Awesome! I was worried it might be a multiplayer focused expansion, but I'm glad to see it continues the great single player tradition already instilled in the series.

Metaverse tourneys   . Won't have to keep track of everything by hand anymore. A pleasant and unexpected surprise.

Will there be another beta for preorders again?

Thanks, now we know why you guys have been kind of quiet lately.  

It looks nice.... but I'm still getting the Out of Memory bug ... Any news about an update on this error? It's made GC2 unplayable for me, and I'm not gonna spend more money on a game (that I love), until I can actually play it for more than a few turns.

Now this sounds very interesting!
For me, these features alone would make the game feel much more... how should I say "Galactic" in scope and nature with each civ. being truly alien from each other.
This addition is what I'd hoped to see in GalCiv III if that would ever come about, but I need only wait until Nov. for this to materialize in the new expansion pack... way to go Stardock!

"unique technology trees per civilization, unique weapons per civilization, unique planetary improvements for different civilizations"

That Does sound very cool, but I'm really excited about the senario and map editors, and I can't wait to use the Death...Terror Stars. (If one comes gunning for me, I'll just break out the X-wings.)  Looking forward to it!

BTW, i thought this was an AAR when I saw it on the "Recent Posts" list.

Ok i answered some of those questions myself.

But will there be cover art released?

What I would like is the option to buy that doesn't involve a Credit card or PayPal.
I'm in the UK, and only really use a bank issued card. It works exactly the same way, but when I bought DA there wasn't an option to use it.

Aside from that, I can't wait!!
Granted, even with a fairly powerful machine, I have to scale back the graphics to get a playable rate, the thought of enhanced graphics, altered invasion.. fantastic.

Roll on release date.

You guys do great work, I'll go ahead and preorder this. Keep up the awesome work!

Terror stars.

Yessssss.

First I play through the Bioshock demo, and was consequentially left staring blankly and mumbling incoherently for several minutes.

Then I log on here and see two juicy news posts about updates and expansions for Galciv.

Next week, Metroid Prime 3 comes out.

It's like there's a conspiracy to incapacitate me with awesome.

Nooooo!
I hardly sleep enough as it! Its pretty cool when the best game ever, gets even more best-est..er

So, decison time.

Most worthy of my Fall Splurge - AMD quad-core, or 'Twilight'? Hmmm...

Maybe that's AMD quad-core because of 'Twilight'. Can I sell that line to spousal unit?

Real question: Will there be a Platinum (aka 'We Want Your - Gold') Edition in time for Christmas?

2nd Real question: Since Galactopedia is no longer being maintained by its independent creator, and doesn't work with the latest version of GC2:DA, will there be a Galactopedia-like function in either v1.7->2.0 or 'Twilight'?

drrider

Sounds excelent!

I especially like the new tech tree loving, the same old GC2/DA tech tree is one of the reason I stopped playing this game months ago. After tens of games the same old generic tech tree just feels too boring. I hope there will be even more stuff to differiant the Races from each other, just a simple UI changes and even more varied AI responses should do the trick.

Still I won´t be pre-ordering this one like I did with DA, because before the first couple patches DA was just too buggy for my taste. I will see how the user based reviews go and with most certainty will order this one after release, if not for anything else, just to support SD

ps. About the constructor I really hope its not just some governor screen tweak, IMO they should be as automated as miners. I doubt it will happen but the hope lives. Also the way Star Bases are handled could use some adjusting IMO, just way too easy to spam them all over the place. Maybe just restrict the number of SB even more.

ps x 2. And for the love of god, do something about some of the horrible UI screens that have been forgotten, like the rally point selection window and diplomacy screen. If nothing else, just add a button like "what could make this trade work" button ala Civ4. Iam tired of guessing what the AI wants from me and how much he values for example specific techs. Even better add trade values for techs/threaties/ships and so on, that way it would be easy to calculate deals. Also being able to trade older techs for AI (he has laser 5 why would he want laser 4) should be ditched, would make trading easier IMO too.

ps x 3. Kill the current espionage system. Personal opinion only ofcourse, but this was the most worthless and over "hyped" feature of DA. A more general approach towards espionage would work much better in a game like this. And pls pls pls do something about the groud combat. Where are my soldier/legions units that were mentioned during DA development

edit:

Ok I read the Gamspots interview and it seems that diplomacy and espionage will get some tweaking. I hope with espionage its a whole overhaul. But it seems this expansion pack will be more about content than gameplay changes, a bit letdown for me. Still great that SD will bring some of the expansions new stuff to GC2/DA in form of v2.0 patch.