So, an idea popped into my head awhile ago about 4x turn based strategy games (Civilization, Master of Orion, Galciv, etc). Most games of this genre start the player out with absolute political power, essentially a dictator. What if there was a game that acted as a prequel to those games and it was about you becoming a dictator and slowly taking control of the government through various shady political acts. The closest that I can think of is Democracy 3, but you still start out the game by being elected. If there are any examples of this I'd love to know but I can't really think of any.

Could be good... maybe tread carefully as the topic is morally ambigious. Fictional countries, and a good portion of humour might help here (think "the great dictator" by charlie chaplin for example).

From a gameplay perspective it could be very interesting. Especially if you give players the choice if they want to take the country by force, or use subtler means to rise to power. And if that choice has big consequences later on, when you reached power, but now need to defend your position (a dictators problem START with getting into the desired position, they don't end there).

You either have waged a big war in your country, depleted a lot of resources and disgruntled your countrys population, but also had the possibility to rid the country of political enemies. Still a bad position when your neighbouring countries try to invade.

Or you might have sweettalked most of your subjects into thinking you are their best option, and are in a strong position against foreign invaders, yet you still need to defend yourself against enemies in your own country that you couldn't yet take care of.

Given you really dig into all the cliches and tropes about dictators (from which many sadly are brutally true), you could be on to a winner.

In my current development project you could simulate this, sort of, although its not an intentional focus. The limitation is mainly that you don't start out as a random citizen. You'd be an "important character" such as an archmage, merchant, factor, noble, etc.

There's a quite detailed system of internal politics as well as a propaganda system and various characters have unique desires. You could start as a wealthy merchant or a lesser noble and use your resources to wage a propaganda campaign and recruit conspirators in various ways. You'd probably need to select a state that had good circumstances for a dictator. You could sort of play a Nigel Farage/Donald Trump/Boris Johnson/Silvio Berlusconi role and then go even farther to install yourself as dictator. Or go more leftist/military and do a Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro. The setting is fantasy ~500BC-1500AD so you'd be more like an absolute monarch or maybe Caeser than a modern dictator.

I imagine there are several tycoon games where you are becoming a crime lord of some kind; that's usually more of an economic takeover than a political one.

The other way about making a game with such a purpose, is to do a historical game.

Under the banner of "historical accuracy", you could choose any dictator and any country, and make an educational style of game that wold try and put the player in the seat of understanding what factors lead to this person's rise.

Would need to be a history buff, or do a lot of research tho.

Often people aren't as black and white, as dictators usually seem.

Hitler came to mind, but tread lightly...

Too often history is written by the winners...

Civil wars need not be devastating.

Particularly in an ancient setting, war can consist of a modest number of "tourists" who leave home, go to the battlefield to slaughter each other and hopefully come back, over the course of a few days or weeks and with little environmental/economic impact beyond depleting food reserves in extreme cases or use of military resources like wood for arrows and fortifications.