Some interesting things happened earlier this week. Kremlingames recently released their latest DLC for China:Mao’s Legacy and disclosed more information on the ongoing development of their upcoming Crisis in the Kremlin 2. The new Ways of Life DLC for China: Mao’s Legacy is intended to fulfill two specific purposes in mind. First, to provide players with ample opportunities to play the game in any manner that they wish. Second, to implement an early foray into multiplayer gaming by the Russian indie game Cooperative.
The multiplayer feature in many respects resembles a rudimentary model of Council Democracy, like the kind I had written about here on The Fourth Estate and what Bogumil had described on the ARPLAN Blog. Members of an organizational body engage in a debate discussing all of the available options presented by a policy issue or question. Next, votes are casted on what should be done based on a majority consensus. Once a majority consensus has been established, everyone follows through with the decision, experiencing all the consequences until the next decision to vote.
How the Ways of Life DLC implemented Council Democracy was to allow up to five players, each representing a given faction within the Communist Party of China (CPC), to vote on which directions their playthrough, which lasts from 1976 to 1986. should take. The ideal is for one player to be playing the game and livestreaming the playthrough to the other four players. Everyone hosts their debates on a livestreaming platform like Twitch.tv or whatever happens to be Russian and Chinese equivalents.
The catch is that the decisions which could be made over the course of that playthrough requires an electoral majority inside the State Council. This means that the factions with the most seats inside the State Council can set the agenda, which in turns limits which options can be taken. In order to better simulate the conduct of Council Democracy and accommodate the decision-making of up to five players, Kremlingames decided to add a special cheat menu in order to fine-tune the game to their specifications.
This brings me to the known information on Crisis in the Kremlin 2. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Kremlingames wants to not only improve upon the mechanics established in their 2017 title, but also to add new features that they wanted to implement in a revamped version. A precedent is being made with the release of the new DLC, where the potential is there for multiplayer playthroughs where players play as the Soviet Union and interact with the gameplay mechanics together. In fact, it has been built upon the foundations of an earlier one from Collapse: A Political Simulator, which showcased AI-controlled political parties vying with a player-controlled party for power in a former Soviet Republic. Since the final years of the Soviet Union was a time where all kinds of people tried to figure out how to reform and save the country from collapse, there is a lot of potential for people to debate on how they could redefine the entire Soviet Union.
For instance, consider the following examples, Soviet Art and Taxation policymaking in the Soviet Union. How should the Soviets reform their taxation and budgeting policies? How many Soviet Rubles should be allocated into a certain area each fiscal year?
More importantly, Crisis in the Kremlin 2 is going to be designed to let the Player become a political figure with their own policy positions and views, including status buffs and debuffs for personality traits. how would You, the Reader, have governed the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1995? Would You reintroduce Neoliberalism, allow the Liberal Capitalists to take over without causing the Soviet Union’s disintegration? Would You follow the Chinese by implementing a Socialist Market Economy? How about reconsidering Spanish Falangist Syndicalism, Fascist Italian Corporatism, or Yugoslavian Market Socialism? At the same time, how will You set the Council State’s taxation, expenditures and Five-Year Plans?
Would You resort to increasingly dictatorial measures in order to sidestep the Council Democratic process? Or would You strive to uphold the principle of Council Democracy without conceding to Parliamentary Democracy? Should You promote another Ideology other than Neoliberalism or Marxism-Leninism to survive and make it to the 21st century?
With the new DLC for China: Mao’s Legacy, I would be extremely impressed if Kremlingames manages to pull off a more refined multiplayer feature in Crisis in the Kremlin 2. The game is still in progress as of this writing. There is no doubt that more information will be revealed in the coming months. I might be interested in volunteering for the early access.
Categories: Blog Post
The Fourth Estate 
Leave a comment