Power & Revolution 2021 Edition

Pay $50 to play Power & Revolution 2020 again, which was $50 to play 2019 again, which was $50 to play 2018 again, which was $50 to play 2017 again, which was $50 to play 2016 again, which was $50 to play Masters of The World again, which was $50 to play Rulers of nations again, which was $50 to play GPS1 again.

Throw in DLCs and you've paid at LEAST $500 by this point and the game still breaks in all the same places. Playthroughs are still impossible to complete. And the devs ignore ALL player feedback. Aside from minor graphical changes you'd hardly tell you were playing a different game if you went back 10 years except for the fact that they gutted multiplayer in 2016 and have yet to re-add it. You think Blizzard is bad? Meet Eversim.

It could be great, but too many bugs and literally same game every year

Personally I like the concept of this game, but if you just want a good game to play, just buy something else unless you are really into geopolitics and statistics. To be honest, this game is not worth the 50 dollar price tag nor is it worth the 40 dollar one when it's on sale.

The Issues:
This game looks like it came from the mid 2000s, and not only does it look that way but it also runs that way as well, and it's definitely a optimization issue. I'm running this game on 16 GB ram and an RTX 3080 and it still consistently crashes.

If you make it to about the year 2030 without the game crashing on you, congratulations! You will soon have to deal with budget deficits becoming "NAN" (Not a Number?) especially if you turn on taxes to make excess amounts of money. This will, in turn, disable your ability to build anything. The only way you van fix this is load an earlier save.

All the devs do to "update" this game is slap on the current year to the end of the title, and maybe add a thing here and there to "update it" and keep it relevant. The same bugs from years ago are present in this game. Also the devs are well aware of the issue as many have contacted them about it, but they willingly ignore the bugs this game has. As a matter of fact, with every update the same glitches and problems persist but more pop up. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and did 8 different play throughs just for them to all end in the same way (all expenditures disappear and NAN appears as the value for whatever is left). Also in every game there were at least 5 crashes over 10 years of in game time. This is especially an issue if your preferred government type is full on Jingoism.

What I dislike the most is the "mods sold separately" and the Fifa/Madden style of producing the game (i.e. making a new one every year). The worst part is every new one costs money, and a whole lot of it. This style of producing a game would be more tolerable if the game was free.

TLDR

Graphics
☐ Jesus' second coming
☐ Better than most
☒ A game made for the Wii
☐ I drew this on MS Paint

Optimization
☐ I ran this very well on toaster with a soup can for ram
☐ It ran very well on a school Chromebook
☐ It can reliably run on a middle of the line office laptop
☒ A supercomputer would still have crashing issues

Developer care
☐ 24/7 support and frequent updates
☐ Updates every now and then and support for the customer
☐ Has customer support, but fixes bugs in the next game
☒ Who needs to fix the bugs in the game? LOL you already bought it.

Value
☐ Even if I bought another game, I'd still prefer to buy this one
☐ I could have bought a nice dinner instead, but I'm satisfied with my purchase
☒ I would rather buy another game
☐ I would rather give my money to that Nigerian prince that keeps emailing me

Glitchiness
☐ Practically none at all
☐ You won't see any if you follow the story line
☐ Has quite a lot but does not affect gameplay
☒ Just pressed the space bar and all my money disappeared

Overall Realism
☐ Makes logical sense
☐ Makes sense but has some irregular situations that can be overlooked
☒ Highly illogical but still hits 1 in a million in real life
☐ Did you know eating food causes hunger?

Unrealistic scenarios that happened in my playthrough
- Russia loses a war against Mongolia despite being in a 10-1 advantage militarily and having technological superiority
- All countries suddenly stop producing sugar
- France has an average daily caloric intake of 10,000 kcal
- South Africa still has famines even though it makes ~95% of the world's corn (On standard settings)
- France controls 100% of the automobile production and has a high GDP yet car ownership is low
- Unrealistic inflation/deflation calculations (Germany had an inflation rate at around 3,000% but the devaluing of the Deutschmark was very slow, something like losing 1 cent after every 2-3 weeks in value)
- Had a situation where Euro= $0.50 while $1= 0.14 euros, do the math, it won't add up.
- People from banned groups (i.e. satanists) still approach you about their issues (in real life they would be in prison if they identified as a member of those groups)
- 100% support for a bill but when voted on, is rejected

All in all, the game itself is riddled with bugs and oddities that will be unlikely to be fixed anytime soon. Honestly this game is not worth 50 dollars, and is not even worth 20. However, I know that this game would sell like hot cakes if it sold for about 10-15 USD, but that's not for me to decide.

Conclusion
Eversim is just not a good company to buy from, but since I like seeing all the stats this was the only game for me. I would, however appreciate more stability and support for this game. I'll be playing more of this to make me feel my money's worth, but if you want a good game to play, just get something else. I feel a bit cheated because I thought they would be a cool Indie company like Klei (formerly was but it isn't anymore, but I enjoyed their games pre-Tencent acquisition), but turns out they just don't fix anything and are just rereleasing the same thing year after year. I love to support indie companies but it is companies like Eversim that make me question my love for indie games. It has the same problems from 2016 and just seems like all they did was slap on "2021" to the end of the title. The only thing I enjoyed from this game was the ability to see the small statistics that don't exist in many other games but even the stats are bugged as seen by the exchange rate from above. The game is bad, and the idea is good and it would be better if Eversim listened to the consumer.

Hope Eversim fixes the game as it has everything going for it except quality, effort, and community cultivation.