I’m confused about what “security effectiveness” is in Democracy 2. It is in the Pressure Group screen, but even if I have no pressure groups coming after me, I still have a “security effectiveness” of Ineffective. Security Effectiveness does not also increase if I enact policies that would lower the “Terrorism” secret rating. So how do I increase Security Effectiveness, and what does Security Effectiveness do?
security effectiveness is how good you are at actually preventing the success of an attack. Reducing the threat of terrorism will reduce the extent to which extremists WANT to attack your government, but security reduces their chances of success. These are different things, and objectives. You could have a really unpopular and hated government with an almost police-state that had super-high effectiveness and super high terrorism, so basically you always get attacked but always survive. You can also reduce terrorist leanings, but still have an open-enough society that just 1 lucky extremist can carry out an attack.
Gah. I thought that the Terrorism rating represents international terrorism, to differnate it from domestic terrorism (the pressure groups). I was using that variable to represent international terrorist groups, but now I realize that Terrorism also affect domestic terrorist groups, I have to think if that is a good idea. Anyway, how do you increase security effectiveness? Policies like Spy programs only seem to affect the Terrorism rating.
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Or am I getting confused over the “Appeasement” tactic that I usually use to stop terrorism (implement policies to please terrorists, thereby stopping them from attacking me)? I consider the “Appeasement” tactic different and unrelated to the Terrorism variable…
EDIT: Hah, I got it. “security” is what the code use to represent Security Effectiveness. The following polices that affect Security Effectiveness are:
Armed Police, Curfews, CCTV Cameras, Detention without Trial, ID Cards, Intelligence Servies, Phone Tapping.
That would explain why Securtiy Effectiveness wasn’t increasing, since I forgot that I need some of these other policies too. I still need to think of how to handle Terrorism (if Terrorism increases the chance of domestic terrorist groups launching attacks).
Yup, the two approaches are to take away the desire for terrorism (dont upset religious, environmentalists, socialists or foreigners) or to say “sod em” but have enough of a polcie state that they will fail. Or a more subtle blend of the two, obviously 
‘dont upset religious, environmentalists, socialists or foreigners’
and patriots… godamn patriots keep on bumping me off in my eco utopia
I’ll get the hang of this immense juggling act eventually.