From what I recall the development for CS was a 7-year project to release (not counting Early Access)
Including EA.
You've always stated that the current game's revenue is what sets the budget for the next game, which I would take to mean AoD (plus DR) sold enough to fund all of this.
From another post:
"I assume that some people look at it this way: AoD sold enough to pay for the next game (Colony Ship), if CS doesn't sell enough to pay for the next game, it must have failed.
In reality AoD didn't sell all that well (which is why we didn't make AoD 2) and paid for 50% of Colony Ship's budget. Some of this shortfall was relatively 'easy' to fix - work longer hours and weekends for 7 years, how hard could it be? Others - not so much. In 2020 we had enough money only to pay the contractors and not the core team. We had to compromise at every step and constantly settle for less simply because we didn't have enough money and manpower. It wears you down more than anything else.
The tentative sequel will require a bigger team and a bigger budget. Nothing crazy but at least one extra designer to share the workload (more like to make it easier to breathe for the rest of us) and more contractors (art and 3D). Probably 25% more overall.
Colony Ship would probably generate 60% of that increased budget, meaning we expect it to sell 40-50% more than AoD. The problem is, it won't be enough and neither KS not Patreon will make up for the difference."
Now you have an engine you're used to working in, plus all the code and assets from CS that should be reusable, at least in part, for a direct sequel. And you say CS has sold better than AoD+DR.
From another post:
"1) We can reuse most of the human-related assets: character models, animations, weapons and armor (obviously there would be new weapons and armor reflecting the rapidly evolving situation on the ground), tilesets, objects, etc. That's a big plus.
The real challenge in terms of art will come from the natives' culture. Literally everything, from architecture and furniture to livestock and industrial objects (not to mention the natives themselves, their clothing, weapons, and armor) would have to be defined (concept art) and 3D modelled. Neither is cheap.
I hope we all agree that the alien planet and culture should look and feel appropriately alien and not 'made for TV' humans pretending to be aliens.
2) We need to expand the team. We might be able to pull it off without a second programmer (we started Colony Ship with two programmers but lost one after two years to higher wages and greener pastures) or a second writer (would be nice), but we definitely need another level designer and/or someone to handle extra scripting, which is probably our biggest bottleneck.
Take two skilled people, multiply their salaries by 5 years. That alone is a lot more than what we can get on Kickstarter."