Government simulation game

A government simulation or political simulation is a game that attempts to simulate the government and politics of all or part of a nation. These games may include geopolitical situations (involving the formation and execution of foreign policy), the creation of domestic political policies, or the simulation of political campaigns. They differ from the genre of classical wargames due to their discouragement or abstraction of military or action elements.

Games based on geopolitics and elections existed long before the emergence of personal computers and their ability to quickly process large amounts of statistical data. One of the earliest such games was The Game of Politics, created by Oswald Lord in 1935 which remained in print until 1960. In 1954, the board game Diplomacy was created, which differs from other wargames in that it features a "negotiation" phase during which players reach agreements with other players, and then execute military moves simultaneously. National politics has remained a vital area of board gaming, with products such as the 1986 board game Die Macher featuring elections in Germany, and Wreck the Nation which satirizes the politics of the United States under the Bush administration.Nationstates is a website based simulation game that allows for the creation and customization of a "nation", allowing players to shape their nations policies via issues which the player receives on an adjustable basis.

After enjoying years as a play-by-mail game, Diplomacy was one of the first games to move to take advantage of e-mail, and continues to be a popular email game as of 2007.

As computers became more sophisticated, games in this genre moved beyond e-mail to more complex simulations. For most users in Europe, the first well known politics game was Dictator (), released in 1983 by DK'Tronics and running on Sinclair's ZX Spectrum. One of the earliest titles in this genre was Balance of Power, designed by Chris Crawford and published in 1985. This game features conflict at the height of the Cold War, using political and policy decisions to shape outcomes rather than warfare. In Balance of Power, any armed conflict between the player and the opponent superpower results in a nuclear war, which is considered a loss condition.

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