In this article, we will share an overview of what will be included in the new update of the game in June, and our future plans for improving the Plutocracy.
So, first of all, about new features that will affect the gameplay.
1. Shadow financier.
A new agent has been added - a shadow financier is someome who will take on the task of avoiding taxes in your corporation. The bigger your company is, the more significant the effect will be! The risks of being caught in tax evasion and getting a fine from the tax service have not been canceled, however..
2. Using agents is worth the influence.
We reworked the payment model for the work of agents. We decided that it is more realistic to demand influence for their use, because we receive agents as a gratitude for the fulfilled ambition of other characters. And gratitude should be free, in our opinion đ
3. The opportunity to become a CEO.
You will be able to become the head of one of your companies, successfully nominating your candidacy at the shareholders' vote, and receiving a salary depending on the company's profits. As CEO, it will be possible to invest the accumulated funds of the managed company in shares of other companies.
4. Purchase of shares on behalf of the CEO.
Transactions on behalf of the company will be available both through the stock exchange and directly through negotiations. In this case, you can acquire any company directly and turn it into a subsidiary.
5. An opportunity to become a politician.
Initially, we didn't want to go this path, we believed that the real plutocrat is always in the shadows. But now we decided that anyone can choose for himself which way he will go - publicly, through politics, earning fame and influence or remaining in the shadows. In the future, we plan to expand the abilities of the character who was successfully elected to the post.
6. Elections.
Now, if you are elected, the current mechanics of participation in the elections will be available to you. If you promote another politician, then he will decide his own fate and you will be able to influence only by financing the election campaign, assessing his chances against his opponent. However, no one has canceled your impact on the opponent, as beforeâŚ
In this way, your candidates for political posts will become more autonomous and will no longer require significant manual control. Now your puppets will run independently during the elections and even move up the career ladder, periodically applying for higher political posts. You only need to periodically sponsor the most promising ones, increasing their chances of winning.
7. Coal companies.
We've added a new type of company. It's difficult to deny the influence of coal industry in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the Plutocracy, transport companies will buy coal for their steam locomotives as raw materials.
8. Offices instead of assistants.
The essence of the âassistants" of the characters has been removed. To be more precise, we moved them to the so-called office. Now, to study the state and conduct business in it, without a personal visit, you will need to open your representative office in this state. This will require money and influence. This also creates a regular cost, as in the case of the assistant before, so you should plan well in which states you want to maintain your presence.
In addition, according to your numerous requests, the possibility of pinning the companies in the list on the stock exchange has been added, many agents have been redesigned, the balance sheet has been completed, and various kinds of errors that you report to us in the Discord and Steam were corrected.
You will be able to see a detailed list of changes at the time of the release of the update, which is scheduled for the next 1-2 weeks. We work daily to deliver it to you as quickly as possible.
Plans after the release of the game update.
As I wrote earlier, now the main task for us is the story campaign, as well as the addition of a holding structure and various kinds of random events.
Partially, we have already implemented the holding structure, and it is already possible to form parent-subsidiary relations by buying shares of the parent company. But what exactly the holding is needed for, and what new opportunities it will open up to the owner of the holding - we will tell you in more detail in the next diary when the work on the holding is completed.
As you can see, the development of the game is in full swing, and we are constantly striving to improve it. Sometimes this turns into an unpredictable loss of energy and time, when after testing a new feature, we realize that it doesn't work as we would like and we have to redo it again. Unfortunately, this is a part of the game development process that can't be skipped.
Thank you for your patience and support of our project! We read all your comments and reviews, and find inspiration and strength in them for the release of Plutocracy from early access to full release.
Until the next news!
Agent Broker is already available in a new update!
New features:
Added a new agent - broker.
The agent can only be applied to the company. If successfully applied, it causes a rise / fall in the share price of any company for a limited period.
When a company is under the influence of a broker, the corresponding icon is displayed in the company's effects.
Added A new âInfluence" tab for each character, where you can see the amount of influence received from different sources, as well as its growth. Tab contains graphs âInfluenceâ and âDynamicsâ.
The âInfluence" graph shows the distribution of influence by categories of its sources. The "Dynamics" graph shows the influence curve for the current quarter and 3 previous years.
Added the âStatusâ and âFinancial Forecast" graphs to the âAssetsâ tab of the character.
The âStatus" graph shows the distribution of the character's material assets by asset categories. The âFinancial Forecast" graph shows the income curve for the current quarter and 3 previous years.
Added a quick transition to the company's shares on the stock exchange from the card of any company. To go, just click on the line "Stock exchange price" in the âInformation" card of the desired company.
Fixes:
Critical fixes:
Negotiations: The opponent's starting price modifier "Not interested in the deal" has been worked incorrectly. Now, by default, the character does not want to sell shares if he does not have this ambition or the âAlarmist" trait.
The Stock exchange: Fixed a bug where the filter GUI would spontaneously appear when time was speeding up.
Character creation: Fixed missing text on appearance selectors.
Elections: Fixed a bug where more than one economy/diplomacy star could be spent on finding a new solution at a time.
Misc fixes:
Tutorial: Added a missing button to re-call tutorial during elections.
Tutorial: Fixed a graphical bug that occurred while watching training during the election.
Tutorial: Fixed text going out of bounds for some languages.
Companies: The unused filter button has been removed.
Local/Federal Laws: Added missing law type button hints.
Connections: Fixed incorrect display of character loyalty boost when selecting this reward for fulfilling an ambition.
The law of the state:: The displayed characteristics in the Governor's map are reorganized to match other characters.
Mail: The unused tabs âTransactionsâ and âPersonsâ of the âNewspapers" section have been removed.
Fixed incorrect confirmation button text when applying officials for some languages.
Character Portrait: Removed unused Đ° favor icons.
Various minor cosmetic changes.
Work in progress:
Holding
Extended module of in-game events
Campaign and scenarios
Dev diary. Year Results and Plans for 2022!
Hello Plutocrats!
New Year's holidays are just around the corner. Thence, on behalf of the Redwood developers, we wish everyone a Happy New Year and Merry Christmas!
Today's blog will be devoted to how this year went for us, and what events we are preparing in the new 2022.
In 2021, many new features have appeared in Plutocracy - politics, elections, lobbying for laws, stock exchange , updated negotiations, more tutorials and much more.
Of course, you always want to do more, and faster. But you, dear friends, can be sure - we are working at the limit of our current capabilities, with our small team of enthusiastic developers.
So what is left for us to take Plutocracy from Early Access to a full release?
1. The main thing is a full-fledged story campaign, on which we have already begun work. The story we want to tell will tie all the game processes together and give the maximum understanding of the game and immersion in it.
This story was inspired by the great trilogy of the American writer Theodore Dreiser "The Financier", biographies of the greatest tycoons of the 19th and 20th centuries, including the world's first billionaire John Davis Rockefeller, the king of the conveyor belt Henry Ford, the steel mogul Carnegie, and also films such as âThere Will Be Bloodâ (starring Oscar-winning Daniel Day-Lewis).
The storyline campaign now takes up most of our time, so the introduction of new features is slower than usual, however, work on bugs is still going on non-stop, thanks to your bug reports.
2. Also, we are engaged in introducing various events into the game, which will lead to additional challenges, so that the game is even more unpredictable and gives more immersion in the era.
3. And finally, we would like to introduce the Online Challenges mode into the full version, where all players will be given the same game session settings, and after successfully completing the challenge tasks, the result will be shown relative to other players who completed the same challenge. This will help our community share successes, and develop their economic and other skills in competition with real players, not bots.
This is the main vector that we are working on right now.
Of course, the full release will also include the establishment of holdings, and other types of companies, and 3 new agents that we have not announced yet, and so on, from what is not listed here.
It would be great if you yourself in the comments told us what you expect most and what you would like to see in the game before other functionality. This will help us prioritize correctly. Also, we remain open to new ideas, although the window for their implementation into the game is getting smaller.
We do not promise that it will be possible to fulfill absolutely all your wishes, because we are not Santa Claus, and not even his assistants, elves ... but just developers from the indie studio. But you can be sure that your voice will be heard!
2022 will be the release year for the full version of Plutocracy.
Therefore, if you like what we do and you see the potential of this project - support us - write your review about the game on Steam, participate in improving translations into your language by joining our discord server, or just wish us luck! We will definitely need it in the new yearâŚ
See you in the next Dev Diary!
Negotiation upgrade in 0.211 version!
New features:
Negotiations. Updated version.
Added tutorial on updated negotiations.
Politicians can now abstain when voting on laws.
Added hover hints for the "Workers" item in the "Statistics" window during a strike.
Added different icons and tips for active and ended strikes and accidents in companies in the âStatisticsâ window of the company, the list of companies and the company card.
Balance:
Rebalancing the economy of the game.
Now the required influence for negotiations is also affected by the reputation of the player and the character.
Fixes:
Critical errors:
Fixed crash when loading a quarter if the player was in the "Statistics" window during the bankruptcy of the company.
Other fixes:
Companies automatically repay the borrowed loan upon receipt of net profit.
Fixed a bug leading to too strong influence of phantom production on the price.
Fixed a bug where during the quarter change, when companies are created and bankrupt, the economy was calculated once.
Fixed a bug where production was used instead of demand to calculate phantom demand when a new state was enabled.
Fixed a bug in which the non-partisan governor did not pass or reject laws.
Fixed different valuation of the company on the stock exchange and in assets.
Fixed a bug with incorrect display of the company's market share in the state.
Fixed a bug where elections in Texas did not take place.
Fixed a bug that caused an empty window to appear after the bankruptcy of a company.
Fixed missing GUI text for changing shareholder vote in the company voting window.
Fixed the position of the character selection menu that opens while being in the same state with an opponent.
Fixed display of state in letters to Gwen Spacey about strikes or accidents.
Changed the displayed icons of the preliminary assessment of the votes of parties when declaring an impeachment to a non-partisan governor.
Updated portrayal of Gwen Spacey in training
In Progress:
Updated negotiation for a loan and lobbying the politician.
Extended module of in-game events
Campaign and scenarios
Patch 0.210.10
Whatâs fixed in the Patch 0.210.10?
Fixed a bug which caused NaNs to appear after a certain date.
Fixed a bug which caused an incorrect window to be shown in case of a company bankruptcy.
Fixed a crash after a new state getting included into the USA.
The increment value for Dividends in the âStatisticsâ window is returned to 5%.
Fixed a mistake regarding the date of Officials elections being calculated incorrectly.
Added more detailed tutorials for Stock exchange, Personal office and Assistants windows, corrected grammatical mistakes.
Fixed animation issues when changing the current focus of technological improvement in the âStatisticsâ window.
Fixed a bug which caused the sounds of the Stock exchange to continue playing after opening the Pause menu, saving and loading games.
Fixed issues with News not appearing correctly in âLettersâ and âNewspapersâ sections.
P.s. Thank you for your positive feedback and your bug reports - it helps us make the game better every day! Special thanks for your understanding that the game is in Early Access and bugs may occur after every major update.
The Stock Market is already available in a new update!
New opportunities
1. Stock exchange:
Buy and sell shares for market prices.
Sort by company type, stock price and its dynamics.
Set the scale of the graph: by day/month/quarter/year.
Manage your Portfolio and history of transaction
2. New tutorial system
3. Updated main screen bar:
Improved list of indicators.
New style of time-skip buttons.
Added feature of a single day skip.
Pause menu (main menu) button has been added to the bar
Added links to your Assets and Skills from the main bar by clicking on the indicators.
4. Other:
Added new filters for Character search (Persons).
5. Balance
Fixed the exploit which allowed for rapid share price increase through Company management: the step of changing for company parameters is now no more than 20% per shareholders meeting. The starting value of Dividends scales with the difficulty of the game.
6. Fixes
Critical errors
Fixed possible crashes while saving or loading the game.
Other errors
Many interface changes.
A modified system for the Strike event ending.
A new system of indicators in Character cards. Political potential was changed to Politics for all NPCs.
Corrected an error with the election laws generation.
Fixed mistakes with the Governors (Assistants) re-election.
Denied the possibility to elect the same candidate for different government positions.
Fixed a bug allowing to have an additional round of voting in the Statistics window in case of a negative outcome.
Fixed a visual bug with the slider in the list of Companies of the state.
Corrected mistakes in the News tabs.
Unified the descriptions of the main bar tabs.
7. In work
New and improved negotiation system
Extended module of in-game events
Campaign and scenarios
Dev diary. Stock exchange.
Hello and welcome to Plutocracy dev diary!
Today, Iâll tell you about a new game module that will be available in the game this week! This is the long-awaited stock exchange.
Yes, my friends, we have finally got around to making it and, keeping to the development plan, have been focusing on it for the whole month.
So, what information did we have at hand? The 19th century, the absence of computers, the era of traders fistfighting in the pit and so on.
In this regard, we decided not to make a classic DOM (Depth of Market) representation which you can see in any stock market app on your computer or smartphone nowadays.
We will see the best buying and selling prices, provided there are available shares, and the graph showing shares dynamics during certain periods of time.
Having said that, we tried our best to create a full simulation of price behaviour on the stock market, so there is a direct correlation between how many shares you buy or sell and the respective prices; naturally, there's also a spread between them.
Any strike or accident at the company will lead to the fall of prices, so if you "keep the finger on the pulse", you'll carry out the most profitable transactions or even manage to manipulate the market!
But the main thing stock exchange in Plutocracy is for is the opportunity to buy company shares without direct negotiations with the shareholders. Fast and simple! And don't forget the ability to sell previously bought shares just as easily and fast.
And, as it is in the real stock market, if you try to buy too many shares at once, during the course of a single day, the price will start to rise, leading to the increase of interest, and the resulting average price may become too high for you to justify the purchase. That is why big transactions are better done the old way, through meticulous negotiations. That's real life for you!
Additionally, your Portfolio page will show all statistics across all transactions. We were asked to add the history of operations so we decided to put it all together in one place, and now it'll be possible to apply different filters to your transactions history and not only see the transactions done in the stock market but also ex-pit, outside of it.
The module is undergoing the last testing trials, so we'll release the update in a few days and are going forward to reading your feedback. Due to the fact that it is still a new module, it can be improved with the help of constructive criticism and suggestions from our community.
In the new update, we added a few more changes concerning the game balance and fixing the exploits found by our community, and also improved the main screen bar.
It got more informative, convenient and functional. We also added a new time-skipping mode on the calendar as you had asked - a single day skip. I.e. one click on the âPlayâ button will add one day to the calendar. It may prove useful in some tight situations.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the improvements of Plutocracy and your overall support.
Following the request from our community, we have created a PayPal account to our website, so anyone who wants to support the project and our small team until the full release of the game has a chance to do it.
Also, we would like to remind you that you can take part in translating the game into your own language. We developed a new system for a more convenient and quick translation without having to learn special programs. The only thing you need is the basic Excel knowledge. If you want to participate, just write to our Discord server: https://discord.gg/KmzT9FsNuA and we'll give you access to the inner files of the game.
We'll be glad for any support and will definitely mention everyone who has supported our project in any way in a special list in the Developers section!
After the release of the stock exchange, we'll publish a new dev diary where I'll tell you about a new version of negotiations we're making to replace the current one.
Until next time! Keep following the updates of the game ;) Redwood team.
Patch 0.208.3
New opportunities
Cartels - Combine your companies to increase their revenue!
Election of officials is available - promote your assistants to high government posts, and then use them to your advantage!
Appointment of officers by the Governor is available if applicable state law is passed.
Now, when you click on the icon of a player's or enemy's character on the map, his profile opens.
Added a button to exit the game during pause.
new lawsŃ
Balance
The step of changing dividends from companies has been returned from 25% to 5%, as it was before.
Fixes
Critical errors
Fixed possible crashes during autosave.
Other
Fixed a bug where the interface disappeared when switching from the company statistics screen to news, and then with the arrow back to statistics.
Fixed missing tutorial on some screens.
Fixed possible missing company names in newspapers.
Hovering over an item section in Luxury Goods now displays the section name.
Now, when you press the "Back" button in the "Agents" window, you return to the "Influencing agents" window, and switch to the previous agent.
Now, instead of describing the characteristics of an official in the "Capitol", his capabilities are displayed.
Removed the end date of the game "1880" at the time of its creation.
Minor "cosmetic" fixes.
In work
Stock Exchange
Rework of negotiation mechanics
New tutorial system
Update 0.204 is available now!
New:
Added Auto-elections.
Improved the dividend bar in the company table.
Filter "Infrastructure" on the map.
Accidents now affect reputation.
Added character trait "Selective".
Changes in the finance interface.
In the character search, politicians and other characters now appear, even if they do not have shares.
Fixes:
Vulnerabilities and balance:
Changed the calculation of strikes.
Changed the system for calculating salaries, influence and the amount of bribes to officials and politicians.
Change in the cost of initiating voting by laws.
Bugs / complaints:
Fixed windows freezing.
Fixed the mechanics of population satisfaction (in the state window).
The transition to the screen of evidence and incriminating evidence is now carried out only when it is successfully found.
Being worked on
Updating Chinese and Spanish localization
Support of German localization
Automatic elections
Election of officials
Stock Exchange
Rework of negotiation mechanics
Patch 0.203.3 is available in main branch now!
New
A new macro indicator for the states: "Infrastructure". Responsible for the speed of expansion (construction of buildings) in companies
New laws have been added: 1. Funding for infrastructure 2. Funding for research institutions 3. The lower limit of working age 4. Penalty for violation of technical regulations 5. Homosexual relationships 6. Import duties on steel, oil, ore, and kerosene 7. Export duties for steel, oil, ore, and kerosene
Added visual display of evidence collected by the chief of police. Now you can always see which characters have evidence and what percentage they add to the chance of detecting incriminating evidence by a detective
Fixes
Critical errors:
Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when trying to load a corrupted save
Vulnerabilities and balancing:
Changed prices required to use a killer or journalist when they are used to counteract exposure of corruption
Bugs / complains:
Fixed a bug due to which the chamber considered a law prohibiting women from voting when the ban was already in force
Fixed a bug due to which politicians who have lost their positions are not correct taxes were charged
Fixed a bug due to which it was impossible to save the game if you give a new loan to a character who did not return the previous one to you
Fixed a bug due to which the bankruptcy letter of the company did not come if the player had a stake in it
Slightly changed the visual display of incriminating evidence and ways to interact with him. It has become more convenient to use compromising materials
Fixed a bug due to which the discovery of evidence by the police chief was counted in achievements as receiving compromising evidence
Fixed a bug due to which when a player sold shares to a broker they were bought by characters from other states
Fixed display of the price requested by agents
Fixed description of consequences in case of accidents
Changed merge logic. Now shareholders who voted against the merger will not be forced to buy back their shares and they will receive a share in the formed company
Fixed a bug due to which the costume of the character who is a police chief did not change
Fixed a bug due to which it was possible to remove a candidate from the election after the end of the deadline for registration of candidates and until the elections themselves
Fixed a bug due to which it was possible to apply a courtesan on the opponent or assistant
Fixed a bug due to which no one in the US Congress abstained from voting according to the law
Fixed some small visual errors
Fixed some translation errors in the English version of the game
