Democracy 4 Developer Blog #30: SPAIN!

[@maxding5692]

Interesting nation idea: Japan

[@positechgames]

Agreed. High tech, but vast debt. Crazy about robotics. Respect for the elderly. Surprisingly conservative on gender equality. Not keen on immigration... very interesting indeed.

[@janzwam1153]

I would love to see Japan (also with the lost decade low inflation many old people and long work weeks). Japan would be so great!

[@templartiger9538]

ideas: videogame censorship causes less people to buy taxed videogames and pirate un-censored ones anti censorship problems/protests that are fixed with more censorship

[@TheTehrozer]

Can’t say how it works in Spain but we have a similar problem to the lack of part-time work protection in Poland. There are obviously various types of work contracts each with different rules that were made for specific situations. It seems no one realised one could use this special employment options but have the worker still act as a full time labour. Thus “trash deals” were born where employers would use various part-time or contract work deals to avoid laws and/or taxes. It could be a interesting crisis for the game too seeing it is a distinct and major problem in several countries.

[@arirahikkala]

Polish and Russian translations? Now I'm *really* hoping to see Poland and Russia in the game. They look decent with the existing portrait set and they're first-world enough to fit the game's simulation, but they'll also really challenge a liberal playstyle.

[@SoundYantra]

Russia is not a democracy unfortunately

[@yodef6828]

"... We had to make Spaniards healthier..." Yup, as a Spaniard i don't understand how we manage to be the country with the second longest lifespan in the world, and the game doesn't either.

[@NikodemHild]

Would you consider of putting the political compass with the election results after the voting as I guess it represents change to the country as well

[@positechgames]

Maybe yes, it depends how much room there is at each screen resolution for the UI I guess

[@Joso997]

The S is silent

[@bestLetsplayer]

Free hugs here!

[@franciscocosta8901]

BTW, I'm waiting for Portugal ;) Congratulations, this game have a bright future

[@GiorgosKoukoubagia]

I love all the recent changes! BTW, anyone remember how many simulated voters are right now, and whether a mod could increase it a bit for some slightly bettter accuracy and complecity of simulation? Also @Cliff , I have been thinking of the next turn screen for a while now. Have you considered making the news items-show area 3-wide instead of 2-wide, so you do less scrolling, and you can fit 12 'top' news with the same height as now, which means you'll probably never have to not include something, while still having them by order of importance EDIT AGAIN @Cliff: Even though I hate the fact they even existed, and especially that they are famous still today, many old and cheap laptops use 1366x768 as you of course know (around 8% of Dec 2020 Steam hardware survey, which is skewed towards newer desktops). I play at that resolution in my old laptop and the game has been fine actually (with a few bug exceptions that have gotten fixed), but if you manage to 'optimise' the way things are rendered so they will definitely fit and scale nice in that resolution, i think it will help your game sales a tad more. If not, I get it, 1080p's time to reign must come the hard way lol :P

[@positechgames]

we currently simulate 2,000 voters. there are not really any noticeable changes if we simulate more. Regarding the next turn reports, I do plan to enable this for particularly large screen resolutions

[@GiorgosKoukoubagia]

@@positechgames Nice, thanks for the reply!

[@joaopedrocruz6432]

Can you add a way to add policies of one country in another, like an option when you start a game.

[@systemfailure2039]

Pls add Argentina.

[@simaoaze]

Great game! Greetings for Portugal!

[@asla8174]

Hiya Cliff - loving the latest updates and all the policies : really adds flavour to the game. Question : I noticed for example that the UK doesn't have the Free School Meals policy implemented by default ? I was wondering why that might be : whether you're trying to simulate the "general feel" of countries or if the policies are supposed to be reflective of the real life situation on a given year. Cheers :)

[@positechgames]

Good point. I do need to revisit the Uk and USA settings for all policies (and will do) because when they were done originally I didn't have a dedicated researcher doing this stuff, so those settings can all be improved upon.

[@asla8174]

@@positechgames ah okay no problem! It only stuck out to me with you being from the UK also. The dreaded plastic bag tax will be another to implement by default :) Looking forward to playing more and seeing more features. Key piece of feedback is that assasination / extremist groups seem much more common (maybe a little too much ? Ask your other fans to get a balanced view) - it can be challenging not to go North Korea mode sometimes when you've upset a group too much lol

[@Charlie-wx4it]

10:40 why was there crime twice? on the sliders

[@thimeo7831]

Because one of them has a 16 turns delay before taking action (the first) while the other is instant (the second one). It's for simulating that in a "Gentle" regime, crime decreases slowly, while in a "Harsh" one, crime diminished very quickly but since prison doesn't fix anything, it gets back up slowly.

[@Charlie-wx4it]

@@thimeo7831 Oh ok thanks for clarifying, i had seen this in the game previously but didnt realise

[@DMAN123223]

It'd be nice to see some changes in the way unemployment currently is during the late game. High tech/productivity and immigration inevitably create high unemployment even with maxed out GDP. Harder still, most policies focus on creating jobs through GDP rather than unemployment directly makes it challenging to lower unemployment any further. I think if GDP literally can not be any higher, then it should have a greater effect on unemployment. Maybe also a set of policies specifically about reducing unemployment like a universal jobs guarantee? High financial and political cost, but effective at reducing unemployment.

[@benrudolph5582]

9:58 Two entries for crime?

[@positechgames]

if you check the RHS you can see one is short term, one is long term. Some prison regimes reduce crime a lot in the short term (people in cells more!) but increase in long term, because the harsh regime has no room for rehabilitation and thus the criminals do not change their ways.

[@benrudolph5582]

So - that's - what the numbers mean. Thank you.

[@toto8623]

argentina would be a really interesting nation, it would represent the biggest challenge in the world, we have an incredible debt crisis, maybe you could introduce the concept of the FMI and multilateral organisms

[@zothOne]

How much time (roughly) do you think you'll spend on these updates for the game? A Year? Half a year? You've already got my money, so anything else you add in is just a bonus for me.

[@positechgames]

definitely half a year. quite possible longer. Very hard to know!

[@sergiucasianm85]

Hi! I have 2 things to say. 1. I love your game. You're doing a very good job, keep going I wish you all the succes! 2.It is about a game situation called "Cyclones" , it is impossible to get. I don't know if this is just me or a real problem, but I have carbon emissions 100% and the global temperature doesn't rise enough and I don't thing there is way to increase global carbon emissions in game. Again this might just be me, but it is impossible to get. By the way, in case you were wondering why I want Cyclones as a situation, it is because I want the "Apocalypse Now" achievement. Yes, I am that type og person who wants to get all achievements.

[@positechgames]

Cyclones may depend on what country you play. I don't think they are possible n the UK for example. You probably need a really booming economy, and no green measures whatsoever to ramp up the CO2.

[@CPT85]

Any word on an Apple release?

[@quoras1887]

I recently bought the game on epic games. At first it wasnt that much fun because it felt the same like d3. but the more i got into it the more i got into the min maxing. Currently the game is really broken in my opionion. Certain values are reached to easy. One of the biggest problem is the messed up income system. I archieved close to 100% wealthy people in my country because certain policies generate money out of nowwhere. I now even rose flat tax to about 65% without opposition - because there are no poor or midde earning people anymore. Its really crazy. About the new religios features: they really helped me. It was now possible with the use of banning woman from driving to get to 0% Motorist (one annoying group less). In D3 i tried to get them to 100% because of the fuel taxes. But now in this game with electronic transation and fuel tax going to zero its not worth anymore. The new religious tax is nice too, but it should also scale with religious membership. Apart from that there really should be more taxes/policies that scale with other things. Especially some taxes that generate money for certain groups should scale with the membership or the actual value. For example mortage tax reliefs, health credits. They don't scale with the actual "privat" part and because of that generate money for people using the state health, or own their own property

[@positechgames]

Balancing the game is uber-hard. I'm always interested to hear details on how people break the simulation so we can rebalance it to make that more difficult.

[@quoras1887]

@@positechgames i think it is best explained if i send you a savegame. i also posted a topic in your democracy 4 forum, but somehow it is just in the democracy 4 area not in a specific area like general discussion or alpha feedback

[@positechgames]

@@quoras1887 cool, i am cliff AT positech dot co dot uk

[@BomberWhite]

I'm spanish and I'm loving what I'm seeing :D

[@king199324]

Taiwan would be an interesting inclusion. Also, cheers for sharing the video!

[@jude2world]

Turkey can be very interesting and fun. It'll be great in every way. We're waiting for hope. :)

[@thedenskan3440]

Excuse me but may I ask just how exactly is illegal immigration possible if the nation is set to open borders?

[@raaaaaaaaaam496]

Are there voting restriction policies in the game? Like ID type stuff. So if you have a low popularity with ethnic minorities (immigrants) then you can enact required photo id, no college id accepted,. Or even outright banning certain voter groups from voting or enacting poll taxes to keep out the poor or not providing funding for rural voting centers to lessen farmer voting, or putting tests like IQ or citizenship tests to be able to vote.

[@raaaaaaaaaam496]

I’ve been playing for awhile and it’s really damn good and I wish this style of system was available in strategy games like paradox or total war games. It’s way more interesting then buildings as this really does make you feel like you are running a country.

[@raaaaaaaaaam496]

Also is there school vouchers?

[@raaaaaaaaaam496]

A monetary policy would be cool. Like not managing it but using political capital to determine whether you have a central bank, gold standard, silver standard, laissez-fairs currency (I.e. anyone can make their own currency) or full on cryptocurrency for everyone.

[@positechgames]

Not yet, but its a really interesting area I would love to cover at some point.

[@positechgames]

Yes.

[@zothOne]

Would you think it'd be interesting in putting some other left-right political compasses (is that a word?) on the game besides the main Socialist-Capitalist Liberal-Authoritarian? Like, say you show besides the main compass another compass of Pro-Life to Pro-Choice, or Pro-Inevitable-Death to Pro-Environment or Big-State to Anarchic. This is all to better define what's the precise political position of each play-through at a glance.

[@Joso997]

How the hell are you going to model the USA at this point. Amen and Awomen xD

[@whatever9506]

How about adding a country from the middle east or Africa, you know a country that is underdeveloped. Edit: or from latin america

[@positechgames]

We definitely intend to do this

[@whatever9506]

@@positechgames great. Can't wait for the full game. Good luck❤

[@playtotroll2336]

Switzerland BTW: if you need help to translate the game to German or french i'd like to help

[@sfxanno2311]

A new policy idea:CPS funding,makes the youth,everyone,and parents more significantly happier while reduces crime,cyberbullying,violent crime.but makes the conservatives upsetter Edit:one more new policy:tax private space programs so for every rocket launched there will be a tax for that,decreases technology and private space insustry but generates more income than income tax but upsets the capitalist

[@zothOne]

Why is the initial popularity at the beginning of the term so low? It doesn't match up to what actually happens, look at Trump's popularity, his better numbers were at the very start of 2017 as a whole lot of people people (for some reason) decided that they should give him a chance. Is this something purely based on gameplay challenges, or do you think this is accurate for a political simulation?

[@positechgames]

The way we look at it, this represents the happiness of the voters with the state of the country. They vote you in assuming you will make things much better, and as you do, their happiness will meet their expectations. If you do nothing, that is how they would vote.

[@kyoto7323]

Spain is a monarchy

[@snappy_one9120]

Day 68 of requesting that this game is released on ios

[@positechgames]

this is extremely unlikely to happen. Apple have turned into a terrible company who treat their developers appallingly. Right now they are unable to even let me update their payment method to renew my developer agreement, which is the $100 a year I pay them so they can then take 30% of all sales. They are impossible to get in touch with, and have complete contempt for any concern of developers :(

[@snappy_one9120]

@@positechgames no thats so sad ;( thanks for answering anyways

[@snappy_one9120]

@@positechgames then i guess il have to stick to democracy 3 😭

[@sergserg8679]

Russia please !