Here are some news on what we are working on right now.
Besides the obvious debug and optimization, we are adding more polish on the game screens, adding more directions ingame and localizing, and also expanding the AI capacities and gameplay variety. All of this will come within the next few weeks.
The game should be quite stable already at this stage. We have a few known bugs with some special actions not working, some texts to correct... Nothing too big, nothing that should keep you from playing well through the game at this stage. Still, the priority is to fix all of this :)
We are also optimizing the code so that the game is more fluid, and works on a larger range of computers. We haven't done a lot in this area up to now. You don't really get to optimize before the code is completed or close to completed, so now's the time to do it, and then keep at it!
Some of the main game screens, namely character selection and mission selection, are already quite good, but miss some info. We will be updating them. For instance, when you select a character, you also select a preferred social class. This is not really clear at this stage. Any character can also go with any political party - a real freedom compared with the real world! It changes the order and importance of the states in the primary campaign. It will be made more obvious. The mission selection will get more details and be made more readable, especially when many states have been played.
The most visible change will be on adding another screen, which will serve inside a mission as well : the mission map. Yes, it's missing dearly right now! You will be presented with the state map, with all cities and their current state (sleeping, open...), and it will help a lot on understanding where to go. I can't wait. Right now, pressing tab gives directions to the open towns, which serves a similar purpose. This screen will be really helpful :)
Localizing is the simple, yet gruesome process of making sure all texts and content, whenever possible, are translated into another language. For now we have english, and that's it. We'll add french pretty soon, and then other major languages, when the system is working correctly (so, they should come along later).
A critical element is the AI capacity to be competitive and interactive with you. Right now, it doesn't use the attraction techniques, nor the action cards. It will receive these capacities along the way, trading them against some temporary bonuses it has in the current version. So it will play more like you, using the same elements. And in the process, it should be more difficult to beat :)
Finally, and that is certainly the most important, we will expand the gameplay variety. A strategy game is a basic game loop, tortured and twisted with various parameters along missions in a campaign. Right now, some parameters are modified, but we plan to go much deeper. The game rules will change from map to map. We will also add objectives for each map, and a deck system for the special action cards. This is mostly designed. We will also add more action cards, going from 20 to around 40.