I just had a few trial playthroughs of democracy on my laptop. Its handy doing this because I don't develop on the laptop anymore so all I can do on it is playtest and thus I'm not tempted to stop and change code every 5 minutes.
My impressions of the game at the moment are that its just too damned hard. I also have a slight nagging feeling that its possibly too complex, although I'm prepared to accept that the real problem is not complexity as such, but complexity without clear player feedback. Giving clear feedback on such a complex system is NOT easy. Ironically I CAN visualise the system very well in my head as a kind of virtual heightmap terrain with complex connecting levers and pistons, but thats not something I find easy to translate onto a screen.
I guess I should count myself lucky that I DO have that vision intact in my head, its just a problem of translating it for the player.
I am a long way off the perfect interface design for this game. I take solace in the thought that I reckon will wright went through a lot of ideas before settling on the right Sims interface :D