Democracy 3

[kavoven 4]

Since many people in this forum seem to have a rather great interest in politics (I for my part did not look at anything OFP/ArmA related for years, shame on me... ) I think this could be interesting for many.

 

I bought Democracy 3 yesterday, not because I love politics, but because I want to deepen my understanding of the mechanics. And leaving the fact aside that it's a game, I think it is really interesting and educational. At the beginning of the game, you can chose in which country you want to play (UK, US, Germany, Australia and 2 other I forgot). After that, you start with a short briefing and the main screen:

 

http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1534/15347881/2356161-3632954568-Democ.jpg

 

Red buttons are topics that require attendance (like crime on the left side), blue are statistics, and white are points you have direct influence on by passing laws. In the middle you see all kinds of groups that you have to satisfy. If they hate you, they might form a conspiracy to get you out of office (or even kill you).

 

When you hover your mouse over on button, it displays its connections to the others

 

http://www.positech.co.uk/democracy3/_assets/images/content/s2.jpg

 

Your target is to become reelected by making the multiple groups in the game (see first picture) happy. You can implement new politics and change existing with something called "Political capital" (translated, hope that's right). Each round you only have a certain amount of that, so your actions are limited and you need to focus on what you think is important.

 

In the two rounds I played I ruined the country in the first one and was not reelected. I actually tried to do it the "Merkel way" like in Greece and raised taxes, lowered pensions and thought "well, people have to go through with it". This did not work, since neither was I reelected, nor did the GDP improve.

In the second round I managed to increase the GDP quite a lot, but the middle income brackets did not like me at all since I took all their worker rights from them to save the economy. I wasn't reelected either. I think that the game is a really good depiction of reality and when I read the papers this morning I had quite a few "aha" moments. 

 

The game costs 22 € at steam and you can download it within 2 minutes (below 200 MB). 

 

I'd love to here your experiences playing the game :)