SuperPower 3 Impressions – My Brain is like a Chocolate Orange

I can tell you right now that SuperPower 3 is 1000% not my kind of game. However, it would be unprofessional of me to dismiss GolemLabs‘ simulation series out of hand just because I know I’m bad at it and don’t like it. Published by THQ Nordic, the game will be available on Steam 8 October 2022, for you to show the world that you can do better than the incompetent politicians of the real world.

TABLING THE NOT-CONSTITUTION

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, SuperPower 3 is the third of a series of geopolitical simulation games, with a basis on the real world. It’s not a completely 1 to 1 application, of course, but it is noteworthy that the devs have made it a point to have the systems and mechanics be accurate to their real life equivalents, while still gamifiying it.

My regular Options menu dive does not bring up much, which is understandable. They’re basically the most basic tweaks where you can play this game on a toaster if you could, with the ability to rebind your keys. What I do consider a minor oversight is that colour-coded things exist in this game, and not having additional tweaks for these may have been a missed opportunity.

Okay, considering the game, it’s not that big of a deal. It would still be cool, though.

BECOMING PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD

Before you start playing 194D chess, you first need to make an avatar to represent the new leader of the modern world. It’s a surprisingly robust feature despite it mostly consisting of presets. Most of the options are cosmetic, with only three options being absolutely vital:

• Ethnic group
• Language
• Religion

Making a character that’s as close to the approximate “normal” in the country you’ve chosen to start with is meant to give you an “easier” time, because people are accustomed to what they know best and also we’re basically jerks, to put it lightly. During your character creation, the map will highlight areas your character’s features are most commonly associated with. You can also just hit Random for an avatar, as the randomizer will stick to the parameters best suited for the country of choice while everything else is free game. If you fancy looking like a pasty white cowboy in anywhere in the world, that is a possibility.

Prior to setting up a game, you can apply user submitted mods where applicable, so the setting up process is really easy. The game does warn you that these mods could affect the stability of the game, but that’ll be on your case by case basis.

For both single player and multiplayer lobbies, you can opt to go with either the “free for all” Sandbox, or the other 14 scenarios available at launch. In Sandbox mode, you can choose any one of the 194 countries listed, each with their respective starting “stats” (so to speak) from which you can build up to the titular Superpower. It’s worth noting that the developers have not intended this game to be a “war” game; while reigning supreme with military power is an option, it is still a geopolitical sim offering different avenues of power plays.

For the solo player, AI difficulty can be adjusted with three levels: Low, Normal, and High, applicable for both Sandbox and any of the scenarios. Scenarios will have much more restrictive choices of countries, with the different parties having their own respective win or fail conditions, as well as their own starting parameters.

Similarly for multiplayer, you can choose to go for a Sandbox game or set a playable scenario, whether it be hosting a game yourself, joining one, or loading up a game. You can set a minimum number of human players, opening up a game to the Internet, LAN, OnlyProgs, or OnlyProgsWithBans. The last notable setting is for Nuclear Warfare, which can be set to No restriction, War Only, Invasion Only, or Never.

194D CHESS

Get used to opening up all your tabs and menus, trying to parse the numbers before you. I found the tooltip reminding me of “self-serving alliances” and to “never trust your allies. Never…” quite ominous, really.

I’m sure fans of the series will love that the series is returning. However, I’m here to stress it again: I know very well this is not in my wheelhouse, and despite a quick crash course, both the mechanical complexity and my simple distaste of management games does not make a good mix. I do think it’s incredibly overwhelming for newbies, though I believe that even if you’re new to SuperPower, it’ll be much easier to ease into the game if you’ve played any other deeply detailed management simulator. The build I tried did not offer me a tutorial which I may have missed in my distress at large numbers. The in-game button sending me to the fan wiki did not especially enlighten me.

There are quite a lot of tooltips, many of them being long as well, explaining the potential effects behind changing them across four main categories: demography, politics, economy, and military. Zooming in to the map will let you see icons of regions where a facility might be located: airports, military bases, that kind of thing.

It’s easy to find a country or region you need to interact with using the magnifying glass on the bottom left. You can type in the name of the place you’re looking for and you’ll be directed there if you’re not already a pro Geoguessr player. Once you’ve selected the region, you can begin to start planning your policies accordingly via the sliders and features available to you. Their general statistics will be on the right of the screen.

In essence, you’ll be finding the following key data within the four categories:

DEMOGRAPHY

• Immigration, emigration
• Culture which includes the Press; you could choose to nationalize things, or close it altogether
• Support control relates to Internet access

POLITICS

• Enable the possibility of elections
• Could potentially make opposing parties illegal at the cost of public approval
• Internal laws which can be made legal / illegal
  • Freedom of speech
  • Freedom of assembly 
  • Homosexuality
  • Abortion
  • Gay marriage
  • Reproductive freedom
• You can check who your allies are, who you’re at war with, or non-aggression treaties, or contested regions. Here’s also where you can decide to extend or limit diplomatic relations to a chosen country

ECONOMY

• See your primary, secondary and tertiary economic sectors and how much they’re making or losing
• You can click on any given sector and choose to modify how much you’re investing, or trading with other countries
• Here’s also where you’ll manage your budget, taxes

MILITARY

• Allocate budget for army spending / research
• If you want you could set a country to potentially be trespassing

SEALED WITH RED TAPE

For what SuperPower 3 sets out to do, I do believe it’s stellar. With a staggering swathe of comprehensive data made to be as accurate as possible without sacrificing gameflow, I can see its potential use in being a teaching tool, not simply to challenge simulation fans.

More than anything, this is definitely not a game for just anyone. While Scenarios provide Win / Fail states for newcomers to use as guidelines, it still is a lot to pick up. If you’re unwilling – or don’t have enough time – to learn, the sheer density is enough to turn most people off.

I don’t know if there’s a way that this could somehow be made more “newbie” friendly, and I don’t expect it to be. SuperPower 3 does what it’s meant to do well, finding its niche in the greater world.

SuperPower 3

Publisher: THQ Nordic

Developer: GolemLabs

Release Date: 2022-10-08

Steam

SuperPower 3 is a modern geopolitical sim in a planet Earth setup. Rule the world or challenge your knowledge about demography, economics, military strategy, as well as political issues across the globe. Compete with or against other players, or just try to do better than the real-life politicians.

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