It's very strange, you can tell the writing for this game is all-timer level great because people can have wildly divergent interpretations of the game's ultimate tone. It's either one of the most depressing and defeatist games ever made, or one of the most optimistic and hopeful. And both interpretations are equally valid.
(I'm more in the optimism camp, for the record).
Yeah my first run (Reformist but lost the war) I funded Health and Education thinking I would get prompted for a new budget annually and initial investments there would pay off Keynesian-style.
But funding Law Enforcement is actually extremely important if you intend to
spoiler
root out the Sollist deep state root and branch.
Which I did to a maximalist extent in my second, successful run.
Lmao you went Dictator, defunded the military, joined CSP, didnt promote Lucian, and didn't form the Anti-Corruption Police, didn't you?
I'm pretty sure thats the route you have to take to alienate literally everyone in the cabinet and have every possible bid to overthrow you go off.
That that kind of game, with so much thematically and artistically bound up within it, could ever have come out at all, that was the real Insulindian Miracle
I came to terms with the inevitability that it was probably never going to get any follow-up, just like how I had to come to terms with the fact that the Song of Ice and Fire series will probably never be concluded. Its the definition of "Dont be sad its gone. Smile because it happened."
Picture after this was told to the Coal Mining Enjoyer:gigachad:
Literally no one here is arguing that Ukraine is good, but the actual leftists (as opposed to national chauvinists) here are arguing that this is unmistakably an inter-imperialist war and not some convoluted "the invasion of Ukraine is anti-imperialist because Russia is on the imperial periphery of a super-imperialist bloc" bullshit argument.
I'm someone who can absolutely advance arguments that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was caused by outside imperialist circumstances. But now that it has happened, and is actual fact? There is zero "critical support" of Russian aggression here. The only legitimate communist position in this scenario is for Ukrainian and Russian soldiers alike to turn their guns on their own generals. Will that happen? No. But that's the fucking position the Bolsheviks themselves took from the start, not some ridiculous stance about how actually the Kaiser was right to resist all along and criticizing the German war effort is bad.
Anyone on this site who genuinely believes Vladimir Putin does "anti-imperialism" out of any motive other than supremely cynical, convenient, competing imperialist interest seriously needs to re-evaluate their stances and sources. Or, otherwise, go join the fucking Maupinite/Hazite clowns who are basically doing the most cringe reactionary shit imaginable, because they are your people.
I say this as someone who has for a while tried to stay out of the dogmatic factionalist bullshit in favor of just shitposting when it comes to this site. If you've been suckered into believing a siloviki-dominated hyper-capitalist kleptocracy like Russia is a genuine force for "anti-imperialism", you've been fucking had in the worst way possible. Even the most mindless simping for modern Dengist China has a more rational basis.
Actually the real moral of The Jungle was "ew theyre putting the greasy kilbasa-groping fingers of polish immigrants in my food"
Definitely proof the Democrats could easily destroy an individual dissident like Manchin if they wanted to
CPRF stop being shit ass nationalists debasing a corpse challenge (Difficulty: Impossible)
The satire of ideologies in DE is genuinely some of the most biting satire in that regard anywhere. The satire of communism hits particularly hard because it comes from a place of real experience and affection.
:alex-aware: