Variety of observations and suggestions (1.07)

Democracy 4 Alpha Feedback
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I’ve been taking notes when I’m playing. There weren’t enough on one particular topic to make seperate ones. Should I, though? For the sake of organization including debate.

  • Do decisions have an impact on how people view you? Trustworthy, strong etc. I was thinking releasing the con man would make you more compassionate.

  • When the national team win should it make more people patriotic? This one may be complex as many would temporarily be more patriotic but some probably stays. I have seen effects that decrease over time but does it work with membership?

  • This one may be well known. Capitalists are hard to please. In the end it feels like there are things people should care less about simply because they are used to it. Ideology also have an effect. Then again it may be hard to simulate because some things are only taken for granted because people aren’t talking about it. Gun rights in the US is one such example. Not only is it priced because of the culture but the constant debates dramatically fuels people’s awereness and sensitivity towards the subject. If Demo4 were to support policy awereness then events and news events seen in the quarterly report could be integrated into that system.

  • Retired is the opposite. They are still happy even though the elderly are known to complain about changes. And I have to ask why they are so happy about private pension. That’s their own savings.

  • Changing retirement age

  • It’s cheaper on political capital to reduce a policy you don’t want down to 0 rather than cancelling it. I tested this on a policy where it was already near 0 but it was still costly to cancel. This doesn’t follow the spirit of the new system (which I think is great!) where the more change the more political capital it takes.

  • Charity should be affected by wages/income. I once learned that Norway is the country that gives the most money per capita but looking it up it’s the US by far. This may be due to the data using average rather than median. Here’s some proof if it for 2014:
    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mean-versus-median-monthly-per-capita-expenditure-or-income
    One thing to take note of is that many rich people give to charity in their old age or by leaving it in their will.

  • Why is it so “expensive” to film yourself feeding a lamb?

  • Should game license affect income and food price? Hunting game is a way to get some extra food and I can see it being more common in tougher times.

  • Should speed cameras help towards crime? It’s a way to track suspects and stolen cars.

  • Aren’t hyperloop projects very expensive? I was thinking if the price should soar at a curtain point due to the advanced and experimental nature. Perhaps technology could reduce this cost.

  • Commuters increasing use of transportations. Bus, train, plane etc increase commuters due to their cost and availability but commuters are known to use different types of transportation. Bus and train/metro goes especially hand in hand.

  • I like the concept of changing or starting policies to get more political capital from the opposition but something I’m missing is working with them to get policies you want.

  • Does the age of the demographics matter? It’s a common saying that you grow more conservative when you get older.

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thanks for the feedback, there are some great points and suggestions here.

Regarding the last point, no! this is a good point, and one I will make a note to add.

Not sure about elsewhere, but in the UK, AFAIK speed cameras are very ‘dumb’. They are only triggering if you speed, so if a stolen car sticks to the speed limit, it can go through 100 cameras without a problem :smiley:

I do agree about the cancelling policy cost seeming a bit off now. I will give it some thought.

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This should definitely be accounted for eventually. However, at least right now, the issue isn’t people being too hard to please. They are way too easy to please. Once that’s being rebalanced, if it then becomes too difficult to play the game, stuff like this could be used to help.

I think there’s actually a slight subtlety there. Conservatives are generally upset at change of any kind. As tend to be elderly people.
So sure, people become more conservative. But really, they become less open to new experiences. If they are surrounded by a more progressive society, their baseline conservatism will already skew more relatively progressive. So technically, conservative views probably ought to shift slowly somehow. Modelling that correctly would be tough though.

That being said, this might be a strong argument for more accurately considering demographics. A young society will not just be happy with, but also flat out expecting more change, whereas an older society would prefer to just keep stuff the way they already know it. Young people are more likely to take electoral risks as well, voting for underdogs or nobody at all and instead going to the streets, whereas older voters are gonna be more loyal. Harder to bring over to your side, but once they are, also harder to lose. - And importantly, those elderly folks were young once, so you’d have time to gain trust with them before they become hard to flip.
I’d imagine a democracy where people still tend to get high single to low double digits of kids due to high death rates in young would have quite a different electoral dynamic from one that has reached the limit

Population-Pyramid-1950-to-2100
Population-Pyramid-1950-to-21003000×2082 3.47 MB

In Africa, as of 2019, 41% of the population is younger than 15, 3% is older than 65
In Europe, 16% is under 15, 18% over 65. World population by age and region 2022 | Statista
That’s gonna affect things anywhere from electoral dynamics to costs of pensions, schools, any spending to do with youth and parenting, and healthcare spending.
It’s a bit weird that currently Youth population is just assumed to be flat even as Parents can grow and shrink somewhat.

Strong agree. If you drop a policy to practically nil, it should be comparatively easy to get rid of, if you max it, it should be difficult. Additionally, I’d argue demographics ought to also influence this. If you have a big demographic of liberals, that ought to make liberal ideas easier to get in / harder to get out, etc. - You can think of this as effectively people calling/writing in / threatening protests/party abandomnent to make their voices heard directly. It’s absolutely a thing that happens.
Completely and utterly changing the demographic of the country is gonna be much harder that way. Which it probably should be.
And speaking of, Protests should also generally increase political capital cost towards anything that’s not gonna serve to end those protests.
Especially if Democracy is high.
Although Corruption may have a similar effect, just skewed specifically towards richer folks.

Imo that goes hand and hand with what I suggested before: Construction costs. This stuff would cost an insane amount at first. But eventually it’d be pretty much only maintenance cost. Which may still be high, but nowhere near the initial value.
This could also be considered RnD cost, in which case it’d potentially decay much slower than regular construction cost. (But yeah, tech could make this both faster and cheaper)

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Maybe a better way to capture what you’re referring to is to increase complacency gain on youths and decrease it on retired. Though that only effects complacency on youth/retired relevant issues.

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The assumption with stuff like hyperloop is that this is just financial detailing that is handled by govt accountants. So for example, assume a hyperloop network costs $100 bilion to build, but lasts 50 years and makes a 1 billion profit per year.

That means its actually losing 50 billion over its lifetime, and therefore effectively costs 1 billion (+ financing costs) per year to run and own.

Theoretically the govt is writing a $50bill check on day 1, and earning money for the next 50 years, but in practice, its all been financed using bonds and loans and so-on.

Thats my excuse for the simplified accountancy used in the game :smiley:

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Maybe it’d make sense to have more modifiers like the Selfdriving Cars one. Like, a Highspeed Rail one, and it’d not just be an on/off switch, but it’d have a level to it.
The reason is, if Monorail is supposed to be a state-run enterprise right now, you ought to be able to decide that you want to sell it off to private investors who would then continue to run it as they see fit.
Basically, you could pay for the initial infrastructure, and suddenly the point of entry is gonna be much more achievable for private enterprises. The initial infrastructure investment is by far the steepest part of the cost.

Unlike the self driving car one, this one could have multiple levels to it, corresponding to the rail speed. If you actually invest in Hyperloop, and pay for full implementation, and then sell to private enterprises, they would already have that Hyperloop in place and could then take care of maintenance and profits.

As for the simplified accountancy, the issue with that is that that changes the debt equation. Like, initial cost may well be prohibitively high, literally causing a debt spiral for you. The flat price right now kinda avoids that.

And finally I still think it’s weird that state run and private businesses apparently are unable to exist side by side.