Hard to believe there are only 6 weeks until election day! With a new slew of issues on everyone's minds, we thought it would be a good week to make some additions to bring the state of the game in line with the state of the race.

New Issues

• National Mask Mandate: Should the federal government or regional authorities be in charge of determining the laws of mask wearing during a pandemic?
  
  
• Additional Stimulus Checks: Do you support sending citizens a second stimulus check and risk a ballooning deficit, or does the rebounding stock market mean the economy is doing fine as-is?
  
  
• Defunding the Police: Protesters have called for the dismantling and defunding of Law Enforcement, but opposition points to National Rioting as the exact reason we need that Law Enforcement.
  
  
• Prosecuting Rioters: To protest is American, but what happens when those protests turn ugly?
  
  

Updated Issues

• #BlackLivesMatter: After the death of George Floyd, national protests thrust the #BlackLivesMatter movement back into the spotlight.
  
  
• Filling Supreme Court Vacancy: The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg last weekend has flipped the 2016 script, with Republicans looking to fill the vacancy during an election year, and Democrats looking to prevent it.

Happy campaigning - it's coming down to the wire!

Stardock's Publisher Sale is here with over
70% off* on our most popular titles!

STEAM KEYS ARE PROVIDED WITH PURCHASE

Star Control: Origins
$29.99 Now $13.49 - 55% Off

Galactic Civilizations III
(Includes FREE: Crusade and Retribution Expansions, Mega Events DLC)
$39.99 Now $13.59 - 66% Off

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation
$29.99 Now $13.49 - 55% Off

Offworld Trading Company
(Includes FREE: Jupiter's Forge Expansion and Almanac DLC)
$29.99 Now $13.49 - 55% Off

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
$39.99 Now $13.19 - 67% Off

Siege of Centauri
$14.99 Now $9.74 - 35% Off

Newly Released:

The Political Machine 2020
$14.99 Now $13.49
Win the hearts and minds of America’s voters and take the 2020 presidential election by storm in Stardock’s popular political strategy game. Choose a candidate and run against a computer opponent or a candidate controlled by another person over the Internet.

Game Bundles:

Galactic Civilizations III: Ultimate
$136.84 Now $39.43 - 71% Off

Offworld Trading Company: Ultimate
$94.88 Now $39.45 - 58% Off

Ashes of the Singularity:
Escalation Ultimate
$84.89 Now $29.89 - 65% Off

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion Ultimate
$69.99 Now $24.49 - 65% Off

Stardock Legends Pack
$39.99 Now $35.99 - 10% Off

Fallen Enchantress: Ultimate
$42.93 Now $19.94 - 54% Off

Classic Games:

GalCiv II: Ultimate
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Demigod
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Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity
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Legendary Heroes
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The Corporate Machine
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Dead Man's Draw
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GalCiv I: Ultimate
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Popular Expansions/DLC:

GalCiv III: Intrigue
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Star Control: Origins - Earth Rising
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Offworld Trading Company: Jupiter's Forge
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GalCiv III: Crusade
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GalCiv III: Mercenaries
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Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion - Minor Factions
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Galactic Civilizations III - Mega Events
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Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion - Outlaw Sectors
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Galactic Civilizations III - Heroes of Star Control: Origins
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Galactic Civilizations III - Villains of Star Control: Origins
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Offworld Trading Company - Market Corrections
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The Political Machine 2020: Founding Fathers
$4.99 Now $4.49 - 10% Off

 

Stardock Software:

Fences
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Start10
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Multiplicity
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Groupy
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Curtains
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CursorFX
$4.99 Now $4.49

SoundPackager 10
$4.99 Now $4.49

*Sale ends 9.29.20 at 1PM ET. 

The Political Machine has always been a game that gets users excited for the upcoming election. It also allows users to make the calls they wish our politicians would make... here are a couple of high viewed, interesting videos from the community.

*The views and opinions expressed in these videos are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of Stardock. Any content provided by bloggers or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.

New Patch

This month we have been at work on some re-balancing, graphical improvements, and minor bug fixes in the v2.93 patch for Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation. This patch is still a work in progress and we are keeping it in the oven until we think it is ready.

The Patch notes (not exhaustive of all changes) can be found here when we update the opt-in: https://forums.ashesofthesingularity.com/500042

Our regular community games often include having this opt-in enabled so we can test out some of the new changes and ensure it is not causing unforeseen issues for players.

Fan Art

We got some amazing fan-art from Lord Raven on the Ashes discord server.

Also available to share via our twitter: https://twitter.com/ashesgame/status/1294183391924031493

The Wiki

Finally we have begun work on updating the Ashes wiki. It is still early on as we figure out how we want the layout and presentation to work. Expect updated stats, lore and more as we work on it in the coming weeks!

Time: 22^nd August, 1600 UTC / 12 PM (1200) EST

Lobby Name: Cosmic Chaos

Slots: 6-10

Type: PVP / PVE

This weekend we are playing some simple, plain, unmodded Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. Our games will be started at the listed time, but will open the lobby a few minutes before start.

We will aim to do a team PVP game running for roughly 2-3 hours at accelerated speeds.

Please be in voice chat on the Sins of a Solar Empire official discord server. The specific channel in discord will be linked when we are ready for players to join.

Stream

Get Ready, Pundits!
The Founding Fathers DLC & HUGE Update Have Arrived

Battle for your spot in the White House against the founding fathers of America! In the new Founding Fathers DLC, you'll play as political heavyweights like George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and more. Do you have what it takes to go down in history?

Get the DLC Now: From Steam | From Stardock

DLC FEATURES

New Candidates 
None of the founding fathers could predict where the world would be some 200 years later, but some of their ideals are still applicable anyway! All of the new candidates’ ideologies have been adjusted to tackle current real-world issues. The founding fathers included in the DLC are:

• George Washington
• Thomas Jefferson
• Alexander Hamilton
• James Madison
• John Adams

New Ideology Tree - Democratic Republican 
States’ rights and a way to keep the national government in check were the cornerstones of the Democratic Republican party’s ideals. Founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison will take on real-world 2020 issues like lower taxes, Wall Street regulation, liberty, and much more!

New Ideology Tree - Federalist 
A strong government and a powerful executive branch were the basis of every Federalists’ belief system. Founding fathers Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, and John Adams bring their beliefs into 2020 by fighting for things like free market capitalism, taxing the rich, subsidizing domestic industry, and much more!

New Customization Parts
Race for the White House in style! New customization parts from hairstyles to clothing choices give you more options when creating your own candidates.

v1.3 UPDATE FEATURES

In addition to the DLC, we're releasing the FREE v1.3 update today! v1.3 introduces a couple of new candidates and is packed with new features and game improvements that will spice up your campaign and get your voters fired up for the big election.

New Candidates
The 42nd President of the United States is the first new candidate to grace the election trail: say hello to Bill Clinton. He is joined by Sarah Palin, the 2008 vice presidential nominee from Alaska. They're both ready to fight to earn their seat in the White House!

Candidate Workshop
You've been asking to be able to upload your custom candidates to Steam, and now you can thanks to the Candidate Workshop. With just a few clicks, you can share your custom creations to the Steam Workshop - we can't wait to see all the presidential contenders that you come up with!

Dynamic Map
The electoral map is the ultimate source of information for you when you're playing, showing you which states you have a lock on, which states are battlegrounds, and which states your opponent is taking. Thanks to the new animated Dynamic Map system, you'll be able to get all of that information at just a glance. Now, states will bounce, flash, and visually inform you when a choice you've made results in a change.

Campaign Events
In order to give you more agency, we've changed the randomized campaign events system. Now, when you see a state with a bouncing yellow "?", you can visit there and receive a message from someone wanting to help your campaign. You can use these opportunities to earn more money, ideology points, political operatives, and more!

Fixer Notifications
In all the flurry of activity on the campaign trail, sometimes it can be easy to miss things like when someone takes out an operative who's been working for you. Now, when a fixer takes out an operative, you'll see a big newspaper headline letting you know.

To learn more about what's in v1.3, visit developer Scott's change log post here.

The Political Machine 2020: Founding Fathers DLC
is now available on Steam or Stardock for $4.99

Get the base game on Steam  |  Get the base game on Stardock

Changelog for what I'm working on for Ashes v2.0:

Structure Changes

• Quantum Archive radioactive cost increased from 300 to 400
• Quantum Relay radioactive cost increased from 300 to 400
• PHC Refinery radioactive cost increased from 300 to 600, time increased from 90 to 120.  This was done to decrease early game use of it.

• Mobile Nullifier radoactive cost increased from 500 to 700
• Nemesis (PHC sniper) radioactive cost increased from 100 to 200
• Hades HP increased from 1200 to 1400
• Hades radioactive cost increased from 180 to 240
• Harvester radioactive cost increased from 280 to 512 for same reason that the PHC refinery cost was increased. It is not intended as an early game unit.

• Buildings given an armor value of 4 to encourage players to choose building destroying units that can only target structures.  For example, a unit that does 5 damage per shot will have 4 of it absorbed by armor with only 1 point doing damage.  However, a weapon that have armor piercing will bypass this.

John McCain and Barack Obama
have entered the race!

Greetings from The Political Machine Development Bunker.  While Shelter-In-Place rules have us working from home, that hasn't stopped the updates from flowing! Today we released v1.2, with two new highly-requested candidates - each with their own unique Ideology Tree - and several quality of life improvements that should make fans pretty happy.

Read on to see what changes we've brought with the update!

NEW CANDIDATES

A blast from the Political Past, players can now recreate that epic 2008 campaign between the fresh faced Obama and the war-hardened Senator McCain. Each candidate has their own hand-crafted 3D assets, along with the custom Ideology Trees "Hope and Change" and the "Straight Talk Express".

INFINITE POINTS MODE

OK guys, we finally bit the bullet. When creating your custom candidate, you can now toggle an 'Infinite Mode' where you can spend as many stat points as you want.

Fair warning - any candidate that goes over the allocated points will not be available to play in Multiplayer mode, but it certainly will provide some fun local fantasy match ups.

IMPROVED NEWS TICKER

In mid to late game, we've always had the problem of notifying players when important changes happen on the map. There may be several battleground states that flip but go unnoticed for several turns.

To combat this, we're feeding Battleground info into the News Ticker, where you'll get color-coordinated ticker items as Battleground states pop-up or are claimed by either candidate.

A subtle but important tool for strategists looking for victory in specific states.

AUTOSAVES

One of the big changes to the 2020 version was, by default, bringing the turn count down to 21 weeks. We preferred gameplay sessions at the quicker pace, but certainly understand those players that want a long, serious, 41 week throw-down. To help ensure players of those longer games always have a fresh save ready we've hooked up Autosaves!

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

After this update, it's full steam ahead to the 4th of July, when we're going to have some BIG new announcements relating to The Political Machine! In the meantime, have fun with the new candidates and keep the gameplay requests coming!

The Political Machine 2020 is available on Steam or through Stardock.
www.politicalmachine.com

Ironclad Games and Stardock are happy to announce the release of v1.95 for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion today. This is a minor update with the following changes:

Change Log:

• Fixed accidental double damage on weapon defense structures and hangar defense structures.
  
  
• AI squad owners (e.g., hangar defense, carriers, etc.) now autodock their squadrons when there are no enemy units in the gravity well.
  
  
• Fixed Pacifist Society planet bonuses on PlanetBarren and PlanetBarrenFair.

Galactic Civilizations III 5th Anniversary Update
and Worlds in Crisis DLC are Now Available
Experience new world crises, planet types and traits, plus visual and balance improvements with v4.0

Every world has a story, and it’s up to you to decide how it ends. 

In Worlds in Crisis, you will encounter a host of new world events with ideological choices that you will have to resolve. Several new planet types and over a dozen new planet features also await you, breathing new life into the game for old-time Galactic Civilizations players while offering exciting options for people picking up the game for the first time.

The free v4.0 update adds huge performance increases and makes vast visual improvements to the game’s planets, both on the surface and from orbit. Thanks to the numerous feedback we've received from fans, a lengthy list of balance and AI improvements are also in v4.0. To see what's new, check out the complete changelog for the update at the bottom of the post!

Worlds in Crisis Features

New Planetary Crises

Ruling a galaxy is tough work, full of perilous and precarious decisions that must be made on a regular basis. As you explore and expand, you may encounter worlds struggling with crises from planetary mutations, to raging pandemics, to murderers on the loose, and much more. 

Some of the troubles you might encounter are:

• Native intelligent primates - We’re not monkeying around here. A newly terraformed continent reveals quite a surprise.
• Mad Governor - Just what is going on here? Mass hallucinations, city-wide parties, and people disappearing off the streets make for an unusual adventure.
• Notorious Smugglers - Will this smuggler have a change of heart, or go back to his old ways? That’s entirely up to you.
• And more! - A host of new choices await you. Will you handle them benevolently, pragmatically, or malevolently?

New Planet Types

Explore worlds sterilized by mad scientists, landscapes littered with ancient battlefields, and tranquil planets overflowing with milk, honey - and whatever that blue stuff is that the Altarians drink.

• Sterile World: This planet isn’t meant for housing life, but it’s perfect for running certain “controlled” experiments… 
• Fertile World: Abundant with life and foliage, it’s the perfect planet for feeding an entire empire.
• Tranquil World: Beautiful and serene, this place is just waiting to  be overrun by retirees.
• Volcanic World: Abundant power is nice, but boy do the earthquakes get old.
• Fissured World: Deep and abundant fissures may hide secrets within the planet’s core. Dive deep and uncover them.  
• Bombarded World: Boiling calderas and abundant geothermal energy are all that remain here after the Precursors’ ancient wars.

New Planet Features

New islands, continents, and landmasses leave you with more options as you explore and colonize planets. You’ll enjoy beautiful shorelines, vibrant color, and careful detail on each planet that you visit. There are also several new worlds to explore which offer new and exciting bonuses for those brave enough to colonize them.

Some of the new planet features you’ll find in Worlds in Crisis are:  

• Volcanic Rifts: If you can’t handle the heat, then get off the planet! Mine below the surface to extract heat to use in power production. 
• Thriving Reef: Dive into a world of abundant reefs and wide oceans. Truly a magical sight to behold.
• Floating Mountains: Mountains in the sky - well, that’s new. Studying this bizarre land feature could bolster your research.
• Permanent Rainbow: We’ve finally found the rainbow connection! The beauty of this world improves the mood of the local populace.
• Giant Mushrooms: Exploring this world should be fun...gi. These freakishly large mushrooms present a generous food source.
• Gold Fields: It’s so shiny! Fields on this world are rich with precious gold.
• And more: It’s a vast galaxy. Over a dozen other planetary types are out there, so start exploring!

Owners, the v4.0 update is ready and waiting for you in your Steam client. 
Don't forget to check out the changelog below!

v4.0 Changelog

Better Looking Worlds

• Both from the surface and from orbit, planets received a facelift (or continent lift).  We've introduced many new islands, continents, and landmasses used by the planet generation system.  We've also improved our material system to improve shorelines, add more color, and add more detail to planets.

Fixes

• Fixed various bugs that caused autoskip not to, you know, bloody auto skip!
• Fixed an issue where Prototype Hyperdrive said it needed Promethion, but it actually needed Anti-matter (it now requires Promethion correctly).
• Fixed an issue where the Thullium Hull Reinforcement required Durantium.
• Fixed an issue where the United Earth faction wasn't using the correct Map Color, UI Color or Appearance.
• Fixed an issue where some events weren't changing population correctly (thanks to Old Spider for the fix!)
• Fixed a crash when using debug commands to trigger events out of order.
• Fixed a typo in the Nanite Fabricator description.
• Fixed the Illegal Cloning event Pragmatic growth bonus.
• Fixed the Illegal Cloning event Malevolent Population bonus.
• Fixed the UP Resolution War Fine to have a duration.
• Fixed the Mowling duplicate intro screen text.
• Updated the Cultural Beacon description to state that it allows the training of celebrities.
• Fixed an issue keeping the Nanite Transmitter Complex from being buildable.
• Fixed an issue where Space Monsters might not appear on some events if you don't have Crusade installed.
• Fixed an issue where players wouldn't receive credits in trades
• Fixed a stuck turn if you continued playing after winning the game.

Balance

• Occasional planet frequency increased from 1 to 1.2
• Occasional habitable planets increased from 20 to 30
• Occasional minable planets change increased from 0.15 to 0.2
• Occasional Durantium asteroid increased from 0.2 to 0.3
• Common planet frequency increased from 1.25 to 1.5
• Common Habitable planets increased from 30 to 50
• Common Asteroids increased from 0.08 to 0.10
• Common Min asteroids in a field increased from 2 to 3
• Common Blackholes increased from 5% to 7%
• Common minable planet chance increased from 0.25 to 0.33
• Common Durantium asteroid increased from 0.3 to 0.4
• Abundant blackholes increased from 10% to 12%
• Abundant Minable planet chance increased from 0.4 to 0.6
• Abundant Durantium increased from 0.4 to 0.5
• Non-Aggression treaty minimum relation requirement reduced from 4 to 3.
• Asteroid base production reduced from 1 to 0.5
• Computer Core cost increased from 32 to 40
• Industrial Center cost increased from 30 to 40
• Colonization Center cost increased from 30 to 40
• Administrative Center now available at the start of the game
• Administrative Center admins provided increased from 1 to 2
• Administrative Center influence increased from 1 to 5
• Administrative Center now provides adjacency bonuses for Research, Manufacturing and Tourism
• Substantially more fertile tiles added to planets.
• Ministry of Alien Affairs now awards an administrator.
• Xeno Commerce tech now provides 5 trade routes (instead of 3)
• Cultural exchange increases global influence per turn by 2 (instead of 1)
• Galactic Trade now provides 5 more trade routes (instead of 2)
• Updated score system to differentiate scoring more between victory types.
• Player scores are higher so that we can have more nuance between performance in the future.

AI

• Adjusted AI players that have sufficient resources to focus more on larger ship construction.
• AI wakes up to ascension victory faster.
• AI weighs trade with target player more so when deciding who to attack.
• Reduced AI bonuses at higher difficulties.
• New AI evaluator for handling ships that have destinations.
• Civs that want to conquer the galaxy will more aggressively increase their diplomatic stance to do so.
• AI is more flexible in what weapons it will research.
• AI takes more account of what resources it has when deciding what to focus on.
• Constructor won't ask for new orders if destination is blocked.
• Assault ships will ask for new orders if destination becomes defenseless.
• AI more circumspect about attacking if the enemy fleets / planet / starbase is substantially stronger.
• Default AI difficulty lowered from Gifted to Beginner.

Performance

• Block some unneeded planet screen UI calls.
• New function created for AI movement that is more efficient on large maps.
• Improved the performance of recalculation when improvements are place.
• Blocked AI treasury evaluation checks if the AI doesn't have any money (a small improvement but it adds up).
• Optimized player calculation.
• Added a new timer threshold for updates occurring more than once per second.
• Updated AI to be able to "see" planets and asteroids if the FOW is exposed to it already rather than recalculating (just like humans). It still can't see if it's under FOW or if it's a ship that is in exposed FOW.
• Reduced the frequency at which map objects are updated.
• Optomization for systems with more than 4 logical threads.
• Game Timer added to control how often we update Human awareness level drawing.
• Removed hidden (but CPU intensive) UI calls when soaking is on.
• Disabled UI screen calc updates if soak is on.
• AI doesn't need to recalcuate its virtual UI.
• Dramatically reduced the distance before the pathfinder starts requiring way points.
• Fixed bug where passing an invalid ID would simply crash the Object Finder rather than, you know, returning a NULL pointer.
• AI players don't need to update their virtual UI for removing and adding things to their build queue.
• Citizen units when they arrive at a destination planet now set a dirty flag to recalc rather than force recalculating all stats right then and there.
• Game update threshold lowered from 30ms to 10ms for better visual fidelity.
• Made Galaxy Destruction faster (most noticeable when you go to load a save from within a game).

UI

• Fixed typos.
• Clearer description of some planetary improvements.