Rogue State Revolution Gameplay Preview – Deep and complex political management sim

Rogue State Revolution is probably one of the most complex and deep political management sims I have ever played. It is miles ahead of its competition in almost every area.

The underlying reason for the game’s complexity comes from the fact that the game has way more interconnected systems in place than other games of the same genre. For example, let’s take a look at one small mechanic in the game, production lines.

You can create relatively simple production lines by locating natural resources with a surveyor, build the respective resource collector on the site, and then build the corresponding refineries and manufacturing plants. It sounds simple on the surface and it is but once you start factoring in how it is interconnected to other mechanics of the game, you start to see how complex it really is.

These seemingly simple production lines are interconnected to many other mechanics that affect the game. For example, every building requires workers and power. Cities have limited quantities of both and production related buildings also affect the environment in negative ways. All of these facets of production also impact your approval ratings, which in turn affect your standings with ministers, which in turn impact how policies get implemented. These policies impact your budget, as well as approval ratings, and how well the country is doing as a whole. You can even call the leaders of surrounding countries to create trade relations and manage imports and exports of goods and workers to strengthen your economy.

Throw on top of this having to combat a rogue military force with a mini turn based strategy mechanic, random events that test how well you can assess risks and take chances, and other simple but deeply interconnected mechanics and you have the complex monster that is Rogue State Revolution.

Besides the number of interconnected mechanics, the other aspect of the game that makes it stand out from the competition is that Rogue State takes these meters and mechanics commonly found in political sims and makes them simpler, but have more impact on the game. Approval ratings and events have a profound impact on the well being of your country as opposed to just min-maxing your way to victory in elections. One significant change in one area will actually impact others.

• 

• 

Overall, Rogue State Revolution is a fantastic political management sim. It has little bits of game mechanics from many other genres such as production lines, turn based strategy, and etc. cobbled together to form a more engaging political sim where you aren’t just watching numbers go up or down. It’s simple enough to understand each mechanic separately but when you factor in how they are interconnected, you can see how deep it really is. At the end of the day, it’s still a political manage sim but it is just different enough that it may attract people who aren’t normally into this genre.