Taking tourism as an example, we can see that a high sales tax, terrifying levels of violent crime and border controls that would shame Arstotzka are all putting a dent in the potential earnings from visitors to my increasingly Orwellian Britain. It’s the kind of insight that even the Challenger 2 of thinktanks would fail to provide. Hover the cursor over any policy decision, population segment or funding slider, and lines appear showing which other aspects of the system will be impacted. The mathematical models that drive the consequences of every decision, major or minor, are transparent. Or perhaps it pulls the wool over my eyes constantly but is incredibly good at concealing the fact of its fictions. #Democracy 3 police state full#Admittedly, I can fail, fall short when the election rolls around, vacating my place on the chopping block and leaving some other poor bastard stricken and splayed, dangling like a piñata in full view, pummelled by polls and impossible choices.ĭemocracy 3 never lies to the player, which is extraordinary considering its themes. I, the Prime Minister, am a fly, caught on sticky strands that I can tug one way or the other, but can never escape. Over the last few days, as I’ve tinkered with Positech’s latest government sim, the sense that those nodes – and the situation they represent – were acting as a trap became embedded in my brain. Idealism dies young in Democracy 3’s high-pressured simulation, where every choice makes somebody unhappy and the main screen, a political petri dish of interlinked nodes, soon comes to resemble a nefarious web. Budget cuts loomed and I swiftly found myself between the rock of populist appeal and the hard place of economic necessities. The plan was working and the people (most of them some of them) were happy, but the expense of funding the future threatened to punish the present. I’m trying to steer the country away from economic disaster, having spent my first year in office encouraging higher standards of science education, attempting to prevent the British from becoming the brainless backwater of the 21st Century. Two days in, I'd have chopped off my own hand for a few more votes. A couple of hours later, I realised I didn't know what the right thing was anymore. When I began playing, I was determined to do the right thing. I wouldn’t say I’m quite at the point where I sympathise with the many blood-sucking insects that make up the UK’s political scene, but I worry that I’m starting to think like one of them. Damn you, Democracy 3, and damn you Cliffski.
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