Games are Political

Rich Conservatives Hate Infrastructure

The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire

I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but there are people in this world who’s idea of a great day is sticking pins into voodoo dolls of Bernie Sanders and jerking off to Fox Business. They believe that success is purely the product of hard work and intelligence. Maybe education too, but only in subjects that can make you rich.

But above all, they think you can make it in America with nothing more than grit and gumption and other things you’d hear in a western starring Ronald Reagan. The rich made it without anyone’s help, and they should be praised as if they were gods for being the most holy of Americans: Job Creators.

These people are full of shit.

In The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire, players represent the US, Iraq, China, and seven other major powers, vying for energy security. At least I think that’s what they’re vying for. Everything is abstracted into the near-universal currency of Victory Points, so I can’t be sure.

So what is this game about? Pollution? Energy security? Our standing in the global community? The virtues of top-down technocracy? Probably all of it. As part of the game, players can purchase Structures that represent both public and private institutions and facilities. State-funded things like Highways, but also traditionally private entities like Factories and Energy Companies. They’re not meant to represent nationalized businesses. They represent subsidies and tax breaks, because even businesses are part of a larger design. The whole thing is a Libertarian nightmare. The implication that a nation’s success is due to top-down management is heresy to free market wonks, but it’s the angle Energy Empires takes.

Of course, it’s not a simulation. There’s no geo-political chaos. Diplomatic Crises and other Global Impacts are barely a hassle. Nothing is truly crippling. And there’s no way to directly attack anyone. You can force opponents to commit more Workers and Energy to Mine or build Power Plants, but you can’t directly hurt them. God damn the United Nations!

You get points from building Structures and Power Plants, and having clean air or water whenever a card tells you to score your Environment. There are also Achievements, which are a grab bag of optional points. If you have the Wealth Achievement, you get points just for having money. If you have a the Healthy Ocean Achievement, you get points if your Ocean is unpolluted. And so on.

But why score the Environment at all? Some people don’t believe in Global Warming, and others are terrified by the thought of subsidizing those green energy hippies. Then again, good old fashion pollution isn’t a distant or abstract concept. Forget global warming. The soup we’re walking around in is getting out of hand, and no one knows that better than those poor bastards in China. They have rivers you can practically walk on! The air is so bad they have to wear gas masks when they have sex to keep from coughing all over their significant others. And now that we want to bring manufacturing back to the US, it’ll be our problem. Thank god we have the EPA to keep it under control, right?

After playing several times with almost total Solar and Wind power, and losing almost every time, I switched tactics and channeled my inner Rex Tillerson. I did better, but if it wasn’t for the fact that you have to completely dominate the UN in the solitaire game, I’d have won by a mile. Because who cares what the world thinks of us?

So just forget the idea that all business is built on top of public works. Roads. Water and power. A functioning education system. Sure, those things help, but they’re incidental. Because Americans can make anything from nothing. Just like God.