Fate of the World

CronoDroid · Post by **CronoDroid** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 11:09 pm

So I just got this little game after a recommendation from Extra Credits (on the Escapist) and turns out, it's not so little. I haven't played a singleplayer game that was actually difficult in quite a long time, so this is a very pleasant surprise. I mean come on, I'm the strategy master, I should be able to jump in and crush from the outset, right?

No Crono, wrong! This game is hard, I got crushed.

FOTW is a serious game about global warming and human development. The second mission's objective is simple: survive till 2120 from 2020 (with each turn representing five years). Twenty turns? LOL EASY right? I got to around ~2090 and I was rewarded with the total societal collapse of North America, India, Russia, the Middle East and Latin America with millions upon millions starving in China and Japan, the collapse of global financial markets, the world temperature at +2.5C since pre-industrial times and no more polar ice caps. And I thought I was doing alright with my policies! Things were peachy in 2060, then it just went tits up.

You play as the director of the fictional Global Environmental Organization, an NGO that can enact sweeping policy changes and influence across all regions of the world in areas like environmental protection, technological development, social programs, energy research/usage and political/military decisions. Your job, as I stated above, is to stop the inevitable destruction of humanity whether by global warming, war, famine or a host of other disasters.

This is accomplished by recruiting agents in regions across the world and playing "cards" which represent policy changes. You can play one card per agent, and you can have six agents in a region. You're limited by your funding and political opposition from protesters. First you set up offices in five categories, Environment, Technology, Energy, Social and Political and you can then choose which cards to play in each category (with a sixth category representing GEO projects like funding space programs, protecting soil and land, committing to nuclear/renewable energy, etc). Within the offices, you can do things like fund Flood Protection, focus on biotech/robotics/software/etc, implement education programs, expand oil/coal/gas/biofuel utilization and deploy black ops or peacekeepers. There are probably hundreds of cards, and they change as technology improves (for example, developing 4th generation nuclear reactors or high tech drills), and they can range from fairly innocuous (spread awareness about the green movement) to hilariously extreme (deploy biological weapons to curb population growth).

There are graphs and data everywhere that list minutiae like an age breakdown of the population, HDI, coal mining, GDP, emissions, composition of the energy sector, LOTS of information. And this is not a simple game, you have to take those varying factors into account when you make your decisions as well as political support/opposition and also the fact that policy decisions in one region can severely affect conditions in another.

For example, committing to renewable energy in China temporarily led to energy shortages, which led to decreased agricultural production, which led to food shortages in the Middle East, which led to instability, which led to falling oil production, which led to more energy shortages around the world, leading to total global food production dropping precipitously, which led to everyone dying of hunger. You really have to think about the decisions you make in this game, and develop an understanding of how regions can affect one another due to globalization.

As another example, I made the rather drastic policy decision of deploying biological weapons on the Middle East and India to reduce instability and energy/food consumption, but of course, the consequences were disastrous. The population that was killed worked in the oil extraction field and agriculture, so guess what, less food and oil for everyone! Yeah I'm evil like that. Lost the game though.

So yeah, if this sounds interesting to you, I encourage you to check it out by buying it from the official website.

tsubaki_sanjuro · Post by **tsubaki_sanjuro** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 11:57 pm

QUOTE I got to around ~2090 and I was rewarded with the total societal collapse of North America, India, Russia, the Middle East and Latin America with millions upon millions starving in China and Japan, the collapse of global financial markets, the world temperature at +2.5C since pre-industrial times and no more polar ice caps. And I thought I was doing alright with my policies![/quote]

sounds like a win for good old europe. good job!

CronoDroid · Post by **CronoDroid** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 12:24 am

Lost again, a bunch of protesters stormed my office and lynched me for not doing anything to prevent the planet from imploding once again.

EDIT:
Europe's HDI at the end of my game - 0.44
Kenya's current (2011) HDI - 0.47

Shizoku · Post by **Shizoku** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 4:52 am

If I want a balltappingly difficult game I'll wait for dark souls spiritual successor to demon's souls'.

CronoDroid · Post by **CronoDroid** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 5:23 am

Well I managed to barely finish the second mission (survive for 100 years) but the world was in a pretty calamitous state. I heard Demon Souls is particularly unforgiving, but FOTW doesn't require a PS3 nor a particularly powerful computer, plus it is educational (whether people consider that bad or good is up to them).

All the videos I watched on youtube of people playing this ended in disaster, personally I'm not even sure what I did right this time aside from possibly banning oil from being used for power. I think that led to more available for agriculture so I didn't run into catastrophic global famine again. Also I shrunk the service sector to mitigate the global financial crisis that usually occurs due to rampant speculation.

I want to see what the rest of the Allegiance thinks about the game, since we usually get into pretty length discussions about environmental, economic and political issues. Plus you guys are no stranger to deep, complex and meaningful games.

Mastametz · Post by **Mastametz** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 6:43 am

CronoDroid wrote:QUOTE (CronoDroid @ Apr 24 2011, 10:23 PM) you guys are no stranger to deep, complex and meaningful games.

LIKE DUKE NUKEM

that_bloke · Post by **that_bloke** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 6:49 am

Multiplayer duke nuken on bt wireplay is still the most fun i've had in a multiplayer game!

I used to laugh and laugh and laugh, haha!

Laser bombing your buddy in a strip club NEVER got old!

NightRychune · Post by **NightRychune** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 9:46 am

what i learned

if the world goes to @#(! even when I am in charge, we're all $#@!ed

CronoDroid · Post by **CronoDroid** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 10:10 am

Scary isn't it! Assuming the events that occur during the game are plausible (they certainly seem very plausible), even with a multilateral approach portrayed in the game, it's still really hard to get a positive outcome. In real life, I don't foresee the world governments getting together to form something like GEO that can make sweeping reforms across the planet, so one must wonder if we're all going to face a very grim future.

Of course, that's assuming you believe in climate change. I'll leave THAT one for the other thread.

MrChaos · Post by **MrChaos** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 11:37 am

I'll give it a whirl because amongst the unwashed hordes of Allegiance I have the best chance to make it work.

Sorry forgot to take my booster shot from my Guns22 bite where was I

There tends to be an inherent issue with games like this is the cause and effects are dictated by the person writing the game. So its kind of like a negative feedback loop where when you flip a switch the dog dies from a brain cloud.

If Crono (no h today

) recommends a game for it being hard and it isn't a function of twitch I'll give it a whirl. If it was done right I will be best at this one given my background and innherent gen...

gtg take the shot now

I'll let you know how long it takes to get lynched

edit: First time through on Africa mission I didn't realize there was a such a small rise in funds year over year and missed the goal. Second time through hit most of the bonuses, increased their love for me, and ended up with about 7k in points. Now onto the lynching wden the training wheels come off ~4

edit2:

First Try: MrChaos for supreme ruler of the world!
HDI Overall: .77 ( China and India bringing up the tail end with China lowest at .68)
Temp Increase: 2080: 2.4 2200: 2.5
PPM: 587.8 and decreasing year over year
Matter of fact the temperature started dropping slightly at the end if my eyes didn't deceive me

Although by limiting coal through not putting enough moolah into the coal exploation early enough I put the world into a financial crisis in 2070 which took until 2080 to recover which I did by increasing the appropriate businesses

My evaluation of the plausibility of this scenario editor? 0.0%
Why? Wild swings in the output. No way possible will you see a 34% increase or decrease in consumption/pollution for example in a mature market in just five years.

As Crono so wisely said as for the accuracy of the "facts" welllll that is for the other thread... and after all it is just a game

Pro tip: Play it as if was a firefigter scenerio with Adept authoring the game and McWarren editing the numbers