DirectX 12

Since its minimum requirements is DirectX 10, it will most likely be based on DX10 features mostly, except using DX11 as a performance boost.

DX12 seems unnecessary since GalCiv3's demand on GPU speed should be moderate.

Also, it is very unlikely that Win7 would get DX12 support and it's still unknown whether Win 8 and 8.1 would get DX12 support.

that's where you're completely wrong. most of dx12 new stuff is to allow devs to manage low-level calls which is basically what mantle also does, and that's mainly to reduce cpu to gpu bottlenecks so that the game can unleash the real power of the gpu.

one side-effect is when you can apply big optimizations on this part, in addition to being able to feed more data to the gpu, you also free the cpu from some useless tasks, so the cpu can be used for more interesting tasks.

so theorically, it can benefit especially to a game which is more cpu-intensive.

but maybe for an rts, the best enhancement would be to use apis like directcompute which can allow to deport some features normaly reserved to the cpu (like ai or physics) to the gpu which is hundreds of time more efficient than the cpu at this sort of stuff. and that is independant of directx, but the devs has to take an interest in it.

Considering the odds of MS supporting DX12 on Win7 is basically zero DX12 will be as much a tech dead end as DX10 was

Considering Windows 7 maintains 60% market share compared to ~25% to 8/8.1, as well as being used by businesses almost 100% of the time, it would be shockingly stupid for Microsoft to not support it.

That would magically assume the MS actually cares about its customers and not pushing the utter debacle that is Windows 8/8.1

Note that

1) DX10 was only made available to Vista, not XP

2) DX11.2 is already Windows 8.1 ONLY

Note that MS has not actually said if they will support Win7, which to me more or less signals that they're not going to bother. Otherwise they would have come out and said so since that was actually asked in the GDC presentation. Instead they've only given vague indicators of OS support. This to me signals that the OS division is hampering the DX division into shoe-horning DX12 to make it Win8.1 only.

Maybe I was wrong assuming companies had a modicum of commonsense? lol

I'll be honest, having used both OS', I can say that barring a few UI derps, Windows 8.1 is vastly superior to Windows 7 in several ways, not least of which is the ~10% performance boost across most games. It's hard to argue against it, even though the original release ate the balls.

Being that Windows 9 is on the horizon, I doubt they would support Windows 7.  It would be a good motivator to get people on the latest OS.

Because that's always gone so well, right?

They've already tried it twice with DX10 and DX11.2. Why break the cycle now.

Look at me with my quaint faith in Humanity and the common good.

Thank you for restoring my precious and irreplaceable cynicism and defeatism! Can't go too long without those