Any Shadow President owners ?

[Colonâ„¢]

I've just downloaded this game and I must say I'm hooked by thuis fascinating game. Yet, I have some questions about it. Is there anyone who knows it well, is experienced with what results decisions have, what influence certain features have (Leadership effectiveness for instance) etc ... someone who knows how the whole game works ?
[This message has been edited by Colon (edited April 01, 2000).]

[Colonâ„¢]

*BUMP*in' in hope

[Lazlo]

The idea was good, and the first few (very few!) hours the game was very promising, but then I got bored quit insantly. Almost NOTHING ever happens. You just stand there making some minor insignificant adjustments here and there... I you ever do something significant, disaster follows. Your ministers leave you (which renders you completely blind) and I don´t know a way of recruiting them back.
Also, you should be able to play another country. Maybe a thirs world country and try to improve it in the context of the 1990 world. That would be challenging and fun. Playing as a super power is not very fun, in my opinion.
Extremely slow paced.
Too bad. The idea was great and so was the effort.

[Joe Bourque]

Yeah, this is an interesting game, and I pull it out now and then, but it isn't anywhere near as cool as it could have been. Simply repeating options again and again will often have great results. I converted China into a very peaceful, open, non-aggressive society in less then six months by hitting it with eighty or so peace negotiations and some other stuff in that vien. Bombarding countries with the same thing again and again will almost always have a large effect. In the case of `nice' things, you could probably make the entire world a peaceful paradise in a few hours if you were patient enough to send peace delegations to every nation umpteen bazillion times. But doing `bad' stuff, like surgical strikes and selling arms to rebels, will actually transform the United States into a police state (!?!) almost overnight.

The military model seems screwed up... several times when Iraq starts the Gulf War I'll send several hundred thousand American troops in to invade Iraq. Turkey always joins me with some redicously huge number as well. But, almost without fail, Iraq will win and the United States will surrender.

One thing I think could have improved the game would be an even faster time scale, so you could move through a year in less time and see the results of your long term actions more quickly.

All in all though, I agree with Lazlo that it was a good effort. I think a Civilization type game could probably get some good ideas from Shadow President, especaily when your Civ gets into the modern age.

Don't bother with the sequel however, `Cyber Judas'. I picked this up for three bucks, and wasted my money. It has better graphics, but the game is MUCH slower (highest time scale is a few hours I think) and very hard to use. Not only that, but I think the guts of the game are absolutely identical to Shadow President.

Joe

[Colonâ„¢]

Yeah, I agree the game can be boring at times, but atleast it's not some brainless game as there are so many, a real attempt to recreate international (geo)politics has been made, albeit not always as succesful.

Lazlo, I don't know what tactics you chose, but as long you don't start throwing nukes or start wars for no goof reason, ministers won't abandon you.
Things progress slowly, but that how real life is, Rome wasn't build in one day either, but with minor steps and patience.
You can increase the pace of the game, with the keys 1 to 5. (from 1hour/second to 1 day/second)
Being able to play another than US would indeed have been great.

Joe, the time scale can be increased. (see above)
I don't know whether the war model is screwed. I don't do it often either how, because popularity rates plummet with it. (have you ever survived a military invasion ? I always got impeached because of extreme low popularity)
Perhaps if you'd tried sending over a million US soldiers into Iraq, perhaps that would make you win (militarily) ?

Do you know how the aid model works ? Eg when I budget 2 b$ I found that only a couple of hundreds were actually free to give away. That is, for economic and humanitarian aid, intelligence, military & nuclear aid is detached, even when I budget to give no aid at all, there's money left for these. And how are the proportions determined, why is there x amount for humanitarian and y for economic ? Do you know that ?
And what's the point of budgeting $ for investments ? You don't get economic growth or popularity with it.

[JohnT]

I haven't played this since 92-93, but it was a fun game. I remember trying to create a government based upon Libertarian party principles: I slashed all "unconstitutional" government spending, got rid of as many Federal agencies as usual and beefed up the military and cut the tax rate to a bare minimum. Even though my economy grew at 17% a year, I got booted out of office really quick because the "welfare bums" raised too much of a stink.