I am curious what the benefit of the main game is now? What is unique about it that will make it worth it to buy both the base game and the expansion?

Hmm, so, the Expansion pack is basically stand alone, which means that the people who play that, can't play with the original AoTS people fairly, correct?  (Since all the new additions.)

Does that mean, the original AoTS is basically finished, or are the improvements (game engine) from the Expansion coming to the original as well?

No.  We want to use the Escalation series to evolve into a bigger game and keep the Ashes game as the introductory game.  Both will continue to be updated simultaneously.

There is no expansion, AOTS Escalation is a Standalone game, you don't need the first one and by buying AOTS Escalation you get the base game with the expansion

they keep selling the first AOTS way cheaper than AOTS Escalation, that's the Benefit you get by buying only AOTS.

I guess they do that for new players who don't want to spend a lot for a game that want to try.

I may be wrong tho. sorry that's just my though about that.

As a person who's played a few stardock games and enjoyed them, upon hearing that this new game they've developed called Ashes of the singularity has finally had the bugs ironed out and the game improved on I was keen to buy it. Especially so when I signed into steam today and discovered a 75% off until August 30th. However imagine my surprise when I discovered that a stand alone expansion of Ashes of the singularity was due to come out in month or less, which by the way is being pitched better then the previous game in every way. 

I must admit I'm a little confused. Why should any prospecting buyers to the series buy the soon to be obsolete Ashes of the singularity and not buy the expansion? If this expansion : Escalation - comes out and proves indeed to be better then the previous game everyone will quite literally jump ship. So which do I buy? Do I hope for a less buggy release come the new game? Or buy the already good base game? 

Buying Escalation gets you the base game too.

Ah yes I confirmed what you just said. It seems I should read the fine print more often. Thank you for the quick reply mate

My pleasure! Cheers!

Paid over $60au for the original game, almost $10au for each dlc, can't see where to get founders upgrade for this new game, so another $30-40au?  When it's now $13us in steam? When I click upgrade on the stardock site it takes me to steam, where it's the same price as there sale price =/

If I buy Escalation can I gift the base game to a friend that doesn't have it? Seeing as a founder I'm paying teh same price as everyone else that might be the only way I would consider not just waiting for it to come on sale.

Can we have a few harder difficulty levels thrown in as well?

Yeah. This looks awesome! Fantastic that the game is kept alive with updates and dlc etc. 

S.

Escalation is priced at $19.99 for Ashes players.  Think of it as a DLC package:

1. Substrate Unit Pack ($4.99) includes 5 new Substrate units
2. PHC Unit pack ($4.99) includes 5 new PHC units
3. Defensive Pack ($4.99) includes 10 new fixed defensive structures
4. Episode 2 ($4.99)
5. Huge map pack ($4.99)
6. Crystal and Lava world pack ($4.99)

And then add strategic zoom and 16 player support as free features added.  

So instead of there being $30 of new DLC it's a $19.99 expansion for Ashes players.

I just logged out of my steam account to check steam pricing.

Escalation is $29.99, and it comes with the base Ashes game, as far as I know.

So essentially, if you're a new player, you pay $29.99 and get Escalation + Ashes (full experience). 

Now, you can alternatively buy the Ashes base game at $13.

If you do so, I believe you can then purchase escalation at $19.99.

This would be pretty silly, since it would cost you ~$3 more than just buying escalation.

Your total price for Ashes + Escalation wold then be ~$33

I guess the benefit of this package is that you might get to play Ashes for a few weeks, until escalation releases... A $3 value, apparently.

(Actually, I'm not sure whether purchasing escalation actually gives access to Ashes immediately. I am wondering if this really makes sense, and would certainly recommend a price adjustment of the base game down to $10, so that buying piecemeal doesn't punish you during the sale).

The third possibility -- which includes me -- is that you already own Ashes.

If you already own Ashes, you probably bought it for either ~$40 or ~$20.

If you're in this category, lucky you.

For the same game experience of Ashes + Escalation, you will have paid even more.

If you're fortunate, you paid only $20 for Ashes, which means:

- you will have paid just $10 more than brand new players who are purchasing only escalation (perhaps can't play yet, but will receive both products)

- you will have paid just $7 more than the players who in the next few days buy Ashes first and then escalation

On the other hand, you might have paid the full $40 retail, which means:

- you will have paid $30 more than brand new players who are purchasing only escalation (perhaps can't play yet, but will receive both products)

- you will have paid $27 more than the players who in the next few days buy Ashes first and then ecalation

Then there are apparently other founders -- not the real founders -- who paid even more... I've heard ~$60

They're the luckiest of all.

(Well done, gents.)

I guess I'm just saying that, while I understand the company needs to break even (at least), this doesn't seem like a terrific way to go about the pricing. 

It seems really backwards.

It punishes the people who jump on board early and stay loyal.

I realize that there are costs to software production, but this is quite a bit of variation in a matter of months. 

And the game is still buggy and undergoing improvement.

Maybe consider some extra DLC or something to even the score?

Frogboy: Seriously. I hear you. Perhaps now is your chance to give something away.

A couple points on that. 

The Ashes Lifetime Founders get all this for free.  They're the ones who paid $99.

We are still meeting on what we can do to thank our most loyal customers.  

Trying to make people happy ultimately ends up with making some people unhappy. Some of you who have been here a long time saw all the grief we got because our games used to have players create a Stardock account on first run.  I'd explain to them on these very forums that the reason we did that was so that we could make special offers to those users because they're in our system and we know when they bought the game. 

But the overwhelming demand was that we get rid of the activation. Even Sins doesn't have it anymore.  So now we have no idea when someone bought a given game unless they bought it from us.  So that means, just the Founders.  So at least we can still do things for them (like give upcoming DLC to them).  But that will only make those who purchased day 0 annoyed. 

In other words, there's no way to do something that doesn't upset some people.

I love being a founder:)

Any hints on types of defensive structures that are coming in the expansion?