Centurion found a leading programmer, David Thompson, to talk about Supreme Ruler 2010

David Thompson: My name is David Thompson and I'm the Lead Designer and one of the Partners here at BattleGoat Studios. Our Lead Programmer, George Geczy and myself owned a Computer Retail Store for 15 Years before deciding to sell it and bring back to life a game he wrote (the original "Supreme Ruler") for the TRS-80 back in 1982.

David Thompson: "The year is 2010 and the Major Powers of the world as we currently know them have disintegrated into bickering economic and military regions. The United Nations has disappeared, and in its place an organization with far sharper teeth referred to simply as "The World Market" has taken its place. Individual Regions are left to fight for power to dominate their neighbors, their countries, their continents, and then the world."

We feel that Supreme Ruler 2010 represents the next generation of strategy game. Not another build and attack 'click fest', but a challenging simulation of political and military leadership. You control the agenda of your region as you maintain its economy, grow the support of your population, and strive to influence your neighbors. Through skilled management your influence and popularity will grow.... Will you be a successful diplomat, who can increase your power through an incredibly flexible diplomacy model, or will you be a ruthless and ambitious ruler that lets your tanks and missiles speak for you?

The goal of each scenario is to take over the surrounding regions in order to move up in the campaign, but how you can accomplish this varies quite a bit from scenario to scenario and is based on real-world political models. You may be able to achieve an economic superiority in some scenarios, win a re-unification vote in others (thanks to how you've grown your popularity), or when all looks lost, send in your tanks to turn things around.

David Thompson: I think our whole approach to the genre is unique. We've incorporated systems that reflect real-world structures: AI Cabinet Ministers that manage their departments based on the leader's guidance (eliminating the need for Micro Management for those that want to), intensive research that accurately reflects the real-world resources and economies as they exist, internal Email and News systems that keep you posted on important occurrences, a Diplomatic Model that is incredibly flexible and complete, and much more...

Another significant difference between SR2010 and other strategy games is that SR2010 is designed to be enjoyed in either a Real Time Mode or as a Turn-Based Strategy game. This allows players to find the style of play that most appeals to them.

David Thompson: Players can start a campaign from virtually anywhere in the world (over 200 starting regions) within 40 scenarios. Each real world region's economy and government are based on reality so the differences between starting regions can be huge. Just consider the differences in the economies between California and Ethiopia and you can imagine the variety of situations a player may experience.

Other differences between regions include the form of government (Democracy, Dictatorship, Monarchy, or Communist Regime) and the selection of Military Units available. (Equipment lists for a region reflect the types units that are known to exist there.)

David Thompson: Managing a government in Supreme Ruler 2010 is not simply about commodities or military, but also involves the Social and Financial Issues that must be faced. How much should you spend on Health Care? Law Enforcement? Education? What tax adjustments should you make that won't damage your economy or irritate your population? Should you issue bonds to raise your treasury or will the debt load be too great down the road? All of these decisions are within your control, or you can assign them to your Cabinet Ministers who have their own political inclinations and agendas (Cabinet Ministers can be selected from a pool of Conservatives, Moderates, or Liberals and will base their decisions appropriately).

And to further enhance the political model, any of the Democratically run governments may have to worry about elections! Just when you think you're ready to take over the world, you could get voted out of office.

David Thompson: There are eleven "commodities" within the game: Agriculture, Ore, Petroleum, Coal, Timber, Uranium, Fresh Water, Electricity, Consumer Goods, Industrial Goods, and Military Goods. But even that is not as simple as it might seem¡K (Example - To produce One Metric Tonne of Military Goods requires a half tonne of Industrial Goods + a half tonne of Ore + 50 Barrels of Petroleum + 15 Megawatt Hours of Electricity) As with the rest of the game, we accurately portray the resources and production of each actual region. Starting in California for instance, there are no Coal or Ore resources available so each player is dependent on the World Market for these items. Better not upset the World Market or they might not sell you these critical raw materials and that will affect your ability to also produce any finished goods!

David Thompson: Yes we support Multi-Player up to 16 players over LAN or Internet. We will also be using a matchmaking service, but we haven't finalized the details on which one yet.

David Thompson: We're not a first person shooter, so we've tried to keep our system requirements quite reasonable.

To play Supreme Ruler 2010, the following hardware is required:
• Windows® 98/Me/2000/XP
• Pentium II 400 MHz (Pentium III 800 Recommended)
• 64 MB RAM (128 MB RAM Recommended)
• 3D Graphics Card with 8MB Video RAM (32 MB AGP Video RAM Recommended)
• DirectX 8.1 or Higher
• DirectX Compatible Sound Card
• 4X CD-ROM Drive

David Thompson: We will ship in early September (this year :) ). We were hoping for late May, but we feel that the extra time is needed to make sure that game is as polished as possible.

David Thompson: That's tough to answer. We designed this game to be the game we wanted to play ourselves, so there are many factors that I really am proud of. From a game play standpoint I guess it would be the Diplomatic Model - the ability to trade treaties, money, units, research, land, and product really highlights the flexibility you have as leader. And from a feature standpoint, I would probably say that I'm quite proud of our Supply Model. It both adds to the reality of current combat at the same time as preventing the irritating "Tank Rush" tactic so common in Strategy Games.

David Thompson: My pleasure! I suppose that the only thing I would add is that if your readers are interested in learning a little more about our game, they may choose to visit either our website (www.sr2010.com) or our forum (www.bgforums.com).