Saturday, May 22, 2004

Government is a damned complex game implementation wise.
Take the concept of memories. This is as importanat as the slow fade in of effectiveness for policies. Lets say there is a rail strike. 2 months before the election, the strike is resolved by a dramatic increase in rail subsidies. Under the old system, this would wipe out the negative effects of the strike instantly.
But inr eal life this isnt what happens. People think about whats happened over the last 3or 4 years when they go to vote the ame party back in. If you had a major crisis that was your fault in the last year, this should be reflected at the ballot box.
So I added the idea that events would have the effect of creating memories. Voters would have a bad memory of a stirke (or a good memory of something) which would slowly degrade in its effectiveness over time.
So I implemented this system and all was great.
BUT!
Its not enough to do it just forr events, it also needs to be the same for anything that influences people. So if incoe tax is punishingly high for 3 years, cutting it by 50% the month before the election shouldnt help you too much. Also if the coutnry has a high rate of poverty, socialists should carry this bad memory with them even if the poverty level drops off just before they vote.
So a more generic system is needed.
And not only that, it needs to be more generic anyway, because I have a list int he gui of the voters current top10 'concerns'. I want this to be entirely generic accross types. So some things in the list will be policies, some events, some memories of past events, some will be simulation values. for example:

1) Income Tax
2) Rail Strike
3) High Poverty
4) Immigration control
5) ID Cards
6) Memories of high unemployment
etc

This is a complex problem to solve. especially at the weekends...
In other news. I sold 3 games today, I have a special offer, buy Starship Tycoon and get Planetary Defense for 50% off. Its working well.