Fate of the World (the game)

[DabblerWizard]

I call this piece, informative venting satire:

There I was, sitting in my room, wondering if I should buy a new computer game. The answer, as it turns out, was "yes".

I surfed through Steam, and found the game Fate of the World. You might have heard of it, but probably not. It doesn't seem that popular.

My totally subconscious "God complex" :smallwink: decided that it would be fun to play a game that simulates fixing the world's problems. Well GOODNESS. The game could have told me that would require fixing multiple problems at once! Sheesh! :smalltongue:

I beat the first scenario after a try or two. It was basically, make Africa a happier place. I can't believe I failed at that. :smallfrown:

Second scenario. I play it, lose. Play it, lose... wait for it... play it, lose.

I surf the interwebs for answers. I find that massive reforestation reduces CO2 which has been the bane of my fixing India's problems. So I decide, hey, couldn't the whole world use more trees?

Oh no! No way! Anything but more green leaves!!! That's the basic message I get from everyone. Oh our trees are nice, but we don't have food, or healthcare, or jobs... but... your trees are pretty!!!

*face palm* Apparently more trees isn't the cure all. Duly noted. :smallconfused: :smallyuk:

[Driderman]

Do lots of ecological awareness campaigning to change the mindset of people.
Just prepare yourself for the possibility that people will become greener than you can provide for them and you'll have eco-protesters saying you're not doing a good enough job.

But yeah, its a great little game

[Murska]

It's a pretty hard game, too.

The Fuel Crisis scenario relies on, surprise surprise, saving the economy from the Fuel Crisis instead of saving the environment. Well, you've gotta keep the warming low but that's best done with aerosol spam.

So yeah, my biggest problem was realizing that once oil runs out, for some reason food production gets no oil and all the little oil we get is poured into energy production. So everyone starves and dies.

Ergo, the solution is to switch to gas, nuclear and renewables quickly, ban all conventional oil usage when the crisis hits and then have enough biofuels to have enough food.

[Airk]

Yes, this game is indeed quite difficult. I've beat up to Earth Day, which seems like it SHOULD, logically, be easier than fuel crisis, but it's not turning out that way just yet - partly because you can't just put the brakes on things with Sulfate Aerosols and make everyone happy at the same time. >.<

And artificial trees always seem to arrive just a LITTLE too late to save me from going over the critical 3 degrees of warming where the ice caps melt and arctic methane says "Screw you, you can have negative emissions and the planet is going to continue to warm!"

Plus the last time I did it, I got clobbered by an oil shortage. Everyone starved. Wasn't pretty.

Reforestation is definitely a valuable weapon in your arsenal, but it takes a while and is kinda expensive. It eventually becomes crucial, because your forestry emissions (i.e. cutting down trees and/or having them catch fire) start to dwarf your energy emissions.

The hardest part of keeping global emissions down seems to be, unsurprisingly, those durn developing nations. You can pretty much IGNORE North America and Europe, and they'll more or less fix themselves over time, at least emissions-wise. China starts out messy, but is easy enough to deal with, because the country itself is stable and you don't have to spend half your time providing security assistance or water infrastructure to keep people from getting upset. It's really the Middle East, Africa, India, and South Asia that present the problem. (Latin america can be tricky too.)

Oh, and today's pro-tip? Not having enough oil/energy for Industry and Agriculture tends to be a one-way ticket to global financial collapse, too. -_-

[Murska]

Well yeah. Financial collapse happens when Commerce is more than twice bigger than Agriculture and Industry put together. So if your Agri and Ind collapse...

NA and Europe can be fixed with switching them to electric cars right away and then getting them to pay you Tobin Tax while using Cap Emissions policies to have them fund the developing countries. You can ignore North Africa and/or India if you wish, they'll never be particularly important.

South Africa is great for biofuels if you fix it. Latin America is easily fixed by starting reforestation early, keeping at it and getting their energy production off oil before you ban it. Then they're great for biofuels too. Middle East is the toughest due to their reliance on oil, but getting advanced drilling techniques to them will stave off the oil collapse for a couple all-important turns. Mid-East needs a large investment in some sort of an energy source, gas, nuclear or renewable. Renewable is hardest, of course, uranium may run out but gas pollutes. As long as you can get them off oil, their soaring industry will be, alongside China, the biggest contributor to the global economy.

[Airk]

Well yeah. Financial collapse happens when Commerce is more than twice bigger than Agriculture and Industry put together. So if your Agri and Ind collapse...

Ah, so that's the magic formula.



NA and Europe can be fixed with switching them to electric cars right away and then getting them to pay you Tobin Tax while using Cap Emissions policies to have them fund the developing countries.

I find Cap and Trade to be extremely fiddly. It works for a while, then it just ceases to do anything.


You can ignore North Africa and/or India if you wish, they'll never be particularly important.

I beg to differ, especially about India. Left to their own devices, both of these areas (and, indeed, most developing regions) will burn tons of coal and become massive emissions centers.

[DabblerWizard]

I would definitely appreciate feedback! :smallsmile:

I played through the Oil Fix It scenario again and took some extensive notes on India along the way. I failed again, btw. Here's what I found, all concerning India.

Converting my energy sources to nuclear power was simple enough. By 2050, India had 4th generation nuclear power production, with 58% of energy production coming from uranium, so things were looking good.

However, in 2055 when worldwide uranium production peaked, India's power production was being covered by uranium only 35%... and I hadn't developed other energy sources! So if you added up all the energy production percentages, only 77% of the required energy was being produced!

I assume that this means HDI will decrease because industry, commerce, and agriculture all need energy to function, so people don't have jobs (decreased GDP), can't feed themselves, and start dying off (life expectancy decreases and mortality increases...)... Am I guessing right?

However, when I tried to expand my energy production through oil or gas or coal or a mix of these world wide productions were plummeting in those areas at the same time, or just not growing in any decent amount. :smalltongue: So in India in 2075, only 84% of production was being covered. How can I fix that sooner?

Even though I was able to decrease oil, gas, and coal emissions in the long run, toxicity levels were incredibly difficult to decrease. In fact, overall toxicity continued to increase until 2060, even though I had CCS by 2045, and the forestry act and conversion to nuclear from 2020.

Part of the problem is that I have no clue how to decrease fuel use toxicity at all, and that continued to skyrocket the whole time. How do I decrease that?

The poor trees, CCS, and nuclear conversion seemed to have no impact on fuel use toxicity. By opening up Cap and Trade I was able to slightly decrease Industry toxicity, but only towards the end, and it still wasn't the main culprit for toxicity. By 2065 fuel use toxicity equaled 36,279 and industry toxicity equaled 11,037, none of the others came close.

I assume this high toxicity is also causing significant increases in mortality rate, thus decreasing HDI... is that right?

What do I do?!?!

[DabblerWizard]

So I finally beat Oil Fix It, without taking extensive notes. Whoa. :smallbiggrin:

High Yield Crops definitely fixed my problems. Despite continuing toxicity problems, and despite incredible energy shortages, just giving people lots of food skyrocketed the GDP in all sectors, making them "unhindered", bringing my HDI in India to like .82. I was like... :smalleek: :smallconfused: :smalltongue: :smallamused:

It's not amusing how powerful that particular change is. Nowhere in the news feed did it tell me that India was starving that badly... I didn't mean to suggest there are degrees of starving... and while it is commonsensical that people need food to work and live, the game doesn't make that very explicit mechanically.

The learning curve to this game is annoying.

Another change that helped came from the Cap and Trade Carbon schemes, which again increased India's GDP significantly, bringing it up above .70. However, a few things to keep in mind. Regions like North America and Europe have to simultaneous sign up to the Cap and Trade, or it won't benefit the poorer countries who are also signed up. Finally, eventually this scheme stopped working, even when all the developed countries joined in. It might have stopped working because basically all the regions had joined? I'm not sure.

On to the next challenge!

[Murska]

The thing here is that if you're low on fuel, like oil or whatever, the Energy sector, which Commerce uses, gets everything you produce. Only what's left is given to Industry and Agriculture.

So, if you lack enough fuel, your food production will die first. Then, your people will get mad, GDP will enter freefall, financial collapse will happen because Commerce is still getting it's share of Energy and the game is hard to save.

You need to ban certain fuel sources. Methane Clathrates must be banned until you have AIs - way, WAY too dangerous. Conventional Oil must be banned once it hits peak production and you get into something like 10-20% shortages. Otherwise there won't be agricultural production and everyone will die. Same with Gas once it hits peak - you're probably moving either China or Mid-East to gas since they're both heavy users of coal/oil respectively and expand their industry quickly. Coal peaking doesn't even always happen, but coal is extremely toxic and you should simply regionally switch all industries off coal as soon as possible.

As for India and North Africa, in my experience if I just ignore them they'll enter into a period of famines, wars and the like. This kills their GDP - that, in turn, means that they won't pollute much. This is the easiest to do in North Africa, which will spiral into anarchy in a few years if left alone, while India is hard and expensive to save but may cause plenty of emissions otherwise.

The key early on is to keep the Tobin Taxable areas (Russia, NA, Europe, Oceania, Japan) happy and stable enough to keep taxing. Instantly start preserving forests in Latin America, and probably South Asia. Fix Russia's stability on Turn 2 (Political Office on turn 1) to be able to Tobin Tax them. Tobin Tax cuts down on Commerce growth, which means there'll be less financial collapses.

Use Latin America, South Africa and anywhere else you can to build biofuel production. Biofuel is how your agriculture and industry keep running after you ban conventional oil. Also, get advanced drilling mechanisms to Mid-East early so you'll stave off the oil collapse by some years. Try to avoid using shale oil and the likes, they pollute plenty.

Remember, the "Balanced" outlook is what you want in nations. They won't complain if you go for ecological projects, but they also won't complain if you spam aerosols, which is your last-resort button to stave off instant death as the warming rises too high. It's very hard to never use aerosols at all while preventing financial collapse.

Also, Cap'n'Trade is extremely potent if you get the right regions in at the right times. You must remember that not only is the card itself very good when it's working (might take some years and attitude changes to get the cuts happening) but it also unlocks the Industry and Household emission cut cards, which (esp. Industry in China!!!) are very powerful.

Also, forest preservation increases agricultural efficiency for the first couple turns (keep an eye on the news), reforestation is not useful in most areas and afforestation is never really worth it but the first phase should be completed everywhere you can afford.

[Airk]

High Yield Crops definitely fixed my problems. Despite continuing toxicity problems, and despite incredible energy shortages, just giving people lots of food skyrocketed the GDP in all sectors, making them "unhindered", bringing my HDI in India to like .82. I was like... :smalleek: :smallconfused: :smalltongue: :smallamused:

In mention to some of your earlier issues, Organic Farming tends to help with toxicity. I suspect Industrial Carbon regs would've helped too.



It's not amusing how powerful that particular change is. Nowhere in the news feed did it tell me that India was starving that badly... I didn't mean to suggest there are degrees of starving... and while it is commonsensical that people need food to work and live, the game doesn't make that very explicit mechanically.

I agree with this - while starvation is clearly MODELED in the game, there doesn't seem to be any real DATA on it until all of sudden you get catastrophic die offs, and you're like "What? you mean there was hunger there?"

My tactic for controlling India in Oil Fix It was initiating a one-child policy in like, turn 3 or 4. It's unpopular, but as long as you do nice things for them (most of which you'll be doing anyway in your desperate efforts to raise HDI), it's easy enough to keep them happy. Follow this up with a green education program until the outlook shifts to the Green side of balanced, then go Vegetarian Revolution. (Which is great for feeding people, but only works in regions with a green outlook)



Another change that helped came from the Cap and Trade Carbon schemes, which again increased India's GDP significantly, bringing it up above .70. However, a few things to keep in mind. Regions like North America and Europe have to simultaneous sign up to the Cap and Trade, or it won't benefit the poorer countries who are also signed up. Finally, eventually this scheme stopped working, even when all the developed countries joined in. It might have stopped working because basically all the regions had joined? I'm not sure.


Yeah, this is why I find cap and trade to be really fiddly. I haven't really figured out what the rules are for actually making it WORK. It seems like it works fine for a few regions that sign up for it early, but any late game attempts to use it fail. IMost of the time I just use it for one turn to unlock Industrial Carbon regs (and also Household/Business Carbon Regs, but that one generally doesn't seem as important.) and then I drop it. Maybe Cap and Trade needs to have a specific configuration of GDP to work? I guess I should read the wiki on it.

[Airk]

The thing here is that if you're low on fuel, like oil or whatever, the Energy sector, which Commerce uses, gets everything you produce. Only what's left is given to Industry and Agriculture.

So, if you lack enough fuel, your food production will die first. Then, your people will get mad, GDP will enter freefall, financial collapse will happen because Commerce is still getting it's share of Energy and the game is hard to save.

Yup.



You need to ban certain fuel sources. Methane Clathrates must be banned until you have AIs - way, WAY too dangerous.

You only REALLY need to ban it once somebody comes up with Benthic Depressurization. Before that, you can leave it in place and there's no real risk of a Clathrate eruption. Just make sure you have your HQ deployed before someone gets the BD breakthrough so you can ban it that turn.


Conventional Oil must be banned once it hits peak production and you get into something like 10-20% shortages. Otherwise there won't be agricultural production and everyone will die. Same with Gas once it hits peak - you're probably moving either China or Mid-East to gas since they're both heavy users of coal/oil respectively and expand their industry quickly. Coal peaking doesn't even always happen, but coal is extremely toxic and you should simply regionally switch all industries off coal as soon as possible.

I may have to try that oil ban trick next game. I've never really had problems with Gas shortages, but I HAVE had ugly coal shortages sometimes...but since I'm generally trying to wean everyone off it anyway, they're usually uncommon.



The key early on is to keep the Tobin Taxable areas (Russia, NA, Europe, Oceania, Japan) happy and stable enough to keep taxing. Instantly start preserving forests in Latin America, and probably South Asia. Fix Russia's stability on Turn 2 (Political Office on turn 1) to be able to Tobin Tax them. Tobin Tax cuts down on Commerce growth, which means there'll be less financial collapses.

Good advice. Though I've noticed that sometimes I lose the ability to TT an area even when it's still stable and happy. Is there a third factor in what lets you levy this tax? Commerce levels?

[Iskandar]

Cap and Trade really needs the regions using it to be balanced or better, otherwise you won't get much use out of it. The receiving nations don't have to be, though.

As far as starving people goes, a region can be producing too few crops and still not be starving. As long as the world average is above the famine level, and the region is not highly unstable. food shortages will be made up for by imports. Of course, when you hit an energy shortage and your agriculture goes into the toilet, that region will be first to be hit by famine, and hit the hardest. Check your graphs and data, they will show you how much food is being produced.

[DabblerWizard]

I spent time today studying various scenarios being played out during Fuel Crisis.

For instance, I tested the result of a worldwide one-child-policy.

I had a "doh" moment along the way: Expanding production of a resource (within a region's energy office), does not lead directly to expanded resource use.

I found that out the hard way by expanding coal production in a couple regions and measuring the change over a couple turns. I think what happens is that more of the resource becomes generally available worldwide, but the region doesn't necessarily switch over to using it.

However, the opposite is true with banning and reducing resource "power". When banning or reducing, you do directly reduce how much a region relies on a particular resource for energy. I think if you match a resource expansion, with the reduction of another resource simultaneously, then the region will be more likely to make use of that expanded production, and turn it into using the resource.

On the other hand, within the global section(?), where you can commit to nuclear, renewables, etc, those choices do directly impact resource use right away.

Thoughts?

[Murska]

Good advice. Though I've noticed that sometimes I lose the ability to TT an area even when it's still stable and happy. Is there a third factor in what lets you levy this tax? Commerce levels?

Stability, happiness and GDP.

[Gaius Marius]

This game seo be very fun and positive-minded. By your comments, it doesn't appear to be a naive environnementalist's wet dream; as you have to deal with consequences of overgreeness..

How would you rate the game?

[DabblerWizard]

This game seo be very fun and positive-minded. By your comments, it doesn't appear to be a naive environnementalist's wet dream; as you have to deal with consequences of overgreeness..

How would you rate the game?

Are you asking me? I'm going to answer assuming you are... though other people's thoughts on the game would be great too I think.

I like the game. It's complexity is invigorating in the sense that it challenges me to think proactively on multiple levels at once, and not just react to chaos after chaos. Alternatively, I sometimes feel out of my league with this game. Politics, GDP, environmentalism, sustaining an economy... are all things I don't study much, and barely understand in real life. I guess that's true for the average gamer playing this game.

The game isn't so hard that it's impossible to figure out. I've spent a couple hours running through scenarios seeing how things impact each other. However, I keep realizing that there's more for me to learn, and that's both cool and frustrating because the game doesn't give much guidance, and I'm left to think things through on my own, or find help online.

For instance, my first play through of Fuel Crisis ALMOST lead to a victory, where I decided to first wean 6 regions off of coal, and onto gas... and then off of oil and onto nuclear... unfortunately, around 2100, some 20 years until victory, Russia (who I hadn't been supporting) started a global nuclear war, which is an auto loss.

From there, in other play throughs I've been trying to make sure regions avoid nuclear power... however, the only way I can do this is by banning nuclear entirely, since I can't find a card that reduces its production or use otherwise, ... but I've found it really hard to both properly support regions and reduce production of harmful energy sources at the same time when I don't have nuclear to fall back on...

I also can't figure out how to fix or avoid the worldwide famine that hits my regions near the end of this scenario... I'll have to keep working on it.

[Airk]

This game seo be very fun and positive-minded. By your comments, it doesn't appear to be a naive environnementalist's wet dream; as you have to deal with consequences of overgreeness..

How would you rate the game?

I'd rate the game highly, but I'm not sure that your conclusions about it are accurate.

It's fun, certainly, but "positive-minded"? Makes it sound more cheerful than it is. Does "Unless world leaders coordinate in a really meaningful way, and follow a very wise and well considered plan, it's likely that there will be massive global famines in the next century?" sound positive to you? I guess the one thing I take away from this game, more than anything else is "Staving off global warming and its consequences is going to be REALLY HARD."

There's nothing naive about it, but at the same time, I'd say the only "consequences of overgreenness" it really models are: That it's expensive. That sometimes people don't like it (or that people who are too green don't like things that aren't.)

I don't think you should take away the conclusion that this game is somehow an 'unbiased' look at the situation. It's biased towards the science the creators have selected. I tend to think, based on what I knew before going into the game, that it's good science, but if you're a climate change denier, then, well, you're not going to like it, because the game uses science that indicates that climate change is real and driven in no small part by man made emissions.

[DabblerWizard]

So I finally beat Fuel Crisis. Below you'll find tips and reasoning to help you beat this scenario. Good luck!

Here we go. Even though carbon emissions are a big front page issue in the global warming battle, another underrepresented issue exists, namely, the fuel that's used for energy. The standard energy sources, gas, oil, and coal are heavily polluting, and they're also ultimately finite resources. In Fuel Crisis, the player is eventually exposed to the reality that fuel sources run out. If the player doesn't wean the regions off of these polluting AND limited resources, they eventually crap out when the regions still need the fuel to survive.

A really significant point to consider are the two reasons fuel production can peak. The more common reason (1) Extraction methods can only bring out some much fuel at a time. So the more regions that "expand production of fuel x", the more of that fuel that is being dug up / created, and thus used.

However, oil, gas, coal, and uranium are all limited resources. They eventually run out. On the global charts, you can see just how much there is of each resource.

Fuel Crisis brings about the less common but more devastating reason for peaked fuel production. (2) Fuel extraction / production will reach a maximum where all future extraction / production will bring up less and less of that fuel than before, because there just isn't any new fuel. The amount of available fuel peaks, and then starts declining, and eventually runs out, and regions that depend on that fuel go crazy.

If your agricultural system depends on oil, for instance, and there's no more oil to go around, then how will your machines plant, cultivate and harvest crops? Your people will die from hunger from the simple fact that no one can make food to eat.

In a twist of irony, if there's no fuel to power the industrial sector, then you're really done for. Except for renewable energy sources, all other energy systems require the use of energy to produce energy. For instance, your deep sea pumps can't pump up oil from the ocean if they don't have the electricity to function, and your power plants can't create that electricity if they don't have enough oil from those deep sea turbines to power the plant. It's very circular, but then again, we're very dependent on fuel.

In other words, I had to wean regions off some of the limiting fuel sources. Reviewing the global graphs the game provides, projections indicate that there are tons of untapped gas resources. Even though gas is one of the limited resources, there's so much of it, that I figured that oil and coal would reach type (2) peak production before gas did. And I was right.

I "reduced power of oil / coal", while increasing production of gas and eventually uranium. I did those in pairs. Reduce oil use, increase gas production. Reduce coal use, and increase uranium or gas production. You can look at graphs that tell you the percent split up of where a region gets it energy from... 12% oil, 6% coal... whatever. I don't think it matters how you reduce the use of oil and coal, as long as you don't ban it outright because they need the fuel to be replaced with something else.

I didn't depend on renewables, partially because of how little energy they provide until the tail end of the scenario. Luckily I didn't run out of gas fuel, but I would have eventually, so if the scenario had gone on longer, then I would have needed to depend on renewables alone.

Depending on 4th generation nuclear is dangerous because while you significantly decrease the chances of running out of uranium, you also significantly increase your nuclear proliferation, so if you're ignoring some regions to save others, there's a chance one of these impoverished regions will start a nuclear war, ending your game.

Carbon Capture and Storage as well as Stratospheric Aerosols saved my hide. If you use SA, but not CCS, then prepare for eventual droughts as your world becomes a lot less humid.

I also found it helpful to support as many regions as possible from the beginning. By developing all the regions, I made sure none of them went rogue with nuclear, and only India (poor region) ended up starving. Around the last 20 years I did have to pick and choose which regions to save, though. GDP had gotten so low that I barely had any money to do anything.

High Yield Crops help with food shortages, but if you don't have fuel to run harvesting machines, then your people will starve anyway. I also banned first and second generation biofuels. I don't know how beneficial this was, but they were supposed to increase food availability, so I went for it.

Turn your regions green friendly with the Eco awareness card, go for vegetarian revolution because that supposedly helps with food too.

A critique. I'm disappointed that even after the third scenario the game continues to demonstrate a steep learning curve. It's not even that previous understanding is built on to achieve a greater product, to fix more complex problems. I'm still figuring out just how much I don't know about this game, and I find it frustrating.

[Gaius Marius]

Bloody hell, this game looks like a crash course into realeconomiks..

[Murska]

Heh. The game's a bit frustrating at times but the feeling when I saved the world from the Fuel Crisis the first time while doubling the world's GDP, stabilizing the amount of population at 9bill and raising the global HDI average over 0,85 (damn you, North Africa, I wanted 0,9) was awesome.

[DabblerWizard]

Heh. The game's a bit frustrating at times but the feeling when I saved the world from the Fuel Crisis the first time while doubling the world's GDP, stabilizing the amount of population at 9bill and raising the global HDI average over 0,85 (damn you, North Africa, I wanted 0,9) was awesome.

*Bows at your feet* Please sir. Tell me how you did it. :smallredface:

[JeminiZero]

From what little I've played so far, I have one major complaint: Why is the only way of limiting population growth the one child policy? A two child policy would work better at stabilizing the population without long term ageing problems, and hopefully less popularity backlash.

[DabblerWizard]

From what little I've played so far, I have one major complaint: Why is the only way of limiting population growth the one child policy? A two child policy would work better at stabilizing the population without long term ageing problems, and hopefully less popularity backlash.

There are other ways to reduce populations, through black ops, but by the time you eliminate an entire population you get booted... oh, you said "limiting", not "eliminating". My bad. You're right... There's another black ops for that... covert contraceptives in the water or something.

I prefer to just let them make as many babies as they want.

[Murska]

*Bows at your feet* Please sir. Tell me how you did it. :smallredface:

It took a /lot/ of fiddling. My basic strategy was to concentrate on avoiding the collapse of the global economy so I could fund the anti-warming initiatives I could get into place later on. So, aside from the usual Preserve Forests in key areas, raising stability everywhere so they wouldn't face a war and helping South Africa raise it's HDI superfast, I went with expanding gas, spreading advanced drilling to Mid-East immediately to lengthen the amount of time I had until oil collapse, Tobin Taxed everywhere (Russia takes one turn to stabilize if you start right away) and began pruning everyone off coal and oil.

Electric cars in all nations where they are of any use helped with keeping oil available for longer, pushing gas as well as cap'n'trade helped me get electricity production off oil. Then, once oil started running out, I banned Conventional Oil immediately. Meanwhile, I'd been pushing through huge amounts of biofuel production in South Africa, Latin America and South Asia, which meant that now that Commerce was no longer using oil, all the biofuel oil was sufficient to keep Agriculture and Industry running. This is how I avoided financial collapse. There was a small dip in the GDP but then it continued growing.

My next problem was that the insane amounts of Industry being built in Middle East and China was polluting a ton because they were still mainly dependant on gas. I did my best to switch them to nuclear power and renewables, but the situation was still pretty dire as the game began nearing the end and I got coal shortages. Banning coal didn't dip the GDP at all since all industry was off it anyway.

So, since I had used the eco campaign to get a number of nations into the 'Balanced' view, while the others were at full green or dark green and pushing vegetarian revolution and such, I used the Balanced nations to push Aerosulfates. I had, of course, used CCP in both China and Mid-East for almost the entire game.

The population was stabilized rather easily by first one-child-policying India, helping South Africa raise it's HDI and ignoring North Africa so most of them died in wars and famine. Those three are the main popgrowth areas in my games, usually.

I had enough money at this point to easily keep everyone happy and had started fixing North Africa, which I had pretty much ignored until then, when the timer ran out. I was quite surprised at doing that well, especially since, while I had only barely kept the warming under the limit, I was well on my way to making the world a better place for everyone, pruning people off gas since renewable and biofuel production were still on the rise and even being able to lower the temperature rise with sulfates while getting my emissions into the negatives in many areas. So it wasn't just a timelimit-pre-collapse victory either.

[DabblerWizard]

Murska's quote
It took a /lot/ of fiddling. My basic strategy was to concentrate on avoiding the collapse of the global economy so I could fund the anti-warming initiatives I could get into place later on. So, aside from the usual Preserve Forests in key areas, raising stability everywhere so they wouldn't face a war and helping South Africa raise it's HDI superfast, I went with expanding gas, spreading advanced drilling to Mid-East immediately to lengthen the amount of time I had until oil collapse, Tobin Taxed everywhere (Russia takes one turn to stabilize if you start right away) and began pruning everyone off coal and oil.

Electric cars in all nations where they are of any use helped with keeping oil available for longer, pushing gas as well as cap'n'trade helped me get electricity production off oil. Then, once oil started running out, I banned Conventional Oil immediately. Meanwhile, I'd been pushing through huge amounts of biofuel production in South Africa, Latin America and South Asia, which meant that now that Commerce was no longer using oil, all the biofuel oil was sufficient to keep Agriculture and Industry running. This is how I avoided financial collapse. There was a small dip in the GDP but then it continued growing.

My next problem was that the insane amounts of Industry being built in Middle East and China was polluting a ton because they were still mainly dependant on gas. I did my best to switch them to nuclear power and renewables, but the situation was still pretty dire as the game began nearing the end and I got coal shortages. Banning coal didn't dip the GDP at all since all industry was off it anyway.

So, since I had used the eco campaign to get a number of nations into the 'Balanced' view, while the others were at full green or dark green and pushing vegetarian revolution and such, I used the Balanced nations to push Aerosulfates. I had, of course, used CCP in both China and Mid-East for almost the entire game.

The population was stabilized rather easily by first one-child-policying India, helping South Africa raise it's HDI and ignoring North Africa so most of them died in wars and famine. Those three are the main popgrowth areas in my games, usually.

I had enough money at this point to easily keep everyone happy and had started fixing North Africa, which I had pretty much ignored until then, when the timer ran out. I was quite surprised at doing that well, especially since, while I had only barely kept the warming under the limit, I was well on my way to making the world a better place for everyone, pruning people off gas since renewable and biofuel production were still on the rise and even being able to lower the temperature rise with sulfates while getting my emissions into the negatives in many areas. So it wasn't just a timelimit-pre-collapse victory either.


A lot of what you're saying is essentially what I did in places. Except that I want every improvement for everybody. I guess they don't all need it though. =/

[Murska]

Basically, the key to fuel crisis is saving the economy from, surprise, the fuel crisis. This gives you enough money to take care of the warming with sulfates while keeping everyone happy and prosperous.

The only way to really have your GDP to survive the oil shortages is to get a lot of biofuels as early as possible. Oil is gonna run out at 2070 or so even if you do everything you can to make it last, so by then you need to be able to ban conventional oil while having enough biofuels to supply your agricultural and industrial requirements, and having your energy production be fully switched to gas, nuclear and renewables.

[baileykruse]

I never played Fate of the World game. But my friend play it often. I think the one thing I take away from this game, more than anything else is "Staving off global warming and its consequences is going to be REALLY HARD."

[DabblerWizard]

I never played Fate of the World game. But my friend play it often. I think the one thing I take away from this game, more than anything else is "Staving off global warming and its consequences is going to be REALLY HARD."

I think we can all agree on that, assuming that the game is a fair projection of future outcomes.

[Airk]

The other thing I take away from it is that unless our world leaders REALLY REALLY F- things up, I'll be dead before the world goes completely to hell. :P