What will future expansions add to the game?

All of the is purely conjecture. You will NOT get an official answer as there is no timeline but...

• Arceans (expansion)
• Torians (expansion)
• Korrath (expansion)
• Dread Lords (expansion, since they are dead but forums want them back.)
• Invasions! (likely to be several patches and not a DLC or expansion)
• Espionage (major expansion.)
• Expanded diplomatic options (this is likely to come as patches to the ai over the years.)
• Star base redesign (expansion/dlc, this is likely to be part of our first expansion.)
• Snathi (dlc)
• Map Packs (dlc)
• Expanded and refined filtering of tabs and UI, (patches likely)
• Fleet refinements and expanded Combat.
• Complete re-coding of game engine to support DX12 {Paul+Brad love doing code-work}, (there has been no word of this, it is my personal theory, likely not going to happen for 3+ years or never.)

Paul has mentioned a few things in the Streams.  Off the top of of my head he has mentioned:

• Starbases and Terrorstars
• Commanders(heroes) & planetary governors 
• Asteroid mining
• More Races

Hopefully better AI.  

Will there be a map editor? The single biggest reason I hit reset is positioning. Also, I really enjoyed making maps on GalCiv2.

Better AI is basically going to be included (as they are able to) with every patch, according to their plans going forward.  I'm guessing that's part of why they wanted more people playing the game, is so they can test the AI against humans and come up with better strategies for it to use (and identify problems).

The map editor was one of the last things they added in Galciv2 as an expansion, although I'm guessing it's going to come sooner in GalCiv3 since they've planned for it to be easily moddable from the get go.

I'd like to see a major expansion with more detailed political and socio-economic factors coming into play.  

..government choices - all have pros and cons, for any type of victory path

..war exhaustion, even for an attacking race

..laws effecting entire empire, all requiring political credit to implement, have decent bonuses in the direction you want, with slight counter-productive maluses

..cabinet positions - political credit required to change, amount depending on goverment type

..Empire wide morale factor - bonus/malus for numerous scenarios, effects primarily based on government type (losing a planet, troop/citizen deaths, fleet victory/destruction, research accomplishments, expansion, etc)

..disapproval of government can lead to planet flipping to a rival faction or declaration of independence (i.e., become a minor race)

..forced relocation malus (yes, some colonists will want to move to a new planet willingly, but certainly not all - the longer they stay on a planet, the more resistance to move - planetary approval can work in opposite manner with this - higher approval, more resistance to move - lower approval, less resistance)

..government and policies can affect troop conscription rates/costs - a few hundred thousand naval crew is a trivial matter compared with with troops in the BILLIONS

..occupation policies for recently conquered worlds - threat of post-invasion resistance possibly requiring the garrison of troops, etc

Also, much more depth on invasion mechanics, including specialized troop production, garrisons, assault craft tech, etc - I understand that at this point in the game, they wanted to keep things simple, but I just cant wrap my head around the fact that children to florists to the elderly can just be given a gun, and become an effective marine, sending an entire population of a world to another to fight.

The map editor will be in the first DLC.

Check out this thread by Brad on the Steam forums for some ideas on what they plan to add.

thanks Rhonin, quite insightful.  I honestly think most everyone's wishes will indeed be put into the game, its just a matter of time.

I already posted in other posts, but I will try again in this one.

Can we PLEASE have a sorting option (at least to sort them by name if anything) for ships and planets on the list on the right???

 I mean (and dont take it bad) but how hard can it be to add this?

Thank you for the info Rhonin. That was a great thread to share.