GDN sat down recently with co-founder of BattleGoat Studios and lead designer of the PC’s hit political strategy game Supreme Ruler 2020, David Thompson.

GDN: What was the primary purpose for creating this sequel?

DT: We felt that there was more that could be achieved with the game, particularly in terms of scale.  Incorporating the sandbox of the entire world was certainly a huge step from the more limited scale of 2010.

GDN: The depth of Supreme Ruler feels to go a lot further than most strategy titles, which focus more on wars rather than governmental procedure. How important do you think the political aspects to the game are, and how well have they been received by players?

DT: I think the non-military aspects of the game are huge.  Running a balanced and sustainable government and economy is the true key to the game; otherwise your military will be eventually handicapped.  And as far as players go, so far the reaction has been that they want even more political emphasis.  The mod community hasn’t had time yet to get very far, but I think that once they do, they’ll find the political possibilities for the game to be unlimited.

GDN: Politics are a complex issue to understand. Is this an area the development team are particularly knowledgeable about, or did you make use of experts from outside the games industry?

DT: The team in general is well-read on international relationships and we factored the obvious ones into the game.  Obviously many have been altered or enhanced due to our story-line, but generally we just built on current tensions and historical dislikes.  We’re in the process now of creating instructions for the modding community and then everyone will be able to modify the game to their own vision of world relations in 2020.

GDN: As global politics are constantly shifting, how will Supreme Ruler remain contemporaneous with current affairs?

DT: When we released additional content for SR2010, some of the additional scenarios were based upon what had happened in the world since the release of the game.  I imagine we’ll use the same inspiration for some of the additional content we do for 2020 – after all, stealing from the headlines is a lot easier than having to be creative :-).  And again, the modders will certainly have their own ideas of international relationships in the year 2020!

GDN: Do you think it’s important that Supreme Ruler does remain consistent with shifting world politics, or is it designed more toward creating its own unique mythology? If so, how did you go about designing the world events that could unfold within 2020?

DT: Well you can tell that I’ve read a lot of Tom Clancy and Larry Bond.  It’s all about the possibilities in the world for conflict.  The biggest question we ask in our story-line is; “What would happen if OPEC changed from using the US Dollar as its standard to using Euros?  How would that play out?  Is it such a far-fetched notion?”  Let your mind wander down that road for a while and you can really see the potential for disaster!

GDN: I read somewhere (forgive me for forgetting where) that the development team was in general agreement that 2010 was a little too complex for players to get to grips with. How have you addressed this issue with 2020?

DT: That’s accurate to what we’ve said, but probably not to what we really meant.  I would probably draw issue with the term “too complex”.  Yes 2010 was very complex and so is 2020.  Both challenge players to think their way through the game.  Some people have commented to us that making it so deep limits the number of people that will want to buy it.  I disagree with that… People like to be challenged! 

The real problem with 2010 was that very little made the game “approachable”.  Graphics were nothing to write home about, there was no music, and on top of that, the User Interface was very difficult to learn.  We had gone with a series of nested menus in 2010, so new players had to learn where to find the controls they wanted – doing a simple action could require many mouse clicks just to get to the right place.  In 2020, we’ve upped the graphics, added region specific music, and spent a lot of time reworking the User Interface so that players would more easily be able to find the controls they want.  The User Interface is always present and not buried.

GDN: What other improvements did you make to the 2010 model that you feel are most important to 2020?

DT: The Sandbox mode is probably the most important improvement.  The game is a lot more free-form and players can play with the victory conditions and game emphasis (Economics, Military, Diplomacy) that they like.  And now you’re not limited to a maximum of 32 regions in any scenario (as you were in 2010).  The sandboxes we’ve included have between 180 and 250 regions involved!

GDN: How much work went into trying to make Supreme Ruler 2020 as accessible to casual gamers and non-strategists? Has seen much adoption by these more casual demographics?

DT: That’s an awkward question to answer…  We’ll never be a “Casual Game” developer.  That’s for certain!  There are enough studios doing those, and someone has to still want depth in their playing experience!  We have tried to make the game a little easier to learn by modifying the interface etc, but obviously anyone who is familiar with strategy games will likely have an advantage in identifying all the subtleties within 2020.  And I think many studios sell players short by not challenging the mind and limiting success within a game to the speed of a mouse click.

GDN: Are there plans to provide online content and expansions for Supreme Ruler?

DT: Yes we will continue to provide additional content for the game.  I don’t have any specific details, but with the first update that we’ve already done, we modified one of the existing scenarios, provided alternative versions of another two scenarios that were already included in the game, and created one new scenario.  I think that we should also be providing some alternate sandboxes soon that will provide more unique playing experiences.

GDN: What was the most difficult part of Supreme Ruler 2020’s development?

DT: Every developer will likely tell you that “Crunch Time” (the last few weeks before providing a Release Candidate) is the most difficult time in development.  We’re no exception :-)  - it’s a very stressful period and probably the only time when development of Supreme Ruler seems like “work”!

GDN: What aspects of the finished product are you particularly proud of?

DT: There are many features in the game that I particularly like – many of which the players aren’t even aware of, but what I’m particularly proud of is the way they come together to make the finished product.

GDN: Was there anything anyone wanted to include in the finished game but were unable (because of technical, time or other restrictions)?

DT: A better tutorial!  Being a small studio with somewhat limited resources, we did not get to spend the time and energies we would have liked, to really do something interesting with the tutorial.

GDN: Are there any games, old or new, that were a particular inspiration to the development team when designing Supreme Ruler?

DT: I’ve often described our game to the press as “Panzer General” meets “Civilization” meets “Sim City” – all on steroids.  While I’ve really enjoyed playing these games, the true inspiration for our development has been the original Supreme Ruler that was developed as a text strategy game in 1983 for the TRS-80 by our Lead Programmer and the other founder of BattleGoat – George Geczy.  George and I owned and ran a computer story together for 15 years (1985-2000) and many times we discussed updating Supreme Ruler.  Finally when we had the opportunity to sell our business, we decided it was time to bring a newer version of the game to life!

GDN: How do you see the future of the Supreme Ruler franchise growing? Will it be through expansions to 2020, or are we likely to see Supreme Ruler 2050 (for instance)?

 DT: We’re not prepared to announce specifics of our future development plans quite yet.  But we’ve probably finished (at least for a while) with our near future story-lines.  Now it’s time to think more historical :-).

GDN: How would you rule the world? Would it be a diplomatic paradise, a dystopian oligarchy or one big military base?

 DT: We have pretty much every one of those methods covered in the studio.  George would certainly turn his region into a giant military base, Chris Latour (Designer) would surprisingly try to corner all the commodity markets and Daxon Flynn (Designer) would probably try and rule the UN!  I like to keep my citizens happy, get my economy in line, and discreetly build my military and quietly watch for opportunities… :-)

GDN: Have you ever considered sending complimentary copies of Supreme Ruler to current world leaders to help them learn the real nature of government?

DT: Yes the idea has popped up once or twice… and it would make a really good publicity stunt :-)

GDN: How well do you think George Dubya, or… not Tony Blair but whatever his name is who’s ‘running’ Britain (I’m English, so I’ve no idea) would do in a game of Supreme Ruler 2020?

DT: I think George Dubya would probably do better at Deer Hunter! :-)  Actually I’m not sure about any one leader, but I think that if you gave it to every member of any government, it would likely be the economic ministers that did the best!

GDN: Do you think actual world conflicts could effectively be solved if, instead of blowing each other’s countries up, world leaders faced off in a game of Supreme Ruler?

DT: Well at least the casualty reports would be a lot less tragic.

GDN: Are there any personal references, in-jokes or Easter eggs hidden away in Supreme Ruler that we’d be interested to know about?

DT: Nothing really to speak of at the moment.  We might sneak some in with future updates…

Thanks very much, David.

You can check out our review of Supreme Ruler 2020 here, and visit the official website right here.