the Shekkians will be reborn on their homeworld Shekkyworld!!!

can't wait loved all the previous games and will definately enjoy this sequel.

I hope this turns out better than Elemental

Now I just have to come up with a star name.

The funny thing is that Uranus type of name wouldn't be allowed these days.

Yeah, I'll probably veto "Urdick" too.

why not? [ yur-uh-nuss ] no biggie.

only people that don't know how to pronounce it, call it [ your-anus ]...

Trying to decide between Emeralis or Madokami.

Pronunciation has nothing to do with it. Texting and internet shorthand has made ur = your.

Well, "Verga" should be doable. *looks at Elemental* Maybe "Tuano" can make the trick too. We only have to satisfy english speaking sensibilities, right?

For the record, mine (star name) is no joke of any kind.

Just pulled the trigger myself, have loved GalCiv since the OS/2 days.

I'd probably just pass through the name on xbox live. If it goes through, or the gamertag isn't already banned, then it's probably safe. The xbox people have seen every possible variation of kids trying to bypass the language filters in every conceivable language possible.

This is now a double-entendre star name thread...my contribution:

phistynbut

I'm sure the person vetting out the star names will be pulling their hair out by the end of this and cursing Stardock!

Surely most submissions will be reasonable but there may be some trying to be "epic".

I'm sure most of Galciv's fans are pretty mature, but this is 2013 internet culture we are talking about...

(come to think about it if they can pay the $99 they probably won't be 13...)

Yeah, I doubt many of today's 'twitch gaming' kiddies will be forking over $100 to pre-buy a turn based strategy game...thank goodness.

We're getting ready to set up a special library available only to Founders to download stuff we're working on.

Nice to hear!

*starts digging pennies out of his couch*

I've been checking back about once a year to see if GC3 was ever announced/released.  Given Stardock's track record (how they handled the Elemental series) and history (I used OS/2 from 2.0 up through OS/2 Warp before switching to Win2000), it's one of the very few companies that I feel comfortable with pre-ordering.

I spent a lot of time in the MOO3 forums back at release, I'm hoping that Stardock paid attention to the mistakes made by the MOO3 team.  Such as releasing too early and releasing in an unfinished state with a UI that didn't make sense and hid key information.

Or the mistakes made by the Civ5 team where they tossed out all of the good stuff in Civ4 and failed to learn the lessons from Civ4 (what works, what doesn't work, what players liked, what players didn't like) all because it was a new developer who wanted to put their "mark" on the franchise.

Mostly, what made me pony up was the words "addition of interstellar terrain" -- which I hope means that the galaxy will be less flat then it currently is.  I have to play on "Immense" with "Dense Star Clusters" with stars less common so that 2/3 of the sectors are empty and the galaxy has a feel of topography with big empty stretches combined with dense clusters and a few isolated clusters.  If the new terrain adds things like dust clouds that enforce a maximum speed as you traverse those squares and affect sensor range / weapons and other features where it is often faster to go around an obstacle rather then through it, I will say they've lived up to "addition of interstellar terrain".

Gonna have to second that. The improvements in Elemental have been astonishing and I wasn't disappointed in pre-ordering FE and LH, so there's a good basis for trust as far as I'm concerned. GalCiv III is more than I have ever spent on a computer game but I expect it will be totally worth it, even putting aside the Founder badge and star naming.

New elite founder checking in! Can't wait to christen my little piece of sky

I couldn't resist anymore (Darn you Stardock!!!)

Bought the Founder Elite package. And for just €75, it's a steal. Though I'll kick myself when the game plus all it's expansions are available for just $5

Have to think how I could get both of my daughters involved in the name of the star....

Usually there is no way I would have paid this much money for a game but Stardock has managed to keep little spot of my cynical heart still soft... 

Pretend its a binary star and name it Jessica-Teresa?

Damn good idea. This might get me out of the doghouse! The Wifi's signal out here sucks.