Doubtful as they will be doing a lot of trimming the fat as they release/build more of the game. It was actually higher in the Alpha for me.

I would also point out the title screen may be doing a lot of background loading and decompression of things into memory.

Doubtless as it is still not feature complete the game will undergo a lot more optimisation yet. However as it enables immense maps, customisable ships, and a multi-threaded AI with possibly up to 100 races, I would suggest that on larger maps and with max races in a game it with thrash any hardware out there.

It’s that old thing where people think a strategy game should be less demanding than an FPS, but actually particularly on memory and CPU as opposed to GPU the reverse is probably true. Not that I’m saying this game won’t also be GPU heavy after all it will be displaying a lot of distinct objects when zoomed out.

I'm curious what processor you're running as mine hovers around 30% usage constant.

At idle I'm using 22% of 12gb ram 0% i7 qc 4ghz. With game loaded, fully colonized large map & other 3 civs making their move, my processor's at 41% and using 52% ram. This is just a fast & dirty 24hr game, no star bases and maybe just over 125 or so ships (includes those in fleets) between all 4 civs. Out of all saved games, this was the highest usage of ram/proc. percentage of all of them. Main title page was about 28~30% proc. & 38% ram. Subtract 22% base (@ idle) and it's only using 16% mem (just under 2gb) main page  and 30% (about 3.6gb) in game. Looks like it's time to upgrade.

 I was looking for an excuse, guess I found one! I personally like playing on very huge maps. Can't wait to play on the immense one. Should only take a couple of months to play through. 4hr x 7 days x 9 weeks = 252hrs. That's of course just a rough guesstimate. I wont care whether it says I win or lose, in the end I WILL dominate the galaxy! Now this is my kind of game. Good job guys.

I enjoy the occasional Windows "low-memory" warning as much as the next guy, though this might be the first time I've gotten one on the start menu screen. I use my computer for more than playing games. I have multiple monitors and like to be able to tab between my open applications. One of the nice things about TBS is that the game moves at my pace, so I don't have to worry about missing something while I'm in another application.

The problem isn't resource usage per-se. That's why I have an overbuilt machine. The worrying thing is resource usage for no clear purpose. If the game is completely idle and my system is chugging away, what the hell is it doing? Is Stardock mining bitcoins?

I am not the developer. Maybe it's Stardock's master plan to drive my utility bill through the roof by using my CPU to animate clouds in high detail. I don't know. But this:

... is ridiculous. I know, it's a beta, there's a lot of optimization to go. But there's also a promised graphical overhaul. There's also all sorts of new features, new assets, the AI is basically brain-dead, etc. etc. I'm worried that resource usage (and wasted resources) is going to be a serious problem for this game. In a TBS it's hard to imagine needing something beefier than Fycome's machine.

 I have never experienced that concern with this program. I have had this on a few computers at work, but the underlying root cause was not with the particular program that hangs, but somewhere else. You may need to do some clean up of the os, remove other programs or check for a problem with the registry. I'm getting to the end of another game on which I have 100+ ships myself, with star bases & 3 times the normal amount of shipyards. No increase in processor or ram usage. I have 241 programs installed on my machine (mostly games) that do not seem to affect each other in any way. I have installed some programs before (can't recall the names at the moment) that adversely affected everything. Needless to say, the came right back off and I found others that worked better with my setup. Not all computers, video cards, etc. are created equal or behave the same with programs (internally from os perspective)  as others.

  I work on the "SYNC" system for a Ford dealer & people constantly complain that their phone doesn't do messages or whatever that their neighbors does  - "They have the same car and the same phone". Even though this is true, Ford has a compatibility matrix and the first thing you do is pick a carrier service. Even though they have the same phone, they have different carriers so they respond differently. Hearts, smiley faces, too many contacts, ect. in their phones  causes the radio, sirius or navigation to hang for awhile before go to another task. This is an exaggerated example, but the principle is the same. On the other hand, it could just be the game (beta, ya know).

If you're still having issue like this, please submit a ticket.