In the old days, I used to send press releases to news websites etc…and maybe I’ll still do that once I’m testing this and have some screenshots to show. Not that screenshots of Democracy 4 are exactly a visual feast that makes people’s jaws drop as they gasp at the photorealism…but there ya go.
There is to be another expansion pack for my latest game Democracy 4. It will be a straight data-only expansion, which will add six new countries to the game. Those countries are:
- Greece
- Ireland
- Poland
- Turkey
- Switzerland
- Brazil
I think this represents a pretty good mixture. Greece and Ireland are fairly similar to some of the other countries in the game, but we have a fair bunch of players in those countries and people like to play their home country. Plus Ireland is a bit interesting because it is basically an economic disaster due to geography, which is able to work mostly because it has ludicrously good rates for companies to base their HQ there for tax purposes. Its basically the largest respectable country that serves as a tax haven.
Brazil is obviously interesting because of its size, and its rainforest, and its status as a relatively poor country with relation to the existing game countries. Switzerland has its own unique properties, such as being super mountainous, fanatically neutral in diplomatic terms, and its hyper-democratized system of voting. Its also famous for nuclear shelters everywhere and a high level of gun ownership, but low gun crime.
Turkey is a fascinating country, as it sits between two continents and has influences from both. There are obviously some unusual positions regarding democracy and religion there, that are not really explored in the existing countries.
Poland is also interesting, sitting between western Europe and Russia, one of the last green countries in terms of energy use, and a country very nervous (with good reason) about its borders.
Its going to be hard to really capture the flavor of all these different countries, and I expect at least one major post-release revision as I collate feedback from players. It should be interesting though, and hopefully widen the appeal of the game a bit.
I don’t have a final release date yet, or pricing, but here is the status of the current todo list:
- Initial statistics for each country 100% DONE
- Country descriptions 100% DONE
- Map icon and flag icons 100% DONE
- Initial policy positions: 55% DONE
- Extra dilemmas TODO
- Extra Events TODO
- Extra Situations TODO
- Country specific simulation overrides TODO
- Translation of all text into all languages TODO
- Testing TODO
…so still lots to do…
In unrelated news, I got covid, and omg it was horrible. I basically suffered badly for a week, but am feeling much better. I have also been avoiding social media, which I increasingly view as a mistake, a dumpster fire which anybody who values their sanity should run screaming from. I might use it in future only as a way of linking to my blog.
In even less related news, I finally moved positech’s entire online presence away from a dedicated physical server (a hangover from days long gone when I had a lot of direct traffic, and hosted forums on the server, as well as a site dedicated to indiegames), and to a simple VPS. Like any hosting company, I was recommended a server package that was stupidly overspecced for my needs, but politely declined that. As a result I managed to cut my hosting bill by more than 50% which is very welcome.
There is still the ongoing saga of the solar farm BTW. Its not abandoned, we are still hoping to get it done, but its going to be at least another 3 months of bureaucracy (don’t get me started on this…) plus a likely extra year of waiting for a grid connection even if we get it. If there is ever anything to report, I’ll blog about it…