Five factions and their mood
Every nation is pushed and pulled by five political factions — Military, Business, Bureaucracy, Populace and Religion — each with its own mood (0–100) and influence weight. Keep the powerful ones content or stability quietly bleeds away.
How it works
Each tick, Sim.politics() computes a target mood for all five factions from your current policy sliders and national state. Business, for example, hates high taxes and generous welfare but loves open immigration and R&D spending; the Military rewards a fat defense budget and high stability but resents open borders; the Populace wants welfare and health and punishes taxes and xenophobia. Religion reacts to natalism, immigration (amplified by how religious the country is) and secular R&D.
Moods don't snap to their target — each tick the mood eases toward it by only 3.5% (lerp factor 0.035), so factions shift slowly and policy changes take many weeks to fully register. The nation's overall political mood (_polMood) is the influence-weighted average of the five moods, and it feeds directly into the stability equilibrium: a happy establishment props stability up, an angry one drags it down.
Appointing a faction's ally to the cabinet adds +9 to that faction's target mood (and a one-off +6 the moment they take office), which is the cleanest lever for calming a restless bloc. Influence itself shifts over time and is boosted by your regime type's tilt — a junta pumps +12 military influence, a one-party state +10 bureaucracy, and so on.
Formulas
mil ≈ 50 + (military−15)×1.5 + (stability−50)×0.2 − (immig−1)×4biz ≈ 50 − (tax−22)×1.1 − (welfare−25)×0.5 + (immig−1)×6 + (rnd−15)×0.2bur ≈ 50 + (stability−50)×0.5 + (infra−25)×0.5 + (edu−20)×0.4pop ≈ 50 + (welfare−25)×1.1 − (tax−22)×0.7 − xeno×5 + (health−15)×0.5mood = lerp(mood, target, 0.035)_polMood = Σ(infl×mood) / Σ(infl)Key numbers
How to play
- ▸Watch the highest-influence faction first — a discontented but weak faction barely matters, but an angry establishment bloc quietly erodes your stability every tick.
- ▸Because mood only moves 3.5% per tick toward target, adjust policy well before a crisis; sliders take many weeks to fully pay off.
- ▸Immigration policy is a double-edged sword: it lifts Business but angers the Military, the Populace and (in devout nations) Religion all at once.
- ▸A cabinet seat is the fastest single-step mood boost for one faction (+9 target, +6 instant) — spend it on whoever is nearest the danger zone.