System 13

An online nation, that is, at NationStates.net. NationStates is a political “sim” game, where you guide your nation by choosing a stance on different issues. You can also emulate real nations by “dismissing” the issue, which is a just what our governments do all the time: ignore an issue until it (hopefully) goes away.

All of your decisions affect up to three different spheres in your nation: Civil Rights, Economy, and Political Freedoms. Furthermore, all of the decisions you make bring about extremely exaggerated results. For example, I recently decided that my nation, Russkiya, would not force TV executives to represent various minorities on every television show that aired. At the time it seemed like an okay idea; the producer of one of the shows commented that it was “just a soap opera, not an attack on minorities.” However, a bit about my nation now reads:

…and the alarmingly racist TV show ‘Bigtopians Say the Darndest Things’ is a hit.

Another example of the exaggeration is this, which resulted after I deemed it inappropriate for everyone to go throughout their day totally nude:

…nudity is frowned upon.

It’s a fun little game, and playing it helps one see that politicians can have one hell of a time pleasing everyone. If you’re interested but hesitant to make a nation due to time constraints, don’t worry: at most, you can choose to get two “issues” per day, and each issue takes, at most, a minute or two to deal with.