Power. We all want it; we all strive to obtain it; but do we ever really get it? Governments do, that’s for sure. They don’t manage companies or websites like the rest of us; they manage towns, cities and countries. That’s real power. That’s the sort of power I’ve always wanted. But (and sorry for the dreadful Spider-Man cliché) with great power, comes great responsibility. Sure, they get to run a country, and Mayors get to run a town, but make one wrong move and they’ll never hear the end of it.

“We need more power!” The citizens will yell. “The garbage is piling up!” They’ll cry. “We don’t feel safe enough!” They’ll scream to the heavens. At least, they do in “City Empires,” an online text-based government simulation game. “City Empires”—similar to games like “Sim City” and “The Sims,” but without the pretty pictures—takes place in a world reborn. Set on Earth many years after the fall of bureaucracy, you have been given the title of Mayor, and charged with rebuilding civilisation, starting with a city.

You begin playing with $75,000, and are first asked to build Infrastructure as it (apparently) attracts civilians to your city. If I had known then what I do now (that civilians are little more that whining idiots that request more than they need, and never give me even a second’s peace) then I would have likely given up right there and then. But ignorant to the needs of people, I built them an Infrastructure, and in they came. Seconds later they were screaming at me from all angles. Power, Water, Garbage, Military, Recreation—they wanted it all, and I was the guy tasked with giving it to them.