I do not have high hopes for this, but you never know. The first two in the series had potential, but they were marred by a lot of technical issues, bugs and AI irregularities...
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-MOTWGS3/masters-of-the-world-geopolitical-simulator-3 (http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-MOTWGS3/masters-of-the-world-geopolitical-simulator-3)
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Discover the industry standard for geopolitical simulation of today's world!
In Masters of the World, the third incarnation of Geopolitical Simulator, play as the head of state of one or more countries and expand your influence across the globe.
A totally unique simulation engine
The game engine, Geopolitical Simulator 3, includes over 600 data elements for each of the 175 playable countries and calculates their changes in real time throughout the game based on players' actions. Some examples include popularity ratings, political relations, and economic exchanges between countries. Various organizations, including NATO, use the technologies in the Masters of the World simulator for
education and training.
Over one thousand playable actions.At the country's helm, the player/head of state can act in many areas: budget, taxation (nearly thirty types of taxes), currency, economy (over 130 economic activities), foreign and domestic affairs, defense, society, labor, health, social security, education, environment, transportation, culture, and more.
For each of these areas, numerous laws can be proposed and must be voted on by the Parliament
in order to pass. For example: setting social welfare benefit minimums, changing the retirement age,
developing atomic weapons in secret, subsidizing the auto industry, hiring teachers, defining the
powers of unions, setting speed limits on roads, regulating prostitution, creating an international film
festival, etc.
he player can also construct elements on the world map, which will change accordingly: nuclear
plants, wind farms, military bases, pipelines, high-speed train lines, airports, and many more.
Every action has its consequences. Lobbies, social groups, and leading national and international
figures will intervene if their artificial intelligence finds it necessary to do so (interviews with the
press, resignations, protests, strikes, roadblocks, wars...).
To prevent tension, the player can meet with any figure, or address the media (over 8 hours of dialog
in the game).
Thanks to its intelligence services, the player also has an entire arsenal of spies and "special" ops.
For example, he or she can - at his or her own risk - reveal scandals about another political party,
dismantle terrorist networks, sabotage a foreign infrastructure, have an opponent assassinated, etc.
As the head of the military, the player can move all of his or her units around the map from their
actual bases during military conflicts.
International organizations (over 50 organizations included) play an important role. At the UN, for
example, the player can denounce a nation in order to obtain the Security Council's authorization for
a military intervention. The player can also create his or her own organization.Lastly, in order to stay
in power, he or she must actively campaign to make sure he or she is elected.
Playable scenarios
Twenty or so scenarios are included in the game, such as "American Fiscal Cliff," "Israel-Iran
Escalation," "Organization of Rice Exporting Countries," "European Budgetary Golden Rule,"
"Building South American Pipelines," "African Economic Boom," "Third World War," "Triple A," and
"Famine in Southern Sudan.".
Multiple integrated options
Multi country mode to play several countries at the same time
Network multiplayer mode
Game settings: terrorist activities, natural disaster probabilities, reactivity of the people, war triggering
Real-time online player ranking
Integration of your own photos, logos, and names to make the game even more realistic
Interactive tutorial and constantly accessible help during the game
Have fun learning geopolitics with the QUIZ mode, which has over 3000 questions
With the Modding Tool extension, an add-on that can be purchased on this website, players can create and share their own geopolitical and economic universes and download other users' creations
Text and dialog 100% in English
We'll see. I got totally bored with the first one.
I always wanted this series to be the great political game like balance of the power from the past, but dsappointed each time. So at this time, hard to get excited but maybe someday someone will get right. I hope I am proven wrong.
The biggest problem of the Geo-Poli "sims" are that they just can't get nations to act properly. It's gotta be an AI-programming nightmare to do so.
$50???? Seriously???
This is just another game I would suck at :)
Quote from: Nefaro on March 04, 2013, 06:08:22 AM
The biggest problem of the Geo-Poli "sims" are that they just can't get nations to act properly. It's gotta be an AI-programming nightmare to do so.
Agreed. I have seen these games before. Full of potential. I hope for the best on this one. The world could use a good contemporary geo-sim strategy game.
It's too much sim that you have to schedule meetings with a lot of people. Yes you book them in your planner. But meetings go nowhere like in real life. :-)
In a weak moment I preordered this. It was a big mistake I am afraid. They again delayed release for a few days, but this is like the 3rd time already. And you learn that throug investigative work on fan facebook pages and whatnot, since they are not updating their webpage properly.
Still, I am hoping they managed to improve on the last game (I preordered because I had good discount as owner of the previous installment). At one hand it was slow and tedious, but you can't really blame it for the tediousness: you had to carefully introduce ideas on budget changes for example, via the media, and softening trade union leaders and whatnot. Yeah that's much more annoying than changind the slider and seeing profit, but it IS realistic :P
What I would hope for, is improved "AI World" Little more happenings than last game (there were some trading going on but I dont think there was much else), and little less than the first (regular weird wars and stuff).
If you're disappointed with this then consider Supreme Ruler 2020 Gold or Supreme Ruler Cold War. Both are very affordable and cover all the features that this game apparently offers. The downside to the Supreme Ruler game is that without a decent computer it can slow down at times to the speed of a disabled snail and the AI is (being kind) somewhat less than stellar. Then again I like the Total War games too and the AI for most of those is dumb as a rock. Supreme Ruler can be quite fun at times and does not lack for depth, providing you can live with the sometimes glacial speed of the game it's a reasonable buy for the price.
Quote from: Boggit on March 05, 2013, 04:55:26 PM
If you're disappointed with this then consider Supreme Ruler 2020 Gold or Supreme Ruler Cold War. Both are very affordable and cover all the features that this game apparently offers. The downside to the Supreme Ruler game is that without a decent computer it can slow down at times to the speed of a disabled snail and the AI is (being kind) somewhat less than stellar. Then again I like the Total War games too and the AI for most of those is dumb as a rock. Supreme Ruler can be quite fun at times and does not lack for depth, providing you can live with the sometimes glacial speed of the game it's a reasonable buy for the price.
Supreme ruler is primarily a Wargame. This one isn't.
Quote from: jomni on March 05, 2013, 07:42:11 PM
Supreme ruler is primarily a Wargame. This one isn't.
That is also what eventually makes Supreme Ruler start bogging down - the insane amount of military units on the map after a few years. I've still not tried it in awhile, so I don't know if the devs added some clean-up code for the AI opponents' obsolete units, but the ever-increasing numbers eventually made players quit their campaigns after it started taking a long time for the clock to advance.
There was also imbalance in the way neutral countries would all tend to slide into the Communist sphere, too. So the world would quickly end up all being buddies with the Soviets against a handful of core democracies.
Quote from: Boggit on March 05, 2013, 04:55:26 PM
If you're disappointed with this then consider Supreme Ruler 2020 Gold or Supreme Ruler Cold War. Both are very affordable and cover all the features that this game apparently offers. The downside to the Supreme Ruler game is that without a decent computer it can slow down at times to the speed of a disabled snail and the AI is (being kind) somewhat less than stellar. Then again I like the Total War games too and the AI for most of those is dumb as a rock. Supreme Ruler can be quite fun at times and does not lack for depth, providing you can live with the sometimes glacial speed of the game it's a reasonable buy for the price.
Ah the AI in total war games. to quote black adder "yours brain is so minute, baldrick, that if a hungry cannibal cracked your head open, there wouldnt be enough to cover a small water bisquet"
Quote from: Boggit on March 05, 2013, 04:55:26 PM
If you're disappointed with this then consider Supreme Ruler 2020 Gold or Supreme Ruler Cold War. Both are very affordable and cover all the features that this game apparently offers. The downside to the Supreme Ruler game is that without a decent computer it can slow down at times to the speed of a disabled snail and the AI is (being kind) somewhat less than stellar. Then again I like the Total War games too and the AI for most of those is dumb as a rock. Supreme Ruler can be quite fun at times and does not lack for depth, providing you can live with the sometimes glacial speed of the game it's a reasonable buy for the price.
SR is a hugely complex game to get your head around. Once you understand what is going on, there is plenty of meat on the bone. The huge downside is this- You control your entire nation's military at the battalion level. For a third world country, that isn't so bad. Controlling Russia or the US and, well, you can imagine how many hundreds of units you have to control. Ground combat is really a gem in this one, but air and naval (especially naval) are not fleshed out as well. The militaries are so damned complex the AI doesn't have a chance in Hell to properly utilize its resources. SR is a good idea with real scale problems. Imagine playing HOI3 down to the battalion level, it can get silly.
Quote from: Swatter on March 08, 2013, 12:40:24 AM
Quote from: Boggit on March 05, 2013, 04:55:26 PM
If you're disappointed with this then consider Supreme Ruler 2020 Gold or Supreme Ruler Cold War. Both are very affordable and cover all the features that this game apparently offers. The downside to the Supreme Ruler game is that without a decent computer it can slow down at times to the speed of a disabled snail and the AI is (being kind) somewhat less than stellar. Then again I like the Total War games too and the AI for most of those is dumb as a rock. Supreme Ruler can be quite fun at times and does not lack for depth, providing you can live with the sometimes glacial speed of the game it's a reasonable buy for the price.
SR is a hugely complex game to get your head around. Once you understand what is going on, there is plenty of meat on the bone. The huge downside is this- You control your entire nation's military at the battalion level. For a third world country, that isn't so bad. Controlling Russia or the US and, well, you can imagine how many hundreds of units you have to control. Ground combat is really a gem in this one, but air and naval (especially naval) are not fleshed out as well. The militaries are so damned complex the AI doesn't have a chance in Hell to properly utilize its resources. SR is a good idea with real scale problems. Imagine playing HOI3 down to the battalion level, it can get silly.
I could never get a handle on how to properly control military forces in SR. it seemed as if I could never order specific troops to load onto specific aircraft to fly to a specific location. If I recall, and it has been a long time, I was only ever able to set pretty broad objectives, which the AI would then try to accomplish. I found the system and UI pretty frustrating as a result because I felt like it was always fighting me.