Realpolitiks 3: Earth and Beyond

The portrait system is one of the weakest aspects of the game and severely damages immersion. Even when selecting an Asian country, most politicians and ministers use Latin/European-looking portraits. This breaks regional consistency and makes the simulation feel careless. A geopolitical simulator should clearly separate portrait pools by region — Asian countries should have Asian leaders, not reused global assets. On top of that, many portraits do not resemble educated political elites or national leaders. They lack professionalism, authority, and realism, which feels inappropriate for characters managing national budgets, diplomacy, or security. While the underlying political and economic systems are complex and interesting, the poor portrait direction constantly pulls the player out of the experience. Improving regional diversity and visual credibility would greatly enhance immersion and overall quality. Serious Immersion-Breaking Issue: Asian & Monarchical Leaders Are Visually Disrespected This is the first geopolitical game where I felt compelled to leave a negative review solely because of character portraits — and that alone says a lot. I started the game by selecting an Asian nation with a formal, well-dressed leader in a proper suit. Everything looked appropriate and believable. However, the moment leadership changed, the game suddenly replaced my head of state and ministers with completely random portraits that look utterly incompatible with an Asian monarchy or a modern Asian government. Unkempt hair, messy beards, casual or bizarre clothing, sunglasses, visible tattoos, Hawaiian shirts, tight sci-fi outfits — some characters genuinely look like street criminals, smugglers, or illegal migrants who somehow wandered into a royal palace. Seeing such characters portrayed as kings, prime ministers, or ministers is absurd and completely breaks immersion. This is not about race. This is about role and cultural consistency. In real Asian monarchies and governments, leaders are expected to present themselves with discipline, formality, and institutional dignity. Royal figures and high-ranking officials do not appear disheveled, casually dressed, or styled like underground gang members. Appearance is not cosmetic — it is part of legitimacy. When I see a so-called “king” who looks like a drug dealer with messy hair and inappropriate clothing, it feels less like governance and more like the throne has been seized by criminals. It undermines the seriousness of the entire political simulation. For a game that prides itself on deep geopolitical systems, this visual design is a major failure: - Leader portraits are not region-locked. - Asian countries are staffed with Latin-looking characters that do not match the selected culture. - Monarchies are treated visually no differently from random NPC factions. - There is no distinction between formal state leadership and rebel or revolutionary aesthetics. This is not a minor cosmetic issue. Leaders and ministers are the face of the state. When they look ridiculous, the country looks ridiculous — no matter how advanced the economy or technology is. Until the developers implement: - Proper regional portrait pools (Asia should look Asian), - Formal attire for monarchs and ministers, - Clear separation between official leaders and rebel-style characters, the game fails to deliver believable political immersion. A geopolitical simulator should respect the visual authority of power. Right now, it does not. One critical design mistake completely breaks immersion in Realpolitiks 3. The game places the monarch under a political party, and when the ruling party changes, the king is replaced as well. This makes absolutely no sense. In real-world political systems, a monarch is the Head of State, not a party politician. Governments and prime ministers change — the monarch does not, unless they die, abdicate, or there is a real revolution. The game even states at the start that “the monarch has no term limit and is replaced only upon death”, yet during normal elections, simply changing the ruling party can magically replace the king with a completely new character — sometimes looking like a criminal, warlord, or drug lord. At that moment, it feels less like political simulation and more like the country has been robbed. This is not a balance issue. This is not a minor bug. This is a conceptual error in the core political model. Monarch ≠ political party leader. Changing a party should change the Head of Government, not erase the Head of State. Until the game separates: - Head of State (monarch, persistent) - Head of Government (party-based, replaceable) any attempt at role-play, realism, or historical continuity is fundamentally broken. Realpolitiks 3 wants to simulate modern geopolitics, but this design choice undermines its own premise. A king should not disappear because an election happened — and certainly not be replaced by what looks like a random crime boss. In a monarchy, the king is not a political competitor. He exists above party politics, not inside it. Assigning a political party affiliation to a monarch fundamentally misunderstands how monarchies work. Political parties compete for control of the government; a king represents the state itself. When a game treats the monarch as a party-aligned actor who changes with election results, it collapses the distinction between state, government, and party. This is not a matter of realism versus gameplay. It is a basic conceptual error. A monarch should never be implicitly enrolled into a political party, because doing so turns the crown into just another political tool instead of a neutral institution above electoral competition. This game feels like it was designed by people who woke up one morning and said, “Let’s make a country management game,” without understanding even the most basic principles of political science. Permanent state institutions are treated as if they were party assets, elections replace monarchs, and political parties somehow own the state itself. This is not abstraction or simplification — it is a fundamental misunderstanding of how a state functions.

Alma.

I was looking for a replacement game for Civ 6 because I did not like the looks of Civ 7 and the concepts behind this game looked very interesting. The game had a lot of potential but the execution of the game is very complex with only the most basic explanations of the concepts. The developers seems to think that just telling the user what concepts are will tell the user how to play the game. For simple games that would be enough but this is an extremely complex game and that is not enough. It is like telling the player that gold is used to buy things with no suggestions on how to get or spend the gold. Since it appears that the developers have abandoned the game I would strongly suggest that no one waste any money on purchasing this game. Once again I loved the idea behind the game but am disappointed in the execution of the development of the game.

I love Puerto Rico but including them as a full fledged country and not Palestine is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane. Also doesn't run on a $1200 laptop from 2025.

TL;DR: I will probably continue to play it, but the game is a serious frustration fest. It feels unfinished. The discord server is basically abandoned so don't expect to find help for workarounds or understanding. I kind of wish I could get a refund, but 20 hours in is basically a no go for refunds. Like others, I *highly* recommend against buying this. I suggest Terra Invicta, which has some similar feel to this, if you don't mind an alien invasion. I've read that Rebel Inc may also have similar feel. Try those. DO NOT BUY. Examples.... Massively opaque mechanics: -- Had a situation where many nations were leaving NATO. No explanation as to why. I could re-invite them, but they'd just leave again. Same thing happened with my economic treaty too. Give me info! -- It took me a while to figure out why I was losing money and AP, though I did eventually find it. -- Unrest and pollution factors are not 1:1 with the values you are given. When it says a province will gain 0.5 pollution, this does not add 0.5 pollution score to the territory. It may add 4 or even more. I never really isolated it. Same applies to unrest values. -- Unrest didn't really impact my country at all. Had over 50 unrest in several provinces at some point but no issues at all? Other games would have this causing revolts or riots. What does unrest even do? Weird mechanics: -- If you lose an officer, you lose all of the troops under their command. -- If you want to adjust the troops under their command, you have to delete *all* units of a type to make space. e.g. If you want to upgrade infantry to infantry II, you delete all of your infantry in a unit, then slowly build new infantry II units to fill the gap. Or, if like me, you built 20 infantry to fill a general's army, and now you want something else... you delete all 20 infantry despite only wanting 4 spaces for artillery. -- Political stability drops periodically with no explanation as to why -- The number of buildings available in a province is tied to GDP, but is somehow based on land area also. Smaller areas aren't expected to have higher GDP, so can have many more buildings than a larger area with a much higher GDP. Examples: Arkansas starts with 1 building slot and only 1 until it's GDP increases above about 150k. Guantanamo can have many buildings, despite having only 300-ish GDP. I already have 4 slots, and can build a 5th because it's GDP is higher than 100. -- You can't move troops to Guantanamo...? -- Countries decide whether to make a treaty with you based on a random die rolls, not their opinion of you. Opinion only decides whether you can make the offer in the first place. There are also very few ways to improve any of these die rolls. The 30% chance on some treaties is really annoying and frustrating. There are many other issues. Too many to list.

Buggy as ****, Convoluted yet simplified, I have never seen UX this bad and i've seen plenty. I gave it a shot but not worth the few bucks i gave it on sale. Only good reason i could recommend this game is to make you appreciate other games a whole lot more.

无语，刚开始玩中国就看到军国主义，人身控制，干涉主义都是100（总共就100点），什么玩意.属于西方人自己的全安到我们身上了。纯纯的西方人的偏见。制作组应该立刻必须改正。

The idea and concept of this game are great: Choose any nation and see if you can evolve to become a superpower exactly the way you see fit. The reality of the game however is that it really feels early access beta, and it's been in this state like forever. It lacks coherence, you can NOT choose exactly how you want to run your country as some choices exclude other or have undesirable effects. Leader artwork is generic and doesn't match the countries cultures. Migration options are a mess. It's downright impossible to unlock the entire techtree as the resource costs of being fully developed are too impactful. Game runs extremely laggy in late game, even on high end machines and diplomacy feels void. This game needs a lot of attention, with some deep rework and polishing before it'll be as good as it pretends to be

I was not particularly pleased with the game, the graphics were tightened, and the gameplay itself was complicated so much that at least after installing the game, I have to figure out what, where and where. I played for a few hours and deleted it. Left it purely for the collection.

可恶，发了会儿呆，超过了两小时，不能退款了，这个垃圾游戏简直浪费钱！操作极其复杂，画面粗糙，不好玩！