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Democracy 3 video shows ministers get “bitter and cynical over time” and that terrorists are bad people

Democracy 3 PC positech

Democracy 3 is out now; here’s our Democracy 3 review.

As ministers age they become embittered, cynical, feet-dragging folk who, while able to wield clout and effect change, don’t do it with a smile on their lips, at least, so suggests Cliff Harris in his Democracy 3 dev blog. He has introduced a system which sees ministers in the game become more politically savvy as they age, leaning to grease the wheels of the state’s systems but they won’t go about it with as much zest as the young whippersnappers.

In the latest dev blog for the political simulation game developer Cliff ‘Cliffski’ Harris explores some of the systems underpinning the play of Democracy 3. In particular how the members of your cabinet will influence the effectiveness of your government.

The video’s main takeaway is the machiavellian power you’ll command in the game, Mainly the point were Cliffski talks off giving tax breaks and government grants to the groups you want to influence, helping to raise parents out of poverty so you can get family voters to stop caring about low-income earners. My dark heart beats a little faster at the prospect.

With each dev blog released by Cliffski I’m getting more interested in Democracy 3. It seems to be aiming to capture a scale and depth of a nation’s political system that too few other games attempt. Generally when a political simulation appears in a game it’s in something like Crusader Kings or SimCity and the focus is on fiscal demands like taxation and economic growth. Democracy 3 seems to be aiming for a more all-encompassing vision, one that draws on ideology, ecology, economics, religion, ethics, and, well, a whole lot more.

Whether it can pull it off is obviously going to be impossible to tell till its release but you should check out the first dev video to see how Cliffski is tackling the effect of a single nation being influenced by a local continent caught in a financial crisis, it’s fascinating.