Once you’ve established a structure of house-cleaning, it’s time to start looking beyond the borders. Diplomacy is a powerful weapon to wield, and it quickly becomes apparent how deeply intricate this system is. Forging an alliance is every bit as dangerous as declaring war, as branches quickly begin to grow from the federal trunk established by a casual offering of friendship to help with something as apparently minor as trade routes. Your new friend makes their own allies in turn, which easily triggers discontent between neighbouring states who suddenly feel exposed or threatened. Before you know it, an import has been cut off due to your removed alliance with a country you’ve never even heard of, and discontent rises among your populace right in the middle of an election.

Deciding how to deal with situations like this in as efficient a manner as possible forms the real crux of Supreme Ruler 2020’s gameplay. The shifting tides of global politics – and how a minor decision in some remote, obscure backwater of a country can affect your own policies – are wonderfully overwhelming. The teetering instability of even the largest countries in the world is genuinely remarkable, and BattleGoat have clearly gone to extreme lengths to simulate a real, modern world within this game.

Visually, Supreme Ruler has refined its methods quite admirably, and most everything you need to see or know is quickly accessible. While the sheer icon count has been significantly reduced to help with the gamer accessibility problems of the first title, it can still get pretty confusing as to where each sub-menu can be found. There’s really no way around this, however, and the game does ease players into the world as gently as good economics will allow. The only solution for finding your way around Supreme Ruler is clocking up the hours of gameplay, which certainly won’t be a problem.

The online content of Supreme Ruler is equally unique in its vision to bring such hardcore realism to the world of PC gaming. While up to 16 players can all participate in a global campaign, this multiplayer option feels a little superficial for a title such as this one; perhaps included more for the sake of meeting modern gaming expectations than actively building on the scope of an already broad, and well explored concept. At this time, however, we’ve been unable to test out quite how a multiplayer game of Supreme Ruler measures up, and while it’s probably not good advice to suggest buying the game on this strength, it certainly does no harm to have it included.

What is interesting about the online content is the future upgrades hinted at by the dev team. Additions scenarios will hopefully be made available to spice up the political action, which again isn’t unexpected, though there’s a strong possibility that this downloadable content will include adaptations of current world affairs. It goes without saying how much extra depth this could add to Supreme Ruler – allowing gamers to investigate, first hand, the intricacies of handling political machinations that are actually on the news, and could provide both profound insight and harsh social commentary on the state of the real world.

Despite BattleGoat’s successful re-evaluation of Supreme Ruler’s accessibility, there’s still no denying this is a game for the hardcore strategist. This is naturally going to limit the game’s audience, since anyone who approaches it with anything less than sincere dedication will be quickly overwhelmed, so a genuine interest in world politics is highly recommended before deciding whether to take a seat at the global government table.

This makes Supreme Ruler 2020 very difficult to score, and the sheer scope and complexity of the game negates most attempts to adequately summarise it. The hardcore strategists looking for something truly detailed to sink their teeth into will undoubtedly find this to be the game they’ve been waiting for. It’s with this intemperate strategist in mind that we’ve attempted to score Supreme Ruler 2020, but even then the sheer depth and complexity of the gameplay make it an almost unachievable task – much to the game’s credit.