Poll: Nation Sim DLC: the player can control the central bank

[David]

Do you like the following concepts?

1) The player can get elected as a president.

2) The player can control the central bank and change the interest rate if the player becomes the president of the nation.

[JasonLJJ]

That is a great idea David - would you mind sharing what the devs have in mind? Some thoughts on major areas to explore:

1) Defense = Annual auction for defense contracts in each of the major areas such as Airforce, Navy, Army, Cybersecurity,
2) Education = Government contract for books + digital solutions; online education; tutors
3) Healthcare = Expand on the types of drugs available + medical equipment + allow players to own and operate hospitals for profit
4) Interest rate + banking regulatory changes (eg. change bank capital ratio)

It would be great if elections could affect the level of private sector involvement in various industries (gov decides how many hospitals / schools firms get to build; level of profitability) so winning an election or supporting your candidate is crucial to winning the game

[lillud321]

Hi david , I really like the first idea but i'm not to sure for the second.

For the first idea , i like JasonJJ idea . It would add a whole new gameplay .

But for the centrale interest rate , i'am affraid it would unbalance the game. In the real world, the centrale Bank of contre changes the rate depending of the economic cycle. Its made to try to régulate the economy. So if there is a recession and the player does not lower the interest rate . It could have a pretty bad effect on compagnies with a lot of loan. Thus the importance to have it independent.

[mserhatbalik]

But for the centrale interest rate , i'am affraid it would unbalance the game. In the real world, the centrale Bank of contre changes the rate depending of the economic cycle. Its made to try to régulate the economy. So if there is a recession and the player does not lower the interest rate . It could have a pretty bad effect on compagnies with a lot of loan. Thus the importance to have it independent.

I agree but the name o the game is "Lab." Having an option to be able to control interest rates and failing miserably would teach a lot to an avarage Joe about the dynamics of modern economy. Relatively I learned a lot about finance just playing this game.

[David]

That is a great idea David - would you mind sharing what the devs have in mind? Some thoughts on major areas to explore:

1) Defense = Annual auction for defense contracts in each of the major areas such as Airforce, Navy, Army, Cybersecurity,
2) Education = Government contract for books + digital solutions; online education; tutors
3) Healthcare = Expand on the types of drugs available + medical equipment + allow players to own and operate hospitals for profit
4) Interest rate + banking regulatory changes (eg. change bank capital ratio)

It would be great if elections could affect the level of private sector involvement in various industries (gov decides how many hospitals / schools firms get to build; level of profitability) so winning an election or supporting your candidate is crucial to winning the game

Very cool ideas! In what way do you think their gameplay mechanics could function?

[JasonLJJ]

Country Government Page
Revenue
Federal Personal Taxes - % of GDP for all cities in the game * multiplier (player to decide)
Federal Corporate Taxes - % of revenue for all corporations in the game * multiplier (player to decide)
Global Protection from other countries - Impacted by level of defense spending; higher the defense spending, the larger amount. Ideally there should be a lag effect for changes in defense, meaning if you raise defense spending from 100 MM to 1000 MM between Year 1 and Year 2, your Global Protection revenue should go from 150 MM in Year 1 to 500 MM in Year 2 to 1500 MM in Year 3;

Financing
Issue bonds in bond market to raise funding

Note - Amount of bonds cannot exceed XX% (20?) of GDP
Upon reaching that cap, the nation will be forced to raise taxes to the max for XX number of years and cut spending to the bare minimum until the country meets a certain period of consecutive surplus (36 months?)

Question - My country has surplus cash, what happens to it?
Answer - It gets automatically deposited to the banking system and divided up evenly by the number of banking groups outstanding. I would suggest having this figure split evenly among all the banks to help boost profitability of weaker banks to ensure there is a degree of competition.


Country Politics Page
To be explored later. I think only mayors should be eligible for president elections. Political parties should be able to purchase media ads instead of just a slider (will it be too much micromanagement?)


Spending - Slider
1) Defense
The more you spend in defense, the more you get in global protection from other countries. The budget will determine how much money is in the system to be spent on equipment / tanks.
Defense equipment broken down into the major branches of the military - Army, Navy, Aircraft, Cybersecurity
Auction every 3 years to become exclusive provider to each branch of the military - you pay a certain amount upfront. The amount of money you have you pay goes down the higher your technology (researched in R&D centre) is in that category. For the 3 years, you become exclusive provider for that branch and earn massive profits from selling to the government. Over time, there should be only 2-3 firms per branch due to the high capex and long research time needed. We can add 3-4 different products per branch.

Products produced in factories

Note - suggest we create new building "Gigafactory" that has multiple stories (like retail stores) and can ramp up output. I find the game as it is involves too much micromanagement.

Having higher defense spending should contribute to something called "National Security" for all the cities in the nation, which will improve the population satisfaction and hence, population growth.


2) Education
2 types of education business - for profit education and non-profit education
For Profit education - Online
Creation of new digital business (similar to existing setup for internet company)

For Profit education - Offline
Tutor centres that boost coverage of the existing schools - placing a tutor centre right next to regular school will allow the school to cover more area

Non-profit education
Books & Intellectual property - operates similar to how defense contracts work;

Higher spending on non-profit education contributes to global literacy levels and helps boost income in the long run

3) Healthcare
2 types of healthcare businesses - BioTech and Hospitals
Biotech firms - Only radical R&D to invent new drugs;
If successful, drugs can be commercialized for extremely high price

Hospitals - Works like how TV stations + Offices work today
2 types of firms - for profit and non-profit. Hospital budget should be determined on a global level.
Hospitals placed in better location get better foot traffic = more profit

Note - The more advanced the biotech drugs and higher the healthcare spending, the better global health is in all cities in the nation which leads to higher citizen satisfaction.

4) Fiscal Stimulus
Similar to a "spending dividend" for consumer - boosts consumer spending globally for all products by XX% - pumping USD 1 bln in the economy will lead to 10% increase in demand for all products.

5) Social Security
Spending money here will lead to overall improvement in citizen satisfaction, population growth and also increase in consumer spending.

[David]

Hi Jason, thanks for the ideas. I think they are excellent ideas. I will forward them to the dev team and try to get their initial feedback for you next week or after Christmas.

[Traveo]

If I could add one suggestion about gameplay, if a company were to win a government contract, the Governmental units could simply operate like companies do when they purchase goods from each other

that is Co A buys goods from Co B.
and Co A shows up as a client of Co B's factory.

The kicker could be that a company can only service ONE government contract at a time or was limited in some other way or that the government contracts have some flaw like only paying cost + 8% for goods, so a good with a high margin would cost the company the marginal difference.

[JasonLJJ]

One more suggestion:

I think the game is lacking a huge industry that is a significant part of the economy - Airplanes and Airlines

Anyone has some suggestions on how they would like this to be simulated? Would love the community feedback on this.

I think it should be divided into two parts - international sales (i.e. Boeing selling planes to Korea; this can be seen as more government to government trade and hence the auction / bidding mechanism can apply) vs. regular airlines (Anyone got suggestions on how to set things up?)

[JasonLJJ]

David - perhaps we should create a poll on some of the ideas for Nation Sim DLC and ask the community on which aspects they would like in the game?
I think it's best if you spearhead the initiative and I'll be happy to contribute