Superpower 2

The mere existence of a Superpower 2 is something of a miracle. The original was a bug-filled curiosity that had tiny nations fighting each other from half a world away, in-between frequent crashes; Superpower 2 is best seen not as a sequel, but as a do-over, a chance to take the lessons from the original, and make the global politics simulation so many people are clamoring for.
The game box boasts of how Golemlabs used the CIA Factbook and “other classified sources” in compiling the data that underlines the game engine. Leaving aside the troubling thought of a small Canadian game-maker getting close to classified material, this claim highlights everything wrong with Superpower 2. In a drive to make running a country look real, they seem to have abandoned any effort to make it feel right.
Not that the domestic level detail is not impressive. If you want to know how many Belgians speak French, and you are nowhere near an Internet connection or a library, this game will fill that need. All this realism goes for nothing, though. With so many numbers to change and manipulate, it is nearly impossible to understand why, or even if, anything is happening. What makes the stability of a country grow, homogeneity or tolerance? Both are cited by the manual and scenario tips. Why is my approval rating so high with a 70% tax rate? Things have to get pretty bad before your people rise against you.
The much-touted “realism” vanishes entirely once you get to the military phase of the game. The domestic level number crunching seems to be only peripherally connected to the simplistic war mongering that is really at the heart of Superpower 2. You can set national abortion policy or legalize drugs, but not take any military action short of war, and no war ends short of total conquest. There are no air bases, no transport capacities that limit troop mobility, and none of the real-world tactical concerns that leaders have to think about. It’s as if they built this detailed soundstage for a strong simulation of global politics and decided to play Risk instead.
The divide between economics and security is best seen in what is left out. Though the game starts in 2001, there is no evidence of a Palestinian intifada, war in Chechnya, trouble in Kashmir, or civil war in Sudan beyond the murky “national stability” number. A simple annexation treaty ends the Israel-Palestine dispute in six months.
There are fewer of the inane “Dominica vs. Mozambique”-type wars that crippled the original game, but this is more of a check on the AI than on the player. There is little to stop you from crossing oceans with a few guys in a rowboat to attack weaker countries. Millions of men can be moved around the world at breakneck speed, and engage in battles that bear more resemblance to countdown clocks than real battles, as the numbers under poorly drawn troop types tick away. The AI has no interest in retreating to save an army, so every battle is a matter of getting there “firstest with the mostest” and then moving on with your killer stack.
Ultimately, Superpower 2 is further proof that knowing your own history does mean you won’t repeat it. You’ll just make the same mistakes in a different way.

This article originally appeared in Computer Games Magazine #171