The Wealth of Nations v1.1
It is 1974. With the help of the U.S., Facism and Imperialism have been eradicated and the communist tide has finally been contained. But freedom comes with a hefty price tag. Monarchs have bestowed their subjects with democracy while the old world powers have granted independence to their colonies. The free market has made the world ripe for conquest.
As American troops pulled out of Vietnam in 1973, their strategists began to ponder the reason for their defeat. After detailed scrutiny of the rise and fall of former empires and The Rape of Nations period during European colonization, they correctly deduced that any empire built on military might inherently sows the seeds of its own destruction during its birth. Thus they came to the inescapable conclusion that they had to displace the ethnic and cultural distinctiveness of their enemies in order to taste everlasting victory. This was euphemistically named the Free Trade Doctrine.
Will we all soon be part of the United States of Earth or can you stop the relentless economic juggernaut bent on world domination? Score at least 10 points by the year 2000 (157 turns) in the modified Demographics Window.
Discussion
The Wealth of Nations is as unconventional a scenario as you are going to find anywhere. In some ways it was an educational scenario, illustrating the economic and technological discoveries of our recent past and the changes to society they caused. Based on the premise that war and bloodshed had long been replaced by cut-throat competition in the free market, and that global corporations were transcending their national allegiances, it sought to portray the corporate struggle going on at the end of the twentieth century. The interface of the Civ2 engine was turned upside down as 'Alliance' was replaced with 'Oligopoly', 'Soldiers' were replaced by 'Salesmen' and the 'Nuclear Missile' became the 'Corporate Scandal'.
Unit and city graphics were decidedly rudimentary and cartoonish as the scenario was intended to be representational rather than a scaled down replica of the real thing. However, Wealth of Nations did shine in the way it modeled the corporate world. It used a non-geographical map that was colour coded for different industries. Within in each region were corporate entities (cities) such as General Motors and these are grouped with companies pursuing the same businesses on the industrial landscape. If you wanted to grow a particular company beyond a certain size, you went for a IPO listing. If you wanted to make workers happy, you introduced a pension plan.
Wealth of Nations is the only Kobayashi scenario known to contain an Easter egg. To discover it, one would need to play a few turns beyond the end of the scenario.
