I just won a game of Civ2 last night by launching a spaceship to Alpha Centauri. Has anyone else noticed that the base your civilization establishes in the little victory movie looks alot like a Hive base? Cool...
I hope not. I want you to be able to tie your Civ3 game to AC, but not be FORCED to do so. In the AC timeline Earth is destroyed and horribly polluted, which wouldn't necessarily fit with every game. I think inserting a blatant advertisment for Alpha Centauri (much as I like the game) would ruin some of that end game feeling.