Rogue State Reviews

Fun little game that plays out quite a bit like Democracy 3, if you've played that one. Not particularly difficult once you figure out the rules, but it's engaging to balance the many needs of an emerging nation. Has some amusing moments throughout. Worth a quick playthrough.

Rogue State fills a specific niche very well - very challenging, procedurally generated( never the same twice), self aware, and valuing content over presentation/story. At it's core it is a strategic political simulation game putting you in charge of a middle eastern country. There are also strong emphasis on survival over crafting the your country as you see fit. Surviving is difficult, and unlike other mangement survival games like Long Live the Queen there is some randomness, which can ruin the experience for some, but it also increases replayability. Many things threaten your survival, revolts from factions within your populace (patriots, liberals, captialists, and fundamentalists), your power hungry brother, your military, your own government's cabinet, your neigbors, democratic rebellions, disease, envnironment and financial crises, and even the meddling United States. It may take several playthroughs to see all of these threats, and the most problematic threat to your power is almost never the same on back to back new games. Though random, you do have hints to what you should focus on that are simple to miss, such as paying attention to random events, analyzing the breakdown of people who are in each faction or using information gained through your intelligence agency. However, that being said there are some good things that are always good - keeping a large surplus of money around of diasters and investing into your economy and social programs with somewhat high taxes. I also like how this game can be subtle. You are actually a dictator and one of the scenarios confirms this when a group threatens your regime with a democratic revolution. This is easy to overlook because the game rewards you for being a benevolent dictator, and the absence of elections during the whole game is easier to miss than you think when the game doesn't paint you as the stereotypical evil dictator. This game may turn off some with its unpolished retro graphics and empasis on strategy over a story, but I believe it targets a specific target demographic well. If you are ready for challenege, can overlook a somewhat dated presentation, and are aware this is more of a survival/management game that rewards for you playing to the situation faced rather than roleplaying as you see fit, this is the game for you.

Despite problems with the User Interface, Random Number Generator shenanigans and obtuse game mechanics (I have a personal offshore bank account???), I found myself thoroughly engaged. It's not that often we find a game about reconstructing a country AFTER the war, and turning a ruined nation into one that gets the world's respect feels damn good. I honestly hope the devs can make a sequel with more polish. As it is, I will recommend it, if only because despite its flaws it's clearly something made with effort and has an interesting premise. Also, the devs are actively updating the game based on feedback, ALWAYS GOOD

Rogue State is a handsome mess. I've tried to like it, I spent on it 7 hours, and 12 more after some pause, and in the end I felt robbed. The game lets you feel like a ruler in terms of stress and management, but not in terms of making a difference. Sometimes the game doesn't seems to answer to your choices, sometimes it's misguiding/arbitrary, and sometimes it feels too cruel or even too sugared. About choises: You can disallow the death penalty and give amnesty to defeated enemies, but anyway NPCs will say that you executed them publicly, and sometimes the game will obliviously suggest to punish your subordinates with nonexistent measure. Random regular events – an important gameplay feature – contribute to the sence of powerlessness. Event can ask you to deal with, say, ecological problem, and the only way to resolve it... is to encounter this crisis not before, say, 9th turn. Player needs do have specific construction, and it's impossible to build it earlier. That could add some drama or "realism," but player can never defer the decision for later, not even for a month, and it doesn't always makes any sense. About misguiding: You can lose the game while having 100% approval of every person and institute in the country just because UI doesn't help you to understand objectives. It feels like the game cheats, and it's not the only case. After every walkthrough you'll earn some XP to unlock new gameplay features. Unfortunately, some of them are mediocre, and others just have no effect (literally). About cruelty or sugary: Again, it's just another case of inability to play as you want. You can build liberal paradise, but your subordinates will anyway fail to interrogate prisoner without killing him. Alas, it was mentioned in a dialogue, and dialogues doesn't react to your play-style, they all written for default heartless dictator. Sweetness is the opposite: a severe ruler can forbid hamburgers and western haircuts, but the most brutal measure he can inflict on liberal manifestation is... turning a blind eye on it. I'm afraid that Rogue State actually has only one real way to win it, a pretty precise set of steps. Any other steps are of no significance or wrong. It's not awful – many components of the game are very decent – but I can't recommend it.

This is probably the best political game you can get on Steam (if you don't count 'Papers, Please') but it does need some improvement to become truly great. I found the Democracy series boring, Fate of the World was a bit too heavy and I never got into Tropico. I prefer this game to any of them, despite its current flaws. One game this title does remind me of is 'Conflict: Middle East Politics Simulator', although that game is 25 years old. I've always wanted a remake of 'Conflict...' but with modern technology. This is almost what I always wanted. This game also has a sense of humour which works. Other political games attempt it and they fall flat. The only other political game that succeeds with this sort of humour is 'Papers, Please'. The problem with this game is that it doesn't make you desperate to replay it once you've finished the story once. There are things you can unlock, which motivate you to replay - but what this game really needs is more events, crisies and different story branches.The developers are still quite active in improving this game, which is nice. The game is also still slightly unbalanced in places, which is being fixed. At the moment, it feels about 95% finished. I would love to be surprised by some stonking great new content, though - or even some DLC.

While the concept is interesting, drawing from the same idea of games such as Balance of Power, there is just not much depth to this game. While it promises a branching option for governing in reality it is just a numbers game and lacks any real sense of weight or consequence for doing anything.

I very much like this game. It's a good mix between Sim Junta, Democracy 3 and Rulers of Nations. The simplicity and short gameplay like Sim Junta, the various policy selection and experimentation of Democracy 3 and the background complexity of Ruler of Nations. The concept is simple, it is a turn-based geopolitical simulation game where you are the ruler of a newly established country called the People's Republic of Basenji and you must strive against unhappy citizens, a power-hungry brother, an imperialistic UN/USA and the desires of your neighbors. You will have events that pop up where you must make hard choices that will determine the fate of Basenji and affect your popularity with the 5 groups of citizens (Capitalists, Patriots, Fundamentalists, Liberals and Qariffi (I think that's spelled right). You also need to keep the loyalty of your own military or else your brother Farouk will swiftly eject you from power. You adjust policies that range from minimum wage requirements to your country's alcohol tolerance laws which will affect your standing amongst the various groups and will change from turn to turn. You also have the ability to maintain a military and invade your neighbors or garner the affections and attentions of the UN and US, either to your benefit or detriment. From the time I've spent with the game so far, I don't think you can win... you just do a little better each time and (like Plague Inc.) every time you complete a game, you're able to unlock more special modifiers to change up the experience. Artistically and musically, this game really excels. While neither are perfect, they really set the mood and help to immerse you in your new role as president of Basenji. I just love that everyone is voiced as well... it shows there is a lot of love and labor that has been put into the game. All in all, I love this game. Simple yet addictive with a wealth of content for only 12.99, this is arguably one of the better low budget Geosims I've played in a long time. Highly recommended. Gameplay Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOuB2VdRX2E

I've went back and forth on deciding whether to up or downvote this game and I have decided to downvote. The reason for my downvote is simple, after a couple play throughs you realize the game lacks depth. I have failed in only my first play through and then scored over 900 on all play throughs afterward. Did I just magically become a genius? No, it is because I found the trick to succeeding every single time. I of course ignored this flaw because I thought the developers were going to continue to improve the game over time. I was wrong. In a recent news update it has come to light that the game will only be maintained via bug squashing and support. So basically this is the finished game. I was really hoping for more interactions with other nations, russia needs to be more than a minor detial, and more random events that forced the player to adapt. Due to these limitations, it seems there are really only a couple ways to truely succeed. This is of course a problem when the description of the game includes, "a world of possibilities" as one of the reasons to buy.

This is a flawed political and financial sim where you try to balance your treasury with approval from your various social factions, the military and cabinet ministers, while keeping an eye on your neighbors and possibly developing some fancy secret project on the side. You get 5 years, i.e. 60 turns, which you have to survive and hopefully rack up a good score. The good: - A good breadth of approaches are possible. You can please some factions while neglecting others, you can be a corrupt kleptocrat, you can be a warmonger or a peacebroker, side with the USA or Russia, oppress or empower the ethnic minority, and more. - It's varied. Each playthrough randomizes the events you get, the resources that become available, population faction membership, ministers and the big late-game crisis (such as a recession or terrorist threat). Makes for lots of replay value. - There are collectibles, including game modes with alternate start conditions, and some easter-eggy unlockables. The Bad: - The military aspect is atrocious, or at least woefully underexplained. I never have any idea why my units are winning or losing. I don't know what forces the enemy has since they're not shown on the map, and I don't understand why my buildings are getting destroyed when I have forces at the border. It's so bad and obtuse, I almost gave the game a negative rating. - Expensive superprojects have a chance of failure. This shouldn't be. If you put millions and millions into a project and it fails, you may as well start over. Very ill-conceived system given how tight your budget is and how much money is involved. Maybe instead there should be multiple levels of funding that get you more bonuses the more you invest in the project. - The intelligence system seems like a lot of expense for little gain. 50 million might get you a tidbit of info that you can use one time to increase relations with one neighbor by a bit. I just didn't find it worth the expense. It's super-insulting too when you pay tens of millions just to get a morsel of info about a leader that Wikipedia would have told you. I know you can get more indepth stuff, but the expense is just unacceptable. If you could direct intelligence spending on specific areas, or the investment needed for each type of intel was more transparently explained, it would be a much more engaging mechanic. See, like the military aspect, the game seems to think uncertainty is an involving game mechanic, which it can be but not when you don't understand what is happening or why. The rules need to be clearer and better represented in the game. Uncertainty should come down to the player making informed choices knowing the risks, not to being left in the dark about vital information. Other remarks: - As with real life, it all comes down to money. Practically everything takes money. It's really easy to get people to love you if you just throw enough money at their problems. Which is good if you want a financial sim, but perhaps not so good if you expect a complex political sim. Once you've tried a playthrough or two, you'll get the picture that, while it's easy to keep most everyone happy and stay in the green in the early and mid-game, the late game throws you a curve ball that - you guessed it - takes lots of money to solve. So you learn to be frugal and squirrel away cash into the treasury for that stormy, stormy day. Verdict: It's clear this team put a lot of effort into this game, and this is why I'm giving it a positive rating, but key aspects are too half-baked and underexplained for it to be consistently fun. These are things that can be patched, and that would make Rogue State a real gem.

First time playing, everyone loved me but the libruls. The the UN got pissy with me over some environemental shit. Made the huge mistake of letting in refugees and ask UN for moneybecause EVERYONE hated that, I was hoping to get friendly with the nation of the refugees as well as scoring free cash from UN. After this everything went downhill, everyone hates me, tax was raised to 55% from 13% to cover expenses. Ive lost all popular support and im just sitting in my office waiting to get assassinated. All in all a good and fun dictator simulator, I like it.