Recent reviews by Guidrion

A very nice scifi survival/management odyssey. The art direction is excellent. Encountered a few bugs but nothing game breaking.

Good stupid scary fun.

Buy the loudhorn for emotional support.

Great franchise, there's excellent stuff here but the post-launch support of this game when it comes to bugfixing and the new DLC practices and pricing have been a mixed bag. Last DLC was a much needed improvement so cautious optimism I guess.

General implementation: the AI has some issues handling it all.
Revolution and law changes : it's alright. Nothing game-changing but it's nice to have a tad more involved revolutions.
Agitators : the mechanic is good enough but needs tweaking, balancing and some QoL features to be able to track some characters.
New laws : mixed bag. While most of it is cool, industry banned is a bit weird and state atheism pops up way too easily in very conservative countries (In my first game, Spain, Italy, Prussia and Russia all adopted it whilst maintaining very conservative laws)
UI : very nice.
Coups : never encountered them.
French flavour : frankly the worst part of the DLC. It's poorly designed, buggy and very boring. The monarchist conflict between the three branches is absolutely barebone, ahistorical and nonsensical. The very least that can be said is that it's now possible to have Napoleon III and the legitimist line in power. The Algeria content is buggy and basic. The Indochina campaign makes it harder to actually conquer the place. The natural borders entry has no interactivity with Belgium, Luxemburg (no purchase?) or Germany. It all highlights the general issue that the journal entries and "quests" in it don't work particularely well as a game mechanic.

A wonderful roleplaying game with great writing and great ideas. Its only fault is that the start is its weakest part. Get to Caed Nua, folks!

An excellent political story-driven game!

This review is only based after a first successful reformist run. Will have to explore other options.

I was particularely impressed by the strong writing, the likeable and generally nuanced characters (Petr and Deivid <3 and even that ass of Iosef) and the ability to build some great moments (the first appearance of Soll, the funeral speech and the AN assembly all come to mind). One thing I really want to praise is the worldbuilding. Too many games make a big abstraction of "the country" while forgetting that any country has many layers of complexity. The country being divided in regions with their own problems and particularities was very nice. I also oddly enjoyed the attention to being able to consistently choose some unimportant speech options like how to adress people before each meeting/speech and signing off. Overall, I immensely enjoyed it on a narrative level and I got really involved into my victories and failings.

I was annoyed I couldn't get involved with the assembly for reforms beside the constitution or to attempt to introduce some great reforms through the assembly rather than as decrees. I'm saddened that there wasn't more plotlines involving the left in general, the unions, the cultural life and especially Bludia which while present throughout the game really would have gained from having more complex choices as to how to handle them. Some of the late-game situations were a bit frustrating because they seemed to be left hanging, foreign policy in particular. The budget balancing sometimes felt a bit frustrating because of the very limited options to gather funds. Why do I get unreasonable opportunities to overspend but not to overtax?

I would have LOVED to play some more and I hope there will be a second term expansion. Though I would definitely also love a sequel in another game. In any case, this is a strong video game in its genre and I really hope that this is only the beginning. Congrats to the team!

A Morgna her coren!

Un excellent FPS coopératif, jouissif et étrangement immersif. Les environnements et missions sont variés et tous très sympathiques. Se joue aussi très bien en solo.

Democracy 3 is a fun government simulator. It is complex but very accessible.

It is very neatly designed around a neural network system. Everything is represented through nodes: policies(police force, grants, tax, law and order, etc), statistics or "simulation"(CO2 emissions, crime, poverty, etc) and situations (technological advance or obesity. Every decision you take through policies will have various consequences on simulations and each simulations will influence other. For example, if you implement police drones, crime will lower, causing prisons to cost less but it will also anger liberals. And if you keep rubbing them the wrong way, they might radicalize and an extremist group might just assassinate you.
Another core part of the game are situations. If your policies go a certain way, they won't just cause simulations to adjust. They will trigger situations which will have much more effects. For example, if racial tension grow at the same time as unemployement, you might trigger race riots, hurting the economy and upsetting the conservatives, maybe destroying your popularity and making you lose your reelection.
Everything is connected and it is always fun to experiment various ideological programs. Try to make the USA into a eco-friendly paradise, Australia into a socialist festival, France into a theocratic state or Germany into a fasc... Nope, forget that one.

Now... What is not Democracy 3?
It is not an election simulator. If you do well, it is quite easy to achieve stalinian results in the election. Democracy 3 is about governing and influence society through state decisions.
It is not an geopolitical simulator. Foreign affairs are quite limited. The focus is on domestic affairs.
It is not a universal political simulator. Everything is based on the western world + Australia (therefore, dominantly white and christian).
It is not a scientifically accurate simulator. There are no precise datas. Everything is about plausibility, tendancies
It is also not an AAA game. The team behind it includes one coder and one graphic artist. Take it into account!
It is not a doctrinal game. Meaning, you can't expect a very precise political agenda to work without a scratch. You need to be pragmatic, adress crisis, think about costs and benefits. Trying radical approaches without carefully considering various factors and consequences is a leap of faith.

So, should you buy it? Definitely if you enjoy politics and are looking for a challenging but not overly serious experience. Also worth to notice that modding D3 is quite easy. There are numerous mods deepening the gameplay or offering fun new challenges.

What about those DLC?
Social Engineering: nice but a bit halftone (it was the first). Buy it if you really enjoy the game. Maybe on a sale.
Extremism: a big yes! This DLC brought a lot of fun in democracy by allowing you to go EXTREME! A must-have if you enjoy the game.
Clones and Drones: a DLC about futuristic issues and policies. It is a great addition because it upsets the balance you can achieve in the base game. Problems will come and you might not expect them. A must-have for experienced players.