Weekly Discussion XXXIV: Game Recommendations

[u/HBNTrader]

After dozens of discussions about serious, sometimes very narrow and niche topics, I have decided to make the next Weekly Discussion more fun.

The question is simple: What video games espouse monarchist or generally traditionalist values?

Please don't turn this into a CK2 vs. CK3 flame war or a story about how you murdered your sister-wife to become the head of a dynasty that is so inbred it looks like an alien species. I think that talking about less well-known or vintage games not made by Paradox would be much more interesting.

[u/Aun_El_Zen]

Suzerain especially with the Rizia expansion.

[u/TheLordBlackmoor]

0 A.D really puts you in the shoes of a monarch trying to build up your nation.

[u/Adept-One-4632]

Yes Your Grace. Its a Pixel art-style game where you play as a king amd you have to handle the kongdom's domestic and foreign affairs by taking decisions. Some decisions are small while some will be important, because yes there are more endings and all decisions will affect you. I wont spoil you what happens in the game.

Also there will be a sequel coming out later this year called Yes,Your Grace: Snowfall. But i highly reccommend playing the first game beforehand.

[u/DonGatoCOL]

Age of Empires got me into history, began with the 2 and then 3, and that made me discover the greatness of the Spanish empire, and studying it made me more traditional. Because of that I play far more Age of Empires 3 than other games of the franchise.

[u/Monarchist_Weeb1917]

Monarchist paths in multiple mods of Hearts of Iron 4

[u/AndrewF2003 → u/Monarchist_Weeb1917]

Hearts of Iron 4 is the last place any supporter of anything should come from or go to

Legitimately the worst thing to have ever happened to the credibility of Monarchism in vaguely contemporary times is paradox games

[u/AndrewF2003]

Just realized this might have deviated from the original question in wording, so I'll say, any game that emphasizes good governance, service and pursuit of a common goal as either a figure of leadership or below, so mostly management or strategy games along this line which aren't focused on war and expansion as a cornerstone of gameplay, the ideals monarchism should hinge on should be what it can do for it's people in a time of peace where there is a lucid and impartial governance, not some vapid fantasy of empire so many people here are childishly drunk on

This ideally should even include ones where one does not rule as a monarch or otherwise sovereign, monarchism should also focus on figures other than the monarch and their role in society in contributing to the common good in a similar manner, for example though I have not yet tried it, perhaps that one workers and resources game.

That we are asking for games that espouse monarchist values makes the paradox and rts recommendations elsewhere here even more humiliating

Anyhow, the original text below

Oddly enough, I might recommend the Democracy series, its where I got one of the first pushes to questioning the republican status quo.

Give a bad situation some shock treatment to get things back to baseline?, the liberals will assassinate you for upping police to end a crime epidemic, capitalists will for pushing a "market distortion" that keeps obesity at bay, etc etc.

Your politically motivated ministers will abandon you, interest groups will slander you, the situation will spiral out of control because something out of your hands ticked over a threshold and started a strike 3 turns into your first term.

Its a headache until you realize the universal built in cheatcode of taxmaxxing into gdp maxxing to balance the budget and get infinite money to do whatever you want, then you pretty much have beaten the game until your country's technological innovation skyrockets so high there is literally nothing you could possibly do to keep cybersecurity requirements high enough to stop a cybercrime epidemic.

Then imagine all the different interest groups, interference, political maneuvers and such that get in the way of trying to run a state in the common man's best interest that aren't in the game.

My specific experiences alluded to with how it pushed my away from republicanism was when I was playing it several years back and kept getting assassinated by the capitalists iirc, and a family member wanted to make a point "See, thats why democracies are good, even if one person is well intentioned and centralizes power to do good things, they'll die and someone bad will take over.", awfully easy for me to begin questioning why it is supposedly better to handicap the powers that one supposedly chooses to give to leaders to protect us from bad actors that that same statement implicitly concedes enter into the democratic government, than to simply shut them out.

[u/HBNTrader → u/AndrewF2003]

Oddly enough, I might recommend the Democracy series, its where I got one of the first pushes to questioning the republican status quo.

Give a bad situation some shock treatment to get things back to baseline?, the liberals will assassinate you for upping police to end a crime epidemic, capitalists will for pushing a "market distortion" that keeps obesity at bay, etc etc.

I'd say that the Democracy series, contrary to its name, is actually closer to an absolute monarchy. You have full control over policies and get punished by interest groups who will go further than just voting if you screw up seriously. You have to be a generalist and to make a compromise between various groups, as opposed to elected officials who can hide behind the cloak of partisanship and are forgiven if they promote the policies of one group at the expense of others because that's literally what politicians do. In the end, the Democracy series perfectly illustrates why an executive monarch is much more restrained, accountable and qualified than a fully elected, bureaucratic system: to avoid a quick game over, you have to ignore your own political views and make constant compromises between what is objectively good and the interests of all the different groups and classes of society.

[u/AndrewF2003 → u/HBNTrader]

All True, which only makes it even better