[athcnv]

I played this game a LOT, then decided that I hated it!

The game progresses either
1: When an event occurs and you must react to it.
2: When you decide to enact policy.

In the first case, someone speaks to you, and you decide to either do as the person says, or do what your Minister in that area suggests. If you haven't appointed one, you have no option but to AGREE to what the person suggests. You are unable to suggest alternatives YOURSELF (like doing the complete opposite to what is being suggested, which I find extremely limiting).

In the second, you ask a minister about a policy area and they give an opinion and a suggestion. You can agree or disagree, OR call a meeting with your other ministers (who might have a different political leaning - left, right, centre), and take their suggestion instead.


I would have also liked a slider, or a place where I could set budget percentages. Instead of just increasing education spending by increasing the %, you have to meet with someone who wants you to increase education spending, and then agree with their proposal....

In the game, for example, I would have liked to import food and conduct land redistribution to small size food and export crop farmers, in response to the food price hike (one of the first problems you come across). Unfortunately, only left wingers will allow you to import food, and only the middle-road party will land redistribute to the smaller farmers.

Also, with regards to your newly-merged military, the right wing colonel keeps starting events where he keeps trying to arrest the left wing subcommandante. With a left wing defense minister, the advice is to let the subcommandante arrest the colonel, which starts an insurgency. With a right wing defense minister, the advice is to let the colonel arrest the subcommandante, which also results in an insurgency.

If I remember correctly, if you reject the advice and avoid the insurgency, you then run into problems with the death squads. Failing to do anything significant about the right wing "limpia" group results in the widow and the trade union leader getting murdered. (by significant I mean that you can order the arrest of the death squads and their leader, but the courts won't find them guilty - unless you specifically tell the courts to investigate properly).

However, doing that causes the colonel to immediately meet you and demand that the charges get dropped - which you can only refuse to do if you have a left wing defense minister (as the middle and right wingers advise you to not proceed), which results in a right wing insurgency....

I understand that democracy results in lots of people having opposing views, but Government is supposed to mean that someone decides which is overall more important, and then taking that decision - not blindly following what anyone suggests (like in this game!).

(also, I found Shadow President hard for much the same reasons).
(sigh - I found Tropico much easier to play)