6/10/2015 - Approval Rating

[Alex]

I've added an Approval Rating to nations. The purpose of this rating is twofold. First, it's a neat little roleplay statistic; you can think of it as something like the "Happiness" of your citizens. Second, it's going to have a more mechanical purpose later on. Nothing major, but having a higher approval rating will be favorable for you, when you want to pass a law. Everyone starts with a 99.99% approval rating.

 

Now, to tell you about the mechanics of this new feature. I've put together a nice wiki page illustrating just what increases and decrease your approval rating. See that, here: http://politicsandwar.wikia.com/wiki/Approval_Rating

 

Since I know most of you are too lazy to click that link, here's a table (from the wiki page) detailing what actions will increase/decrease your approval rating.

 

 

Now, those aren't the only way to increase/decrease your rating. Each turn, you will also see a (much smaller) increase or decrease to your approval rating. This is based upon a variety of factors:

 

First, you have a base increase of 0.025 per turn. You get this for free, no matter what.

Second, you have a variable factor, that can either help or hurt you. It's dependent upon your overall population density, if it's lower than 150 you get points, if it's higher you lose points.

Third is your pollution index. For each pollution index point you've got, you lose a bit of your approval rating.

 

Lastly is if you're nation is out of food or unable to pay it's bills. These each give you a -0.5 approval rating, per turn (pretty big decrease).

Again, for more details on just how this is calculated, see the wiki page: http://politicsandwar.wikia.com/wiki/Approval_Rating

 

To check how much approval rating you're gaining or losing each turn, take a look at your Revenue page. It's stuck right at the very top, even though it doesn't affect your income at all.

 

That's pretty much it, purely cosmetic for now, but eventually it'll be (somewhat) meaningful.

 

EDIT: From a more recent update:

 

 

 

• Approval Rating caps have been lifted on both ends. I've also added your raw point value to the nation page, next to your percentage (which can only fluctuate between 0-100).
• Approval Ratings have been added to the Leaderboards page. You can now see who has the highest and lowest Approval Ratings.
• Approval Ratings are officially a purely cosmetic update. They're for fun, and will have no bearing on anything in the game mechanics-wise.
• Approval Ratings can no longer be affected by embargoes. I've updated the wiki page to reflect that.

[Eric]

Hi!

[Rozalia]

That embargo bit seems ripe for abuse to me... but the idea seems good in itself to expand the game. 

[Eric]

First comment , good change, will be nice for those people who roleplay/like stats.

[Eric]

Yay! I have 99.99% approval rating! I knew my citizens loved me!
 

[Delyruin]

If I may make a small suggestion: Losing approval by having war declared on you doesn't make much sense in the grand scheme of things.... In most nations throughout history the citizens rally around their leaders when attacked, not the opposite as this somewhat implies. So, in my opinion, having war declared on you should increase your approval by a decent amount.

Edited June 11, 2015 by Delyruin

[Alex]

That embargo bit seems ripe for abuse to me... but the idea seems good in itself to expand the game. 

 

Abuseable, how?

 

If I may make a small suggestion: Losing approval by having war declared on you doesn't make much sense in the grand scheme of things.... In most nations throughout history the citizens rally around their leaders when attacked, not the opposite as this somewhat implies. So, in my opinion, having war declared on you should increase your approval by a decent amount.

 

While that's a reasonable opinion, it would create an abuseable reality where you could declare war on someone just to increase their approval rating. You can think of this as, "Someone declared war on us, why didn't our leader do enough to prevent this from happening?"

 

Winning a war, on the other hand, does give you a significant boost.

[Sailor Jerry]

I see alot of minuses on that list.

[Alexander]

That .01 I need to have a 100% hurts me.

[Alex]

I see alot of minuses on that list.

 

Your approval rating will generally go up by a small amount every turn, unless you've got a really high population density or a lot of pollution. Also, you must take into consideration the fact that everyone starts at a very high approval rating.

[Kastor]

That embargo bit seems ripe for abuse to me... but the idea seems good in itself to expand the game. 

It'll make it so that during wars, people embargo individual nations and not alliances. Good add imo.

[Alex]

It'll make it so that during wars, people embargo individual nations and not alliances. Good add imo.

 

I hadn't considered this, but I suppose you are correct. 

[Shakyr]

I'm guessing since everyone seems to be starting on 99.99%, it's not retroactive

 

Interesting change. I think I'll not bother adding it to the list of stuff to calculate though, too complicated!

[Dimitri Valko]

I doubt attacking nations will be sending peace any time soon once this has an affect-- perhaps it could maybe be +2 so it couldn't be exploited, yet still an alternative to losing a war for both in question. Great update in general, though, Sheepy, and wish to see this expanded upon further. P&W is getting even better, and I wish to see it grow further.

[Milkman]

I like where this is going.  Good add sheepy

[Atzuya]

Hm, so having 100 pop density means you can get away with 500 pollution. Yay for land being more relevant

 

Good thing lifting embargo gives the same approval as you'd lost upon embargoing. Getting nuked should reduce the approval rating

[Aerys Targaryen]

Good addition to the game !

 

This may prevent filling up war slot/espionage slot by nations, as there is a negative effect for both the parties.

[ELPINCHAZO]

I have to be honest,I hate this. If I wanted Nation States,I'd play Nation States.

[Alex]

I have to be honest,I hate this. If I wanted Nation States,I'd play Nation States.

 

I don't understand, it literally has no effect on you. You don't like other people having fun through roleplaying? If you didn't want to play a nation simulation game, why are you here?

[Atzuya]

Do they even have approval rating in NationStates?

[Aenir]

Embargoes are going to send everyone to 0% lol.

I don't understand, it literally has no effect on you. You don't like other people having fun through roleplaying? If you didn't want to play a nation simulation game, why are you here?

According to you, it's going to have effects later on.

[Rozalia]

Abuseable, how?

 

Two alliances go to war. Gov gives order for members to embargo each enemy individually to tank enemy's approval rating to 0 which makes no sense.

Also abusable outside war of course as members in bigger alliances will be able to use it in a sort of "bullying" manner which depending on how important all this when it gets effects will be troubling as the smaller alliance can't do the same back due to the fear of war. 

 

I can see some ways around it if it's worth concern however.

[Atzuya]

That would make lifting all embargoes a really, really good peace terms then

[Alex]

According to you, it's going to have effects later on.

 

But only marginally. I'm envisioning a law system where you can pass laws X amount of times per day, and when you attempt to pass or repeal a law, you do a RNG roll between 0-100. If that roll is above your approval rating, you fail, and have to try again or wait until the next day.

 

So, while it is preferable to have a higher approval rating, it's far from necessary, and approval ratings have a tendency to increase on their own, anyway. Plus, "laws" will be mostly cosmetic (think: Pass this law to ban texting and driving.) with only a few laws that really do much to your nation. It's part of a system to be built around "single-player" nation roleplay.

[Alex]

Two alliances go to war. Gov gives order for members to embargo each enemy individually to tank enemy's approval rating to 0 which makes no sense.

Also abusable outside war of course as members in bigger alliances will be able to use it in a sort of "bullying" manner which depending on how important all this when it gets effects will be troubling as the smaller alliance can't do the same back due to the fear of war. 

 

I can see some ways around it if it's worth concern however.

 

This is like a one-time threat. So what, everyone in the world embargoes me and brings me down to -50 AR points. From there I can't go any lower, no matter how many more embargoes you pile on, but each turn I will continue to rise, slightly. Eventually, I'll be back up to a normal level, even while I'm still embargoed, and you can't really do anything else but un-embargo me, which only brings me up another 3 points.