SP2 University: Tutorials and Strategies

[St Oz]

So you bought the game, you're super stoked, because you get to play with everyone on the region. Maybe you played this game a long time ago, but you don't remember all the gimmicks of the game. This is a nice tutorial to learn about or reacquaint yourself with Superpower 2.

What is SP2?
Superpower 2 is a real time strategy game that lets you assume the role of every nation circa 2001. The goals are entirely up to you, and there are very several ways to 'win'. This is why most people on online server play Roleplay, because it allows the players of the server to assume the role of a national leader and direct policy as they see best. The game gives you a lot of freedom for what sort of role you want to assume, and this quirk has been essential to its success as a game. Also, while the game looks complicated and like a spreadsheet simulator, the games mechanics are really quite simple. World trade is a simple addition and subtraction system, statistics are pretty straight forward, and the concepts, while extremely simplified, work almost like real life economics. Superpower 2 can be a relaxing game, as you can drop it and make supper, do chores, do homework, read a book, whatever, then come back to your nation still growing because it can do fine on its own. Whatever drives you to play this game, this is a tutorial to show you the tools available for any crisis or plan you may have for your nation.

Your Options
First things first, options and such. It's a subjective thing, but I normally keep the video settings all on low, turn off the sun and moon, turn off the day/night cycle, and turn off the clouds. It's all pretty frivolous, and I like to keep it like a gameboard. Second, while the musics is nice, it gets pretty damn repetitive, so I turn that shit off and put on my own. Here you can also choose the name you want when you first join games, sometimes it's better to have an actual name as "Player" makes you seem like a noob and people might kick you. This used to happen a lot in the past, but I haven't seen it too much these days. Also, when you're starting out there's an AI aggressiveness slider. For now you might want it all the way to the left, or 0 value, so nations don't just invade you if they're the slightest bit pissed off. Sliding it all the way to the right will give it a 1 value and this is the hardest setting. Default should be at .5.

Picking a Country
Picking a country is almost like picking what part of the chicken you want to cook. Some countries are chicken livers, some are thighs, some are wings, and some are breasts (heh booby nations heh heh heh). Each part has the chance to become an amazing tasting dish, but each part have different properties that you need to learn. Let's talk about the chicken breast nations first (booby nations). The best way to pick a country is like trying to decide what kind of dish you want to prepare. All nations have potential, never disregard Comoros because it's a backwards island chain off the coast of Africa. Any nation can become a world power.

Breasts
These are your first world, industrialized countries. They are easiest to tame. Just like with chicken breast, you almost have to try to fuck it up, but it can be done. These countries are your Western and Northern European countries, USA and Canada, Japan and South Korea, and a few other gems here and there. Just think first world nations. Your goals for picking one of these nations is you obviously want to get out on the international field quickly, and you want to have a say in the affairs of the world immediately. You may also want to change something you don't like about the nation, or think you could run it better. Well have a go at it then!

Thighs
Thighs aren't too difficult to cook, but they're certainly not as easy as chicken breasts. The meat is tough and thick, requires more preparation time, and stronger flavors to give it a good taste. These nations are your developing nations or second world nations. China, India, Brazil, Russia, Iran, Turkey, South Africa, and Indonesia to name a few. While these nations aren't as great in the beginning, the player can transform these struggling states into industrialized nations with a strong military. While these nations need more time and preparation to make great, people who want to assume the roles of these nations will have a tougher time making their nation distinct to the rest of the world.

Wings
These are your nations that, while not necessarily poor, are pretty insignificant on the world stage. The nations in this category are pretty subjective choice, and there are many unique ways you can prepare 'wings' nations. These nations can include Jordan, the Baltics, the Balkans, several of the Latin American countries, Nigeria, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Thailand, Bhutan, Greece, etc.  People who select these countries want the challenge above all, to make their country stand out. Having one of these countries can also make your RP even more exciting. Having a Kingdom in the United States is less believable than say a monarchist uprising in Greece or Romania or Nigeria, whatever.

The Livers
These nations are bitter, they have few options in preparation, just like liver. They aren't versatile like wings, they're not easy to manage like breasts, and they don't seem to have much potential like thighs. These are your third world nations. Some of these nations cannot go anywhere without help or drastic action, like the Democratic Republic of Congo or Somalia. While other nations are sipping their tea, you have to deal with anarchism, poverty, corruption, and inflation. These are your central african nations, Laos, Cambodia, and a few latin american countries. While there's a challenge to prepping one of these nations, just like liver, the rewards for getting it spot on are endless. Just like I said earlier, any nation can be prosperous, if you can get one of the livers up there it can surprise your enemies, startle other players, and make people respect you. While the rewards are great, the failure rate is high, and sometimes absolutely by no fault of your own as a player.

So choose wisely, I'd stick with a nation you think is stable at the start. What you believe and what is in the game are usually what is.

HUD and interface
So you just chose your nation, and you're asking yourself, "What the fuck do all these buttons and numbers mean?" The HUD (Heads-Up Display) has menu options, help, and chat in the top right, then mail, notifications, population info, economic/politcal/military indicators in the bottom left. The most important things to keep open have to be your economics and political tab. Keep a good eye on your stability and budget.

Things that make you die (GAME OVER)
Why you should always check out your stability and budget
Stability is the measure of faith the public has in their government. Low stability means people have very little faith in its lifespan and very high faith means the government is a very real institution for the people. <20% stability is a very dangerous range for the government to be in. At <20% your government is highly susceptible to coup'd'etats and anarchy. Coup'd'etat will kick you out of the game, while Anarchy isn't the total end of the world, but you have almost no control over your nation while in it. Changing a government type in <20% stability range will put you in risk of anarchy, and having high corruption, low approval, and low stability will always risk putting you into anarchy.

Watch your deficit and debt. One achieves economic failure when their interest costs are above their GDP as a nation. Most people overreach this by too much debt, but it's not uncommon to flatten your economy with one. It's entirely possible to have a deficit and grow out your debt, but it's a very tough thing to balance out. The best way to get out of debt is to make friends with a bigger nation who will spot you some cash, second best is temporary austerity measures, and third best is growing out.  Try not to do permanent austerity measures. This is a very unfun situation because eventually the country will econ-fail, but in 5, maybe 30 years in the future with little options left in your nation.

If your military isn't in the top 10, don't invade anyone directly
That being said, it's probably okay for you to join in on other wars and invade that way, but if you don't have a strong military and can't fight off impending doom, then don't fuckin' invade people for no damn reason. You might get away with it once, but a second time will guarantee getting 30 nations knocking on your door demanding your head.

Losing an Election
Many cop out on elections by simply making popular ones illegal or going to a single party democracy. If you're among the few that want to keep multi-party democracy, good on you. You also get rewarded in game with higher resource growth, GDP growth, and diplomatic relation growth. To keep your party in power you may want to consider making other parties illegal or declaring martial law in an unpopular period. Otherwise, if you want to keep to your guns, keeping propaganda and government tabs at maximum will guarantee you elections. Try not to raise taxes before elections. Decreasing taxes high enough can give you temporary boosts to approval. Also making the majority religion and language official (or even all languages and all religions) official helps too. Keep in mind if you have a large amount of parties in your nation, that a 30-40% approval range should be good enough, but if you have a two-party system, you almost always have to keep it above 50%. With time this struggle is easier and easier to tackle as more people come to your party. It's very easy to say have a 90% membership of your party after 5-10 years of leading the nation.

Thank you for reading the introduction lesson. Next lesson on your military/political/economy will be tomorrow

[Of The US]

So I believe you're a bit late with your second part of this...

[St Oz]

o7 Will get to it

[St Oz]

So you want to be an economic powerhouse?
This post is a little late, and I apologize.  So you want to be an economic powerhouse? Some of you have played with me and have been baffled by my super economy. So here I share all my secrets, all my stupid ways of making Andorra or Vatican city or DRC or Western Sahara #5 in the world in production.

Tools and Statistics
To put it simply you have a few tools to help you build up your economic strength, as well understanding the statistics given to you to help you know what specifically to do. It's all very easy to understand don't worry.

That tab with a dollar sign on it
So you just started the game and you are ready to become the economic mogul. First you maybe look at military because you want to blow shit up, but eventually you get to the economics tab to see what's up there. At face value you have four sub-tabs in there, Economic Model, Economic Health, Budget, and Resources.

Economic Model
Tells you the proportion of your economy that's privately owned or state-owned. Most people like to do full private ownership because it's less complicated and cheaper for growth. The proportion isn't based on each market, so say if you make a vehicles market state controlled but have no production in it, it will not affect that slider. Changing to state controlled on the largest market, health and care, will definitely change it drastically. What does it mean? Not much. Better to set to all private when starting out. Making a state-controlled nation is a complicated and taxing endeavor.

Economic Health
A sloppy statistic to see how well your economy is growing. Really high health means your economy is still growing, low health means not as much or not at all. All in all, your economy is almost always growing. You have to try to put it in the shit tank. It however considers your country's human development index, interest rate, and infrastructure level. Now let's hit the More button, because more is better!

You see in the more tab, GDP, GDP per capita, Unemployment Rate, Poverty Levels, Inflation, and Interest rate. The main thing here is your income tax rate, your main money earner (usually) and the interest rate. There's nothing entirely special about the income tax rate as it doesn't affect your economy too much in the short term (Anywhere from 10-50 years), but it does affect your approval rate. Obviously really low taxes will give you high approval and high taxes will give you shitty approval. This can be countered by having high propaganda, but it will hurt in the beginning. Definitely don't raise taxes before an election and decreasing taxes can give you the boost you need to win the next election. In the long term the consequences aren't so bad. You just don't grow -as much-, and your poverty percentage and gdp per capita don't go up -as much-.

What the fuck is that interest rate thing then? Interest level is setting your government's target interest rate. Or the general level at which borrowers pay back on a loaned money or earn from savings. It may seem broken when you first use it, but it's a very powerful tool for your economy. You may think it doesn't do anything because when you change it to 100% and 0% over and over nothing happens. That's because when you change it, it takes 1-2 months to actually take effect. By default it's always at 2%. The game makes use of a very simplified version of a real economic concept called the Phillips curve. Basically the higher your interest rate, the higher your interest rate, the more depreciated your currency is, therefore more unemployment, then the opposite the lower your interest rate, the more inflated your currency is, therefore less unemployment. (^ I -> ^ U ; v I -> v U). So when you have more unemployment your economy won't grow as much or not at all, but when you have less unemployment then you'll grow much faster. However when you have high inflation, your budget expenses are higher, and when you have lower inflation you have lower expenses.

So that covers the tools you have in the tab, but what about the statistics? Ignore GDP, it's not important. It's a big fucking number that represents total production in your nation.  GDP per capita is where it's at, because it's a proportion of your total production to your population. More production per person means you can get more money out of them. Generally you want to increase this, but sometimes just having super big populations is fine too, whatever. When all nations are in Autarky mode (where every nation in the world meets their needs of production for the entire population), depending on your government type your GDP per capita is going to be anywhere from 5k-20k, generally... So before Autarky happens it's possible for your nation to out produce everyone else and fill their resource buckets with your own. It is however not an indication of how much your average citizen makes. A good way to increase your GDP per capita is to drive up consumption and production levels in your country. Which we'll discuss later when we get to Resources.

Unemployment levels generally just is another statistic that tells you how much your country will grow or not grow. Target is 5%, but you can get as low as 2%. Obviously high unemployment will trigger less growth and low unemployment will trigger more growth. It also affects your poverty levels, low unemployment will help lower them. This statistic is almost entirely government by you interest level. Keeping your interest at 0-10% is fine, but anywhere above will generate dangerous levels of unemployment.

Poverty line basically smacks down any belief that you might be an amazing fucking country. A very high poverty level means you have very low HDI levels and need to put them up. When you have less people in poverty then your growth is much higher, simple as that. We'll discuss how to raise HDI later. High GDP per capita helps with poverty levels but it won't change it fast enough. 

Inflation has indicators hat show the range is like -20% - 20%, but the game might start your nation at -50% or 500% inflation. Notably in very shitty countries, so don't expect it that low in your developed nations. The game will naturally lower or raise your inflation levels without any of your doing to a range between 0%-10%. The inflation rate will never go outside that range for whatever reason. Pretty much all inflation will do is make things in your nation more expensive to have like budget expenses and military upkeep. A nation with 3% inflation will have cheaper expenses than a nation with 10%. To lower your inflation, simply adjust your interest levels higher, but this will increase unemployment. If you feel unemployment is low and you have low inflation, then lower it to 0%. If you have full budget and are at 10% and still make a budget surplus, just lower it to 0% so you can get the growth bonus. It doesn't matter if you're that rich.

So I hope that covers everything about the economic health tab. Post any questions you may have about it.

The Big Budget Tab
At face value you have four statistics read out to you, Income, Expenses, Balance, and Available. Income shows the total amount of money your country makes a year from taxes, expenses shows the total amount of expenses from military upkeep, treaties, security upkeep, corruption, interest payments, and budget upkeep you have. Your balance is the deficit or surplus your nation will have annually, determined by Income - Expenses. Obviously you generate a better balance when you have low expenses and high income. You get more income from growth and you get less expenses from less upkeep and less investment. Your balance is the total amount of debts or money your country has available. Your balance will increase or decrease depending on your annual balance. A country will eco-fail when this is too high. The higher your debt, the more interest payment you have to pay, and when your interest payments exceed total income, then you have economic failure.

The big more tab! This one's huge! Basically it just goes more in depth about the income and expenses of your country. The income bar is short, and you have only four income options, personal income tax, resource income from taxes, tourism, and diplomacy. Personal income tax is the most direct and quick way to gather money for your nation. You can get more money from this by raising your income taxes or growing your people's average income with higher HDI/gdp per capita/employment. You can get more trade income from increasing production of your resources (again we can cover more of this later in the resource section) or raising your taxes on your resources. Tourism is a funny income, it's free money, quite literally free money. To increase this, just slide your tourism slider in your expenses section all the way up. I recommend always cranking it because you will always get more income from tourism than you spend in it, ALWAYS (except when you invade everyone, nuke people, and are constantly changing your government, but you know, trivial things.) Diplomacy income is when other countries give you economic aid. This can come from direct economic aid, where a country sends 10% of its trade income to you, or when you join a noble cause and you're obviously the shitty end of the stick.

[St Oz]

EXPENSES YOU CAN SLIDE WITH A SLIDER! If only government worked this way, simply slide the infrastructure amount up! People would say. So anyways this is a super long topic. These sliders all affect something in the long term, and it's best to understand what. Is it best to have all sliders at full all the time? I dunno, maybe?  Each slider will generally give you a bonus though, in resource production, human development indexes (HDI), political strength, whatever.

INFRASTRUCTURE: IT'S THE INFRASTRUCTURE SLIDER, STUPID. Your infrastructure levels can be viewed in the tab under more info when you're hovering over your country. High Infrastructure is VERY important. This one slider at max with all others at absolute 0 will still generate growth for your country. If you want very good long term growth, YOU NEED THIS MAXED. Infrastructure will increase your resource production, it will increase your GDP per capita, it will decrease poverty levels, it will increase your HDI. Quite simply, this slider is an amazing thing. 0 Infrastructure is just a damn fucking pity. You think this is all useless economist bullshit? Well try moving your military at 0% infrastructure. IT TAKES FUCKING FOREVER. Now try at 99.9%, HOLY FUCK THAT WAS INSTANTANEOUS. High infrastructure is great if someone invades you and you don't have the military power they have.
Simply just split your forces and MOVE FASTER THAN LIGHT MOTHERFUCKER. While the enemy is wasting away in your jungles, YOU'RE HIGH CRUISIN ON YOUR RAILWAYS AND HIGHWAYS.

PROPAGANDA: Not as important as infrastructure, somewhere in the middle. IT's an okay thing to have, and you don't necessarily need/want it at all. Propaganda simply pushes your approval rating up if it's anywhere. How fast and how high it pushes your approval depends on how much money you put into it. A high approval will marginally make stability better, but that's about the only other benefit it has. Propaganda has a consequence, it makes other nations view you negatively because of such super-nationalism. Maybe you care about that or you don't. High foreign relations can help trigger trade growth, but it's not super important.

ENVIRONMENT: Not as epic as say INFRASTRUCTURE, but it's an extra boost to resource production if you need it. Generally this will only boost production in some markets. It also generates less disasters for your nation, not sure if disasters are really that terrible, but yeah, there you go. Otherwise, imagine infrastructure is Batman and Environment is Robin. This slider is mostly just a sidekick to infrastructure, but not as important. It's better to have infrastructure at full and environment at 0 than to have infrastructure at half and environment at half. Environment costs go up when you have more production

HEALTHCARE: Who fuckin' needs healthcare? No really you don't  You might feel kinda guilty about leaving this slider at 0, but it's really not that important. It's hella-expensive for how little it modifies too. Your healthcare slider only modifies HDI levels and approval rating. At max it will give you super approval and a pretty significant HDI boost, but it's super super expensive is generally just not worth having. Also you know, you get a feel good feeling for taking care of your population, good for fucking you. Cost is determined by population, high population makes this slider super expensive.

EDUCATION: If Infrastructure is Batman, environment Robin, then education is most certainly Catwoman. Catwoman is mostly necessary but usually the second most expensive slider. You can keep it at 0, but if you want comfortable long term growth, then you want to have it at least halfway. Education keeps up a certain part of your resources that is very fickle toward normal growth because it relies heavily on education for any positive growth. Your population also is happier with education. Unlike environment, which has its cost  proportional to the production levels, education is proportional to population, so if you have high population, this slider can be a real bitch to maintain.

TELECOM: This slider is usually pretty cheap, also determined by land area/population/production levels, I think. It has almost the same effects to your HDI as Healthcare, but for cheap. So bump it up all the way like a good lad if you need a boost to HDI and lower poverty. High telecom will provide you information about other people's armies. So if you want to be a super general ubermensch, then slide this bitch all the way so you know what you're fighting against.

GOVERNMENT: Expensive, BUT NECESSARY. I'd say if you can't afford much for your nation, keep Infrastructure at max, education halfway, and government at max. Government stability increases, government approval increases, corruption goes down with this slider. You will get some of your money back with 0% corruption. Also if you're in multiplayer, almost always try to keep this maxed so no assholes try to coup'd'tat you. You will be kicked out of the game with a coup'd'tat, and it's very easy to coup someone with <25% stability. Don't get coup'd, keep this slider up.

FOREIGN AID: Who fucking cares what people think about you? Maybe you do. This slider is entirely useless if you're just going to invade people anyways. This money just gets added to this pool that gets distributed evenly to the poorest countries, and all the countries generally like you more. Can provide a modest trade boost I guess?

RESEARCH: If you're a small country, don't even bother with this slider. This money is spent on researching military tech, but it's proportional to your GDP, and if you have a small nation with low GDP you're never going to get super tech at the same time as say Russia, China, and the USA. Instead just steal their tech. This goes for big nations too, you don't need this all the way up, just steal or ask for the tech later. However if you're USA or Russia, this is certainly nice to have so you can have an edge over everyone else. Whatever your preference is mannng.

TOURISM: FREE FUCKING MONEY, KEEP THIS SLIDER UP ALL THE TIME, YOU WILL MAKE MORE FROM THIS THAN YOU SPEND. ALWAYS. 99% FUCKING GUARENTEE! DO YOU LIKE FREE MONEY? I LIKE FREE MONEY. FUCK YEAH.

So we're done with all the fun sliders, what's left? Some boring statistics, shit. Boring, but informative. Corruption can be a real pain in your ass, so determine if it really affects your budget or not. Corruption level percentage don't mean shit until you see how much money it's really siphoning off of you. Debt interest payments? Fuck those suck too. You might have to eat your peas and put everything at 0 for a year to get rid of this, but it can sometimes help you get you the edge you need. Diplomacy? Too many fucking treaties can cripple you if you're a small nation. Every treaty you make cost money, so be careful not to create too many stupid treaties. Unit upkeep? Fuck, my only weakness as an ubermensch super dictator. Man these statistics are a drag. You cannot necessarily fight these expenses right away, it'll take some indirect approaches, time, and real sacrifice to get rid of them.

Resource Spreadsheet Simulator Funtime
So you are playing for the first time, see resources, and open it up. Fuck me you say. Indeed, this is probably the most complicated thing in the game, but don't be intimidated by it, it's super fucking easy to understand. Face value you get a percentage. This is total production divided by total consumption. Basically <100% means you make less than you consume and >100% means you make more than you consume. This statistic is fucked up for some reason, it only ever shows it accurately between 0-100%. Anything above 100% production will always hover between 99% and 100% for yourself thought you'll see other nations with 100+%. However if you are in multiplayer, ask people what your resource percentage is, it will tell you the true proportion. So don't worry when it never goes above 99% for you. The game is funky in some areas.

THEORY AND SHIT: You and your fellow countries form a total consumption statistic. Every country fills their share of the total consumption, some more than others. In this void, production fills these spaces. Consumption is your total limit to what you can produce. You cannot ever have a world where production is more than consumption. Hence when the game is played long enough you get the infamous Autarky Bug. Autarky means every nation produces and consumes at the same amount, therefore each country fills their particular void easily. At this point the game is boring and you cannot grow enough. So when you produce more than you consume, you are filling in voids for other countries. Not all markets are the same though...

TYPES OF MARKETS! So you basically got two. Food, Energy, and Raw form the "Raw Aggregate", and your Industrial Material, Finished Goods, and Services form the "Service Aggregate". The raw aggregate is much easier to gain money off of. When you increase production it won't revert back as much as the service aggregate. However you can produce more than you consume with service aggregate, it's affected by so many variables that I'm not too familiar with. Simply put, say you have 100% needs met with a service and raw aggregate. Investing resources to a target of an extra 100 billion in production for a raw resource category will generally raise it up 90-100 billion, and investing the 100 billion into a service category will generally only give you a 0-25 Billion boost. Why? I'm not really sure. But both categories are governed by different rules. In gameplay you'll start to learn bit by bit what these rules are. In general, Raw Aggregates are modified by Infrastructure and Environment budget sliders while Service Aggregates will be modified by Infrastructure and Education sliders. Raw Aggregates can keep growing after 100% is met though, while Service Aggregates stop growing around 95%-105% covered.

Total consumption comes from a variety of factors, mostly population, but it's also affected by government type and this weird glitch. Sometimes if you keep pushing your production over 100%,  it will generate more consumption, but that's a very expensive and mostly futile effort. Total production comes from how well your country can make these resources, high HDI, lower taxes, and budget modifiers will help increase production.

I'll complete resources tomorrow, I'm tired and this got really long

[Delfos]

MOAR

[St Oz]

Do you even play?

[Delfos]

yeah I just did