🎮 Little Mister Conquered Africa, Named It the Alphabet, and Got Fired by the Voters

Published Tuesday, October 20, 2026

Verdict: defeat, 9,617 points, and an election loss of 59.8% to 40.2% to a man named Sen. Harlan Voss. Little Mister fired up the macOS app, picked the United States on Nightmare difficulty, and spent about 11 minutes and 198 turns proving that the hardest setting in the game is not the one he selected. It’s “having a plan.”

The colonial era, brought to you by a keyboard smash

Opening move, January 20, 1789: claim Antarctica. Not Britain, not the Ohio frontier, Antarctica. Then he renamed it Bottomland. That’s a bold way to start a presidency, Little Mister, and I respect it the way I respect a raccoon in a Roomba.

South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Madagascar, each planted with a flag and 5K troops, each renamed within a week. South Africa became “a.” Namibia became “b.” Botswana became “c.” Zimbabwe “d,” Mozambique “e,” Madagascar “f.” Congratulations, you colonized the alphabet. Then the names went feral: Tanzania became “fxbxfgb,” Zambia became “Zambiaxgcbxgb,” Kenya became “Kenyafgxbxfgb,” and Somalia became “ghncghnghngfhnmjg,” which is either a territory or a cat walking across the keyboard. Chad got renamed Bob, which is the one name in the whole campaign that I’d put on a mailbox.

Here’s my problem with the empire: every one of those territories reported income of 0. Fourteen-odd annexations, a wall of “now producing agriculture” headlines, and the treasury saw nothing from any of it. Colonialism’s entire selling point is the money, and he managed to run it as a charity. Zero covert ops succeeded, zero wars won, zero wars started, zero sanctions, zero conflicts mediated. Little Mister’s version was never collect a dime from the colonies you’re sleeping on.

Conquered Africa, renamed Antarctica, and still lost the election. Strategy is a hard setting.

The war he didn’t fight

On November 17, 1789, the Republic of China attacked the United States. The front log shows 15 battles, attacker won. On March 2, 1790, the United States surrendered and accepted “humiliating terms.” That is ten months into the term, and approval fell off a cliff, from 41.2% in early February to 16.6% at the next poll. That is not a dip, that’s a trapdoor. Mando’a has a word for what the Chief of Staff said next: ori’haat, “it’s the truth, not a joke.” The warning was that Congress would draft articles of impeachment unless approval climbed back above 38%.

Credit where it burns: he didn’t die there. The House voted to impeach on May 4, 1790, the Senate trial started, and he survived it. Approval climbed back, slowly and steadily, from 16.6% to a high of 39.5% by December 1791. That recovery is the best stretch of governing in the whole run, and I suspect it was mostly the game healing him while he wasn’t looking.

The budget, or: where the money went

Locking the barn door, horse already in a different time zone. Proverbs 16:18, KJV: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” He had 15 battles’ worth of warning.

Algeria, Switzerland, Vanuatu, Maldives, Yugoslavia, Mauritania, and Bhutan all publicly condemned the United States, some repeatedly. Switzerland condemned him three times. Switzerland. The country whose entire brand is being unbothered. The FBI, to its credit, kept busy arresting foreign agents, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Algeria, Czechoslovakia, Suriname, Afghanistan, Russian Empire and more, which is the only part of the foreign policy that clearly worked.

The end

In the last stretch he sat on 38% approval, 39% congressional support, and war support at 26. DEFCON 3. Not a single nuclear strike, not a warhead launched, global radiation at zero, and the game still ended on November 6, 1792. On Nightmare, losing quietly is a civilized way to fail. Meanwhile, back in the world he ignored, Russia took Japan, which was the one war that finished on his watch and had nothing to do with him. Casualties: 91,142.

I have no earlier sessions to compare this against. This is the first one on the books, so the baseline is set exactly where it should be: at the bottom, with a flag in it.

Grade: D, with a note. The note says: next time, defend the country before naming Zimbabwe “d.” Groovy, Bob, you’re the only asset in the portfolio.

The numbers

From the Nova Games play log. Session ref: 6803ef4f.