14 DAY TRIAL // In my two terms as President of the United States of America, representing the Futurist Party, I managed to make a dent in the deficit, improve public health, deal with the obesity problem and massively invest in space exploration. During the same eight years, I have survived three assassination attempts from two different extremist groups, promised and failed to slash poverty by 25%, and failed to deal with a host of extreme environmental issues.
Turns out that efficiently running a country is really hard. Making sure that you get re-elected without making the lives of citizens clearly worse is even harder. Democracy 4 is so detailed that it can almost make someone feel sorry for the politicians who fight so hard to become presidents or prime-ministers in the real world.
The structure of the game does not stray far from that of previous installments. Each turn the player gets political points he can use to introduce new measures, tweak existing ones, raise or lower taxes, and more, all in the name of making the body politic better. Societal aspects ranging from term limits to the safety regulations for food can also be modified. There are also ministers to hire and fire.
Once a trimester passes players get a report on Gross Domestic Product, pressing crises, and a dilemma or news piece reflecting the mood of the citizens. It’s a snapshot of the situation and a way to point towards the most important problems that need to be dealt with.
Democracy 4 never delivers a simple choice. Do you try to balance the budget or do you subsidize a lot of social programs? Do you boost overall productivity or focus on just a few high-tech industries? Can you use tariffs to fund a new green economic structure? These are just a few of the big decisions, many including smaller choices, that a player has to deal with.
At the same time, gamers need to put thought into getting re-elected, which involves adopting popular measures, choosing which are the most important voting blocs, and, closer to the time of the polls, making promises and giving speeches to boost party popularity.
The game might initially seem too complex but it only takes a few games, preferably played using a country that you have some real-world familiarity with, to understand how each element influences the others. Positech has created a great interface and it’s a pleasure to simply hover over an element of society to see how it affects and is affected by everything else.
Conclusion
In a world where most people ignore politicians or outright Democracy 4 manages to show how hard it is to manage a country well. Those who play it will learn a lot and might become better citizens as they understand more about the systems that underpin real world democracy.
