopping and creationism only for several years with a 100% religious society without it triggering. Again, happy to send a save if it helps.
To confirm, most of these achievements following the latest patch, 0.5 now have triggered. However, I’ve still had no luck triggering God’s Kingdom? I loaded a game where the conditions set out above were fulfilled, and played for a full year, but it hasn’t come up.
I’d have to agree that the liberals are far, far too assassination happy. On my compass for the last 30 odd elections, I’ve never yet been on the conservative side of the chart, which suggests that my politics are fairly liberal. They’re also the only faction to ever assassinate me. Again and again.
My style of governance basically involves ignoring the electorate, and fixing all the situations. After that, the various statistics. This is usually enough to get me re-elected provided I can keep the economy under control. Playing on 200% difficulty (otherwise default settings), I only ever lose a game through economic collapse (rare), or liberal assassination. I’ll also find I’m getting frequent assassination threats while they’re on yellow happiness
In contrast (and in spite of a few warnings) the capitalists have only once taken a shot at me in spite of spending every game in the red. Playing as Australia, I got an official warning from the security services for 8 turns in a row that the religious fanatics were gunning for me, but no attempt materialised.
I understand that some factions are more likely to come for you than others, but I can’t believe the liberals are THAT much more aggressive - particularly as I agree with most of their policies?
It sounds like you just have way more liberals than capitalists. Nobody tries to assassinate you if they emigrate in disgust :D, btu maybe this needs some more balancing…
Have to agree, repeatedly assassinated by Liberals.
I assume that since they are the ones most likely to oppose a police state like regime, there’s not really any way to stop it turning into a death spiral? I tried pandering to them with certain policies and overall adjustments, but they just keep hating me.
Silly thing is, I just got the achievement for having all majority of all voting demographics (think they were all above 70%), then had about 4 or 5 assassination attempts by the liberals, then finally got torched on the next turn. Why must you hate my australian utopia you lunatics?
