Hello together,
sorry I’m new in this forum and I play this game since end of January 2013…
I’m looking for a manual or a guide for this fantastic game.
Anybody can give me links or hints?
Best regards…
Ok, I recognize that it’s better to learn this game directly.
Meanwhile I’ve learned a lot…it’s amazing.
Especially the option to mod more or less anything it’s great.
I’m also a new player. I’m still fighting to win Gregaria and Zambeezia.
I managed to win the other countries after quite some trial and error - you really need to know the game inside out to be able to win.
Once you are on the right track (which often means winning the first election) it’s not very probable that you lose later in that game.
(Although I admit I got myself killed by extremists even after the first election sometimes; and I was pretty close to losing because of debt another time - but didn’t lose…)
The richest I got in Koana (I think 2,700 Bn reserves) and in the USA (some 2,200 Bn reserves I think), whereas in some other countrys I still had debt when I won the last election.
In the USA game I finally had also a lot of political capital (- I think 75… - you can’t save more than 3 times your current political capital per turn… - once I had 28 I think… - but before I could triple that, it was back to 25).
For changes in policies political cost is the same, wether you move the slider just a bit or max it out (- and sometimes cancelling something is as cheap) so I usually max out the sliders from the beginning - at least in the Law&Order, the Transport, the Welfare and the Public Services department. Where you want to be careful with the slider is where it hurts GDP (- which is almost exclusively the case in the Tax department), and where you can spend lots of money (Space programme, Military, Healthcare). When you do something which produces a lot of inequality (like Tax shelters), you want to offset that by policies which produce a lot of equality. The same is true for productivity (- small corridor before getting “Wasteful economy”).
The way I play I often win the game with 0% Religious, 0% Motorists, and sometimes even 0% Liberals.
Spoilers:
What I adress first (blue symbols), with which policies (black symbols) to what effect (make red symbols vanish and green symbols appear):
- Literacy is best adressed with: state schools, university grants, science funding, technology colleges, adult education subsidies; the effect: technology backwater vanishes, technological advance appears (- will take time).
- Poverty is best adressed with: state schools, state housing, free school meals; cancel alcohol tax and tobacco tax!
- Crime and Violent Crime are best adressed with: Intelligence Services, Community Policing, Youth club subsidies and more police of course. There are lots of red symbols in the law&order part: to make organised crime vanish you will have to minimize gambling. The other red symbols are enough connected to crime / violent crime / poverty / unemployment etc. that they will vanish as a side effect of lowering these. Later in the game when you have enough political capital there is a large pool of law&order policies you can implement.
- Unemployment is best adressed with: rural development grants, state schools, technology grants
- GDP is a bit tricky to adress: rural development grants and science funding (after 32 rounds!) do a good job; technological advantage (green) and high productivity (green) will be adding a good amount when they appear. stem cell research and legalised prostitution are also adding to GDP. For GDP International Trade is also adding a significant amount, which depends on foreign relations, which you use foreign aid for to adress - plus some events (UN-Ambassador, Safeguard Oil supplies etc.).
- productivity (to achieve “high productivity”) is best adressed through childcare provision, technology grants, adult education subsidies, (not to forget a strict alcohol law and a strict smoking law). - and is negatively affected by maternity leave(!)
- Air quality is adressed by pollution controls, car emission limits, rail subsidies, recycling. And indirectly by low car usage. and to a lesser extent by low air travel.
Since hospital overcrowding only affects parents and retired and is expensive to fix (via state health service) I usually ignore it until I can afford it, or I can afford to offset the effects on parents and retired - which is easier, because lots of things are good for parents, that are also good for other things: telecommuting initiative, childcare provision, youth club subsidies, subsidised school buses, (and free school meals producing more parents and air quality finally killing asthma epidemic off is also good for parents).
What’s left to do? Get elected!
As shown in the things above you already do a lot for state employees, poor, socialist, parents, and to some extent for commuters, environmentalist and farmers.
Conservatives can be “bought” if you have enough political capital with some new policies in the law&order departement: CCTV cameras, gated communities, or simply more police; even better is introducing national service as a foreign relations policy.
For convincing patriots start with border controls and citizenship tests in the foreign policy department, and make sure your military funding is enough to produce a" little green sliver" of “patriot”-sentiment (- or at least not a “red” one).
My last advice would be: use policies with long lead-effects early (state schools (+20), science funding (+7), technology colleges (+9)) and in general try to use cheap policies after that: your ministers will thank you for lots of policies by giving good amounts of political capital.
Here are my favourite “cheap” policies: community policing (+1), telecommuting intiative (+2), wellfare fraud department (+4), Youth Club subsidies (+8).
There are even policies with purely(!) positive effects: Legal Aid (+11), Micro generation grants (+1), free school meals (+9).
My standard start would be something like this:
- state schools, community policing
- science funding, childcare provision
- university grants, intelligence services
- free school meals, state housing
- youth club subsidies, telecommuting initiative, technology colleges
I probably haven’t done it that exact way… - but it’s important to offset things (intelligence services comes 2 turns before technology colleges or technology grants, so that you don’t get “internet crime”; or you do childcare provision + adult education subsidies + technology grants before you introduce/maximise maternity leave, so you don’t get “wasteful economy” etc.)
That’s it for now.
Nice hints, I’ll test this next time.