I rebuilt my tariff system so import triggers respond to actual tariff-inclusive prices instead of a single flat rate — added per-good caps, crisis overrides, and per-good export duties while I was in there. Figured this crowd would appreciate the mechanism over a feature list, so here's what else I've been building:

Debt restructuring is now a real option. When national debt spirals, the player isn't just riding it down anymore — there's an actual way out.

https://preview.redd.it/gyug3kqukpah1.png?width=3277&format=png&auto=webp&s=d8df8be2954d242af277cfa95f186d957513ae04

Political compass drift. The government's position visibly shifts over time based on your actual decisions, and pop groups react to laws — and to broken mandate promises — based on where they sit on that compass.

https://preview.redd.it/fz1libpxkpah1.png?width=1437&format=png&auto=webp&s=ce1a23d7750d02a9bd706d4bcf89f3085f8989c5

Also fixed: a nasty national debt/revenue spiral bug (was compounding to absurd multiples of GDP over decades of unattended play), coalition legitimacy penalties, and a full pass on war-system UI bugs.

I'm on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/radixos/government-simulator?ref=project_link

Come chat / follow progress on Discord: https://discord.gg/uWqMUhfV

Happy to answer questions below!

**Government Simulator** is a solo project — Democracy 4-style politics and laws, meeting Victoria 3-style economic simulation. Wanted to share what I've been working on the past couple weeks:

**Tariffs got real depth.** Per-good caps, tariff-inclusive import price triggers, crisis overrides, per-good export duties — no more one flat tariff knob for the whole economy.

https://preview.redd.it/ztoctw1ekpah1.png?width=3274&format=png&auto=webp&s=e6d49a902550e6bcebf3800d3c088b61672b5619

**Debt restructuring is now a real option.** When national debt spirals, the player isn't just riding it down anymore — there's an actual way out.

https://preview.redd.it/rw7cijdukpah1.png?width=3277&format=png&auto=webp&s=9f5671bf69694105cdcfa39bdfe64bbf7fe6d3d1

**Political compass drift.** The government's position visibly shifts over time based on your actual decisions, and pop groups react to laws — and to broken mandate promises — based on where they sit on that compass.

https://preview.redd.it/h8du6ydykpah1.png?width=1437&format=png&auto=webp&s=9f13c0e6e2a32d1c23aa8eeb9476422fe09e3c3c

**Also fixed:** a nasty national debt/revenue spiral bug (was compounding to absurd multiples of GDP over decades of unattended play), coalition legitimacy penalties, and a full pass on war-system UI bugs.

I'm on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/radixos/government-simulator?ref=project_link

Come chat / follow progress on Discord: https://discord.gg/uWqMUhfV

Happy to answer questions below!

Hey r/Democracy4! I've been working on a government simulation game heavily inspired by Democracy 4 — same core loop of laws, pop groups, and political consequences, but pushing further into economics, military conflict, and long-term nation-building. I post periodic dev updates and figured this community might appreciate what's been going on under the hood. Here's what the last two weeks looked like.

The Big Stuff

Hex War Map — Full System Built from Scratch
The biggest feature this period: a tile-based hex war map with procedural Perlin noise terrain generation (land, sea, rivers, lakes, terrain features). Divisions can be deployed onto the map, trained, and ordered into combat. The UI is fully interactive — you click hexes, move units, see Zone of Control (ZoC) effects. Rivers affect movement/connectivity. The map scales via preset sizes (including a 25×30 medium map). This is the combat layer the military system has been building toward.

https://preview.redd.it/hak8jql9289h1.png?width=472&format=png&auto=webp&s=b3cd132eba46110a86226da1e3f0d8a92247c1e1

Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear weapons are now in — launch strikes, attempt interceptions, log events in the war feed. UI controls exist in the War tab. This was marked WIP/untested going in and has since had interception logic fixed and the war event log wired up.

https://preview.redd.it/m8b2i3qb289h1.png?width=1105&format=png&auto=webp&s=7b40891a4a992e216edae35fd95b8cbfe0152088

Peace Deals & Post-War Events
Fully-featured peace deal modal: negotiate terms, trigger post-war events, and manage arms exports through the Diplomacy tab. A lot of Razor component work went into this one.

14th Political Faction — The Secularists
The political compass now has 14 factions. Secularists were added as a distinct group, and several existing faction IDs were renamed to eliminate collisions. Existing scenarios and approval calculations were updated to match.

https://preview.redd.it/zzizxehd289h1.png?width=739&format=png&auto=webp&s=afdb7e24390365adf8099ff5edc1fdc5de86c427

https://preview.redd.it/hl6k3ube289h1.png?width=1481&format=png&auto=webp&s=87c81a4d41a621a2db0fe7fde6baa0dd61db020f

Economy & Simulation

Demand-Driven Economic Rebalance
The economy now runs on real price signals from day one rather than relying on startup assumptions that only kicked in later. Pop group needs definitions and building starting capacities were recalibrated to match. The goal: no more "fake calm" in the first few months before the simulation wakes up.

Dynamic Law Costs & Influence Edges
Laws now have dynamic costs that respond to the game state, pop group calibration was overhauled, and influence graph edges between factions and policies were refined.

Critical Stability Fixes
- NaN values in the economy could cascade and permanently zero out the total population. This was hunted down across EconomySystem, DemographicsSystem, PopulationSystem, and WorldStateStore with guards at every entry point.
- First-tick GDP crashes, building collapse bugs, and structural unemployment miscalculations were fixed.
- Private sector construction projects were starting in year 3+ instead of month 1 — fixed.
- Budget reserve was excluded from the max buildable capacity calculation — fixed.
- A locale bug (non-InvariantCulture number formatting) was breaking CSS and SVG rendering on some systems — fixed globally at startup.

UI & Visuals

Dark Navy Theme
The UI switched from neutral gray to a dark navy background palette. Off-palette colors were purged from all components for visual consistency.

https://preview.redd.it/w8bnp4lf289h1.png?width=2539&format=png&auto=webp&s=877305cb6c250d1c1aa71a2056dcce449825a829

Tooltip Overhaul
Tooltips now surface all live law and event effects on each indicator, while raw formulas are hidden from the player-facing view. A TooltipBuilder service now manages composition centrally.

https://preview.redd.it/dv5t5zeg289h1.png?width=501&format=png&auto=webp&s=d58fbac0f2fa9cb8fd54f4aac3d3d93848afcbb9

Accordion Charts & Diagnostics
The charts tab got accordion-style panels and new diagnostic scenarios for first-tick artifacts, workforce state, and 48-month calibration runs.

Parliament Hemicycle
The hemicycle display was fixed for coalition ordering, stable dot counts, and data consistency between the election card and the politics tab.

https://preview.redd.it/txvyob0h289h1.png?width=856&format=png&auto=webp&s=5218aef107f9c0fbfe146b2d7bf36fb4a729cf4d

Testing & Reliability

254/254 Scenarios Passing
The full scenario test suite — covering housing, elections, military, crisis, trade, wages, diplomacy, and more — is at 254/254. Several scenarios were fixed (war resolution, arms export, insurgency, pop compass reactions).

Massive Test Coverage Push
Thousands of lines of new MSTest coverage added across:
- War resolution system (including nuclear strikes)
- Trade, wage, tech, and sovereign wealth fund systems
- Identity command handlers and behaviors
- Law queries and parameter update handlers
- Event trigger evaluation

Summary

The past two weeks were a mixture of major feature work (hex combat, nuclear weapons, peace deals, a new faction) and deep stability work (NaN bugs, economy rebalancing, scenario suite at 100%). The simulation is visually cleaner with the navy theme, more trustworthy with NaN guards everywhere, and substantially more complete on the military/war side.

If you feel like supporting my project, check it out on Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/radixos/government-simulator