posted 05-15-99 05:42 PM ET        

Hi All,

Civ fans everywhere will, I'm sure, be interested to learn that we have just announced (at E3 last night) that we will be developing Sid Meier's Civilization III as one of our upcoming products, to be published under the Microprose label by Hasbro Interactive!

This is a brand-spanking new development, so I'm not ready to go into loads of detail just yet, but I do plan to stay in touch on the newsgroups during the development of the game, because I think every Civ fan has an idea in his/her head about what Civ 3 should be. We'll do a "call for features" once we have a serious prototype we like.

To answer some of the most obvious and burning questions-- (1) yes, many of the important strong points of Alpha Centauri will (where appropriate) be incorporated into Civ3, so don't worry your little (big?) heads about that. :-) (2) Yes, we're still working on Alpha Centauri upgrades, expansions, etc. In fact, as Sid announced last night, we see Alpha Centauri and the Civ 1-2-3 series as two members of a broader Sid Meier "Sweep of Time" trilogy we want to create; wherein your actions and success in one game can affect your situation in the next. We'll talk about the third, yet-to-be-announced, member of the trilogy later. (3) yes, we will be working with both Hasbro/Microprose and EA as publishers of our various products. (4) yes, we have some really exciting ideas about how to make Civ 3 the best turn-based strategy game yet.

posted 05-15-99 05:55 PM ET            

They have every reason to be proud of the Civ heritage and quality and all. But if they don't realize that they slipped and stumbled with SMAC in terms of quality, they could be in for a rude awakening come CivIII time. Especially considering the debacle of CtP.

I'm as excited about the possibility of Civ3 as the next gamer, but the only way for Firaxis to redeem themselves is to do a timely and bangup job on the next patch for SMAC. Otherwise there will be a lot of "fence sitters" looking before they leap to buy CivIII.

posted 05-16-99 12:10 AM ET            

SOMEbody will buy it first, and in some quantity too.

posted 05-16-99 02:00 AM ET            

Right Sid. You can be trusted in what you say like Clinton, it seems. Sad but true...

posted 05-16-99 02:09 AM ET            

Brian used one of those :-) emoticons.

posted 05-16-99 08:54 AM ET            

-How have they slipped? I know you people have been complaining about that a lot, but unless you create a whole new genre, is there anything that will satisfy you? Is there?

"Especially considering the debacle of CtP."

-Firaxis doesn't make CTP, besides we've been saying CTP will suck ever since November (probably earlier). Heck, I thought CtP would be nothing more than an overglorified expansion pack when I saw it on Labor day weekend.

"I'm as excited about the possibility of Civ3 as the next gamer, but the only way for Firaxis to redeem themselves is to do a timely and bangup job on the next patch for SMAC."

-Firaxis doesn't have to reedem themselves for anything. Look, SMAC was good, what more do you expect? There were few to no bugs.

"Otherwise there will be a lot of "fence sitters" looking before they leap to buy CivIII."

-If you people would stop spreading horro stories and rumors then there wouldn't be any fence-sitters. All of SMAC's problems are something maginified a million times bynewbies, that don't understand the game.

posted 05-16-99 08:45 PM ET            

Two options: ST3 is an alternative to alphacentauri, OR ST3 is the next part of Alphacentauri, after you've transcended.

I definitely favour the first idea.

Soo, what are the alternatives to AC? Let's see:

AC is set after the apolalyptic destruction of the world - it says that in the transcendance speel at the end of the game. So it would seem that CivIII has a distinct possibility of total environmental and political disaster (heh. Based on CivII deity mode, I'll definitely go along with this one). Mankind has to find a new planet - Alpha centauri it is. (note: there should be a future tech type discovery in CivIII that allows humanity to detect planets around other stars!!! (The Ultra-Resoultion Graivty Microlensing Project for instance.) Otherwise alphacentauri is the least likely place we'd go to visit).

That leaves the alternative of a civII type complete military/political victory. Which begs the question 'what next'. Aliens invade? What did happen to the ancient culture that built the monoliths on AC (okay, we know what happened to them. They ate the fungus. But where did they come from is what I'm getting at).

To fit in, STPart3 is likely to be a turned based, empire game (you don't conquer the world and decide to fly fighter jets, although I'm sure Sid Meier could get this to work...) And people have also been asking for a MOO type game - it seems to be the single most popular TBS on these boards after civ.

posted 05-16-99 09:26 PM ET            

"How have they slipped? I know you people have been complaining about that a lot, but unless you create a whole new genre, is there anything that will satisfy you? Is there?"

- I like this game. I wouldn't play it if I didn't. And I certainly wouldn't come here to these forums to see what others think and post myself, if I disliked SMAC.

How have they slipped? Are you serious? Have you gone to the Troubleshooting Forum lately? We have two patches and people are still experiencing significant problems. I'd call that slipping my book.

"Firaxis doesn't make CTP, besides we've been saying CTP will suck ever since November (probably earlier). Heck, I thought CtP would be nothing more than an overglorified expansion pack when I saw it on Labor day weekend."

- Is that right? Firaxis doesn't make CtP? How could I have missed that? Yeah, right. Victor, I'm not stupid.

The point was that a _LARGE_ number of strategy gamers are not feeling too warm and fuzzy about initial "golden" releases of games anymore. SMAC was not good in this respect. And CtP was/is awful, thus making the problem that much worse.

You're going to rush out and buy Civ3 on day-one based upon that industry track record. I won't stand in your way. More power to you. I'd rather be like a politician: sitting on the fence while keeping both ears to the ground.

"Firaxis doesn't have to reedem themselves for anything. Look, SMAC was good, what more do you expect? There were few to no bugs."

- Again, are you serious? What I expect is that known flaws would be fixed in a "golden" release. I find it hard to believe that playtesting did not stumble onto some of the obvious v1.0 bugs. And even if they did fix all known problems, why did so many serious problems show up after the release? Perhaps they did not get the right group to playtest. I don't know.

While v3.0 has brought them about 85% of the way home, there is absolutely no way anyone can make a case that v1.0 had "few to no bugs". Heck, even in v3.0 there are several serious flaws still present:

1) Can't call council in Direct Multiplayer games without risking a total crash. Pretty discouraging to those who shoot for becoming Planetary Governor. Heaven help you if an AI Lal get's in it his head to do it, your game is effectively over at that point, because even if you reload, the AI will just try again.

2) MP PBEM games suddenly have the Scenario Editor turned on at the beginning of someone's turn. From then on, the S.E. can be turned on and off at will by all players and there is no way to fix it. This effectively killed three PBEMs I was involved in with a number of weeks put in to each one.

3) SMAC offers the "root directory" to save PBEM games in, rather than the place they were loaded from, ala single player games. This leads to mass confusion for newbie PBEMers (and even tired old timers) when the wrong turn is sent to the next player. I have personally sorted out more of these problems than I care to recall. And I was assured that this problem would be addressed in v3.0. Wrong.

4) Unlimited range missiles? Speaks for itself.

5) I won't even go into the problems with the Scenario Editor.

6) AI that can't: a) mount an amphibious invasion, b) constantly switches production, c) can't figure out where to put it's formers, colony pods, etc. placing them in endless loops. I even once saw a CP just sit in the same square turn after turn after turn. It's still there. After I finish the game, I'll let you know if it ever moved.

7) While not a "bug" per se, the throughput for direct IP MP games is atrocious! It takes about 700k of data transmission to simply begin a direct IP game (I sat and watched it one time). That is 3 times the size of a .SAV file! And a .SAV file can be zipped down to about 1/8 it's original size. I'll do the math: 2400% overhead for IP games. Clearly there is _MUCH_ room for improvement here. Their techniques, in a word, suck. Sue me, I like to play multiplayer games. Beating the AI is just way too easy.

I classify all of these as _significant_ flaws. These are all that casually come to mind. But if I went and did an exhaustive search of the forums, I could find enough to fill up screen after screen. And yes, they are all v3.0 bugs! "Few to no bugs", bah!

** "If you people would stop spreading horro stories and rumors then there wouldn't be any fence-sitters. All of SMAC's problems are something maginified a million times bynewbies, that don't understand the game." **

- Hoo boy. Well, since you quoted my post almost verbatim, I assume you must mean that I am a "newbie that [doesn't] understand the game". Now whose credibility is on shaky ground with this statement?

I admit that I don't have anywhere near 1,000 posts on these forums. However, having played the game since the day it was released (of course, I didn't fanatically play the demo, for shame), having read and posted here since the end of February (only 234 posts, I know) and having organized the first, and so far as I know only, SMAC MP tournament, I would say that qualifies me for a label of something more than "newbie".

And if SMAC can't stand up to criticism, than how could it be as "good" as you assert. Shouting down critics and calling them names does not demonstrate the quality of a game. Ad hominem arguments are the weakest there are.

** "Tired of newbies comming here and insulting the game." **

- Equally weary of self-appointed, smug, superior, so-called "veterans" posting flames like yours with so little substance, while containing so many errors. If intelligent discussion of issues of importance to us bothers you so much, go back to your "clubs" and dream your little dreamy dreams.

Also, since you've been around for a while, perhaps you noticed that the only time in recent memory that Firaxis posted to these forums was after I pitched a fit about the next patch on the Troubleshooting forums. It's sad but true that the only way to get any kind of a status update was to do so. I didn't enjoy doing it. But I _was_ grateful, very much so.

And I will reiterate, I _love_ this game. That's why I think it is worth vocalizing the need to fix the problems so that SMAC can be the best game that it can be!

posted 05-16-99 10:47 PM ET            

*golf clap* at the good shot.

some folk even think that having terran.exe blow up on huge games after hundreds of turns [or for some.. on startup] is a problem.

There are, after all, LOTS AND LOTS of programs that face the same compatibility issues as SMAC, and I dont remember seeing a significant number of complaints of software explosions.

posted 05-17-99 12:50 AM ET            

One of the things they desperately need to integrate is the "Whole Country" concept and feel. From Civ, to Civ 2, to SMAC, all of them played like "coalitions of city-states." The appearance of borders make it a little better, but not much. There are a number of things, such as inter-city trade, they should put in there, probably abstractly, to show there really is a country/faction.

Civ 3 propably is similar in scope to Civ 2, from some pre-historic tribe to just a little bit into the 21st century. CtP is too wacked out in this aspect (Diamond Age, what the??).

posted 05-17-99 10:33 AM ET            

The sad thing is, that FIRAXIS could produce an equally (to SMAC) buggy CIV III and it would be gobbled up. People would commplain, others would say "oh it just has a few bugs, you can't expect a company to produce perfection... programming is hard..."
Programming is hard, so is good playtesting, so is designing a game that has a coherent set of parameters with no elements that shatter the suspension of disbelief.

The problem is that even though FIRAXIS fell down on there faces in all three of these areas, they still produced a game that is more enjoyable than 95+% of what is out there.

As it stands with V.3 I will reccomend this game to anyone who asks, but I do have to give them an handful of caveats.

When CIV III comes out I will say what I have said for years about games, don't buy it within the first month or two unless you want to wade through bugs.

Hopefully I will be proven wrong.

posted 05-17-99 01:55 PM ET            

I would hope that game 3 is MOO. After one has mastered 2 planets, one should be ready to take on a greater number. Of course, they have to add a new Victory Condition to SMAC in an expansion/update to make it fit well... Civ III, you launch the space ship. When it lands, you get scored, and have the option of starting SMAC (with up to 7 Factions, as you stick those 80,000 people on your super ship, and off they go!). If you didn't cram it full, in the distance between your ships arrive, and the others, new factions/nations pop up as they arrive...
In SMAC, Victory Condition of contacting Earth and Co-colonizing another planetary system leads to an accelerated start in MOO3... with your Home World, and your Second and Third Colony... Of course, there WILL be a random event on Colony 2 (SMAC) that eliminates all life planetside, but hey! Thems the breaks...

posted 05-17-99 02:04 PM ET            

Second, it seems to me that most of your complaints relate to multi-player. I personally have been playing the single player, normal game. The only (and I really mean only) bugs I have found are some audio glitches. This does not mean that your complaints and points are invalid, it does explain the disagreements going on here. In my experience, the game has run up to specs - I downloaded the patch just to see what it would do. From my point of view, the playtesters did FINE, i.e. if I were a playtester, from my vantage, this game is ready to go (except the audio stuff :P)...

So neither side is 'right'... regardless of how many posts they have read... (does anyone really care about that? :P)...

peace...

posted 05-17-99 03:08 PM ET            

anyways, just my thoughts on it. SMAC was more addictive and fun than I expected (got me right into it), CtP took a bit of work, but is pretty fun when you do get into it. I will look forward to the Civ3, but everything has worked for me so far (one crash with SMAC once, one crash with CtP once which was irritating because of no autosave). But I'm getting a new machine soon, so I don't know how long my luck will hold....

posted 05-23-99 12:20 AM ET         

End hee sed eat wuz tree ore fore weakz uh goh.

posted 05-23-99 04:42 AM ET            

Come on, where have you been for the last few years?

Quake 1 shipped, and had over 20 patches.
Quake 2 has had numerous patches.

Sierra released NFL Gameday '99 with problems so bad (like making Win98 unusable) that they had to recall the product.

Civilization:CTP screws up WinNT stations with IE5 bad enough that many have reported they had to re-install OS & all..

The X-Files game still has a known bug that if you upgrade your version of Quicktime, etc. it locks your PC and may spontaneously reboot. Known for months, no fix yet.

I hate to break it to everyone, but all games ship with serious bugs.. it's because, frankly, we, the consumer, demand that the product ship quickly. If it doesn't ship quickly, we're pissed. If it ships quickly, and it has flaws, we're pissed. Just no satisfying us.

*shrug*

I've never seen the Unlimited Range Missile problem; in patch 3.0, all my missiles only move the number of moves the are assigned, and if I don't get them to base, they destruct..

Admittedly, I don't play by email, haven't ever worried about playing online since it's meaningless, and I've always found the PC's AI for controlling your units sucky, hell, it sucked in CivI & CivII, you're always better off controlling units yourself

SMAC did ship with bugs. But relatively few in comparison to other games that have shipped. What you ask for in most of the 7 things are not bugs but feature requests.. "couldn't it do this" instead of "this is broken, it causes game failure"

Bugs have become a fact of life, and yes, it sucks. But then again, if they had not shipped the game until V.3.0 was ready, let's say, we'd all be screaming "where's SMAC? It's so late to market!"

posted 05-23-99 09:30 AM ET            

The unlimited range bug, is for AI controled missiles only. Sure its a bug, and sure I've seen it. Think of it as a game balancing thing, to make up for the poor AI. The other solution is to stick a base in Yang's face and use it to crater his cities the turn before they finish the planet buster, (worked great in my game; though it is wierd to see a Gaian city called Planetbuster's Refuge.)

posted 05-23-99 11:00 AM ET            

Quake only had *1* patch. There were two commercially released versions, 1.01 and 1.06. There are alternate quake engines, however, such as QuakeWorld, GLQuake, WinQuake, etc.

"Quake 2 has had numerous patches."

Yes, it did. id software later admitted what they released was technically a beta to get it out by Christmas. Even their "point release" was really flawed. The single player monster AI in it is still, to this date, flawed because they never got the monster tracking code to work right. This is one of the reasons I won't be getting Quake3.

"I hate to break it to everyone, but all games ship with serious bugs.. it's because, frankly, we, the consumer,
demand that the product ship quickly. If it doesn't ship quickly, we're pissed. If it ships quickly, and it has flaws,
we're pissed. Just no satisfying us. "

posted 05-23-99 02:16 PM ET            

It's funny to read your posts. First it's: "few to no bugs", then it's: "none [of those bugs] have ever bothered me".

And then it's on to the corker:

"Don't tell someone 'Don't buy SMAC, it full of bugs' just because you have a minor problem with multi-player".

<MODE="SARCASM ON">

Of course, my mistake. Not being able to call a Planetary Council, that's a minor problem.

Let's peek inside Victor's thoughts:

"Heh, what a newbie. That Planetary Council feature isn't that important. Geez, I can't believe he thinks that's a problem. Get over it! And an AI Lal calling council crashing the game, well, I don't play multi-player so it doesn't bother me."

I must admit that Victor has set me straight on some other issues too. Having to abandon PBEM games because players refused to continue playing an MP game where any player can open the Scenario Editor at any time, that's a minor problem too. What was I thinking?

And having to explain over and over and over again that SMAC saves PBEM games in the wrong place. And suffering delays of days at a time while we sort it out. How could that be a big deal? Heck, so what if it discourages people and they abandon their PBEM games? So what if it's a source of constant aggravation and frustration. I was the "newbie" that decided I wanted to play PBEM.

Foolish newbie! Bad newbie!

Yeah, I know Victor, Single Player Transcend Ironman is the only way to play. Oooooo, you "veterans" are oh so smart! Too bad it only took me two tries to beat SMAC on TI.

Once more we look into Victor's thoughts:

"Tee hee, it's such a gas to put down 'newbies'. Who cares if they get insulted? After all, they're just 'newbies' and what they have to say doesn't count! We 'veterans' are SOOOOO superior because we know what NIM is and we have over a thousand posts and we only post in the Off-Topic Forum!"

"And since we _ARE_ superior it's our duty to 'keep the rabble down'. Really, those 'newbies' are just out of control over there in the Game Forum. Who do they think they are? Real people? Puh-leeeze! I don't even know why I dain to come down to their level to post here."

<MODE="SARCASM OFF">

-------

Matt Tyson was right in that the "newbie vs. veteran" thing is silly. I didn't bring it up. However, I'm not going to let it rest, because I think it's wrong to insult people solely because they don't post much.

And for the record, I have never once told anyone not to buy SMAC, period. Yet, Victor G. insists on quoting the same phrase over and over again: 'Don't buy SMAC, it's full of bugs'

For that matter I have never said it is "full of bugs". I merely pointed out the absurdity of Victor's "few to no bugs" statement. Sure, the bugs I've found don't stop me from playing the game. I also recommend the game. But there are a lot of people for whom this is not the case.

Victor, those are the people that Firaxis should be concerned about. The silent ones who never came to this forum, because they posted in the Troubleshooting Forum with their problem and are left to wonder about the lack of response there from Firaxis.

<MORE SARCASM>
But what am I thinking? Responding to customers issues, why should that be an issue, let alone a priority? The game speaks for itself! And so does Firaxis' Bank Account.
<END SARCASM>

Please people, buy the game. I mean it. It's great! But don't expect a lot of service with the product. You'll get far more service from the SMACers then you will from Firaxis.

Overall, I think Firaxis has done a good job with SMAC. I only use sarcasm to get the point across and also to liven up the place.

posted 05-24-99 04:50 PM ET            

And I don't know why you people let someone in High School in Decatur Georgia (USA) bother you. At least Victor knows he likes getting a rise out of people. Check his profile.

Victor, I HAVE told people not to buy SMAC. Now that SMAC's patch 3.0 is been around, its playable, but still aggravating (due to bugs) in so many ways. I DON'T complain about bugs that I don't come across. But I have come across SO many, Firaxis will have to prove to me that they CAN write a game that is not very buggy before I shell out more than a 2 hours worth of my TAKE HOME wages. That means $25 or less. And I tell others that (Don't waste more than ~$20 on it). As my FRIENDS and co-workers respect my opinion on games that are fun (or not), and games that are strategically good (or not), and highly prize not wasting 4 to 8 hours of their wages on a game (8 hours = 1 Day of WORK), its a small hit of to Firaxis's public opinion and worth.

And if people don't buy the game because we, their customers, are here saying "WE DEMAND YOU FIX ALL THIS CRAPPY BUGS THAT DESTROY OUR FUN!", GOOD! That is consumer REACTION. You make a crappy product, and people will find alternatives to yours. Capitalism at Work... you can only screw your customer so long until they find something else to spend their money on. One of the Selfish Protection behaviors.

Had SMAC any competition in the High Strategy category that had been of good to high quality, SMAC would have been a total financial disaster. With or with out Sid's name on it. His name is meaning LESS AND LESS with every release that he didn't personally keep up the quality and fun that it used to represent. As it was, the only other serious competition has been CtP and Civ Gold. Neither of which were very good (Civ Gold is Brian's own design and viewed as a PATCH or a simple MP EXPANSION, not a new game). I can't think of any other serious TBS's from the last 8 to 12 months. Except maybe Ruthless.Com, which wasn't a world builder.

Oh, for you fans of it... about Heroes of Might and Magic III. Great Graphics, but I don't count it a "High" Strategy Game. And I still find King's Bounty (the original, and inspiration of the Heroes series) to be more fun.

I haven't seen Imperialism 2 yet. I am saving that as something for a rainy or boring weekend when I am tired of having to roll over the computer in SMAC because it wants to send Planet Busters across the Planet when its only OTHER Military tech is Impact weapons and synthmetal armor.

Yeah, SMAC is alright, but its not a Top Quality, "will stay on my hard-drive forever" sort of game that MOM was. Whatever magical insights the Great Meier had into fun, he hasn't apparently shared them very often with Brian and the developers of SMAC. And while he is busy with the NEW game of the Trilogy, I suspect he won't be sharing them on Civ3, making it the mid-point, not the HIGH POINT, of the TBS games for the year its released.

posted 05-24-99 06:34 PM ET            

Sir Proverbius: "No, I think the main reason games are flawed for the PC is that it's such a huge market, game companies realise they can turn a profit regardless of how it's released. Look at the console market, how many buggy games have you seen in it? I can't name a single one.
-
There's stiff competition in the console market and no means of patching a game later. Basically, there's no bugs in that market simply because that market can't allow for bugs. Companies just can't get away with it there. "

Regardless of my lack of agreement with Victor on many of his other points, I think he's close to the mark here. PC games (and "productivity software", and operating systems) are released before known bugs are resolved, because once a customer has purchased a product, they're more likely to wait for a bug fix than they are to turn around and spend more money on the competition.

Sir Proverbius makes a great observation on the lack of bugginess in console games, but there's a very simple reason why console games have fewer problems than PC games. A PlayStation is a PlayStation is a PlayStation; every console has identical hardware, identical firmware, identical I/O systems, identical CPUs.

Ever since IBM lost the right to prevent the cloning of its original PC chipset, the number of options in the PC market has escalated. The competition has done wonderful things in driving down prices and bringing new innovations to the industry; but on the other hand, all of those different chipsets and CPUs and motherboards and hard drives and (especially) audio and video cards present real headaches for the people who want to present cutting-edge games.

Any first-year CS student can tell you what sits at the hardware-software interface: the operating system. My first OS (DOS 2.11) came on a pair of 360K floppy disks. Windows 3.1 came on six 1.44MB floppies; the original release of Win95 took up 13 floppies; now we have NT 4 and Win98 that gobble up well over 100MB of disk space. The bloat isn't really caused by new features, it's caused by an ever-increasing stable of device drivers, error-correction routines, and diagnostics for the thousands of components and peripherals that make up today's PC market.

I would wager that a large percentage of the "bugs" reported in SMAC (or any other software application) aren't really problems with the software at all; but when the software exposes a hardware problem that no other piece of software has detected, the software gets the blame.

Producing a bug-free game would require (1) hardware manufacturers who release bug-free components, and (2) bug-free operating systems. Both are sheer fantasy, and will remain so until consumers decide to wait longer and pay more for their products. (In other words... it'll only happen for Mac users, and even then there will be problems... ;-) )

posted 05-26-99 03:53 PM ET         

While I was having a wonderful time playing what to me seems to be one of the most outstanding games I've ever seen, I didn't realize that I should have been over here whining about a few things I didn't like in the game.

I've found this game to have very few bugs. I liked the way Firaxis handled getting the Demo out, and getting response back from that. To me the game plays very cleanly and smoothly.

Buying SMAC on the first day it was available was one of the best game purchases I've made. I've bought a lot of other games that were buggy and that I was disappointed with. But SMAC is far better than that.

I personally am very happy to hear that Firaxis is doing Civ III. I'm quite confident they will do an excellent job with it. And congratulations on creating a wonderful game in Alpha Centauri.

posted 05-26-99 05:24 PM ET         

True the AI isn't perfect, but its good enough to provide an interesting game if you get the settings high enough to give it some help.

posted 05-27-99 07:34 AM ET            

There seem to be some people who won't accept that SMAC has any problems or that the problems are so insignificant that they shouldn't be mentioned in case the name of the game gets sullied and others who refuse to acknowledge that anyone can be enjoying the game or feel they've spent their money on a good game because there are too many bugs. Both sets of extremists are obviously wrong. You only have to read and understand everyones posts to realise that the reality is that we have a game with great one player action and a couple of bugs (seriousness seems to depend on your system and what strategy you choose), and rather more flawed Multiplayer code. The AI is the best for a TBS I've seen but isn't a match for an intelligent human being (if it was it'd be world class research material), but if the AI is allowed to cheat to give it a chance against the same intelligent human it is roundly slated. Generally however most people who post here like the game. There are problems, worse for some people than for others but it's a good game. It's not perfect but too few games I see nowadays are. It is the best TBS I've played. I don't understand why so many posters have a fixed view of the game and can't see that the reality is somewhere between the two extremes. Multiplayer does sound bad, I haven't tried it myself but I'll take peoples word for it.

My point is why can't everyone agree on that (or something close we don't need to spend hours on the fine print) and stop the provocative flame enticing comments and also stop responding to posts designed to provoke the flaming response. The forum will be a lot nicer place to post in.