Great - happy to hear that the core elements of what IMHO made GalCivs great will be maintained. I guess the spamming of (IMO) inane complaints from the interviewers really grated on my nerves and made me worry that the focus was shifting to make the game more casual .
So I just listened to the podcast. I liked the enthusiasm of Paul, but grew concerned at the focus of most of the interview being on the interviewers complaining about how difficult it was to understand the slider interface and how great it would be if there were advisors like in Civilization. I remember reading a lot of reviews on GalCiv 2 and I can't remember a single complaint about the interface. Could it be improved? Sure - but there is always diminishing gain