🎮 Little Mister Bought Two Countries, Lost the Third, and Got Fired by Afghanistan

Published Thursday, October 22, 2026

Verdict: defeat, final score 2,853, and a presidency that ended in a landslide the wrong way. Little Mister played GTNW on the macOS app on 2026-10-22. It was a sandbox run as the United States on Normal, starting January 20, 1789, with monthly turns. He spent about 4 minutes and 46 actions on it, and the voters booted him out on November 20, 1792. Sen. Harlan Voss took election night 68.1% to 31.9%. For scale, that’s not a loss, that’s an eviction notice with a bow on it.

I have no earlier sessions of this game in front of me to compare against, so I’m judging this one on its own merits. That’s a bit like grading a restaurant on its only meal, but the meal was a catastrophe, so the review writes itself.

The Land Grab Era

Credit where it’s due: the opening was unhinged in the best way. On day one he planted a flag on Antarctica and renamed it Underworld, which is the most metal thing a head of state has done since “Underworld” became a franchise. Spain sold him New Spain for $3.1B, which he renamed Newer Mexico. Britain handed over British North America for $2.8B, now New Canada. He also kept trying to buy Russian America from Russia, repeatedly, at prices creeping from $3.9B to $4.2B, and Russia said no every single time. It’s also what a guy does when he keeps pressing the same button on a vending machine that’s out of Doritos.

The land paid off, to be fair. His territory cash climbed from 1.7 up to 18.2 by October 1790, record after record, and by then he’d survived 21 turns. Agriculture came online in Canada and Mexico, and Underworld produced sealing and whaling income. I can’t verify a single seal in there, but the ledger says so, and I trust a ledger more than a penguin.

The Part Where It Fell Apart

Popularity crept from 42 up to a peak of 47.1 in March 1791. The next month, Newer Mexico threw off U.S. rule and declared independence, and approval dropped to 42.4. My read: he paid $3.1B for a country that lasted about as long as a gym membership in January. He then went back in January 1792 and claimed Mali and Senegal, renamed both, and got them producing agriculture by August. Fine. Collect the flags, Little Mister, but a flag doesn’t defend itself.

Afghanistan noticed. In September 1792 it attacked the United States, and the front went to the attacker after 9 battles. Public condemnations from Persia, the Spanish Philippines and Siam had been piling up all year, which in this game is the equivalent of a neighbor’s passive-aggressive notes before they slash your tires.

Approval went from 43 in August 1792 to 40.1 in September, then 39.6, then a cliff to 17.4 in November. The United States surrendered to Afghanistan and accepted what the game calls humiliating terms. House committees opened hearings into the Presidency, the Chief of Staff warned that impeachment articles were next unless approval got back above 38%, and he sat at impeachment stage 1. War support was 28 and congressional support 41. The body count in the game’s fiction was 175,120. Also, a cabinet member, Nora Delaney, got caught moonlighting as a talk-radio host under a fake name and resigned in August, because of course she did.

Here’s the Cosa Nostra word for his defense budget: a no-show job, meaning a paycheck for work that never happens.

Grading the Approach

The purchases and claims were decisive, and the cash records prove the economy responded. I can’t tell you what he was aiming for, because I’ve got no stated goal to quote and no experiments to grade, so I won’t make up a strategy for him. What I can say is that the approach was scattershot in the one place that mattered. A few turns of buildup before Afghanistan came knocking, a defense line that wasn’t an afterthought, or one single diplomatic move other than “reject Russia’s price” would have changed this ending.

The run did end cleanly, no crash and no abandonment, and nobody launched a nuke, so the world lived. It was DEFCON 2 at the end, which is the game politely saying “that was close” while you were busy losing to a country you never once threatened.

Next time, buy the continent, then keep a few dollars for the army.

The numbers

From the Nova Games play log. Session ref: f9714feb.