Okay, now after having read some comments after my post above, I find myself  VERY confused by the talk of "deciding what to port back".  Are we talking about going back to GC3 pre-Crusade for some future update, and eventually not improving Crusade; letting it die as a development fork?  In one post Brad called Crusade the equivalent of a pseudo GC4, so I thought that this was the path forward and based on that I've been digging into EVERYTHING and learning what I can.

I wouldn't like going backward and I'd rather not spend a lot of my own time learning Crusade if at some point down the road I'll have to forget all the new strategies I'm teaching myself and go back to pre-Crusade anyway.

If we're really not certain what the lifecycle is going to be for this game, then I'd like to know that now so that I can stop now.  I'm perfectly okay with going back to CIV VI until the future of GalCiv3 has been decided.

I hope I'm just misunderstanding the phrasing being used.  If so, please correct me!

As I uderstand it Crusade will persist and be the main development branch, but Stardock asks what to port back to the pre-Crusade GC III for those that don't like Crusade.

Multicore AI? Hell yea!!

p.s. Also how about an extensive additional ideology pack, adding more interesting issues to decide on. I love the Ideology mechanic. I can even provide idea, pm me if you want to hear... Or maybe we could make a thread of ideas.

Crusade is the future target of new GalCiv III development.

However, the base game should get some updates so that we can get them to Crusade by having the base game compelling enough.

One nice thing about having a base game and Crusade is that there's nothing stopping us from having GalCiv III be only $19.99 and then make Crusade the deluxe package.

The first step though is deciding what really makes GalCiv III different from Crusade, fundamentally?

In my mind:

1. Production wheel instead of Citizens (which is a gigantic difference as it means none of the other citizen related features)
2. No Espionage
3. No Missions
4. No Fleet Designer

Oh, whew, I was a bit worried there, but now I'm on track with you; thanks!   

1.  I would say that GC3 should get Crusade's UI changes.  Moving the technology progress bar to the left side, for example.

2.  What about Starbase upgrading process (use constructors vs. money and resources)?  How much of the base game would require re-wiring for GC3 to be made like Crusade just for this one area?  Would it throw the gameplay out of balance for GC3?  And would it ultimately be worth the labor outlay to make that change?

hmm, I think #1 should be in the base game here.

I'd drop #5, keep it for Crusade.  I would keep #1 and #4 for sure, on the fence for the other 2.

totally agree.

Brought Crusade just a few days ago the only thing I dislike is using resources to construct larger ships. But I do like the complexities of Crusade especially the Civilization builder and many new planetary improvements like space elevator and especially cities. But I love the base game as well because it is more simple so I will probably play them from time to time. So here are a few things I would like to speak about

I am all for maintaining these back into Crusade in Category 1 - these are the things that defined Crusade in my mind

• The 3 new races
• Citizen System
• Espionage
• Crusade UI
• Missions
• New Diplomacy System
• New Resource system

But there are a few things I would like to add to base game from category 1

• External Ship Designer - hey ship design should not be exclusive to only crusade
• Civilization Builder - even though Crusade is better at enjoying new custom races, there are a few custom races back at base game that while I would love to play back at base game I still hope that there are more diversity to them especially the fleet design.
• Trait based tech tree - since Traits are in the base game and could add more diversity, I see little reason to exclude them

Category 2 - to add to base game

1. Flavor Text additions
2. Word on the Street

others can be debated but the influence system should stay at Crusade

On category 3 - I totally agree

I hope to see however some of the things added into the base game

1. Transports would not be consumed after battle.
2. Cities to add to base game (I love the cities - the base game just have improvement but I always question where do they live?) It is strange not to see cities on colonies but just a bunch of factories, farms and labs. Also, I just love cities but it would be hard to mod them in base game.
3. The new shiptypes from Crusade to join the base game especially the spore ship - sometimes you just want to destroy the system rather than finding any use of the planet - both for fun and for strategic purposes.

One of the thing I hope to be able to bring to base game and Crusade is a modding tool known as improvement modding. This is a tool that existed back in Twilight of the Arnor and I still hope for this mod which allows us to easily mod improvements to our own liking. I believe that both games could use it and not just Crusade.

I might change my mind later but this is what in my mind right now.

Crusade is far superior to the base game in every aspect.

I will never play the base game again.

Fix any long standing bugs, but dont spend precious time adding features to it.

Add more to Crusade!