Geo-Political Simulator

[LUKIE]

I agree with what phenom is saying. The game is fucking steep price wise. I REALLY want it, and Plubby can confirm, I have been umming and arrring about it for the past few days, but the price is just a bit much. If it was 50AU, I would have bought it straight away, but 80, when I can go and say buy, PES09 or something, it's not really worth it.

[Benji]

Christ, £35? Are you shitting me, yeah, I didn't realise that before, that's a fucking cheeky price.

Now I want to play it more now I can't have it, darn childishness.

Edited December 1, 2008 by Benji DeNiro~!

[Plubby]

I can confirm and completely agree with what LUKIE is saying.

[StevenRichardsRules]

Yeah, I really want to play it too but I'm not spnding 60 some dollars on it. I'm poor as fuck.

[marksbros6]

someone care to PM me the link for this one? I like the sound of it but fuck spending £30 on it without a demo.

[Dan]

EWB, where every other word is "fuck".

[Ruki]

What fuck are fuck you fucking talking fuck about?

[Dan]

Fuck you Ruki.

[marksbros6]

Oooooo-kay. I do drop the occasional f-bomb...sorry if it offended anyones sensibilities...

[Emperor Fuckshit]

Is this probably the best global political simulator out there, though? Most of the ones I've played up to now (Shadow President most notably) have just been... shit. Awful. No sense that you're inhabiting a believable facsimile of the real world at all.

Most of the best political games I've played have only attempted to recreate a much smaller scale. I still play 'Conflict: Middle East' a bit when I just want to kill half an hour or so. Even though it basically amounts to pressing a few buttons and seeing your decisions cause events in a somewhat random (yet still quite logical) way, it's quite immersive in a sense. And it's difficult enough that 'beating' it for the first time feels like an achievement.

In that vein, 'PeaceMaker' seems like a worthy graphical update. I played a demo when it first came out (last year, I think) and it seemed nice, but difficult and perhaps not worth the money. Still, it's one I might look into.

There's also 'Oval Office', which is a pretty nice simulator of domestic American politics. It's a little focused on the balancing of budgets, though, but it does give you a real sense of tension between structure and agency -- you feel like a President, rather than an all-powerful representative of The State. There's no foreign policy element, though, and the games become a bit predictable after a while. (Especially if you're like me, and just want to create a socialist democracy and nothing else. My political scruples are such that I can't even pretend to be a Conservative or Liberal in a video game, it seems.) And I'd prefer something that simulated world politics; or at least British politics with a world dimension.

The old 'Yes, Minister' tie-in game seems like it would be good fun if I could get it to run properly on my Windows machine (it's a DOS game; the pointer flickers in and out on XP, if memory serves).

'Balance of Power' is alright in a dry-as-sandpaper, clicking-on-standard-Visual-Basic-buttons sort of way. I also like the fact that, if you trigger nuclear war, you get a very sanctimonious "Hmmm. I could give you a nice image of a mushroom cloud to illustrate the consequences of your actions. But there are NO PRIZES for FAILING!!!!"-type message. Can't hate a game that takes itself that seriously.

Apparently, there's a sequel to 'Tropico' in the making, which is a bit exciting. It verges a bit on the God Game-y, but Latin America during the Cold War is a political area I have a lot of interest in, so I found the original quite fun once I got going.

It seems odd that there aren't more games that cater to this market. Most seem to either be explicitly war-driven (stuff like 'Hearts of Iron' and that stable of games), which is not what I'm after. I don't find war terribly interesting (I always associate an interest in military history with Young Conservatives and/or slavering Nazi fetishists), and if I did I'd just play 'Command and Conquer' or something. And then there's stuff like 'Civilization' which I do quite enjoy, but is obviously very broad-brush and not very political. There seems to be a dearth of games that place you as a head of state and simulate world politics. Maybe it's perceived as too niche of a market to justify the expenditure (of time and intellectual energy as much as anything) that would be required to create a really cock-on game of that sort.

I've always thought it might be interesting to play a game which starts you as, say, a grunt in your political party of choice's local branch, and have you attempt to gain various offices (council seat, Commons seat, Ministry etc). Sort of a political career game that could combine the electioneering elements of stuff like 'President Forever' (which always seem a bit pointless to me, as you get into office, and then... the game ends) with a more advanced version of something like 'Oval Office' (or GPS, which I haven't played).

Hmm.

Edited December 2, 2008 by Emperor Fuckshit

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

The people who would buy such an in-depth game are small in number and low in gratitude. That's probably why we haven't seen one.

Although I will mention 'Democracy', if you haven't run across that one yet - far too reliant on statistics and gets boring fast, but worth a look nonetheless.

[METALMAN]

Democracy is decent enough but I like games that include foreign policy as well. Democracy can be pretty easy as well. On one game as the UK I drastically cut all public spending and massively lowered all business taxes (Don't worry Emperor Fuckshit, I'm not that way in real life) yet my overall popularity was still really high.

[KevinStorm]

I once played a game in middle school that I'm pretty sure was called "Capitol." All I remember is that you're a member of Congress and you get to pick your office and you get letters from constituents and all that.

[Emperor Fuckshit]

Thanks for the tip re: 'Democracy'. I'm checking it out right now (actually, a sequel). I have a feeling I've played it before, but I might be wrong (hopefully I am). I just played a quick game of 'Oval Office' and tried to be a bit right-wing. I was re-elected twice (I know that doesn't make any sense; but that's how the game works) without incident.

EDIT: Odd note about that 'Oval Office' game I just played. 52% of socialists voted for me at the end of my first term, despite the fact that I'd reduced education spending to virtually nothing, lowered income tax by about 20%, made no increases in public spending in any area except the police force and introduced a citizenship test. The game is probably a bit more broken than I realised.

Edited December 2, 2008 by Emperor Fuckshit

[ONO]

Is this probably the best global political simulator out there, though? Most of the ones I've played up to now (Shadow President most notably) have just been... shit. Awful. No sense that you're inhabiting a believable facsimile of the real world at all.

It is most certainly. Very in-depth and gives you complete control, a perfect game for those individuals that like that sort of thing.

Completely different from Shadow President.

[stokeriño]

(I always associate an interest in military history with Young Conservatives and/or slavering Nazi fetishists),

:@

...Sorry, couldn't let that pass. >_>

[Emperor Fuckshit]

(I always associate an interest in military history with Young Conservatives and/or slavering Nazi fetishists),

:@

...Sorry, couldn't let that pass. >_>

Sorry, Stoke, not sure what you mean. That it's an inaccurate generalisation? I'm sure that's true; it's just an association that I make that extrapolates from a few bad experiences.

Though, I do often think there's more to be read into the way people play stuff like 'Hearts of Iron' than is self-evident. Feeling giddy at the prospect of leading the Wehrmacht to victory might not be evidence of actual latent rightism, but I think it at least signifies strains of slightly worrying machismo in a lot of cases. Obviously all generalisations fall down, and I know that some people are just interested in grand-scale counterfactuals or (for some reason I will never understand) hold a genuine and benign interest in... I dunno... what gauge of MP5s the Russians used at Stalingrad. (I fully expect that last sentence to be complete nonsense).

EDIT: Dunno how many people will appreciate this reference, but I'm always reminded when discussing this of that 'Peep Show' episode (the 'my Nazi mate' one). Mark enjoys playing as Hitler's Germany in war games on the PC, but then starts to feel a bit uncomfortable at the prospect of a 'real life' WW2 recreation in which he plays a Stormtrooper. But they're both, essentially, just different sorts of performance: one private; one public.

I've meandered off the point somewhat now, but oh well...

Edited December 6, 2008 by Emperor Fuckshit

[stokeriño]

I just thought I'd take faux offence, due to my being in possession of a War Studies degree and yet a decidedly Lib Dem sort of sod.

I actually started a new HoI game earlier today, coincidentally. I picked the USSR, having not played a full game with them before (only a couple of the isolated scenarios, like the Winter War or Operation Barbarossa). Starting in 1936 their industry is fucked, there are hardly any decent generals about due to Stalin having culled them all, and most of their troops are, according to the game, of '1918' calibre. And therein lies the challenge.

I can't really see why ideology and/or general morality links in with it, to be honest. Should I never, ever, ever play as the Empire in a Star Wars game because they're bastards? Am I really saying that I am a personal fan of what they represent just because I've picked the antagonist's role? In a game, the fact that the chosen side/country were utter bastards IRL hardly matters when what you're really doing is being given the freedom to take a different side in a strategic scenario. If we were to dress it up in fiction like "No...this isn't Soviet Russia v Nazi Germany v Great Britain...it's, um, Falseland v Magicia v Narnia" would be horribly patronising; while alternatively avoiding historical scenarios altogether ala "No! You may not play this game for the strategic landscape is similar to this actual event in some ways!" would be even worse...like trying to detach us from history, or something.

Edited December 6, 2008 by stokeriño

[Emperor Fuckshit]

Oh, right, I see.

What does interest you about military elements of history, incidentally? Don't worry, I'm not going to contort any response you give into evidence that you ACTUALLY ARE David Irving. It's just that I'm a History student, am interested in a lot of 20th century political history, but generally stop reading once the wars start because I just don't find it interesting. Is it an appreciation of tactics thing? Like, you begin to appreciate a good counteroffensive in the same way an Art History student would nod approvingly at Picasso's 'Guernica' (or something)? That I could sort of understand.

I've never got into HoI, not just because of my disinterest in military aspects of history, but because I have fuck all patience. And because I always think 'cor! I wonder what it was like to be Luxembourg in WW2!' and just get devoured once 1939 rolls around. I should really sit down and do all the tutorials and then start a proper game as a major power.

Oh, man, I've been reading French diplomatic communiques all day and would really love a good political sim right now. Time to fire up 'Conflict: Middle East', I reckon.

EDIT: (Replied before your edit).

I can't really see why ideology and/or general morality links in with it, to be honest. Should I never, ever, ever play as the Empire in a Star Wars game because they're bastards? Am I really saying that I am a personal fan of what they represent just because I've picked the antagonist's role? In a game, the fact that the chosen side/country were utter bastards IRL hardly matters when what you're really doing is being given the freedom to take a different side in a strategic scenario. If we were to dress it up in fiction like "No...this isn't Soviet Russia v Nazi Germany v Great Britain...it's, um, Falseland v Magicia v Narnia" would be horribly patronising; while alternatively avoiding historical scenarios altogether ala "No! You may not play this game for the strategic landscape is similar to this actual event in some ways!" would be even worse.

I don't think it's immoral to play as a particular side in any game: obviously things that people do in games can never have any sort of effect on anything in the real world. I'm also not saying that playing as, say, the Nazis suggests that someone is a 'personal fan' of Nazism. There are lots of reasons why someone might choose to play as the Nazis. As I've said, some people might just have a strong interest in counter-factual history.

But I do think there is an undercurrent of getting a 'giddy thrill' from playing as the Nazis for some people. The very neutralization of actions that occurs when playing a game allows people to do things that they wouldn't normally endorse. I think that, for a certain type of person with an interest in military history, there is a 'verboten' element to playing as the Nazis from which they gain excitement. Fascism as an ideology is extremely alluring aesthetically, and that becomes particularly acute when backed up by the economic and military resources possessed by a nation like Germany. Living out dreams of complete control; continental hegemony; the 'simplification' of politics via the criminalization of opposition; reification of a purified ideology and so on has obvious attraction in a video game world. But it doesn't hold attraction for everyone, and it makes me wonder about people who enjoy that element of HoI. I'm not suggesting that they're all closet Nazis who would take up arms in a Nick Griffin-sponsored coup; it just an interesting and slightly ugly example of their 'Will to Power', I suppose. And the potential applications for that in the real world (if any) are intriguing to me.

That last paragraph was a horrible mess. I need more time to think about this, really, but bollocks to it. Basically, I'm suspicious about the fetishisation / kitschification / ironic appropriation of Nazist / Fascist ephemera. Not because I think that people who engage in that sort of thing are necessarily politically unsound (though they might be); more because it's just an ugly sort of quality. (Ugh... still not very well stated). And I don't think that everyone playing HoI as Hitler's Germany is guilty of that fetishisation.

I wouldn't prefer games to use fake histories or scenarios, for the record.

Edited December 6, 2008 by Emperor Fuckshit

[stokeriño]

My War Studies course was a mixture of history (and I don't mean only "X happened in X war" kind of history - but more often war's place in the wider scope of history, such as the cultural and economic causes/consequences of it), philosophy/sociology (e.g. is war an inherent part of human nature, merely a systematic consequence of our political structure, or what?), and yes, tactics (although really, it's broken up into the tactical/operational/strategic scales, of which I find tactical to be the slightly less interesting of the three). I'm also very into political history, but often that's so intertwined with wars I would find it difficult (or perhaps not so much 'difficult', but rather...hollow) to separate them entirely.

Not sure about the Art History comparison. I mean it's not like studying war is a case of "Yes, YES! This is AWESOME!" or anything ridiculous like that. It's interesting. It's complex. It's a part of the world we live in. That, to me, would seem to be enough.

Edited December 6, 2008 by stokeriño