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Marcus, Firaxis has two choices. Support a game on as its market evaporates or put resources into a new and potentially better game, Civ III. The answer is obvious.
When Civ III comes out, it will run two years. Then Firaxis or Sid Meier will revist Alpha Centauri with all the ideas generated by this forum and others concerning the game, plus new concepts generated by Civ III.
I must be honest, though. I played Civilization until Civ II came out. Then I played Civ II until SMAC came out. It will take a Civ III to make me switch. I have tried Colonization - and didn't like it. Ditto, Ages of Empire. I really enjoy SMACX.
Which brings me to a question about the AI. It seems to me to have two basic flaws that Civ did not have. The first is that all factions seem to behave like either the Russions or the Mongols did in Civilization - build military almost exclusively - however, without agressive ICS employed by those factions in the first game. The second flaw.
If either the Mongols or the Russians were in the game, I knew I was in for a struggle. The Mongols, especially, would agressively expand/conquer into a very large civilization. Later, they would consolidate and convert to Democracy. The combinaton of initial ICS and later expansion is the way to go in Civilization as it is in SMAC. However, I have never seen the AI in SMAC agressively expand to the extent it did in Civilization. But it does seem to dramatically overinvest in military - so much so that they choke off all mineral production and cannot build new facilities. The worst of the AI lot seems to be Domai who seems not to expand at all, and who also dramatically overinvests in obsolete military.
I would hope in Civ III or in some future Alpha Centauri that this AI problem be fixed.
Ned
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