This page answers some frequently asked questions.

When will the game be out?

It’s hard to predict, but right now I’m aiming for somewhere before the end of 2018.

Do you actually take a week of vacation whenever someone asks when it will be out?

No

Will royal dynasties be represented?

The game will model royal dynasties, with named individuals with family relations and a system for appointing the heir apparent to monarch when the old monarch abdicates or dies. These dynasties are in principle not tied to a specific country, so a dynasty can be at the head of multiple countries around the world, much like how Queen Elizabeth II is nominally the monarch of over a dozen sovereign states, apart from the United Kingdom.

These dynasties will be controlled by the game itself, or by the moderators managing world content. They will be outside direct player control.

Will various systems of government be represented?

Constitutional monarchies and republican governments will be represented in game. Presidential, semi-presidential, and parliamentary republics will all be represented in game.

Will it be possible to represent absolutism (e.g. dictatorship or absolute monarchy)?

Not exactly, or at least not at first. The game is fundamentally about parliamentary democracy, and the primary game mechanics are pretty much incompatible with a dictatorial system. You can’t enforce that on players, in the sense that some action outside their control suddenly takes away almost all of their player agency. So you’d have to either replace that with a whole host of new actions (rebellion, resistance actions) which adds a lot of complexity, or you’d have to carefully orchestrate the occurrence of dictatorships with opt-in player consent and roleplaying moderator guidance. Right now the latter option is more likely to me.

Will nations vary in size, unlike in Particracy Classic?

Absolutely. The map generator generates tons of tiny islands for instance, so archipelago states or tiny island nations will be present.

What will vary on a per world basis?

Various things could vary between different worlds, so as to accommodate different kinds of players. Here’s a few ideas:

• The map will be different
• Different rate at which game time progresses
• Strictness of roleplaying rules
• Themes found in legislative subjects, i.e. different time frame (e.g. early 20th century, modern day, near future)
• Many small nations, or fewer large ones
• Tweaks to make warfare more or less economical to make war more or less prominent
• …

Can we play on a real world map?

Using a real world map fits within the multi-world framework, so that is definitely an option. One avenue I am considering is hosting real world sessions for a limited duration for paying subscribers of the game, so that a semi-realistic historical or fictional scenario can be played out. This allows a more hands-on world building approach and can drive revenue to support the project.

How is culture expressed?

In the current state of implementation I’m tracking demographical distribution of ethnicity and religion. Other aspects of culture (such as language) are left to roleplaying fluff.

How will campaigning work?

You’ll have a variety party actions to perform, such as holding a rally, staging a protest or digging up dirt on an opponent. There will be personality facets for your politicians, influencing your decisions on what elections to position them in. Lastly, you’ll be able to balance your party’s campaign style, between three fundamental aspects: ideology (a focus on your ideological stances), governance (a focus on how well your party has done while in power, or how badly the others have done when you’re in opposition) and populism (a focus on your candidates’ appeal).

The way time progresses in the game does not leave any room for real-time debate challenges, so for now that’s not a feature I’m considering. The campaigning is more abstracted over a larger period of time, focused more about how your party behaves itself continuously rather than in the weeks leading up to an election.

Will there be random events influencing the world?

This is a very interesting feature but to do it right I think it’s a large effort, so this will be a feature I will work on post the initial public release.

Will federal nations exist?

Yes, there will be federal nations with subnational governments (i.e. States, Provinces, they can be renamed) with their own elected legislature and executive. The national level will be able to allocate territory among the subnational entities.

Will there be non-government political actors like labor unions and lobbyists?

I have some ideas regarding this, but this is also a post-release subject.

Will there be international unions of any kind?

Yes, players will be able to found intergovernmental or supranational organizations through diplomatic mechanisms in the game. These will vary in scope, such that organizations like the EU, UN or NATO will be possible.

Can players found parties on the international level?

Parties will always exist at the national level, but players can found and join party groups, which can be either simply international (such as the Socialist International, a grouping of worldwide leftist parties) or tied to a specific supranational governmental structure (such as the ELDR, which groups liberal and reformist parties in the European Parliament). Such party groups exist for organizational purposes only, they won’t have an electoral effect, but they will appear in the news reports and election results tables to group parties.

Will we be able to modify cabinet ministries?

There will be a few ways to do so: you can combine ministry portfolios by assigning the same politician to several ministries (e.g. styling that person as the “Minister of Education and Social Services”) and you will be able to select alternate names for most ministries (e.g. “Secretary of War” instead of “Secretary of Defense”) and finally of course the title itself (“Minister” vs “Secretary” or perhaps others) can be selected. There will not be a way to create entirely new ministries or permanently merge of split ministries, because of the technical complexity involved.