A government simulation or political simulation is a game that attempts to simulate the government and politics of all or part of a nation. These games may include geopolitical situations (involving the formation and execution of foreign policy), the creation of domestic political policies, or the simulation of political campaigns. They differ from the genre of classical wargames due to their discouragement or abstraction of military or action elements.

Games based on geopolitics and elections existed long before the emergence of personal computers and their ability to quickly process large amounts of statistical data. One of the earliest such games was The Game of Politics, created by Oswald Lord in 1935 which remained in print until 1960. In 1954, the board game Diplomacy was created, which differs from other wargames in that it features a "negotiation" phase during which players reach agreements with other players, and then execute military moves simultaneously. National politics has remained a vital area of board gaming, with products such as the 1986 board game Die Macher featuring elections in Germany, and Wreck the Nation which satirizes the politics of the United States under the George W. Bush administration.

After enjoying years as a play-by-mail game, Diplomacy was one of the first games to move to take advantage of email, and continued to be a popular email game into the 2000s.

As computers became more sophisticated, games in this genre moved beyond email to more complex simulations. For most users in Europe, the first well known politics game was Dictator [ru], released in 1983 by DK'Tronics and running on Sinclair's ZX Spectrum. One of the earliest titles in this genre was Balance of Power, designed by Chris Crawford and published in 1985. This game features conflict at the height of the Cold War, using political and policy decisions to shape outcomes rather than warfare. In Balance of Power, any armed conflict between the player and the opponent superpower results in a nuclear war, which is considered a loss condition.^{[citation needed]}

Other Cold War era games included Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator created by Virgin Interactive, Spectrum Holobyte's Crisis in the Kremlin and Hidden Agenda.^{[citation needed]}

Conflict simulated a hypothetical situation in 1997 in which the player assumes the role of the Israeli Prime Minister and is obligated to employ various diplomatic and covert directives to defeat its rival nations. Surrounded by hostile nations, the player is restrained by a very limited military force and thereby encouraged to employ peaceful means to remain in power until he acquired more advanced weapons systems and power.

In Crisis in the Kremlin, the user could play as the protege of any of the following Soviet politicians: Mikhail Gorbachev of the reformist faction; Yegor Ligachev, leader of the hard-line faction; and Boris Yeltsin, who was the prevalent figure of the nationalist faction. The player could use the simulation to test certain strategies to lead the failing Soviet Union into a new era of prosperity or force its dissolution and integration into the new world order. This game introduced the concept of budget management, citizen and faction satisfaction as well as multiple economic values and political spectrum.

In Hidden Agenda the user takes the role of the president of Chimerica, a post-revolutionary Central American country, trying to juggle international relations and the needs of the country's citizens.^{[citation needed]}