Everyone has dreamed about running their own country, but very few of us will ever experience being in charge of millions of people. Democracy 3 tries to change that by letting you run your own country, virtually, of course.
Democracy 3 was developed by Positech Games, which is run by former employee of Lionhead Games named Cliff Harris. The game starts with you choosing which country you want to be in charge of. You have a choice from a handful countries like the United States, Germany, England, and other big countries. With Steam Workshop integration, you can easily add new countries if the one you want to be in charge of is not present in the game.
Like real life, your goal in Democracy 3 is to stay in office by pleasing your constituents. There are many groups of voters that you will need to please to be voted into office again once your term is up. These range from the youth to the elderly, parents, liberal to conservative, wealthy to the poor, and many other voting groups. So how do you make these groups happy? By enacting policies and watching your spending.
You can enact new policies that will have certain outcomes on situations. All of the situations and policies are connected somehow. So lets say you decrease the funding for your police force. This causes crime to rise, and will enact the vigilante mob situation, leading to more crime and lawlessness in your country.
It is pretty impressive to see how many situations and policies are connected to each other. You will see a turn in events depending on the actions you perform in each turn. A turn in the game is equal to three months, and the game counts down to the next election.
But do not think running a country is easy. Democracy 3 is a very challenging simulation game. You’ll spend a lot of time interacting with sliders to change policies, and looking at numbers. Lots and lots of numbers. When you first start the game, it can feel really daunting. But the game features a good tutorial that explains a lot of the game mechanics to you and makes the game feel a little more accessible.
Like any president you’ll have a cabinet that helps you enact policies. The time it takes to enact new policies and enact changes to existing policies depends on the skill on the member in charge of that area of your government.
I was really impressed with the amount of policies that you have access to in the game. If it is an issue that is dealt with in real life, you will be able to find it in Democracy 3. Being a huge fan of space, one of the first things that I did was invest more money into the space program. This affect lead to better better education in my country, but it decreased the opinion conservatives had of me as president.
It is really easy for your approval rating to soar or fall. I went from a 53% approval rating to a 19% approval rating in one turn as the debt in the country was greater than our revenue for the first time. At the end of the day, it was good that Democracy 3 is only a computer simulation as I’m pretty sure I ran my country into the ground.
In addition to the base game, I also had access to the first DLC pack for Democracy 3, called “Social Engineering.” The DLC adds new scenarios and policies for the player to use in their country. As someone who didn’t play Democracy 3 before the DLC pack, I didn’t notice any of the new policies; I thought they were part of the base game. It is pretty nice how easily all the new policies and situations fit into the game.
Like the name suggests, the DLC focuses on a lot of social issues, like alcohol awareness campaigns, stamp out racism week, cycling campaign, and others to help benefit the citizens of your country.
I highly recommend Democracy 3 for any fans of simulation games. Those that do not have experience with hardcore simulation games may want to stay away as the experience can seem daunting. But for those that have wanted a realistic-like experience of running a country, you cannot go wrong with Democracy 3.
Score: 8/10
Democracy 3 was developed and published by Positech Games for PC, Mac, and Linux on October 14th. A copy of the game was provided to us by Positech Games for reviewing purposes.
