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While waiting for the update, perhaps people can help to provide some solutions to a problem I can't diagnose.

Has anyone been able to reverse a declining DAR consistently? While playing the NE/North East/North America campaign, I notice that my DAR is always falling. It hardly matters, because it shoots up with each declaration of war against me and subsequent victory, but it is an issue assuming I am ever able to play the game at peace for a significant period.

1. I am spending more than recomended no social spending.

2. There are no product shortfalls, although, rarely, I will receive a warning about high domestic prices. Once I click "agree" to the minister about fixing it, the warning does not recur for some time.

3. Electricity is plentiful after the New England campaign.

4. GDP per capita is growing.

5. I have yet to lose a significant military battle.

6. I have sacked unpopular ministers and replaced them with popular ones.

7. Except for one game where I was expelled from the WM for some unknown reason (a bug accoring to Balthagor), my WM approval is usually above 50%.

8. Although my treasury is projected to have a deficit, this never actually occurs. I earn positive money each day. I also have the lowest debt of any region in the North East and North America scenario.

Some possible solutions that I have not tried:

1. Researching more longterm civilian techs. This simply isn't worthwhile since there are no periods of peace.

2. Demobilizing military forces. Does having a large standing army cause DAR to fall?

Any other thoughts?

Sounds like you are doing the right things. Beware that it takes me a long time to stop the fall and it never rises as fast as it was falling. Are you waiting long enough? Also, if your income is too low, even a high percentage of spending may not be enough to pull you out of the dive.

I'm playing as New England and the North East US. I don't think money is the problem.

Playing Scotland last night I got my apporval up to 44% after being as low as 30% starting from 48% without any wars. I did lots of trades for techs that where "supported" by my ppl, I worked at an economy where I could lower tax rates and increase social investment. I also at times told my production minister to "subsidise food and water" so that my ppl paid less to eat.

If the initial DAR set by the scenario designer is higher than what the game engine calculates it should be, it will immediatly begin to fall.

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Chris Latour
BattleGoat Studios
chris@battlegoat.com

Is it even possible to get it higher than 50? I've never been able to do it. Closest I ever get is about 50 when I'm winning a war.

When I post-poned my campaign pending the update, my DAR was 65% and falling. This was after the surrender of Illinois soon after the surrender of Michigan in the North East campaign.

I have had similar DAR's in the North America campaign after defeating the West and Southeast easily.

It is quite difficult to get a DAR above 50%, and in general our civilian approval model was based on looking at 'real world' approval levels.

These days most democracies outside of the US have 3 or more significant political parties, roughly in a left/center/right sort of mix, and so obtaining over 50% electorate support is not all that common anymore. (Tony Blair recently won a majority government with under 40% popular vote).

In SR2010, "DAR" is a mix of a couple of 'polls': first, there is the popular support for the government; then, there is the 'Do you approve of the leader' question... sometimes, especially in US politics, those two answers can be quite different. However, if you check recent US history, rarely does the 'approve of leader's performance' poll result get above 50%, except in times of some sort of crisis. Even the high-growth-low-debt era of the Clinton administration got mixed reviews, though of course there were a lot of political reasons for that.

There is also the fact that, as a lot of the scenarios start, you are taking over during a period of 'DAR decline'. This is the way those scenarios were designed. It means that you'll be hit with a drop in DAR almost certainly after you take control, but it's up to you to halt and stabilize the drop as soon as possible. (In the US media this is often called the "honeymoon period" for a new leader - high initial approval that drops quickly once they are in power).

-- George.

Thanks for the insights George.

I wonder, though, what steps exactly will halt this DAR decline?

As I listed above, I still don't quite see how to diagnose DAR decline and stop it beyond the steps I had already taken.

Generally, I've just increased social spending to recommended levels, with a little more in Health and Education, decreased user fees, and eliminated any resource shortages. I've also noticed a little positive bump after new facilities are complete, but I'm not sure if that's a direct result of the building, or because it increases the supply of the particular good. No matter what I do, though, my DAR declines until about 32%-34%, and only then does it begin to rise. And this is EVERY time I start a new map. The steps here are those that have consistently worked the quickest. The highest I've gotten my DAR without war is 44%.

Hi I am just starting the game and I really am finding it fun. But the DAR is the most frustrating aspect.

I start the game and the thing is dropping right away, and I have no idea why. There is no tooltip or feedback as to why it's falling and what I can do to stop it.

I've dropped my overall tax rate all the way down to under 25%, put social spending at way above "recommended" and it just keeps dropping. I had set my one and only priority for the minister to be domestic approval.

In a gameplay standpoint this is frustrating. I need some better feedback here.

In the meantime, what else can I do to raise domestic approval?

I am just like 15 days into the Central America scenario playing as Costa Rica

Welcome to the forums Vorius.

There are several things to mention. The first is this, unless you are inside of six months from an election, DAR doesn't really mean all that much. So don't stress until the primaries!

Social spending and tax rates are a good foundation for improving DAR, but the thing that really makes em happy is cheap prices. Order your production minister to reduce domestic pricing, and it should rise pretty noticeably. Just make sure that your resources are in order, because production/consumption of commercial goods (and all the resources needed to build them), petroleum, electricity, food, etc. is going to climb steeply as well.

There are a few other helpful methods, but this is one of the simplest and quickest. Give it a try and let us know if you need any more help.

-Light

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"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” -Winston Churchill

Time.

Once you make adjustments to your social spending, it takes times (it can take months) to get it to rise to the level of your funding.
You can see it rise by watching the %s in each catagory.

Its been said a few times now that DAR affects economy also,ive never seen it, but the devs have said it.So a low dar may cost you some small amount of possible income from your population.

Im one who bleeds the people til election time (like 2 months before),than i open the flood gates of "niceness" making everything free and removing taxes completely.
TIL i win the election,that its time to bleed them again.

You know, kinda like how politicians do it in real life

Lastly 20-25% percent is not bad in the game, as explained above,there are 3 or four parties,so 25% is circa an equal share.
And since you can push your dar from like 10% to 40% in a month or two,25% is not a bad place to start out at.

Things to help raise DAR:
1)increase social spending
2)lower domestic prices
3)research popular techs
4)diplomatic deals

And dont let a falling DAR at the beginnig of a scenario throw you,sometimes its just a result of the region going to its "mean" for the current settings, and not so much anything that youve done wrong.

IE-Its just making opening adjustments.

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This post approved by Tkobo:Official Rabble Rouser of the United Yahoos
Chuckle TM