Supreme Ruler 2020 Gold

[Edited first two paragraphs for clarification.] I will not write a complete review, there are enough of those here. I will not rant, either. I have played the game and I like the concept; the complexity, micro-managing and pace are fine by me (except you either get declared war on by everybody immediately or nothing happens at all). When I started playing it, I had fun. However, I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this game for a very simple reason: It's incomplete and has several hefty issues with elements that are vital to the gameplay (AI and performance), and thus borders on a scam; at the very least, it reflects poorly on BattleGoat's business ethics. This game (main game and addon) was supposed to receive additional attention after release, adding several more features (including a fallout/radioactivity and an environmental impact system). The game did indeed receive several content updates and additional features but, sadly, BattleGoat abandoned the game before the addition and/or revision of several critical features, leaving the game with a stupid AI, pretty damn buggy and, worst of all, content incomplete (which shows - there are buildings, designs, research that are completely pointless because the corresponding parts of the game were never implemented). I therefore recommend that you avoid this game (and other games from BattleGoat) at all cost. This game is basically a polished Alpha and if the devs couldn't be bothered to finish this game, even after people already bought it, they are not worth your attention. Business practices like that should not be condoned or supported, so think twice before you buy from them - There may very well be a better, finished game out there. [b]EDIT: Since one of the devs commented on this 'review' (and my full response doesn't fit in a single comment), I will add his statement and my response to it to the 'review' itself.[/b] chrisahl [developer] wrote: [i]"Many statements in this review are completely false. The game received multiple updates for approximately 18 months after release of the core game including the life cycle of the expansion pack. The game is no buggy, it is one of the most stable titles on the market. I'll hold it up to anything else out there. Features such as radioactive fallout where never promised and many never promised features were added. The content was also completed with multiple campaigns and scenarios. The tech tree is complete containing hundreds of technologies to research. Unit designs are all buildable and as usable as their specs warrant."[/i] I don't know what game you're talking about, Chris, but it's not this game. I played it a lot more than my record says, and there are few games that have crashed so often on me as this one (which is why I eventually stopped playing when you guys announced that you were moving on - it got to the point where it was simply not enjoyable because the game became more unstable [and lost a lot of performance] as the world progressed and units were built). And that happened pretty much in every session because, of course, you need an army to get stuff done. For what it sets out to do, the game is not nearly optimized enough - and that's not great but we can chalk that up to a lack of experience if we want to be nice about it. That, however, does not apply to the crashes. Those are bugs (unless you want to call it a feature?) and gamebreaking bugs that are left in the game at the end of its lifecycle (which is technically not over since Steam allows you to still make some sales) are not exactly a sign of good business ethics. As for fallout and environment: You can say they weren't "promised", great. And I realize that I implied that you didn't add anything to the game (which I have rectified), which is unfair. But it still doesn't reflect positively on the development team when they obviously intended to implement it, put in some elements (and adjusted tooltips to hint at this feature and tell the player what he'd need this building or that research for), then decided "Oooh, lets do this, this and this first" instead of delivering on what was already halfway done and, finally, announced that they were done with the game when there were still a lot of loose ends. The least you can do is go through it and remove the redundant content. Yes, that would have been extra work for you guys when you were eager to create your Cold War version of this, but it would have been at least an attempt at making it look like you were sorry about it. (As for the other things you mentioned [campaigns, tech tree, units]... Well, I don't really know why you did. I didn't put their existence into doubt and their being there doesn't change that some other features simply did not receive enough attention.)

When I bought Supreme Ruler 2020 back in 2011 I never thought I would actually be playing it until 2020. This game is a must buy for grand strategy fans.

I know it says I've played 250+ hours of this game, and I've certainly played quite a few, but probably half of that is letting the game run on its own while I was asleep, or having fallen asleep playing it. The concept behind the game is really great, and I wish it had been implemented in a way that made it fun to play, but it wasn't. I did play the original (SR2010) and it is certainly an improvement over that version - less buggy, better controls. But the core problems with the franchise remain. Basic gameplay is excruciatingly slow; the fastest speed is a tenth of where it should be. Virtually every game mechanic is completely opaque, and zero effort is made to explain any of it. The economic model is absurd and way too easily exploited - even playing as Malawi (the poorest, most technologically backwards country in the world) I can turn it into an economic powerhouse in just a few game years. Since no effort is made to balance the various countries, conflicts are rather pointless. The AI is terrible no matter how difficult you make the settings. You have to make your own game objectives because the game itself has none. Then there's the "engineers" problem - if you lack the tech to build a really good infantry unit, engineers are a very strong infantry unit that can be built with no tech. Although very oddly you can't actually research the unit, you need to trade for the design - but anyone will trade it to you for some cash. The engineer has massive advantages - it's cheap, it can cross rivers, it can bridge terrain for other units, it can accelerate production and repair of buildings, and it can beat the tar out of far more advanced units without breaking a sweat. Why a zero-tech engineer can pound the hell out of many types of advanced infantry units is beyond me. The economy and force distributions aren't the only wildly imbalanced aspects to the game. Research is ridiculous - if you have the cash you can buy and use techs way way way beyond your tech level. Diplomacy is virtually pointless, as is any other form of non-warfare interaction with other countries. The UN mechanic is also dubious, there are no substantial benefits to being a part of the UN, and a significant economic penalty is attached to being good by them, when it should be the other way around. It's to your advantage to purposely get kicked out, so that you don't have to pay their escalating membership fees - for which you get nothing in return. An example of how trying to stay good by the UN hurts you: it's apparently perfectly acceptable for a neighboring country with whom you are not at war to allow passage of enemy units to attack your territory, but if you attack that neighbor for that act of war the UN will despise you for it. Your advisors are just as bad as the AI elsewhere; if you trust them to do anything they will mess it up badly. There's a system of implementing priorities for them, but if this has any actually effect on their behavior I haven't been able to detect it. The only thing this game does well, gameplay-wise, is tactical unit management on the hex map. If you can slog through all the opaque mechanics and the gruelingly long setup time before a typical country can start invading others, that part is reasonably satisfying. Other mechanics, like the loyalty mechanic, are just stupid and appear to directly contradict the "realism" goal of the game. Either eliminate that mechanic, or do it properly! Like its predecessor, SR2020 is a great idea that doesn't really work well as implemented.

Game becomes unplayable after 20 game years. Why? Because all countries will go on a military production overdrive once they are at war, BUT, since the AI sucks in the naval warfare aspect those bazillions of military units won't be going anywhere. Case in point, Japan, Taiwan, will end up at war with China early, but both countries are islands. They'll keep producing military units but won't send them anywhere. By year 10, both countries will covered by troops. Now repeat this situation with island or archipelagic nations, and the game simply breaks down with the number of troops on the field. The same can be said of the US. Unless it goes to war with Canada or Mexico, it'll just keep hoarding those troops. And this is just one aspect where the AI sucks. I like the concept of the game, the idea of keeping the army/navy moving and air force flying through logistics, the idea of creating the necessary industry to support the military up, the idea of balancing economic output/taxation/population contentment. But the game is way too fundamentally broken to be enjoyable for me.

I love this game! it is only one of the few games that contains my favorite country *obviouse what it is*, but also if you are patriotic then be your favorite country! Wanna be Germany? Go ahead, heck, wanna be Andorra? sure thing! and if you wanna crush the Ruskies? good luck, but you can! Wanna murder the Capitalist Americans? Your won't survive, but you still can! epic game.

It's an awesome strategy. Easy to understand, with lots of possibities! For those, who want to rewrite the future's history, it's a must-have game. Slow paced for the thinkers, fast paced for the agressor types. Highly recommended for strategy fans.

I got this game for $1, which is about all I would be willing to pay for it. It's fine--not great. The political aspect of it is two dimensional--you can increase or decrease funding for various services (education, health care, etc.), but you can't actually enact new policies as far as I can tell. In contrast to, for example, Victoria II, you're not able to enact voting reforms, changes to working conditions, etc. The military part of the game is too opaque to be fun. You can build various kinds of military units and send them at the enemy's troops, but there's not enough information about any of your units or the enemy's units to tell you what will work and what won't. Diplomacy is weird and in some ways simply non-functional. In one game, another country declared war on me and despite having every treaty in the book--including a "formal alliance" and a defense pact--my "ally" never joined the war on my side. The existence of a "UN" body is theoretically interesting but was not done in a way that was meaningful. There is no way for you to propose resolutions or do anything interactive with it; it really just functions as a "global approval" feature to keep countries from doing too much crazy ♥♥♥♥ (and even then doesn't do much if you get "kicked out"). Meanwhile, industry is unrealistic. Even in strictly capitalist countries, there is no private development: anything that you want to build has to be built by the government. There is no way to automate it and no way to do build it on a grand scale. This means that if you play a big country like the US, China, or Russia, it's almost impossible to make any meaningful changes to your economy unless you want to spend hours clicking to build new factories.

Probably the most underappreciated grand strategy game of all time, largely due to the relatively rudimentary graphics. But make no mistake, this game has a level of strategic depth that will melt your face! Also one of the best national economic simulators ever. If you like grand strategy, economics, and/or war, then you owe it to yourself to get this game. Beware though, it is not for the faint of heart. No one has ever just jumped into this game and said, "Oh yeah, I totally understand how this game works." I probably logged 50 hours before I truly had a grasp of the core mechanics, and then only with the assistance of a lot of online research/forum reading... TOTALLY WORTH IT!

Absolutely a great game, extremely in depth strategy that is difficult to master but feels so rewarding. If you buy this game prepare to grind through rough times before you understand the game, and be ready to watch plenty of barely helpful youtube videos to try to understand it all. It'll be hard but once it all clicks amazing things happen. Protip: Blitzkrieging only works a couple of times early in game. Once you get later in game you will need high level artillery and nukes so start researching and building them early. When you're ready build a wall of infantry and armor and place your artillery behind them and move up slowly while obliterating anything in your path. It took me 9 months (in game) of shelling Moscow to get it to fall. Have fun!

I must be missing something here. How are people playing and enjoying this game? Yeah it is kind of fun but it is slower than a slug on sedatives. Each day takes about 30 seconds to complete even at the fastest settings. With no way to accelerate time you are looking at 40 mins real time just to build a factory or something. My plan was to play a small country and build up the economy, get rich and build a military then take over a couple of local countries and then hopefully the world. I'm 11 hours in and am not even half way to building up my economy. To finish what I was planning I'm looking at hundreds of hours. Most of it just waiting. I don't really want to have to dedicate my entire existance into playing one playthrough of this game.