I did something I never do and preordered Democracy 3. Half because it looks interesting and half because I'm a teacher and I'd like to try (in yet another way) to help my students understand that checks from the government must be paid for...
Has anyone else picked this up?
SoM did a nice preview of it a while back. He knows the series and really liked what he saw: http://grogheads.com/?p=2041
Is there any military parts of this game, not detailed battles, but the ability to still participate in wars, interventions, etc. Or is the game entirely meant only to deal with internal politics?
I haven't played it but I believe it's purely about domestic politics.
Need to buy this game and find out.
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on September 13, 2013, 05:25:36 PM
Is there any military parts of this game, not detailed battles, but the ability to still participate in wars, interventions, etc. Or is the game entirely meant only to deal with internal politics?
Military is dealt with only tangentially. I believe, if you cut military too much, you run the risk of having unpleasant events throw off the entire balance. Moreover, you now have a large number of "radical groups" with which to contend. One of them, a far-left liberal group of terrorists succeeded in assassinating me in response to increasing CIA and Police presence.
Quote from: son_of_montfort on September 14, 2013, 09:57:43 PM
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on September 13, 2013, 05:25:36 PM
Is there any military parts of this game, not detailed battles, but the ability to still participate in wars, interventions, etc. Or is the game entirely meant only to deal with internal politics?
Military is dealt with only tangentially. I believe, if you cut military too much, you run the risk of having unpleasant events throw off the entire balance. Moreover, you now have a large number of "radical groups" with which to contend. One of them, a far-left liberal group of terrorists succeeded in assassinating me in response to increasing CIA and Police presence.
Thank you, I know you did the preview which I appreciated. Couple quick questions.
1) Based on what you have seen so far, do you recommend this game?
2) Do you have any idea on possible release time frame?
No idea on release, but I would suspect it to come out in the next few months (if not before).
I recommend the game, with reservations. It is fairly dry in presentation - I mean the main screen is a bunch of bubbles with lines that go out and connect in a giant bubble network and then pour into a square "happiness" box in the middle. Making decisions is a slider and a text box. It is also turn-based, so you make a decision and then rue/reap the results as they are handed to you over the next few turns (and that can be subtle, as decisions take time to implement).
Thus, if you want a glitzy, fast-paced, and highly-interactive government sim, then you should probably look at Europa Universalis IV. This one is more of a policy and population game, staid and stately (sometimes ponderous), that appeals to would-be pundits, spreadsheet lovers, and people who love statistics and exit polls. If you are a min-max gamer, there is also massive potential for you to "meta-game" to try to get the perfect balance of unpopular and popular policies to ensure eternal re-election or to create a "utopia" (or your version of it).
It reminds me of those browser-based nation simulators.
If my preview intrigued you, then you are likely in the target demographic. One thing to consider, Positech tends to put up demos of their released games, if you want to wait. Otherwise, the price is fairly low and it supports a great indie developer.
Hrmm.. it's turn-based?
Now my interest is piqued.
Released on steam today.....
Too many other recent game purchases to fit this one in right now, might be ready around the holidays so maybe by then it will have a little discount:)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/245470/
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on October 14, 2013, 05:52:48 PM
Released on steam today.....
Too many other recent game purchases to fit this one in right now, might be ready around the holidays so maybe by then it will have a little discount:)
I just saw that while on a shopping spree. With all I've bought recently, it'll have to wait for awhile.
I wonder if a government shutdown is modeled within it:)
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on October 14, 2013, 06:41:05 PM
I wonder if a government shutdown is modeled within it:)
You boot it up and get an immediate crash to desktop.
Quote from: son_of_montfort on October 14, 2013, 09:56:46 PM
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on October 14, 2013, 06:41:05 PM
I wonder if a government shutdown is modeled within it:)
You boot it up and get an immediate crash to desktop.
Yikes.
Unlike our own government shutdown, this kind of shutdown actually makes a difference huh? :P
The blurb quotes on Steam are hilarious:
"Apparently somewhere between the genuine bona fide electrified six-car monorail, the prostitutes and the land mines, I lost the support of the electorate."
PC Gamer
"I returned to Democracy 3 in an attempt to put right the wrongs of my previous administration. On my first visit, I broke Britain, crushing its culture and creating a country reminiscent of Clockwork Orange, filled with gangs and ultraviolence."
Rock Paper Shotgun
{clicking wishlist!}
GOG.com is selling Democracy 3 (http://www.gog.com/game/democracy_3) for $24.99 if anyone is looking for a DRM-Free version.
Quote from: Greybriar on October 15, 2013, 05:45:43 PM
GOG.com is selling Democracy 3 (http://www.gog.com/game/democracy_3) for $24.99 if anyone is looking for a DRM-Free version.
I believe you can buy it direct through Cliffski's site as well without DRM, and will get a steam key included.
Nice Banzai Kzin, BC!
Hmmm... GoG with no DRM, or Steam with automatic patching... decisions decisions...
Quote from: JasonPratt on October 16, 2013, 07:37:34 AM
....Hmmm... GoG with no DRM, or Steam with automatic patching... decisions decisions...
This might help you decide: If you buy anything on GOG.com before Thursday, October 17th at 9:59 AM GMT, you will get a free copy of
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (http://www.gog.com/news/special_promo_get_the_witcher_free_with_any_purchase) (and if you already own it, you can give your free copy to a friend).
Already own it. Don't like/hate my friends that much. Good idea otherwise though. :)
Quote from: JasonPratt on October 16, 2013, 03:29:54 PM
Already own it. Don't like/hate my friends that much. Good idea otherwise though. :)
You don't like The Witcher? I thought I was the only one. It's not terrible, it just never really took my interest that much.
It's a fluky game to try to like. I fully intend to pick it back up one of these days, but I haven't been able to bring myself to do it yet.
Back on topic, I just paid full price for Democracy 3 (on Steam for the updates and because I haven't had problems with their DRM yet).
I don't often pay full price for a game. But if I can't spend money I can dubiously afford on a game that allows me to simulate my ability to ruin my country with dubious choices as effectively as my real governors do, THEN WHAT CAN I PAY FULL PRICE ON?!
(The publishers are permitted to use that as a blurb quote if they want. :) )
Quote from: Banzai_Cat on October 16, 2013, 06:12:24 PM
Quote from: JasonPratt on October 16, 2013, 03:29:54 PM
Already own it. Don't like/hate my friends that much. Good idea otherwise though. :)
You don't like The Witcher? I thought I was the only one. It's not terrible, it just never really took my interest that much.
I very much dislike The Witcher. The Witcher 2 was better, but only marginally.
I almost bought that weekly deal last week with a free copy of The Witcher, but couldn't pull the trigger on it. I had tried to play it through once a while ago but it didn't intrigue me that much. W2 looked kind of interesting when it was on sale on Steam a little while ago, but again, not enough to push me over the edge.
And so after fiddling around in the tutorial, I quit and start a new game. (The default starting parties for the United States are The Liberal Party and The Jehovah Party? Really? I wonder if that makes even the slightest difference in how the game is set up to play, but I suspect the names are purely window dressing. Although if that's true, I don't know why the game comes with a preset extensive list of party names rather than just letting the player write in whatever they want. Weird. Update: on my third restart after testing some things, a different set of parties popped up in the initial slots, so I suppose those aren't the defaults after all. Stresses probability that out of over 20 parties those two would be the player and opponent slot twice in a row, though...)
Elected as the Republican Party candidate, vs the Democratic Party. I wonder if there's a way to synch this game with The Political Machine, despite that being an exercise in cynicism back when that first came out. (I bought it at the time and enjoyed several campaigns with it.) There appears to be exactly no backward connection to how I came to be President, not by user choice nor even by semi-random assignment. (Much of the commercial video on Steam is based on what can only be described as player-written fan-fiction for starting the game!--promises made in pre-election don't exist and so have no bearing on the game.) In fact, my popularity polls coming into office are averaging just under 24% with no group having more than slightly under 26% approval for me. HOW IN THE UTTER HELL WAS I ELECTED IN THE FIRST PLACE?! Starting the United States campaign twice produces the exact same opening situation, no randomization; the hot button issues are also exactly the same and in the same state. Unsure if this is supposed to represent current US issues at the start of the most recent Pres turn, but I'm reasonably sure we didn't start with only a $8.63bn deficit (or even only a $3.13tr debt!) Maybe they thought that would be too broken to even try to game. ;) But I would like a mod that more accurately reflects US situation at the start of some year. (The game can apparently be modded fairly easily.)
First things first, check my cabinet ministers. They mostly suck in effectiveness, with a few being only below average. None of the potential pool have any rating for effectiveness at all, which I suppose makes some sense; but they all have basically no or little experience, which makes no sense. I suppose I should look for the best experience and loyalty possible for each position, and hope that generates experience over time. I spend my first 10 points of political capital (out of 26 available for my first quarter year) to fire everyone, on the theory that I'll almost certainly have to replace at least two of them which would cost me at least 12 points individually.
The "minister" jobs and titles are goofy. Where is the Secretary of Defense? of the Interior? the Attorney General? the Hell???
I put an extremely white looking "Christopher Rodriguez" as my Minister of Industry, because my main theory is first fix the economy and he not only has the least sucky experience of anyone in the minister pool who wants to work in Economy (and one of the top least sucky experience at all), but also a reasonably good amount of loyalty to me (but isn't a huge fan). This is despite me being in the Republican Party and his sympathies being "socialist" and "liberal", which to me is hugely amusing as I can't possibly imagine how someone like that could help fix the economy but hey, let it be known I promote bipartisan teamwork based on merit not on party affiliation! Also I don't discriminate against Nordic/Aryan looking men named Rodriguez.
Not many people want to work in the Tax department, but that's closely related to a good economy, so I send the most qualified candidate there, who by the way has less than 50% loyalty to me. I can earn that over time. Another socialist by the way; also a commuter.
A retired trade unionist goes into Welfare; she also has less than 50% loyalty to me.
No one has better than red experience who wants to work in Public Services, but I send the best one available there; she has moderately more than 50% loyalty to me, but again isn't a huge fan. She's a religious conservative, which means she's the first person I've appointed whose sympathies match mine at all -- but then I realize the game has never asked me what I sympathize about, so it literally has no idea what my sympathies are and thus no idea how I relate to its version of the American population. (Other than my approval rating being wretched, despite having literally just been elected. Supposedly a "honeymoon" is in effect, based on the options I checked, but dang if I can see what that might mean in the game...)
Almost no one remaining in the pool wants to work in Transport, and the few who do are horribly inexperienced, but the best pick happens to be a liberal motorist who's a big fan of mine, so click.
"Law and Order" is a rather schizophrenic job sometimes, but fortunately the most experienced person remaining (who still isn't more than red) is a motorist commuter. Really? Isn't that like being a liberal conservative? Indeed there is a socialist conservative on the list! I don't appoint her because I'm not that desperate.
A motorist trade unionist goes into the Foreign Policy slot, and that rounds out my picks. (I realize before finishing my first turn that I should have appointed someone different to Welfare, so I burn a couple more political points to fire the current appointee. I don't quite understand this because other political actions can be cancelled at no cost, and the points freely reassigned, before turn end.)
Incidentally, there were only two or possibly three potentials in the pool who could have been described in any way as conservative in their sympathies. Everyone else was at least a little liberal, maybe radically so. Is that realistic at all, even discounting that I'm an elected Republican candidate in the United States??
In my imaginary side world, I appoint Robin Parry as my Secretary of the Hell. ;D 8)
While meandering through new policies to implement, I notice that the purpose of implementing welfare fraud policies is to help reassure people that their taxes are being spent properly. In the best possible scenario this will cost the country an extra $2.357billion than no welfare fraud. I decide not to bilk the American people out of $2.357bn more money to reassure them their money is being spent effectively.
If I'm understanding the game correctly, I can implement both a flat income tax and a progressive one (already in place). As it happens, implementing a flat income tax will generate the most income in the most politically expedient way (with no reduction of expense even distantly coming close to matching it); and the game insanely allows me to institute both a federal progressive AND a federal flat income tax. I have thus instituted it, since once our debt it gone in a year or so I can start implementing some popular (and culturally helpful) changes with the surplus (though first I'll probably eliminate or dramatically reduce some unpopular expenses, to help our short-term bottom line even better while cushioning the popularity hit I'm going to take from this.)
On the next turn I minimize science funding (which is the most politically effective and popular way to reduce government spending in the game, though not by a whole lot) and increase the corporate tax to 25% with my remaining political points (which is not the next most effective way to spend my influence raising income but which is the most effective way to do so that a lot of voters are likely to like. Also it tends not to affect many other factors in the game.)
um... okay that was weird. Suddenly my popularity (not so great to begin with) took a plunge to 7%, despite having balanced the budget and running on a surplus for over a year, and then I was assassinated by a black power movement for being racist. The only thing I can figure is that I instituted retinal scans for immigration.
Also, despite being a Republican president (or because of it) my liberal/socialist ministers all began to hate me, even though my policies had been pretty routinely socialist and liberal. I couldn't even replace them with people who might prefer me! -- there was no one in the pool who would qualify! The moment I placed someone in a position, their opinion of me tanked (why wasn't it low before???) and they threatened to quit while providing very reduced political power.
I think I may have paid $25 for a fairly broken game. :(
Quote from: JasonPratt on October 17, 2013, 12:04:05 AM
I think I may have paid $25 for a fairly broken game. :(
Didn't SOM say it doesn't even run for him?
Quote from: JasonPratt on October 16, 2013, 08:10:16 PM
And so after fiddling around in the tutorial, I quit and start a new game. (The default starting parties for the United States are The Liberal Party and The Jehovah Party? Really?
The party names are randomized. You can get a number of them. I found this to be slightly annoying, since it should have just started with the two actual parties.
Also, I've been informed by other players that the word "Liberal" in Democracy 3 actually is the UK/European definition of the word and designates something closer to classical liberalism or libertarianism. Which explains why the "liberals' offed me in the game that I set up a lot of government surveillance and increased the power of the police and CIA. For "Democrat Liberal" you need to look at Socialist and for "Republican Conservative" you need to look at Capitalist (because I also think that he means classical Conservativism there too, as in people moral/ethical/social conservativism).
Nefaro, for some reason my beta stopped working abruptly. It worked fine before but then outright wouldn't load up. I suspect that he had a "kill switch" installed to prevent beta previews from updating to full versions. But that makes the idea of me writing a review a bit harder...
Quote from: son_of_montfort on October 17, 2013, 10:48:56 AM
Also, I've been informed by other players that the word "Liberal" in Democracy 3 actually is the UK/European definition of the word and designates something closer to classical liberalism or libertarianism. Which explains why the "liberals' offed me in the game that I set up a lot of government surveillance and increased the power of the police and CIA. For "Democrat Liberal" you need to look at Socialist and for "Republican Conservative" you need to look at Capitalist (because I also think that he means classical Conservativism there too, as in people moral/ethical/social conservativism).
I noticed this situation in a couple of the screenshots I had spied. Most notably the "Liberal" association being much more akin to what we consider a Libertarian here in the States than Liberal (Socialist). I suppose their definition may be a bit closer to the 19th century use of the term.
So I assume that this was developed by a British or European group and there may be some terminology at odds in an American game? Also.. I didn't see how many or which countries you can run. Is it just a handful specifically modelled or quite a few?
QuoteNefaro, for some reason my beta stopped working abruptly. It worked fine before but then outright wouldn't load up. I suspect that he had a "kill switch" installed to prevent beta previews from updating to full versions. But that makes the idea of me writing a review a bit harder...
I see. So it may have run on a timer? You didn't pick up the latest version?
Thanks SoM; yes, if I keep in mind the terminology differences the result looks more reasonable.
Part of the reason I ran out of time must have been because I spent several turns worth of political capital eliminating or minimizing various unpopular expenses -- which did seem to be increasing my popularity as a result -- and then going back and reinstituting them later (spending more of my waning political points) at a maximized rate because they favorably affected the Gross Domestic Product and I thought I ought to be concentrating on improving that next. Had I continued reducing unpopular expenses, increasing popular expenses, and readjusting the tax burden after the emergency cash harvest (to improve my relations with the middle class), I might have been killed for being racist later. ;)
i.e. when I start again this afternoon, I'm going to try not worrying overmuch about the GDP going down, so long as our national budget stays reasonably balanced. Also, I have a better idea now which departments I'll be implementing policies in more often (at least in the early game) so I'm not going to worry so much about trying to get experienced ministers in so many places but will concentrate more on those who can deliver political points since in the early game those seem important to stock up and spend as quickly as possible.
Quote from: Nefaro on October 17, 2013, 12:43:30 PMAlso.. I didn't see how many or which countries you can run. Is it just a handful specifically modelled or quite a few?
Great Britain, France (seriously, they're the 3rd biggest nuclear power??), Germany, Canada, Australia, the US... I feel like I'm leaving someone out... (not intentionally) The only relevant screenshot at Steam seems to show only those countries, though, so maybe it's my imagination.
I'm pretty sure this isn't "The Most Complex Political Strategy Game Ever Made", though, despite their advertising hook.
Tonight: shortly before my re-election campaign started (again playing the US Repub Pres vs the Democrats, all starting conditions still the same of course, because there is no randomization or any attempt at making them like current situations), I had long since brought the country out of debt; kept the budget reasonably balanced (allowing for a few months in deficit occasionally, drawing on a relatively small surplus); I had regained a moderate amount of confidence in the middle class after doing so; I had gotten rid of unpopular taxes and some unpopular expenses, but my investments in technology and education were finally starting to pull the GNP out of its nosedive; my insanely low initial popularity rating had slowly eked up to a range between 50 and 60 by a carefully orchestrated number of inexpensive but popular reforms; I correctly inferred from experimentation that instituting retina scans for immigration was somehow pissing off the militant black movement, so I minimized that program and their support evaporated almost overnight; almost every single extreme advocacy group in the nation was dramatically waning in members; and I had eliminated homelessness as a serious problem.
On the turn that I also eliminated crime and poverty as serious problems, I was shot in the head by a sniper hired by a rogue group of shadow capitalists.
Upon which I called "bullshit" and ragequit the game. ...um, after the game ragequit me. ;)
After which I happened to remember that I could turn off assassinations in the option menu.
Here's the thing. I'm willing to buy that there are no less than a dozen hardcore groups representing different sympathies who would not only be willing to execute me, but might even be infallibly competent at doings so. I'm willing to buy that they can infallibly do so even after I detect their nefarious plans, and know who their leaders are, even though I don't have enough evidence to arrest them yet.
I'm not willing to buy that all these things can be true AND YET AS PRESIDENT OF THE FREAKING UNITED STATES I'm not allowed to say, "Oh, so you assclowns want to sign up to be supervillains and play with the big boys? Fine. Clear and present danger. Discover the depths of your folly."
And I mean that as a perfectly legitimate response, not even counting the fact that they get to have infallible secret shadow operations but I'm not allowed to call my housekeeper and tell her "Remember those stains in that room we talked about on Tuesday, Nana Vrou? I want them gone now, kthxbi," and the little old lady totters off to remove them.
(Note: Nana Vrou may or may not be a character who shows up in my series of novels at some point. 8) )
So yeah, if I can't pre-emptively retaliate in the game, even when my well-paid security services know who they are and when they're coming, they can't either. New rule.
Jason, I actually have to agree. I had put in some pretty severe government programs to specifically combat "evil associations," and yet my vast security network failed to protect my life. HOW? I had literally given the CIA and FBI unbelievable funding and nearly unfettered authority. My programs made the NSA snooping in real life look like the budgetary equivalent of buying a candy bar. I should have been able to order a SWAT team the moment these guys left the building to go discuss their plans, not to mention crack down hard after two failed attempts against me.
That seems unrealistic.
Nefaro, I haven't picked up the full version. If they offer me a review copy, I will review it, but typically previews come with that attached. Otherwise, I will wait for a sale.
Quote from: son_of_montfort on October 17, 2013, 10:38:39 PM...not to mention crack down hard after two failed attempts against me.
Wait, you managed to get them to actually FAIL? TWICE??
That seems unrealistic.
(...um, I may have missed putting in a quote BBCode tag there somewhere...)
As I somewhat suspected, turning off assassinations allowed me to survive ticcing off various people long enough to win everyone over (although the game seemed to still be threatening assassinations, with nothing directly I could do about it). By the end of the game I had eliminated most starting US problems (with a couple more slated to disappear in another few quarters), added the high productivity trait, brought the Gross National Product back from an initial slump inculcated while I repaired the national debt, repaired the national debt with a nice surplus to run on for a while as I built a deficit (the idea being that every once in a while I would increase income tax for a quarter or two); superfunded a bunch of culture-building welfare state liberal things; superfunded a bunch of capitalist business-growth things; and essentially eliminated the opposing party membership by dint of sheer voluntary popularity.
Incidentally, out of seven or eight restarts, only one ever started as something other than the "Liberal" (player) vs the "Jehovah" parties -- I forgot to change to Repub vs. Demos for my winning game, but I don't know what if anything that contributed to my win. (I couldn't keep my cabinet members happy to save my life, so to speak, despite almost everyone liking me reasonably well before my re-election.) That seems too regular to be random, although then I can't explain why one restart involved two different parties out of the list of 20 or so. ???
My advice is to wait for a sale, or possibly look into a different game. I noticed that Geo-political Simulator 2 has released what amounts to a patched re-release of GPS2, under the label Masters of the World: GPS3. Still seems a bit dodgy as a game from early reviews on Gamersgate, but a lot more complexly in-depth than this game.
Quote from: JasonPratt on October 21, 2013, 12:05:19 PM
My advice is to wait for a sale, or possibly look into a different game. I noticed that Geo-political Simulator 2 has released what amounts to a patched re-release of GPS2, under the label Masters of the World: GPS3. Still seems a bit dodgy as a game from early reviews on Gamersgate, but a lot more complexly in-depth than this game.
I believe the DRM on
Masters of the World is also a point of contention.
Are there some other reviews for it elsewhere, Nef? Someday I may want to wash the taste of Democracy out of my mouth (figuratively and/or figuratively speaking), and I guess it'd come down to this or the latest iteration of Supreme Ruler? (Which is what, Cold War?)
Incidentally, before I deleted Dem3 from my system last night, I saw that the most recent update added randomization as an option on the main option screen, which I regard as a major step forward for replayability.
Quote from: JasonPratt on October 22, 2013, 01:57:38 PM
Are there some other reviews for it elsewhere, Nef? Someday I may want to wash the taste of Democracy out of my mouth (figuratively and/or figuratively speaking), and I guess it'd come down to this or the latest iteration of Supreme Ruler? (Which is what, Cold War?)
The word of mouth I've read about the other game is that it's still too random and regularly doesn't make sense. Like you'll see Algeria declaring war on Japan for no big reason, and things of that nature. That seems to be pretty normal in these kinds of games, though.
I've not played
Supreme Ruler: Cold War since shortly after release. It's been updated a few times since then so I don't know what condition it's in. One of the developers recently told me, here on these forums, that they've fixed the slowdown that had been one of the issues in SR:CW on release (and SR:2020, IIRC). I've not yet checked it's latest condition - too many games not even loaded yet. :-\
QuoteIncidentally, before I deleted Dem3 from my system last night, I saw that the most recent update added randomization as an option on the main option screen, which I regard as a major step forward for replayability.
Heh.. so it's uninstalled for good?
Quote from: Nefaro on October 22, 2013, 02:24:06 PM
The word of mouth I've read about the other game is that it's still too random and regularly doesn't make sense. Like you'll see Algeria declaring war on Japan for no big reason, and things of that nature. That seems to be pretty normal in these kinds of games, though.
Reviews on GG suggest manually dialing down the tendency for the AI to go to war, in order to alleviate those problems, btw.
Quote from: Nefaro on October 22, 2013, 02:24:06 PMHeh.. so it's uninstalled for good?
I may reinstall it someday after the devs have patched it up some more and the modders have taken some cracks at it.
Democracy 3 is 50% Off at Steam until Feb 10th.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/245470/?snr=1_620_4__47
I'm debating picking this up, even though I probably wouldn't play for awhile.
Just wondering if it's been updated and how much Economic gameplay it has (or whether it's mostly focused on massaging social groups - bleh).
^ I'm thinking about it, too...at $12.49 it's not too bad a deal.
I haven't played it since release, so I don't know about any recent upgrades; but I played through two or three campaigns pretty quickly.
Economics are important because without cash you go into debt trying to get things done and being in debt makes various social groups unhappy. Aside from that I don't know that economics are really important unless you want them to be. I was always trying to recover to operating at a net gain for the year but I don't recall the game penalizing gameplay for spending trillions of dollars you don't have. ::) :P
Massaging social groups is functionally more important because you have to have political clout to get things done, and you can only generate political clout by keeping and improving the happiness of various social groups. Those action points are the real currency of the game (you can spend money you don't have until hell freezes over but if you don't have the political clout to implement a policy it isn't going to happen period), and over time they'll generate less often even if you're pulling administrative miracles out of your a$$ on a regular basis.
The last time I played there were several aspects of gameplay that seemed broken by game design, so to speak -- for example the possible cabinet member pool is both limited and fairly small, and your cabinet members tend to burn out over time even if you're playing a great game, which leads to highly unrealistic results. But they're how you generate political points for taking any action. Also, the game has a mechanic (which can be turned off, thank God) where any of a number of radical activist groups will infallibly assassinate you once they become annoyed enough, and it's literally impossible not to annoy at least one of them enough.
You may also find yourself strenuously disagreeing with how various policies are likely to affect other things; and aside from this the game designers definitely don't have a neutral slant about what kinds of policies do what, so the idea of playing the game as a social experiment is somewhat undercut. (Just try playing the game as a "capitalist utopia". JUST TRY.) Part of that may be an inadvertent result of the game design since if you as the government aren't doing things to affect the country then there isn't much of a game, naturally resulting in a lot of big government action policies.
That sounds like the game sucks, but I've been thinking about reinstalling it for another play or two, and I'd probably buy the $5 expansion if I did. Is it worth $12.50 plus the expansion? (I don't know that the expansion adds anything you can't just as easily play without.) That depends entirely on how much you like the basic game mechanic, and you can get an idea of that from the screenies and the promo videos. I like the game mechanic, but I can see people being very annoyed by it. (The interface could stand some tweaking last time I played it, as it isn't always easy to navigate back to previous screens, often forcing me to start over again tracing a trail of proposed effects. This may have been fixed with a back-screen button but I don't know.)
I recommend thinking of it as a Euro board game with an unusual playing style for a Euro. If you know what I'm talking about, and you know whether or not you like that kind of game, go with your consequential instinct. Just be aware that the game is EXTREMELY GAMEY often for no good reason other than to have a game. (In my playthrus I routinely started with an assigned average approval of around 24%, meaning it should have been literally impossible for me to be elected in the first place. But that gives you something in the game to aspire to improve, you see!)
Yeah, the "gameyness" of it makes me hesitate, especially after reading some forum feedback on it.
If nothing else, it will eventually be even cheaper on a future sale so I'll probably wait to get knocked off the fence in the future. Since I've been in a flight sim mode lately, I probably wouldn't touch it for awhile anyway (and I still have the EU4 and CK2 expansions to check out sometime).
$6.24 on GOG for another hour...tempted :-\
Quote from: steve58 on June 24, 2014, 08:14:04 PM
$6.24 on GOG for another hour...tempted :-\
I was to but I read that it was too easy to change government types/not very realistic. And for that reason, I'm out.
I bought it from GOG last week when it was $6.24 but haven't really done much other than fire it up to have a look so far.
I decided to pass on it for now...maybe I'll get it if it shows up even cheaper...
It is not even slightly realistic, except in the sense of giving an idea of how various changes affect other issues.
As a socio-cultural strategy game, though, it works pretty well. Think of it like a Euro game, with far more in-depth tracking of what results in what.
Apologies for a 6 year thread necro but Democracy 4 is now out in alpha for $26.99.
https://www.positech.co.uk/democracy4/
New blog up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW98jFxz3nk
Roadmap: https://trello.com/b/lHzO0li6/democracy-4-development
Looks interesting. I played Democracy 2, 3, and Africa. Definitively policy wonk games for those who enjoy tinkering with policies. I've also appreciated the developer's inclusion of tools to adjust model assumptions and national characteristics for the nation the player attempts to lead.
I'm looking forward to the 4th installment, but what's with the Marxists in the top pic on the Democracy 4 website treading on other people's feet?
https://www.positech.co.uk/democracy4/ (https://www.positech.co.uk/democracy4/)
The number of Marxists in that group photo is weird in itself. (Dem3 in my experience is heavily salted toward atheistic socialism as a workable policy mix, perhaps coincidentally.)
Maybe this is a quiet "take that" from the composition artist who was told to put this group shot together?
I also notice they aren't standing on people's feet plural. They're each trodding on a foot of one specific person: the person they're blocking as much as possible in the group photo.
The black man with raggedy jeans. They're standing on the feet of the poor black man in the group while they do their best to hide him from view.
I grant this might be coincidence.