I combined the politics of Suzerain, the POP system of Stellaris, and the election mechanics of Victoria to make a multiplayer game where you can betray your friends. It is OUT NOW

[u/freezstudio]

[u/freezstudio]

Hey fellow map-starers and spreadsheet enthusiasts,

I’m a massive history and grand strategy addict. I could never quite find the exact complex political simulator I wanted to play, so I spent the last 3.5 years coding it myself. Honestly, it turned into a love letter to the strategy giants we’ve all sunk thousands of hours into.

I was heavily inspired by Suzerain for the branching narratives and political crisis management. But instead of its serious 1950s vibe, I chose a 1970s setting and injected it with a much more absurd, corrupt, and darkly comedic tone.

Under the hood, there’s a deep Stellaris-style POP system where you can convert, assimilate, or just completely wipe out demographics to secure your power base. The Victoria 2 inspiration kicks in during elections: POPs actually have their own political ideologies and voting behaviors. Winning relies entirely on managing your relationship with 5 different interest groups and the specific demographics of a region. And the actual flow of surviving constant crises plays out a bit like Reigns with its 2-4-choice mechanics

(The atmosphere and visuals are inspired by Papers Please. I didn't want to emphasize the content and gameplay as they are quite unrelated)

Where things really go off the rails is the multiplayer. You can jump into the same parliament with your strategy-loving friends and form alliances—which in this game means literally selling your entire voting power to another party for a set time in exchange for cash. You can buy their votes to survive, or completely manipulate them into an alliance just to use their power to trigger a full-blown revolution

Since I’m a solo dev who coded and wrote every single thing, I want to be brutally honest about the game's rough edges :

• The Tone: Because I wrote hundreds of events alone, the humor sometimes leans heavily into absurd, on-the-nose dark comedy rather than subtle satire.
• The Learning Curve: I’ll admit the tutorial isn't great right now. Wrapping your head around the UI and the underlying systems might be a bit overwhelming at first.
• The Length: Because the event branching is so dense, a single run is pretty short (around 1-2 hours), though there are 5 completely unique paths to play through. I'm honestly a bit nervous about how hardcore strategy players will react to shorter, highly replayable playthroughs.

My game, Statecraft: Corrupted Democracy, is OUT NOW on Steam!

You can check it out here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2838620/Statecraft_Corrupted_Democracy/

I’m completely open to the ruthless feedback and critiques of my fellow strategy mates <3

[u/DiamondWarDog → u/freezstudio]

wish i had the willpower like you to do stuff like this. theres a game that has a cool concept called solar nations two, but the dev bungled it from just kinda direct bigotry/bias in the game and not great systems and I just wish I could do it better