Supreme Ruler Cold War - Developer's Diary # 1
The Cold War pretty well defined the second half of the 20th century - nearly every action taken by governments around the world was done so against a backdrop of Capitalism versus Communism, NATO versus the Warsaw pact, Americans versus Soviets. The world's Superpowers battled on all fronts - diplomatic, scientific, military, covert, and economic. It was a time with no precedent in history, and the future of the entire world was at stake.
Since the release of our Gold Edition of Supreme Ruler 2020 last year, there has been a lot of speculation from our fan base about what our next title would be, and the Cold War era has been on the top of many wish-lists. So we were particularly pleased to finally be able to announce Supreme Ruler: Cold War, to be published by Paradox Interactive.
Though there have been some games that have tackled the Cold War era, it remains one of the less explored areas of strategy gaming. For many, one of the touchstones of the genre is Chris Crawford's Balance of Power game, first released in 1985. While this is a very "high level" strategic game that focuses primarily on actions/reactions, it does an excellent job in managing to convey the complexities and dangers of the Cold War era. It is certainly one of the inspirations we bring to the development of Supreme Ruler: Cold War.
Yet the Supreme Ruler game engine allows us to go far beyond the basics pioneered in Balance of Power - the detailed economic and military models of the Supreme Ruler series are able to provide much more depth and detail.
We do understand that high levels of detail - and the additional complexity it brings - is not what everyone looks for in a strategy game, and we will have to deal with many conflicting demands for simplicity versus depth from our existing and potential new fans. There are many design elements we'll be talking about over the coming months that will attempt to bridge these gaps, though it is important to state right up front that Supreme Ruler: Cold War is not meant to be just a "flashier" Balance of Power. While we share the same inspirational roots, the Supreme Ruler games have always allowed players to drill down and manage their regions in great detail, and we intend to keep that as an element of our future games. The challenge is to come up with an interface and design that allows players that want to avoid that level of management to play and have fun at as well.
As Supreme Ruler: Cold War is our first historical title, it brings the very exciting new realm of "what if" into the gameplay of Supreme Ruler. History tells us about how the Cold War turned out, but there are so many turning points of events and personalities that the end result was never certain... Supreme Ruler: Cold War will allow players to see if they can change history, improve upon it, or succumb to it.
In the response we've received since the announcement of Supreme Ruler: Cold War we can see that there is a lot of excitement and enthusiasm for a title like this, and we look forward to sharing many more details of this project in the weeks and months to come.
-- George Geczy / BattleGoat Studios
The Cold War pretty well defined the second half of the 20th century - nearly every action taken by governments around the world was done so against a backdrop of Capitalism versus Communism, NATO versus the Warsaw pact, Americans versus Soviets. The world's Superpowers battled on all fronts - diplomatic, scientific, military, covert, and economic. It was a time with no precedent in history, and the future of the entire world was at stake.
Since the release of our Gold Edition of Supreme Ruler 2020 last year, there has been a lot of speculation from our fan base about what our next title would be, and the Cold War era has been on the top of many wish-lists. So we were particularly pleased to finally be able to announce Supreme Ruler: Cold War, to be published by Paradox Interactive.
Though there have been some games that have tackled the Cold War era, it remains one of the less explored areas of strategy gaming. For many, one of the touchstones of the genre is Chris Crawford's Balance of Power game, first released in 1985. While this is a very "high level" strategic game that focuses primarily on actions/reactions, it does an excellent job in managing to convey the complexities and dangers of the Cold War era. It is certainly one of the inspirations we bring to the development of Supreme Ruler: Cold War.
Yet the Supreme Ruler game engine allows us to go far beyond the basics pioneered in Balance of Power - the detailed economic and military models of the Supreme Ruler series are able to provide much more depth and detail.
We do understand that high levels of detail - and the additional complexity it brings - is not what everyone looks for in a strategy game, and we will have to deal with many conflicting demands for simplicity versus depth from our existing and potential new fans. There are many design elements we'll be talking about over the coming months that will attempt to bridge these gaps, though it is important to state right up front that Supreme Ruler: Cold War is not meant to be just a "flashier" Balance of Power. While we share the same inspirational roots, the Supreme Ruler games have always allowed players to drill down and manage their regions in great detail, and we intend to keep that as an element of our future games. The challenge is to come up with an interface and design that allows players that want to avoid that level of management to play and have fun at as well.
As Supreme Ruler: Cold War is our first historical title, it brings the very exciting new realm of "what if" into the gameplay of Supreme Ruler. History tells us about how the Cold War turned out, but there are so many turning points of events and personalities that the end result was never certain... Supreme Ruler: Cold War will allow players to see if they can change history, improve upon it, or succumb to it.
In the response we've received since the announcement of Supreme Ruler: Cold War we can see that there is a lot of excitement and enthusiasm for a title like this, and we look forward to sharing many more details of this project in the weeks and months to come.
-- George Geczy / BattleGoat Studios