I played Rayne as a center-leftist, which I thought would make me the fewest enemies, but I ended up completely obliterating the economy, falling into a debt crisis, making every faction hate my guts, half my cabinet quit (and one committed suicide out of shame), and then we got invaded and conquered and I got executed in prison... This game pulls ZERO fucking punches.
Well remaining neutral or centerist may look like the best and safest choice like other games but suzerain is different if you don't choose a side and stick with it, then you are punished which is what I like about the game whichever side you choose you have to stick with it otherwise your voter base will be divided only exception is if you completely fix the economy and welfare or win the war. It took me 5+ tries to finally get re-elected and that too was a marginal victory and I still could not figure out how to win the war.
It took me years to study the game very well And.i am still learning their latest dlc rizia is crazy bt after a careful study i was able to conquer pales despite all the setbacks It kills my loneliness tho since my wife died tho
I like the intro. There's also the Democracy series of games which tackles policy making and effects and tries to have some political shenanigans added in, but it's very impersonal and simulation like even if you're technically the president/prime minister and your cabinet can resign or you could get your term ended prematurely if you upset the wrong people. There's nothing personal. I agree that playing the politician and being able to choose how you interact with people rather than dictating everything from a spreadsheet is very rare for computer games. The closest parallel I know is a choice of games WIP "The People's House" where you get to play a recently elected president of the US of either party and choose your backstory, then choose how to interact with the daily life of being president and it's rather fair in representing different arguments for and against policies, but I don't know when the full game is coming out. Suzerain is pretty hard if you want to do anything else than moderate reformist or pro military runs, imo. Maybe it's just me, I find it easy to be moderate reformist because that's where I lean.
Brooo I have never felt more seen than when you brought up peoples house I love that WIP and I agree that it’s probaly the closest thing to Suzerain we’re it’s a political sim with a more personal feel. I think after playing through Suzerain so many times it feels easy to me no matter the path I choose to play but I also tend to stick to playing through the game with my personal beliefs it just feels easier and more fun to me. I feel like a moderate reform run is probaly the closest thing to canon I would imagine it’s what most players do or attempt to do in their first run.
@@Conduit999 It was a very well made video! However i have not seen you talk about the politically active minority in sordland: Bludish people and their representative parties The Worker's Party of Bludia and the former-Bludish Freedom Party( or something similar... I'll have to check back to make sure Their history with sordland is one of suffering, state discrimation and the desire to be... Respected as a sovereign culture and people
It really does I’m happy that’s there a dedicated community but I wish that more people knew about it you would think with how many political junkies there are in real life it would be more popular
Amazing video on my favourite game of all time! What makes this game so brilliant is that it is a sincere expression of real life politics that you can only really win if you yourself have sincere opinions on the options the game presents you. Love seeing videos from other fans of this game!
I’m really glad you enjoyed the video, it’s great to see other fans of this game im on the subreddit but I wish the community was bigger. It really is a masterpiece.
Feeling the burden is what I love of this game. The stress, the tingles on my head, just half dozen of hours of choices and choices and choices. Tho I got couped and jailed for 20 years, the relief was great.
Absolute Cinema But fr, this is the best video essay I've seen tackling Suzerain, you got it like perfectly. Also just glad to have more attention on the game, it's so good and not nearly enough people have played it. I remember both my first Sordland and Rizia games. Sordland I was a good president, but not great. I ended the recession, but it wasn't some massive boom, just a return to stability. I pushed through democratic reforms, but not as much as I'd actually wanted. I made mistakes, did things I'd rather not have, but overall did well. Rizia was similar. I reformed the country to a moderately liberal democracy. Was it an absolute representative Republic? No, but I did something good. I got Zille back, but not Pales. I avoided war, but didn't get as much everywhere as I'd hoped. I made the treaty w/ Morella more fair, but didn't get the InterMerkopum off the ground. You hit that idea well, the whole game being compromises and back scratches. You gotta work hard to get what you want.
Thank you so much for saying that I really do feel like this might be my best video. I also remember my first suzerain runs in my first run everything went wrong i couldn’t pass constitutional reform i privatized too much and made the whole USP obstruct me i still remember the betrayal i felt I’ve never played another game like this where it just felt real.
Finally some suzerain reviews! I played the game and known it for about a year. I have tried everything, but as soon as i stumbled upon it, i instantly bought it. There is no other games like it, its politics, its the world of suzerain. As a political fanatic(lol i love talking about it) there is no better politcal simulator than this. HOI4 sure is a more budget strategy game, but its not a political focused one like Suzerain. I talked to the devs on the Q&A on discord and they are fantastic and compassionate. I cannot wait for the conformist( an upcoming suzerain world game). A great review👍
I’m beyond excited for the conformist and it’s true no other game is really able to scratch the political itch I mean “the political process” comes close but it’s not personal at all the same way this game is.
Excellent video, I hadn’t heard of this particular game, so I’ll have to check it out! Definitely liked the part about stellaris having factions basically be an extra pop up unless you really screw up lol
If you love politics I cannot overstate how much you will love this game. And honestly that is one of my least favorite parts about stellaris they really need to add something to the factions to make them important in my mind one of the hardest things about an intergalactic nation would be maintaining unity and making sure that the political continuity is upheld across every planet but in stellaris it is just like you said extra pop ups.
The tru nightmare of politics : No progressivism or plain goos old corruption just you having to deal with variables, things outside your control and knowledge....
Honestly playing through the game as a full on dictator and violently removing problems is so cathartic after doing so many runs of trying to reform the system the right way
I do wish Suzerain wasn't as "scripted" with regards to ideology, like, giving you Communist or Western aligned democracy is reasonable but the whole lore of the nation is it was a monarchy before the revolution, so why not let us re-establish that? Especially since you could have your character's backstory make him a hardline supporter of the monarchy, it felt like that was a fairly obvious path that was missing. Though, beyond my nitpicks, Suzerain was really impressive when I played it.
I think that a monarchy path is just completely unrealistic due to the fact that monarchism is a dead ideology in Sordland I think that there new game the conformist will touch on this a lot more but the monarchy ended when rayne was a kid so most adults in Sordland don’t even remember or have good memory’s of the monarchy and also who has a claim to throne even I don’t think the game even touches on it it’s not like rayne could just make him self a monarch without immediately getting couped.
@@Conduit999 Rayne doens't need to make himself monarch, as long as he wins the war against rumburg or fixes the economy while keeping the people happy and having a moderate amount of power the chances of a restoration of monarchy is at the very least there as long as he chooses someone from the family of the fallen monarchy that is
I agree, sharing Suze though is hard one needs to articulate the story cuz the game dont video well lol. Maybe just audio only ...idk. I play but sharing the video is like sharing a dense historical tome😅.
Yeah I’ve told a bunch of my friends and some of them see interested and then they see your just looking at basically a book and they immediately deflate
One game from paradox, that has the more human side to politics is crusader kings. Although you can still play it like eu/Stellaris/Vic, to me it's more fun to roleplay in it. And ck3 even punishes you for acting out of your character interest, with the 'stress' mechanic.
CK3 does have a lot more human aspects to it but you don’t really engage too much with political aspect of feudalism and the stress mechanic in my opinion is a bit too punishing
I think its way too short, especially the Rizia expansion. By the end, there's a lot left to be done that left me unsatisfied, and you're a king for God's sake! You get to rule for more than 8 years.
I do agree but at the same time making these types of game is so much work and the dev team is rather small I hope they continue to make good games and expand
Great video on a very interesting looking game. Please normalize your audio next time, though. I had to turn my music down from 10% to 1% in order to hear you properly, even with Stable Volume on.
"Why Suzerain Is the Gold Standard for Political Games?" The real question is "Why didn't you release this awesome video BEFORE the sales ended!?" You know, when I would have bought it orz EDIT: Nevermind, still on sales, buying it now!
Haha yeah I really wish I had made this video sooner but things got twisted. But I’m glad your still able to buy please let me know what you think of it
@@Conduit999 I tried being a nice leftist Sollist who cared for the people first and was the moral highground! By the third year, I had extended Emergency Powers, killed the Head of the Justice Court with the help of the NFP, was killing minorities left and right, and basically became a right wing dictator (before losing the war). Where did I go wrong? WHERE DID MY VALUES DIE!? orz
Suzerain still have some unrealistic constraints and inconsistencies, but I don't think that we could create the absolute perfect game unless we use some sci-fi technology. Overall, it's a pretty amazing game and the best part is, it is now available for free!
Until AI is able to create games out of thin air I don’t think a perfectly realistic political game will ever come out but Suzerain definitely comes the closest to being a realistic political simulator
@@Conduit999 In my free market run, I managed to get the Sordish recovery period where 1. Inflation at 2% 2. Unemployment disappeared 3. GDP doubled And yet the production in the country has declined somehow. How could one get economic recovery without increasing the production in 1950s economy?
I do enjoy disco Elysian a lot but I don’t think it is entirely a political game first and foremost obviously it has a great deal of political themes and alot of things to say about it but it is not about the political process or what its like actually being in politics it’s all about being a super cop lol
I think Suzerain's lesson is that your current context is all that matters. You are pigeon-holed into being center right, because guess what, you are living in a right wing country that just got off from a dictatorship. You can't enact serious political change because the game is stacked against you. You came into power via an election, therefore you are tied by the law, so no radical change for you. You dont have control over the armed forces so they will coup you if you dont do what they say. I dont remember much from my playthrough several years ago, but the most important lesson of all was: Dont piss off the guys with guns if you dont actually control them
I wouldn’t say that Sordland is right wing maybe the word authoritarian is better just because right and left doesn’t have too much meaning I mean Sordland has socialized healthcare and state owned company private schools aren’t allowed more centralized economic control is usually associated with the left but meanwhile the government is oppressing minorities and the military has a big influence on the country which is typically associated with the right I think in game you aren’t pigeon holed into being center right but the more extreme changes you want the smarter you have to be.
I do try to avoid getting too political on the channel but I can’t help my self I’m a bit of a political animal, irl I work very heavily with one of the political parties in my country and also worked on the recent senate campaign in my state it’s one of my biggest passion
I played Rayne as a center-leftist, which I thought would make me the fewest enemies, but I ended up completely obliterating the economy, falling into a debt crisis, making every faction hate my guts, half my cabinet quit (and one committed suicide out of shame), and then we got invaded and conquered and I got executed in prison...
This game pulls ZERO fucking punches.
AND I THOUGHT MY RUN WAS THE WORST POSSIBLE OUTCOME, I DID NOT REALISE IT GOT WORSE
There’s always a worst outcome in these games😭
Well remaining neutral or centerist may look like the best and safest choice like other games but suzerain is different if you don't choose a side and stick with it, then you are punished which is what I like about the game whichever side you choose you have to stick with it otherwise your voter base will be divided only exception is if you completely fix the economy and welfare or win the war.
It took me 5+ tries to finally get re-elected and that too was a marginal victory and I still could not figure out how to win the war.
It took me years to study the game very well
And.i am still learning their latest dlc rizia is crazy bt after a careful study i was able to conquer pales despite all the setbacks
It kills my loneliness tho since my wife died tho
LMAO SAME
I like the intro. There's also the Democracy series of games which tackles policy making and effects and tries to have some political shenanigans added in, but it's very impersonal and simulation like even if you're technically the president/prime minister and your cabinet can resign or you could get your term ended prematurely if you upset the wrong people. There's nothing personal. I agree that playing the politician and being able to choose how you interact with people rather than dictating everything from a spreadsheet is very rare for computer games.
The closest parallel I know is a choice of games WIP "The People's House" where you get to play a recently elected president of the US of either party and choose your backstory, then choose how to interact with the daily life of being president and it's rather fair in representing different arguments for and against policies, but I don't know when the full game is coming out.
Suzerain is pretty hard if you want to do anything else than moderate reformist or pro military runs, imo. Maybe it's just me, I find it easy to be moderate reformist because that's where I lean.
Brooo I have never felt more seen than when you brought up peoples house I love that WIP and I agree that it’s probaly the closest thing to Suzerain we’re it’s a political sim with a more personal feel. I think after playing through Suzerain so many times it feels easy to me no matter the path I choose to play but I also tend to stick to playing through the game with my personal beliefs it just feels easier and more fun to me. I feel like a moderate reform run is probaly the closest thing to canon I would imagine it’s what most players do or attempt to do in their first run.
@@Conduit999 It was a very well made video!
However i have not seen you talk about the politically active minority in sordland: Bludish people and their representative parties
The Worker's Party of Bludia
and the former-Bludish Freedom Party( or something similar... I'll have to check back to make sure
Their history with sordland is one of suffering, state discrimation and the desire to be... Respected as a sovereign culture and people
the only game that makes losing feel like a relief, how well they pulled that off is insane
This game has some of the most masterful writing I’ve ever seen in a video game before
Thank you for making a video on Suzerain. This game deserves more love and attention.
It really does I’m happy that’s there a dedicated community but I wish that more people knew about it you would think with how many political junkies there are in real life it would be more popular
@@Conduit999 Yeah I wish that too.
Amazing video on my favourite game of all time! What makes this game so brilliant is that it is a sincere expression of real life politics that you can only really win if you yourself have sincere opinions on the options the game presents you. Love seeing videos from other fans of this game!
I’m really glad you enjoyed the video, it’s great to see other fans of this game im on the subreddit but I wish the community was bigger. It really is a masterpiece.
@ I’m happy to see the community keep growing! I think this game will have an incredible amount of staying power it is genuinely a one of a kind game
Played this game once or twice. Worth it, but imo it does play a lot more like a book/visual novel then a game
Yeah a 100% I would still lean towards calling it a game but it’s definitely more of a visual novel
Feeling the burden is what I love of this game. The stress, the tingles on my head, just half dozen of hours of choices and choices and choices. Tho I got couped and jailed for 20 years, the relief was great.
Absolute Cinema
But fr, this is the best video essay I've seen tackling Suzerain, you got it like perfectly. Also just glad to have more attention on the game, it's so good and not nearly enough people have played it.
I remember both my first Sordland and Rizia games.
Sordland I was a good president, but not great. I ended the recession, but it wasn't some massive boom, just a return to stability. I pushed through democratic reforms, but not as much as I'd actually wanted. I made mistakes, did things I'd rather not have, but overall did well.
Rizia was similar. I reformed the country to a moderately liberal democracy. Was it an absolute representative Republic? No, but I did something good. I got Zille back, but not Pales. I avoided war, but didn't get as much everywhere as I'd hoped. I made the treaty w/ Morella more fair, but didn't get the InterMerkopum off the ground.
You hit that idea well, the whole game being compromises and back scratches. You gotta work hard to get what you want.
Thank you so much for saying that I really do feel like this might be my best video. I also remember my first suzerain runs in my first run everything went wrong i couldn’t pass constitutional reform i privatized too much and made the whole USP obstruct me i still remember the betrayal i felt I’ve never played another game like this where it just felt real.
Finally some suzerain reviews! I played the game and known it for about a year. I have tried everything, but as soon as i stumbled upon it, i instantly bought it. There is no other games like it, its politics, its the world of suzerain. As a political fanatic(lol i love talking about it) there is no better politcal simulator than this. HOI4 sure is a more budget strategy game, but its not a political focused one like Suzerain. I talked to the devs on the Q&A on discord and they are fantastic and compassionate. I cannot wait for the conformist( an upcoming suzerain world game). A great review👍
I’m beyond excited for the conformist and it’s true no other game is really able to scratch the political itch I mean “the political process” comes close but it’s not personal at all the same way this game is.
That's not a simulator, it's a visual novel, but sure
Great video! I heard about Suzerain before, but now I am quite intrigued.
You have to play it, one of the best games ever
Excellent video, I hadn’t heard of this particular game, so I’ll have to check it out! Definitely liked the part about stellaris having factions basically be an extra pop up unless you really screw up lol
If you love politics I cannot overstate how much you will love this game. And honestly that is one of my least favorite parts about stellaris they really need to add something to the factions to make them important in my mind one of the hardest things about an intergalactic nation would be maintaining unity and making sure that the political continuity is upheld across every planet but in stellaris it is just like you said extra pop ups.
The tru nightmare of politics : No progressivism or plain goos old corruption just you having to deal with variables, things outside your control and knowledge....
11:45 Or you can ensure that the secret police removes all problematic individuals ;)
Honestly playing through the game as a full on dictator and violently removing problems is so cathartic after doing so many runs of trying to reform the system the right way
Suzerain happens to be made by a Turkish crew and heavily inspired by Turkish politics/history.
100% the bludish are definitely just a stand in for the Kurdish
Great video, ill check this game out!
You’ll love it
I do wish Suzerain wasn't as "scripted" with regards to ideology, like, giving you Communist or Western aligned democracy is reasonable but the whole lore of the nation is it was a monarchy before the revolution, so why not let us re-establish that? Especially since you could have your character's backstory make him a hardline supporter of the monarchy, it felt like that was a fairly obvious path that was missing. Though, beyond my nitpicks, Suzerain was really impressive when I played it.
I think that a monarchy path is just completely unrealistic due to the fact that monarchism is a dead ideology in Sordland I think that there new game the conformist will touch on this a lot more but the monarchy ended when rayne was a kid so most adults in Sordland don’t even remember or have good memory’s of the monarchy and also who has a claim to throne even I don’t think the game even touches on it it’s not like rayne could just make him self a monarch without immediately getting couped.
@@Conduit999 Rayne doens't need to make himself monarch, as long as he wins the war against rumburg or fixes the economy while keeping the people happy and having a moderate amount of power the chances of a restoration of monarchy is at the very least there as long as he chooses someone from the family of the fallen monarchy that is
I mean, you could play the Kingdom of Rizia DLC
I agree, sharing Suze though is hard one needs to articulate the story cuz the game dont video well lol. Maybe just audio only ...idk. I play but sharing the video is like sharing a dense historical tome😅.
Yeah I’ve told a bunch of my friends and some of them see interested and then they see your just looking at basically a book and they immediately deflate
One game from paradox, that has the more human side to politics is crusader kings. Although you can still play it like eu/Stellaris/Vic, to me it's more fun to roleplay in it. And ck3 even punishes you for acting out of your character interest, with the 'stress' mechanic.
CK3 does have a lot more human aspects to it but you don’t really engage too much with political aspect of feudalism and the stress mechanic in my opinion is a bit too punishing
I think its way too short, especially the Rizia expansion. By the end, there's a lot left to be done that left me unsatisfied, and you're a king for God's sake! You get to rule for more than 8 years.
I do agree but at the same time making these types of game is so much work and the dev team is rather small I hope they continue to make good games and expand
Great video on a very interesting looking game. Please normalize your audio next time, though. I had to turn my music down from 10% to 1% in order to hear you properly, even with Stable Volume on.
Sorry about that man I had CapCut normalize my audio I though it sounded fine
"Why Suzerain Is the Gold Standard for Political Games?"
The real question is "Why didn't you release this awesome video BEFORE the sales ended!?" You know, when I would have bought it orz
EDIT: Nevermind, still on sales, buying it now!
Haha yeah I really wish I had made this video sooner but things got twisted. But I’m glad your still able to buy please let me know what you think of it
@@Conduit999 I tried being a nice leftist Sollist who cared for the people first and was the moral highground!
By the third year, I had extended Emergency Powers, killed the Head of the Justice Court with the help of the NFP, was killing minorities left and right, and basically became a right wing dictator (before losing the war).
Where did I go wrong? WHERE DID MY VALUES DIE!? orz
Same as others, I thought this was a good intro to the game and solid analysis on its merits
Thanks alot man
Suzerain still have some unrealistic constraints and inconsistencies, but I don't think that we could create the absolute perfect game unless we use some sci-fi technology.
Overall, it's a pretty amazing game and the best part is, it is now available for free!
Until AI is able to create games out of thin air I don’t think a perfectly realistic political game will ever come out but Suzerain definitely comes the closest to being a realistic political simulator
@@Conduit999 In my free market run, I managed to get the Sordish recovery period where
1. Inflation at 2%
2. Unemployment disappeared
3. GDP doubled
And yet the production in the country has declined somehow. How could one get economic recovery without increasing the production in 1950s economy?
bro has never heard of Disco Elysium.
I do enjoy disco Elysian a lot but I don’t think it is entirely a political game first and foremost obviously it has a great deal of political themes and alot of things to say about it but it is not about the political process or what its like actually being in politics it’s all about being a super cop lol
A new update is coming (beta already came out for mobile i think)
A new update is coming out for mobile Torpor games actually gave me early access to it
I think Suzerain's lesson is that your current context is all that matters. You are pigeon-holed into being center right, because guess what, you are living in a right wing country that just got off from a dictatorship. You can't enact serious political change because the game is stacked against you. You came into power via an election, therefore you are tied by the law, so no radical change for you. You dont have control over the armed forces so they will coup you if you dont do what they say.
I dont remember much from my playthrough several years ago, but the most important lesson of all was: Dont piss off the guys with guns if you dont actually control them
I wouldn’t say that Sordland is right wing maybe the word authoritarian is better just because right and left doesn’t have too much meaning I mean Sordland has socialized healthcare and state owned company private schools aren’t allowed more centralized economic control is usually associated with the left but meanwhile the government is oppressing minorities and the military has a big influence on the country which is typically associated with the right I think in game you aren’t pigeon holed into being center right but the more extreme changes you want the smarter you have to be.
Man shame I can't play the full game
It just released on mobile today if your referring to the fact that mobile isn’t updated to the pc version
@Conduit999 no I mean I need to pay to play the full game even though it's free on the app store
We getting political :》
I do try to avoid getting too political on the channel but I can’t help my self I’m a bit of a political animal, irl I work very heavily with one of the political parties in my country and also worked on the recent senate campaign in my state it’s one of my biggest passion
13:14 no.. that’s not how it’s pronounced
Ehhhh had to try lol
wait whos jesus?
Everyone’s lord and savior who can save our souls