BGForums

I'm playing the demo, North-West US scenario as South Dakota. My domestic approval is at 33% whereas everywhere else has 25 or 26%, I've managed to keep my GDP pretty stable, social spending is full in every area except the enviroment, inflation and unemployment are both in the 3-5% range, I'm not acting belligerent and I've managed to achieve autarky (and still make a slight profit.)

Despite this I have an economic score of about 320 whereas everywhere else has somewhere in the region of 1000. This wouldn't bother me except I'm pretty sure it's the reason I'm doing so badly in the unification vote. Normally I find South Dakota will be amongst the front runners in this contest, even if its economy crashes. Here I find that the only people losing votes faster than me are Washington.

I heard somebody say that trying to achieve self-sufficiency wasn't worth it and I've been wondering if this was the reason why. If that's the case, can anybody give me pointers in which areas i should and should not strive for self-sufficiency?

While the economic and political elemants are important, SR2010 is really a 'wargame', the best (and in a lot of scenarios the only) way to win unification and self sufficieny is through military might. If you attempt to win by playing it like sim-city it can be pretty frustrating, your other efforts should be a compliment to beating your opponents down with a big stick ;p

If you'd rather not go to war then to win you pretty much have to choose whichever region in your scenario is the strongest (economy and polulation etc), the economy and popular vote just move to slowly to have any real chance at 'coming from behind' in the smaller 1 year scenarios.

M

Sure, but in the situation as is, South Dakota will win if you play a hands off game. I just want to know why the opposite happens if you run the economy in a manner that appears to be better. Also, the region that is the strongest, Washington, always loses the scenario.