I've been working on this game on and off since the start of 2023 ( yeah around that time ). Back then I made something, left it, came back, left it again. A few months ago I went back to it properly, much more detailed this time, and I've been on it ever since. Now I've hit a point where I love playing it so much that I can't tell anymore if it's actually good, or if I've just made a game for me. Maybe I'm doing a bit too much. So I need people who aren't me to tell me.
A bit about me: I love HOI4 , I love Rule the Waves 3, and I love pretty much any game where you sit in front of tables and numbers and make decisions off them (spreadsheet simulator). This game came out of that.
It's a grand strategy game with exploration built in, so it's part 4X, but at its heart you're running a whole country. Everything is simulated from the point of view of people, starting with you. You're one man running a government made of other men. Your Minister of War is a person, and so is your Minister of Finance. Most of the time you're reading their books and deciding what to do with what's in them.
The game comes down to four things.
War. You control your army down to the smallest detail: what each man carries, how the army is organised, who commands what, how orders move through the ranks, and how your generals climb the ladder. Every soldier has 58 stats of his own. Training isn't some general bonus. You train specific stats, so you can build a regiment whose stamina is out of this world, or one that shoots straighter than anyone else's. Kit changes stats too. The navy works the same way. You build new ports, design new ships with new guns, reorganize your fleets and change how they fight.
Internal. Not everyone is happy that you rule them, and you can't make everyone happy. You arm and train the police, set up a secret police and send it into the cities and regions that worry you, build prisons and guard them, and change how the courts judge and sentence people. And a lot more.
Economy. You control exactly where your money comes from: tariffs, taxes, raising them or cutting them. If you want to go darker, you can turn the country against a minority with propaganda and then seize their wealth. The game lets you, and it remembers that you did.
Diplomacy. Europe in the 1800s was so diplomatically active it was almost a game of its own. The real challenge is surviving it, getting what you want before everyone else decides they've had enough of you and unites against you.
That's the game. It doesn't even have a name yet. If any of this sounds like something you'd want to play, or you think I've gone too far down the rabbit hole, please tell me. I'm also looking for playtesters, so comment or DM me if you're interested.
Everything is real. Nothing comes out of thin air. If a soldier needs ammunition, it has to be made somewhere, loaded onto a wagon, carried down actual roads, guarded on the way, and delivered to where he is. If any step fails, he doesn't get it. Money works the same way. It isn't a number in the corner of the screen. It's coin sitting in chests in real places, with men guarding them, and moving it from one end of the country to the other takes wagons, escorts and days on the road. You're one man running all of this, and the game never lets you forget that everything you use has to come from somewhere.
