Slitherine

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Here's my notes regarding some of the more interesting points mentioned in the interview:
* Steam launch: The game is selling enough to be worthwhile given the years of work Vic put into it, but not exceptionally well.
* Near-future plans include (due to profileration of useless strat cards in your inventory in the lategame) the ability to mass-scrap unneeded strategem cards for currency that you can exchange for "cards packs" that are actually useful for you.
* Claims of an early foreign council for absorbing minors being overpowered: Vic says it's planet-dependent, playing on highly habitable planets with lots of farmer minors greatly increases the effectiveness of this strategy.
* In-game analytics: Vic used them a bit at the beginning, but analyzing the data takes time and more important tasks have taken priority since. They're currently switched off.
* There hasn't been much player feedback on the air force feature, probably because people haven't played enough with it yet.
* Vic likes the way the air force system interplays with different planetary characteristics and is considering expanding that more to other gameplay systems as well in the future.
* Vic would like to continue the development of the game for years, though it may end up being more or less depending on how well the game continues to sell.
* Vic wants to talk about possible future features he's considering implementing for the game, and lists some common complaints from player feedback: AI processing time, opacity of the rules, lousy graphics, and the complexity of the supply system.
* "Might address the graphics a little bit", does not want to go into details on this yet
* Can "work a little bit" on the speed of the AI
* Rules opacity and the supply system probably won't see more major work, prefer to focus on new features instead
* Hopes to add navies and ocean planets by the end of 2021
* Considering using a slightly more abstract system for managing the navy where seas are divided into larger seazones, and fleets based in ports are given missions to perform in particular seazones rather than players managing their movement on a hex-by-hex basis.
* Would like to add alien regimes based on the evolution of life on the planet (I take this means/may include non-human sapients?), or flesh out rebels, such as adding the ability to negotiate with them.
* Toying with the idea of an "extreme fog of war" mode, where lots of statistical information, like the exact statistics of vehicles and the abilities of leaders, is hidden until field tested with combat or, respectively, skill rolls.
* Thinking about expanding the leader system with familial relationships and prominent families vying for wealth and power.
* Also thinking about introducing something called "abundance rules", which would start to affect economically well-to-do regimes in the midgame and generate internal political strife premised around people wanting to adopt extreme or corrupt forms of ideologies favored by the state. Examples mentioned include syndism for democracies, fanatical authoritarianism, or aristocracy for meritocracy-focused states (but I think "oligarchy" might be more the word Vic was looking for there).

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3) continued support for at least a year from Vic is great to hear, but 2+ would be better ;-)