How many cores will the game effectively use?

How 'smart' will the AI be (compared to previous entries) given that you are adding so many more elements to the game?

Can you refine your statement behind no shipbuilding in Multiplayer?  Does this mean no custom hulls or no shipbuilding at all <gasp>?

My assumption is that Founder's Editions probably end up being a losing money affair.  After all, I would think a large part of the core audience who ends up playing the game in the long run were Founders.  In this way, it crushes revenue when you produce DLC X and a large portion of the player base gets it without paying.  The question >>> Why not just charge more to make it financial viable to still have a Founder's Edition?

Alright, I'll throw a question up here:

This was attributed to me on Discord by Schism, but someone else had actually mentioned it prior (although we could probably do the Monty Python bit about who thought of it first..)...

Question:  There's been some demand/requests for more animated aliens for doing custom races.  We realize that doing animations is time-consuming and expensive, however there was a question as to whether a reasonable middle-ground would be to simply re-skin existing animations in different colors: Yellow Yor, Purple Torians, etc.   An added MP side benefit might be that if more than one player wanted to play the same race in an MP game they could choose different "flavors" to at least look different - ie: one player could play the regular Yor and the other player could play the green ones.

Ok, I'll throw a few more down..

Question:  there is a question from a post above about clarifying the specifics of ship customization and what will/won't be avail in multiplayer.  I would like clarification on this question also.

Question: In the excellent Explorminate interview posted on the 17th one of the questions involved AI development and how it works better when done alongside the entire development cycle of the game (vs trying to write the AI for all the systems later).  My question is whether a similar approach is going to be taken for Multiplayer.  Hopefully Multiplayer will be developed alongside the singleplayer sandbox from day one, so that MP can be the best that it can be.  Could you elaborate on Multiplayer, MP dev plans, and at what stage (alpha/beta/whatever) MP might be available for troubleshooting/testing?

Question: Could you please talk about plans for the/an ideology system in GC4 - I felt it could be improved upon from GC3.

Question: In GC3 the various races were: carbon, aquatic, silicon, synthetic.  Is it planned to have a similar type of delineation in GC4 or are the races going to be more customized than this vague breakdown?

Question: Are there any plans for support for multi-monitor setups? - like you could have a bunch of technical readouts or whatnot on a second monitor instead of having to flip back and forth between different windows?

Question: Someone on discord wanted clarification about from which platforms GC3 would be available: Steam, GOG, etc.  Also, on a related note - how is the alpha likely to be distributed?

Question: Here's a question I'm passing along for someone on Discord (apparently he/she isn't on the forums), So I think a question about whether the ship designer is going to have additional features for designers.

[space reserved for future questions]

Thanks for taking the time to do a Q&A and taking these questions, as the SD team can probably see, the community is very excited for GC4 and is passionate about it being the best game that it can be.  

cheers,

-tid242

last updated 5/19

Questions (in no particular order): 

1.)  For those of us who only want to create functional ships (and don't care about adding all the pointless cosmetic parts), will there be a "simplified" version of the ship-designer this time around? 

2.)  Similar to the risks of letting a governor have too many planets, could an admiral with too large/strong a fleet decide to break off from your empire (or make a power grab)? 

3.)  It's been mentioned that characters in GalCiv4 won't necessarily be stuck in one role (governor, scientist, diplomat, etc.) the entire game, and that the player can move them around as they choose.  If so, can characters in one role desire *for themselves* to be in another role (i.e., switch from being a general to being an admiral) and make that desire known to the player? 

4.)  For those handful of planets that players choose to manage directly, will we finally see the economy make more sense, and/or be less opaque? 

5.)  When in the Galactic Civilizations timeline is GalCiv4 actually taking place?  It's not entirely clear from reading the timeline & lore for the game, but it almost sounds like it takes place during the Terran Crusade (essentially GalCiv3 still). 

Will the hunt for anomalies be spiced up at all? I remember the art and lore for anomalies in III being very repetitive. Could this concept be expanded on? See Stellaris as an example.

What is the plan for Galactic Civilizations 4 in regards to multiplayer?

(leaving this open ended just to get any information you wish to convey on this topic)

Thanks and good luck on the development of the game.

Since battles can take more than 1 turn, will it be possible for a 3rd faction to join the battle? It would be cool if you're watching the tactical battle and you see a third faction jump into the fray and start engaging both sides.

Will it be possible for enemy ships to surrender to you? If they do can you choose to destroy them anyway?

Will you be able to board and capture enemy ships? If so will you be able to reverse engineer their tech?

From listening to his interview I would say no. He talked about a single tech tree idea that is wide and tall and one has to have the pre-requists to use any tech. Not just a single races tech.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtZO87Cr9-4

Alright. Just going to toss in a few last-minute questions here for the AMA later, just in case I can't make it.

1. Combat Mechanics: The one big change we know about ship-to-ship combat is that it can now last multiple turns, depending on the number of ships involved on both sides. Could you share in further detail how'd this change will affect combat from what we know from GCIII (e.g. retreat mechanics, flanking maneuvers, line of battle etc.)?

2. Combat Mechanics: Apart from multiple-turn battles, could you share any other ways in which combat in GCIV will be different from what we know from GCIII (e.g. weapons/defenses, ship roles, hull sizes, components, carrier mechanics etc.)?

3. Economics: There's been several previous mentions of a "mineral" resource, which is something new coming from GCIII. Could you share more details on what it is, how we can 'harvest' them, and what we can use them for?

4. Economics: In GCIII, the Trade feature as it is now is an anemic mechanic that's easily overlooked, as it's a lot of trouble for not much payoff at all. Are there plans in the works for a more robust, enjoyable Trade mechanic for GCIV?

5. Ship Designer: I understand that the Ship Designer will not be the priority for GCIV going forward, as enough work has gone into it during GCIII. However, as it is right now in GCIII, the Ship Designer is better at the "Lego-building" portion of the ship design process, and isn't so refined when it comes to equipping components on said designs.

Are there any plans in the works to add a "Blueprint Designer", which we can use to create custom blueprints that auto-generate ships according to our own specifications, much like how default ship designs are currently auto-generated in GCIII?

6. Ship Designer: It's mentioned that ship design will not be available in the first alpha. Does that include both "lego-building" and component equipping? Or will the latter be available as well?

7. Citizens/Leaders: With the new citizens/leaders system for GCIV, are there any plans in the works for an Espionage system where we can disguise our own Spies as a Citizen/Leader of an enemy race, and obtain intel and/or cause sabotage depending on where they're assigned by the enemy race?

8. Quality of Life Improvements: Currently in GCIII, we have to bear with issues (such as Trade Offers and UP Resolutions) where we're stuck at a specific screen until we make a decision, without the option of referring to the map and/or information on other 'windows' before doing so.

Are there any plans in the works to improve QoL by making all such screens "minimizable" like you would do with Windows, so that you can come back to them later once you've had the chance to refer to other screens?

9. Ideology: GCIV will see the introduction of a 4-axis system to replace the trifecta in GCIII, with talk of increasing the number of axes. Could you share with us how the new system will affect gameplay, and how the way it does will differ from that of GCIII?

10. Governments: Will this mechanic make a return? If so, how will it differ from what it was in GCIII Intrigue?