Can we just get a "ban Global Economy/Credit Downgrade" button?

[Syke]

Alright, I've always tolerated the "Global Economy". I've always tolerated the fact that my credit rating gets downgraded even when GDP is doing great and -rising- and we're in the midst of a surplus. But this is just ridiculous.

It's not a matter of "if" the Global Economy crashes. It's when. It'll almost always crash within a few turns of your first term, and with it, you can expect to sink hundreds of billions of dollars into debt that -if you aren't playing a more "socialist" game with high taxes- will continue well into your second term, when the Global Economy usually stabilizes. At which point you can expect your credit rating to be downgraded constantly by idiots who're punishing you for something literally outside your control.

But what finally made me lose it and decide to write this little rant/request, was today's events. The Global economy was in recession for most of the game, I was getting downgraded constantly... but what finally made me lose it, was having America be downgraded to a CCC economy while my GDP was -amazing-.

Here's a pic: http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/41987135137053325/CFF8D7B2F166241DD685B8D543DD34E7AF58C3AB/ (yes I am playing with mods, only have two though)

I took it right as my economy hit CCC status. It brought me out of a safe surplus and straight into a massive deficit.

By the end of the game, America's deficit hit $4,500 billion.

I just... can't really enjoy this, at all. The economy -always- crashes and it -always- tanks my GDP, my credit rating is downgraded and upgraded seemingly at random intervals, and it only makes trying to set things straight (ESPECIALLY as a capitalist/"libertarian" country) near impossible to finish within two terms.

So, just like we have a button to disable assassinations in the game, can we please just have one that disables the whole credit rating thing? I know it may be difficult, but at this rate it's just like playing chess, then someone coming in at random intervals and moving the pieces around. It isn't fun. It isn't something you can prevent.

Heck, just a game where the global economy doesn't crash -literally- off the charts would be fun.

[Sol]

Aww, you don't like a challenge? How about you just ask for a button that makes you invincible and always get high score on everything?

[Syke]

Challenge is playing chess against someone more experienced or strategically minded than you.

This is attempting to play chess where every other turn a die is rolled and the number it lands on leads to your opponent removing a certain number of pieces from the board.

It isn't "challenging", not by any sensible definition. It's just a random element with no sense, rhyme, or reason to it that artificially creates difficulty and can frequently destroy anything you've built up. It's like children playing a game with that one person who claims "I have the power to have all powers", unfun and unfair.

If your only response to this complaint about some random element that happens in -every- game (killing replayability a bit, sometimes you just want a game where the economy remains stable or crashes farther down the line) is "LUUUUL! U WANT EASY MODE SCRUB? WHY NOT JUST LEMME PLAY THE GAME FOR U!" then my only response to you is this: stop stroking your ego so vigorously, eventually you'll just end up tugging it off.

[Syke]

Also, forgot to say.

>Has Barely 3 hours on Democracy 3
>0 Achievements
>Mocks someone's "skill"
>mfw http://www.reactionface.info/sites/default/files/images/1310498559979.png

[MP Stéphane Maurice Dion]

"By the end of the game, America's deficit hit $4,500 billion."

Do you mean the debt in total? Or the deficit annually (Deficit x 4 quarterly)? Or the deficit per quarter?

[Syke]

Originally posted by Tostka:

"By the end of the game, America's deficit hit $4,500 billion."

Do you mean the debt in total? Or the deficit annually (Deficit x 4 quarterly)? Or the deficit per quarter?

Debt in total.

Thankfully the exact number of the debt, other than being terrifyingly large, wasn't -too- big of a deal to me. What was aggravating was my GDP was -increasing-, it was huge and I believe I was raking in something like $1,100 bn each turn with income tax at 29%

What was just mind numbingly stupid was that the economy was doing great, poverty was down to historic lows, homelessness was eradicated, I was paying off the debt, yet I suddenly got marked with a CCC credit rating for no reason.

While the credit downgrade doesn't hurt GDP too badly, it increases the interest owed and brings me pretty close to that economic crisis modifier. I went from having a nice surplus to a deficit of nearly $300 billion each turn.

That's just my problem with this credit rating system. It doesn't seem to have any sense or sanity to it, I'm not just talking about how quickly you can lose ratings while, in reality, a nation's credit rating is -really- serious business and not lowered/raised lightly.

A credit rating is supposed to measure the confidence level of a country paying back it's debts. If a country is coming along with a surplus, then they're paying their debts. Maybe not as -fast- as groups would like, but it's being paid back. There are a few other things that could get a nation's credit rating downgraded other than if they're running a surplus or deficit. Heck, America's recent credit downgrading is an example of that.

That's all sensible stuff, yet in this game I don't think there's really -any- cause for credit downgrading when it happens. It seems to just serve as a random way of killing surpluses so there's an artificial difficulty level.

I understand that a global recession is a -very- serious issue, it can harm a great deal of countries, but the way it functions in game is more akin to a Dark Souls invader, with more inevitablity. Perhaps if there were a way in game to lessen the impact of the global depression, or if it were more random so you aren't -always- promised a massive "bubble burst" a few turns into the game, it would be more tolerable.

Removing it completely is just a quick, admittedly heavy handed response to the issue. There are other ideas that could be explored, for example perhaps have foreign aid, while costly, soften the blow of the global economy/allow for a quicker return to normalcy? After all, before the great depression hit the U.S.A., we were making loans to Germany so it could pay off it's debt to France and Britain (thus allowing those nations to pay off their debts to -us-)

Or perhaps have a "national markets" modifier to lessen the impact of the global economy going to hell. After all, while we'd have trouble exporting goods to other countries, if your country doesn't place as great an emphasis on foreign trade anyways, or has more small businesses than large corporations, it wouldn't be -too- negatively harmed by the rest of the world going down the toilet.

Running with that hypothetic "national markets" idea, it could be increased by more protectionist policies while being decreased by things placing an emphasis on free trade/large corporations. When national markets are -low-, your economy is more "globalized" and dependent on the rest of the world, so the global economy affects your GDP a lot more (which is nightmarish in times of recession, but can be a massive boon when the economy is stable/in a boom) while if it's high, foreign trade is low and your GDP is smaller, yet not as negatively affected by outside factors.

Either way, it would be a big improvement over a system where things completely out of your control can destroy your entire economy.

[Serris]

It's eminently possible for any nation on any difficulty to stimulate its economy to the point that you aren't completely tethered to international markets.

Yes, it's frustrating when things outside of your control stick a knife in you. Right now Russia's economy is in big trouble because Saudia Arabia is keeping the price of crude oil low to try to destroy the cost effectiveness of competing fracking operations in, say, America. I'm sure Vladimir Putin is awfully frustrated about that. That's how international markets are. It isn't all up to any one national actor.

Don't worry about the debt. Just keep everybody happy enough not to murder you / vote you out. Keep focusing on things like unemployment, GDP, health, education. Eventually your system will become healthy enough that a global crash won't even dent you.

[APhoenixSoaring]

I don't understand - your credit rating is directly related to % of GDP. If GDP is INCREASING and you have a surplus, your debt can't possibly be increasing, so your credit rating literally can't decrease. I've never experienced the issue of which you speak, it makes no mathematical sense. Are you sure your mods haven't done something funky?

Can you take a screenshot of the main screen please?

Also what difficulty is this? With the USA, I just take massive austerity measures, real the defense spending back to reasonable measures. I achieve the result I want over the long term.

Also you should expect one economic crash every 4 years or so. They think there should have been one in 2004 and 2012, so that's why 2008 was so bad, and there is another forecast for 2016.

National markets wouldn't actually work. The banks in your country have made investments in other countries. Hence, when the global economy is slowing down, the banks have less money to lend out to private investors and home-owners. Your citizens savings interest rates aren't as great. Hence total demand in the economy drops.

It has nothing to do with goods and services, and everything to do with money. The issue is that the capital in the market is globalised. Ironically, that's beneficial for you, it means the money the banks have on offer should be les susceptible to financial shock in your own economy. So that private citizens aren't as affected when your GDP is low. Essentially, it allows welathy citizens in the society to be providing capital for businesses. Making the Business Start-Up Campaign actually effective, despite you not putting any money in.

Hypothetically. I haven't checked the maths on that, but I imagine that's what's going on.

[Gikgik]

Try my "Industrial Evolution" mod.

The Market Meltdown has been replaced by two different events, "Financial Crisis" and "Tech Bubble Burst", which hurt specific industries added by the mod.

What bothers me most about the Market Meltdown, as well as other unpreventable events, is that it makes a voter group more opposed against the government.

Why would someone, except a fool or a religious person, blame the government for events not related to the government?

[5xal]

later when u've mastered this game u can appreciate those economic downturn scenarios. believe me when u managed to get ur gdp so high, there will be problems ie immigrants overflow and environmental downfall. therefore bear in mind that, gdp should be balanced out as well. if your policies are producing positive effect on gdp growth, one way to control it is to reduce money supply (available in one of the mods). with that, you can control your currency inflation and maintaining purchasing power

[rehab]

It's aggravating, I can agree, but while I haven't mucked around in the code, I'm not sure if I would be able to confidently agree that the crashes are indeed totally random. Or rather, random beyond the ability of the player to compensate.
They may not necessarily happen during a downturn, as I've had crashes in the past that happened both after the Global Economy stat started to improve after a long time was spent getting worse, and also in the middle of the Global Economy's falling, but I can't remember gettjng any myself when the Global Economy was doing just absolutely great. (that would *really* suck, to have such a large contributor to GDP income get slashed immediately, I admit.)

Maybe it's just that I don't get frustrated with it as easily as I should, and instead look to try to game the system to my advantage however I can, but I've picked up the habit of checking the Global Economy stat every turn. If it has been going down for a few consecutive turns, I can get paranoid pretty easy, like I'll start thinking "got a crash coming." But then I didn't actually know until this thread that credit rating is tied to %-of-GDP in Democracy 3, I just kinda got paranoid enough to think of any deficit at all as dangerous enough that I should do almost *anything* to get rid of it, short of getting myself assassinated or of provoking a negative situation (though those tend to be bad for budgets anyway, so you could say it's all still tied to money).

You can indeed eventually build yourself up enough of a surplus to not even get a budget deficit when the Global Economy crashes if you keep piling on policies that raise Income, though. (But then I tend to be kinda biased/gamey in my policy selection: I might be a bit of a cheapskate. I think I tend to look for policies to enact that make either make as much money for as little investment as possible, or policies to please factions that do the most pleasing for the least funding. 200% difficulty feels like it tends to make balancing every budget a little bit less about "simulating my ideal democracy" and a little bit more about "oh god where am I going to get the money," though I find that fun enough to play with.)

I do think it would be interesting to see what the game looks like without the Global Economy to keep track of, though I wonder how hard it would be to work out.

@Gikgik: I've interpreted the Capitalists dropping in happiness after a crash as them being extra testy right about then. Less "explicitly angry with *my* government" and more "in a foul mood and especially ready to push their interests/get mad at perceived slights." I guess that's part of the nature of interpreting the game's abstractions, though.

[PinkKitteh]

Honestly I've never had an issue with debt or my credit, even when the global economy is factored in. Granted I tend to run more socialist in my economic policy so higher/more taxes is a disturbingly easy fix. Heck, before they fixed it all you needed to balance the U.S. budget was to implement a CO2 tax. You can still do it, but it tanks your GDP a whole lot more than it used to and it wont fix the issue outright.

For me though, I'm so terrified of credit downgrades that I consider the deficit and debt to be the most dangerous thing ever. A credit downgrade during a global downturn will completely destroy any plans you had for a budget and send you spiraling into a pit of abyss and budget cuts, which then leads to problems like higher unemployment, lower health, higher crime, and eventually you booted from office. My first job is always to remove any and all debt I have through whatever means necessary so that I can get myself a perfect credit rating and keep a perfect credit rating. From there its smooth sailing.