Playing Democracy 3 helps me in further developing my political views

(Interface of the game’s homepage. Screengrabbed from my iPad Mini 2. No coyright infringement intended.)

I’ve been playing this game for 2 years since I asked my mom to buy me this (expensive considering the Philippines’ status as a developing country, costing around $4.99 I think, costing around 249 in Philippine pesos), nonetheless the game helped me shape further my politics and as a guide for future policy, either for future politicians out there or dream about being president, which will always be fantasy.

This game, Democracy 3, is a government simulation game developed by Positech. You could play 6 countries (United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, I hope the developers add more countries including the Philippines, though for the desktop model modding is possible though I have no knowledge of which), be the president or prime minister and be in charge of policy, staying popular, and not end up assassinated (I was always ending up being assassinated so I turned it off in my settings).

I have played all countries, but this time I played the United States. My usual formula in my games are as follows:

Significant budget increases in the health, education, welfare systems, initializing public housing and pension systems
Prioritizing infrastructure development, like railways and road, also setting up monorail systems, telecommuting, bus subsidies
Imposing a 75% tax on alcohol and tobacco (which is already punitive by most standards)
Strict pollution controls, with major fines and occasionally imposing tax on carbon emissions
Instituting childcare provision and subsidies in raising children, disability and unemployment benefits
High spending on renewable energy, ensuring low pollution levels
Labor laws favoring workers, with full maternity pay, shorter working hours, safety laws, wage increases
Flexible tax policy, increasing and decreasing taxes whenever possible
Ensuring the debt is entirely paid off and there’s significant budget surplus to accumulate reserves
Law enforcement focusing on rehabilitation, increasing legal aid, preventing race discrimination, reliance on community policing
Medium foreign aid, a moderate immigration policy
High spending on the arts (presumably includes public broadcasting of which I’m a strong advocate, it is not specified in the game)
Strong intelligence, police, military
Encouraging agriculture and organic farming
Encouraging small businesses and rural development
A space program
Rehabilitation of prisoners
Public libraries, adult education, college grants
So on and so forth (drugs remain illegal, abortion is for limited circumstances, strict alcohol and gun laws, etc.)

I would normally introduce these in packages, thus resulting in huge increases in popularity (and disapproval in some sectors) and might put a strain on the budget, though on most occasions I ensure there’s a balance. Whenever I run into a budget crisis (that is accumulating budget deficits) that puts me in huge amounts of debt, I don’t roll back on the social programs and infrastructure programs I have put in place (conventional austerity measures), and instead increase taxes on property, inheritance, on vehicles, carbon, airlines, sales taxes, CGT, corporate taxes, income tax, and institute a flat income tax until the budget gets back on track. Thankfully I’m able to pull this one off which would be hard in the real setting.

I will show you my budget as President of the United States:

And where do I get the money?

How does that affect my performance?

Where exactly am I in the political spectrum? I personally consider myself as a socialist but, in this one I’m more of a left-libertarian. You can see me slowly do away from the previous neoliberal/neoconservative policies when I started by term?

Where do I get my support?

How popular am I?

How are my policies faring?

And how that that effect my country?

I hope that impresses you, but in the real world this could be difficult to achieve. At least I have you an idea how this game has helped me shape my political views.