Luxury goods

[Baumgilad]

Why not allow nations to produce their own unique luxury goods for trade? Over time, populations would come to demand various products, putting pressure on you to acquire them. This could have a powerful influence over how satisfied or restless they are.

 

Which goods your population learns to crave could be determined by a variety of factors. For example, your people might be more interested in products being produced by a nearby foreign power, or in goods made by countries with similar policies to your own. (Also, the popularity of your product could be related to your efforts to market the product.)

 

Opinions, please.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Baumgilad

[LordRahl2]

You would need to flesh out what you mean by your population being restive or content.

[Baumgilad]

You would need to flesh out what you mean by your population being restive or content.

Yes, that would need to be addressed. A restless population might be less productive or pay fewer taxes, for one thing. There has even been discussion of a mechanism for civil wars to happen, although this is going far afield.

[Dr Rush]

Let me save you some time. This can not be balanced as far as usability goes. If the negative effects are negligible the entire mechanic will be ignored, if the negative effects are significant all you have managed is complicating the game for the sake of complicating it.

[Baumgilad]

There is already a feature in the game measuring the population's level of contentment, but at the moment it's still cosmetic. At some point, it needs to become more meaningful, in my view. (Or else why is it part of the game?)

[Dr Rush]

If you are referring to approval rating, alex had planned on attaching stuff to it. He was instantly berated by the player base for being dumb. It doesn't work at all & like this idea is not balancable.

[LordRahl2]

There is already a feature in the game measuring the population's level of contentment, but at the moment it's still cosmetic. At some point, it needs to become more meaningful, in my view. (Or else why is it part of the game?)

I don't think it "needs to be" in fact the opposite.

[Baumgilad]

>If you are referring to approval rating, alex had planned on attaching stuff to it. He was instantly berated by the player base for being dumb. It doesn't work at all & like this idea is not balancable.

 

Why do you think it can't be balanced?  Just because you don't like an idea doesn't automatically mean it's unworkable.  (I'm referring to the approval rating, at the moment.)

Edited May 27, 2016 by Baumgilad

[Dr Rush]

For exactly the same reasons this idea doesn't work.

[Baumgilad]

For exactly the same reasons this idea doesn't work.

What reasons are those? I think the approval system is a fine idea.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Baumgilad

[Andrezj Kolarov]

I agree, the approval system is fine, it should be expanded so if you have 100% approval you get a small income bonus, and if you have a rating under 50% you get a small income penalty.

 

As for luxury goods, as I understand there was a suggestion for consumer goods but it was ultimately rejected by Sheepy/Alex. I guess consumer/luxury goods are just one of those unseen parts of the game, even at the max tax rate of 46.63% your people still have over half of their income which you don't get, so you can assume they spend that money on stuff they buy at your shopping malls etc.

[WISD0MTREE]

I agree, the approval system is fine, it should be expanded so if you have 100% approval you get a small income bonus, and if you have a rating under 50% you get a small income penalty.

Don't you lose approval when people embargo you? 

 

we embargo war nao

[Andrezj Kolarov]

Don't you lose approval when people embargo you? 

 

we embargo war nao

Don't think so

http://politicsandwar.wikia.com/wiki/Approval_Rating

 

It was probably removed.

[sehlura]

I came here by way of a forum search. I was going to suggest a "Luxury goods" expansion to the game myself. More specifically, I think it makes more sense, in terms of the games mechanics and in terms of [somewhat] reflecting development in the real world. It seems like the only "late-game"/"upper-tier" thing to do is to stockpile money and then go to war (this excludes the metagame; the meta politics are a lot of fun to be a part of). Low-tier nations focus on growth and developmental or military resources. A third category of resources (like luxury) could substantially alter the upper-tier style of gameplay if you limit their utility to nations above a certain infrastructure threshold; either a hard limit (for example, 25k+) or have access to luxuries limited the same way all Projects are limited.

 

In either case, access to luxuries could be obtained only after unlocking a special Project, granting your nation access to 'bonus' production facilities that utilize goods already in the game. For example, oil could give access to plastics, a new resource demanded by populations in nations of 25k+ infrastructure whose happiness now impacts productivity -- for the trade off that their can boost happiness beyond 100%, giving the upper-tier players with this project and/or resources the ability to further boost income beyond the 115% commerce limit.

 

The reason they should incorporate resources in the game is that it gives the low-tier players yet another opportunity to grow by facilitating and increase in demand for resources used for more purposes.