kentris

its kentris

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                                    "Dragonball Z"
                                                ---Row

I've been a big fan of Political Simulation games for a long time. I really like them, but there's not that many of them. I think this is probably because it's actually very hard to make a game that simulates politics. It seems like they're a kind of game that really demands a lot in terms of coherent writing and worldview for them to really work well.

New Campaign Trail is a browser game that I think started as an educational game about historical US elections, but it's been expanded a lot by people who figured out to mod it. There's all kinds of stuff in there, even a scenario where you play as Saul Goodman.

Today I've been playing a brand new scenario where you play as Gus Hall (of the Communist Party USA) running for President of the United States. It caught my eye because one of its writers is someone whose political sim writing I actually really like. He's someone who used to GM 'Nation Sim' games on Something Awful (I think he was the best GM of those kind of games, hands down) and now he works on the The New Order mod for Hearts of Iron IV. I don't really know anyone who's a bigger nerd for 1960s American politics than him.

I really liked playing this scenario. You can play it yourself by going to this link, then clicking the Mod Loader button in the bottom right, clicking the fucked-up looking '1972d', then hitting Submit.


The core theme of the module is how Gus, an old-school Marxist-Leninist, needs to ally with the New Left (Black Panthers, Anti-Vietnam protestors, etc.) if he wants to achieve any form of success in 1972 America. How to handle balance between the New left and Old Left (aging communists like yourself) is something you have to consider from the very start, when you choose your running mate. Do you want to try to coalition with the Black Panthers? Or would it better to focus on Vietnam? Is it better to choose someone who could help you deal with the media, like Jane Fonda, or would you rather have a veteran organizer?

I think it's a familiar theme if you've been in a lot of modern leftist spaces. What does a modern leftist movement look like? How important is it to have avowed communists who talk about labor and revolution, versus having activists talking about issues like race and sex? Should you let your rhetoric be extreme and maximalist, or is it better to try to sound reasonable to an average american?

I really liked trying to grapple with these questions in the context of the mod. I was also surprised with how... surprisingly grounded the mod is? Like, obviously a game where you play as Gus Hall and can end up successful indulges in some degree of fantasy. But rather than be the kind of game where you can get the Communist Party to actually win the presidency, (like The New Order) this is instead a game where "success" instead looks more like "Holy Shit that Communist guy actually got some electoral votes."

It's definitely work checking out.


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