Current statistic caps are far too limited

[Alpha Titan]

Democracy as a game franchise has been something I have thoroughly enjoyed. As a long-time political enthusiast the idea of forming an ideal political landscape is the stuff dreams are made of. In previous editions of this franchise the the ability to grow the metrics of your country was the most exciting and rewarding aspect of the game.

Unfortunately Democracy 4 caps the maximum of many game statistics to the point where it becomes very frustrating. If i have a positive GDP growth rate the game shouldn't cap my GPD at a fixed number for years straight.

The entire goal of building a low tax/high growth economy is that a larger economy will pay for itself, and this model is hard capped to be impossible in the current game-state. I didn't even realize but doing anything that kept growing my economy, technology, and education were completely pointless because they were "maxed out." This completely invalidates a pro-growth approach, and does so in an arbitrary way forcing me to raise taxes rather than let economic growth raise national income naturally.

This is the kind of limitation that makes the game almost unplayable for me because it soft locks the player into how they can run their country, which runs contrary to the very spirit of the game. The way GDP is tracked on a 0%-100% system is very confusing as well, because that is clearly not the GDP growth rate as it can never go negative.

I love this game concept and its potential to explain different interactions is very fun, but it need some form of change in this regard, whether as a setting, or a mod, or an overhaul of these few systems.

[RaNdOmKiLs666]

Yeah would be nice if the GDP worked a bit more realistically instead of having a cap.

[cliffski]

This has been discussed a LOT of times (at least 50) in these forums.
Think of GDP as economic growth, not just raw GDP. All of the values in the game are represented between 0 and 1, including health, lifespan, education...

...none of these things have real world caps either. Its just representative, in general terms.

the GDP stat should be thought of as the strength of your economy.

Its definitely possible to win re-election in all the countries in the game using a low tax, high growth model Its tricky, but definitely possible if done carefully.

[PARAdoxiBLE]

Originally posted by cliffski:

This has been discussed a LOT of times (at least 50) in these forums.
Think of GDP as economic growth, not just raw GDP. All of the values in the game are represented between 0 and 1, including health, lifespan, education...

...none of these things have real world caps either. Its just representative, in general terms.

the GDP stat should be thought of as the strength of your economy.

Its definitely possible to win re-election in all the countries in the game using a low tax, high growth model Its tricky, but definitely possible if done carefully.

I do understand what you mean and I agree representing GDP (or its growth) between 0~1 is better than linking simulations right into external GDP value. But I think the most glaring issues with this approach would be Productivity-GDP-Unemployment one (positech forum post[forums.positech.co.uk]) and debt. Real life governments can run a bit of deficit as 1) real GDP constantly grows and 2) borrowers benefit from inflation (can be called inflation tax or seigniorage in this case). I guess at least solving the latter will give you less posts asking for unlimited GDP sim.

[cliffski]

Good point, although I am wary of making changes to the way GDP works post-release because of the number of players who are used to the current system (and likely a lot of mods depending upon it!)

[Hamiltonian]

Originally posted by cliffski:

Good point, although I am wary of making changes to the way GDP works post-release because of the number of players who are used to the current system (and likely a lot of mods depending upon it!)

Given this, would it be possible to rework debt? I was thinking a possible solution would be to track an external GDP level (not the current gdp) and the debt as it is as values that are not displayed to the player. But, the player would see a simulation value of debt/gdp mapped to [0,1] or something which would affect other simulation values. That way, you can keep everything relative. The issue is that debt is not relative which causes weird issues like deficit spending not being sustainable.

Edit: Hmm, what if we get rid of debt all together. Instead, we have a debt/gdp bubble/sim-value that is influenced positively by deficit spending proportional to deficit relative to gdp and negatively by gdp. The debt/gdp would be relative so constrained to [0,1] and influence things like credit rating as well as debt payments.

[PARAdoxiBLE]

I'd just go with much simpler solution of introducing Inflation Tax (or Debt Devaluation) which adjusts real value of sovereign debts according to inflation by generating some money out of thin air. It should be possible to implement via situation. It wouldn't be that complicated to make this into a mod. Just needs some tricks to get actual debt from relative debt (which is accessible for modders).

[cliffski]

Its all but impossible to go back now and rework GDP sadly, but its a fair point that inflation should effectively reduce the debt. We do not go to the hassle of changing all of the currency numbers in the game when inflation happens, but its definitely true that if we have a lot of historic government debt, the one upside of inflation should be to effectively reduce that...
I will make a note to look into this...

[Hamiltonian]

Originally posted by cliffski:

Its all but impossible to go back now and rework GDP sadly, but its a fair point that inflation should effectively reduce the debt. We do not go to the hassle of changing all of the currency numbers in the game when inflation happens, but its definitely true that if we have a lot of historic government debt, the one upside of inflation should be to effectively reduce that...
I will make a note to look into this...

I was talking about reworking debt to be relative.

[PARAdoxiBLE]

Tried making a quick proof-of-concept mod for debt devaluation. yet to be published in workshop.
post on Positech forum[forums.positech.co.uk]

[Sarellion]

And I thought the caps were for preventing some stuff breaking and spiraling out of control.