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 noun 1. political realism or practical politics, especially policy based on power rather than on ideals. Or, as the title says, an off-brand map game from Poland! Realpolitiks (Steam) looks a lot like a Paradox game, if you’re familiar with those, though it plays a fair bit differently, but we will get into these differences as the game goes on, but essentially it is a jankier Eastern European little brother with its own bag of tricks. It is a firmly 7/10 game. If you’re not familiar with Paradox’ games, this is a game where you spend most of your time looking at a map, and the rest of it inside menus tweaking your nation and its relationship with the rest of the world, be it based on economic power, military adventures or cultural dominance. It features dynamic events that change things up inside your nation and in general geopolitics. This LP will be done in a narrative style, with mechanic explanations as needed. If you’ve read my Victoria 2 or Paradox Mega LP, you can expect a similar experience. INDEX: Welcome to Egypt  The game features three scenarios, introduced below. The suggested nations for the first two also have optional goals you can choose, which can be achieved a lot faster than the grand campaign, such as, for example, Brazil’s goal of having 50% of the Global Stock Exchange going through the country by 2035. These serve as bite-sized experiences and a good way of getting one’s feet wet. The World Is Not Enough (2020):  Set in the 2020s after the collapse of both NATO and the European Union, this is a present day scenario with only a few changes. I would not read anything political in the collapse of those institutions or the fact that Russia begins owning Crimea and Donetsk - specially because AI Russia often ends up burning its own country to the ground in the long term -, it is merely a contrivance to allow the free for all common to the Grand Strategy genre. (On the other hand I would read in the fact that the tutorial has you playing as Poland and deploying nuclear weapons to contain a Sweden which had manifest destined its way to conquering Finland.) As the name suggests, the scenario is concerned with the New World Order after the end of those institutions and the beginning of solar system and deep sea colonization.  Yep. The Dawn of Tomorrow (2050):  This is a more speculative scenario, theoretically balanced mostly for gameplay rather than historicity. As the fluff says, WW3 has happened and a new world order has emerged. Some countries have fragmented, such as the United States and China, while others have consolidated, the Intermarium in Eastern Europe or the Maghreb Union in North Africa, for example. Population is reduced all around to represent the effects of the war and colonisation of the stars has already begun, though there is a good amount of free estate still up for grabs in the solar system. New World Order (2222):  This is a complete fantasy scenario where everyone is balkanized and is meant for purely sandbox gameplay. Historical, ahistorical and joke nations compete with each other after the complete collapse of civilization.  I did mean complete collapse of civilization. ZearothK fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 27, 2017 19:45
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 06:46 |
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 And this will be our scenario. We will be losing the initial space-race events and the events that may lead to WW3 present in the first scenario, but after a couple of playthroughs in both I feel this is the more dynamic of the first two. I haven’t considered New World Order because I am not feeling like playing as Animeland, so what would be the point, right? So off we go to our first vote, what nation shall we visit this game with? c) The Republic of California  From the ruins of the District of Columbia emerged a military government, one whose authority was denied by the south and west. The first reformed the Confederacy with its state rights, while the latter went on to establish the Republic of California, led by technocratic shareholders and the surviving media. Though socially liberal, the republic remains in a state of emergency, thanks to the constant threat of invasion by its neighbors. California will have to find a way to nullify these threats against its independence while finding a way back to its core values. e) Egypt  Heirs to one of the world’s most ancient civilizations, Egyptians have a long past, but possibly a very short future. The long persecution of political Islam in the nation and the sheer incompetence of the country’s military rulers have resulted in a secular revolution that left Egypt as the last surviving democracy in the Muslim world, one surrounded by enemies; communists to the west, Ottoman jingoists to the east and fundamentalists to the south. Nonetheless, control of the Suez gives Egypt wealth and diplomatic power, tools that may be leveraged to secure its position between these hostile powers. s) Spain  The Catalonian referendum opened the floodgates, and from there Spain dissipated, only the most loyal subjects still serve the Crown. The sole remaining monarch in Europe, the sovereign of Spain sees the smoldering world as her chance of imperial restoration. She will have to navigate the dangerous waters of military conquest, diplomatic annexation and the post-war United Nations in order to achieve her goals. u) Central Asian Union  The world burned, but Central Asia is no stranger such things, their world has been destroyed many times, and many times they have been the agents of this destruction. They are heirs to the Scythians, to Genghis Khan, Timur and the Soviet Union. Now that the rest of the world has been humbled, a new Khan has risen from the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Astrakhan to unify the heart of Asia and from there lead a horde of mechanized forces to terrorize the world in the tradition of his ancestors.  Voting is now open
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Mar 27, 2017 19:46
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This looks really neat. casting my vote for Central Asian Union
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Mar 27, 2017 20:04
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Ground floor baby! I'm voting for Spain. Reunify the peninsula, and perhaps more, under the guiding hand of an enlightened monarch!
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Mar 27, 2017 20:06
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Egypt that seems to be full of interesting choices, issues, and religious experiences.
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Mar 27, 2017 20:19
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The Central Asian Union shall aim to become the Eurasian Union and then more.
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Mar 27, 2017 20:55
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Consider me intrigued by the possibilities of the CAU.
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Mar 27, 2017 20:59
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Unify all the continents!
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Mar 28, 2017 00:50
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CAU is a lovely part of the world that doesn't get enough love. How about giving it?
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Mar 28, 2017 01:24
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I vote for the Egypt though that looks like a pretty hard start.
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Mar 28, 2017 02:32
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Mar 28, 2017 03:53
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California Sobre Todo!
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Mar 28, 2017 08:29
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Egypt. Let's play a Muslim democracy for a change.
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Mar 28, 2017 10:01
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Its about time things turned around for Egypt
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Mar 28, 2017 11:47
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Make the Pharaoh great again. Egypt.
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Mar 28, 2017 13:54
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Egypt
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Mar 28, 2017 15:16
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Islam is the light- let's play Egypt!
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Mar 28, 2017 15:42
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CommissarMega posted:Islam is the light- let's play Egypt! Egypt
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Mar 28, 2017 15:42
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It's time for Central Asia to have its turn again.
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Mar 28, 2017 15:59
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Oh man, this game. It's just barely close enough to Paradox that I've been playing it voraciously to fill the gaping hole in my soul left by Utopia not being out yet, and off-brand enough to make it vaguely surreal. Plus, the loading screens alone are worth the $15 or whatever I paid when it released. I love it. Anyways, you're a great writer so I'm sure this will be amazing (even if I'm mildly disappointed we're doing the 2050 scenario instead of the 2020 - I can't stand not getting in on the ground floor of the space race). Egypt
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Mar 29, 2017 20:57
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central Asian union or animeland
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Mar 30, 2017 02:15
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Crazycryodude posted:Oh man, this game. It's just barely close enough to Paradox that I've been playing it voraciously to fill the gaping hole in my soul left by Utopia not being out yet, and off-brand enough to make it vaguely surreal. Plus, the loading screens alone are worth the $15 or whatever I paid when it released. I love it. Anyways, you're a great writer so I'm sure this will be amazing (even if I'm mildly disappointed we're doing the 2050 scenario instead of the 2020 - I can't stand not getting in on the ground floor of the space race). Thanks! And yeah, that sums up my feelings about this game pretty nicely. Anyways, to Egypt we go! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC1j6H5FajA&t=1240s
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Mar 30, 2017 03:10
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CAU
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Mar 30, 2017 03:15
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Inserting my meaningless vote for California, Brannan needed redemption  Looking forward to the game.
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Mar 30, 2017 03:47
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Silicon Valley lead by the immortal God-King Elon Musk colonizing the stars WOULD be amazing, I admit.
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Mar 30, 2017 03:50
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I really do want to see California.
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Mar 30, 2017 03:56
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Ah screw it if the voting's not closed I'll switch to California on the condition that Elon Musk makes an appearance one way or another.
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Mar 30, 2017 04:01
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Aw yiss more map-games. Can't wait to see how this all goes horribly wrong.
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Mar 30, 2017 04:32
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If the vote's not closed, I wanna see California
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Mar 30, 2017 05:51
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For the record voting had closed as of shortly before my post, but clearly this just means two concurrently running lps.
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Mar 30, 2017 05:58
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sniper4625 posted:For the record voting had closed as of shortly before my post, but clearly this just means two concurrently running lps. Actually, California is still third place after Egypt and the Central Asian Union, so it's pretty far!
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Mar 30, 2017 15:27
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  Egypt it is, as you can tell from the number of stars, we are not a great power.  Our only accepted culture is Egyptian. This differs from the 2020 scenario where Egypt also has Arabic as one of its cultures. This represents the nation growing more insular or simply that the post-war nation no longer sees itself as part of the Arab world, and has developed a far different culture. Or it is an oversight by the team when building the scenario. We’ll go with the middle option. Provinces of a non-accepted culture get extra unhappiness, which is the probability of them revolting. We are also considered part of the Islamic civilization. Nations and cultures are divided by several civilization groups… Western, Latin American, African, Sinic, Orthodox, etc. Some nations, such as Caucasia and South Africa, belong to multiple civilization groups. What this means in game is that nations belonging to the same group have a bonus to relations with each other, and provinces associated with a given civilization are more likely to revolt when controlled by another. Finally, we are a democracy and we have an election coming in six months. The pointer indicates the point we are gravitating towards in the Democracy - Authoritarianism - Totalitarianism scale. Which is in turn defined by our levels of Interventionism, Personal Control and Militarism. Let’s get to them, alright?  Interventionism represents how much the state intervenes in the economy. It limits how much we can tax, reduces GDP growth when high, defines how much debt we can have and influences projects (we’ll get to them) cost. We are more likely to get economic instability events while at low interventionism as well.  Personal Control is how much the government controls people’s personal lives. Restricting internet access, imposing a state religion, et cetera. People tend to be unhappy with high levels of personal control, but this also affects the event feed we receive.  Finally, militarism is how jingoistic our nation is. High levels of militarism increases how many units we can recruit and reduces the cost for their maintenance, it also reduces our relations with other nations. Having claims on other countries increases militarism, other countries having claims on our regions also increases militarism. As you can see, we have practically no militarism, Egypt has spent generations under military rule and it led the nation into a war where it was nuked, so it is unsurprising that the Egyptians of 2050 regard the military with suspicion. All of the above are influenced by events, but are mostly determined by our active projects. They also gravitate towards a certain value, marked by an arrow, and election results will take us in that direction. It is possible to have high values of one without going through the authoritarian line, so a socialist democracy is possible, for example, but the moment you get medium levels of militarism it will flip into an authoritarian government. Likewise, you can have a democracy with high levels of militarism, such as the USA, but when you start to increase personal control along with it….  We are a democracy, with all of the above effects. Being a democracy in 2020 is pretty swell as most nations are also democratic. In 2050 not so much.  Our population is 54 million, down from the ~92 million estimated for Egypt in 2017. We have definitely been nuked, considering our pre-war population was likely larger than 2017’s value, I believe it is safe to say more than half of Egyptians died in nuclear fire and its side-effects. Population gives us more taxes and allows us to recruit more units, but also makes our projects (still getting there!) more expensive to implement and maintain. Our HDI represents life expectancy, education and per capita income of our population. This is not in the same scale as real world HDI, but suffice to say this is a really low value. HDI limits army building time and reduces the time needed to implement projects. Most importantly, it serves as a minimum value to implement more advanced projects, and also to define our economic profile. HDI is mostly determined by our projects, though events may offer temporary boosts or reductions.  And this is our unemployment. Unemployment is bad, it reduces pop growth (as people emigrate) and economic growth (because people are not working). Thankfully it is falling, and projects that increase economic growth also have a side-effect on unemployment. It is bad, but it is not at a critical value, like in some other countries where it starts closer to 20%. And I think that’s all from our government tabs. There’s also relevant stuff in the military, but we will get to that when it becomes relevant for game. Hopefully a few updates down the line because our army is just awful.  This is where our relevant resources are organized. From left to right and how much we gain of each per month under parenthesis, our score (passive gain), our money (income), our action points (our gain), GDP growth, natural resources and HDI. Score is gained by a lot of factors. The provinces we control, our bloc, the value of our stock exchange, events, et cetera et cetera. It is perfectly possible to have a high score without military conquest and, in the case of this Egypt playthrough, that’s exactly what we plan to. Money is a factor of our taxes and events, and is influenced by our population and GDP. Actions points essentially represent political capital and are used in diplomatic actions, to implement and maintain projects and events. They are also gained from events. Our AP income is derived from our population, provinces and industry profile. We already talked about GDP growth. Natural resources are gained from our provinces. They are a static value that is used for the maintenance of certain projects (like using Fossil Fuels), our armed forces and nuclear arsenal. They can also be imported or exported, as necessary. We also already talked about HDI. The number under our flag is our position in the rankings. We have a long way to climb.  The United Nations survived the war. Only the top 12 countries by GDP have the vote, the others presumed to fall in line. When we join their number we’ll be allowed to propose UN resolutions and lobby for them as well. These resolutions can range from permission to declare war against a country, partnership between certain government types and humanitarian projects like helping developing countries.  This is the global stock exchange. We don’t have a financial center, but definitely want to participate down the line, it is one of the best ways to make money and also adds to our score.  This is a list of our provinces and how much they are worth. Not much to say, really.  This is a very relevant tab, showing us the projects we have active and how much they cost. Project cost, like I said previously, is modified by the size of our population. Providing secondary schools nationwide is a lot more expensive both in terms of action points and money when you have a billion people than when you have our meager 54 million.  Finally, projects. We can have two at a time, and they are the primary means of influencing our own country.  They are divided amongst the above sections and are sort of like a tech tree. Some choices are mutually exclusive, and others can be disabled as they become too expensive to maintain, or because it is influencing our values in a way we don’t want to.  This is the economic line for example. As you can see, we don’t have much here. Our country has been nuked, not quite back to the stone age, but we can’t say it was that far from there. We have a long way to climb back up.  Of primary importance is our economic profile. We are a mostly agrarian economy, by increasing our natural resources and HDI we can develop to an industrial economy and eventually to a services economy. Each gives us a bonus to the amount of action points we receive. Let’s talk about our loving neighbors now.  To the west is the Maghreb Union, it is a superpower dominating pretty much all of the… Uh… Maghreb. They’re Islamic Socialists with designs in southern Europe. They actually look favourably upon us thanks to a “Historical Friendship” modifier. They’re an authoritarian government, however.  Which means this. Most states in the 2050 scenario are authoritarian governments that seized control after the war or benefited from it.  Arabia is ruled by fundamentalists, no way to go around that. They don’t share a land border with us, but are close enough and powerful enough be a cause for concern.  Turkey is the big threat, however. They were one of the big winners of the war, consolidating all of the Levant and parts of Iraq. Our relation with them is middling at best and they are a Totalitarian state, though moving towards being merely authoritarian in the next few years.  So yeah, they don’t have requirements to go to war. With the Maghrebs and Arabians we can just maintain relations above 35 to be secure from invasion, but if Turkey wants to invade, they will. Any of these three have several times our population and a better military, if they declare war in these first years we lose and that’s that. So we’ll try our best to maintain good relations with all three. Fortunately, there’s a war triangle between Arabia, Turkey and Iran, so hopefully they will be too busy bringing each other down to our level to take the Suez.  To our south is Sudan. It is a thawing dictatorship, so if they continue on this way and become a democracy, they might be pretty good friends. We will need a much larger army to actually invite them to form a bloc, but it is certainly doable and would improve our situation considerably. They are also the best target we have in case we decide to pursue military expansion. About blocs, nations can form blocs which serve as mutual defense pacts, but can also provide bonuses, such as pop-growth (from free movement) and economic growth (from common currency and economic partnerships). We can’t even see the bloc UI without one, and it’s not presently relevant for our situation, but it is certainly a goal we should pursue to improve our position.  And so, this is our situation. It is pretty poor. Let’s turn this around, shall we?
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Mar 30, 2017 15:30
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Hmm. If we decide to expand, which are the locations of interest? Do we have any core provinces (or whatever the equivalent is) held by foreigners? Or any nearby provinces of economic/strategic interest?
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Mar 30, 2017 17:08
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I don't think there are any cores outside of what we already have, though it's always possible to suddenly
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Mar 30, 2017 17:12
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Mechanical Ape posted:Hmm. If we decide to expand, which are the locations of interest? Do we have any core provinces (or whatever the equivalent is) held by foreigners? Or any nearby provinces of economic/strategic interest? No foreign cores, though we can fabricate them on any neighboring region. Israel is a very valuable province in terms of resources, people and score, but we are not taking on Turkey anytime soon. Maghreb's provinces bordering our own are sparsely populated, but with some natural resources, but they are also a lot stronger than we are. Sudan and Greece are vulnerable targets - and Greece is very likely to be invaded by Turkey, as they own Istanbul, however, and Sudan in particular would almost double our population if we acquired it, but I'm not sure it would be worth it to own that land directly. Same for Greece to be fair. Diplomatically, both Chad and Albania are small and close enough to accept us as Bloc Leaders, and would help us militarily in any direction. Sudan is another candidate, but would require a much stronger military than what we have right now to see us as a leader. If countries begin to fall off our neighbors as they clash between each other that could offer us opportunities, both for conquest and alliance. We also have some colonisation opportunities coming up, starting with Jupiter's moons, and I fully intend to jump on that, even if it would leave us with a pretty large debt to pay for the Egyptian Space Program.
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Mar 30, 2017 17:47
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Oh, we are going all in with the Egyptian space program. Just remember to call the Egyptian space industry the Stargate. This is going to be a fun game to watch! Can't wait to see what happens here.
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Mar 30, 2017 18:07
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Are the Antarctic and ocean colonies up and running in 2050, or will we have a crack at them as well as what's left in space?
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Mar 30, 2017 19:12
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Crazycryodude posted:Are the Antarctic and ocean colonies up and running in 2050, or will we have a crack at them as well as what's left in space? I think there is still one or two ocean colonies left, but the south Pole is occupied by Oceania and Argentina.
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Mar 30, 2017 20:40
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What a curious imagination of the world. Could you please keep tabs on Europe, I want to know if they just turn into constant warring over tiny pieces of land or if the EU comes back because why not/russia
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Mar 30, 2017 20:45
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Well, shoot, I was hoping we'd be able to unite all of Arabia under one democratic union as Egypt, but it looks like that culture thing makes that path less of a viable option. Also, does the game provide any extra background for this scenario outside of that little blurb?
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Mar 30, 2017 22:46
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