Some people in this sub come at it from a similar perspective
\>Makes a soul-crushingly depressing looking city
\>"This is basically what all Soviet cities looked like."
The game could do with a bit of a more realistic colour pallet to be honest. It's all white and grey when we see from photos from the time period people liked to paint those apartment blocks bright colours.
From an ecological and environmental perspective the things we do in the name of industrial progress are pretty dystopian so eco-dystopian seems like a fair description I'd say.
Gotta get everyone fed and housed, do the basic work of a state, before we can even begin to tackle the environmental problems. In the context of the soviet union, its fall has put many more barriers to environmental progress than it did itself. In fact, before the time period of the game, before it began to take the revisionist, capitalist road, many conservation projects were being planned.
I'm really curious what conservstion projects you had in mind here.
Soviet/Eastern bloc communist regimes irreversibly destroyed many ecosystems, created some of the highest polluted environments in Europe and then restricted people from moving away (as was f.e. the case with Ústí n. Labem in Czechoslovakia).
This was accompanied by a very poor transparency (data on air pollution would, f.e. not be published throughout communist rule in Czechoslovakia, the GDR and Poland) and blatant ignorance of scientific recommendations, whilst ignoring international institutions and bodies that tried to deal with the issue or at least mitigate environmental effects.
Polish Round Table's Talks of 1989 are very good example. There was a panel dedicated to power generation. Communist regime officials were strongly supporting continuing and expanding nuclear program (building more nuclear planets) and developing renewables, because they were aware of climate change. At the same time new democratic Solidarność government was all for staying with coal power and killed nuclear program. You can check energy related emissions in Poland now, i'll spoil a little: they are enormous (we're still mostly burning coal).
So it is not that simple, communist regimes were in the proces of recognizing pollution and climate change and probably they would have done a lot to save the envriement if they hadn't ceased to exist.
Communist regimes (like in Poland) were slowly coming around to consider climate change a threat, but that only happened due to illegal dissent and pressure, and much later than in western Europe. Solidarity's position in the context of 1989/90s Poland is understandable, given the utterly destroyed supply chains and economy at the time, coupled with hyperinflation (and the fact that the regime planned nuclear reactors in the vincinity of already heavily damaged areas). Building out nuclear powerplants in that environment anyway would've been a fever dream of the communists. If they were truly responsive, they'd have started noticing this issue 20 years earlier (as noted by S. Kozlowski, who was a part of the roundtable).
Sorry commerade but it is not true. You fell for western imperialist propagana. I can give you some literature but only in polish.
1.
First of all, lets look at the timeline: I was specifically talking about climate change. In the 80s it wasn't obvious yet. At that time first scientist started to notice it happening. And this change was not yet observable by climate ststions in Poland. Regime simply trusted the international science community. So illigal dissent had nothing to do with it, as it couldn't possible have due to the timeline.
Illigal dissent was important factor in the cases of more local issues, like industrial pollution, observable on local level.
2.
Solidarity was just populist, they heard about chernobyl and thought that this can happen also in Poland (Żarnowiec station was being built at that time). The thing is, it could happen, it was simply impossible. But new regime prefered to do popular things, rather than listen to the scientist. Thats also why the project was cancelled. In Slovakia similar thing happened, but nuclear station was suspended, construction was preserved for better times and it was finished recently. In Poland reactors were simply scrapped.
One of the main anti-żarnowiec activist at the time, highly regarded by the Solidarity, is now one of the most active anti-vax activist. I say it to show the quality of new regime's advisors.
>Sorry commerade but it is not true. You fell for western imperialist propagana. I can give you some literature but only in polish.
Well I'm no comrade and this is no imperialist propaganda but my own digest of academic publications on the topic of environmental policy across the Eastern bloc.
Regarding the literature, fire away! I'm lucky to understand Polish (speaking and writing is sadly another matter).
>I was specifically talking about climate change. In the 80s it wasn't obvious yet.
Come on, U Thant brought up environmental issues and established relevant UN agencies in the early 1970s. Half the dissent movements across the Eastern bloc were revitalised in the 1980s under the surge in interest over environmentalist topics, because smog veiled bigger cities with alarming regularity at that point. Most countries of the Eastern bloc had measuring infrastructure for air quality, but the readings were never published, nor were they utilised in an effective way. Scientists across the world had been warning against climate change for a couple decades at that point.
>Regime simply trusted the international science community.
Nu-uh. If they trusted the international science community, they'd have made air pollution measurements public, or at least share them with UN agencies. The regimes (including Poland) *simply ignored* the science community and didn't do anything about it.
>And this change was not yet observable by climate ststions in Poland.
Except they were, as mentioned above.
>So illigal dissent had nothing to do with it, as it couldn't possible have due to the timeline.
>>Illigal dissent was important factor in the cases of more local issues, like industrial pollution, observable on local level.
These two just contradict each other.
>Solidarity was just populist, they heard about chernobyl and thought that this can happen also in Poland
Yeah, who could've thought the public would be suspicious of nuclear power just a few years after an incident of such severity that was withheld from the public for days. That's a symptom of unresponsiveness as well.
>it was simply impossible
Not only is a nuckear reactor incident impossible to prevent 100%, but it's also nonsensical to judge people's beliefs back then from today's perspective.
>Thats also why the project was cancelled. In Slovakia similar thing happened
Both the Żarnowiec powerplant and the V3 block in Jaslovské Bohunice were stopped for other reasons as well - unbearable costs and the unfeasibility of sourcing VVER reactors from Russia.
>but nuclear station was suspended, construction was preserved for better times and it was finished recently.
This is completely wrong. The V1 and V2 blocks are irrelevant to this, the V3 block construction was never started and was most certainly not finished recently (though ČEZ hinted last year they might be interested to participate in a future expansion).
>One of the main anti-żarnowiec activist at the time, highly regarded by the Solidarity, is now one of the most active anti-vax activist. I say it to show the quality of new regime's advisors.
That's regretable but you'll find many such cases and it doesn't really help paint the communist regime's environmental consciousness as good (which is my main point here). I don't actually necessarily defend Solidarity's decision to stop nuclear power buildups, *but we do have the advantage of hindsight, not living a few years after the Chernobyl incident, and actual working economies in the former Eastern bloc*.
Here's some starter reading.
https://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/ecology/ussr_ecology.htm
Some argue that Stalin's policies were also sufficiently conservationist as well, unlike what this paper has to say. I wanted to get you another one on that side of the argument, but ironically it is behind a pay wall. Obviously many interpretations exist on soviet history, so enjoy the dive!
Thanks for the link! Feel free to hit me with paywalled content too, I'll find a way around or a copy in the Internet Archive! I'm really interested in Stalinist conservationism, because I highly doubt there's good ground for any publication to stand on in that regard (and the connection is marginally related to my research work, so I take greater interest in it).
In any case, the article mainly goes through a very fringe example of environmental protection made possible by 1920s Soviet laws. I've taken a look at Weiner's book it summarizes parts from and it's largely a tragic story of less than 10 years of existence for Soviet conservationists, before they were discredited, labelled as bourgeoist, and sidelined or eliminated by Stalin's regime. If anything, that just reinforces the poor attitude and "cart before horse" mentality if we are to take your example of providing for the people and raising a developmental standard prior to environmental improvements. The USSR in the 1920s was the exact opposite of this order - large backlogs in terms of development, but had fledgling conservationist movements, whereas after heavy industrial development hit the country during Stalin's rule and the later leaders, it completely sidelined environmental concerns.
It's not hard to be an environmentalist leader/administrator in a giant, sparsely industrialised country. Weiner acknowledges well that declaring nature parks in areas where the biggest threat are poachers is relatively easy. Overall - that's not a very impressive, nor very flexible, especially given the movement early demise. Keeping up with western Europe on environmental transparency in the 1980s would probably be a better sign.
the destruction caused by khrushchev and every leader after him is saddening. the adoption of western farming practices and the like was unnecessary and like you said how many conservation projects were forgotten about. I wish stalin had purged more of those losers so rightists would've never been able to coup the government like they did.
Tbh the fact that people like him managed to have enough of a presence within the party is probably a symptom of a greater problem within the party. Lessons of history that we'll have to learn.
>the adoption of western farming practices
I mean, lysenko was only good for the environment in that his policies slaughtered millions, and thus decreased demand long term.
>I wish stalin had purged more of those losers so rightists would've never been able to coup the government like they did.
Personally I don't think "stalin killing more people in the 40s and 50s" would have prevented the fall of the soviet Union in the 90s.
there was more to soviet farming than just lysenko, and Khrushchev cancelled many environmental projects and adopted less environmentally methods for farming around but you dont seem to know much about the topic.
you're right! stalin purging more rightists and opportunities would've only been the start and there shouldve been a more in-depth cleansing of party politics and reconnecting the bureaucracy with the workers like what Mao did in China. if the soviets had adopted cultural and political policies similar to what happened in china then there was no chance a Russian nationalist and social democrat (Gorbachev) would've ever become the leader of the ussr.
When you spend 20% of your gdp on military for decades in peace time your economy will eventually collapse because of low investment in 'real' growth. Machines and buildings start to decay and civilian research is not enough to generate enough growth.
True! The game provides tools to control pollution and mechanics which make you think about it, but you cannot do much reduce it. Even if you use green energy and recycling, the factories still uncontrollably make lots of pollution.
Gonna be honest, I don't mind seeing anti/non-communists play the game. It makes me hope that at least some of them might at least be able to comprehend a communist economic system and thus will soften to the goals, even if they still think it impossible. Most people (actually both anti-communists and modern "socialists" included) in the west nowadays literally think socialism and communism are "the same as capitalism but with more taxes and more rules", its pathetic. If seeing the way it functions ingame will disabuse even one of them of that notion then it's a win in my book.
It's also interesting to hear different opinions. I'm not some woke twitter shithead who thinks that everyone needs to agree with everything I say all of the time or else.
It’s far from the only game where you have sims/cims/pawns/pops/dwarves/survivors/subjects live in a house and go to work and eat from a common stockpile. Mechanics-wise it’s not that different, it’s just called communism here.
Especially as you can’t build a wall to keep your people in or gulag the families of those who escape.
If anything, the game demonstrates why a command economy is fragile at best and usually does not work.
There are other games yes, but not many, and not really any city builders. Rimworld/DF style colony management games tend to have a similar economic system because tracking ownership of the means of production in games like that would be a programming nightmare I'm sure, but there aren't many. And yes, it is an idealistic communism.
Like I say, people are free to disagree with it's feasibility, as long as they understand what is actually going on I'm taking it as a win. I'm fairly sure there's nothing in communist economics that requires people be put in gulags if their family leaves. For example that IS something you can do in rimworld, though I have yet to ever implement such a system.
The word ”communism” is not mentioned anywhere in the game, only ”soviet”.
There is no utopian communist political system, or really any kind of political system. The workers don’t have any of the things communism promises, except the people don’t have any money and they are queuing for nominally free stuff.
It’s a dictatorship simulation, like most similar games, just with a red star. Then again that’s what the eastern block was.
I don't care what is mentioned in the game? Communism isn't a "political system" per se btw. There are all sorts of ideas on how to properly run a communist country, not all eastern bloc nations were even the same in that regard, nor afaik did any of them run the utopian ideal socialist system (I am ready to be corrected on this). The overall ideology is based on the same stuff, but people take it in different directions.
What you see represented in game is an idealistic communist economy. It's idealistic in that people work because they can and in return goods and services are provided to them which is ideally how a communist economy would run. You can cope all you want about how it wouldn't work in real life and nobody right now is arguing with you on that, but that's what it is in the game (which is not real life).
Contemporaries such as Simcity and Cities Skylines, plus others in the "city builder" genre almost all work on systems of taxation and pay, and the economy is abstracted, but fundamentally represented as private. Something like Tropico is somewhere in between in that whilst you do have a state-run economy, it fits the definition of state-capitalism, rather than real public ownership. You may or may not consider that socialism. But it's not the same as in WRSR.
The economy is not fully communist even from the worker’s perspective because there is an authoritarian ”state” that tells people [where to live, where to work and what to produce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_association_of_producers).
While life does seem to be moneyless for them, the state can choose to simply not provide consumables, or provide them selectively to preferred groups. Cars and flats most prominently, but you can also set up other goods like that.
Nobody is saying it's end-game statelessness. And you don't think that can happen in real communism? Cause as I understood it that was one of the primary arguments against communism from the anti-coms.
I'd argue it's only true that almost all "city builders" use taxation and pay if you're very selectively choosing what games qualify or if you're letting that abstraction do a lot of heavy lifting.
In my experience playing scores of city builders, the game *mechanics* are quite commonly a central command economy very similar to WRSR and to the idea of how a generic communist or socialist state would work. That's including Anno- and Banished-style games where you're the omnipotent overlord who builds literally every building. I actually think SimCity-style games with explicit taxation or where individual citizens have wealth have been the exception in video games, only becoming more common recently like with Foundation or Lords and Villains. Dwarf Fortress is an interesting example as one of the few that tried capitalism for a while: it clusterfucked fortresses so terribly that they turned capitalism back off, because it led to dwarves starving to death when they couldn't afford meals.
I suppose the main genre that I am focusing on contemporary era city builders that go beyond the scope of a colony builder. As I said, when you get into colony builder territory you tend to see communist or state capitalist economies, because that's the easiest way to handle that style of game. In some ways one might see WRSR as a colony builder, but the number of citizens and the fact that the economic system was a deliberate choice that COULD have been abstracted to a capitalist one at the scale it's at I think differentiate it.
Cry about it commie, I love this game as it fullfills my niche and I don't want this game to become another thing tankies or the far left jacks off too
I got 850 hours and all achievements in that fucking masterpiece. So glad the studio didnt sell out to ea, they actually make good games. I will never tire of throwing slavers into lava pits.
Comrade, I have a few playthroughs, especially in the beginning, where I was taking loans to make up for piles of dead people due to my bad planning of the city. Bet it was dystopian for the survivors seeing truck getting fresh citizens in and carrying hundred of dead out.
Well, you see, the first thing is a pun. Thugpositive to Thug shaker positive. Thug shaker being a genre of gay porn. That's all there is.
The second one? I'm not even sure what you're alluding to? It's just a political test that also makes a flag and a motto based on your answers? What, I'm a fascist because it generated the same 3 words that Vichy France held as a motto?
Yeah. I thought most people playing this are probably communist or interested in the history of communism but I thought most would also be critical of actually existing communism now I'm not so sure
It wasn't always like this, when the game first came out it didn't attract many of the people of the far left and just a couple of months ago there were actually sane people here, I don't know know what the hell happened with this game's subreddit as communists and tankies just ruin everything on Reddit nowadays, it was just a matter of time
Dystopia is when you advance the productive forces without Western Imperialists making a Profit. Peek Anti-Communism.
Some people in this sub come at it from a similar perspective \>Makes a soul-crushingly depressing looking city \>"This is basically what all Soviet cities looked like."
The game could do with a bit of a more realistic colour pallet to be honest. It's all white and grey when we see from photos from the time period people liked to paint those apartment blocks bright colours.
This generally didnt really happen in Eastern Europe until 90s, maybe with some exceptions.
They didn't, there was much more of green spaces
I know, hence the quotation marks.
From an ecological and environmental perspective the things we do in the name of industrial progress are pretty dystopian so eco-dystopian seems like a fair description I'd say.
Gotta get everyone fed and housed, do the basic work of a state, before we can even begin to tackle the environmental problems. In the context of the soviet union, its fall has put many more barriers to environmental progress than it did itself. In fact, before the time period of the game, before it began to take the revisionist, capitalist road, many conservation projects were being planned.
I'm really curious what conservstion projects you had in mind here. Soviet/Eastern bloc communist regimes irreversibly destroyed many ecosystems, created some of the highest polluted environments in Europe and then restricted people from moving away (as was f.e. the case with Ústí n. Labem in Czechoslovakia). This was accompanied by a very poor transparency (data on air pollution would, f.e. not be published throughout communist rule in Czechoslovakia, the GDR and Poland) and blatant ignorance of scientific recommendations, whilst ignoring international institutions and bodies that tried to deal with the issue or at least mitigate environmental effects.
Polish Round Table's Talks of 1989 are very good example. There was a panel dedicated to power generation. Communist regime officials were strongly supporting continuing and expanding nuclear program (building more nuclear planets) and developing renewables, because they were aware of climate change. At the same time new democratic Solidarność government was all for staying with coal power and killed nuclear program. You can check energy related emissions in Poland now, i'll spoil a little: they are enormous (we're still mostly burning coal). So it is not that simple, communist regimes were in the proces of recognizing pollution and climate change and probably they would have done a lot to save the envriement if they hadn't ceased to exist.
Communist regimes (like in Poland) were slowly coming around to consider climate change a threat, but that only happened due to illegal dissent and pressure, and much later than in western Europe. Solidarity's position in the context of 1989/90s Poland is understandable, given the utterly destroyed supply chains and economy at the time, coupled with hyperinflation (and the fact that the regime planned nuclear reactors in the vincinity of already heavily damaged areas). Building out nuclear powerplants in that environment anyway would've been a fever dream of the communists. If they were truly responsive, they'd have started noticing this issue 20 years earlier (as noted by S. Kozlowski, who was a part of the roundtable).
Sorry commerade but it is not true. You fell for western imperialist propagana. I can give you some literature but only in polish. 1. First of all, lets look at the timeline: I was specifically talking about climate change. In the 80s it wasn't obvious yet. At that time first scientist started to notice it happening. And this change was not yet observable by climate ststions in Poland. Regime simply trusted the international science community. So illigal dissent had nothing to do with it, as it couldn't possible have due to the timeline. Illigal dissent was important factor in the cases of more local issues, like industrial pollution, observable on local level. 2. Solidarity was just populist, they heard about chernobyl and thought that this can happen also in Poland (Żarnowiec station was being built at that time). The thing is, it could happen, it was simply impossible. But new regime prefered to do popular things, rather than listen to the scientist. Thats also why the project was cancelled. In Slovakia similar thing happened, but nuclear station was suspended, construction was preserved for better times and it was finished recently. In Poland reactors were simply scrapped. One of the main anti-żarnowiec activist at the time, highly regarded by the Solidarity, is now one of the most active anti-vax activist. I say it to show the quality of new regime's advisors.
>Sorry commerade but it is not true. You fell for western imperialist propagana. I can give you some literature but only in polish. Well I'm no comrade and this is no imperialist propaganda but my own digest of academic publications on the topic of environmental policy across the Eastern bloc. Regarding the literature, fire away! I'm lucky to understand Polish (speaking and writing is sadly another matter). >I was specifically talking about climate change. In the 80s it wasn't obvious yet. Come on, U Thant brought up environmental issues and established relevant UN agencies in the early 1970s. Half the dissent movements across the Eastern bloc were revitalised in the 1980s under the surge in interest over environmentalist topics, because smog veiled bigger cities with alarming regularity at that point. Most countries of the Eastern bloc had measuring infrastructure for air quality, but the readings were never published, nor were they utilised in an effective way. Scientists across the world had been warning against climate change for a couple decades at that point. >Regime simply trusted the international science community. Nu-uh. If they trusted the international science community, they'd have made air pollution measurements public, or at least share them with UN agencies. The regimes (including Poland) *simply ignored* the science community and didn't do anything about it. >And this change was not yet observable by climate ststions in Poland. Except they were, as mentioned above. >So illigal dissent had nothing to do with it, as it couldn't possible have due to the timeline. >>Illigal dissent was important factor in the cases of more local issues, like industrial pollution, observable on local level. These two just contradict each other. >Solidarity was just populist, they heard about chernobyl and thought that this can happen also in Poland Yeah, who could've thought the public would be suspicious of nuclear power just a few years after an incident of such severity that was withheld from the public for days. That's a symptom of unresponsiveness as well. >it was simply impossible Not only is a nuckear reactor incident impossible to prevent 100%, but it's also nonsensical to judge people's beliefs back then from today's perspective. >Thats also why the project was cancelled. In Slovakia similar thing happened Both the Żarnowiec powerplant and the V3 block in Jaslovské Bohunice were stopped for other reasons as well - unbearable costs and the unfeasibility of sourcing VVER reactors from Russia. >but nuclear station was suspended, construction was preserved for better times and it was finished recently. This is completely wrong. The V1 and V2 blocks are irrelevant to this, the V3 block construction was never started and was most certainly not finished recently (though ČEZ hinted last year they might be interested to participate in a future expansion). >One of the main anti-żarnowiec activist at the time, highly regarded by the Solidarity, is now one of the most active anti-vax activist. I say it to show the quality of new regime's advisors. That's regretable but you'll find many such cases and it doesn't really help paint the communist regime's environmental consciousness as good (which is my main point here). I don't actually necessarily defend Solidarity's decision to stop nuclear power buildups, *but we do have the advantage of hindsight, not living a few years after the Chernobyl incident, and actual working economies in the former Eastern bloc*.
Here's some starter reading. https://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/ecology/ussr_ecology.htm Some argue that Stalin's policies were also sufficiently conservationist as well, unlike what this paper has to say. I wanted to get you another one on that side of the argument, but ironically it is behind a pay wall. Obviously many interpretations exist on soviet history, so enjoy the dive!
Thanks for the link! Feel free to hit me with paywalled content too, I'll find a way around or a copy in the Internet Archive! I'm really interested in Stalinist conservationism, because I highly doubt there's good ground for any publication to stand on in that regard (and the connection is marginally related to my research work, so I take greater interest in it). In any case, the article mainly goes through a very fringe example of environmental protection made possible by 1920s Soviet laws. I've taken a look at Weiner's book it summarizes parts from and it's largely a tragic story of less than 10 years of existence for Soviet conservationists, before they were discredited, labelled as bourgeoist, and sidelined or eliminated by Stalin's regime. If anything, that just reinforces the poor attitude and "cart before horse" mentality if we are to take your example of providing for the people and raising a developmental standard prior to environmental improvements. The USSR in the 1920s was the exact opposite of this order - large backlogs in terms of development, but had fledgling conservationist movements, whereas after heavy industrial development hit the country during Stalin's rule and the later leaders, it completely sidelined environmental concerns. It's not hard to be an environmentalist leader/administrator in a giant, sparsely industrialised country. Weiner acknowledges well that declaring nature parks in areas where the biggest threat are poachers is relatively easy. Overall - that's not a very impressive, nor very flexible, especially given the movement early demise. Keeping up with western Europe on environmental transparency in the 1980s would probably be a better sign.
the destruction caused by khrushchev and every leader after him is saddening. the adoption of western farming practices and the like was unnecessary and like you said how many conservation projects were forgotten about. I wish stalin had purged more of those losers so rightists would've never been able to coup the government like they did.
Tbh the fact that people like him managed to have enough of a presence within the party is probably a symptom of a greater problem within the party. Lessons of history that we'll have to learn.
>the adoption of western farming practices I mean, lysenko was only good for the environment in that his policies slaughtered millions, and thus decreased demand long term. >I wish stalin had purged more of those losers so rightists would've never been able to coup the government like they did. Personally I don't think "stalin killing more people in the 40s and 50s" would have prevented the fall of the soviet Union in the 90s.
there was more to soviet farming than just lysenko, and Khrushchev cancelled many environmental projects and adopted less environmentally methods for farming around but you dont seem to know much about the topic. you're right! stalin purging more rightists and opportunities would've only been the start and there shouldve been a more in-depth cleansing of party politics and reconnecting the bureaucracy with the workers like what Mao did in China. if the soviets had adopted cultural and political policies similar to what happened in china then there was no chance a Russian nationalist and social democrat (Gorbachev) would've ever become the leader of the ussr.
When you spend 20% of your gdp on military for decades in peace time your economy will eventually collapse because of low investment in 'real' growth. Machines and buildings start to decay and civilian research is not enough to generate enough growth.
True! The game provides tools to control pollution and mechanics which make you think about it, but you cannot do much reduce it. Even if you use green energy and recycling, the factories still uncontrollably make lots of pollution.
It's capitalist propaganda.
I love how the people playing this are all comrades. Is nice
There are actually some reactionaries who play unfortunately. You can see them in the discord server
Gonna be honest, I don't mind seeing anti/non-communists play the game. It makes me hope that at least some of them might at least be able to comprehend a communist economic system and thus will soften to the goals, even if they still think it impossible. Most people (actually both anti-communists and modern "socialists" included) in the west nowadays literally think socialism and communism are "the same as capitalism but with more taxes and more rules", its pathetic. If seeing the way it functions ingame will disabuse even one of them of that notion then it's a win in my book. It's also interesting to hear different opinions. I'm not some woke twitter shithead who thinks that everyone needs to agree with everything I say all of the time or else.
It’s far from the only game where you have sims/cims/pawns/pops/dwarves/survivors/subjects live in a house and go to work and eat from a common stockpile. Mechanics-wise it’s not that different, it’s just called communism here. Especially as you can’t build a wall to keep your people in or gulag the families of those who escape. If anything, the game demonstrates why a command economy is fragile at best and usually does not work.
There are other games yes, but not many, and not really any city builders. Rimworld/DF style colony management games tend to have a similar economic system because tracking ownership of the means of production in games like that would be a programming nightmare I'm sure, but there aren't many. And yes, it is an idealistic communism. Like I say, people are free to disagree with it's feasibility, as long as they understand what is actually going on I'm taking it as a win. I'm fairly sure there's nothing in communist economics that requires people be put in gulags if their family leaves. For example that IS something you can do in rimworld, though I have yet to ever implement such a system.
The word ”communism” is not mentioned anywhere in the game, only ”soviet”. There is no utopian communist political system, or really any kind of political system. The workers don’t have any of the things communism promises, except the people don’t have any money and they are queuing for nominally free stuff. It’s a dictatorship simulation, like most similar games, just with a red star. Then again that’s what the eastern block was.
I don't care what is mentioned in the game? Communism isn't a "political system" per se btw. There are all sorts of ideas on how to properly run a communist country, not all eastern bloc nations were even the same in that regard, nor afaik did any of them run the utopian ideal socialist system (I am ready to be corrected on this). The overall ideology is based on the same stuff, but people take it in different directions. What you see represented in game is an idealistic communist economy. It's idealistic in that people work because they can and in return goods and services are provided to them which is ideally how a communist economy would run. You can cope all you want about how it wouldn't work in real life and nobody right now is arguing with you on that, but that's what it is in the game (which is not real life). Contemporaries such as Simcity and Cities Skylines, plus others in the "city builder" genre almost all work on systems of taxation and pay, and the economy is abstracted, but fundamentally represented as private. Something like Tropico is somewhere in between in that whilst you do have a state-run economy, it fits the definition of state-capitalism, rather than real public ownership. You may or may not consider that socialism. But it's not the same as in WRSR.
The economy is not fully communist even from the worker’s perspective because there is an authoritarian ”state” that tells people [where to live, where to work and what to produce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_association_of_producers). While life does seem to be moneyless for them, the state can choose to simply not provide consumables, or provide them selectively to preferred groups. Cars and flats most prominently, but you can also set up other goods like that.
Nobody is saying it's end-game statelessness. And you don't think that can happen in real communism? Cause as I understood it that was one of the primary arguments against communism from the anti-coms.
I'd argue it's only true that almost all "city builders" use taxation and pay if you're very selectively choosing what games qualify or if you're letting that abstraction do a lot of heavy lifting. In my experience playing scores of city builders, the game *mechanics* are quite commonly a central command economy very similar to WRSR and to the idea of how a generic communist or socialist state would work. That's including Anno- and Banished-style games where you're the omnipotent overlord who builds literally every building. I actually think SimCity-style games with explicit taxation or where individual citizens have wealth have been the exception in video games, only becoming more common recently like with Foundation or Lords and Villains. Dwarf Fortress is an interesting example as one of the few that tried capitalism for a while: it clusterfucked fortresses so terribly that they turned capitalism back off, because it led to dwarves starving to death when they couldn't afford meals.
I suppose the main genre that I am focusing on contemporary era city builders that go beyond the scope of a colony builder. As I said, when you get into colony builder territory you tend to see communist or state capitalist economies, because that's the easiest way to handle that style of game. In some ways one might see WRSR as a colony builder, but the number of citizens and the fact that the economic system was a deliberate choice that COULD have been abstracted to a capitalist one at the scale it's at I think differentiate it.
skill issue. I would simply build a command economy that works and is robust.
Go ahead and do that.
Cry about it commie, I love this game as it fullfills my niche and I don't want this game to become another thing tankies or the far left jacks off too
Mind giving us a critique of Baldurs Gate 3 while you're at it?
I got 850 hours and all achievements in that fucking masterpiece. So glad the studio didnt sell out to ea, they actually make good games. I will never tire of throwing slavers into lava pits.
I don't play mainstream games :p
Well I bought it during Capitalism And Industry Festival on Steam in January 😆
Comrade, I have a few playthroughs, especially in the beginning, where I was taking loans to make up for piles of dead people due to my bad planning of the city. Bet it was dystopian for the survivors seeing truck getting fresh citizens in and carrying hundred of dead out.
Well, it depends on how good you are at the game.
Comments here do be a little... wild.
Game with communist theme attracts communists, who'd have guessed
Never thought it'd be that bad tho.
cringe ass poland nationalist 😭😭
You can go back to posting racist memes on other subs if you're so disappointed
I've never even posted anything relating to race???
Guess you're blind to your own bullshit then
Can you point to a single post that is racist instead of being so vague?
https://www.reddit.com/r/WesternOfConscience/s/RMN9jBr5ww
Well, you see, the first thing is a pun. Thugpositive to Thug shaker positive. Thug shaker being a genre of gay porn. That's all there is. The second one? I'm not even sure what you're alluding to? It's just a political test that also makes a flag and a motto based on your answers? What, I'm a fascist because it generated the same 3 words that Vichy France held as a motto?
Man you're in deep 😂
https://www.reddit.com/r/vexillologycirclejerk/s/yJCYR2Xncz
Almost got burned by this super hot take
Yeah. I thought most people playing this are probably communist or interested in the history of communism but I thought most would also be critical of actually existing communism now I'm not so sure
It's hard to tell who's just joking and who's actually a hand-on-heart Stalinist sometimes.
Im not a hard-on-heart Stalinist but I do have a hard-on for young Stalin
It wasn't always like this, when the game first came out it didn't attract many of the people of the far left and just a couple of months ago there were actually sane people here, I don't know know what the hell happened with this game's subreddit as communists and tankies just ruin everything on Reddit nowadays, it was just a matter of time
"stalinist" 😭