History VideoGame / Suzerain

* TheTheocracy: Not a full-on example, but a Religious Councillor is a part of Rizia's Royal Council, having a say in the country's religious policy.

** Rumburg is the only nation without an obvious real-world parallel. As a 19th century colonial power with vast territory across tundra that is currently a de-facto absolute monarchy with an aggressive and expansionist foreign policy, 19th century Tsarist Russia is the closest parallel, but this does make it a slight anachronism for the game's general mid-20th century inspiration.

** While Sordland in 1953 is in a state of economic malaise, Rizia in 1950 is economically stable, albeit with headwinds on the horizon.

** ''Ekonomist'' is an outlet focused on economics. Their position is against any nationalization or planned economy, and supportive of free market economics; it is the clearest {{Expy}} of the six newspapers, namely one of Magazine/TheEconomist. Unlike their real-life inspiration, which has its own holding company, the Ekonomist is heavily implied to be a mouthpiece for the Oligarchs.

* BigDamnHeroes: Tarquin Soll can appear in parliament personally in order to stop the player from becoming a tyrant and, if they are not sufficiently prepared, will succeed. Granted, he will also do this to block a benevolent dictatorship or a democratic constitution.

* {{Cincinnatus}}: Anton Rayne can become this trope if he amends the Constitution to grant himself nearly unlimited power but imposes term limits, meaning he's ready and willing to give up said unlimited power as soon as his terms expire. Doubly so if he then decides to retire at the endgame, meaning he gives up his power after his first and only term.
* [[ComplainingAboutRescuesTheyDontLike Complaining about Rescues They don't Like]]: If you [[spoiler: order a nationwide mandatory vaccination in order to prevent mass Polio pandemic, several newspapers will condemn your decision, either because "it's not that dangerous, why waste our money on it" or because saving people's lives violates their personal freedoms somehow. The "wasting money" argument can be especially egregious of you have funded Healthcare earlier and therefore don't spend any additional funds on vaccination.]]
* [[TheChainsOfCommanding The Chains of Commanding]]: The game's narrative frequently points out how Presidential duty is grueling, tiresome, stressful and at times downright unpleasant. Anton Rayne himself can admit as much and even retire immediately after his first term.

* ColdWar: The geopolitical situation in the world is dominated by the Cold War, with ICBM tests and satellites occurring in-game that roughly match the historical arms and space race between the United States and the Soviet Union.

* {{Conlang}}: the Sordish language. While there is very little visible text written in it in the game, it seems to have some resemblance to German. The fans have [[http://sordish.org/ managed to expand it into a proper conlang]].

* DirtyCommies:
** A Malenyevist President Rayne can be a hardcore communist, crushing people's freedoms in the name of the communist revolution and even allying with the ultranationalists to support the Sordish state in oppression of minorities.

* EveryManHasHisPrice: President Rayne can attempt to bribe multiple people within the political landscape to earn their support. These bribes can either be paid from Rayne's personal wealth or promises to make political decisions in favor of the bribe's target. Rayne can also be on [[CorruptPolitician the other]] end of this trope, taking bribes in exchange of political support.

* TheFifties: The game begins in 1953 and spans the length of a four-year presidential term.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** [[spoiler: During the first turn in the media strategy discussion Lucian will mention the possible and high risk of scandals occurring. And then the new secretary, who is in fact a Rumburg spy and will cause a large national security scandal, will arrive. Petr, who causes the sex scandal to happen, will comment on the secretary's "assets" too.]]

* [[MediaWatchdog Media Watchdog]]: President Rayne can establish the Supreme Radio and Television Council, which can either regulate Sordish media or flat out censor it (thus preventing any leaks about his corrupt dealings). A somewhat positive example, as moderate regulation prevents biased media from spreading their narratives.

* [[PressXToDie Press X to Die]]: In the endgame, there is an option to cede parts of your country to Rumburg to avoid a war. This automatically leads to a coup d'etat unless you go into exile, regardless of what you do.

* [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Reasonable Authority Figure]]: Anton Rayne can be played as a responsible leader who sincerely cares about his citizens and is ready to take decisive actions under difficult circumstances.

* TheEndOfTheWorldASWeKnowIt: [[spoiler:If you plan on attacking Rumburg, aligning yourself with a superpower seems like a safe bet, having the ability to access the industrial might and the manpower of Arcasia or United Contana to finally put an end the the ambitions of the Kingdom up north. If you enter a state of war with Rumburg while allied with a superpower, the rival power, seeing it as a threat to the balance of power in Merkopa, will side with Rumburg and declare war on you by extension. Now the two rival superpower are at war with each other, and both have nukes. Then Rumburg, that was able to start their own nuclear program, will nuke Holsord, kickstarting nuclear exchanges between the two rival blocks.]]

* [[TrueCompanions True Companions]]: Anton Rayne and Petr Vectern were this since school. [[spoiler: Whether they can preserve their friendship through trials and temptations of power is the main question of their plotline.]]

* TooDumbToLive:
** You potentially, should you for example [[spoiler:make a lot of corrupt deals with oligarchy and then form Anti-Corruption Police to investigate oligarchy's corruption]].
** Also to some extent [[spoiler:Head of the Armed Forces Valken Kruger, who will want you to go to war with Rumburg without any allies, never mind the fact that Rumburg has much larger army which he even acknowledges]].

* [[ViewersAreGeniuses Viewers are Geniuses]]: The game requires players to have a fairly solid grasp on politics, economics, law and sociology. Some concepts are simplified for the sake of entertainment, but still, good luck getting re-elected without knowing what "legislative powers" means.

* SparseListOfRules: The Sordland constituion, naturally. We don't see it in full, but do get an idea of some of its articles when relevant:

** The People's Freedom and Justice Party are the main opposition. They are a liberal democratic party and the spearhead of constitutional reform. They're traditionally social-democratic, but their current leader is strongly capitalist and pro-[[{{Eagleland}} Arcasia]]. They'll work with a reformist President to pass the new constitution.

** In ''Amendment'', the comparative moderates in the PFJP and the NFP - polar opposites to one another - both recognize that the Bergian governor continuing to have a blank check to oppress the Bluds in his territory will lead to a BFF uprising the likes of which have never been seen before. To stop Rumburg from exploiting such a situation, they team up to support a Supreme Court case brought by a Bludish activist against the Bergian government and can be joined by Rayne, though which part of the constitution they focus on in their arguments is contingent on Rayne favoring one party or the other.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: The hardliner factions of the PFJP and the NFP, led by Manoly Suheil and Remus Holstron respectively, hold one another to be this on the subject of Bludish rights. While the first holds fairly strong sympathies for Bludish nationalism and the other is a clique of anti-Blud fascists, both agree on the idea that the Sords and the Bluds are not the same people, contrary to Articles 6 and 7 of the constitution and the opinions of their respective parties' moderates. The PFJP's seek an inclusive definition of what it means to be a Sord while the NFP's want to forcibly assimilate Bluds into the existing Sordish cultural framework under the assumption that they are, in fact, Sords.

** ''Sordland Today'' is part of the Heart of Sordland conglomerate, owned by Marcel Koronti. It supports whatever Koronti supports, which depends on how you deal with him as the President, and vaguely resembles a [[UsefulNotes/RupertMurdoch Murdoch-type]] paper in this regard. [[spoiler: It can be turned into an arm of the state media.]]
** ''The Lachaven Times'' is a moderate liberal-leaning newspaper, generally being sympathetic towards ethnic minorities and workers but opposing violence and revolution. It appears to be a rough equivalent to The New York Times.
** ''The Radical'' is a proudly contrarian left-wing outlet, usually progressive minded and supportive of constitutional reforms. They often write stories about the Bluds, and are suspicious of President Rayne even when he does what they want. Aesthetically and content-wise, it appears to be a stand-in for The Guardian.

** ''Sordland Today'' is part of the Heart of Sordland conglomerate, owned by Marcel Koronti. It supports whatever Koronti supports, which depends on how you deal with him as the President. [[spoiler: It can be turned into an arm of the state media.]]
** ''The Lachaven Times'' is a moderate liberal-leaning newspaper, generally being sympathetic towards ethnic minorities and workers but opposing violence and revolution.
** ''The Radical'' is a proudly contrarian left-wing outlet, usually progressive minded and supportive of constitutional reforms. They often write stories about the Bluds, and are suspicious of President Rayne even when he does what they want.
** ''Ekonomist'' is an outlet focused on economics. Their position is against any nationalization or planned economy, and supportive of free market economics; a clear {{Expy}} of Magazine/TheEconomist. Unlike their real-life inspiration, the Ekonomist is heavily implied to be a mouthpiece for the Oligarchs.
** ''Geopolitico'' is the only outlet that is not over-slanted towards an ideology, neither politically or economically. They focus on foreign affairs, avoiding to take sides most of the times.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: The hardliner factions of the PFJP and the NFP, led by Manoly Suheil and Remus Holstron respectively, hold one another to be this on the subject of Bludish rights. While the first holds fairly strong sympathies for Bludish nationalism and the other is a clique of anti-Blud fascists, both agree on the idea that the Sords and the Bluds are not the same people, contrary to Articles 6 and 7 of the constitution - and the opinions of their respective parties' moderates.

* UnexpectedGameplayChange: [[spoiler:The Day of Descension Ceremony suddenly tasks you with a simple memory puzzle, in which you must memorise (or write down) the steps to a ritual to avoid embarrassing yourself during a televised broadcast of a significant religious event]].

* MobWar: A mob war between Suzerain's two major crime families is stated to be starting when Anton enters office. The player can verbally downplay the war as a non-issue compared to the many existential issues threatening Suzerain and indeed, unless the player makes the certain choices to go after them, the situation is only brought up occasionally in the newspapers, in-between the far more concerning issues.

* CommieNazis:
** In the ending, if Anton Rayne combines total nationalization with authoritarian Sollist nationalism and socialist policies to attack the Bluds and crush all opposition, he'll be identified as a National-Malenyevist.

** A Malenyevist President Rayne can be a hardcore communist, crushing people's freedoms in the name of the communist revolution and even allying with the ultranationalists to support the Sordish state. It's even possible to be labeled a [[CommieNazis National-Malenyevist]] if you go after the Bluds for being supposedly reactionary.

** Wiktor Smolak, dictator of Wehlen, is theoretically the head of a religious socialist party, and is moving toward an alliance with the Contanan Security Pact. In practice, he's more [[ANaziByAnyOtherName National Socialist]] than socialist.

* CommieNazis: There's a couple of groups that either identify as this or act like it.
** The government of Wehlen is run by the Wehzek Nationalist Party of Nurist Socialism. They're not really socialist, but they call themselves that and have aligned with the Contanan Security Pact.
** Sollism...okay, that one gets a little complicated. Colonel Soll is a staunch militarist and Sordish nationalist with conservative views and a penchant for abusing minorities, and Sollists are firmly anti-communist. However, to support his government, he established an etatist planned economy and clamped down on right-wing violence, which has partly put the USP at odds with the ultranationalist NFP. This tendency is also part of what allows a socialist Rayne to succeed; he can gain conservative Sollist support by appealing to Sollonomics even if he hates everything else Soll stood for.

* {{Theocracy}}: There are two within Merkopa: The Holy Federation of Free Cities, and the Nurist Republic of Derdia.