If petty xenophobic insults don't work, what kind of xenophobic insults do?  It sounds like you trigger the need for specialized diplomatic tools.

Okay, cool. Long as its coming before release.

You mean like in-game imbedded insult generator? I support this idea. Wanna 1v1?

Who was that guy on GC3 development team who sat during one of brainstorming sessions and said "Colony building adjacency bonuses!". Big props to that guy and to the rest of the team who went with it, this is something i envisioned for the game and really wanted to happen.

I just cannot wait for tomorrow to start breaking in the game and contributing to its improvement!

I'm sure GC1 had pretty effective cultural warfare. I had more than one Party Fun Terrorstar victories, where I just took my culturally maxed terror starbase around from planet to planet taking them over with culture, since Terrorstars were the only starbases that could move. 

I love all of the additions so far! I can't wait to try them out.

Just as I have foreseen. I also foresee multiplayer FFA megagames  will be even better (for people like me at least).

Everything is proceeding as I have forseen....Muahahahahaha.

I have my favourites.

The part that has me most excited is resource x granting access to ship module y! That is going to be a brilliant shake up, strategic resources will really define how sharp your military is! A military with access to beefed up modules from strategic resources will be able to be smaller and just as effective, super keen for that.

Fate,

In regard to Galactic and Strategic resources....

Will you be able to trade them with other societies like in CIV 5?

On a side note, I've been playing a good bit of CIV 5 and an old forgotten gem called Star Trek: Birth of the Federation and I was wondering if you guys had any intent of possibly including other minor civilizations that aren't competing with you for victory like the City States in Civ 5 or the Minor Races in Star Trek: Birth of the Federation?

The minor races in Star Trek: BOF were particularly interesting since you could not only trade with them or form alliances; but also conquer them or convince them to join your civilization which would grant you access to building some cool little race specific buildings.

I know you guys have a lot on your plate now; but its just something to consider for the future.

Yes it was cool to have other races in your government which had different skills.  Could be an interesting advantage to being nice creating a federation where the Brains could do the science, and the muscle could do the fighting.

I love GalCiv II but I'm sad to say that from all the gameplay of the alpha and even your list of changes from each version is confirming my worry that III is not really that big of an update. Heck, you guys are even using the same old logos and opponent civs from the last game. Two of the bigger changes mentioned are strategic resources and the ideology tree, but even these are just rehashed features from games like Civ V. Why were strategic resources not in the last version for that matter. That concept has been around for years. And the ideology tree is just another social policy feature like in Civ V.

It would be nice if you tried to implement truly new, original features that make the game different. Not everyone loves the city states feature in Civ V but at least you could say that is a completely new feature to that series that really alters the entire world and gameplay experience. Where is that happening in Gal Civ III? Otherwise, you should not call this a sequel - it's just another expansion.

You have also really simplified the economic system in this game and taken away the unique aspects of II that made it stand out from other games, i.e., like the ability to reduce production spending to manage your economy. Now with that big circle, it looks like all you can do is adjust where the spending goes vs. each category.

Multiplayer? United Planet proposals? Again, all sounds like features we can find in other games and that should have been around years ago. I personally don't care about multiplayer but a lot do so you can have partial credit on that one.

It's probably too late for this game but I hope you guys are hearing some of this feedback to think about future projects. There are a ton of people commenting on the YouTube videos about how this game is not really looking very different from the last version.

And I'm sorry, but the hex map, even though I personally prefer it, is actually not doing a thing to change decisionmaking or overall experience in a game like this. If anything, it's just reducing the number of directions you can move your ships (now only 6, before with squares it was 8 directions).

Gal Civ 2 had minor races that you could do much more with than you can currently in Civ V, trading techs to minor races in GC2 with tech brokering turned off remains one of the most lucrative things possible in that game!

I think you're reading a bit too much into the alpha mate, if you'd done as much research as you claim you have you'd realise the the alpha just has a few core mechanics in it to see if the engine can stand up to stress tests, and that the beta is going to be much more fleshed out and review worthy. Don't off the horse while it's young, puberty may well be kind to it yet! (In your eyes, I already think the game is headed to be a large improvement on an already fantastic previous version).

Fate,

I believe you are passing judgment too soon. The alpha was released last week.

This is where I draw the line. Hex grids are far superior to squares in terms of balanced movement.

[/quote]It would be nice if you tried to implement truly new, original features that make the game different. Not everyone loves the city states feature in Civ V but at least you could say that is a completely new feature to that series that really alters the entire world and gameplay experience. Where is that happening in Gal Civ III? Otherwise, you should not call this a sequel - it's just another expansion.[/quote]

Minor civs have been part of GalCiv since the beginning. That's why I didn't break them out into their own section.  We will likely expand on minor civs but they're not new to GalCiv.  We had them first.