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Management / Sim Fate of the World

oscar

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/80200/Fate_of_the_World/

This game is pretty damn cool. Just had an interesting run with things going pretty well (managed some massive emission cuts) until I attempted to switch the world over to organic farming too aggressively accidentally caused a famine killing two billion. Also wasted billions on space exploration and covertly sterilised Africa :lol:

You can play as Greta Thunberg or a far-right conspiracy version of the UN (or any mixture) as you please. Gameplay has you playing cards that range from saving the rainforests and promoting vegetarianism to plotting coups and mining the moon. Pretty deep simulation aspects too with each region's energy sources, employment, HDMI, life expectancy and dozens of other stats meticulously tracked. Any earlier match saw Russia engulfing the world in a thermonuclear war.

Pretty bold and creative game with some genuinely scary tools in the players hands.

Starting tips

- Stop deforestation in South America and South Asia quickly
- Reduce coal in China and India

Even doing these I'm struggling to make it further than 2080~
 
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Leonard

Educated
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Aug 10, 2018
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It's an interesting game, but the mechanics are flawed and a lot of difficulty comes from how obtuse they are. They also make the game's "green" message completely counterproductive.

In particular, some things the game teaches you:
- Renewable energy is garbage and will never work. Until you get solar panels in space, then they solve the energy problems for all eternity.
- Instead, Oil is the solution. To solve the global warming, you need to expand oil drilling as much as possible.
- India is a shithole, is doomed to be a shithole and even with science-fiction technology, it's doomed to be a shithole. It's impossible to not have India turn into a poor, disease-ridden mess. The one mission where you have to keep all countries' HDI is the hardest one in the game, exactly because keeping India's HDI even moderately high is doomed.
- Environmentalism and green attitudes are harmful, it's better if everyone is consumerist-driven zombie.
- Instead of cutting emissions, solve the global warming by spraying more shit into the atmosphere.
- Meat production is bad, but veganism is even worse.
- Biofuels are a waste of time and money.

It's a fun little game, but after a few attempts and understanding how cards what and what the prerequisite are, there's nothing much left.
 

oscar

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Yeah India seems hard-coded to suck. Sub-Saharan Africa quickly becomes more prosperous, healthy and stable in it in every game I've played.

Yes it is very obtuse. I massively slash global emissions (even at the expense of crippling the global economy into widespread mass unemployment and near-famine) and still temperature rising occurs. Why? Who knows.
 

Norfleet

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Temperatures would rise even if all emissions were stopped completely, because the carbon people put into the air will stay up there for like a hundred years.

And India isn't hardcoded to suck. I managed to stabilize the situation, through sterilization.

As anyone who remembers Hammurabi knows, population reduction is the key to prosperity. It's hard to make the pie bigger, but if you reduce the number of people who have to share the pie, everyone gets more pie. We do what we must, because we can, for the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead.
 

oscar

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I sterilised India for quite a while and it still ended up insanely poor (population went stable then started to modestly decline). The rest of the world was 80-99 HDI and India was sitting on about 25. Not sure if that was from their civil war or what. I was pumping the education cards too (what seemed to have worked wonders everywhere else).
 

Norfleet

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Yes, having a civil war sort of trashes the place. You want to keep the world generally peaceful and orderly while decreasing the population.
 

Joggerino

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If i understand correctly, this is a game where i can mass sterilize certain population groups?
 

Joggerino

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Well first game ended badly. After wiping out several billion people in certain countries with an engineered virus some journalists exposed my good deeds and i was deposed for "crimes against humanity".
 

mondblut

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It's an interesting game, but the mechanics are flawed and a lot of difficulty comes from how obtuse they are. They also make the game's "green" message completely counterproductive.

In particular, some things the game teaches you:
- Renewable energy is garbage and will never work. Until you get solar panels in space, then they solve the energy problems for all eternity.
- Instead, Oil is the solution. To solve the global warming, you need to expand oil drilling as much as possible.
- India is a shithole, is doomed to be a shithole and even with science-fiction technology, it's doomed to be a shithole. It's impossible to not have India turn into a poor, disease-ridden mess. The one mission where you have to keep all countries' HDI is the hardest one in the game, exactly because keeping India's HDI even moderately high is doomed.
- Environmentalism and green attitudes are harmful, it's better if everyone is consumerist-driven zombie.
- Instead of cutting emissions, solve the global warming by spraying more shit into the atmosphere.
- Meat production is bad, but veganism is even worse.
- Biofuels are a waste of time and money.

So, the simulation is truthful?
 

Raghar

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I actually made some simulation and algorithms that can simulate world efficiently, including genetic movement and genocide by immigration.
This video is rather accurate description of future when european country doesn't close borders and don't accept the fact that a normal ratio of 60 year old population/20 year old population is about 1. And the only way how to save pensions, is automatization, not keep them "everyone employed" just to shift medical bills to workers.



Yea expect things like that.

They should release the game free of charge, and simulate properly. It's bit weird that only decent simulation of long term industry/ecology decision is "sim isle".
 

Joggerino

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Official version is a bit crazy with the world going to shit in 20 years but the unofficial patch mellows it out a bit. Also, it's pretty satisfying having a shoot on sight border control policy. One game ended very quickly because I let the middle east fall into chaos and the world oil supply crashed which in turn crashed basically everything and caused a total economic collapse and mass starvation.

It's an interesting game, but the mechanics are flawed and a lot of difficulty comes from how obtuse they are. They also make the game's "green" message completely counterproductive.

In particular, some things the game teaches you:
- Renewable energy is garbage and will never work. Until you get solar panels in space, then they solve the energy problems for all eternity.
- Instead, Oil is the solution. To solve the global warming, you need to expand oil drilling as much as possible.
- India is a shithole, is doomed to be a shithole and even with science-fiction technology, it's doomed to be a shithole. It's impossible to not have India turn into a poor, disease-ridden mess. The one mission where you have to keep all countries' HDI is the hardest one in the game, exactly because keeping India's HDI even moderately high is doomed.
- Environmentalism and green attitudes are harmful, it's better if everyone is consumerist-driven zombie.
- Instead of cutting emissions, solve the global warming by spraying more shit into the atmosphere.
- Meat production is bad, but veganism is even worse.
- Biofuels are a waste of time and money.

It's a fun little game, but after a few attempts and understanding how cards what and what the prerequisite are, there's nothing much left.
Did you actually reach 2120 or 2200 while keeping warming under 3 degrees? I already tried your strategy on the infinite oil scenario and it failed horribly because aerosols fucked the climate down the line.
 

lightbane

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Dec 27, 2008
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Oh hey, this one looks promising, I remember reading about this years ago, but never got to play it. Perhaps I'll give it a try.
ea expect things like that.
I'm not sure what does this video have to do with anything. By the way: Name of the anime, please?
 

Raghar

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It shows a bread made from artificial materials, so full of preservatives and stuff he's moving and talking. And it's full of carrot juice because it was designed for children who hate carrots. BTW I seen bread baked from insect already. (In Penny market. It was more expensive than normal. Nobody wanted it. They threw it out, after nobody wanted it even on sale.)

Name of anime is Jinrui wa suitai Shimashita. Which is based on novel about world after collapse, when they can't have manufacturing chain to make trucks, electricity is lol, and government closed university already because it can't afford them.



Another interesting reading is:
IIRC Asimov was writing obnoxious novels about overpopulated cities before space expansion. He somehow expected people would accept being in 3x3 rooms with shit low paid job, with shit rights because they fucked up stopping overpopulation.

However most writers threw away suicidal behavior of "western" states, and sidestepped problems like too high population/are increases poverty for most of the population. And they didn't bothered to mention of rising living costs caused by too high concentration of population.
 

lightbane

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. BTW I seen bread baked from insect already. (In Penny market. It was more expensive than normal. Nobody wanted it. They threw it out, after nobody wanted it even on sale.)
*checks* Germany, right?

Name of anime is Jinrui wa suitai Shimashita. Which is based on novel about world after collapse, when they can't have manufacturing chain to make trucks, electricity is lol, and government closed university already because it can't afford them.
I'll give the anime a look, thanks.

IIRC Asimov was writing obnoxious novels about overpopulated cities before space expansion. He somehow expected people would accept being in 3x3 rooms with shit low paid job, with shit rights because they fucked up stopping overpopulation.

I still have to read more of Aasimov, but other writers had this taken into account to some degree, from better genetics, to being pressured to work for the military in risky jobs, the excuse of living in a post-scarcity society. Or at least had better homes.

However most writers threw away suicidal behavior of "western" states, and sidestepped problems like too high population/are increases poverty for most of the population. And they didn't bothered to mention of rising living costs caused by too high concentration of population.
Some actually wrote about it, like the Ringworld one. They also had an optimistic, if not naive, vision of the future.
 

Norfleet

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BTW I seen bread baked from insect already. (In Penny market. It was more expensive than normal. Nobody wanted it. They threw it out, after nobody wanted it even on sale.)
Well, no surprises there, normies don't want to eat bugs. Mostly because they never have, or they'd realize they are, in fact, crunchy and delicious, with a kind of nutty flavor, particularly when they've just freshly exploded from touching a hot CPU like a popcorn.
 

Leonard

Educated
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Aug 10, 2018
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Did you actually reach 2120 or 2200 while keeping warming under 3 degrees? I already tried your strategy on the infinite oil scenario and it failed horribly because aerosols fucked the climate down the line.

I usually go for tech victory so I don't think I ever saw year 2200 in the game. My post wasn't an attempt at a guide, but I can elaborate more on the early strategy. I also played without the fan patch, that probably affects the balance a lot.

- You want to protect the forests in South America and South Asia. They have huge tracts of forests, and mass deforestation, or even worse, forest burning will skyrocket emissions (If you ever actually get wildfires in the Amazon, it's game over. Time to restart and don't mess up next time). Stop them.
- Techs are more or less split between really important and complete garbage. Analyzing for importance:

Biotech - complete garbage, but the final tech is needed for the tech victory, so just mostly keep it to your one research center.
Energy research - if you want to use nuclear, beeline 4th generation nuclear or you'll run out of it. I find China to be a good candidate for nuclear power plants. Really helps to cut down on emissions. Mostly unimportant otherwise.
Information technology - get everything everywhere ASAP. The first level of smart grids does nothing, but all the others are amazing. But it's still only second most important tech. Nevertheless, always keep researching this.
Materials research - The most important tech in the game. You want to get 1st gen nanotech as quickly as possible. This allows you to build space solar arrays, which will provide all the energy you'll ever need, free of emissions. It also allows synthetic feedstocks, which removes oil/gas resource costs but increases energy needs(not a problem, you've just got solar arrays). And if this tech wasn't the best in the game already, it also unlock artificial trees, which lets you have negative emissions. I can't stress this enough, you need to keep materials researched as much as possible. Not too mention, other techs here aren't too shabby either. Advanced drilling early is important, spread it to everywhere where there is a significant oil/gas production. Supertensile materials are a decent economic boost.
Robotics - You want aerosols, but you shouldn't need them too early, so it's not a big priority. Benthic depressurisation is mostly a net negative, as soon as you research it, you want to ban clathrates, because clathrate eruptions just skyrocket the temperature. You can unban them once you get the AI, but by then it should barely matter. Desalination is important late, because even with proper water management you will run out of water in some regions.

Always keep information and materials researched, others are a luxury, but unless you get really unlucky you should be able to keep all techs high most of the time.

Other priorities.

- Oil peak is going to be a problem mid game, until you get the solar arrays. That's why advanced drilling is so important, get it wherever there's major oil/gas production. Using the expand oil production card helps, too.
- The negative weather effects are extremely bad. They're the biggest source of the RNG in the game. That's why you want to play all those adaptation to storms and heat cards everywhere.
- Some regions are going to have water problems. Africa, Middle East, India, China. You want to get water expansion programs there ASAP.
- You want to keep the regions stable, but not pacify them. In the unstable regions there is "Provide Security Assistance" card, which is good. In stable regions there is "Fund Law Enforcement" card, which is bad. Don't ever play that one.
- The cheap education card will pay for itself in a turn or two. Turn those undeveloped countries into the powerhouses of the future.
- Cap & Trade is a garbage card, but using it unlocks two unbelievably good cards: Household and Industry regulations. You want to get them eventually everywhere, but start with the biggest population and dirty industry countries (China, India, US).
 

Joggerino

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That's a very nice write-up but why is the Fund Law Enforcement card bad? I didn't notice anything bad about it, only increased stability. It can reduce stability if you push it to far though. Cap and trade can apparently give you great events if you balance it properly between rich and poor regions but that isn't explained at all in the game. I agree with everything else you said. Cheers
 

BrotherFrank

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Ah this was a fun game back in the day.

From what I remember my go to strats always revolved around turning south america and south asia into ecological strongholds and oceania+japan as my research centers+piggy bank (since it's easy to keep them happy by making sure you got all the disaster mitigation policies nice and early) then work my way on gradually leaning the world off oil and into gas+renewables+biofuel, usually causing 1st world countries like usa to collapse because they can't meet their energy demands anymore whilst south america and south asia experience a renaissance, then limp to nuclear and space shenanigans as my end game.

But yeah usually I managed to reach 2200 whilst still being comfortably under 3 degrees of warming so my methods work damnit, I just happen to kill billions of people along the way.
 

Humanophage

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Thanks for pointing to the game. I like it how it has a natalist policy, a one-child policy, two options to reduce birth rates by raising education, a covert sterilisation option, and three levels of gene plagues. Very good larpy stuff - and all the stats everywhere.
u3pcMLG.jpg


In my current run, Europe has twice as big a population as India.

Amusingly, I had a surprisingly successful coup in the Middle East followed by martial law, so it's now rich and "dark green" in outlook (ecofascist? ecoislamist?)
 
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Humanophage

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I played the 2200 mission a couple of times, with one regular and one tech win (I then reloaded to have an ordinary victory). My personal aim was to maximise the influence, well-being, and especially the population of white regions whilst also satisfying the winning conditions.

1. The first priority was to cripple India, since it just keeps polluting everything without even the redeeming quality of giving money. I instituted a one-child policy for a few years as I beelined to the genetic plague. The alpha plague was enough to permanently render India harmless and send it into a spiral of diminishing population. It ended up having a smaller population than Russia. Sorry, BJP.
2. I deployed the improved gene plague in South Asia. This was an ambiguous decision because it was actually quite advanced at the time, well-educated, and very industrial. However, two non-western giants (China and Mid-East) are enough. Besides, it would take too long to make South Asian pollution manageable.
3. The Middle East is unstable but has oil, so you can flip it early with a coup and then ensure that you remain on top with martial law. Its population will diminish on its own because of water stress.
4. China got green early on via nuclear reactors. Same goes for the US. In general, China is very stable and obedient. It has a good industrial-commercial balance, and it produces a lot of money without polluting much.
5. No need to waste time sterilising Africa or bothering with it at all. It swiftly deals with itself, as you can see on the graphs. I never put a single agent there.
6. I also didn't bother with Japan. At first it was providing tech, then it imploded and started a nuclear war (seemingly with itself).
7. It's quite efficient to use the Tobin tax in small regions like Russia and Oceania, and probably Japan.
8. I put the HQ in Europe and it was always quite happy, although I failed to make per capita GDP grow. At least it didn't decline too much.
9. Aerosol spraying seems quite efficient if you want to "win" and don't care about larping. Just let everyone spray it for a couple of turns at the end. I avoided overdoing it since the description says it's controversial so I thought it might have some serious adverse effects.
10. Don't ignore spreading technology to regions like the Middle East which you are not depopulating. Otherwise they'll never be able to deal with their emissions.
11. Oceania was responsible for biotech, Europe for materials and infotech, and the US for robotics and energy.
12. Although I did secure Europe, the US, and Russia from mass migration early on, I somewhat neglected protecting Oceania, so it had a brief wave of rapefugees before I shut the border. This led to permanent problems there (since I refused to implement anti-white social welfare).
13. Oceania ended up making -2000 emissions at the end, being the most ecologically benign region.

Here are my endgame stats.

The dynamic:


Population and some other things (all immigration into white countries is banned, so it's not assimilated climate rapefugees - only constant baby booms and decent healthcare):
FekOAxw.jpg


Next challenge would be to have a prosperous India.
 
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Humanophage

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I haven't played with the DLCs, are they any good?
I haven't played it without the DLCs, so I'm not sure what exactly do they add. The refugee mechanic can probably be used to populate Oceania and such with fleeing Indians if you're into that sort of thing. Or you can feel noble for not letting them in. Haven't tried the specific scenario since I find the classic mode to be most simulationist.
 

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