According to the journal, the game should be released on August 24th. But after reading this from the journal

• Casters should not get to cast spells more than 1 per turn.
• The UI makes me cry. Clickity click click click. What’s going on?
• Goodie huts are boooring.
• The spells are booooring.
• Tactical combat is boooring.
• The spell books are confusing and make me feel violated and I’ve already consulted my attorneys about the issue. (Sorry Stardock, it’s too late already)
• The spells are all the same and boring.

in my point of view, the game is not ready to be released on the shelves in 3 weeks. Normally, 3 weeks before the release, if you still have some changes to do, it should be really minor changes, like for example, lighting adjustment like seen in a previous thread. ( Here I did not consider the time for distribution of physical copies)

From the list of comments above, the engine might be working but there does not seem to be a working game out there.

So is it me who has misunderstood something, or they are really expecting to sell and incomplete game by August 24th?

Even with the large modding option possibilities, the initial release must be a complete working game since most people will not even bother about mods if the base game does not hook them first.