Video Game / Politics And War

Politics and War is a browser-based nation simulation in the likes of Cyber Nations and NationStates.

Although on the surface the game may appear to be a Cyber Nations clone, the game differentiates itself with several gameplay improvements, and more complex gameplay. These include a resource collection system in the style of traditional RTS games, a more turn-based oriented war system with military points, and more in-depth nation building with individual cities. However, in many way the game is still somewhat similar to Cyber Nations. But, as many players can vouch (as some of them have also played Cyber Nations), this is not a bad thing.

The game itself was released around late October in 2013. Initially, most of the players came from other nation sim games: Pixel Nations, Project Terra, and Cyber Nations. The game continues to receive a constant influx of players from those aforementioned games - many of whom they also brings along their alliances with them.

Tropes in Politics and War:

• The Alliance: Player created alliances are an important part of the game. It's named Politics and War for a reason.
• An Entrepreneur Is You: The in-game economy is entirely player driven, with resources produced by players and traded to other players.
• Anti-Frustration Features: If a player is defeated in a war (10 consecutive successful ground attacks or equivalent), they're put in "beige mode", where they're immune to wars being declared upon them.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: All military units are limited by the amount of military improvements built. For example, soldiers are limited to 3,000 per barracks.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Nuclear weapons. They're expensive and require a great many resources to produce. However, they can create great levels of devastation when used, capable of destroying up to 87.5% of infrastructure levels.
  • To a lesser extent, missiles. They require a specific building, like nukes, but they're cheaper. In return, however, they deal less damage.
  • Ships. They're capable of blockading an enemy nation, preventing them from trading. But they're expensive, vulnerable to enemy spies & aircraft, the damage they deal is comparatively minimal, and they inflate your score like there is no tomorrow.
• Baseball Episode: You can found a national baseball team and play games for cash
• Boring, but Practical: Soldiers. They're cheap, and the improvement needed to train them is cheap too. Cue Zerg Rush.
  • Tanks are a good force multiplier (worth 40 unarmed soldiers and 23 armed ones) and can counter ZergRushes as long as they have sufficient infantry force to back them up. Just make sure you win the air war, though you can make it easier if you win an immense triumph with your ground forces.
  • Aircraft are more expensive, but they become (and remains) very important for nations with many cities and for alliances. See Difficult, but Awesome.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted. Munitions are a finite resource that needs to be either produced or bought from other players. Without ammo none of you vehicles can attack, while your soldiers will receive a severe damage penalty.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Downplayed. Players can buy "credits" that, when owned, will provide them with the ability to have custom flags, national anthems, and access to the VIP forum. However, they can also provide an income bonus, and be traded them to other players with in-game money. You are limited to 10 credits per month, however.
• Command & Conquer Economy: Building cities and infrastructure, raising armies, and trading are all done by player themselves.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Ships. They're good at blockading enemy nations (which prevents the target from trading) and fighting other ships. Besides that they're rather expensive, very vulnerable to aircrafts, and inflate your score at a rate that threatens to put you in an enemy's downdeclare range.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Aircraft. They're expensive, and they use significant amounts of gas and ammo for each attack. But successful air to ground attack result in the "air control" buff, which results in enemy tanks' stats being reduced by 50%. They also cut through ships like a hot knife through butter, and they're very efficient at destroying infrastructure. The only thing that can stop aircraft is other aircraft.
  • Aircraft are especially important in alliance wars, where the key is to wear down oppositions until they could no longer fight. Sure, your massive army could theoretically "beige" me, but I just need to worn down your military (and avoid beiging you) such that the next person can take you down a notch. Especially your air force. And in alliance wars, people who can hit you will hit you when they have the chance (limited to three defensive wars per player).
  • It's also the key to several gameplay tactics, below.
• Easy Logistics: Played with. Yes, you don't need to distribute food and ammunition by yourself. But you must have enough food and ammo in the first place.
• Gameplay Automation: To some degree. Resources and income are collected automatically every turn (2 hours).
• Level Scaling: A form of this exists in the form of the nation score. It serves to limit the number of nations you can declare war against to those within the range (75% at minimum and 175% at maximum), and intends to limit new player stomps by more experienced players. At higher tier, where most nations inevitably are part of alliances, nations with higher scores have more lower-score targets that they can hit with impunity, since they can simply outproduce and outnumber the weaker targets.
• Loophole Abuse: The war mechanics have been abused constantly.
  • Initially, wars can only be peaced out, meaning the winning side can keep occupying its opponent until the war expires in 5 days.
  • The first attempt to curtail this - by adding a ground offensive victory counter - only encourages this gameplay in alliance wars, merely by avoiding ground attacks at all.
  • This was then replaced with a resistance meter, with all attacks affecting it.
    • Unfortunately, the first iteration of the system also grants additional resistance when one side fortifies... which only continued the problem it was designed to fix in the first place. This was eventually fixed so that fortification no longer grants resistance.
    • Ironically, the Air Force becomes even more important in alliance wars thanks to this mechanic, since its inefficiency at breaking down the resistance meter makes it a more viable method for dragging the wars long enough to pass them to the next group of people. Effectively keeping the occupation tactic viable.
  • Military recruitments reset every day at 0:00 server time, with any amount not used up lost in the following day. Some players works around this by buying all available units before 0:00, and then buying all available units after that, in an attempt to gain a military advantage through the "double buy." In turn, some players hold off making any offensive operations until their oppositions starts "double buying," then bomb them as much as possible to negate any advantage of doing this. It helps with the above war mechanics, too.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Like in Cyber Nations, nukes and missiles tend to be spammed in war. Side effects include radioactive fallout, crop failures, etc.
• No Fair Cheating: To prevent Alt-itis, the game generates unique codes based on the IP address, which is displayed on the nation page.
  • It used to be that having more than one nation on a single IP address would get you banned, but now multiple accounts are allowed to be on the same IP as long as they act individually, and not use alliance banks to circumvent trade restrictions.
  • The accounts are even allowed to be in the same alliance so long as they do not declare war on the same nation. It is thus theoretically possible to coordinate strikes with another player against a common enemy, so long as the enemy declares war on at least one of them (or both of them), and not have it considered being against the rules!
• Nuke 'em: Nuclear weapons are capable of destroying tons (87.5% in attrition wars) of infrastructures. Good luck dealing with radiation, though.
• Player-Generated Economy: The market is entirely player based, and resources can be sold to or bought from other players.
• Plunder: For every successful ground attack, the victor can take some money from the loser. If a player wins a war, they also take some resources from their alliance bank. You get the most plunder if you launch a Raid (100% plunder and 25% infrastructure damage), but it is inevitable in all wars.
• Point Defenseless: The only thing that can counter planes are other planes. Other attacks have a very slim chance of destroying air bases, so don't count on it.
  • Missiles can be countered with Iron Dome, which has a decent interception chance of 50%. Many suspects the interception chance to be actually higher.
  • Nuclear missiles can be countered with Vital Defense System, which has a 25% chance of interception. Again, many suspects the interception chance to be actually higher.
• Refining Resources: Oil can be refined into gasoline, coal and iron can be refined into steel, while bauxite can be refined into aluminium.
• Silly Reason for War: Occasionally (Nation Vs Nation) wars will be declared for absurd reasons. For example, wars have been declared for: "testing" , "You've been a baaaaaad nation", "Inactivity".
  • Alliance wars aren't any better either. Sometimes alliances declare war on other alliances for vague reasons, like OOC insults. A few don't even bother with declarations of war at all.
• Start My Own: The creator has admitted that he got the idea to create the game from playing Cyber Nations.
• Status Buff: Succesful ground control gives the attacker a "ground control" buff that causes the enemy to be limited to launching two-thirds of their fighters. Meanwhile, the "air control" buff from successful airstrikes reduces enemy tank strength by 50%.
• Tank Goodness: One tank is equal to 40 soldiers (23 assuming said soldiers have ammo).
• Wizard Needs Food Badly: Your population and soldiers constantly consume food.
• World War Whatever: Although only one of them is actually called "World War Alpha."
  • Since the end of open beta (which also ended the aforementioned war), there has been the Marionette War, The Great VE War, Proxy War, Oktoberfest (only everyone's slinging bottles at each other and no one mentions The War), 168 Day War (The war lasted for just shy of a month. The war got its name from how long it took for one of the alliances to respond.), NPO's First Time ♥, Silent War, Papers, Please, The Trail of Tiers, and the Ayyslamic Crusade. As of this writing, Orbis is once again in a global war, Knightfall (So named because one of the chief combatants is The Knights Radiant).
• You Nuke 'Em: Of course you get to do that. Make sure to have a Uranium Enrichment Program.
• You Require More Vespene Gas: The game features 13 different resources.
  • Credit: Can only be acquired by buying it with real money or from other players. Gives you an income bonus and can be used to unlock custom flags.
  • Coal: Used for coal power plant and in order to refine steel.
  • Oil: Used for power oil power plant and can be refined into gasoline.
  • Uranium: Used for nuclear power plant and to build nukes.
  • Lead: Refined into ammunition.
  • Iron: Along with coal, refined into steel.
  • Bauxite: Refined into aluminium.
  • Gasoline: Used to power tanks, aircrafts, and ships during war.
  • Ammunition: Used to multiply all of your units' damage.
  • Steel: Used to build tanks, ships, and advanced improvements.
  • Aluminum: Used to build aircrafts and advanced improvements.
  • Food: Used to feed your population and army.
  • Money: The most important resource of them all. Used to buy everything.
• Zerg Rush: A common (and viable) tactic in both inter-nation and inter-alliance wars. In nation wars, you can easily overwhelm your enemy's army by simply attacking with a huge amount of soldiers, while in alliance warfare, the biggest alliances could easily overwhelm smaller alliances.
  • Nonetheless, this trope can be Played With. Attacking with any unit type consumes ammunition, and larger armies obviously require more ammo. As a result, unless an attacking nation is well stocked or rich, they could easily have their ammo supply burn out over a short period of time and see their offensive grinds to a halt. Also, enemies can enhance their smaller forces with tanks, which are more powerful than soldiers.
    • And in alliance wars, it is not unheard of for smaller alliances made up of powerful nations to defeat larger alliances composed mostly of small nations.
    • Alliance wars that consist of this trope include the Great VE War (Guardian/Seven Kingdoms/Mensa HQ vs. EVERYONE) and the recent Knightfall (10 alliances on one side versus 31 on the other), to name a few.

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