Realpolitiks II

General idea of this game is brilliant. You are presented with current geopolitical situation and take control of a existing country. You need to deal with its parliament, army, research, economy, etc. But, as of version 1.08, it is plagued with many bugs. For example in-game music stops playing after you play for some time, and you have to listen to the soundtrack files included in more expensive Deluxe Edition (wav and mp3), if you wan to have full game experience. List of major bugs (there are more smaller ones) that I found is located here https://www.gog.com/forum/realpolitiks/realpolitiks_ii_bugs_no_sound_in_intro_background_music_stops_playing_time_is_not_advancing_scro Nevertheless, I was able to finish campaigns that I started, and the game was quite enjoyable. It was able to cause One More Turn Syndrome. World map is accurate, you can find Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics there. During the game Russia likes to invade Ukraine with its army. Loading screen presents you with quotes from various leaders, dictators and thinkers that fit perfectly with the game. The rules of the game are however not terribly realistic. At the start of the main campaign, there are no alliances between countries (or maybe its is ultra-realistic, and it reflecting the truth of worthlessness of international agreements, for example Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal to Russia in exchange for Russia refraining from using force against Ukraine, look how it turned up). As your country expands its economy and territory, costs of buildings and projects can skyrocket, which means that developing space technologies required to achieve science victory can cost almost infinite amount of resources when you play a powerful country (because rocket able to put 100 tons into LEO build by Monaco requires 2000 tons of propellant and the one build by China requires 6000000 tons, right?). I hope that in Realpolitiks III we will get something better and more adequately representing reality.

I would give 2,5 Stars, cause this game definitively has potential. Unfortunatelly it does not deliver on that. In short: All you have to do is crunching your numbers up. Action Points are completely off-balanced, you will literally run out of time before you run out of Action Points. After a while (or by powergaming some mechanics) Money will come to you easily too. There are no setbacks or independencies, where you have to decide, what to prioritize: AP, Money, Natural Resources. Diplomacy might look fun, but even for local powers war brings you way faster to your goals, especially the resource-heavy ones. Once you realize, how this game works, all you do is pushing your numbers up through projects and buildings. The Events are merely a funny distraction without any impact. Even though a lot of this game is explained in tool-tips, some things just leave you wondering. For example, I stopped playing, cause my parliament would not allow one project I need to get to my goal, even though they were lobbied (you just buy them, basically, for a short amount of time). There was no explanation why this specific project was not possible. All other projects, I needed to lobby for, were accepted without problems. It seems, that this game was rushed and put together without much thought about what players can be offered. It tries to be a combination of Diplomacy and the combat system of Europa Universalis/Hearts of Iron, while lacking massively in both parts.

After two hours of playing tutorial game time froze which stopped by from progressing. Quicks Internet search revealed that this is common bug. Even saving and loading game would not help because loading does not work. Another problem I have with this game is that I was still in tutorial after two hours of playing. That is bit too heavy. I felt really bored and tired without end in sight.

So good but it feels buggy despite playing on a brand new Macbook Pro. The game has a lot of similarity to EU4, except in modern time. I do wish it was polished more. Great game otherwise.