If you:
1. are from a former Eastern Bloc country
2. live under a socialist-oriented government
3. live in a Third World dictatorship that is still trying to revive the good old days
4. are interested in experiencing the planning hell of a socialist nation with a highly centralized economy
5. enjoy watching and learning about the progress of modernization in the Second and Third Worlds
6. enjoy creating hell or heaven (depending on your vision of life)
I can say this game is for you!
This game features a highly centralized economy and goes into great detail about urban planning under a socialist state. The concept of state-controlled culture and media is well represented through its small yet lore-rich campaigns.
You can roleplay as:
1. a socialist dictator commanding a planned economy across many different aspects of a nation, depending on what resources are available to you.
2. a socialist dictator scared of the concept of disloyalty, opting to propagate loyalty by building monuments, establishing radio and TV broadcasts, and doing your best to demolish any religious affiliation.
3. a careful planner trying to maintain a well-fed, well-kept, and healthy society as it moves towards prosperity.
4. a Third World dictator focusing on raking in oil money and keeping people in depravity so you can oppress them as easily as possible.
The game has many gameplay mechanics and gameplay loops to boast about, including:
1. Transportation via many different methods and means, ranging from ordinary buses and trams to extraordinary cable cars and air travel. You dictate access to transportation for each town and city. Taking people from point A to point B has never felt so detailed and thought-provoking.
2. Water and sewage management is not just a matter of "pumping water to people's houses and taking the waste to the river." You have to deal with realistic aspects of water management such as distribution height, slope, and pipe capacity. This makes city planning harder than you might imagine, yet when done correctly and efficiently, you start to feel rewarded.
3. You have to take a methodical approach to society. People are not random entities that rely on food and water to survive. Their needs are based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. At first, they will seek to satisfy their basic needs, which are "food, clothing, and shelter." You will be building suitable housing and food and clothing distribution systems, and that is just the beginning. People then need jobs and a way to get to them. You have to create an intricate transportation system to give them a reliable way of getting to work. After that, people also have children, from infants to teenagers, for whom you have to provide education. Therefore, you need care and education facilities to provide them with proper education, as literacy is essential for people to be able to work in the different factories and production chains that you establish during your gameplay.
4. Then comes the matter of entertainment. Entertainment is essential for the human soul, and you have to provide an ample and easily accessible number of cinemas, sports facilities, and museums to keep people entertained and their minds and bodies healthy. However, you can also take the easy way out, just like a real Soviet leader, and pump alcohol into the population, which has the effect of increasing illness and accidents. If you are playing as a dictator who is focused entirely on money, this should not be a problem for you.
5. When all needs are met, the matter of keeping people safe from incidents comes next. Hospitals and fire stations are there to provide healthcare and safety. The hospital-bed-to-population ratio is extremely important: a small hospital in a large city will not be able to operate effectively, while a large hospital in a small city will drain your finances. The same goes for fire stations. The size of the firefighter crew, the number of vehicles, and their maintenance costs all affect cost efficiency. Careful placement and planning are therefore needed to create an effective care and prevention system.
6. Crime is separated into two parts in this game. The first is ordinary crime, which police stations are there to keep at bay. The second part, however, is "Thought Crime." People have a loyalty factor, which indicates how much hardship they are willing to endure under your rule. Meeting their basic needs will only increase their loyalty to a limited extent. However, having your small ruling nation located next to a NATO border allows people to tune into Western radio and have their loyalty lowered. People with higher levels of education are also more susceptible to having their loyalty lowered. Now imagine that you have a population on which you have spent money and resources to keep healthy and happy, only for them to become disloyal and escape, causing all of that investment to be lost in a blink of an eye. The creation of a secret police organization therefore becomes a necessity. Keep them happy, but also keep them in check. We cannot have that sort of civil "disorder" in our perfect state, now can we?
7. The production of each good, whether industrial, civilian, or military, involves an extensive production chain that needs to be carefully designed and balanced in order to operate efficiently. The throughput ratio has to be carefully considered to ensure a good reinvestment profit through the sale of final goods. A broken or unbalanced production chain only wastes money and causes a net loss.
However, the game has some negative points as well:
1. The graphics have always been a controversial point about this game. The most important issue, in my opinion, is the highly realistic textures being applied to very crude 3D models. The textures demand detail, yet the models have little to offer. This can be an immersion-breaking factor in my eyes. However, the graphics have improved since the early releases and continue to improve with each update, so I am optimistic about this aspect of the game.
2. The way the game handles job-finding for people is janky. Sometimes, people choose factories and workplaces that are located at far-off distances and are meant to be filled by other groups of people that you have already designated for those workplaces. These distant workers will fill up train and bus stations or drive their cars long distances to get to their workplaces. On the other hand, Work/Rest hours dictate how many hours a person may spend at a workplace. Transportation to and from a workplace also counts toward these Work/Rest hours, causing people to spend excessive amounts of time traveling without reaching their job locations or homes.
3. Character portraits in the game UI are made using AI. Although they are not very important to the game and are easy to ignore or turn a blind eye to, they still represent the use of AI. The audience of this game may have varying opinions on AI usage, but to me, it is a negative point, although a very minor one.
4. The background music has a very small playlist and sometimes becomes loud and distracting. The repetition in the music can become like sandpaper on the eardrums. To me, the biggest deterrent to this game is its small music playlist. I tend to mitigate this by having my own selection of Soviet-era music playing in the background and muting the game's music. However, this point is also being addressed, as I have witnessed additional background music being added to the game. Also, we really cannot expect too much from a small studio or producer. The existing selection is already fitting; however, as I said, it gets repetitive. In my opinion, this could be fixed by adding intervals of silence.
And so, in my opinion, give it a try. You won't regret your decision to purchase this game.
