Democracy 3 is the latest in Positech Games’ line of political simulations. I was lucky enough to meet Cliff Harris (also known as Cliffski) at Eurogamer and ask him a few questions about Democracy 3 a while ago. So long ago in fact that before I delve into the smoke-filled rooms and back-room dealing of Democracy 3 I want to apologise for it being so darn late.
Democracy 3 is a political simulation game. To a lot of people that first one is off putting, to me it’s crazy exciting. Politics is my thing. I went to University to study it, I spend my spare time reading about it from all over the world and I annoy the life out of my friends, family, girlfriend, colleagues and strangers by going on about politics and/or correcting their understanding. So I skipped gleefully into playing Democracy 3. Finally, this was a game that catered to my needs.
Before going any further I know that politics is off putting to a lot of people, but don’t let that put you off Democracy 3. I know I’m giving away the ending, but it’s a great strategy game with some clever humour around the edges and all of the policies are explained really clearly but without over simplification. So hopefully everyone is still with me, on with the review!
At the starting screen you choose a country that you wish to govern with a choice of; The UK, The USA, Canada, Australia, Germany and France. All the countries have different voter models, different tendencies, different economic situations reflecting their positions in real life. After choosing your country you’re planning on governing/fixing/running into the ground you can fiddle with sliders representing the difficulty as well as the innate socialism and liberalism of the voter bases. After choosing the name of your party and the opposition, you’re given a quick congratulatory briefing and dropped into the main screen you see below. It’s looks complicated, because it is, but it’s complexity is where the real challenge, and fun, comes from.
It looks complicated, but there is an underlying simplicity
That screen is how and where you measure what impact your policies are having on the populace, and help you to decide which moves you should make next. The group of boxes in the middle represents the various voter groups in the electorate and how responsive they are towards your governance. The nodes are the various situations in the country, such as GDP, Pollution, Crime etc. and the policies that impact them such as; Education funding, green taxes and youth club subsidies. Hovering the mouse over any given icon removes all the excess icons from the screen and shows just the related groups, policies and situations.
Clicking on any of the icons brings up a more detailed screen of the impact that particular factor is having, and what is impacting on it. Clicking on the GDP icon shows everything that is affecting it, by how much and a graph shows how it’s changed over your time in office. Clicking on a policy icon allows you to increase or decrease how much you want to enforce it or to cancel it completely, as well as showing how your choices will change the lives of your citizens. The light bulb icon at the top of the screen opens up a world of new policies that can be implemented such as community policing, a welfare fraud department, biofuel subsidies, legalisation of drugs and so many more. These are vital in solving some of the problems that crop up, again in some interesting ways. Want to cut crime? Introduce subsides for youth clubs and health foods. Youth club subsides have a direct impact on lowering crime, whilst health food subsidies increase the general health of the population, decrease poverty and inequality and therefore lead to a drop in crime.
Hovering over an icon simplifies the main screen, just showing the relevant icons
However, you can’t play around with the economy, social justice and education funding at will. In each turn you have a limited about of Political Capital available to spend, with each adjustment or new policy having both cost against your political capital and a financial implication. The amount of political capital you have to spend varies depending on how popular your government is, the loyalty of your cabinet (which in turn is affected by your policies and their preferences) and the majority you come away from an election with. This, more so than the financial side, makes choosing the appropriate policy really strategic. Some changes are obviously going to be more popular than others, making them easier to do so. Want to lower taxes? Sure, go ahead. But raising them again when you want to go ahead with that space program or there are too many sick people and not enough hospitals is going to be tricky.
And playing around with the sliders can make you do, and say, some things that you might not expect. Unless I actively tried to it was almost impossible for me to remove my own personal politics from the game. To start with at least. After a while, as the election looms ever closer, I started to watch how much I was annoying the various voter groups and tried to appease as many as I could. In this administration I had supported those on lower incomes to the annoyance of the higher rate tax payers. I considered my options and said, aloud, “I can afford to annoy the poor a little bit more”. This is the first time that something I’ve done in a game has made me feel unclean. This was when I realised I was hooked.
New policy ideas are a vital tool for fixing some dire situations
I started a new administration and set out to fix Broken Britain. Kinda broken anyway. Low GDP and high unemployment all made worse by poor education, healthcare and causing high levels of crime and poverty. So, naturally, I raised some taxes on luxury goods, capital gains and mansions and put the funding into schools, state housing, healthcare and some green initiatives.
To me this all seems reasonable but I was getting warnings of a couple of groups becoming dissatisfied with my leadership. A liberal leaning human rights group didn’t like the intrusive nature of the security services, but I had a bigger fish to fry. A shadowy capitalist group called the Battenburg Group was meeting to discuss their opposition to my anti-capitalist, left leaning government. A few turns later I was met with a warning of them “making a move”. I did what any self respecting world leader would do. I continued on my course, head held high, and gently increased funding to the intelligence services. Alas, my head was held too high and someone put a bullet in it.
[Insert terrible cake based pun here]
This was unexpected. It was also brilliant. I felt a little proud that I had annoyed a capitalist group enough to kill me without even getting through a full term and I promptly started again only this time to “fix” France. No more retiring at 55 I’m afraid France. The hard work starts now.
Whilst playing Democracy 3 I realised that it’s not just a political simulation; it can be the ultimate Machiavellian simulation. In order to get to the next election you’ve got to use a bit of cunning, a bit of strategy and a bit of abandoning your political beliefs to get through the next election. And when you do it’s a great feeling.
It’s also a really useful learning tool. You can get rid of the requirements for political capital and just treat it like a great big policy sandbox. Throw caution to the wind and stop teaching evolution in American schools. Or, even worse, take away their guns. In the main menu there is also a political compass that shows you where your administrations stand.
Democracy 3 is great. Even if you take away the personal political dilemmas, it’s an engaging, deep strategy game and it’s got me hooked. I recommend it if you’re in the market for something different, thought provoking and potentially addictive. Or if you’re a politics nerd.
Democracy 3 is available direct from Positech or via Steam.
