Screenshot Democracy 3, an LP: Serenes Forest flies the Commonwealth of Australia into the [heavens/ground]

[Rehab]

The Conservatives and especially the Patriots are about as mad as policy question decisions can make a faction, though the former are still in the green and latter are still mid-yellow. Liberals are happy, Ethnic Minorities keeping out of it.

[spoiler=TURN 27: LIKE DOMINOES, I TELL YA]2 more down, ~4 to go:

And that positive situation I was hoping for did indeed start up:

I half-felt like that was a bit too easy, but to be sure Australia starts out just a couple boosters away from a maxed Education stat, and the population only just started getting some Ethnic Minorities in the mix, so there was very little Racial Tension too. (again, the effectiveness of your actual poverty-fighting methods in our reality may vary)

Just to get it out of the way, we spend all our PC this turn on the lowest implementation of Rare Earth Mining:

The Productivity boost is pretty massive for so little funding, but it compensates by taking forrreeeevvvveerrrrrrr to implement. It's even more like slapping on a slow-growing buff than a bunch of the other economic booster policies.

Wouldn't let us go even one turn without a question this time. Prepare to vote!

Liberals versus Conservatives, round jillion I believe. Crime could be affected, though ours has almost bottomed out regardless.

I may have encountered some kind of bug- I could've sworn that we initially had a $10 billion surplus this turn, but after passing just R.E.M., suddenly it jumped up and we were at an $8 billion deficit. Then I did some fidgeting, I think, and it was back to the previous. Then I reloaded the turn, and it went from surplus to deficit again, but it won't go back. I'll just list the Security page for Turn 27.

They really did all calm down. Woo!

(Not seen here: The Middle Incomes are still in the red, but I could've sworn they flipped from that to yellow in between my checking some stat pages. We'll see what the fuck next turn <_> )

Edited November 26, 2014 by Rehab

[euklyd]

if the database provided some sort of technological benefit / wasn't completely boring I'd bullshit some support

as it is it looks lame and unnecessary and would piss off too many people

also privacy etc I GUESS

[spoiler=lies]

[21:35:54] <rehab> gnight dudes
[21:35:59] rehab has left IRC (Quit: and a real hero)

[Parrhesia]

Databases are kind of creepy in concept tbh, so since crime isn't too much of an issue? No.

[Excellen Browning]

How is having a database with everyone's genetic information a breach of privacy - the right to go about your life without government attention unless there is a certain suspicion of criminality?

To be honest what i'm worried about is that this game does it the stereotypical, evil, mad, power hungry control freak government way and not the nuanced, restriction of power, control and governance for and by the people way that is normal to reality.

As such I will refrain from voting.

[euklyd]

If our crime levels are at basically-zero right now already, it just looks like a greedy overreach

like idk I feel like such a database isn't terrible in and of itself but with the current situation it seems kind of...questionable

[Rehab]

Wouldn't you know it, rain turned to snow midway through the morning here, so I figured I might as well get another quick update out.

We shot the database down. The Liberals and the Conservatives look like they were the only ones to have cared much about the idea, the former happy enough to have finally gotten in the green and the latter miffed again but also still in the green. Not a bad balance we've achieved. Mostly.

[spoiler=TURNS 28 AND 29: *POPEYE THEME INTENSIFIES*. MOSTLY]As I thought, we do indeed have a sizable surplus.

Among other things to deal with, as we near the second half of our final term.

I belieeeve this is a notice we can get when we have a high enough Technology rating? It may be a holdover from an earlier version of the game where Internet Access was a tracked stat;

(Don't know that it has any non-flavor impacts now, though.)

And just in case we were getting too proud of ourselves:

Up until this past turn, both the Liberals and Parents have been in the yellow, so Cat may have kind of a point. But she's not gonna make it easy on us. Still, I'd rather not throw away the Experience she's been acquiring, so we may hold off on another reshuffle. (though another minister, our Foreign Policy one with Youth and Capitalist ties, is also heading for bottom PC. she may be harder to bribe back into good graces)

To that end:

Policies that just make a faction a bit happier aren't my biggest favorites in the game, but they can actually be used towards some interesting effects when they influence the membership of a faction (represented by the second tick there, with the restroom/roadside sign people logo), like in order to make a faction that likes us get a bigger share of the vote, or (in the case of opposing factions, like Liberals/Conservatives or Socialists /Capitalists) to depopulate a faction entirely. Also, it would probably cost more money overall to just boot her at this juncture, and pleasing both those factions shouldn't be that hard to do anyway

Towards pleasing the other one:

The Youth+Capitalist minister will probably be a bit harder, because while the Youth aren't that hard to please they might require a bit more PC, and the Capitalists are... harder to please without angering other people. And also just get upset with some policies that are otherwise pretty good as far as pure numbers in D3 go, IMO. We'll try our best, anyway.

And with my apologies to Excellen and Parrhesia, I'm afraid this is the least I can do that I know will finish off Corporate Exodus quickly:

Technically we don't have to do this to keep from going bankrupt or anything, and it's a bit hazardous to the Egalitarian Society positive situation, but I'll be damned if I let those Maroon slags say we left Australia an iota weaker than we found it. We can cancel it as soon as its work is done, to be sure.

To try to counteract the hit to Equality, among other things, we can fill out the funding for Food Stamps:

We're gonna need to do a bit more to keep E.S., but it should indeed be doable, since the Equality hit only implements gradually.

I would've liked to do something more for Equality this turn, but everything I could find required me to spend too much PC to get something else done the next turn, so I just went with a little 2-PC throwaway to nick a situation we haven't been paying that much attention towards:

Alcohol Abuse is still driving up our Expenditures by $7+ billion. I think I may've had enough of that.

Turn 29 throws us another little reward for our efforts.

(with my continued apologies to Tryhard)

This is another cause for some guilt, but by the game's terms it'll stop Internet Crime even quicker than Internet Censorship. (which, uh, might not actually be saying much on its own, because that implements kinda slow, but anyway it's pretty fast trust me.) (/nervous smile)

Our Intelligence Services helped Parliament to craft the tax in closed-door sessions, and at the announcement of its implementation, a representative of the former wished to assure us that the tax specially targets those most likely to commit Internet Crime. When asked how the heck they'll manage that, and just how effective that's going to be anyway, said representative declared the Q&A session to be over and used a grappling hook to escape via skylight. The sound of a helicopter nearby could be briefly heard over the building. We decided not to think about it too much.

(This also should be temporary)

Speaking of, our Secret Service (as opposed to our Intelligence Services?) endured a scandalous leak this month. Prepare to judge!

So, this coooooould be a nod to, y'know. That one guy, and also possibly that one woman. Maybe. (Not that it goes into any detail.) Or maybe in Australia's case, that wiretapping stuff?

Again, it's probably the Patriots/Conservatives? versus the Liberals. Foreign Relations may also be at risk, anybody's guess what else.

[spoiler=CURRENT AFFAIRS]29 main:

Aw yeah, the surplus is back baby. Friggin Middle Incomes won't lighten up, though. The Socialists are miffed, but they should be back to green when the Tax Shelters have finally finished the deed.

Finance:

Hrm. Global Economy's a bit worrisome, but our Income doesn't look to have suffered too much. (or maybe it's just that it's finally getting free of a bunch of other, uh, suffrin's.) Please stand by...

Security:

I'm imagining a huge auditorium with nobody in the seats except one grumpy suited man in the far back.

[Excellen Browning]

Simple reality is once again that what the Secret Service is allowed to do is defined by (public) law and is (should) be constrained by controls. If these documents prove that this system isn't working and the Secret Service is overstepping its' boundaries, reform. I'd prosecute regardless of this, since this person clearly violated the law, but I'd expect the court to be highly lenient if these documents prove Secret Service misbehaviour.

But since this game doesn't know nor care about the nuance that is oh so normal to democracy, I will once again abstain from voting.

If this game wants to claim to be something of a democracy simulator, it should step up its game.

[Rehab]

Admittedly, while I did find Democracy 3 a little overwhelming at first, it has a design which might be considered a lot simpler in some ways than I originally assumed- a lot of things which one might imagine to be heavily interconnected and complicated may be much more one-off than they could be, and could be seen as coming down to individual positive/negative influences on income and popularity, if you boil them hard enough (that might not be totally accurate, but I've found that way of thinking about what the game throws at us works well enough to help us "win"). It's also not quite as hard as it first felt- things vary between the default nations,* but once you get rolling towards financial stability, things can build on themselves pretty quickly. Clones&Drones feels like it has made it a bit harder to just steamroll towards a utopia of your choice in the lategame, though. (but then again, if I did this run over I would find a lot of missteps I made which would be fairly simple to correct)

I feel I'd be underselling it if I didn't mention that to its credit, it's heavily moddable, though.

*For example, with Australia here on 200% difficulty, although we got lucky that the assassination attempt failed, winning the election required scarcely a single blatantly pandering act of populism, and I managed to never totally shit up beyond repair what's effectively an Ironman playthrough. Whereas in my U.S.A. playthrough (for fun times, make your first playthrough Canada on 100% difficulty, and then immediately start one as America on 200%), I spent almost half an actual week figuring out how to avoid the Debtzilla situation and then not get assassinated along the way. And even now, although I can manage to get its finances something vaguely like under control with great difficulty, I still haven't been able to win the first election as the U.K. on 200% difficulty+other default settings.

I've heard that Masters of the World: Geopolitical Simulator 3 is a bit more completely insaiyan alien and unknowable, like the mind of a god hardcore, if buggy. I'd still call Democracy pretty fun as a game, though. (but then I'm LP'ing it, so I might be biased)

Edited November 27, 2014 by Rehab

[Rehab]

After everybody refused to shut up about it on twitter even after the normal cycle-of-outrage length of time had passed, we threw up our hands and went with reforming. It took an entire month to convince the Secret Service we weren't going to take away their spy satellite(s), but we got them down from their tree eventually.

Patriots seem to be the only ones angered, but they're indeed kicking up a fair bit of a fuss. Still in the yellow, though. (what does it take to miff the State Employees faction, I wonder?) Foreign Relations also got a boost, now that I look back at it.

Holly Ellis hasn't been in the news as much lately... some are wondering if [REDACTED]

[spoiler=TURN 30: I WISH THERE WERE 4 DAYS IN MAJORA'S MASK, SO I COULD MAKE A "DAWN OF THE FINAL DAY" JOKE HERE. OTHER THAN THIS ONE]We're about halfway through our final term, and we're... expending effort to try to get our ministers to not resign. Hrm. Maybe we could stand to shift our priorities a little...

This is a pretty good policy as far as Democracy 3 is concerned, though.

Youth Club Subsidies is fairly cheap in both funding and PC, puts a fair dent in crime, and only improves happiness. It doesn't directly affect any situations as far as I'm aware, but that's not much of a weakness. I've been thinking of enacting it and then cancelling CCTV Cameras, to get our Liberal ministers to lighten up (and also to save money on crime-fighting.) Pity that'll just barely cost more than our current PC-per-turn intake.

what's that, you say? biased? sorry, can't hear you over all our Liberal ministers whingeing at me

And as part of a push to finally destroy Asthma Epidemic once and for all, I'd like to present the policy with the third-highest positive impact on The Environment in the game, as far as I'm aware (behind Pollution Controls and Clean Energy Subsidies):

Pretty cheap, aside from the 13 PC. On the downside, it's slow to implement and hurts the income of a fair portion of the population. what does that even mean in practical terms though, D3? We're going ahead with it because what do you mean we didn't have anything like this before at all

Another update where not one turn passes before we get a policy question. Prepare to vote!

I'm kinda stumped as to what we're doing debating whaling going on in Japanese waters. Maybe we're just picking our public stance on it? Maybe some supporters here are going "they still whale, why can't we whale?!"

I believe that in the game's practical terms, the choice is between Capitalist favor and GDP/Unemployment-busting maybe? and Environmentalist favor and Foreign Relations, respectively.

[spoiler=CURRENT AFFAIRS]Since it has (only) been one (bloody) turn, the only real difference between turn 30's main screen and turn 29's is that our Expenditures are down ~$1 billion and our Income is up ~$4 billion, for a surplus of ~$28 billion.

Finance, on the other hand:

Income up, Expenditures down... yet (Relative) GDP and the Global Economy are also down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfpVd3BpQrc

One problem Democracy 3 has is that while almost everything significant* happens for discrete reasons, and experience+study of the stats can at least allow one to make educated guesses as to what's behind what happening, the game doesn't always make it abundantly clear just what previously lead to what's happening now, at least not on any one screen. Maybe the Oil Price dropped? Maybe it's because our Health has improved? But even if that would explain it, did truly nothing happen that boosted GDP? We just don't know. (Or at least I don't.)

*Except what policy question the game decides to throw at us on a given turn. And market crashes. I think? Well, maybe that's not entirely true, those might happen because we turned the difficulty up to 200% and the game feels like having a laugh.

Security:

Everybody's too busy being Egalitarian to want to blow us up.

If only we didn't have so much to do, we could spend more time increasing Equality to counteract how hard Tax Shelters is hitting it.

Edited November 30, 2014 by Rehab

[Excellen Browning]

The oceans are overburdened as it is. Maintain the ban

[Rehab]

Special ALERT: Being that we have only ten turns remaining, I thought I'd update you guys on what stat changes have taken place since our delegation of The Sky Blue United Party came into office in Australia, in case you wanted to tackle any of them before we meet the term limit that I we have set for ourselves.

Positive stats that we've already maxed out (as in, the game won't recognize that we can push them any higher):

-Education

-Energy Efficiency

-Foreign Relations

-Health

-Productivity

-Technology (nearly)

Negative stats that we've already bottomed out:

-Crime

-CO2 Emissions (very nearly)

-Racial Tension

-Violent Crime

Also, an incomplete list of things which we could change Straya's position on before we leave office (with our current position on each bolded):

-Abortion Legality (5 settings: Total ban, Life threatened, Limited circumstances, With approval of 2 doctors, On demand)

-Alcohol Laws (6 settings: No limits, Minimum age 16, Minimum age 18, Minimum age 21, Low strength beer, Strong restrictions)

-Armed Police (6 states: None (requires cancelling the policy, also it's 48 friggin PC), Specialists, In every department, Widespread, Every officer armed, Submachineguns)

-College Grants (7 settings: None (cancel policy), Partial fees paid, Fees paid, Grants for poor schools, Partial grants, Grants for all, Generous grants)

-Creationism vs. Evolution [being taught in schools] (5 states: Creationism only, Emphasis on creationism, Both systems taught, Emphasis on evolution, Evolution only)

-Gambling (4 states: Illegal (requires cancelling the policy), Limited stakes, No stakes limit, No restrictions)

-Electric Cars Initiative: (4 states: None (requires cancelling policy), Public transport, Taxis, Ban gas-powered)

-Handgun Laws (7 settings: No restrictions, No machineguns, No automatics, License required, License required+minimum age, Strict controls, Total ban)

-Immigration Control (5 states: Random passport checks, Passport checks, Biometric checks, Armed guards, Retina scans)

-Labor Laws (3 states: Pro-employer, Balanced, Pro-union)

-Legal Drug Consumption (4 settings: All illegal, Cannabis legal, Cannabis and LSD legal, All drugs legal)

-Limits on Automated Trading (6 settings: No limits, Frequency limits, Trading delays, Circuit breakers, Ban high-frequency, Total ban)

-Prostitution Legality (basically Yes/No, there's a slider but it lets us fill in the blanks regarding the stages of it)

-Wiretapping (7 settings: None (cancel policy), With government decree, With judicial order, With police chief order, On police request, Widespread, Universal)

And a special section for "shit that's so expensive we could probably only completely fill out two more of them, depending:"

-Military Spending (6 states: Ceremonial only, Reservists, Light defensive, Well trained, Highly trained, OVERWHELMING FORCE)

(guess what the USA starts with. go on, guess)

-Public Education (5 states: None (42 PC to cancel, actually doable), Wooden schoolhouses, Shared textbooks, Modern textbooks, Student laptops)

-Public Healthcare (6 states: None (it costs 60 PC to cancel this policy. I wouldn't hold my breath, although technically I could do another cabinet reshuffle for it maybe?), Life-threatening only, All major operations, Serious illnesses only, Some prevention, Excellent healthcare)

-Road Building (5 states: Essential maintenance, Basic maintenance, Existing roads fixed, Some expansion, Major expansion, Major new road network)

-State Housing (standard states: None (canceled), "None" (except it's actually more like "Lowest"), Low, Medium, High, Maximum)

-State Pensions (standard states: None (canceled), "None" ("Lowest"), Low, Medium, High, Maximum)

-Unemployed Benefit (standard states: None (canceled), "None" ("Lowest"), Low, Medium, High, Maximum)

An even-specialler section for "things that will make me look at you with sad puppy eyes if you ask me to decrease funding for them to anything below the absolute maximum, but will ultimately relent on:"

(mostly for practical purposes. AKA "things which are really fucking OP in Democracy 3:")

-Intelligence Services (5 states: A few spies, Small spy agency, Sizable spy agency, High tech spy service, Spy satellite network)

-Police Force (standard states: "None" (except it's not really "none," you can't cancel it), Low, Medium, High, Maximum)

-Prison (5 settings: Overcrowded cells, Shared cells, Basic Provision, Some rehabilitation, Extensive rehabilitation)

-Science Funding (4 states: Test tubes, Microscopes, Electron microscopes, Particle accelerators)

Also also, the lists of both "all the policies we haven't yet enacted" and "all the policies we have yet enacted" in the second post have been updated.

"when will you update the situation profiles for the ones we got after the game started?" you may think to ask. the answer to that is *breaks down laugh/crying*"

All stances+stats maxed updated as of turn 38.

Edited December 14, 2014 by Rehab

[Rehab]

For all who just read the above post: sorry about your eyes

[Parrhesia]

lmao really creationism being taught in schools is a thing??

ever??

kill that shit

also uphold the ban. It's the Japanese job to hunt whales in our waters while Sea Shepherd chases after them to try and inconvenience the massive whaling ships, not the other way around!

[Excellen Browning]

Don't kill creationism being taught in school. Keep it as is.

[Parrhesia]

I'm all for religious freedom but this is literally creationism being taught to children in a secular nation. Something I've never actually seen happen. Because that would be insane.

[Rehab]

So far as I'm aware, every nation in Democracy 3 starts with their creationism v. evolution position dead in the middle of the spectrum. It seems a bit weird to me too, but I guess it could also mean "is allowed to opt out of being taught evolution." Never personally heard of somebody being tested on the principles of creationism in public school myself, though, yeah. (and I live in the U.S.)

In-game, the issue is mostly used to determine whether you want to grow or lower the population of the Religious faction, assuming you're willing to piss off the Liberal or Religious faction respectively.

Foreign Relations got a boost from upholding the whaling ban. Not a lot of other people seemed to care- the Capitalists weren't any happier, but they didn't put much effort into complaining, and the Environmentalists are physically incapable of liking us any more than they already do.

[spoiler=TURNS 31 AND 32: YOU CANNOT GRASP THE TRUE FORM OF THIS (FACEPLANT)]The short and long of this post: Oil.

Fuck oil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A2UvekxsWw

Far as I know, there are roughly 2 ways to deal with oil-related expenditures in Democracy 3: lowering the Oil Demand stat by lowering Car Usage and enacting a bunch of other policies that affect it directly (a couple of which we happened to get to this turn), and using the Oil Drilling Subsidies policy to increase the Oil Supply stat (along with GDP, at ~50%+ funding). The latter costs 36 PC and probably the most money of any policy in the game to fully fund, in Australia's case over $100 billion, but its minimum funding (designated "None," meaning "Lowest") is less than a single billion and increases Oil Supply a fair amount, so I'd say that much is actually a pretty good investment, if we're willing to go for it (and anger the Environmentalists, but I'm pretty sure they love us so much by this point that they would barely even notice, at least not at lowest-funding). Another problem is that Oil Supply continually falls as time passes in the game no matter what we do, though, so the first way of dealing with the problem is inevitably going to be necessary.

You know what? We have way too little time left to be begging our ministers to stay. Time for a shuffle.

We need PC more than we need to keep every single one of our experienced ministers right now, but exchanging everyone in our cabinet who we could get more PC from could be asking for our budget to take a bigger hit than we can handle. I opted to just get rid of the 2 who had dropped to 1.0 PC per turn- replaced one with a 4.6 PC-er (Conservatives and Trade Unionists, which means he at least shouldn't abandon us any time soon), and the other with a 2.3-er with a little more experience and factions that both like us a good bit (Socialist and Liberal).

Kind of a "fuck it, it'll do" solution.

On to addressing the oil stuff. Starting with a somewhat contradictory policy:

New Car Subsidies reduces Oil Demand and CO2 Emissions, and boosts The Environment directly, but it also boosts Car Usage and (very slightly) GDP, which have the opposite effects. I was sort of hesitant to enact it before, but decided that the direct hit to Asthma Epidemic probably makes it worth the PC.

It's like good news and bad news alternate every turn:

Gonna wait just one more turn to repeal the Internet Tax, though:

So. I only found that this policy deals with Rare earth crisis, and extremely well at that, I might say, just the other day while messing around in a different file.

On one hand, this means we can probably get back Technological Advantage before the term ends! This is good!

On the other hand:

<God fucking damn it, Democracy 3

Anyway. Continuing to deal with the oil stuff:

This should be good for the country long-term, but it also increases Car Usage. We'll have to tape that down a bit later, as well.

Another question with international implications. Prepare to vote!

What the heck kinda trade agreement has "prevent emerging economies from catching up and secure economic dominance at the expense of global equality" in the mission statement?

So, the Liberals get mad if we pick the first choice. The Capitalists won't get too pissed if we don't, but, y'know. Foreign Relations also improves if we refuse, while I believe GDP improves if we sign.

[spoiler=CURRENT AFFAIRS]Turn 32 main:

$28 billion surplus, we hardly knew ye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBE787hdjz0

No tears. Straya will have its revenge, even if we have to run a deficit. This I swear. (that's safer to do now that our debt is so low, to be sure- less danger of credit rating downgrades)

Finance:

I'm assuming this future is an economist's worst nightmare. We've rebounded from a market crash, are now on the way down from the recovery of it, we might even see a second one, and we haven't been here ten years.

Security:

man_tips_over_trashcan_fuckthepolice.gif

Edited November 30, 2014 by Rehab

[Excellen Browning]

prevent them from catching up wat?

refuse to sign that shit

[euklyd]

haven't our levels of religiosity been falling precipitously the entire game

not that it matters

kill the creationist curriculum

So far as I'm aware, every nation in Democracy 3 starts with their creationism v. evolution position dead in the middle of the spectrum. It seems a bit weird to me too, but I guess it could also mean "is allowed to opt out of being taught evolution."

this is too much imo

also why should we give the filthy casual emerging economy noobs a leg up when we had to pull our economy up by its own bootstraps, without getting help from anyone, dammit

sign the trade pact let's go

it should be entertaining, at the very least 8]

[Parrhesia]

Refuse the pact

i forget whether i'm doing an ironic stop the boats platform or not tbh

[Rehab]

Euklyd's shit-starting approach in this matter is also appreciated, but our conscience forced us to reject the agreement. (Some of the more cynical ~5% of our constituents have groused that we're just making nice now that the UN is considering letting us back in. These constituents have been told to go chuff themselves.)

Well. Capitalists a bit angrier than I thought they'd be, but they'll get over it. I think. The Liberals are finally in the green, on the other hand, and Foreign Relations have peaked. Please don't let Kay-Tii know we're in session, she's out for my hide.

[spoiler=TURN 33: FINALLY. DAMN]Finally, things can get back to normal. And by normal, I mean prosperous. Hopefully.

Time to roll back the use of our blunt instruments:

Wasn't expecting that to take up literally all the PC we had that turn. Ah well.

Now to get back to our normal progressive, right-headed agen-

daaaaaaa a toxic waste dump? Really? Fine, another one-turner. Prepare to vote!

Okay, this time I'm really pretty sure the Capitalists won't care if we don't allow the dump, but then again Democracy 3 has proven me wrong a hundred times in this very thread. You guys can probably guess as well as I can what's gonna happen either way, regardless. Who exactly is dying to offload their toxic waste all the way out here, anyway?

[spoiler=CURRENT AFFAIRS]33 main:

The deficit is probably due to the Internet Tax rollback. Look at all those green bars, though!

Finance:

I'm not sure whether I'd bet we'll have our surplus back in no time after that (Relative) GDP spike, or that we'll have a market crash any turn now. Or both. Please stand by.

Security:

I may just start to leave these out if we don't get anything happening going forward.

[euklyd]

Stop the boats.

We can dump them on Papua New Guinea or wherever the hell with the rest of the illegal immigrants.

I'm sure that the LAZY SLACKER COUNTRIES that stopped us from signing that trade pact would appreciate the economic opportunity that arises from other countries dumping toxic waste in their backyards.

[Parrhesia]

We have the space. Besides, now that the tax shelters are being dialed down, Neo-Luxembourg needs a bit of stimulus.

[euklyd]

Parrhesia, what do you have against poor third world countries that you would deny them such an amazing economic opportunity?

[Rehab]

Again, I like the way Euklyd's thinking, but on this one occasion I'm going to break the tie by putting on my powergaming hat. I We allow the dump to be built, which unfortunately does no good for anybody's happiness and makes the Environmentalists a whopping 23 points angrier, but in return gives us, let's see... a 2% increase in GDP and reduction in Unemployment. Hopefully our other policies have made the greens love us so much that their happiness won't actually go below 100%.

Sorry for the absence of updates, you wouldn't believe how long the dump queue was on opening day. Which turned into opening month. Time to power through the final turns.

[spoiler=TURNS 34 AND 35: "FINALLY. DAMN," PART 2]Turn 34 starts with us finally beating what was supposed to be our first or second situation.

You made it happen, Australia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDdB7rMhfdQ

Beats the playthroughs where I let it fester, anyway.

And another negative event on the same turn:

Dunno if it's particularly possible to avoid triggering this one. At least we're not in danger of impeachment

Just for fun, let's check in on the Rare earth crisis situation.

While admittedly we funded the Green Electronics Initiative fully from the start while putting the minimum into R.E.M.M., and to be sure the latter has more benefits than just beating the situation, I still have to think it's kind of pathetic how much better the former is at killing the crisis- in our case, it does over twice as much, many times faster. However, I can confirm that increasing funding for the mining policy is the only way to avoid getting the situation if one's playthrough goes many terms into Clones&Drones. Anyway, we should be getting Technological Advantage back in a couple of turns for even more GDP.

Now that we've canceled Tax Shelters, Equality should be back on the rise and the Egalitarian Society situation should be safe, but just to be sure we pull a couple of extra tricks out of our hat:

(The former was already in place, we just maxed it out.)

We finish turn 34 by burning the corpse of the Asthma Epidemic.

I stopped short of implementing it fully, because the highest setting is labeled "Ban Gas-Powered," (which I can only assume would be a gradual thing, given the implementation delay), but feel free to vote for turning it all the way up if you'd like.

And in turn 35 we finally get around to throwing the Middle Incomes one of their only bones in the game.

Due to Gyarados' skepticism, we only just implement it enough to make it so that over the course of our time in office, Middle Earnings won't have decreased.

Speaking of stopping the boats. Prepare to voat!

I think Foreign Relations might actually be unaffected by this one, moreso it's another tiff between the Patriots and Liberals. Could be wrong, though.

[spoiler=CURRENT AFFAIRS]Turn 35 main:

The surplus is back, brother. And soon it should be strong enough for us to enact Climate Change Adaptation Fund. Plus, we did indeed have so much credit with the greens that they didn't really notice the dump!

Really kicking myself for not finishing Asthma Epidemic quick enough to actually give you guys a chance to pick another situation to tackle, as opposed to having there be only one left, though.

Finance:

So I think the Global Economy is probably going to crash, you guys. Again. But I also think we just might be prepared in advance this time.

And of course as soon as I say I'll start to skip the Security screen if nothing happens, this:

happens. Fucking hell, Zac, I know it was you. Give a guy the keys to the Australian economy and he thinks he's invincible.

The opinion hits from the event should fade over time, but it's the Capitalist faction's terrorism group that actually grew the most. Is subsidizing some wheelchairs and shit really all it takes to set you jerks off? Personally I'm leaning towards responding by just waiting a turn, see if they end up deciding to go home and think about their lives.

Edited December 9, 2014 by Rehab

[euklyd]

Ban gas-powered cars. We must be entirely independent of the foreign oil cartels.

Retain the terrorist. Whatever foreigners should be grateful to have the far superior Australian Justice™ decide the fate of such a criminal.