Galactic Civilizations players now have even more to look forward to…

Montreal, Canada. March 7, 2003 – Publisher Strategy First and developer Stardock are pleased to announce the availability of Stardock Central to players of their upcoming 4x space strategy game, Galactic Civilizations. Stardock Central is a program that consolidates software updates, message boards, chat, documentation updates, and more into a single easy-to-use program.

"With Stardock Central, Galactic Civilizations players will be able to get seamless updates to the game. It's not just convenient for users; it's great for us developers. For example, I can be reading the message boards and chat and if someone has a good suggestion, we can put that suggestion in and copy it to a network directory here at Stardock and then it shows up as an alpha on Stardock Central. Users can then try out the alpha and eventually it'll get promoted to being a "Beta" and eventually made generally available once enough people have tried it out. It greatly shortens the time and effort between a user making a suggestion and a user seeing that suggestion implemented," said Brad Wardell, Project Manager of Galactic Civilizations.

When users download Stardock Central, they can enter the Galactic Civilizations serial number and an account will be created for them on Stardock Central that not only gives them instant access to updates but to the entire game itself. If the player loses their CD or damages it, they can retrieve the entire game electronically via Stardock Central by simply entering their CD key.

Each serial number is tied to the individual user and validation occurs on the server (as opposed to the client), so not only do players receive much greater free support than previously possible but piracy should be greatly reduced as the system can detect anomalous account usage.

To find out more about Stardock Central and its benefits to players, please follow this link:

http://www.galciv.com/sdcentral.html

About Stardock

Stardock, founded in 1993, is a leading developer of PC strategy games. Its previous gaming titles include The Corporate Machine, Entrepreneur, and Stellar Frontier. It is also well known for its commercial utility software such as Object Desktop, WindowBlinds, DesktopX, ObjectBar, and more. Its website is located at http://www.stardock.com.

About Strategy First

Strategy First Inc. is a leading developer and worldwide publisher of entertainment software for the PC.  Founded in 1990, the company has grown rapidly, publishing major games in the industry and simultaneously developing its own in-house titles such as O.R.B., Disciples II, and Nexagon: Deathmatch. After winning numerous awards for games such as Disciples: Sacred Lands, Europa Universalis, Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns and Steel Beasts, Strategy First continues to push the gaming envelope with its own groundbreaking titles, while maintaining its reputation as a unique alternative for independent developers seeking to market their games to a worldwide audience.