Geo-political web-based simulator
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A Geo-Political web-based simulator is a nation-simulation game in which players take the roles of leaders of nations or organizations. Most geopolitical simulators are forum-based and are a form of computer-assisted gaming. A few are play-by-email (also referred to as play-by-mail, or PBM). Some are tabletop or computerized games, but these are outside the scope of this article. Geopolitical web-based simulators are usually known as nation simulators, or nationsims for short.
A geopolitical simulator differs from a government simulator in that it simulates a group of nations or the entire world, whereas a government simulator simulates a single nation or part of a single nation.
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[edit] How a geo-political simulator is played
Each player takes the role of the leader of a nation, or in some cases the leader of an organization (such as a terrorist organization). Some games have more than one player taking a role in a single nation. For example, one may play the head of state while another plays the head of government, or one may play the leader of the nation while another plays an opposition candidate or a rebel.
Players submit actions to one or more referees or game leaders, who are usually called avatars. Such an action is generally a detailed plan for something the player wants to happen. Actions can be anything a player can imagine (such as an order to start a war or raise the income tax). In forum-based games, actions are sent to the avatars through the "private message" or "in-game message" system that is a feature of most Internet forums. In play-by-email games, actions are sent by e-mail.
Players also need to prepare budgets (usually once each ingame year) in which they decide how they will spend their nations' revenue. Budgets differ greatly in complexity from game to game. Some nationsims allow the players to set different tax rates for different types of goods, while others simply use an infrastructure rate that allows the player to choose how much money is to be spent on the nation's infrastructure and other domestic costs.
Geo-Political web-based simulators often have many players. As a result, they usually have several avatars. There may be one avatar for each continent or one for each general type of action (such as one for domestic actions and one for military actions).
The avatars determine the results of actions based entirely on their own experience and knowledge; players usually have no say in the avatars' decisions. This can lead to problems, since a good avatar must be experienced, completely unbiased, and have a great deal of knowledge about international and domestic politics.
The avatars create news bulletins announcing the results of actions. As news is released, the players react by making statements or sending additional actions. Roleplaying is important, as players must act as if they were actually the leader of the nation they play.
In a forum-based geopolitical simulator, players have access to common boards and usually to a few private boards for organizations (such as OPEC or NATO). The common boards usually include a forum in which players discuss world events, an Out of character forum, and a news forum in which the avatars post the news. There is usually a common United Nations forum as well.
Most sites have introductions and FAQs for new players that explain how that sim is played. SuperPower Classic has an introduction for players that have never before played geopolitical sims [1].
[edit] History
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The history of nationsims is mostly guesswork, as some early games were played in tightly-knit Internet communities and rarely made themselves publicly visible. However, likely precusors include a number of play-by-mail games. The board game, Diplomacy, has been played through the mail since the 1960s. Global Supremacy, originally run by the play-by-mail game company Schubel and Son, was a full economic and diplomatic simulation offered in 1979. Global Supremacy, and other play-by-mail games, incorporated some computer moderation in the 1980s and by 1989 some were played by email. Generally, the original simulations tended to spawn off-shoots as players created games set in different time periods or dealing with alternate history.
Some Qpawn gamers claim that the first public nationsim was Qpawn Qpawn is not only one sim, but rather the name of a franchise that run several sims. The first Qpawn, called quite simply Qpawn Original, was set in present day (as of 1998). The game divided in early 2000, but by then two other games had already started called Qpawn World Power[2] (set in a post-WWI setting) and Qpawn 2000[3] (set in and after 2000). In September 2005, one of the old administrators of Qpawn Original re-opened the game due to demand.
[edit] Geo-political web-based simulators
[edit] Qpawn
Qpawn started in 1998. It is still considered as one of the largest nationsims on the net. The creator wanted to give the game the name "CPAWN", which stood for Commoners Posing As World Nations, but CPAWN was already taken by another site so he randomly selected "QPAWN" instead. In 2005, Qpawn was relaunched with new changes, which includes a new economic system, daily updates and more diplomacy. Each player has a country and sends the actions to a moderator, that works out the results that is published in the news. Players discuss with each other about the major news events. Players have to be concerned about foreign relations, their economy, the conditions in their country as well as events that challenges their ability as a leader. Players can get help from alliances or organisations that they are members of. Superpowers have elections.
[edit] Global Politics
Global Politics, currently referred to as International Politics, is a geo-political simulation with an extensive background and several innovative features. It was founded on an Avidgamers site in October, 2001, and found initial success among many players with features like a simplified military system, a relatively easy economic system and Black Ops. Following the moving of the game to a phpBB forum system, new innovations and increased player cooperation have been possible. One of them, added after Global Politics 2, is an economic calculator, which further simplifies the economic aspect of the game and is the first step in the creation of an automated economic system. While "politics is economics" and "economics is war", the game aims at a larger focus on roleplaying your nation through newspaper articles and various in-game forums than on actual economic or military development. For that reason, the military system has been simplified and the economic system kept as simple as possible. Both systems have also been set in stone, avoiding any and all possibilities of mod bias. Future developments include a re-working of the rules, the automated economy and a reworking of the statistics for countries to make the less-developed nations more playable in the game.
[edit] Gloria
An early spin off of WorldPower founded in 2003 by a member of the WP administrative staff. Gloria’s raison d’etre is to simulate periods of greater parity between the great powers, which is why it focus on the recent past rather than the Bi or Uni-Polar periods of more recent times. Gloria has had versions set in 1880, 1900, and 1903. A 1910 version opened in September of 2005 and as of May 1, 2006, remains active. The key innovation of Gloria is the time periods chosen and the relative parity of the great power at those times. Other innovations include: a simplified rule set, long-term research projects which result in new military units or economic gains, political and military “leader” units which convey certain benefits or hindrances on the nations which receive them and persistent in game “private citizens” not associated with any government who tell the story of the game through a series of personal letters written in period language.
[edit] Nations
The "Nations" simulation was established November, 2004, influenced by the "Diplomatic Immunity" ruleset formulated by the former administrator of the True World Simulator who has since separated from the game entirely and serves as an off-and-on administrator for Superpower Classic. Since its launch in 2004, The game has evolved both with rule changes and a larger player base.
Nations, although allowing participants to engage in military confrontation and operations, focuses primarily on diplomacy, with the United Nations responsible for a growing number of the actions conducted throughout the game. Leaders are able to conference and discuss matters pertaining to domestic or international affairs via a player established Local News Agency (for example, the US, and Fox News) as well as a Leaders Discussion board. Several other multilateral organizations, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and the European Union, are also simulated.
Nations v2 was officially launched on 2006-08-07. While staying true to version 1's focus as a world simulator, the new version features many additional components. Among them is nationspedia, which uses the MediaWiki software.
[edit] SuperPower Classic
Superpower: Classic is a forum-based nationsim. Currently it is one of the largest nationsims in existance.
[edit] History of Superpower: Classic
Superpower: Classic was started in 2001 by a breakaway player from Qpawn 2000. Using the rules and layout of Diplomacy and Conquest (with permission from the previous operators of that simulator), he created a new game called Superpower: Classic . At first, the sim was small and concentrated to a playerbase recruited from a british online gaming clan which the creator (and admin) was a member of, however the sim quickly started growing in popularity to encompass players from all over the world. Superpower: Classic evolved to adapt a new set of rules different from those first rules from Diplomacy and Conquest, and the game in turn became the basis for other nationsim off-shots[4].
The game has so far been through 10 rounds of gameplay and survived both hacking attempts and server crashes. Superpower: Classic has always had the same timeline, starting in the present day.
[edit] True World Simulator
Another sim that was initiated by ex-players of Q-Pawn, the True UN Simulator began in late 1999. In mid-2000, due to internal issues, almost all of the players broke away from TUN and reformed it under the name True World Simulator [5]. It is one of the longest running nationsims, despite being occasionally blemished by administrative and/or player inactivity. For a brief period, it was the sister-site of one of the most successful US Government Simulators on the Internet, USGovsim [6]. This cooperative effort proved inefficient, however, and was eventually dissolved. By tradition, TWS is mainly a war-based simulation; however in June-July of 2005, a reset made a drastic move away from the war-oriented theme of the game in the midst of the TWS-USG merger. Upon the conclusion of the merger, TWS was placed on hiatus for a time, with the administrator intending to restart the sim with increased focus on politics, and less of an emphasis on war. In June of 2006, applications for countries were once again being accepted and, as of July, the game has commenced. Due to lack of player interest TWS slowely died off and recently the game was officially closed.
[edit] WorldPower
WorldPower (WP) was founded in 2003 as a contemporary sim focusing on geopolitics and diplomacy. WorldPower has had several variants, including a Samuel Huntington 'Clash of Civilizations' version, and has directly contributed to other associated sites such as Gloria and Magna Grecia, set in different eras. Some of WorldPower's features include player game awards, scrolling marquees with game news, graphical military tech tree, game-specific characters for multiple international organizations, a foreign policy magazine section which allows players to comment in game from a supposedly neutral point of view, and Administrative INBOXES devoted to managing different game functions.
