My guess is that work will start on the Bonus pack, which is supposed to have the same release date as the game, but doesn't have to go gold before then because it doesn't need to go through the production process, just loaded onto the server.

After that, then the team will probably split up, with some of them staying to work on GC2 (bug fixes, expansion, etc), some going on to work on Society (About that. You TEASES! "accidentally" having a 0.001 alpha up that wouldn't actually download! I say again, you TEASES! Keep up the good work ), and some to other projects. Actually, that's more than a guess, that's an approximation of what CariElf said in IRC.

Updates, expansion packs, and Society.

There will also be Political Machine 2008.

PM 2004 was a pretty neat game.  Looking forward to the sequel.  Will it be an incremental update to the original, or a revamp in line with the differences between GC1 and 2?

How about vacation, disney world, and resting on their laurels for a while ?

and soaking in some heaps of praise.

sweet cant wait another game that i can preorder months in advance do a sweet beta report bugs to developers that i think actually deserve my help that is of course assuming there is going to be an open beta (has fingers crossed) but i think that gal civ twos going to be keeping occupied for a long time before i get into society

Two Words:

"Galactic Pirates!"

As long as Stardock has demonstrated theyre great at expanding and refining the iconic games of strategy or quasi-strategy games in alternate settings, and Sid Meier in particular, this seems an obvious step. In my mind, I am already picturing a game where stardock builds on the ship customization features in GC2 to allow players to custom make their own pirate and privateer spaceships with harpoons, tractor fields, and energy sapping EMF attacks, while staying one step ahead of the galactic brigand hunters, and I am already pulling money out of my wallet.

I am also picturing boarding party mini games. Im not too sure about dancing with with Drengin governeors daughters, but we can work on that.

An update that added Piracy gameplay to GC2 would also be very welcome

Heh, no, it need not be a tit for tat translation of the sid meiers game, and I would certainly hope not. I'd expect stardock to build on it, and make it their own...namely, using their custom ship building notions. So you can tweak out your ships appearance and capabilities ...engine, armour, stealth capabilities, etc with better technology that you find on the black market (or steal ). It neednt even really be the mini game approach...it could be more like the older Pirates games with RPG elements.

As long as you could set upon unsuspected vessels traveling back and forth between planets, knocking out their engines, or harpponing and boarding them, stealing loads of goodies...and if they happen to have a better ship than yours, well you could take that too.

Pirates are cool, and should be in every game !