Yeah, but Elemental was announced during the dark times of PC gaming where everyone said it was dying in favour of consoles and we did have quite a lack of games back then especially the RPG and Strategy franchises. When a fantasy 4X game like Elemental was announced I pretty much jumped on it, it was like a breath of fresh air that time.

Anyone knows if the combat in GalCiv3 retains the combat viewer like in Galciv 2 or does it actually have an awesome turn-based tactical battlefield to fight in this time round like in MOO2?

It will still use the combat viewer, but it's going to be a bit more sophisticated. For example, the ships are going to have more stats and specific roles as stated here:

"GalCiv III has sublight speed, mass, rate of fire, weapons range, accuracy and evasion to deal with along with the roles of ships in a fleet."

As for how ship roles are going to work, it's been (somewhat) described in this post. The Community Q&A also has some information regarding them.

Lead Designer Paul Boyer talked about what they have in mind regarding combat in this podcast (starts at around 43:41 minutes in).

The alpha version is coming out in 14 days, but it won't have fleet battles yet (as stated in the December Update).

I was hoping for a turn-based battlefield where I can control all the ships and all their guns. Even Elemental had turn-based battlegrounds. Disappointed. It's hard to wait for a true blue MOO2 clone.

Stardock posted a preview of the GalCiv 3 Economy.

It sounds much simpler than the economy in GalCiv 2 (let alone 1), yet, also more powerful, because you can finally finetune each individual planet too.

Stardock posted the first GalCiv 3 gameplay video.

After watching that video I developed a new fear concerning GalCiv3, that it will be TOO MUCH like GalCiv2.
Yes Stardock, we do love GalCiv2 with our heart & soul, but if you're going to sell us a new game, make sure it IS a new game.
So they're hitting alpha soon, good. It would be even better if that was followed by a GOG release of GalCiv2UE. ;)

The Escapist has released a preview of the GalCiv 3 Alpha.

As for the Alpha itself, it just got released (I'm downloading right now). We'll see how good it really is, but I'm not expecting much. Most of the features haven't been implemented yet.

93€ and requires a Stardock account. Oh, I can see this is going to go down well...

So much for Steam being required because ot its unique Steamworks features - the whole fucking thing is going through Stardock's own account system!

So would this be the best time to demand for a GOG version. :D

Yeah, from what I heard, there is already a shitstorm going on on the Steam-forums because of this. Plus, I also saw a couple of those threads on the Stardock-forums. It's strange, you'd think this:

-The base game (which will list for $49.99 when released)
-The future expansion packs (we current have 4 planned)
-All DLC (we plan to do around 6 the first year and 4 per year subsequently as long as there is interest)
-Access to our Founder's vault which includes access to our own internal dirty laundry (internal docs, failed concepts, music drafts, etc.)
-Naming a star in the game
-Forum badge and special forum access

plus access to the Alpha and Beta, would be worth $100. Even if you don't think so, nobody is forcing you to buy it now. You can wait until the game has been released (or until it has become much cheaper). The Founder's Elite Edition is primarily intended for hardcore GalCiv-fans who want to help with the development of the game.

The game does require Steam because of the Steamworks features. As for the online-registration, this is hardly new. All of Stardock's digitally distributed games since GalCiv 2 require it.

No, Frogboy said "no" because making an additional non-Steamworks would require too much time and effort. The full quote (plus link) has been posted further up-thread.

The full quote (plus link) regarding this has also been posted up-thread, so I suggest you read it again. Also, take a look at this post. It pretty much explains the reasons behind Stardock's attitude regarding middle-men.

But enough about that. There have been some Let's Tests of the Alpha posted on YouTube. Here is one by , and another by [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tOZu_ItYuY&list=UUHJM-Vd74Egk1xvGp4BHWBA]Das24680.

As for my own experiences, I played about 8 hours now. So far, I had one crash. Other than that, it's been pretty stable. Good framerate, smooth animations (as far as they have been implemented). There have been a few bugs, plus some UI issues, but, for an Alpha, it's pretty good. Much better than I expected, to be honest.
Still, there is a lot of work left to be done until release. Most of the features haven't been added yet.

Edit: Fixed some quotes.

So, the "Founders Elite edition" has now been released. 92.99€ for the early access version ,a lifetime subscription to dlcs and some exclusive content. Steam and Stardock account needed.

It will be cheaper, if you buy it from Stardock directly, because they charge in USD. I only paid about 76€, after the conversion, when I bought it last year.

Also, the Stardock account is apparently going to be optional for the standard edition, according to a post from Frogboy on the Steam forums.

As stated , the devs are making a live stream today (April 4th) at 3 pm EST (9 pm CET) on [url=http://twitch.tv/stardock]twitch.tv.