The number that decides your grade
Every quarter in Nation Simulation ends with a new recovery index. It runs from 0 to 100, and 50 means the country is exactly where it was when you took over. At the end of a full ten-year term, that index becomes your score and sets your grade. The numbers below come from the game's own code.
How the index is built
The index has 10 parts. Each one compares an indicator now with its value at the start, turns the difference into a number between minus 1 and plus 1, and multiplies it by a weight. The weights add up to 1. The index is 50, plus 50 times that weighted sum. So plus 1 on every part gives 100, and minus 1 on every part gives 0.
Read as points, here is what each part can add or remove, and what it takes to max it out:
- Growth, 7 points. Your average growth over the last 8 quarters against the growth rate at the start. 2 points above the starting rate gives the full 7.
- Debt, 7 points. Split in two halves. The debt ratio falling by 20 points of GDP earns one half, the deficit falling by 3 points of GDP earns the other.
- Unemployment, 6 points. Full marks when unemployment falls by 40 percent of its starting level, or by 2 points if that is more. From 10 percent, that means reaching 6.
- Security, 6 points. The crime index falling by 20 points.
- Inflation, 5 points. Measured as the distance from 2 percent. Bringing inflation back to 2 percent earns all 5 if you started far from it. If you started close to 2 percent there is little to gain, and drifting 2 points away costs all 5.
- Liberties, 5 points. Up 15 points on the liberties index.
- Education and Health, 4 points each. Up 12 points on each index.
- Integrity, 3 points. Up 15 points.
- Popularity, 3 points. The only part not compared with the start. It is measured against 50 percent: 80 percent popularity gives the full 3, 20 percent costs all 3.
Three things follow. Growth, debt, unemployment and inflation are worth 25 of the 50 points. Popularity counts for only 3, yet it decides whether you reach the end at all. And growth is averaged over the last 2 years only, so a strong start that fades does not show.
The grades
- S, National miracle: 85 or more.
- A, Successful recovery: 72 or more.
- B, Country on track: 60 or more.
- C, Status quo: 48 or more.
- D, Decline: below 48.
C starts below 50, so ending roughly where you began is still status quo. An S needs 35 points above the start, which is 70 percent of everything available: fixing one or two indicators will not get you there. An A needs 22 points, which a strong economy and no collapse elsewhere can reach.
Only a completed term has a grade. Its score goes on the Nation Simulation leaderboard when you play signed in. Freex Coins come in two parts: 5 for each full year in office, paid as you play, and half the final score at the end of a full term.
Budgets
Each of the 9 ministry sliders goes from minus 2 to plus 2 and moves one notch per quarter. A notch is 0.3 points of GDP of spending (0.4 points of tax revenue on Economy and Finance). More spending raises that ministry's index and lifts popularity a little, but lowers market confidence, 1.5 times as much when debt is above the country's tolerance.
Political capital
Laws cost political capital. You start with 12, or 14 with the Efficiency Party and 13 with the Order Bloc, and the bar caps at 30. Each quarter adds 2, plus popularity minus 50, divided by 20. That is about 3 a quarter at 70 percent popularity and 1 at 30 percent. The National Coalition gets 1 more per quarter.
How you pass a law changes the price:
- Parliament vote: the law's normal cost. If the Assembly rejects it, half the cost comes back.
- Emergency procedure: 4 more, and the Assembly vote is skipped. It costs some support, and it raises the risk of a no-confidence motion for the next 3 quarters.
- Referendum: 2 more, and the public decides. Winning lifts popularity, losing drops it.
When the Senate rejects a law that passed the Assembly, it still goes through, 2 quarters later. Capital above 30 is lost, so a full bar means capital wasted every quarter.
The honeymoon year
Popularity does not jump to its new level. Each quarter it moves 15 percent of the way toward a target set by growth, jobs, prices, spending, taxes, crime, health and housing. In the first year that target gets a bonus: plus 8 points in the first quarter, then 6, 4 and 2, and nothing after that. The target also slides by 0.15 points for every quarter in office, 6 points by the end of the term. That is wear, and no policy removes it.
So the first 4 quarters are the cheapest time for laws that cost popularity, with 16 quarters left before the mid-term election to recover.
Promises
Before the first quarter, you tick the laws you promise. Promised laws get a few more votes in Parliament, but the larger effect comes at quarter 20. The mid-term election adjusts your popularity by the share of promises kept, minus 40 percent, times 12. Keep all of them and you gain about 7 points. Keep 40 percent and nothing changes. Keep none and you lose about 5.
A promise counts as kept when the law has been adopted by quarter 20. A short programme you can afford beats a long one you cannot finish.
4 ways a term ends early
Debt crisis, then default. If market confidence falls below 5 while debt is above 80 percent of the country's tolerance, a debt crisis starts. Tolerance runs from 45 to 90 percent of GDP depending on the country's income level, and is higher for a few large economies. The first crisis brings an IMF emergency plan: confidence is reset to 22, spending is cut by 1.5 points of GDP, popularity drops, and interest rates get 2 points of relief for 24 quarters. A second crisis is a sovereign default, and the term ends.
Authoritarian drift. If the liberties index falls below 12 and sits more than 20 points below where it started, the term ends. An international sanctions event can come first, once liberties are under 25 and 10 points below the start. With the Order Bloc, laws that reduce liberties reduce them 1.5 times as much, so this line comes sooner.
Mid-term election. At quarter 20, after the promise adjustment, popularity must be at least 45 percent, or 42 percent for the National Coalition. Below that, you lose the election and the term ends.
No-confidence motion. From the second quarter on, the opposition can table a motion. The chance goes up by 25 percent for 3 quarters after you use the emergency procedure, and by 20 percent or more once popularity falls under 28. Under 16 percent, a motion comes every quarter. You can face the vote, where the motion needs an absolute majority of the 300-seat Assembly, 151 votes; if it fails, you gain 3 political capital. At low popularity, even coalition partners start voting for it. Or you can reshuffle the government for 8 political capital and 5 points of popularity, and the motion is withdrawn. The reshuffle is not offered below 16 percent popularity.
A plan that follows the mechanics
- Year 1: pass the laws that cost popularity while the honeymoon bonus lasts, and do not let capital pile up.
- Years 2 to 5: get the promised laws adopted before quarter 20, and check popularity against the threshold early. It moves slowly.
- Every quarter: watch market confidence and the debt ratio together.
- When popularity is low: avoid the emergency procedure, which stacks on the motion risk.
- Years 9 and 10: growth is averaged over these 8 quarters, and a painful measure here leaves no time to recover.
None of this tells you which policies to choose. The index is calculated the same way for every political family, and only asks that the country ends the term better off than it started.