Mercifully, I haven't bought a thing yet. And I'm not understanding fully what the developer is saying. Is he saying this new upcoming release will be a packaged version containing the base game, this new expansion + all DLCs released to this point? Or is just the base game + expansion where you will need to buy the DLCs separately?

I'm really feeling bad about buying this game. Its like every month now that Stardock shells out a new dlc while the vanilla game itself is bare of content. And still no Linux version.
Its a standalone expansion where all the other previous buyers will get screwed and forced to rebuy the same game again with some additional content added. I should have know it already since they have done it before with Sins of Solar Empire releasing Standalone expansions and releasing new dlc for those standalone expansions. Their games are unending money sinkholes with little content being delivered by the already expensive base game. Oh also after next expansion there will definitely be another with the same content as previous standalone expansions and with all previous dlc included :)

Quote:
"The first expansion for Ashes of the Singularity will be coming out this Fall. It will be a stand-alone expansion (i.e. you won’t need to buy the base game). This is the same thing we did with Sins of a Solar Empire and Fallen Enchantress and it worked well. A new player would just buy the expandalone and get the base game and the expansion integrated. DLC from the base game will migrate to the expansion (i.e. players won’t have to buy it again)."

My advice is for new buyers not to buy this version and wait for the first expansion since it will include everything this game has together with its dlc.

Boy, that is kind of shitty. And, it's annoying having to keep tabs as to what version of the game they are releasing with what content accompanying it, plus keeping track of the ever-growing mountain of DLCs. I'm a lazy-ass, and just prefer dumping games (and some reasonable extra DLC content) onto my wish-list and forgetting about it till I want to buy it.

I prefer my rts's to have a more fleshed out base game and a decent simple map editor (like command & conquer red alert) instead of DLC map packs so have not purchased into the series at all.
When what I value as a consumer is inherent in their product they may receive money from me, until then they can shove their DLC model up their preverbial arse.

Well, my understanding is that the DLC's are not included in the expandalone. Not buying them again implies that I have bought them at some point.

But then, I'm not a native speaker. I think they could have just written (italic by me) if that's what they intend.

So, the upgrade price for Escalation has been bumped to $19.99 in the meanwhile...
It was also confirmed that the expandalone does *not* include existing DLC, see:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AshesoftheSingularity/comments/501zu6/does_escalation_include_everything/

Thanks for the update on that. Well thats a first that they didn't the dlc in the expansion. I guess they wan't double the money.