There are almost no hotkeys, just as in the original SuperPower, and none that are customizable. You make your choices then you're told you used inapplicable nations, and have to start all over again. They're not color-coded, so if you don't remember which countries are out-of-bounds for your selected treaty proposal, you're also out of luck. Instead, you have to enter another, much larger screen, which entirely blankets the first, and where all the nations in the world are listed. For example, in the treaties box, you can click to select a treaty type, and see flags of all the other nations to whom your nation can apply it but you can't drag those flags over to yours to propose that treaty on the spot. Several of these boxes are poorly designed. You have to click on the upper right hand corner to close it. You can move but not resize any of the many info boxes (divided among Diplomacy, Economics and Military from the main interface) in the game, and these can end up nested four deep on your screen. The feedback box for world events is only a single line, so items of importance from all over can rush by if you're not careful. You can zoom in, which helps define military convoys, and does nothing else: no roads to observe, no cities to see.

Click on info for a bit of national information. Right click, and choose one of more than a dozen ways to color the map according to political control, population density, etc. Who can resist a large, slowing turning globe in the darkness of space? Click on a nation, and it's highlighted. Starting Out The interface initially looks sleek.

GolemLabs' SuperPower 2 is certainly ambitious enough, but they get so much wrong that it's actually more frustrating to play than Shadow President, or its immediate successor, CyberJudas. Unfortunately, nobody's been able to produce a global simulation since then that is any more sophisticated or accurate.

This formed the basis of Bob Antonick's innovative if primitive Shadow President, which I praised in a review at the time. At that time, a Russian developer figured out how to condense the entire CIA World Book of Facts in a fashion that made its numbers crunchable and its variables applicable to all nations. Global simulations of diplomacy, economics and military might really only became possible a decade ago.

Superpower 2 mods realism 2015