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I need a new (old) game


PJFarland
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Anyone know of any good political strategy games? Older is fine, especially if it's on an abandoned ware site. I have Balance of power and I'd like something similar. Or any pure strategy (as opposed to tactical) game. I'm just not in the mood lately to control any combat. I just feel like sending virtual people to their virtual deaths.

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why not pay www.theunderdogs.org a visit? They got lots of strategic games and its all abandonware/vaporware. The Rise and Decline of the Third Reich is for example pure strategy. (or The Operational Art Of War if you're looking for a "new" game.) But that's strategic as in military ops. Diplomacy is quite fun as for political, as is the simulations of political situations that some of the games listed on the underdogs are.. hope you find what you are looking for.

[ 08-11-2001: Message edited by: desolator ]

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I'll kill two birds with this post I do have the 1990 release of BOP and I got it from Underdogs. It's just a pain going through all the listings, picking one spending forever and a day downloading it, then finding out that it kind of sucks. I'll try Rise and fall and Diplomacy (I played the board version a long time ago).

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quote:

Anyone know of any good political strategy games? Older is fine, especially if it's on an abandoned ware site.

I didn't know there were any 'new' political sims. I thought CyberJudas was the last.

Anyway, here are some political sims available @ Underdogs:

Hidden Agenda (1988). You play the Presidente of a fictional Central American nation. The scenario is a bit short, but it's well designed, very realistic, and highly replayable.

The Global Dilemma: Guns or Butter (1990). From Chris Crawford (the creator of Balance of Power), you play the leader of a fictional country on a randomly generated continent. Highly recommended. Read the manual first.

Shadow President (1992). You play the President of the United States. You can choose from a variety of scenarios or a more open ended world map. Fancy graphics and sound for a political sim. Not bad overall. CyberJudas was the sequel to this game.

[ 08-12-2001: Message edited by: Menchise ]

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Well, interpreting your plea for help a little more liberally (Focusing on the phrase "not in the mood to control any combat") I would ask if you have had the chance to play The Longest Journey. It's not strategy, but adventure; and it plays out like a masterfully crafted 75-hour-long movie. Lots of dialogue, logical puzzles, deep characters, lots of interaction and atmosphere. It's the perfect game. It hasn't sold too well since its release in the US, but I attribute that to the fact that many US gamers who stumbled across the plethora of rave reviews managed to import copies of the UK version. I simply can't flaunt this game enough. If you're bored, want something to consume your time, and leave a refreshingly sweet taste in your mouth when its done, try it out. Even if you're not into adventure games that much. If you like movies (And most computer gamers do, if games are our bread, movies are our butter), then you will like TLJ. Pick up a copy from www.chipsbits.com (Perpetually sold out when the game was still UK-only) or www.ebgames.com. Go ahead, DO IT!!!

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TLG- Great game and it plays very smoothly. It is easy going on the nerves, not frantic like the Tomb Raider series. The ending is good, it doesn't leave you p*****-off. If you want to try a great graphics game and have the card to play it, Sacrifice is pretty good and it can be played differently through the choice of gods that you use...

'MAX'

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  • 8 months later...

There is a new game that just came out called SuperPower (I believe that its working title was DefCon 5). It is billed as a neural network with an expert system that learns by watching your moves.

You play the leader of any country in the world. Your actions are very similar to those in Balance Of Power. The difference is that BOP abstracted events into eight turns representing an 8-year presidential term. This game breaks down the turns into weeks. Furthermore, when you deploy troops, you see the troops perform the battle in a real-time battle mode (you can stop the action and issue new orders to your troops).

Other actions include: trade agreements (energy, ore, cereals, wealth, meat), treaties, secret services (espionage, sabotage, assassination), technology development, military unit design, newspapers, your actions accepted/rejected by other countries, other countries offering you treaties/trade agreements, and more.

I just bought the game at CompUSA. Here's the developer's url: SuperPower.

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My initial take is that it is an updated Balance Of Power, taking advantage of the latest technology. Like I said before, everything that was abstracted in BOP into the annual "challenge" is now turned into weekly actions that have to play out.

However, I've been reading the forums over there and am suffering a case of deja vu.

The game is highly complex internally -- there are over 140 countries that act independently based on a neural net AI with a self-learning capability. The AI doesn't know which country is the player-controlled one. From what I gather from reading, the publisher released the game early. The v1.0 didn't work. The programmers released a 1.01 patch and just released a 1.1 patch that makes the game playable. They still have a lot to do before their vision is reached. For them, it's a passion (their "baby"), so they plan to release more patches that fix some bugs and add new functionality.

The game is open-ended -- it's a simulator more than a game. The hardest goal is to take over the world (you are given unlimited time to do this). The game does not like war as a solution. It prefers peaceful, diplomatic alternatives. Their current problem is how to prevent the AI from starting WWIII. They liken it to WOPR from the movie "Wargames." Once war starts, it plays to win it -- it doesn't understand that sometimes the best move is to not play at all.

I've been dabbling with it. I wasn't sure if I was doing something wrong because I would only make a few actions per turn while my available funds pile up. I'm definitely not spending to my capacity yet. It seems like I do something and then keep pressing "next turn, next turn, next turn..." to see what happens. I guess this is an artifact of the turns being weekly. I did read some references to others doing this too, so it may just be the way the game plays in the early stages until the world powers emerge and the little guys fall to the wayside.

Bottom line: THEY say that it is playable, but not perfect. I think that it is roughly at the stage of BC3K v1.07 in terms of the designers' vision. It would be funny if BOP 1990 proves to be a better experience because of what they left to the imagination instead of playing out in tedious detail.

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If you have the time, you should read this thread over at the SuperPower forum. They are going through exactly what Derek did, but theire fans don't realize it yet. I don't think they ever heard about BC3K.

The lead programmer talks about his team and his fans in terms of a hippie commune. His "business model" is to get his dream out and let his fans suggest ideas that make the game better. He thinks that no developer has ever been that attentive to his fans before. His fans say how refreshing it is that a programmer cares enough about what the players want to let them suggests improvements.

Poor guy. He's at the point that Derek was at about four or five years ago. He has a heart problem but pushes himself to work 16 hour days. He wants to take a short break, but the detractors are complaining about intending to buy a game but being tricked into supporting a research project. They are angry at publishers who release unfinished games and are demanding that the programmer fix it. The detractors are accusing everyone of lies and trickery.

I don't know if he'll make his way through it the way that Derek did.

[ 04-30-2002, 22:46: Message edited by: Steve Schacher ]

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  • 2 weeks later...

The SuperPower forum is starting to degenerate. The developer is losing control. His game is very sophisticated, but was released early. I am downgrading my earlier comparison -- it's probably more like BC3K v1.05.

If you want proof that this forum is what it is because of Derek's tight control, then look at the SuperPower forum to see what this place would have been like if Derek wasn't as tough as he has been.

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