Politics and simulation, and role of the Mayor

[Inarius]

I think that if Capitalism 2 has to become more a city simulation game (business oriented, though) you should add politics in it, to had more flavor in the game.

Every 4, 5 or 6 years for example there should be a vote in the city, which would decide how the city will evolve.
The Mayor could be in a different party and the vote for him would depend on the situation of the city.

First you should perhaps add some (more) macro economy, such as Gini Index (inequality), and some poverty and criminality index, and also some "democraty index" which would be the result of some economics, and some events.

I like a lot what is done in the "Victoria" game about Politics, which is quite simple and in the same time very efficient.
The main issue of politics is "Am I happy of the way it is ?" If not, I will vote for change.
The Mayor could be of several politic types :

- Communism : Extreme situation. A communist Mayor can only be elected if inequality is very important, with very few social charges while a lot of richness. Or, via a Coup d'Etat.
- Socialism : A situation where people wants to have more social services, while the city has enough money to pay it. It's generally after a long growth time that people wants more redistribution via taxes.
- Liberalism : People tends to vote liberal when they want less taxes, or when after a long period of deficit they want more freedom of trade and more jobs.
- Ultra liberalism : the same, but harder in that way.
- Conservative : People don't want to move too much.
- Autoritarism : This (as communism) nearly never happens via election, but more via Coup d'Etat. When the country is particularly poor, with high criminality, people in fear will accept a "less liberty, more safety" governement.


This is quite simple :
As a Mayor you can take some decisions, and choose taxes. Having good social services attract more people in your city, and reduces poverty, and raises education.
For example, R&D center should be more efficient if built in cities with high education standards.
You should also add a "competitiveness" ratio, which means that people with high living standards and good social services tends to work more efficiently than people without this (to reflect the fact that it is true IRL and to avoid that in the game after 50 years all the cities are more or less at the same level of richness).
The level of taxes and the decisions you can take depends of the party elected. As a liberal, you can't have more than XX% of taxes and won't be able to set some of them (for example protectionnist taxes). So you will have to lower the budget of one or several of your ministry (you could, for example spend the budget in "education", "police", "infrastructure", "ecology", "health" ?).

You have 5 types of taxes :
- Taxes on work (social taxes) : The cost of work is getting higher when raising them. If too much, industrial sites will tend to move elsewhere.
- Taxes on sales (or VAT) : The cost of living is getting higher. If too much, people will tend to move elsewhere. This will reflect in supermarket, beause the real price will be higher than the price you are trying to sell, thus reducing the "cost" advantage. You should even decide the level of VAT per type of product "technology, food, shoes, etc.".
- Taxes on people : The cost of living is getting higher, and if too much people will tend to move elsewhere too. The difference with the VAT is that when necessity index changes, VAT changes too, while taxes on people depends only on the richness of people, not on their consumption.
- Ecological taxes : To get a cleaner environment, you can raises this type of taxes. This will make people more happy because of less pollution. But if too high, industry will move elsewhere.
- Protectionnist taxes : Everything which is bought abroad will be taxed. This will give you ressources, and firms will sometimes have to build factories on your land to be competitive. But on the other side, the other Mayors of the other cities will tend to do the same toward you and the firms located on your land won't soon be able to export, too.



As a city of a typical third world country, first you have poverty and low competetiveness with authoritarism. Firm mainly builds things with a big part of wages in it, because you have very low wages. With time, you make money, and you will be able to raise education and reduce inequality, which bring higher standards of living. After a while, your country overthrow your party, and liberal arrives ! (or socialism, or whatever). Sometimes, it's a leftist party which gain control, and will redistribute richness, or sometimes the country will remain very inequal.
As a rich country, you will have a different problem. With a conservative party, you can't reduce too much your budget, therefore your debt is getting higher and higher, and you are soon forced to lower your taxes as there are fewer and fewer factories in the country (they go to poorer countries).
As a crisis country such as Greece, inequality and criminality are very high, which leads to much troubles. Sometimes it's getting you to become authoritarist, sometimes not. But after a while, the level of wages are so low that, after those troubles (during political troubles, people don't invest because of some risks, but I won't develop here !), they invest again as the country is becoming poor (and atractive to low-technology factories).

Well, that's how I see it !

EDIT : Oh, by the way, as an Authoritarism (or communism) country, the mayor should be able to control himself the central bank, therefore that would (him not well played) lead to a major economical crisis ! (inflation explosion, or/and hard crisis)

[azuzelych]

I think that if Capitalism 2 has to become more a city simulation game (business oriented, though) you should add politics in it, to had more flavor in the game.

Every 4, 5 or 6 years for example there should be a vote in the city, which would decide how the city will evolve.
The Mayor could be in a different party and the vote for him would depend on the situation of the city.

First you should perhaps add some (more) macro economy, such as Gini Index (inequality), and some poverty and criminality index, and also some "democraty index" which would be the result of some economics, and some events.

I like a lot what is done in the "Victoria" game about Politics, which is quite simple and in the same time very efficient.
The main issue of politics is "Am I happy of the way it is ?" If not, I will vote for change.
The Mayor could be of several politic types :

- Communism : Extreme situation. A communist Mayor can only be elected if inequality is very important, with very few social charges while a lot of richness. Or, via a Coup d'Etat.
- Socialism : A situation where people wants to have more social services, while the city has enough money to pay it. It's generally after a long growth time that people wants more redistribution via taxes.
- Liberalism : People tends to vote liberal when they want less taxes, or when after a long period of deficit they want more freedom of trade and more jobs.
- Ultra liberalism : the same, but harder in that way.
- Conservative : People don't want to move too much.
- Autoritarism : This (as communism) nearly never happens via election, but more via Coup d'Etat. When the country is particularly poor, with high criminality, people in fear will accept a "less liberty, more safety" governement.


This is quite simple :
As a Mayor you can take some decisions, and choose taxes. Having good social services attract more people in your city, and reduces poverty, and raises education.
For example, R&D center should be more efficient if built in cities with high education standards.
You should also add a "competitiveness" ratio, which means that people with high living standards and good social services tends to work more efficiently than people without this (to reflect the fact that it is true IRL and to avoid that in the game after 50 years all the cities are more or less at the same level of richness).
The level of taxes and the decisions you can take depends of the party elected. As a liberal, you can't have more than XX% of taxes and won't be able to set some of them (for example protectionnist taxes). So you will have to lower the budget of one or several of your ministry (you could, for example spend the budget in "education", "police", "infrastructure", "ecology", "health" ?).

You have 5 types of taxes :
- Taxes on work (social taxes) : The cost of work is getting higher when raising them. If too much, industrial sites will tend to move elsewhere.
- Taxes on sales (or VAT) : The cost of living is getting higher. If too much, people will tend to move elsewhere. This will reflect in supermarket, beause the real price will be higher than the price you are trying to sell, thus reducing the "cost" advantage. You should even decide the level of VAT per type of product "technology, food, shoes, etc.".
- Taxes on people : The cost of living is getting higher, and if too much people will tend to move elsewhere too. The difference with the VAT is that when necessity index changes, VAT changes too, while taxes on people depends only on the richness of people, not on their consumption.
- Ecological taxes : To get a cleaner environment, you can raises this type of taxes. This will make people more happy because of less pollution. But if too high, industry will move elsewhere.
- Protectionnist taxes : Everything which is bought abroad will be taxed. This will give you ressources, and firms will sometimes have to build factories on your land to be competitive. But on the other side, the other Mayors of the other cities will tend to do the same toward you and the firms located on your land won't soon be able to export, too.



As a city of a typical third world country, first you have poverty and low competetiveness with authoritarism. Firm mainly builds things with a big part of wages in it, because you have very low wages. With time, you make money, and you will be able to raise education and reduce inequality, which bring higher standards of living. After a while, your country overthrow your party, and liberal arrives ! (or socialism, or whatever). Sometimes, it's a leftist party which gain control, and will redistribute richness, or sometimes the country will remain very inequal.
As a rich country, you will have a different problem. With a conservative party, you can't reduce too much your budget, therefore your debt is getting higher and higher, and you are soon forced to lower your taxes as there are fewer and fewer factories in the country (they go to poorer countries).
As a crisis country such as Greece, inequality and criminality are very high, which leads to much troubles. Sometimes it's getting you to become authoritarist, sometimes not. But after a while, the level of wages are so low that, after those troubles (during political troubles, people don't invest because of some risks, but I won't develop here !), they invest again as the country is becoming poor (and atractive to low-technology factories).

Well, that's how I see it !

EDIT : Oh, by the way, as an Authoritarism (or communism) country, the mayor should be able to control himself the central bank, therefore that would (him not well played) lead to a major economical crisis ! (inflation explosion, or/and hard crisis)

Not a bad idea, except that the game then would be moving way too far from the original concept.
you can't really be a Mayor AND a CEO, can you? However, that would be a good feature simulated by AI, still it would be a rather random thing.

[Inarius]

Yes, Mayor should be AI, like for now the central bank, or banks.

It would add more dynamic background, with some countries which, even if they are profitable, could be more risky because of political issues.