Democracy 3

[BanzaiCat]

{clicking wishlist!}

+1

[vyshka]

GOG.com is selling 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.

[JasonPratt]

Nice Banzai Kzin, BC!

Hmmm... GoG with no DRM, or Steam with automatic patching... decisions decisions...

[Greybriar]

....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 (and if you already own it, you can give your free copy to a friend).

[JasonPratt]

Already own it. Don't like/hate my friends that much. Good idea otherwise though. :)

[BanzaiCat]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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. :) )

[son_of_montfort]

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.

[BanzaiCat]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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)

[JasonPratt]

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.)

[JasonPratt]

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. :(

[Nefaro]

I think I may have paid $25 for a fairly broken game. :(

Didn't SOM say it doesn't even run for him?

[son_of_montfort]

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...