Supreme Ruler 2020 GOLD (PC) review "Supreme Ruler is a decent game, so long as you can get your head around it. Old school, die-hard management fans may really get to grips with this title, but most of us will be left out in the cold."

Supreme Ruler 2020 GOLD Edition is a combination of both the management and strategy genres. Players take control of a country as it vies for power in a futuristic world. The aim of the game is to become an unstoppable superpower and dominate lesser nations. Events happen in real-time, although you can plan commands in pause mode before watching your actions play out. As this title is published by Paradox, I expected a Europa Universalis clone set in the modern era. In reflection, I was overly optimistic. Supreme Ruler retains the detail of its publisher's other strategy titles, but fails to be as accessible. EUIII was awarded an 8 because I ended up investing tens of hours into playing as Castile, building an African empire while destroying the Catholic Papacy. Conversely, I spent my time with Supreme Ruler with one eyebrow raised and it took ages to do anything. It was an experience I don't wish to repeat any time soon.

Firstly, let's focus on the positives. As Will mentions in his review of the original, Supreme Ruler's interface is streamlined so all the controls you need are instantly available from the start. You're free to do whatever takes your fancy and there's tools here that allow every little feature to be adjusted and tweaked so the country runs precisely how you want. Dislike micromanagement? The key departments can be run by helpful AI ministers. This allows us humans to concentrate on the one thing that matters: War.

As the bloke who always struck first in Defcon and used Loki in Age of Mythology, taking the offensive in strategy games comes second nature to me. Fortunately, Supreme Ruler makes it very easy to invade unsuspecting neighbours. Military options are easy to find and use, unlike their economic counterparts. Creating units then giving them orders is very simple. Watching wars is an enjoyable activity, thanks to the heavily detailed world map. Just make sure not to deploy all your forces to one area, otherwise the graphics collide into each other, forming an ugly-messing mess. Other nations mainly react how you'd expect them to, and I received many sanctions from the United Nations for invading France as Germany. Thankfully for me, the computer appears to have the memory of a goldfish, as warning for illegal invasions are handed out one minute and retracted the next. I managed to take most of central Europe before Russia took notice and the US sat idly by when I attacked the UK. Decisions made by the international community are usually sane and consistent, but sometimes countries will do something silly and unrealistic.

Similar titles in the genre excuse poor enemy intelligence by offering up a competent mulitplayer mode so humans can go against people of equal skill level. Supreme Ruler only has LAN compatibility, meaning you can't even play online. The chances anyone owns this title has a friend with a copy who also enjoys it are very slim indeed. This causes direct-to-IP multiplayer to be an unnecessary addition to the main menu. Regardless of whether you play against the computer or a human, turning the entire globe into your vassal is a hugely satisfying experience and should be tried at least once.

Now for the negatives. Deep down, Supreme Ruler isn't a bad romp. It just has a lot of issues that could have been overcome with some testing on the average gamer. The main overview is simplistic and you're only ever a few clicks away from where you need to be. This is good, but the problem comes in what to click. Frankly, the mass of unhelpful tooltips is intimidating and only serves to confuse players more. There's a tutorial, but its twenty stages lack any interactivity. By the time I was thrown into the main game, I was already bored and had forgotten what to do.

Dealing with domestic affairs is pointless as most tasks can be handled by the AI. The expansion (Global Crisis) includes an expanded tech tree with more options to control government. However, unless you have a great grasp of the basics, these new features just form a new layer to the haze of confusion that shrouds every action the player takes. It takes hours for the effects of any decision to show through, which makes fiddling about with all these new options pointless unless you want to wait around. This is realistic, but also terribly boring.

Other reviewers have moaned about how difficult Supreme Ruler is. I disagree; this game is not hard, its just illogical. Third world countries will offer you resources your country already possesses, Israel will be best mates with Palestine and world leaders will change their attitudes on the fly. Nations react well to your actions, but sometimes contradict their own decisions minutes later. This unpredictability is probably caused by the computer having to juggle so many variables at once. When a machine gets perplexed by so many conflicting elements, what chance does a mere human have? Adapting to these constantly changing events is the main challenge in Supreme Ruler, but this turns into an non-issue if you own half the world.

Maybe I approached this title with the wrong expectations. I wanted Europa Universalis with nukes, but I got a glorified spreadsheet accompanied by repetitive gunshot sounds whenever I enter battle. If all the ridiculous, pointless statistics windows were stripped away I believe Supreme Ruler 2020 would have been a good game. Taking over smaller nations and bashing heads with bigger ones is really fun. The developers have simply tried too hard to add a lot of pointless detail to proceedings. I imagine most players will pick a political alignment for their administration and national religion before creating a few tanks and sending them off to attack the Middle East. The expansion should have made things simpler and more refined but managed to accomplish the opposite.

Supreme Ruler is a decent game, so long as you can get your head around it. Old school, die-hard management fans may really get to grips with this title, but most of us will be left out in the cold.

Freelance review by Freelance Writer (October 03, 2009) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.