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Political Machine beta released

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Political Machine beta released

Let the games begin

http://www.drengin.net
from JoeUser Forums

If you have Drengin.net (www.drengin.net) you can now download the beta of The Political Machine.

The Political Machine is a strategy game in which you run for President of the United States. Its home page is www.politicalmachine.com.

Let us know what you think if you've got it here!

politics
21,377 views 56 replies
Reply #26 from JoeUser Forums Top
Darrell, once you have done the Stardock Central download, go to the software tabm and there is a little checkbox at the bottom of the page that you need to ceck to include betas.
Reply #27 from JoeUser Forums Top
The Renegade:
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #28 from JoeUser Forums Top
How about I write something before posting, eh? ;)

The Renegade:
- The Windows incombatabilities are caused with an error in the 3d Font Manager. It should be fixed within the next two builds.
- Getting the Metaverse to work isn't high on the priority list, unfourtunatly :( It'll be in later in the Beta period.

Don Bemont
- Make sure you have enough Stamina to move your candidate. Also, press 'C' to quickly select him, otherwise you have to do alot of clicking if he's surrounded by other icons. We definaly need some SFX to let the player know that they lack stamina points to move...it gets frustrating to be clicking, thinking you can move, only to realize you dont have the stamia to make the trip.

FileFrontCrash
- Glad you're enjoying it! And I hope it only gets better (mostly when it comes to stability) ;)
Reply #29 from JoeUser Forums Top
Make sure you have enough Stamina to move your candidate


When I start a new game, I hit C to highlight my candidate. My stamina is 13 out of 13. I try dragging with either my left or my right mouse to California, and nothing happens. I highlight California and double click and nothing happens. What is the mechanism supposed to be?
Reply #30 from JoeUser Forums Top
Don Bemont:
To move your candidate, select him, and then right click on the state you want him to move to. You can also Zoom in and out with the mouse weal. As well as pan the camera with the middle mouse button.
Reply #31 from JoeUser Forums Top
Thanks for the manual Brad!! I like what I see in the early goings of the game.

VES
Reply #32 from JoeUser Forums Top
Oops, sorry Don, I guess I mis-understood your problem. Mormegil is corrent, though, once your candidate is selected, user the right mouse button to select the State you want to move him to. No dragging needed! ;)
Reply #33 from JoeUser Forums Top
Didn't notice till just now that the beta had been released... Can't get it to run from my work system, getting the same 20-25 seconds of a blank screen with orange cursor followed by a CTD. Later attempts to run will crash out faster, usually 10 seconds, but still always a CTD.

System specs: IBM Thinkpad T23, 16MB S3 SuperSavage on-board graphic card, 512MB Ram, Cirrus Logic on-board sound, running WinXP w/ Directx 9.0b.

Given that it's a laptop and I'm stuck with on-board audio and video, I'm not too surprised it didn't run, but I should otherwise be fully DirectX 9 ready (tests fine and other DX9 games work okay), but my guess would be the S3 chipset is the weak link.

Hopefully will have better luck with my home system tonight, but it'd be a darn shame if I actually had to work while at work rather than play TPM...

-BiffMan
Reply #34 from JoeUser Forums Top
To add to the bug regarding little/few interviews..... I have not had any debates yet......

having fun though
Reply #35 from JoeUser Forums Top
BiffMan
We are hopeing to support down to 8megs of Video Ram, by the time we have things polished. Hopefully you will be able to run it in the next few builds.
Reply #36 from JoeUser Forums Top
Windows XP, 512 RAM, GeForce4 Ti4400 (driver 5.2.1.6), A7N8X Asus Mobo, AMD Athlon XP 2600+

Game played on cakewalk level

ProblemsAs far as I can see, the game make me (Kerry) the incumbent even when I try to correct this before beginning.

Highlighting of issues for for speeches, ads is problematic -- the blue highlight can easily end up covering two issues

After building up political capital, the main screen does not update loss of stamina

No interviews, debates, special events

Major graphical slowdowns, especially evident when clicking states and the cancel button

General comments
As others have observed, I don't feel like I am playing against anyone. There is no sense that I need to respond to my opponents' strategies, that he's killing me on some issue, etc.

The way the game is set up, everything really revolves around money. But so far, I haven't seen anythning interesting about seeking contributions. It appears that you just go to the rich states and hold fundraisers. Maybe I missed something on the cakewalk level, but that seems pretty dry. It would seem that taking certain stands makes fundraising a lot easier (or more difficult) with certain groups.

Again, maybe this is because of the easy level, but issues don't feel fleshed out. Being pro-environment and pro-jobs is all it seems to take. These easy cmpaign stands work on everyone, and there is no downside.
Reply #37 from JoeUser Forums Top
I put a preliminary review on my weblog:


http://www.tgr.com/weblog/archives/000059.html

Reply #38 from JoeUser Forums Top
Ran fine on the home system at least and played a full game without a hitch. Good news about supporting lower end/older video cards... would be a shame to have to be productive at work!
Reply #39 from JoeUser Forums Top

peterb: Thanks for the review.

Now..as for being a "right wing kook" I don't think I have any opinions that are significantly out of phase with the majority of Americans on any major issue.

I'm pro-choice, fairly secular, and anti-prayer in school for example.  My "right wing" that you see probably come in the form of articles which I write with the explicit intention of getting people to respond to.  Most of my views are fairly middle of the road but no one wants to read moderate articles.

Reply #40 from JoeUser Forums Top

Moving a unit:

Left click on your unit. Right click on the destination.

Reply #42 from JoeUser Forums Top
Also, is there a "proper forum" to go to report bugs?
Reply #43 from JoeUser Forums Top
I played a "normal" difficulty game, and found this much more challenging.

Assuming you are looking for feedback, here goes:

1) I am troubled by speeches and ads claiming that "my opponent opposes ______." Does anything affect how well this works? Does the opponent's lack of statements on the subject, for example, leave him vulnerable?

2) Related to this, in my view, what is really needed to flesh out this entire part of the game would be if candidates came with a "record" ranging from clear past actions on one side of the issue, to past statements, to unknown... In the best of all worlds, there would even be a "self contradictory past" on an issue. In game terms, this would affect both positive and negative advertising. Negative ads would work best when they fit the established record, next best when pointing to a "self contradcitory past" but also quite well on "unknown." Negative ads would do little good when they are opposite the established record. (Can you imagine the real life Kerry trying to claim that Bush is against the war in Iraq for example?) Positive ads would then be needed more in areas about the candidate needing defending. Just my opinion, of course, but I think something like this is what stands between this game and a truly gripping experience.

3) The 8 points of political capital needed for an endorsement seems very high compared to the 3 for other operatives. Unless an endorsement is extremely effective, it would seem that this would make endorsements very unwise purchases -- since, compared to other uses of political capital, there is always a downside to an endorsement. (This in NOT a criticism of the downside to an endorsement -- I strongly feel that that is on the right track; almost every move in a political campaign has a downside.)

4)) A major piece of missing info: As far as i can see, there is no place to see the total "ongoing expenses" for ads and campaign headquarters... Related to this, I see no way to turn an ad off, if you wish to end that ongoing expense.

5) Regarding candidate statistics, the words are not really self explanatory. Whate is better than what?

6) Regarding the second webmaster choise, it is not clear what television interviews this refers to. Does this really give a bonus to all future appearances of the candidate in this state? A general bonus to the effect of campaign headquarters? A bonus to effect of ads in this state? Campaign speeches in this state?

7) On one occasion, I noted an inconistency betweem the "top state issues" and the "create ad" screen regarding the effect of an issue on independent voters.

None of this is meant to be negative -- I hope that you are looking for constructive criticism, and that my comments can be helpful.
Reply #44 from JoeUser Forums Top
Endorsements are extremely powerful. That's why they cost 8 points.
Reply #45 from JoeUser Forums Top
Ads can be turned off by clicking on the ad itself in the state and then the lower right screen (above turn button) will have an option to end the ad.

Have also seen the "create ad" screen issues differ from what you see in the state, but I had figured that was by design and the ones on the create screen ad are the "standard" skew for that type of ad, but the detail you see in the state screen is how that particular state really feels. Like by default the indepentents are neutral on the war in Iraq, but in some states they favor or are against it. Of course that's all just observation and I have no idea how it was intended to work.
Reply #46 from JoeUser Forums Top
One more thought... If endorsements are powerful, then they should not be available to everyone at the same price. Your position on issues (and your record, if you incorporated anything of that sort) should have an impact. A candidate with a "to heck with the environment" stump speech -- and possibly past record -- is simply not going to get the environmental group's endorsement, while a candidate running mostly on pro-environmental issues is going to need very little political capital to garner such an endorsement.
Reply #47 from JoeUser Forums Top
Can't seem to post anything on the political machine website. The submit button fails to work! Here are my comments from last night. Should have more later or tomorrow.

Played a few games over the past two days and here are my comments.

- Beautiful look to the whole map. Just that right balance between graphics and usability.
- Love the election sequence at the end. Can it be a bit slower or use triggered per state? Seems to end the game before all the states have voted though (I still haven't seen California vote) and there is no end screen, just back to the initial start screen.
- start-up is too small not to have some loading symbol/screen. I'm sure that will come though
- many functions still missing. Set-up doesn't allow new candidates or edit candidates. detail button does nothing.
- as mentioned by others the option button has no return to game button on the option screen
- 'Fat Loot' event fails to say WHO gets the loot. it just says 'to 's campaign'
- Interviews need some more information or feedback. I find it very hard when asked a question to know which reply my candidate should be following. No indication of effect on democrat or republican voters. Also I occasionally only get 1 reply option. No choice at all.
-Still get occasional crashes to desktop. Do you want us to run smart exception and sent files?
- occasionally the text gets totally messed up with missing letters in all text. Big problem as it makes it very hard to figure anything out.
- occasional long delays occur when trying to do things. Slow responses are common. Good example would be when I try to select endorsements. Can take 10 second to switch between them.
- special interest actions which remove stamina do not update your stamina display in the main menu (they do reduce your stamina though).
- 'Time warner' event shows 'string not found'

That's it for the moment. Will play some more this evening and post more feedback.

Paul.
Reply #48 from JoeUser Forums Top
Hi,

Here's a list of the problems i encountered.

First of all, the game would often crash (not surprising tho, since it is the first beta)

AI Took control of my candidate, Completed 1 move, made a second and then the game Crashed.

Sometimes the opponent will do nothing or only 1 action during his first turn at normal difficulty. This happens when i restart a game.

I had smart-exception running at that time. Please give us an address for us to e-mail the file.


Now that this is over, let me say i like the game, i believe it will be great once it's finished. I hope you will keep us posted as to the changes made to the game from build to build.

Thank you,
Keep up the good work.
Reply #49 from JoeUser Forums Top
I've been having problems with the game stalling, but not CTDing. It will stop, and just sit there playing music and not responding at all. It is also using enough ram that CTL-ALT-DEL takes about 2 minutes to come up. First game no problems, but since then I have not been able to complete a game.
Reply #50 from JoeUser Forums Top
Been having a lot of fun, only one CTD and I have the SmartException log for it if you want to tell me where to post it/send it.

A screen from one of my recent victories on the simple difficulty:
Link