Hi, Just finished my first game on the new version. Much improved! Played on challenging level. Democrats won Texas but lost California. Go figure. I found a LOT of issues in the game. It's a beta so that's to be expected though. I'm pleased with how the game is developing and look forward to playing more games. - Several options in fantasy play start at 0. Better to start them at the midpoint. - Fantasy
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I follow a similar strategy on masochistic, although I usually buy a lot of consultants to raise my awareness in battleground states. Toward the end of the campaign I buy smear merchants (?) to lower my opponent's ratings. I do take out a few ads, usually on jobs. That seems to be an issue that one can always camapign about and receive good results. But mostly I generate and spend political capital. I understand the AI is not finis
Another gamer and I tried to get the multiplayer function to work. Unfortunately it didn't. I can type in my IP, but pressing "refresh list" results in a crash to dos. This happened several times. --Aaron
Suggestion: Someone else talked about doing a move-by-move arrangement within a turn. So that you move, then the other person does, then you, etc. The point here being that it prevents a race to grab the question marks when they appear. I kinda liked this idea, although I understand it's a matter of taste (hmm, a game option?). Should you go with it, you might want to make it a 50/50 chance of who starts each turn (perhaps modified slightl
You don't have to create a whole additional screen so long as it is apparent that the loading is proceeding normally. You could put a percentage by the loading button. So long as the percentage is continuing to advance players will more patiently wait. --Aaron
Played another game. Ran Al Franken against Rush Limbaugh on the second highest skill level (painful?). Al won handily in the electoral college although he lost by six million in the popular vote. I like Bob Vila's idea about making the game more variable in terms of the money that HQ's generate. I suggest going a step further: some states should cost more to build a HQ than others. California, for example, would naturally be more expensi
Another minor issue. The Jaded Consultant seems to be using a filler picture with some sort of label on it. Its text description is incomplete. Just won (John Kerry vs. Arnold S.) on the 2nd or 3rd highest skill level (don't remember the exact name). Am pleased to report that the computer spent political capital on endorsements. Still didn't spend money on operatives though. Perhaps I need to move up to a higher skill level. -
Just finished another game. Bill Clinton wiped out Bush jr. on challenging. To be honest, it was so easy that it took a lot of the fun away. In spite of the name, it wasn't challenging at all. Bugs: - For some reason I couldn't get any awareness in Minnesota. No matter what I did I couldn't get any. Neither visiting, campaigning, taking out ads, sending in consultants, media darlings, or political operatives could change that. I
Ahh, very true Frogboy. I shouldn't make the assumption that others are having the same trouble as I. You'll have to hear from them directly.
Strong suggestion: Fix the bug with starting a game (and the one with the fantasy settings) and release an intermediate beta. I am getting (at most) 1 in 10 games to start correctly. The rest only display the "loading" bug. I'm giving it perhaps 20 seconds per try. That should be way more than enough, especially since I'm not on an archaic computer. If it does need more than 20 seconds to load, you should have a statement making it clear
More stuff. I played about 2/3 of the way through another game before it crashed, so I have more to report. 1 - Barry King Live's intro text doesn't finish. 2 - It's difficult to see the ?'s very well in Vermont. They're too high on the screen and appear under the news bar. 3 - The Fixer's description doesn't make it clear enough what he does. I couldn't figure it out until
Just finished my first game--fun! I played openly gay Congressman Barney Frank in a race against George W. Bush. I'm happy to say that Frank wiped him off the map. The victory was all the sweeter in that it was my fantasy political matchup come true. : ) Will have to play again on a more difficult skill level (was at beginner). Seriously, found a bunch o' bugs... - Often after selecting candidates, sometimes the game never got b
Typo: An interview with JoeUser has a question about food stamps. The text ends: "What would". Obviously part of a question, but the question never finishes.
Another two bugs. - Just tried to play the game again. Got as far as selecting which candidate I'd be. It wouldn't let me continue though. The button to continue just said "loading" and didn't appear. - From the main menu I clicked "options". Clicking on "resume game" dropped me to dos.
I just played the Political Machine for the first time. Puttered with it for about 30 minutes. Here are a few things I found... I was in Florida and had a small HQ there. Flew to Wyoming. Upgraded Florida HQ. A message went across the top of the screen that I had upgraded an HQ in Wyoming (which I hadn't). Unless I misread it, that counts as a bug. Often pressing buttons has an annoying delay of several seconds. For exam
Yup, the tiny maps are faster games with less options for good and evil events. Not as much colonization = not as many morality choices. That being said, evil can be fun in the tiny games. On a gigantic universe having a planet with +20% production doesn't make a lot of difference. When your expansion phase means you only have 2-3 planets though then that +20% can become quite significant. Good luck with your game. I was glad I was super-military in my abilities. If I wasn
Hey folks - Another game report for y'all. One with a major emphasis on scorched earth battle tactics. Gotta love treating life as meaningless. (At least in a game!) Someone responded to my last report saying they played a (very!!!) masochistic game with no picks on a medium map. I'm not ready for that sorta challenge, but I did find his talk about the map to be very interesting. I have been playing Gigantic maps. While fun, they lack a lot in the way of tactics. You win
Unless, of course, they achieve a technological victory first. --Aaron
I thought about option A but decided I couldn't succeed that way. Option C is definitely intriguing though--it never occurred to me. Since this was my first game on masochistic I was more keen on winning than winning by a landslide or winning gracefully. Your comments are most appreciated. As for the +2 speed bonus, I really do love it. Might try the next game without it though. I'm sure I'll miss it immediately, but perhaps an influence or diplomacy bonus will make up fo
I'm curious: What is your favorite government party? And what ability picks to you like for your empire? I like to play as the Universalists for their +25 luck bonus. I then pick it as an ability for another +25 luck (1 pt). I also pick the +2 speed ability (8 points) as I have found the initial burst of speed is immense help when expanding my empire. Someone has suggested using the +2 speed elsewhere but I dunno what else to pick that would be so useful. I vary in
I won my first game on masochistic last night and wanted to share it with y'all. Boy was it difficult! It wasn't anything like playing on the lower skill levels. The game outlines a rather interesting defect in the computer AI as well, something the programmers might want to address. (Jump to the end if for a discussion on that flaw). I started in the "northeast" area of the board on a huge universe. Being a big fan of luck, I played as the Universalists with options for +2 speed,
Finished my latest game (my first victory on masochistic--woohoo!) Found a few more typos. Typo: In the list of trade goods, one is listed as "Hyper computers". All other resources with 2+ words have their second word capitalized. Typo: I didn't catch some of it, but one of the techs that gives you access to an Omega something has two periods at the end of its description. (Will look more closely next game). Typo: In the military projects list, when you sele
Well, my latest game didn't go so well. Masochistic skill lever certainly is that! I found a few more bugs. Typos, really. Mostly errors involving two spaces between words. That's a major pet peeve of mine and I hate it. Typo: On the modify racial abilities menu at the start of the game. Two spaces in "military production." Typo: On the modify racial abilities menu at the start of the game. Two spaces in "social production." Typo: On the modify racial
I made a list of bugs that I found in my last game. 1 - With my annual report it gave me the "Twilight of Humanity" message, saying that I was losing a war. It's "proof" that I was losing the war was that I had a combined ecomony and military of 180 while my opponent (the Arceans) had 138. Dunno why a message would register that I was losing the war when, in fact, its own calculations indicated I was winning. (Incidentially, the Arceans went on to beg for peace when they
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