Hello,

I'm interested in buying Crusade but would like to know if there's any difference between the GoG and Steam versions of the game. I don't want to miss out on any features if I choose one over the other. Are they both identical? 

Also, I'd prefer to buy directly from Stardock and choose which key, GoG or Steam I get. Is this possible? 

With regards to the actual game itself, I've been seeing reports that it has been buggy since release. Is this still the case? Is it stable enough now to purchase or are there still some game breaking bugs present that need squashing? 

I'd also like to know a little bit about the state of diplomacy in Crusade. My experience with diplomacy in GalCiv 3 as well as other Stardock games such as GalCiv 2 and Elemental: Legendary Heroes has been a bit of a strange experience, for want of a better word. Sometimes it's hilarious and at others it's just not funny. Here are some screenshots of times where I have literally lol'd:

Research Centers and Harpoons are worth way more that what the AI is offering! This happened a lot in my GalCiv 3 games; how am I supposed to take these offers seriously lol. Also, the AI behaves like a schizophrenic, in one moment saying it's pleased with my chosen ideology, the next saying something about my planets being ripe for the feeding. Lol ok then. 

And just for fun, here's another screenshot from one of Stardocks older games, Elemental: Legendary Heroes:

I bet you're laughing now   

So it looks like diplomacy that can't really be taken seriously has been a feature of Stardocks games for a while now!   

If I invest in the diplomacy tech then, from what I can tell, all I'm really doing is buying myself some time to fleet up before most if not all the AI's would inevitably declare war on me.

Up until the point I have a reasonable military most AI's spend their time telling me how weak, pathetic and puny my civilisation is, that we would better under their protection, or that they wished we did not to exist at all! Blaa blaa blaa etc etc. This is all independent of their ideology (may be the same as me), distance to me (may be on the other side of the galaxy) or military power (they may be weaker than me). Once my military rating is high enough however, now all the civs are 'close' to me? At this point why would I use diplomacy when I can use force to take what I want? The AI has built up zero diplomatic capital with me and the overall diplomatic system in GalCiv 3 didn't come across as compelling to me to use unless I wanted to farm the AI for credits, and later technology.   

As far as I can tell, in GalCiv 3 there's no AI that will truly want to behave benevolently towards you and genuinely want to assist you in any way from the very beginning when you are at your weakest, in order to build up diplomatic capital with you.

What's diplomacy like now in Crusade? Do you guys find it a more engaging and fun experience than base GalCiv 3? 

While I'm writing this I may as well mention that it appears to me that GalCiv 3 seemed to place more emphasis on the last of the 4X's i.e. Exterminate. OK, it's fun, but so are the other 3 X's when done well. Exploration, expansion and exploitation can be really fun too, are they fun in Crusade?

Also, the intro cinematic of GalCiv3 was cool and set the scene for a game with a serious and mature tone. However, once actually playing the game the tone totally changes to cheesy juvenile humor, which was kind of weird as it takes you out of the experience by making light of what you thought was supposed to be serious based on the tone of intro. Is it the same in Crusade or has it ditched the serious tone completely for a more consistent commitment to alien 'pull my finger/tentacle' jokes?

This sort of humor seems to be a feature of most of Stardocks games, almost as if they're an expression of the sense of humor of someone at Stardock  lol  

Thanks for reading and thanks to Stardock for staying independent, making this game and pushing the boundaries of technology, not only with GalCiv but Ashes of the Singularity as well. Looking forward to what you bring next both in gaming such as with Vulkan; as well as your desktop software.