CIVANDRA — A Political Strategy Simulator

CIVANDRA — A Political Strategy Simulator

You start with no office and very little influence. A seat in parliament, real power and the chance to run a government are all a long way off.

How far you get depends on the choices you make: the promises you keep, the deals you strike, and the moments you decide to take a risk.

What You Do

CIVANDRA is about building a political career one week at a time. You don’t need to know much about politics to get started. The game explains the important things along the way.

• Win over your home turf. Hold surgeries, take up local concerns and become a name people recognise.
• Earn your party’s trust. Talk to the different wings, get nominated as a candidate and keep the party behind you.
• Face the press. Every answer counts, and anything you say can come back to haunt you later.
• Campaign and fight elections. Read the polls, pick your audience and decide whether a big promise is worth it.
• Write and pass laws. Draft your own bills, look for allies and give a little to win a majority.
• Handle crises. Floods, blackouts, strikes and scandals can drag on for weeks. Every option has upsides and downsides, and some consequences only show up later.
• Work your way up. Move through regional and national politics and take on coalition talks, budgets and government roles.

You only have so much time each week, so you can’t do everything. What you choose to focus on shapes the kind of politician you become.

The first playable country is Germany, with its national parliament and its regional states.

Languages

CIVANDRA is currently available in English and German.

Currently in Beta

CIVANDRA is still in development. Content, balancing and features will keep changing and improving. You’ll probably run into rough edges, odd numbers or the occasional bug. That’s part of why the beta exists.

What’s Coming

These are the plans for the future:

• More laws and crises for more decisions and more ways for things to go wrong
• More playable countries, each with its own political system
• Warfare and military conflict
• An economic simulation
• More languages
• Scandals and rivals: old skeletons in the closet and ambitious opponents in your own party
• TV debates: face your opponents live before election day
• Scenarios: ready-made starting situations, each with its own challenge
• In-game achievements: goals to work towards on your path to power
• Running your own ministry: lead a department, manage your staff and deal with what goes wrong inside it

If you enjoy politics, strategy or just making tough calls, give the beta a try. Your feedback really helps shape where the game goes next.

Development Note

“CIVANDRA was programmed with the help of Claude because I do not have a programming background. The game’s ideas, direction, and decisions are mine.”