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I would love to see a game that accurately reflects modern geopolitics. It would generate a world and run a history up to a certain point, at which you'd take c
by vinceguidry 11y ago
I would love to see a game that accurately reflects modern geopolitics. It would generate a world and run a history up to a certain point, at which you'd take control as head of state of a particular nation and conduct national affairs.
Ideally, the game would be able to make conducting the affairs of a large global hegemon like the United States as interesting as playing a small kingdom beset on all sides. Sort of like Crusader Kings but set in the modern world.
The real interesting part of the game in my view is that conquest is no longer an option, and tactics would get abstracted out of armed conflict in an "amateurs think tactics, generals think logistics" kind of way.
- selimthegrim 11y agoYou never played Hearts of Iron or Europa Universalis?
- douche 11y agoVictoria 2 is, I think, the most interesting of them. Although I've never gotten deep enough into Crusader Kings II to really know how to play it.
- tcoppi 11y ago> The real interesting part of the game in my view is that conquest is no longer an option Isn't it though? Russia seemed to do OK with the conquest of Crimea. Anyway the suggestion of Europa Universalis is probably the closest you will get right now. If Paradox made a post-cold war sim I'd play the hell out of it, but I think it would be hard to do right and be interesting precisely because without real conquest and wars, there isn't much that is interesting for a game on the global level.
- defenestration 11y agoI enjoyed Europa Universalis as well. It taught me quite some history while being engaged with addictive gameplay. A modern version simulating the last 100 years of politics and war on a worldwide scale would interest me. Especially if you could try different strategies and perspectives in current day hotspots like Syria, Southeast Asian sea, etc.
- xlm1717 11y agoWell, technically speaking Stellaris is post-cold war, by about 150 years. :P
- tcoppi 11y agoTrue, and I'm currently enjoying the hell out of Stellaris, so I guess that counts :D
- peteretep 11y ago> Russia seemed to do OK with the conquest of Crimea While I'm no Putin apologist, Russian "conquest" of Crimea is a bit like hypothetical Éire conquest of Northern Ireland. You're certainly going to upset a lot of people, but it's also hardly black and white.
- hackuser 11y ago> it's also hardly black and white No, I think it's clear. The Russians invaded another country, conquered Ukranian land and kidnapped Ukrainian people. EDIT: Fixed the ambiguous pronouns
- peteretep 11y ago> Their military invaded "Their" being Russian here... > conquered their land and kidnapped their people By 'their', you mean the people of Crimea, of which over 50% identify as Russians?
- hackuser 11y agoYou can't invade another country because people "identify" as something. It's an absurd argument, worthy of the Kremlin (from whence it comes). Plus, IIRC that survey was also Russian propaganda.
- flashman 11y agoUnder that logic, the 87% Hispanic population of Texas's 15th and 34th congressional districts ought to welcome the Mexican army.
- hackuser 11y agoDon't forget cities like New York, with China Town, Crown Heights, etc. etc. etc. It's going to be a challenge to manage all those national borders in such a small area.
- lazylizard 11y ago
- vlehto 11y agoYou could view Crimea just as minor oscillation in the wake of collapse of Soviet Union. Conquest of strategic locations is just as important as before. Suez, Panama, Gibraltar and Singapore are pretty carefully looked after. But there has been significant decoupling between ownership of arable land and economic power. So you don't see same kind of land grabs that marked most of middle ages and lasted until WWII.
- hansjorg 11y ago> conquest is no longer an option Sounds like an interesting idea for a game, but that doesn't really accurately reflect modern geopolitics, does it?
- rictic 11y agoFrom a historical perspective there's been shockingly little conquest in the past 50 years. Almost all redrawing of borders have been a result of internal struggles, and only a tiny amount of soil has changed hands as a result of invading armies seizing territory. There've still been civil wars, coups, proxy wars, trade wars, foreign-funded revolutions, etc, but these are way smaller scale and result in far less bloodshed than building up a massive army and smashing it against an enemy in an open war of conquest. Interesting dynamics for a game like Civ.
- tcoppi 11y agoIt is also a lot harder to model these sorts of dynamics and make for a compelling game, IMO. An interesting idea of an "economic rts" type game is Offworld Trading Company(incidentally the brainchild of the Civ4 creator). I think they strike the right balance for their type of game, but I'm not sure it could be done for a more deliberate, Paradox-style strategy game.
- nostrademons 11y agoIt would be very interesting to have a political simulator where the internal population of the country is divided into factions, ethnic groups, and subcultures that differ on one of several dozen identity dimensions, and your goal is to lead the country and hold it together. If you screw up and deviate too farm from the centerline, either an opponent leader takes over and you have to rebuild your powerbase, or the country splits up in civil war. If it does split up and enter civil war, then the geography becomes very important and you need to hold territories (and their inhabitants) containing military bases, industrial production, and natural resources.
- 11y ago
- dragonwriter 11y agoThere have been games that strove to do something like that -- though, usually, based directly on the real world rather than a generated one, and usually with a limited array of real-world country choices, and sometimes with a fantasy twist. Balance of Power (both the original and 1990 editions; allowed play of the USA or USSR only) and Shadow President (allowed play as the USA only) come to mind; ISTR one that allowed play as a wider variety of real-world nations, but can't place the name.
- mcjiggerlog 11y agoMore country-level than international, but I think you'd like Democracy 3 http://store.steampowered.com/app/245470/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/245470/
- itcmcgrath 11y agoI remember playing a very old game called 'Shadow President' that I thought was particularly fun. I'm an Aussie and Australia in the game always frustrated the heck out of me. I often nuked it. :-/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_President https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_President
- dingbat 11y agoi remember the sequel "Cyberjudas", fun but frustrating too. was excessively impressed with how the game used CIA world factbook info.. "whoa, this is like so real dude!"
- xlm1717 11y agoI would love it if Paradox did a Crusader Kings/Europa Universalis/Victoria/Hearts of Iron set in the modern era.
- KON_Air 11y agoA Civilization game that doesn't involve rushing to remove Gandhi from the game before he starts piling up nukes is not a Civilization game. At least that's where I draw the line.
- tasnent 11y agoThat goddamned smile. They're gonna keep him that way, aren't they?
- pilif 11y agothis must be one of the funniest and memorable bugs-to-turn-feature in all of gaming or even software itself. If I was the producer of any future Civ game, I would insist on this remaining as-is.
- aaronbrethorst 11y agoThis explains a lot: http://kotaku.com/why-gandhi-is-such-an-asshole-in-civilization-1653818245 http://kotaku.com/why-gandhi-is-such-an-asshole-in-civilizat...
- jharger 11y agoThat is about the best thing I've read in a while.
- bsznjyewgd 11y agoCiv IV had a very nice mod called Rhye's and Fall of Civilization that "simulated history" up to a point until the starting time period of your chosen civilization, and it had "historical forces" (random and scripted events) that destabilized old civs and sometimes caused new ones to appear. It also had "historical victories", in addition to the usual victory conditions, that were thematic in relation to the chosen player civ (imagine things like (made up, because I no longer remember) "control all of the Mediterranean by X" or "never lose a city to the Mongols while building 6 academies).
- philwelch 11y agoThe problem with the modern era is that it's kind of boring from a strategy game perspective. Eras that are boring from a strategy game perspective are the best eras to live in, so I'm not complaining, but a strategy game where the biggest challenge is to manage the Eurozone crisis or react to changing oil prices is not going to be nearly as popular as a strategy game where the biggest challenge is to win a World War.
- jonnathanson 11y agoI, too, like to play Civ this way. For my money, Civ4 (and its various mods) comes the closest to allowing this style of play. The game itself is highly moddable, and provided you play with the right set of AI personalities, you can actually conduct geopolitics without reverting to the simplistic "Blow them up before they blow you up" imperative every few turns. But make no mistake: this is not how the game is designed. The game is designed around conquest, by one means or another. Sooner or later, the game 'wants' you to go to war. Everything pushes towards war. There's a lot of fun, in fact, in trying to be a stabilizing force in a world hell-bent on going Mad Max. But it will go there, sooner or later. Every faction ends up going to war with the others, and you'll find yourself taking various sides in an attempt to shore up the defenses of the helpless, the aggrieved, and the outmatched. Since the roles of aggressor and aggrieved change every few cycles, you'll pretty much go to war with every other nation in a grim rotation of shifting alliances. Eventually you're rewarded for your peacekeeping efforts with the seething and irreparable enmity of every other faction on the map. At that point, you've got two choices: 1) Cheat and reset relations with the other factions; 2) Accept your new role as World Police, bringing democracy and prosperity at gunpoint.
- dbalbright 11y agoIt doesn't support a procedurally generated world like you are asking but there was a game for Sega CD called Third World War that I loved to play that had a good balance of diplomacy, trade, and war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_World_War_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_World_War_(video_gam... There's a Paradox game I played a few years ago called Supreme Ruler that I got excited about thinking it was similar but it tends to get bogged down in the military in my opinion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_World_War_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_World_War_(video_gam... I haven't played Victoria II but know it also fits this mold. It is set in the colonial time frame so not quite modern but close. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_II