Zambeezia, how you haunt me - A guide for El Presidente

Democracy 1 & 2 Democracy 2
1

“Agricultural and poor, with high political apathy.”

Yup. Thats Zambeezia alright. the equivilant of Afghanistan without the war. Everyone farms, dies broke, is beaten routinely by the man, and doesnt give a dingle about the vote. By virtue of being a member of the %0.003 percent of the population that does um…give a dingle…about politics, it was an easy matter to wrestle the mantle of power from the last guy and run the show for a while. Or, as the game itself often points out during a change in turns:

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
-Plato

So, lets see what this inferior can do with what we got:

El Presedente. I like the title. Ok, lessee…Skills shortage…crap. What else…pollution, big deal, tech backwater…figures…disease…blah blah blah homelessness.

Its the skills shortage that I dont like. That in combination with the Technology Backwater scare me actually. A double Knockout to the GDP, which goes a way in explaining why this country is so darn poor.

The economic cycle is probably at or near its peak, and its completely mitigated by the skills shortage. Damn. Because the Economic cycle is well, cyclical, I can expect it to turn to crap after a few turns, which will only excaserbate the problem.

I make it my mantra to do three things in my tenure as El Presidente:

  1. Take care of the Skills Shortage and Tech. Backwater Problems to help the GDP
  2. Fight crime and lower the big brother footprint at the same time (for many reasons) and,
  3. Win the re-election

First. I Introduce, then max out university grants to the maximum level. This should help with the skills shortage.

Import tarrifs are evil. I get rid of them totally. This jacks up international trade in a big way, which increases GDP directly. Also, I max out community policing. Crime is on the back burner for now, but you have to be aware of delayed effects in politics. Things don’t happen overnight. Lets let that simmer…

By the end of the second turn, Im already getting results:

It might be a while before I actually get the results I want. In the meantime, I need to apply some ounces of prevention.

This game loves to have people riot over gas, so so petrol tax gets dropped from punitive to fair, somewhere around 1/3 its maximum value. I spend a few points on maxing out science funding, and in the next turn, I introduce state schools.

By turn 5, I have this:

The skills shortage is taken care of. One down.

I spend capital on introducing technical colleges. The turn after that, I introduce an unemployment benefit to try to chip away at poverty and indirectly crime.I also need votes, and this should help.

Its around turn 7. The Global Economy is slowing down.

Im still ahead of the game I think… I’m still in deficit but only by about a billion dollars, so my debt is still manageable (deficit is how much you lose per turn, and debt is how much you owe in total). I decide to put the petal to the metal and put these farmers to work for themselves for a change… Corporate Tax is dropped massively.

The next turn im treated to a 5 billion dollar surplus. Talk about stimulus!

I have some political capital, so I have a look at the liberal population. While both hating AND loathing me because of all the armed police asking for their papers wherever they go and NOT thinking its a joke when they get zigzags, I decide to do them a favor and cancel manditory national service.

As an aside, whenever I recieved a “dilemma” from the end turn button, I ALWAYS favor the one that will increase trade or help the liberals. The liberals represent a large chunk of the population. This is one of the main reasons for the second overall goal: to get the liberal vote. Im having a hardtime getting above 50% in the overall population however… the best ive done is hover around 20%, but I dont have time to worry about that now, which I hope I dont regret later…

The next turn I still have a surplus, but only by about a billion dollars. Seems the honeymoon is over for the zambeezian dot com industry. I introduce, then max out spending on technical grants to try to keep that bubble from bursting.

Its turn 10. Police force funding is increased from 1.49Billion to 1.96Billion. In retrospect this is a bad move… the liberal vote is more important here…

Turn 11. Tobacco Tax is repealed. This action is an effort to reduce poverty, therby reducing crime. The extra votes dont hurt either, assuming they come out to vote in the first place.

Heres the situation at turn 12:

Its getting close to the election. Id better start thinking of a way to get the vote. I do what every good politician does and whore myself to the lowest common denominator before the election i.e. “choosing my platform” actually begins:

When I get asked about my platform, I choose to abolish the inheritance tax, and increase lifespan by 10%. I check the odds:

Looks dicey as hell. To help make sure I get the percentages I need I drop the sales tax in a big way. I’m pumped. This election is going to be close. Then I take a look at the party membership before clicking the end of the final turn:

GODDAMNITHASDA?BGUEHGNASIAFASIDASHFDSIFYHASFKDHASDASDASDAOIUHGB$RPISSMERIGHTOFF!

BOO I SAY!

All this work and I forgot to pander to the masses sooner in order to get their party membership. I work and slave for these people and they waste the Tuesday afternoon of the vote in their homes playing yahtzee. Im thrown from office because I failed to heed the warning given at the very beginning:

“Agricultural and poor, with high political apathy.”

Heres the breakdown:

I should have dropped taxes sooner in the game, maybe pandered to the liberals and other groups a little more and alot sooner to secure party membership. Everything else looked to be in line I think. It really would have helped to abolosh armed police, as it would have both helped with the liberal vote AND save money, but an analysis of the effects of doing that outweighted the bonuses in my judgement:

Perhaps I should have dropped armed police early in the game, spent a ton on regular police and ride it out… I probably would have gotten more party members as well…The debt would have been massive though, because of the economic damages involved in not spending capital on other projects and the effects crime has on, well, everything.

In the end I was replaced as easily was it was for me to replace the last guy. Thats politics in Zambeezia!

SheepRock

2

Hi, I’m stickying these posts so more people notice them, as they are very good.
Cheers!

3

Thanks!

4

Great stuff. Please do keep it up!

5

Happy to oblige…

6

Won it :slight_smile:

This was a very tough scenario.

Here are a few pointers:

On the first turn, reduce the Petrol Tax. You can only slightly reduce it if you do not have the petrol protest problem (to about 5bn). If there is the petrol protest problem, you need to go down to approx 1.8bn. This will remove/avoid the petrol protest problem.

After that I turn on Micro Generation grants and Telecommuting, both to the maximum. They don’t cost much but they work well.

Accept minimum wage (this always makes it much easier) and keep the import tariffs in place.

On the 2nd turn, Make State Health service to the maximum and enable whatever you can that will please the Environmentalists.

As soon as you can after that I’ve enabled Child Care Provision. The major advantage of that is to attract people to being parents and the highly productive bonus that can come a bit after.

After that I’ve started State Schools (to the maximum) and State Pensions (this single handedly gets the retired vote).

After the first terrorist attack / island invasion, turn on citizenship tests and increase the intelligence service size. This will help you get the patriots votes.

I decided not to invest in state housing (costs a lot of money for nothing).

For the whole term use the dilemma option that will help conservatives and religious, there is not much to do about the liberal vote which is weighted down by homelessness and armed police. Cutting armed police usually gave me inner city riots, street gangs and organized crimes no matter what else I did.

I did however start youth club subsidies, and increase prisons.

Legal Aid and Jury Trial will help in getting some more votes from the liberals, but don’t count on them.

In the first term I’ve also started Small business grants and Rural development subsidies (this is good as most of the population are farmers).

Homelessness is basically dealt with by reducing poverty.

I’ve been reelected with a razor thin margin.

The 2nd term election was by a big margin.

The 3rd term election had 0 votes for the opposition.

Also, weirdly enough, there was no dilemma near the end of the 3rd term.

7

Using a modified version of the post above. I was re-elected! So thanks Nuitari for the plan of action.

8

Nice walk through. Thanks!

9

well done guys for getting reelected. Before the election I always seem to poll around 60% (although the opposition always has more members than my party). I get the GDP to go through the roof a crime-free utopia but I always get voted out after the first term. I guess this scenario’s more about getting people fanatic about you…

10

I’ve been playing the Zambeezia campaign since I bought this game and my God!

I’ve followed both hints in this forum, as well as, a few modified versions with no luck. I can usually achieve a crime free Utopia, an intelligent population or a stable economy; even creating a debt ridden socialist state with great health care doesn’t work. I don’t come close in the Election, despite the 50%+ approval rating.

I’ve gotten to the point where I almost sympathize with our current US president.

11

By golly! SheepRock, will you be my prime minister? Pleeaase? :smiley:

Also, nice to see a walkthrough for a change.

12

Zambeezia… I renamed it “New African Union”.

First try… thrown out of office rapidly. I got angry about that. The “political indifference” is only about my party, not about the opposition. Ok, I like challenges.

I set the term in 8 years, to ensure a victory this time. Next time I can reduce it again.
Then I did the following:

  • List of all reforms and politics which I am ready to activate (I am not ready do to some things, I am a role-playing gamer), with affected sectors, economic cost in the beginning, and cost of the difference changes.
  • Analyse who is my future electorate: Plus and minus in attitude and in growth for all the reforms to be implemented in the long term.
  • Evaluate the ministers according to this (but I could not fire anybody because the candidates were even worse).
  • Sort all the political actions according to increasing power point cost.
  • Ignore the problems. They will be resolved when the society looks like I like it.

Then I started. In the first turn I made about 7 changes. Some costed 1, 2 or 4 points.

Sometimes I “delayed” a decision, that is, when the results were not really necessary at that moment or they costed too much for that moment. I kept and eye on them and I made them as soon as reasonable.

I had to push some changes forward, which had a high political cost, but really very few (increase the income tax was one of them).

About the fourth year I was able to win an election. At the end of the term I got a landslide victory.

Next time I am going to try again, being more flexible with the order of the reforms, but the idea is the same: Things which cost few political effort, I will make them very early, even if they have not so much effect. For example, I did make a public school system, but only very late. Technological Colleges, University Grants, Free School Food, etc… came earlier, and were enough for a relatively high literacy. I was sorry for the kids of the poors, but I strongly fought inequality so…

Religious, Wealthy and Capitalists tend to hate me. Socialist, State Employees, Parents, Poor and even Self Employees love me. Patriots and Liberals are divided.

I kept a diary of all decisions. If you want, I can put it here. But as I said… winning is easy with 8-years term. I will try it better later. Now I am transforming the New African Union in an utopia :slight_smile: .

13

for sure! if you can do this thing in a normal term Id love to see how you pulled it off… include screenshots if you can!

14

When I first got the game, I won Zambeezia after much difficulty with my first election victory being EXTREMELY close (less than 1% difference). I’ve since forgotten how I did it the first time.

More recently I have been trying to win it again and after much frustration I have settled on a solution. Not only does it work for me, but I won the first election with a more comfortable margin. I believe this solution is repeatable. Subsequent elections are trivially easy to win (by very large margins). As others have said, voter apathy is the killer.

The basic rules that I followed FOR THE FIRST TERM:

  1. You can either solve dilemmas in your first term and lose re-election OR win re-election and solve them later. The problem is that to solve the dilemmas it requires expensive and controversial policies that will not bring solutions until near the end of the term when its way too late. FORGET THE DILEMMAS!
  2. Concentrate on policies that are highly visible to the public and make important constituents happy and no one unhappy. They may only moderately help better society, but they will quickly get voters on your side.
  3. Concentrate on making/keeping Poor, Farmers, Socialists, Parents, and to a lesser extent Liberals happy. These groups make a large fraction of the population. The Farmers are already happy, but a lot of work can be done to make the Poor and Liberals happier. You may not make Liberals happy, but you can make them happier which can make all the difference.

Examples:
One of the first things I did was implement Free School Lunches at maximum. A helpful policy which makes a lot of people happy. Another biggie: Childcare Provision, Veterans Benefits. Also important: got rid of Sales Tax (hurts poor and increases poverty). Increased Military Spending (debatable whether this necessary, it does help unemployment and reduce likelihood of terrorism). Also increased Community Policing, Prisons, Science Funding. Added Legal Aid, Jury Trial. Added: University Grants, Rural Development, Technology Grants, Small Business Grants. All of these policies have little or no negative consequences for any part of the electorate.

What I did NOT do in the first term: no increase to Health Service, no State Schools, no increase in State Housing, no Pollution Controls (though I did use Clean Fuel Subsidies, Hybrid Initiative, Organic Farming, Microgeneration Grants, Recycling, Telecommuter - all things that make people happy).

So I win the first term without solving any dilemmas (I lower the Petrol Tax to prevent/stop Petrol Protests).

Terms 2 & 3: All my real work. Increased Health Spending. State Schools. Carbon Tax. Increased Income Tax. Cancel Corporate Tax. Pollution Controls. Car Emission Limits. Reduce Tariffs. Etc.