Turning Point

Thanks! Unfortunately there won't be an android version - There is a very small market for historical strategy games as is, so I doubt there would be much interest in a mobile port.

nevermind, i just had to try an awful lot harder! awesome!

Please take this as humour. He might as well have been, being tied to the "NZ Business Round Table". What is interesting in his private sector work, he was never tied to a successful enterprise and many he failed when at the helm. It is interesting to now see our country being run by someone whom during their tenure was bailed out by the incumbent government and a Finance Minister, that has no educational back ground in most areas of finance. But who's parents are tied to "KPMG". I hope whilst playing this game you noticed within your strategies, re-occurring patterns and select groups of MP's, that were associated with certain historical events in this country. I would like to say the lessons learnt here changed the face of politics in New Zealand, but in reality it was more to do with the terrible financial winds blowing at the time. We now in 2024 are a lot more Global than we were then and our allegiances have changed, but we still seem to be applying a lot of the "Centre-Right" Logic of the time, in a see-saw motion ever since. Now along with some nice to have Politically Correct, vote capturing, Sometimes it's more to do with influence than having the right policies. :) Will we ever see 4 terms again for an incumbent government?

Hi Seno,

Thanks for your comment, interesting thoughts. When making Turning Point I wasn't consciously trying to critique anything, though I suppose art has a way of drawing ideas out of the author without them noticing.

Turning Point isn't meant to push any political message, but instead portray the time as best as I could within the medium and my understanding, as well as to prompt New Zealanders to reflect upon the national myths which our nation is built upon.

The game is meant to take place from the perspective of the current government, which I why the Muldoon government viewed Think Big as purely good. I wouldn't want anyone to take this game as an authoritative explanation of who was right and who was wrong, just the perspectives and events of the 1980's.

Cheers again for the comment.

Hi,

I am waiting for one of these cognitive biases to show in the first Sentient A.I.. Will it be a negative or a positive?

The problem all of us suffer when involving ourselves in these matters is we merely become commentators with our own narrative. What makes us human.

You touched on some very interesting points. I am not sure how far you have gone back and researched political systems/human behaviours and now even Geo Political Systems.

We forget that Government really is still just a form of "Commerce" and has to function, so. So every single item it is involved in has to have a $ value placed on it. Hard for us to fathom in our day to day micro-economies.

It would have been interesting to see in which direction things would have occurred had National or another party taken the Helm, but applied the same policies. 

Democracy is based on Popularity (It doesn't have to be). Which means it is not always the best whom end up leading, but those whom match the criteria. Sadly we ten to vote for the most popular/influential person over the person whom may actually give us what we want.

Democracies greatest weakness (This has been known for thousands of years). And best expressed with following statement, if the captain of your ship does not know how to sail it on his own, you are doomed to sink and things will definitely not be plain sailing)

This is very dangerous as we are seeing in World politics at the moment. Where someone whom is so close to being a Dictator himself, it splitting the vote and damaging the internal structure of the U.S.

The Neo Liberal systems, had started to become entrenched in the U.S. in the 70's and would not go away, technically because it had never ever left (The 1%'s influence).

There was a push on globally in the west to remove, unions (again).

New Zealand for the second time in it's history was almost bankrupt, due to the policies of Mr Muldoon and Mr Birch.

Now take all these things and add individual personalities to them, at the time knowledge was the preserve still, especially at this level of the well off.

And expect people (The voter) to make an informed decision on a subject most of them, probably had very little clue on.

Instead of wasting their vote the will most commonly go with the party they know (even in new faces) or as we can in this country. Not vote (Which is very common everywhere in the Western Democracies), unfortunately this means, now it is not a democracy that is influencing the outcome. Predominately in New Zealand National Elections turnout is still quite high, but in Local body it is quite often below 50%.

It has really been a two-horse race in New Zealand, no matter how far back you go, not forgetting the information is less accurate.

It is easy to write systems for binary information paths, but far more complicated when not all decisions appear to be logical. So a bias can naturally form within any program. I am sure with more fine tuning this title could become quite a great educational tool as well. Especially when on the news the other night. I saw on the book shelf at a creche' "Jacinda Adherns'" book on leadership (Starting them young these days). Here's hoping the society knows how to nurture them from there.

If you really want to dig-deeply. I suggest you do a search on what is known as the "Great Reset" and it's author. To see how we have all got here, if we subscribe to the Western Ideologies. 

I am happy to chat further.

Granddad

Thanks for asking:

Following the 1987 market crash, there will be a struggle for power within the Labour party.
You need to choose to play as the reformist faction and then win the struggle for power.
As the reformists, you win the struggle for power by bringing the traditionalist's influence to be less than 50% and then triggering a vote of no confidence by bringing party support below 20%.

If you do this, you will get a special event where Lange is forced to resign and Roger Dogulas and his faction assume control of the party.