The Grid

I have gotten very mixed responses on this so far, and I want everyone's honest opinions.
I am working on a project that I call The Grid. It is essentially a simulator for a political environment. There will be about 500 "cells" that represent families in a country. Each has a series of equations that takes the actions of their neighbors and input from government and media and comes up with a series of reactions. Whoever is operating The Grid adjusts what the government says and how much power it has. The idea is that you could try out any political reform on the simulator before actually applying it to a community.
For now, it's all on paper. This summer I will be moving it to either Excel or some other program that can perform these types of equations.
Some of the variables I've come up with so far are political views (liberal-conservative),respect towards authority, care for neighbors/society, Income level, total currency savings, happiness level, health, productivity, resource usage (represents food, etc), and currency usage (represents tax dollars for things like school, etc.).
Anything else I should add? Or do you think I'm a lunatic for trying something this complex?