I hope you know we'll be holding you to that! :3

Hopefully you can improve on the base game to the same extent Dark Avatar and Twilight did. Honestly, you guys did such a good job with those expansions you set the industry standard in my opinion. Then you completely outdid yourselves with Elemental's expansions being complete overhauls and free...

Seriously though, here's to you keeping that sort of quality up for Galactic Civilizations 3.

Damn Stardock, there you go restoring my faith in game developers again!

I am hoping for 3 major expansions now when I have elite founder pack . And you guys have engine which can easily scale into the future. Why not make it most awesome TBS ever .

Uhm, in 10 years the game plus all expansions and dlc will probably be available for a few bucks. So I'd say, that's by far the best deal.

As long as we don't count being able to play the game as soon as possible

I think the beta is going to be a pretty interesting experience.  In the old days, we would have had what we have today out as the beta. But instead, we're going to see GalCiv III go through the same evolution as the series has.  For example, the first beta won't have the ship design component in. Instead, it's going to play a lot like GalCiv I.  Then Beta 2 is likely to be caught back up to what GalCiv II had.  And then in Beta 3 we'll have all the new stuff on top.

Of course, there will still be new stuff in, even in beta 1 since they're so basic to the new gameplay.  The tech system and the economic system for example are much better and in hindsight, obvious.

I also think that beta feedback will result in changes. I can't predict what that will be but I think there are enough new things that we want to get player feedback on that it'll have a big affect.  For instance, the way star bases are being handled (we don't like the constructor spam so we're tying the star bases to their planets).

Tis does beg the question of whether there will ever be a GalCiv IV.  

We would have kept making GalCiv II updates if we hadn't run out of memory to stuff more stuff into.  Same reason Sins of a Solar Empire 1 won't ever get that fourth race. We're our of memory in 32-bit.  

GalCiv III, by contrast, purely talking engine stuff here, supports any resolution that may come up in the future, gets faster as you add more cores to the machine, DirectX 11 (10 also but someday it could just support 11).  And the screens are all made via XML and PNGs so anybody can mod, update, enhance the screens.  And the font system is open type.

And since we don't have to care about retail anymore, we can keep releasing new expansions, DLCs pretty much as long as people want them.

Brad- That is all I ever wanted to hear! Hell yes! 

 Happy Day

New stuff added to the vault!

Can't say I'm happy to hear that. I'll wait to see how it is implemented, but I can't see how any tied system can match the speed and flexibility of the constructor system. It's going to feel like bases have been nerfed pretty hard.

There's a double in there. Plus, they are both already in there as the 'altarian clay model concept' just a few lines down.

Yes, thats exactly what I have thought. Most of the game sequels trying to keep core mechanics same and then improve on stuff which is not so great. And if you guys have engine which will not be limiting you in any way, you can simply keep adding content and improve whats there. Which sounds really great, if the game will be popular, people will be playing it, paying you for making expansions/DLC and you will be happy to do so, you can make most feature complete and rich 4x sci-fi TBS ever made.

In my opinion, most of the sequels always go back in terms of features and it always take several expansions to get where previous games were (civilization) Which is really shame, because it always feels like graphics update which makes games more expensive and even harder and longer to make. But definitely not more fun. Either way, I hope it will all turn out well for you and us .

Yeah. I'll save my judgement, but I already see 2 potential areas where this will reduce strategy involved when it comes to constructors/starbases.

1) How vulnerable constructors are when trying to upgrade starbases during a war. Now that nerve might be gone.

2) Strategies and priorities arround Constructor Ship Design.

Remember that micro very often adds to the game and the feel of it.

Will the new starbases follow the freighter and mining model? Send a constructor to a place, build it and then link it to a planet. Then assign the planet to build modules/contribute production towards modules being build on starbase?

I have to say that building constructors was a double edge sword for me. I like the flexibility, but late game with lots of planets and constructors everywhere, it became a grind...  

Yea, I brought the constructor idea up because it's one of the things marked as "let's see how the bets testers feel".

Because of better engine or (more importantly) redefined/improved mechanics. Those are two possible/reasonable reasons for a possible GalCiv IV.

Absolutely nothing against enjoying an ever expanding GalCiv III. Including DLCs with optional/additional animated civilization figureheads.

With warships having different roles in combat and thus the need for different ship designs, I think you'll have enough to do with balancing your ship building queues.

Love the new economy concept image in the vault/repository. I like the combined social and military production and the new slider is awesome too.

Just wondering if that is still in the game or if it's a canned concept?

I like the "new slider" too. Unless it is too sensitive so I will be unable to move it in a straight line.

Well, on the other hand it is only half of the picture. The other half is the specialization on planet level. Let's see. I assume the switch is still immediate, does not take time as in Haegemony.

What's a Dlc. when I tried to load some of the stuff it required me to have microsoft office this is something I don't have can you change that requirement to wordpad so everyone can look at your stuff.

Just checking.

I am a founder member, but it wants me to sign up.

I got that problem when I changed my nickname all you got to do is relogin from that page.

Just added two screenshots.

How come is that when I'm logged in to this site; I also have log in to the founders site when I'm logged in to this site.

I think the screenshots are nice. Except can you tell me how many civilizations are on the next game.
. Talking to Frogboy. What I did earlier was copy a screenshot of the Yor, and turned it into a pictire of my avatar. Then Gunauthar said on one of the posts that he didn't think I was allowed to do that, so I sent you a message asking you about that but you never answered, so I changed the avatar back until you answered me. Frogboy can you respond whether I'm am allowed to do this or not. You can send me a private message instead if you want.

Hehehe, why do the Krynn like Christmas? They could make the Grinch look like Santa!

I like the multiplayer setup, simple yet effective. Might need an advanced screen to set up all kinds of details though (is that the edit button purpose or is it only for simpler map changes??)