I wonder if real life politics can be handled in game, without sounding preachy...Tell me what you think of this (basic : http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=497253_ Lilith is with Romanova in a remote area of the nation of Kiavin, more or less on the run thanks to the latest lost of temper of Lilith. Kiavin is recovering from a disastrous reign. The new monarch is a man of great courage, but extremely limited capacities. The monarch took the painful decision to invest most of the actual power of Kiavin to his prime minister, Javellion, Cardinal Javellion (a rather deadly mix of Churchill, Richelieu, and even Darth Vader for some points) : he is the only Kiavinese with enough brains, cunning, and ruthlessnes to prepare Kiavin for the upcoming war with the Gesthal-Damaskian alliance. (Note : the climate in the nations of Ravennian, Muria, coLorraine and Kiavin is deliberately modelled on Europe on the eve of World War 2) The Damaskian-Gesthalians have by various means, built sizable fifth colums in Kiavin, a fifth lumn busily engaged into demoralizing Kiavinese (using a unholy mix of !*%@ and Copperheads arguments) All this is shown, not told. Lilith don't care much about politics, but she have a noticable, and surprising hatred for !*%@-like ideology, and especially slavery. She relish into hunting ''submissionists''. And upon arriving in a village of Kiavin, she finds it under the thrall of a former Kiavinese minister (obviously modelled on the ultimate traitor, Pierre Laval). So power hungry that he prefers to lead Kiavin as a slave of the Damaskians. Yet, he is somehwat persuaded-without much magic-that as Damaskia is much too powerful to resist, Kiavin should kneel before them, and join them in the war against Lorraine and Muria. . Lilith opinion on the matter is rather basic : when a mice make a deal with a cat, this never end good. As anyone can guess here, someone here is going to not die in his bed...Lilith have basically several choices : the most obvious one (killing everything) is really not the best one, as this make a martyr of the traitor. Among other opportunities, there is the possibiltiy for Lilith to use a Succubus speciality : turn the Damaskians on the traitor, by implying he was about to double cross them. But, as the same time, Lilith main interest in the affair is that she told to Romanova that, for make things easier, she would tell people that they were mother-daughter. Basically, Lilith get a sort of bliss each time Romanova call her ''mommy'', and a thing that the player realize plainly is that Romanova is aware of this : Romanova is a pretty normal kid, hey, and she can get what she wants by saying ''Plize, Mommy''. What you think she do about this ? Romanova feels more than a little bad about that, however.

I think real politics can be handled in games, and can make a good game great. Look at FFT. It also gives the game great replay value. But you have to be careful about how you present it. If it's too much for the player, they can get lost easily and may just stop playing.

Also, your grammar is a bit off. Not by much, but there are a few rules you seem to be skipping. It makes your post a little confusing to understand.

Any kind of non-interactive political environment in a game, in my opinon, should be presented with a very narrow beam, so to speak.

Yes, in FFT or in Front Mission there is a bucketload of politics, its creating a desarable "political tornado" atmosphere, but really, its so twisted and convoluted that at some point (pretty early in the game, actually) i just stop caring altogether.

For a look at how politics are handled especially well in games - look up the exemplary political IF game "Varicella" by Adam Cadre.