Shipping weight is 1.5 pounds. So we can reduce the shipping costs! yay!

This Friday we're going to have an IRC chat on irc.stardock.com in the #sins channel.  If you have Stardock Central, you can use the chat option in there and then type /join #sins to go in there. Otherwise, any other IRC client should have no problem connecting.

In there you'll be able to find out things like:

• How the super-smart unit AI lets players send multiple fleets to accomplish multiple objectives at once without being bogged down by micro-management.
• How the game's graphics engine is flexible enough so that you can play it on older machines while having stellar graphics if you have the latest.
• How much the game's changed from the betas (for those of you who were in the beta).
• Answers regarding digital distribution, or the shipping costs.
• Answers regarding strategy and game mechanics.
• Answers about how you can create an epic single player experience against up to 9 computer opponents at once (or teams or however you want to do it).
• Answers about multiplayer and how you can resume multiplayer games from an auto save or save and resume yourself later.
• And anything else you come up with.

And here's a quickie movie we put together to show the smoothness of scale (recorded on my ThinkPad laptop - hardly a monster machine -- be sure to look closely at all the debris as the beginning starts after a major battle).

That's all this Friday at 8pm EST on irc.stardock.com in #sins (there's usually people there 24/7 normally). Hope to see you there!

Plymouth MI - Stardock announced today that it will be developing The Political Machine 2008, a PC strategy game that lets gamers take a shot at running for President.

The game allows players to design a candidate or choose a pre-existing one and campaign across the country against either a human opponent or a computer controlled opponent.  Candidates have many resources available at their disposal to both build themselves up and tear their opponent down including speeches, advertising, appearing on cable TV shows, hiring spin doctors, smear merchants, win key endorsements and more on their way to the white house.

The Political Machine 2008 will be available at most retail outlets starting mid June for $19.95. Its home page is www.politicalmachine.com.

Check out this preview at GameSpy for more information.

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Stardock Entertainment is a leading developer and publisher of PC strategy games. Its games include Galactic Civilizations, Sins of a Solar Empire, The Corporate Machine, and The Political Machine. Its home page is www.stardock.com.

In 2004, Stardock released The Political Machine. In it, players picked a candidate and ran for President of the United States. Players could compete against either human controlled opponents over a LAN or via the Internet or against computer opponents controlled by Stardock's notorious computer AI.

For 2008, Stardock has gone back and re-envisioned how the game should would.  Using an all-new 3D engine, players can now design their own opponents (bobble-heads) and compete not just in the United States but in different scenarios including an Earth scenario, Civil War scenario, and others. 

There will be a beta this Spring.  The home page is www.politicalmachine.com (which is going to get an overhaul this Spring as well).

The latest free skin from Stardock Design arrives for WindowBlinds 6.

Aura was a WindowBlinds skin originally created for WindowBlinds 5 on Windows XP awhile back. It was actually one of the first skins that Stardock itself actually was involved in the design.

Until recently, Stardock focused strictly on the software. It made WindowBlinds and left it to skin authors to make skins.  The the feature set of WindowBlinds became more rich, it became increasingly difficult for skin authors to make full use of all the new features.

Moreover, Stardock wanted to start providing skins that showcased what the program could do as well as start to highlight Stardock's own background as a GUI designer (Stardock helped develop the OS/2 Warp 4 desktop experience for IBM in 1995). To that end, a new team was created called Stardock Design. Bringing together top skinners and combining them with Stardock's own design experiences, skins would be made that would demonstrate what the company could make.

Download: Aura

Sins of a Solar Empire has gone gold!

Everything is already manufactured other than the CDs which are now being manufactured and shipped.

For more details visit: Sins goes gold discussion!

After more than a couple of years of work, Sins of a Solar Empire has gone gold. What an incredible journey it's been.  For the past year, Stardock, the developers of Galactic Civilizations and Ironclad, a new company made up of developers who worked on Homeworld: Cataclysm have been working together to try to create a 4X RTS. 

Stardock and Ironclad pushed the release date back a few times to ensure that there was plenty of time to incorporate the features they wanted in as well as time to implement feedback from the public beta.  The final result, the team feels, speaks for itself.

Below are some pictures from the last data of testing...

 
The boxes and hot key card

Inside of the box with Ironclad's fantastic artwork

Stardock's "wall of synergy" covered with concept art for next major 4X game...

Start-up gadget

Bombing a planet

 
Zoomed in...

Now zooming out a bit...

Bit more...

Still more...

Zoomed out further

And further...

And further...

Still further...

And finally with multiple stars...feeling epic?

Sins of a Solar Empire will be available at retail next week.  Pre-orders will be activated Monday, February 4 in the evening EST. Regardless of where you purchase the game, you will be able to re-download the entire game via Stardock Central.

But Stardock Central is not long for this world. A new creation is coming...

Visit: www.sinsofasolarempire.com

After more than a couple of years of work, Sins of a Solar Empire has gone gold. What an incredible journey it's been.  For the past year, Stardock, the developers of Galactic Civilizations and Ironclad, a new company made up of developers who worked on Homeworld: Cataclysm have been working together to try to create a 4X RTS. 

Stardock and Ironclad pushed the release date back a few times to ensure that there was plenty of time to incorporate the features they wanted in as well as time to implement feedback from the public beta.  The final result, the team feels, speaks for itself.

Below are some pictures from the last data of testing...

 
The boxes and hot key card

Inside of the box with Ironclad's fantastic artwork

Stardock's "wall of synergy" covered with concept art for next major 4X game...

Start-up gadget

Bombing a planet

 
Zoomed in...

Now zooming out a bit...

Bit more...

Still more...

Zoomed out further

And further...

And further...

Still further...

And finally with multiple stars...feeling epic?

Sins of a Solar Empire will be available at retail next week.  Pre-orders will be activated Monday, February 4 in the evening EST. Regardless of where you purchase the game, you will be able to re-download the entire game via Stardock Central.

But Stardock Central is not long for this world. A new creation is coming...

Visit: www.sinsofasolarempire.com