Democracy 4 Developer Blog #31: Unexpected Plastic Meterz

[@NikodemHild]

2:20 your adding North Korea, can't wait 🤣👍

[@aturchomicz821]

The great Leader would be proud!

[@lordbane21]

If you don't include the DEMOCRATIC People's Republic, are you even doing Democracy 4 right? Best Korea = Best Democracy game

[@andrejparunovic]

I have a really cool idea. How about you make it so that on election day, the thing counts votes from old people first, so that it isn't obvious who is gonna win in a tight election. This should make it so that one party may have an initial bump, but loose it once the rest of the votes come in. It adds some suspense when watching the count. I bet there's other ways to make watching vote counting more interesting, but here's a start.

[@positechgames]

Ha, interesting. This would be relatively easy to do actually. I really should consider it...

[@davidbaumel3411]

@@positechgames voting rights/suppression laws would be cool!

[@davidbaumel3411]

Also mail in voting

[@thedenskan3440]

I have to ask, shouldn't gambling have a boost to tourism? It does not have to be large and an example would be Las Vegas. Edit: May I also question why is the Canary Islands not in Spain's portrait if we have Hawaii for the U.S.?

[@kromnashau8729]

I miss the "Kirchensteuer" (church tax) in the Germany scenario. [1] Furthermore the religious tax should increase racial tension at small amount. The reason is that foreign religious group will try to get the same legal status as the established churches. This trigger negotiations with the state which will be covered by the media. Part of the media coverage will then be dubious actors in the group and their connection to foreign states. [2] Another policy missing would be "Public Religious Broadcasts". The public broadcaster are obligated to broadcast religious content created by recogniced religious groups. § 42 Staatsvertrag für Rundfunk und Telemedien (state treaty for broadcasting and telemedia): "The Evangelical Churches, the Catholic Church and the Jewish communities are to be granted appropriate airtime for the broadcasting of religious programs if requested; the organizers can demand reimbursement of their own costs." [3] I don't know how You decide whether a country has a state religion or not but i will try to make the case that Germany might have a system of state religion. If a religious group is considered a partner of the state it gain the special status as a "Öffentlich-rechtliche Religionsgesellschaft" a status similar to the status of a university or the IHK, Chamber of Commerce and Industry. They have even their own laws which allows them to discrimiate against employees which don't follow their religious laws. Since they have in many parts of Germany the monopoly on kindergardens, hospitals and social care there are several examples where child care workers and hospital doctors who were fired because they married after they had an divorce. [4] The policy "state religion" should have some kind of descriptions like: "Mentioned in the constitution" at a low level, then "special rights", 3rd level "social partnership", 4th "Directorate of Religious Affairs", 5th "religious guardian council". Sources: [1] Humanists International: The Freedom of Thought Report - Germany, Last Updated 28 September 2020; fot.humanists.international/countries/europe-western-europe/germany/ [2] Die Welt: Die Empörung über die Islamkonferenz der Ditib ist verlogen, Veröffentlicht am 18.01.2019 (In German); www.welt.de/regionales/nrw/article187238926/Die-Empoerung-ueber-die-Islamkonferenz-der-Ditib-ist-verlogen.html [3] Staatsvertrag für Rundfunk und Telemedien (Rundfunkstaatsvertrag) vom 31. August 1991, zuletzt geändert durch den Zwanzigsten Rundfunkänderungsstaatsvertrag vom 8. bis 16. Dezember 2016 (in German), www.ard.de/download/538848/Staatsvertrag_fuer_Rundfunk_und_Telemedien_in_der_Fassung_des_20__Aenderungsstaatsvertrags__vom_8__bis_16__12__2016.pdf [4] Humanists International: The Freedom of Thought Report - Germany, Last Updated 28 September 2020; fot.humanists.international/countries/europe-western-europe/germany/ Deutsche Welle: Catholic hospital's firing of doctor over divorce was unlawful, court finds; www.dw.com/en/catholic-hospitals-firing-of-doctor-over-divorce-was-unlawful-court-finds/a-47597458 Lahrer Zeitung: Erzieherin wegen Religion gekündigt, 17.07.2020 (In German); www.lahrer-zeitung.de/inhalt.friesenheim-erzieherin-wegen-religion-gekuendigt.edf605ef-2f5e-4211-9da6-b944c77d325a.html

[@casualtaxevasion]

having tabs for the different political areas would help a lot.

[@beleata74]

I only occasionality use the popularity one, but most of the time I forget they even exist, as I don't really require them.

[@joaopedrocruz6432]

It would be nice to have an option when starting a game to be able to enact policies from any country. Maybe even a mode where you can customize the starting parameters and share it with others like challenges.

[@FirestormMk3]

I love the size metric ui options to get a quick idea for what really gives or drains money or makes people angry. I wouldn't mind negligible ones being a few pixels or disappearing on those screens.

[@jh5g]

I think that it might be helpful to be able to view policy bubbles only when looking at influence. When I choose influence, its normally because I want to change a policy and make a big change, but most policies are equally small because the simulation values have so much more influence, as such the view isn't all that useful for me unless I can filter out simulation bubbles. It might get too complicated, but it might also be helpful to have influence calculate indirect influence (e.g. tax has a small influence on GDP, but GDP has influences loads, so tax should be bigger)

[@calvinhall4605]

The new policies look really cool!

[@manofmenize]

Would love a Mac OS port for this game

[@matteolecardinal9226]

IDEA FOR THE GAME: you could modify the income tax to include the tax brackets (like poor, middle class and rich) to modify separately and to make it more realistic, fun and complex

[@valeriolibratti7559]

That's cool

[@joaopedrocruz6432]

How about being able to tax churches, instead of them being immune to taxation(the religious will hate it and charity will go down).

[@Xaduurv]

Some of these policy tiles get very small - please don't make them smaller if you can help it.

[@codedungeon7158]

Can we have a war mod? Please!

[@TheBoesie666]

One thing I would like is a way to change taxes or some policy's without any consequence like flip flopping. I mean it's quite normal that austerity measures are taken when an crisis happens e.g. taxes need to be raised or lowered for a short while. Also I always run into problems with some caps. Like the cap for GDP and population because of insane immigration. This is probably not for most people because it's quite late game that this happens. Anyway I'm enjoying the game a lot, and it keeps getting better.

[@gurgelurk]

A circle representing a variable should have area proportional to the variable. This means that the square root of the circle radius should be proportional to the variable.

[@positechgames]

agreed, and IIRC thats what we do, but is it easy to compare two differently sized circles that way?

[@sfxanno2311]

New policy idea:CPS funding,makes youths happier very much and increase their membership.reduces crime,cyberbullying and violent organized crime. Day 1 of requesting this

[@FirestormMk3]

Any chance of a darker shade of blue or different color for the bright blue left meter ui panel in dark mode? It's a similar issue on the policies screen with the really bright red and blue. They look great in light but are kinda blinding in dark mode. Other screens like the impact graphs look nice.

[@positechgames]

dark mode is just a text file that you can edit in the palettes folder. Im going to make modding colors much more obvious at some point...

[@FirestormMk3]

@@positechgames That's really good news. Thanks for letting me know!

[@darkivn]

I'm shocked you've managed to get away without 768px support for this long - 1366x768 is still the third most popular resolution and until recently it was on the second place for years. Additionally, there's also 1360x768 - which is a bit niche, but still in the top 10. (According to store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ at least)

[@dr.davidmathiasen6792]

What about the music? I keep the gameplay/Simulation play music down to 0 - I like the music I am wondering what you recommend listening to while playing Democracy 4? Classical, or something different and would there be a way to change the music IN GAME? Maybe you since you are the creator pick the best type of music for different Scenarios, because I'm not exactly sure what I should be listening to while I'm doing different things but I know music has a big impact on decision making and all kinds of other stuff so it's very important, music is very very important and I would like to know what you think and maybe include different types of sound track into a future update

[@billy_5658]

Glad about the future addition of S. Korea nice to have a different country to lead :)!

[@joaopedrocruz6432]

Could you add more socialist policies,like getting rid of the stock market and such. Also more possibilities with debt,like if you have reserves you should be able to get income from lending it; furthermore maybe when you are with lots of debt the IMF could lower it if you make the policies they want.

[@franciscocosta8901]

are you learning with Portuguese government? WTF where IMF can lower your debt? they just loan you more money with interest rate... These portuguese just think in spending the others people money...

[@joaopedrocruz6432]

@@franciscocosta8901 Actually I am brazilian, but anyway, the IMF can't lower your debt but they can renegotiate it lowering the interest and sometimes actually forgiving some of the amount you owe.

[@Spfnym]

The plastic bag tax to me always seemed like such an inconsequential thing at the expense of capitalists not liking the player. And they are not as easy to please as the environmentalists. I'd be for removing that tax, but you do have those stats you gather. Maybe look at those to see if a significant amount of people uses it.

[@positechgames]

Yes very true. Its a bit of a legacy thing from earlier games in the series TBH

[@eXistenZ15]

"I got this 400M cause my dad gave it and then I pissed it away, so I put another 1.7trillion on the national debt to fix it"

[@Swkoll]

Good governance is OP