Democracy 4 Developer Blog #32: Popular Fundraising

[@cooperhedger]

Looking amazing, keep it up!

[@inbredvonhabsburg7873]

Nice Changes, love the voting. I have a suggestion when you go into power on your first turn of the game, maybe receive a lot of Political Capital, something like +10 to represent how so many changes are done in the first few weeks of a new president. I know there is already a system for this kind of thing but I think on beginning you get a massive amount of political power instead of a small boost

[@daanschravendijk9269]

I love the game and the work you put in it, but i would love if you put The Netherlands in the game where you also put a new voting system in. In The Netherlands we have 150 seats and the partyleader that ends up with the most seats will become prime-minister. It will be fun if there are 8 party's max and that you only can get a policy out if it has the majority of the votes. I Understand if the voting system will be difficult to add, but adding The Netherlands would be fun for the Dutch playerbase like me :)

[@joaopedrocruz6432]

Can you make it so that when a policy affects less people it costs less political capital. For example when you have zero alcohol usage changing the tax should be pretty easy.

[@OverClient]

A electoral map for the US would be amazing!

[@richardiv385]

Can we see nature conservation and historical conservation? I’m not sure how tourism works in the economy though

[@4nth365]

Great work, sir. A question. When you start a random begining (random option ON) what variables are getting random? I noticed "income", "Expenditure" and "debt".. but is there any else? I also noticed that problems are mostly the same in every randomized play.. Thank you for your games

[@positechgames]

It actually randomizes ever random number in the game, for stuff like the generation of voters and ministers etc. It might not be as big enough a difference to mean some situations do not trigger though. Those situations will be much more varied between countries over time once I finish editing each country. You can try adjusting the economic cycle when you start a new game., That has DRASTIC impacts to how each game plays. Its the difference between a recession and an economic boom, in global terms.

[@4nth365]

@@positechgames ok thank you for the answer

[@woodyroberts5701]

The campaign finance stuff could be a good angle for a few cool policies. UK style spending caps would probably be easiest, but other policies in that arena could be cool

[@americansyndicalist7602]

Is there any plans do add things like the ability to reform the government into like a elected Junta? Or a way to change a national constitution in some small or big way? Or a way to alter the voting system from a FPTP to a MMP or a STV system and reform a Semi Presidential Regime into a Parliamentary Republic?

[@lennardvonstein5143]

When will I be able to play this game on Mac? I was a huge fan of Democracy 3 and was really excited today to find out that the sequel already exists!

[@alexkuznetsov4334]

I feel like the term limit should be implemented slightly different. I think it is better if you play as a political party as opposed to an individual. In that indeed there is a term limit but you can continue playing because it implies that it is another candidate from the same party... Don't know what you think about this idea.

[@MasterForm555]

You’re doing a great job with the game, Cliff! One idea: What if we had the ability to change the indicators in the Quarterly Report? For example, I would like to swap out GDP with the Human Development Index, and perhaps Crime with Racial Tension. What do you think of that idea?

[@positechgames]

Oooh interesting. Thats actually easy to do, it would just require some UI to make it configurable, and obvious to the player... I will add to trello

[@MasterForm555]

@@positechgames Cool! Thank you for considering the idea. I'm looking forward to it.

[@thedenskan3440]

Well Made, keep it up!

[@mangostaespacial6397]

Good work! I have another question is there any way to create a special policy for a single country without using a "_prereq_"?

[@positechgames]

no, the prereq is the only system. I'll make sure that system supports mods soon.

[@mangostaespacial6397]

Ok, thank you for the answer

[@Xaduurv]

IMHO some of the icons are now way too small. I think you should be able to recognise an icon by looking at it, but some of those bubbles were even too small for any icon in it to show. Some accuracy in scale should be sacrificed for UX.

[@positechgames]

Thats only in specific modes where you are deliberately ranking items by a criteria where they are not relevant, such as situations and blue bubbles when in policy mode.

[@michaelmilam7285]

Hey Cliff, an issue I've always been confused about in both Democracy 3 and Democracy 4 is with the policy of Drug Legalization and more specifically how legalizing more drugs allows for Drug Abuse to go up and crime to increase as well. I mean, shouldn't the Legalization of drug use make it so that there are less crimes on the books people can do? So since smoking weed is no longer a crime the crime that is smoking weed drops of a cliff in terms of the fact it's no longer criminalized and you don't go to jail for it. If what you are trying to represent is that people are just so supped up on drugs they go crazy and start robbing and killing and the such I also feel like that's not very accurate. I mean, when comparing it to real world examples of total drug legalization in Portugal we saw the complete opposite effect. There crime went down with not just the crime of drug use but also organized crime (which you've correctly represented) and crime itself. Additionally, I'm not sure how complete legalization would spark the current Drug Epidemic negative bubble that would currently pop up. I say this as the total Legalization of drugs came up as a concept due to the state of drug abuse and use that was present. And with the implementation of these total Legalization methods drug use itself alongside drug abuse and the health risks associated with dirty needles and overdosing fell off drastically. I understand there should be negative downsides with total drug Legalization and I feel that a more representative measure would be a massive downturn in conservative opinion as the conservative groups in almost all countries are the groups opposed to legalization on any real level. If you want to represent a serious threat to your electability a massive dip in conservative approval would be more representative and it can explain how a country such as Portugal who has been massively left-wing for decades Is able to do so due in part to their largely insignificant right wing populace. If you feel like you should keep in the negative health modifiers to drug legalization you could also try to add in a separate policy to counter it. Again, with Portugal they have specific areas and houses where you can use drugs like heroin and the such under watch so that you are not using dangerous or infected syringes and that you have staff on hand to help save your life if you run the risk of overdosing or the such. I hope you try in part to revamp the current Drug policy in the game because I've found it to be rather simplistic in comparison to much more of the other fleshed out areas of policy.

[@positechgames]

Yup, this is a long standing point of debate. It really depends on WHICH drugs and what the circumstances are I guess. It also depend on what addiction support is given to people. I know that legalizing drugs will obviously reduce crime that was previously buying those drugs illegally, but if it creates a drug addiction problem which then leads to people stealing / breaking the law to fund a drugs habit, then there is new crime... but maybe thats unlikely... so hard to know for sure!

[@michaelmilam7285]

@@positechgames yeah I understand what you're trying to say but the rate of addiction when there was total drug Legalization fell. That may be in part due to the welfare systems enacted by the Portuguese government alongside legalization but ultimately drug use, addiction and crime fell due to it's legalization. I do hope you try to update your drug policy in game though because it does seem rather simplistic as drugs=crime/despair while there's very little other policies that interact with drug use, treatment and the such besides one or two policies like the DEA

[@positechgames]

@@michaelmilam7285 Interesting, although the game is trying to model global politics, so we really need to collate data from a lot of countries to see what the outcome is on average. This is annoyingly difficult to do because of course every country is also changing in lots of other ways at the same time, so its really hard to find enough studies that can control for all those variable and give a true picture of the final impact, especially in the long run.

[@vinniciusrosa8284]

Which library do you have for Gui?

[@positechgames]

None, its all coded by me (and some was coded by jeff) from scratch :D we have our own engine.

[@systemfailure2039]

Pls add Argentina.

[@jeremyazzopardi3160]

Will this game be available on MacOS or iOS? If so, when?

[@timobayens485]

Please add a sovereign wealth fund!

[@vinniciusrosa8284]

Which library do you use for Gui?

[@zimkhithamdekazi612]

Space x we are going to mars in a few years

[@FirestormMk3]

Any chance for nations with term limits having the ability to be "the next leader"? Basically you inherit the current policies etc but are a new leader in terms of track record, honeymoon, etc. This would be a cool way to let you keep playing but simulate the turnover. You'd still need to "win" the election so your guy comes in, You'd still lose if the opposition wins.

[@positechgames]

its not hard to add...but i wonder if this makes the game less challenging, because you don't feel that same pressure a real politician would to get things done during your limited time in office?

[@FirestormMk3]

@@positechgames That makes sense. In the long run if it isn't too hard to add maybe it could be a good option? In that case in nations like the US you could feel like you only have so many turns no matter what, but if you wanted to instead have the challenge of dramatically reshaping the nation or Overton Window of the populace it would be the challenge of doing that while keeping your party in (remember you'd still have to win re-election as an opposition win would still be game over) even with losing the trust and image you've built every so many terms. I like this idea for still having an element of the simulation without doing something brute force like just disabling term limits as a parameter, and it would allow for a different experience for those nations, instead of making it only certain ones you could really see the effects of long-term agendas 20 years later in.

[@FirestormMk3]

Obviously this certainly doesn't need to be a priority, just an idea to consider if it wouldn't be hard to add as an option.

[@positechgames]

@@FirestormMk3 Yup I totally see the appeal. I should add it to trello as a todo item. maybe we should add some text explaining that you your career is now OVER by if you really want to...you can continue :D

[@FirestormMk3]

@@positechgames Thanks. I really do like this issue, especially if like I said there were some sim components for it being a "new leader" of the same party. That may even make such nations naturally a little harder to keep winning 4-5 terms later since trust and image keep getting a reset. Either way I really appreciate you taking that into consideration!

[@CPT85]

The US needs to start off more authoritarian-right. Also...iMac release date? When’s that happening?

[@raaaaaaaaaam496]

Do you think in a future game there will be locations tied into it. Like maybe you simulate LA having a massively different general set of beliefs and attitudes from Lincoln, Nebraska but LA also has a different opinion from Houston or even New York. Some policies may affect certain locations more. Sure Pennsylvania’s is rural but not majority farming. They have a huge oil&gas industry. Even in farming majority states there can be variety. Wisconsin favors dairy specifically cheese, Idaho potatoes, Georgia peaches, Nebraska corn, and Deep South cotton. Even these states have each of the other crops apart of their total it’s just they are majority a particular crop or product. In the game different states could vote in different ways if you introduce a policy which affects a particular crop directly. If you introduce a vegan bill then it won’t affect cotton or peaches that much but will affect dairy in Wisconsin and anti ethanol or anti sugar policies will affect corn farmers in Nebraska. This could also be tied into a more realistic electoral college system.

[@Mentos-pg7zf]

I don't think it should be the maximum GDP because it spoils the late game. I once created a very developing country and got to the maximum GDP after one term and I could not earn too much money anymore, i had only taxes left. I believe that GDP should be either larger or unlimited.

[@valeriolibratti7559]

Why not adding some asians to the usa too?

[@positechgames]

yup i think ill be doing that too

[@xenobladefan7440]

The new vote counting looks really fun

[@danielbackstrom4643]

What about North Korea? I guess mods can fill the hole but i would like to see cliffski's version of NK.

[@the9yearoldarmy2]

51th and 5th Comment the fastest so far