Thank You All! Game Updated

First of all, I want to thank everybody for playing Automata Empire. While I was certain there would be a community for an objective-based cellular automata game, I didn't anticipate how many people would be so excited by the idea. It was especially uplifting seeing Automata Empire just below Dark Souls III on the Popular New Releases list. Because there are so many people playing the game right now, I spent an extra couple days testing the new update. I don't want to break the game for anybody! Since a few people seem to be having trouble finding the tutorial, I've added a one-time welcome screen with some background info about cellular automata and a link to the How To Play section.

Also in this update:

• the post-game awards now permanently unlock more names for your rulers

• fixed your ability to pave over enemy roads

• fixed the 1-7 building hotkeys so they'll properly toggle the sidebar buttons

• added a floaty camera to Autoplay mode to make it even more like a screensaver (you can toggle this with the O key)

• improved the AI's road-building

• included 64-bit builds

• fixed a crash issue

If you encounter any technical issues with the update or the 64-bit builds, please make a thread in the Technical Support forum and I will try to fix things as soon as I am able.

Looking Forward:

Multiplayer is of course the most anticipated feature. Now that release crunch has subsided, I will be able to order new components to replace my charred case and motherboard and see if I can coax some life out of my primary dev computer. I can't wait to be challenged by everyone in the community in online matchmaking. (there's a rare achievement for beating me at my own game) Due to my past work in swarm robotics, I am very excited to continue improving the game's AI, especially by teaching it to use some of the strategies I've observed in other players. While I think the Easy difficulty is well-balanced, I'd like to make Hard harder, maybe even by adding a 4th even harder difficulty. I will also be implementing more sound effects and adding a post-game stats graph in the future. Just as soon as I finally get my first night of sleep in a week.