Democracy 4 Developer Blog #36: ITALY!

[@MatthewMcLain12]

I’m interested to know, because you mentioned right when you first started working on this game, that you will add every policy, simulation and situation from Democracy 3 Africa. Are you still going to do that, because I think that would be cool and interesting?!?!? Also, when I was going through the files, I noticed that certain things in the game were made, but not implemented, such as “Terrorism” and “Innovation.” Is there a reason why you decided not to actually implement them, and will these and other such things that are in the game but not implemented, eventually be implemented???

[@aturchomicz821]

Never forget Open Plan Government Offices, Right of Demonstration, Torture use, Agricultural Land Tenure, Devolution, Agro-dealer Networks, Power Bloc Alignment and many many more PepeHands

[@MatthewMcLain12]

@@aturchomicz821 I love policies, simulations and situations! The more the merrier; can’t get enough of them all!!!

[@fate1120]

@@aturchomicz821 no way i see you everywhere, steam, reddit and now here

[@cakeisyummy5755]

Most Games have Unused content. Not everything that was Made will be Used. Also, i think that Innovation was in Democracy 3.

[@MatthewMcLain12]

@@cakeisyummy5755 Innovation is in D3. Personally, I don’t like unused content. Why put it in the game if it’s not going to be used?

[@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.

[@positechgames]

I am sympathetic to this idea, although it may be perhaps confusing to the player to see that political capital costs always seem to be changing?

[@pierlorepisa]

@@positechgames that would actually make sens if you could also change the people's prospective on issues (like if you have activated the alcohol awareness campaign it should cost less)

[@joaopedrocruz6432]

@@positechgames Maybe you could make it appears on the start of turn and it only enters effect after a certain threshold of demographic change, for example : " Because of the declining number of religious people policies relation to religion have decreased cost" or " The aging of the population makes so that youth related actions have lower costs".

[@Bluebird_Obs]

I'm not sure if it is just me experiencing this problem, but in the latest update of the game, France has both EU membership for poor countries and EU membership for rich countries, which immediately caused the EU monetary policy modifier to go to the max and cause the hyperinflation event to happen. Was this intentional because getting re-elected even on the first election now seems nearly impossible whenever I play as France. Btw, I love how much effort you are putting into researching so many countries. Really appreciate it! :)

[@positechgames]

Hi, I cant reproduce this. If you start a new game with France, and just go to the next turn a few times, my tests show that the monetary policy situation does not change at all. You see that change even though you have done nothing that affects it? France has EU membership at a deficit (red situation) meaning it contributes to the EU, and it has the EU monetary policy and Erasmus situations (green).

[@Bluebird_Obs]

@@positechgames Basically, what I am experiencing is what I assume to be a glitch where France had both of the EU membership events at the same time. (both the green and red one) It was fixed after uninstalling then installing my game again so I guess it was a problem on my side :)

[@JimPea]

I know this is probably harder to make work but I really like the idea that I can overhaul or defeat some defining, institutional policy or organisation in a country, such as the death penalty in the States, it gives each country it's own mission/end goal, in that way I would like to be able to reform Italy to remove the Mafia or abolishing the monarchy in the UK, these are the sorts bold things I could imagine a political party campaigning on too.

[@willchappell9989]

I understood that reference! Go Niners!

[@willchappell9989]

I also own the same hat

[@Bluebird_Obs]

I think a good idea would be to have the country-specific modifiers (Like German Productivity, French Alcohol Consumption, North West Passage, The Mafia, etc.) somewhere more easily seen, like maybe on the first turn right before beginning the game. Anyways, great job on the game so far! I'm really enjoying it a lot.

[@positechgames]

Yeah I have considred this, I just need a nice way to do it, because its just a bunch of equation modifiers. I guess I could have 'country specific changes to X, Y and Z.'

[@AfroHammerMedia]

Have you ever considered making Democracy 3 open source? Could give innovative ideas that you could implement in D4

[@cakeisyummy5755]

The Media Monopoly should decrease Democracy.

[@positechgames]

I thought about this a lot. I think I may add it in, because its fair to say that a poorly informed electorate (due to media bias) reduces democracy.

[@arirahikkala]

I'm, uhh, not sure about EU membership being a red icon 😅 Or at least I think blue would be a bit less surprising. Maybe there could be a "you are an EU member but the EU hates you" situation if Poland or Hungary get included in the game, though!

[@valeriolibratti7559]

In another video he said the EU is red if you overall pay it and green if you overall receive money from it

[@positechgames]

@@valeriolibratti7559 Yup this is true. I don't really like the idea of the game appearing to say the EU is good or bad, so I just went with whatever is happening in terms of financial transfers, although obviously EU membership also brings stability, and thus foreign investment and a higher GDP, so it may well balance out.

[@pierlorepisa]

@@positechgames could it be a neutral colour like blue? If you know your fanbase, I can guarantee you that we're completionists and we'd hate a single red dot in our perfectly green country

[@Stadtpark90]

@@pierlorepisa lol

[@positechgames]

@@pierlorepisa it definitely cant be blue, as that implies a simulation value, not a situation. I am considering grey.

[@vitorbortolin6810]

I think in the future you should add wealth for the population not only income. So, every pop will have an income and a asset value and this could even be negative so you could simulate people debt and maybe trigger an economic crisis and etc.

[@vitorbortolin6810]

If someone has a positive income it should slowly accumulate capital an this could reflect in the GDP like more spending or more investment. You could even keep updating the income distribution based on the wealth and GDP. Because in the currently iteration social mobility is too fast and constrained because it anchor by the normal distribution in the beginning of the simulation.

[@Cotote]

Can you add "tobacco law" or "smoking law" with stages like , "smoking banned at indoor public places", "plain packaging", "Smoking banned outside private property", "smoking banned"

[@Bongo1020]

A major factor that is at the core of Italy is the North-South divide. Across almost every factor be it Education, Wages, Unemployment, Crime, Infrastructure, the north of the country is drastically better off than the south. Currently the game has this sense that all the nations are a sort of homogenous blob. Italy in particular could benefit from a unique starting situation that decreases equality, education etc. across the board; in the same vein of South Korea beginning with the North Korea Crisis.

[@positechgames]

I agree. A lot of people have mentioned how stark the north south divide is, and we also have a similar (although perhaps not as bad) divide here in the UK. The trouble is finding a way to represent than in the game without the player having to know too much about local politics. We could maybe have a 'regional inequality' metric I suppose. (perhaps with rural development grants being a way to fix it)

[@tannerharcus8833]

thank you for making the games you make. they are amazing experiences.

[@canpitt]

How does the EU Membership trigger? I had 2 EU Membership trigger at once, which pushed EU Monetary Policy to maximum. This in turnpushed me into maximum inflation rate and a Hyperinflation Crisis triggered.

[@positechgames]

Hmmm. this definitely is a bug. only certain countries should be in the EU and the situation should never trigger or end. I will fix it for the next version.

[@canpitt]

@@positechgames While I have your attention, could this be something that can get implemented? Negative Carbon Emissions, accomplished by having most if not all of the CO2 emissions lowering policies enacted. It could lower the possibility of Cyclones, improve Foreign Relations, boost Environmentalist approval ratings. It could even lower the cost of Climate Change Adaption Fund if the CO2 emission gets low enough since the frequency of natural disasters start returning to pre-industrial era levels.

[@positechgames]

@@canpitt Maybe. sadly we are a long way off from that!

[@sg5363]

Please bring back the old changes part style, the way changes was in democracy 3 and africa was more useful and efficient, it was way easier to find what changed for better or worse in a glimps but with current style I have to read all title to know how changes are

[@rhododendr0ne]

When will this update be available on Steam? I can't wait to play a new country, but I still see the version 1.26. May we expect Poland or Hungary in the future? I'm Polish, and I'm utterly opposite of our shitty government, so I'd love to make my country great again :D

[@positechgames]

New version live now!

[@rhododendr0ne]

@@positechgames YEEEAAAAH

[@CPT85]

Can you port it onto Mac?

[@exannuc]

The new media monopoly is a great situation to add to the game as it is an issue in almost every democracy in the world! I think it should have effects on your perceptions or effects of policy approval though

[@exannuc]

Or maybe the higher the media monopoly the reduced effect of perceived corruption when giving in to donor demands?

[@systemfailure2039]

Pls. add Argentina

[@TheOfficialFloRida]

Still waiting for Russia to be added as playable country. I hope Cliff will add it eventually

[@s1nb4d59]

Sanity,your the only person you tubing this new game who i can understand.

[@FirestormMk3]

No one will get it!? I know it can fell that way sometimes, but we Trekkies aren't alone :)

[@samsporich]

Love this game! Are you considering adding more leftist policies? Currently the furthest left you can really go in game is capitalism with a welfare state. More policies surrounding worker coops, decommodification of industries, and devolution of powers to local communities/governments would be really cool to see in action and how they affect the country. I'd love to create an anarcho-communist utopia.

[@positechgames]

Its definitely a possibility. Maybe we should have more policies like the CEO pay cap. Perhaps a ban on multiple home ownership? Compulsory share grants to employees?

[@samsporich]

@@positechgames Those all sound great! You could also check out what I believe is called right to first purchase. It's where a privately owned company fails, and instead of it immediately going to the banks/creditors the employees have a chance to purchase the company themselves. I don't know if it would be hard to model in game or not but maybe worth a look.

[@positechgames]

@@samsporich I think the UK labour party proposed that once didnt they? I think its quite niche though. The actual impact of that policy on transferring ownership of companies to workers co-ops etc is probably pretty negligible.

[@jonathanradut2595]

When is it going out for Mac?

[@joaopedrocruz6432]

Could you add more South American and African countries,maybe India too. The game is really eurocentric at the moment.

[@kevingraham236]

I must say I agree, Italian food is some of the best food on the planet, for me it's freshly cooked PIZZA! Mmmmmm!

[@jochem2348]

Still no Belgium? We got a government now for so long its takes :p or is Belgium to hard for programming :D

[@gurgelurk]

Adverse effects of Media Monopoly should be: * Higher corruption over short time * Lower education over long time * Unpopular among Liberals

[@pavlehribar2116]

I don't know why, but GDP in this game is limited and when it reaches to the upper level, economic growth stops, and so you can't increase country's income anymore. That's why it is hard to deal with high deficits. Wouldn't unlimited GDP be better and more realistic?

[@nafak1]

The US should have an at war policy that increases military cost and should have drone strikes enabled by default

[@ВиталийПетренко-ь9ц]

Add Russia pls

[@frankargenti]

jeah italy is impossible

[@eXistenZ15]

it's-a me, Mafia-Mario!