Sorry for not announcing this sooner, we released the newest Twilight beta and then I had to leave on a business trip.  Beta 6A is the first GalCiv II: Twilight of the Arnor beta to have a significant update to the computer AI along with some new balancing in it.  We're in the home stretch.

Here is the official plan for the rest of the beta:

April 10: Beta 6B

April 23: Release

We're pretty much feature complete. The rest of the time will be spent integrating player feedback into balancing (which means more techs, planetary improvements, etc), more AI updates, and integrating a lot of the new content we've been holding back on.

You'll want to keep an eye on the journals area as that will be where we'll be talking about things we're adding as we add them.

The full change log can be found here.

This week I'm out on the west coast on business. While staying in Redmond, I was able to hang out with Blair and Craig from Ironclad (Sins of a Solar Empire) since they're in the Vancouver area.  People on the outside probably don't realize how unique the Stardock / Ironclad relationship is in the game industry. When it comes to Sins, we might as well be a single team.

While I can't speak to exactly why our partnership has worked out so well, I can say that I think one reason is that we're zealots. That is, we are "true believers". Our mutual cause was to make sure Sins of a Solar Empire was a big success and all other considerations were cast aside.  If Ironclad needed anything from us, they had it. And vice versa.  And over time, it's grown beyond that. The experience has been so positive that now we can look at coordinating future releases together (both ours and theirs) as if we were one big company -- except that we're still independent companies. That is, by putting mutual success first, we end up with the benefits of a "bigger" company without any of the negatives.

We could or should probably write some sort of guide on the way our publishing system works and how it is different from the traditional system.  For example, typically, a game studio gets a huge advance on a game -- enough to pay for its development -- and then after release, the developer rarely sees anything beyond the advance.  But with ours, there's a smaller advance but a higher royalty.  As a result, Ironclad will see income from Sins of a Solar Empire for many years to come.

Consider the ramifications of that.  When game developers are able to see their games as revenue generating assets -- ones that generate a steady stream of income -- there's a lot more incentive to keep doing cool stuff.  As most people know, Sins of a Solar Empire is a very solid game. And yet, we've already released 2 free updates plus the third and fourth are in the works that add new features, graphics, etc.

The whole system is also just far more efficient.  Whether it be marketing or testing or design work, the fact that it's effectively one big team greatly increases what can be done and at a lower cost.  There is no single point of contact between companies. Emails and IMs go far and wide within both.  Until other publishers pick up on this, I think we have a major advantage in being able to produce really good games at a much lower price that generate a lot of money for the companies and give players a much better experience.

Forgive my typos, I've got a pretty bad cold.

Want to try out the latest beta preview of Impulse?

You can get it here:

http://storage.stardock.com/files/Impulse_setup.exe

FAQ:

1. What is Impulse?  Impulse is Stardock's successor to Stardock Central. It is designed to merge all of Stardock's various digital networks into a single platform (TotalGaming.net, WinCustomize.com, and Object Desktop.net).  With it, users can buy, download and update a wide variety of software.
2. Will Impulse replace Stardock Central? Eventually. But we expect to keep both going for a long time so that fans of Stardock Central don't feel pushed to get Impulse.
3. What will be on Impulse? Eventually, everything. Right now, it's mostly Stardock titles and a handful of indie games. With Impulse, we are opening it up to all publishers of all venues - games, utilities, applications. On the games side, we expect parity with Steam and Direct2Drive by the end of 2008. On the non-game side, we hope to have most major utilities and a number of major applications available on it.
4. Does Impulse have DRM? Impulse does not use DRM as it's traditionally thought of. It uses a technology called SSD (Secure Software Delivery) which ensures that the content is transferred to the user in secure form.  Users are able to install their games onto multiple machines using their accounts within reason (the system does evaluate geographic locations of multiple installs and a number of other metrics to flag possible "warez" accounts). Stardock is also working on a new technology tentatively called Secure Virtual Machines (SVM). More information on SVMs will be released later.  Overall, Impulse is largely invisible to users. They do not need an Internet connection to play games, they can re-download the full retail game from it even if they purchased it elsewhere, and there is no "phoning home" during the launch of games.

This preview is designed to test out usability as well as find bugs prior to release that may have slipped past us.  We have an extensive feature set prepared for Impulse that will be delivered over the coming months.  We are still getting the final kinks out, however and the Impulse Store and Website are being overhauled from what is in the beta.

PLYMOUTH, MI - March 26, 2008 - Do you have what it takes to be the president? Today Stardock Entertainment announced The Political Machine 2008, a new PC game that puts players in control of the 2008 presidential campaign. Play as the campaign manager for a host of candidates including Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, historical candidates or design one from scratch.

Players then choose their campaign battlegrounds and are off on the campaign trail to face a host of challenges including fundraising, talk show appearances, hiring spin doctors and winning endorsements. The game is won on Election Day by the player who gets the necessary electoral votes to become President.

The Political Machine 2008 is developed and published by Stardock Entertainment. The game uses a brand-new 3D engine designed to give the candidates a unique look (all candidates are presented as "bobble heads"). The 2004 edition of the game was a tremendous success. Using actual demographic data, the game accurately predicted the 2004 election months in advance. In June of 2004, Stardock's CEO and Lead Designer Brad Wardell said that The Political Machine predicted that Ohio - not Florida - would be the key state and that whoever won that state would win the Presidency.

"This is the ultimate game for political junkies and a really fun way for anyone to learn about the election process," said Wardell. "Once you put yourself in the campaign manager's shoes, you really get to see how each campaign tactic ultimately affects the outcome of the vote. The whole point is to be fun but part of that means being reasonably accurate."

Real-world scenarios are mirrored in the game. Players can choose what TV shows to be a guest on and will face tough questions from the hosts of shows like Colvert Report and the O'Malley Factor. In addition, players can choose to play out different historical scenarios as well as fantasy scenarios taking place in the future.

"Political junkies will appreciate many of the political consultants and strategies employed in the game such as the use of smear merchants, spin doctors, intimidators, cheer leaders, movie stars, etc.," continued Wardell. "Strategy gamers will appreciate the balanced game mechanics that allow players to research new campaign tactics that even novice political observers can see from the current election."

The Political Machine is both a single and a multiplayer game - players can either compete against the computer or against others online on www.politicalmachine.com. The website also provides an ideologically neutral location for users to discuss the current election.

The game will be released at retail in this upcoming June for $19.95. It requires Windows XP or Windows Vista to run. For more information about Stardock please visit www.stardock.com.

Screenshots:

Stardock is pleased to announce The Political Machine 2008. Developed by the same team (literally) that made Galactic Civilizations II, The Political Machine 2008 puts the player in the role of campaign manager for a Presidential Candidate.

Players choose a candidate they want to run for President or can design their own from scratch. They then pick a scenario (current day USA, future world, Civil War USA, Drengi, or other scenarios) and then begin their quest to be elected President.

Candidates have many tools at their disposal including smear merchants, spin doctors, intimidators, and more all while attempting to raise money, appear on TV, take out advertisements, and more.

The candidate creation system allows players to design how their candidates look completely. For added realism, all candidates are bobble-heads.

Players can pre-order can join the upcoming public beta. The final game will be $19.95 and available at most retail outlets.

For GalCiv Players: The Political Machine makes use of the all-new 3D engine being developed for Stardock's forthcoming fantasy strategy game. It's a 3D engine that supports advanced lighting, advanced bump mapping, but also runs on low end laptops.

Visit: www.politicalmachine.com

Screenshots:

About Stardock:

Stardock is a leading PC game developer and publisher. Its last two PC games, Sins of a Solar Empire and Galactic Civilizations were both critical and commercial successes.  It is also the world's leading desktop enhancement software developer with such products as Object Desktop, WindowBlinds, MyColors and much more. Its home page is www.stardock.com.

Stardock is pleased to announce The Political Machine 2008. Developed by the same team (literally) that made Galactic Civilizations II, The Political Machine 2008 puts the player in the role of campaign manager for a Presidential Candidate.

Players choose a candidate they want to run for President or can design their own from scratch. They then pick a scenario (current day USA, future world, Civil War USA, Drengi, or other scenarios) and then begin their quest to be elected President.

Candidates have many tools at their disposal including smear merchants, spin doctors, intimidators, and more all while attempting to raise money, appear on TV, take out advertisements, and more.

The candidate creation system allows players to design how their candidates look completely. For added realism, all candidates are bobble-heads.

Players can pre-order can join the upcoming public beta. The final game will be $19.95 and available at most retail outlets.

Visit: www.politicalmachine.com

Screenshots:

About Stardock:

Stardock is a leading PC game developer and publisher. Its last two PC games, Sins of a Solar Empire and Galactic Civilizations were both critical and commercial successes.  It is also the world's leading desktop enhancement software developer with such products as Object Desktop, WindowBlinds, MyColors and much more. Its home page is www.stardock.com.

Stardock is pleased to announce The Political Machine 2008. Developed by the same team (literally) that made Galactic Civilizations II, The Political Machine 2008 puts the player in the role of campaign manager for a Presidential Candidate.

Players choose a candidate they want to run for President or can design their own from scratch. They then pick a scenario (current day USA, future world, Civil War USA, Drengi, or other scenarios) and then begin their quest to be elected President.

Candidates have many tools at their disposal including smear merchants, spin doctors, intimidators, and more all while attempting to raise money, appear on TV, take out advertisements, and more.

The candidate creation system allows players to design how their candidates look completely. For added realism, all candidates are bobble-heads.

Players can pre-order can join the upcoming public beta. The final game will be $19.95 and available at most retail outlets.

For WinCustomize users, all of the UI for the game was built using DesktopX 3.5. The game reads .dxpacks from the game directory and displays them on-screen allowing skinners to be game desginers too.

Visit: www.politicalmachine.com

Screenshots:

About Stardock:

Stardock is a leading PC game developer and publisher. Its last two PC games, Sins of a Solar Empire and Galactic Civilizations were both critical and commercial successes.  It is also the world's leading desktop enhancement software developer with such products as Object Desktop, WindowBlinds, MyColors and much more. Its home page is www.stardock.com.

One of the most frustrating parts of the GalCiv AI for me has been the planetary improvements.  It is the single biggest piece of the code I didn't write and to be honest, my C++ skills are relatively basic. I'm an algorithm guy, not a particularly good coder. The result is, I've always had a hard time working on the improvement code because it's hard for me to understand (it was implemented as a quasi-SQL database as opposed to say a linked list or an array).

So anyway, while playing this weekend, I finally came to understand the single biggest problem with the computer AI with planetary improvements: It doesn't check to see if it is already building a super project or achievement on one of its other planets.

This is a pretty big deal because what will happen is that if it wants to build an economic capital, odds are, quite a few planets may have the same idea. But when the other planets try to put that into the queue, it gets rejected (without the AI knowing it).  As a result, during that entire time, the AI is building nothing.  So players would come across AI planets with hardly anything built.

Now, this doesn't stop the other pet peeve - the AI building stupid things on a planet (like 10 morale buildings or something).That, I still haven't figured out but I'm working on it.

As some of you know, 1.04 has been split into two updates in order to get an update out sooner that has taken recent feedback from players and evaluated what changes should be made.

Here is a preview of what we have:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sins of a Solar Empire v1.04 Changelist
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gameplay / Balance:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Market value changes:
 -Ratio of buy/sell is now 2:1 instead of 3:1.
 -Min price now 200 instead of 80.
 -Boom/crashes now last ~twice as long.

-Multiple instances of the Embargo planet debuff from the same player no longer stack.

- Capital ships
 -All non-Colony capital ship top speeds increased from 500 to 525.
 -All Colony capital ship top speeds increased from 400 to 475.

- Siege Frigates:
 -Build costs decreased by ~15%.

- Javelis, Illuminator, Assailant:
 -Linear acceleration decreased from 200 to 150.
 -Top speed decreased from 800 to 500.
 -Range decreased from 130% to 115% of 1.02 ranges.

- Illuminator:
 -Hull points increased from 520 to 620.
 -Shield points increased from 450 to 550.
 -Attack type changed from CAPITALSHIP to ANTIMEDIUM.
 -Front bank damage increased from 33.8 to 65.
 -Side banks damage decreased from 33.8 to 26.

- Defense Vessel:
 -Reduced cooldown by 45%, damage reduced proportionally to maintain DPS.
 -Fleet supply increased from 3 to 4.
 -Now properly benefits from Advent laser research topics.

-Attack types
 -AntiVeryLight chance to hit bombers decreased from 85% to 75%.
 -AntiVeryLight damage vs Light armor decreased from 100% to 75%.

-Map Balance of Power fixed to have less Heavies and populated desert worlds.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graphics:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sound / Music:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
AI:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Fixed minor bug in Unfair AI not behaving quite correctly.
-Fix bug where AI would retreat from his homeworld or last planet.
-AI is likely to gang up on the leading player in Easy or Normal.
-Misc tweaks.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Networking / Multiplayer:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Fixed minor bug in ico-join game screen where fleet size display was incorrect.
-Improved in-game chat text entry:
 -Escape no longer clears the chat buffer when closing the window.
 -Sending whispers is remembered (don't have to retype the whisper when sending again).
 -Sending to allies is remembered (don't have to retype /a when sending again).
-Chat string and colors changed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
UserInterface / HUD:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Fix map names for Backstab and Balance of power.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Modding:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Entity name lookup is now case insensitve.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Misc:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Fix for saved games not respecting custom game options.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
End
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, bear in mind, this isn't the end-all be all update. The goal is to get something out, possibly this week and then do more later.

For single player games, the main change is in the computer AI not being quite so nasty at easy levels but being tougher at harder levels.

Most of the rest will affect multiplayer where unit balance between the 3 races is more sensitive.

Here are some screen shots of our current internal build of The Political Machine...

Players can visually design every aspect of their candidate. The candidates in the game aren't "modeled". We just provide the pieces and the rest goes from there.  All candidates are bobble-headed in order to make them more like real-life politicians.

You can go on cable TV shows and answer the tough questions which can affect your standing.

You're not just a player, you're a voter. The candidates will always look at you if they can because they genuinely love you...

 
Just a reminder, these candidates were used with the included candidate maker. You're not limited to what we come up with.