I've been watching a playthrough of this online, and I cannot help but ask - how replayable is this game? I realise that there will be a finite number of events and plot branches, but is there enough variety to make a second or a third playthrough different enough?

For instance, I see that your cabinet is always going to be the same, but do ministers have different personality depending on what choices you made during the prologue? I suppose your vice president could be a different person depending on what you did in the prologue ...

Other than that, writing has been great so far, at least in the prologue and Round I, which is what I have seen. I love the back story the developers have crafted and you do have the feeling that you are in a real, breathing world. Also, decisions are never straightforward, as it should be, and I love how accurately the political process has been represented.

In the end, even if there isn't a lot of variability, the game is not that expensive to begin with, and I believe it is definitely good value for money.

Honestly, not really. If you're looking to be a completionist then there's some value in replaying, but chances are, you have one brand of politics that you'd like to play out and see how it goes and little or no interest in seeing how other sides play out.

That said, I played through 3 times. The 2nd and 3rd playthrough were kind of a waste of time, and mostly just clicking through dialogues already knowing exactly what was going to happen as I just played through. I was trying to do my run the way I wanted without compromising on certain issues. I failed originally because I didn't meet certain criteria for 'winning' the late part of the game (not spoiling). So I wanted to try again and do it successfully, failed the 2nd time but succeeded the 3rd time because I made a slight compromise.

In this regard, I think they failed somewhat. For starters, I would've never married the wife. Having some options in the prologue would've been pretty awesome. Having some options in your cabinet too would make for some interesting variables, but you're kind of locked in.

This game is well worth the money, it's an amazing experience, and the OST is one of a kind.

Yeah the fact that you're stuck with a hard-core feminist activist wife irrespective of your political leanings is definitely a strange design decision - mainly because it really doesn't make any sense. Surely Rayne didn't suddenly become conservative after taking office (if one plays that way), so surely she would have left him before then?

Totally agree on the cabinet, that is rather strange that you can't reshuffle the cabinet. It makes little sense to keep certain people in the cabinet when they're literally against your policies. They should have done something like the ancient political game, Hidden Agenda - though with the amount of text in this game, that would have surely required a significant amount of extra writing (they kind of do it for one of the positions, depending on your choices, but it's late in the game and doesn't really affect that much - the effect is more in who you don't pick).

I actually played through this about a dozen times already, even though I've only really done two types of general run: capitalist reformist, and capitalist authoritarian. There were some significant variations in what bills I vetoed/passed, funding of ministries, major projects supported, which legal agency to create (no spoilers ;)), and occasionally who I allied with (or not). Also I've had a number of different endings, ranging from awful to various levels of good, and I've played through a number of different end-game scenarios with respect to what happens with Rumburg. Oh and I've tried various "media" options on various runs, just to see what the difference is (it can be quite significant).

I've yet to try going hard-core communist, or authoritarian with more state control (as opposed to capitalist focused), and I still haven't tried Orso's deal (which I immediately assumed would be some kind of trap).

So, I'd say even within a relatively general political direction there can be a fair bit of variation.

I do wish that certain things weren't always played out the same way and in so much detail - such as the palace ball. That gets boring real fast.

On the plus side, while there's a fair bit of text, it's written in an easy-to-digest style so it's not too hard to skim through it without getting completely bored of the repetition.

I agree, I'm a terrible reader and this was very easy to digest. Probably because I was so hooked in.
And that's pretty cool about the variations possible, I suppose it's up to the user if they want to experience other playthroughs, good to know they do vary. My nationalist playthrough was fairly satisfying, but I honestly remember my failed runs more than my successful one. Really hard choices, especially the one where you have to either back up your wife or not at the rally.

I found that backing up your wife at the rally tends to have minimal impact. I usually wait until I get an option to agree with her, but say that we'll address her concerns later and let Curtan continue. Although even if I give Curtan shit about giving a speech on morals, this usually doesn't stop me from passing a dictator-like constitution (though that could be due to the Oligarchs liking me and/or funds spent).

I think they must have made something easier in the latest patch though, because I was able to be a pro-business dictator with maxed economy and no hint of strife this time around. Usually there's always some unrest near the end, but this time I even had Mansoun approach me to pass a bill for establishing minority rights (this releases a bunch of Bludish prisoners). So despite blocking the borders to Wehlen while they did their thing, and backing NFP's policies, I somehow ended up with Bluds voting for me by the end of my term... ;)

Although the new WPB-etc coalition managed to squeeze into Parliament as well, despite the increase to 15%.

Turned out to be a strange "benevolent" dictatorship in the end (not including various things the SSP did, but that never got out so it never happened). ;)