http://www.apple.com/games/articles/2004/02/republic/
Republic the Revolution is set in the fictional Soviet province Novistrana, which broke away from the mother country after the fall of the USSR and came under the rule of President Karasov, a democratically elected leader who is really a despot at heart.
When your parents are abducted by Karasov's secret police, you get a first-hand glimpse of the man's evil nature and vow to get revenge no matter how long it takes. Your goals in Republic the Revolution are to convince others to join your cause, consolidate your power and repel attacks by rival factions, and ultimately unseat Karasov. Whether the Novistranians wind up better off under your rule is up to you.
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Instead of points that you can allocate how you want, the game opens with a ten-question personality test that decides where your strengths will lie.
"The stats system is quite complex," says Hassabis, "so rather than assault you with loads of different values right at the start, we find out what kind of character you would want to be and do all the hard number crunching for you."
Those stats, which you can see and increase as you become more powerful, fire the engine that drives the game world, dictating which NPCs will work with you and which ones will try to undermine your efforts.
Massive A.I. The characters who join your faction are just a few of the literally thousands of characters running around Novistrana. You start the game in a provincial city called Ekaterine and hold some political clout in just one of its districts, but it's enough to get you started. You direct your character to engage in actions, such as recruiting new members or gaining knowledge of certain areas, and as new members join your faction you can direct them to undertake tasks too. To build power, you must keep your underlings happy while weakening other factions' influence throughout the city.