Worth buying?

[Mirabilis]

It's on sale (but not actually cheap), so I was wondering if this game is worth buying. I have some reservations:

First, reviews aren't great. It's supposed to play pretty badly as a game, with some courses of action leading to easy victory and others almost impossible to win by. This may be true of real life but as a game it leads to an imbalance, and imbalances in games can be frustrating.

Second, there's no demo. I can't tell if the game is enjoyable to play, or even informative, before I buy it without a demo. Bad reviews and a lack of a demo tends to put me off buying a game. It's not as if they haven't had time to release a demo version, so the developers clearly feel that a demo would not help them sell the game - a bad sign.

Bizarrely, its been reported that this game is being tweaked by real-life governments (along with the developer) to become a tool to help them make decisions and predictions about what policies to implement. No, really. It's garnered a lot of interest amongst politicos because it promises the Holy Grail - seeing how a policy will be received before its implemented, and the knock-on effects. Of course, that assumes the policies will be well-implemented, whereas in the real world a good policy can be implemented badly and thus prove unpopular (Obamacare is an example.) I'm not entirely easy with this concept - I'm not sure I want to support a developer whose product may one day lead to dumb policies enacted in the real world.

So guys'n'gals - whats your verdict on this game?

[JF]

Dude it costs 9 or ten pounds or dollers, in retrospect that it nothing, if you got ten pound to spend or dollers i'd recommend doing so, This game is FUN took me 2.5hours to figure it out by 5.5hours I have UK sorted, sorta lost on what to do now though but there r many other countries that i can play as, and as far as i'm concerned ♥♥♥♥ real politics being intwined in this GAME, thats like the British Army organising a battle on Arma 2 or 3 doing it and actually making a real life verdict based on the simulated outcome. It's a game a cheap one compared to next gen games. Get it play it enjoy it master it buy a new game repeat process until dead.

[Cliff Excellent]

You can play a demo of Democracy 2 which is pretty similar.

I really like it, it was fresh and interesting. Maybe a bit easy once you've worked it out but £10 ffor a couple days of fun is fine by me.

Obviously it's not completely realistic, a realistic simulation of politics would be insanely difficult to create and insanely difficult to play. Of course some of the effects of policies aren't what you might expect but they're there to create a balance.

It's a simplified version of real world politics, not a recreation.

[Marshmellow]

I just got it and not really enjoying it, It is harder than I thought, I don't know what i'm doing. I guess I need to give it more time.

[Panick]

You're over thinking it. If you enjoy these types of games it's worth the one trip to McDonald's or a trip to the cinema that it costs for the weekend. It's not a flashy game. It's a spreadsheet style simulation game. If you find it too easy it's easy to mod and will no doubt spawn the same wealth of mods that were out there for the second game (it's very similar to the second game but with lots of tweaks and Steam Workshop integration). But if you don't like games where hundreds of little things are constantly interacting and influencing each other and tweaking one in a positve direction can have a ripple of dozens of negative effects, you won't enjoy it. It's not a hard core simulation of democracy but it is entertaining for people who enjoy these types of games. I suspect a lot of people that were assigned to review it don't.

[Yurcick]

I would not get the reports about actual governments using the game too seriously, but it's fun nevertheless.
Although I, as a big Victoria II fan, would like to see it much more complex, it still gives some insight about inter-influence of different situations and decisions a government can make.
In short: buy it. It's fun, these 5 hours of enjoyment needed to master the game are much more valuable than 10 bucks you have to spend.

[runequester]

It's a lot of fun, if you like slow-paced strategy games and you don't mind losing now and again.

What else would 10 bucks get you? A 6 pack of imported beer?

[Mirabilis]

On Steam, £10 goes a long way in a sale. Put it this way: in about three months from now this game will be floating around for less than a fiver, especially as the reviews are so poor. I guess I wasn't complaining about the cost so much as whether I should just wait a little longer and get it 'dirt-cheap', as opposed to just 'sort-of-cheap.' The longer you wait, the more likely you'll get all the DLC thrown in for peanuts, too.

It's encouraging that so many people respond positively to the game. Perhaps its a case that the paying public like it when games journalists don't. I certainly like the idea of it and when it first came out I was going to buy it full price, but the reviews were so poor it put me off.

I still might wait a little longer for the price to really hit rock-bottom. There's other stuff out there that's a higher priority and I'm hoping the longer I leave it the more likely gameplay issues will get ironed out. Patience, I find, can be a real virtue on Steam.

Thanks for the feedback, anyway.

[AudieMurphy]

Originally posted by Mirabilis:

On Steam, £10 goes a long way in a sale. Put it this way: in about three months from now this game will be floating around for less than a fiver, especially as the reviews are so poor. I guess I wasn't complaining about the cost so much as whether I should just wait a little longer and get it 'dirt-cheap', as opposed to just 'sort-of-cheap.' The longer you wait, the more likely you'll get all the DLC thrown in for peanuts, too.

It's encouraging that so many people respond positively to the game. Perhaps its a case that the paying public like it when games journalists don't. I certainly like the idea of it and when it first came out I was going to buy it full price, but the reviews were so poor it put me off.

I still might wait a little longer for the price to really hit rock-bottom. There's other stuff out there that's a higher priority and I'm hoping the longer I leave it the more likely gameplay issues will get ironed out. Patience, I find, can be a real virtue on Steam.

Thanks for the feedback, anyway.

I think it's one of those cases where it's just not a game for everybody. It's hard to recommend it, because I simply don't know too many who would really find fun in watching how policies play out. It's definitely a niche title. It actually reminded me of Fate of the World in the way the game plays, another hugely niche title.

However, I have found it to be a lot of fun. How easily moddable it is makes it easier to sell if you're a fan of economics or political sims. The other point that made me go for the purchase was discovering that it is a one-man garage studio. I think it's a truly great work, considering.

So, it really all depends on you. If you're remotely curious you can always chek out the Democracy 2 demo to get a feel for it.

[Cliff Excellent]

Originally posted by Mirabilis:

On Steam, £10 goes a long way in a sale. Put it this way: in about three months from now this game will be floating around for less than a fiver, especially as the reviews are so poor. I guess I wasn't complaining about the cost so much as whether I should just wait a little longer and get it 'dirt-cheap', as opposed to just 'sort-of-cheap.' The longer you wait, the more likely you'll get all the DLC thrown in for peanuts, too.

It's encouraging that so many people respond positively to the game. Perhaps its a case that the paying public like it when games journalists don't. I certainly like the idea of it and when it first came out I was going to buy it full price, but the reviews were so poor it put me off.

I still might wait a little longer for the price to really hit rock-bottom. There's other stuff out there that's a higher priority and I'm hoping the longer I leave it the more likely gameplay issues will get ironed out. Patience, I find, can be a real virtue on Steam.

Thanks for the feedback, anyway.

A lot of the reviews are very positive, and lots of the customer reviews are very negative. There's a huge mix of opinions on both sides.

[FunnyBunny999]

Good game in principle, but it crashes very often and makes it potentially unplayable.
Is it not discouraging to play a game for a couple of hours, only to have it crash and get stuck at a certain part. Then starting a new game, knowing that eventually it will crash again and you have to start from the beginning again?

[BlackBlade]

Lots of games die in unrecoverable crashes :-( reloading the auto-save (it only keeps one auto-save), and changing your choices, still results in a crash.

[anzacloner]

I dont have any prblems running the game. Like everyone says ,short term entertainment but interesting enough. If developers keep improving, it should end up very good.

[StandingCow]

A lot of the crashes due to policies should be fixed now, in fact in the single adoption crash thread the dev posted a manual fix... since I applied that I haven't crashed again.

I think the game is fun, it LOOKS confusing, but it really isn't once you figure out the main interface.

[Gomer]

I highly suggest you purchase it. As a student in economics, it's provided me with an opportunity to vicariously pursue the application of economic theory without having to affect actual people's lives. It's not perfect, but for this day in age, it suits my needs just fine. If you were intrigued by this game's premise to begin with, then I don't believe it will dissappoint.

[짱구는못말려]

It's not worth the price. It should be less than $4.99.