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.

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.

Our target release date is June 17, 2008 -- give or take a few days based on retail needs.

Below is our tentative schedule:

Beta 1: April 24. All users who pre-order the game will be given access to it.

Beta 2: May 8. All users who pre-order the game will be given access to it.

Release: June 17th-ish.

Stay tuned!

GameSpy has taken a sneak peek at the upcoming version of The Political Machine.

Check it out here:

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-political-machine-2008/

Welcome to the brand-new Political Machine 2008 website!

Have fun!