Would anyone be interested in doing an african country mod?

I think it would be really cool to see how far we could bend the game to represent an economy like Nigeria or South Africa. or maybe a country like St Lucia or Costa Rica. Something very different to the west.
I guess the obvious example here would be India, being such a large democracy, with so many problems and possibilities.

I’d like to offer as much help as I can, with technical advice, I can do flags really easily! or sorting out new icons and so on. I just want to find someone in the modding community who is really familiar with (ideally resident within) a country like this, and we could go the extra mile to see if we can really provide a massive alternative to the type of countries that are currently reflected.
Any ideas?

While not familiar with any african country (Unless you count Israel and Egypt as one), I can mod policies, situations and simulations for those who need help.

I’m working on a Soviet Union mod, which is rather different from the countries already in the game, I’ve got dozens of new policies and simulations to give a better view of the issues and dilemmas that the Soviet leaders faced.

Thoughts on this:

A Foreign aid income which is affected by at a minimum:
-Poverty (more poverty, more aid money)
-Foreign relations (better relations, more aid money)
-Global economy (people don’t want to pay out to foreigners when they’re short of money at home)

Other possible effects:
-Space program (big negative effect on aid income, as countries feel that a country with money to spend on rockets should sort their own problems)
-Military spending (negative effect on income, see space program argument)
-Patriot opinion (the more you depend on foreign charity, the less the patriots like it)

Those are great ideas. I definitely think a new simulation value for incoming foreign aid is needed, and the idea, for example of having to upset your local religious population to keep foreign aid donors sending money is another interesting problem.
Somehow it would be good to convey the argument over GM seeds, where maybe some aid is given as GM crops, which obviously reduces poverty but upsets environmentalists, and maybe patriots (dependence on foreign agri business…)

I have got some free time now, I can work on it as soon as you want me to.

I guess the first step is picking a country that is suitably interesting, with foreign aid and some new problems to deal with, but is developed enough to still have some wealthy and middle income, as the voter groups themselves cannot change. Would Nigeria be a good choice? famous for it’s corruption, so that could be a new situation perhaps?

Libya, egypt or south africa? I can do them all but it would take a bit of time

I will start working on Nigeria

I went ahead and did the Nigerian flag, here it is…

i should have it done by the weekend
also cliffski, if you could get me a compass.dds for this that would be great. Photoshop has been uncooperative and i cant find my disks for it.

Should i add these in as well
-revolution as a way to get kicked out of office and lose the game
-clean water initiatives
-malaria outbreak

would implementing child soldiers be a bad idea?

This isn’t so much a list of actual suggestions as it is a long-winded series of hints for how Nigeria/African countries/developing countries could be modded from someone who works in development economics.

If we’re talking Nigeria specifically, some of the biggest political issues come from rifts between the Muslim North and the Christian/mixed South. This entails sharia law in much of the North and, unfortunately, the rise of Islamic fundamentalist group such as Boko Haram. Perhaps this could be broadened to a “religious federalism” policy and a “religious fundamentalism” situation. Beyond religion, there is a strong sense of tribalism in Nigeria- you’re as much Nigerian as you are Yoruba or Igbo or Hausa. This has led to separatism and civil war in Nigeria’s particular case.

In many ways, on the surface, Nigeria’s economy is booming. It’s still an oil exporter, a good part of its industry was recently revitalized, it’s film and music industry influences all of Africa and beyond, it’s agricultural exports are robust. It’s being predicted as an economic growth leader in the coming years. But there’s a disconnect between that picture and the reality. While I’ve never been to Nigeria specifically, I’ve noticed that there is a facility among all developing countries for policy not to affect people at all.

This is partly the fault of current or past policy. Certain tribes, classes, whatever- might hold a grudge against something that happened in the past. From genocide, tribal warfare, police brutality and systemic discrimination to bureaucracy, inefficiency and corruption. These tribes may refuse to cooperate with government, or may revolt if provoked. On the economic side, persistent bureaucracy (like, 60 years persistent) has made some, if not most, people basically turn their back on doing business above board in any way. A key problem with black markets is that they’re impossible (or at least very very very difficult) to measure, but I would not be surprised if the black market were about 1/4 to 1/2 the size of its actual economic activity.

Policy might fall short for other reasons: chiefly because people in some parts of the country might lead a traditional way of life they’re very happy with, and feel no reason to change.

It might- and often is- because of IMF/World Bank policymakers’ aid, conditional on forced free-market reforms, drag resources into the economic centers and away from smaller cities (often every city but the economic center) and rural areas. This, coupled with the fact that these countries generally lack raw wealth, have poor tax policies, no enforcement of those tax policies and no means by which to redistribute what little wealth there is. There’s often no desire for governments to redistribute the wealth either. Or there is, but it slowly disappears as it changes hands on its way down. A poverty trap might be an interesting situation- a persistent vicious cycle of self-reinforcing poverty caused by a combination of the things mentioned above.

Not to mention vast mortality rates and corresponding vast birth rates, the very real possibility of hyperinflation, kids not going to school because they’re working, etc. A real policy that had a huge success rate was paying rural and poor parents to send their kids to school.

Dude your the best, thanks youve just given me a whole new set of ideas

Ok here is the compass image:

positech.co.uk/democracy3/me … igeria.dds

No problem! Let me know if you need anything else. I have far more info on developing countries than you would ever need.

I was thinking about maybe Angola, Somalia, Rwanda, maybe Egypt. But first I am playing with modding a bit. I have some policies I need to work on first, then I will start on countries after I release some policies first.

Egypt would certainly be an interesting choice.

A great place to start could be to reproduce the caracteristics of the Zambeezia country in Democracy2, that the most closes conditions that look like sub saharian african country, i mean the was deasese case, political apathy, here the link to wiki democracygame.wikia.com/wiki/Zambeezia all you need to add is a few thing like corruction and more religous issue and your set to go for Nigeria.