Perhaps a next iteration would include a "Call the polling agencies 'fake news'" action card? Although I'd need to figure out whether using it would boost or reduce his approval ratings...
Reminds me of the 1990 Amiga game Nuclear War. Characters included Infidel Castro, Mao the Pun, Ronnie Raygun, Ghanji, Gorbachef, Colonel Khadaffy, and of course Ayatollah Kookamamie. https://www.lemonamiga.com/game/nuclear-war
The fact that it got overrun in 24 hours is almost more interesting than the game itself. Says a lot about how cheap and easy it is to deploy agents at scale now — the interesting question is what happens when that hits products that actually matter.
Yeah, this is the part of building browser games that's quietly gotten harder in the last year. I've been working on a Quake III conversion that runs in the browser and I keep bumping into versions of the same problem. Anything the client knows, an agent knows in about five minutes now.
The weird thing is the fix (make the server authoritative) is 90s MMO wisdom, it just used to not be worth the effort for a small game with no money on the line. Now the cost of a bot attempt is basically zero so every game inherits the threat model of a game that does have money on the line, whether you want it or not.
The leaderboard-split thing OP ended up doing is probably the right call for a lot of these. Fighting it is a losing battle when one person with Claude and a weekend can out-iterate you.
The variety of methods each agent tried was also interesting IMO - some going brute-force, others trying to methodically guess the next move. The nice thing about moving the game logic server-side is having some basic logs on how long each game attempt took, and some of the bots were incredibly easy to identify as they selected turns in under a second, while others were harder to spot since they seemed to be reasoning between turns.
Perhaps a sequel, where you play a bumbling Vice President trying to negotiate a durable ceasefire and peace deal whilst your regional allies try to continuously torpedo your efforts..?
Can you explain how I can invade Kharg Island more than once? It seems to indicate that it is possible but the card says it is a one-time thing.
Also, the press shield + Fox News boosts don't seem to do anything with regards to subsequent events. Are they supposed to do something or are they just for show / humor?
Invading Kharg Island is definitely a one-time event, I think there may just be a copy bug in the game over screen where it indicates that the final action was done N times even if it's a one-time action. Will fix it!
Also the Press Shield + Fox News boosts alter the RNG probabilities with regards to the random events for negative press events and/or positive Fox News puff pieces.
Weak gameplay. It’s a turn-by-turn war strategy game where all the levers are “Go on FOX and friends”. What’s particularly strange is how backward the critique is. How about this— for your encore, write the same game from the IRGC perspective. It goes— the US seeks peace; fund foreign militias, try to assassinate a former President. Said former president is reelected and after being unable to close a peace deal, attacks you. You— demonstrate your strategic deterrence by bombing a half-dozen neutral nations and mining an international waterway. Etc.
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If your approval rating gets too low, your party will impeach you.I like how in this game, the approval rating actually means something.
If it goes to actually 0%, there are problems. Otherwise it's a resource that can be traded against to grift personal funds.
The weird thing is the fix (make the server authoritative) is 90s MMO wisdom, it just used to not be worth the effort for a small game with no money on the line. Now the cost of a bot attempt is basically zero so every game inherits the threat model of a game that does have money on the line, whether you want it or not.
The leaderboard-split thing OP ended up doing is probably the right call for a lot of these. Fighting it is a losing battle when one person with Claude and a weekend can out-iterate you.
Again, only loosely inspired by current events.
Also, the press shield + Fox News boosts don't seem to do anything with regards to subsequent events. Are they supposed to do something or are they just for show / humor?
Also the Press Shield + Fox News boosts alter the RNG probabilities with regards to the random events for negative press events and/or positive Fox News puff pieces.
> YOU SURVIVED. THE MIDTERMS WERE A DISASTER.
I chose “Declare Victory” whenever I could. My result is what I imagine the future beholds us.
Btw I’ve added this to the HN Arcade :) https://hnarcade.com/games/games/hormuz-havoc