I played Victoria II as the United States, from 1836 up to the civil war. Twice, actually. The first time, Mexico somehow entered into an alliance with Great Brittan, and every time I tried to expand west I had to simultaneously fend off an invasion from Canada. Of course, "expand west" is a naked euphemism, and it was entirely just and appropriate that I should have to defend myself from invasion while I was in the process of invading someone else, but I don't know, I was born in California, in the United States of America, and so I had to pursue "manifest destiny," for sentimental reasons, despite it being obvious bullshit.
I really can't recommend playing the antebellum USA, though. There are a few reasons for this, so I'll start with the pettiest and work up from there.
The first problem, and shamefully, the most emotionally resonant for me, is that you are constantly presented with the same 4 or 5 event pop-ups. And if you're like me, and play on maximum speed all the time, they come around every couple of seconds, making the pre-civil war era a total click-fest. I wish there was some way to streamline the process, say "yes, I will always support the abolitionist side and no, I will never support the pro-slavery side." I suppose that maybe I could slow down and approach each event as significant. Vary my responses to try and soothe the nation's passions and balance the sides against each other. That would probably still be pretty frustrating, though.
The second problem is a bit more serious - Victoria II's political simulation never really feels like the America I know. It doesn't quite capture the sectionalist resentments or institutional obstructionism that so characterize our politics. When I refuse to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, I should have John C Calhoun breathing down my neck, trouncing me in elections. When I admit Texas as a free state . . . I don't even know what would happen, because it was a historically impossible outcome. The Senate would have stopped it and the screeching at the very suggestion would still be heard to this day.
This is the second European strategy game I've played that completely failed to capture the spirit of American politics. I don't necessarily want to blame Europe, though. Hell, I'm not sure it's really appropriate to call it "blame" either. I think the failure might be more because they're "games" and less because they're "European." An America that was bravely anti-slavery, or even an America that was capable of passing meaningful reforms in a timely manner is no more implausible than Hawaii becoming the Polynesian Wakanda. Victoria II allowed me to play nations outside of its wheelhouse of "19th century European colonial powers" so I shouldn't necessarily complain when tools meant for a particular context prove ill-adapted to edge cases.
Plus, I'm not sure if American politics would necessarily make for a very good strategy game. There's strategy involved, to be sure, but the way the system is set up would make for some pretty poor game mechanics. It would basically be, "No, You Can't Do That, Idiot," the game. The US President is head of the federal bureaucracy, chief diplomat, commander in chief of the armed forces and has a conditional veto power over legislation, which maybe sounds like a lot of power, but is actually quite deceptive because most of those earlier duties are constrained (on paper) by legislation or Senate confirmation. What the President really does is wield soft power and influence to try and herd the cats of the legislative branch - as the only nationally-elected figure in the federal government, he basically is the government in the eyes of the people. That gives him some strong negotiating leverage, but that's only useful if he knows how to use it. An inept President, or one who faces a hostile Congress, can't do much except keep the seat warm for the next guy.
In recent decades, the legislature has delegated a lot of authority to federal regulatory agencies, and theoretically, the President can wield all sorts of powers this way, through hiring decisions, executive orders, and informally "making it clear" to his subordinates what he expects to happen, but getting too involved in the day-to-day running of these agencies is frowned upon and may provoke court challenges if the executive actions appear to be at odds with the intent of the law (or, let's face, even if they don't, but some lawyered-up ideological rival decides to try their luck.)
What this means in video game terms is that your strategy would revolve around being seen to do something, even if there's nothing you can do. Or doing something off the books, and not being seen doing it. And maybe that sounds intriguing, but I, for one, can't even begin to imagine how you'd present "you make a largely symbolic empty gesture that is destined to be struck down by the courts or instantly reversed by your successor" as a victory condition. At the very least, I don't imagine many people would find it plausible that the optimal strategy for passing civil rights legislation is spamming the "show penis" button.
A strategy game from the perspective of congress would be scarcely better. "Everything in the game, you have to do twice, minimum, once for the people and again for the states and sometimes the two want opposite things" is not a pitch I would dare make with a straight face.
So, you know, Victoria II simplifying things for the imperialist, parliamentary mode is not entirely unwelcome. It just feels weird. Like there's a part of me that knows its history and can't help going, "ha, like that would ever happen." Plus, despite the fact that the American Civil War is the centerpiece for a whole DLC, the game misses out on some important nuances that I think gamers of any nation would really appreciate - like the Republican party using the fact that the rebels were not technically states any more to ram through some radical constitutional amendments. Or the way they admitted a whole bunch of mostly-empty states to stack the Senate against the day when the largely Democratic South came back. It was a period in our history that was as much like a video game exploit as politics are ever likely to get, and it was left out entirely.
But the worst part of playing the USA in Victoria II is the bloodless way in which it presents the worst depths of human depravity. There is literally a "Trail of Tears" button. Why would I ever push that?! I kind of resent its presence, to be honest. It's a little like playing a WW2 game and being asked to efficiently prosecute the Holocaust. What's the point of including one of the worst atrocities in my country's history, so bad it was recognized as such at the time,which had no strategic or tactical advantage aside from the advancement of white supremacy?
Of course, the only effect it would have had, within the context of the game was some numbers on a spreadsheet getting significantly smaller (::shudder::). The presentation of slavery has a similar problem. You're never really forced to engage with the reality of slavery as a system. It's all just modifiers to your gold balance, obfuscated by two or three layers of game mechanics (slaves make farms more efficient, which makes aristocrats richer, which boosts your tax revenue, if your tax policy is set accordingly).
Even that wouldn't necessarily be so bad if black Americans didn't feel so lifeless as a populace. At one point, in my first game (where Canada and Mexico ganged up on me) I suffered a reactionary coup that abolished American democracy. But I never faced a slave revolt, not even as a popup, and I never saw the CSA have one either. And while the pre-civil war game had certain hypothetical decisions that never came to pass in the real world, like the plan to conquer Cuba and admit it as a slave state, there were no alt-history choices that advanced abolitionism and no post-civil war radical republicanism (that I saw). And the few mentions of slaves as people nonetheless cast them as an object to be bickered over by free whites. The inclusion of at least some black voices would have done a lot of good.
I think, overall, playing my home country was a mistake. I'm too close to it to ignore the flaws in presentation, and once more I was left wishing for a historical strategy game with racial and social justice as a central theme (perhaps the most futile of my recurring fantasies). I will say that I enjoyed playing the game overall, though. I do like managing pops and influencing economic and industrial policy. I just think I need to do it with a nation I know little enough about that it doesn't feel like I'm whitewashing the crimes of my own historical heritage.
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