for any who post here (not very likely)

go like this

put the game: put the mistake, put "1st reasoning/example", put "2nd reasoning/example", put "3rd reasoning/example"

then firaxis will not be doomed to repeat previous errors

smac = sid meiers alpha centauri
civ 2 = civilization 2
ctp = call to power
xsmac = sid meiers alein crossfire
civ = civilization

feel free to add any others

this will also make it very easy to summarize

I'll start

smac: to easy to be aggressive in war with offense always 2 or more times the defense

smac: offensive technology is to easy to get, "I have had 13 offense while having only 3 defense", "it is very easy to get 4 offense and much harder to get 3 defense"

smac: it is stupid to have sheilds provide defense and weapons provide offense, "so all I need is a bunker and titanium armor to fight off a tank?"

ctp: stupid units, "preist", "telvision guy", "ecowarrior", "cyberninja"

ctp: no such thing as military engineers, "I want to be able to build forts and stuff in enemy land for extended campaigns"

smac: graphics look like made for some small tactical combat map, not for planetwide game, "the mountains and things take a long way for evelation changes and do it in the way of individual mountains that are continet wide, this would look extremely bad on earth"

civ: graphics look old

there that should be a start

* There are a few things that one game does noticeably better than the others, so I just listed it under that game rather than in the negative for each of the others.

SMAC - Game became somewhat boring after a dozen games. Not sure if it was because of specificity of faction personality, but SMAC did not have Civ's replayability.

* Diplomacy. Man, this diplomacy system rocks! Having the small fry give up at the end instead of having to capture every damn one of their cities is great, and more realistic. The Council is excellent, especially the global decisions (like salvaging the core). Multiple ways to win also nice.

CTP - interface counter-intuitive, slow.

Combat stupidity - no tank should ever lose to a stack of bronze age phalanxes.

Special unit insanity - give it a rest, will ya?

Play Balance -- what play balance? Special units, especially, threw the balance totally out of whack.

Wonders & wonder movies - what a let down. That's all I get for building this damned thing?

Scenarios -- include some next time.

* Wow, these graphics do live up to the hype. I hear that the heavily patched version can support up to 32 tribes in one game, which I think is an important option that should be in the players' hands, not the game company's. The public works system and queues make end-games much more manageable.

Tot -- bugs, bugs, bugs.

You've got to have a map editor embedded.

* multiple maps. Flag system and scenario flexibility

Civ 2 -- End game gets so bogged down it's hard (and not much fun) to play.

Civ2-MGE
- Networking should be simultaneous not turn-based
- Status windows should be allowed to stay open and should be updated dynamically

but on to the mistakes!
(I'll mostly stick with ctp & civ (I & II), as they're historically based and easiest to criticize.)
ctp: definitely definitely needs improved diplomacy, a cross between ctp's trade and smac's diplomacy engines would be outstanding.

ctp & civ (I & II)- the ancient ages pass way too fast, it doesn't take 500 years to build one phalanx

ctp & civ (I & II)- you are forced to research social trends which come to a society as a result of research, ex: a democratic government would not research communism, most likely, but it would appear throughout the masses, as a result of industrialization.

ctp & civ (I & II)- Leader-chosen revolutions, while possible, should be rare, you should set yourself on an eventual governmental goal, which you reach as your research permits, most revolutions should be caused by popular discontent.

ctp & civ (I & II)- Civs should come and go much more quickly, as in history, and including your own civ, successor civs would often take they're place

smac: sound really really really sucks. same as above. .

ctp: the tech development was poor. . too wide of jumps in amount of research needed really killed gameplay. . smac was better in that each tech discovered made the next one take a *little bit longer* . . but having a set that takes 100, the next set takes 200, the next set take 300 (or whatever). . that just is a pain

smac: story is interesting, sure, but it TOTALLY kills replayability, which is crucial for a tbs. same thing with the very defined factions.

ctp: it really bothers me that the colors are random. .

civ2: the wonder movies sucked

civ2, ctp: no end of game replay?

smac: the end of game replay, while at least it WAS included. . sucked. (i feel sorry for those who have never played civ 1, you should try out at least one game, so you know what the end of game replay is, and how great it was)

ctp: diplomacy. . yuck

smac, civ2: get rid of the bloody formers/settlers . . public works system was way better. . (not saying its the best potential way at all. . but it was better than having settlers and formers do it)

thats all i can think of right now, but theres more im sure. .

I agree with you on public works over setlers in civ, but I disagree when it comes to SMAC. In SMAC I found it made sense to have former units go out to terraform the Planet to make it ready for the city's population to come out and do whatever they're supposed to do. (farm, mine etc)

SMAC) No real background on the techs, just a a sentence or two... didn't convey much.

SMAC) No memorable symbols for tech etc. Just a one-coloured symbol on black.

SMAC) No quick visual refs for pollution etc. you have to look carefully at the city screen to see what is going on. Very annoying compared to Civ 2.

SMAC) Worm attacks are silly and OTT rather than a staged-up thing. The punishment should fit the crime. I've had 15-20 great boils appear for minor pollution... Silly.

CIV II) Barbarian "Spawn Points" go crazy sometimes. I had one isolated city surrounded by 25-40 Barbarian, Revolutionary, Fundamentalist Units, just because it was near one... They never attacked, just milled around and destroyed all the land improvements.

CIV II), SMAC) etc. Land units travel for free on rails/mag tubes, yet planes and so on
have to fly themsleves, undermining suspension of disbelief and be silly and annoying. We all know planes are faster than trains, so they should be able to go further (SMAC somewhat corrects this, but not enough). Planes should have limited range, not moves, and should be able to hop from town to town the way ground units travel on trains.

SMAC), CIV II), Etc. Computers rarely buy anything but garrison units to completion even when you repeatedly snatch secret projects from under their electronic noses.

SMAC), CIV II) No colour choice in most of the games... Or limited... Should be able to choose freely.

CIV II) ICBMs aren't... They are neither intercontinetal or ballistic... one you have rocketry you should be able to develop better version of rocketry that allow longer ranged heavier payload missiles. If you can put satellites in space you can drop nukes on anyone.

SMAC) More subtle control over the blast size of Planet Busters would be nice. You should be able to make them both advanced and have a small blast.

SMAC), CIV II), etc. You should be able to detonate blast weapons on empty squares so the blast catches units on the edge.

Enough for now. I'll think of more later.

SMAC has swapped the function of industrial development and technology research.

A faction shouldn't need to reinvent the wheel, as literally required in SMAC [Doctrine: Mobility is required for Speeder unit]. Everybody knows this: wheels fast, feet slow. Even the most rudimentary knowledge of historic blitzkrieg tactics is sufficient to "start the ball rolling" on armored warfare.

A faction does need to develop industrial infrastructure to make the production of armor units possible. That is what city/base structures are supposed to represent.

A faction shouldn't need to reinvent aerodynamics. Initial propeller aircraft production should be available without special tech or base/city structures. But a very specialized industry is required to make sophisticated jet engines, requiring both basic research and special base/city structure at least somewhere in the civ/faction.

A faction doesn't need to produce a Mach 2.5 superjet right off the bat, just something rugged and practical like the A-10. So there should be development in aircraft design which would depend on technology and industrial development.

I think the SMAC tech icons are cool. Also, to answer your question re: rail vs planes, the problem with planes is they need fuel so no way they can have unlimited range. On the other hand, trains could be electrical so they can have unlimited range. Planes should have unlimited speed but limited range.

Back to mistakes:

SMAC/SMACX: leaders. It would be much better if I can represent the faction instead of some leader.

CtP: PW. While I agree it is silly to use Settler units to transform terrain, SMAC has fixed the problem by having a separate Former unit. Since the original concept of the Settler seems to have combat engineers and colonists rolled into one, it would be stupid to just have some intangible PW instead, esp when you want to terraform a city site before sending in the settlers.

SMAC: super techs with no space flight ability. It is hard to believe people who can manipulate black holes cannot build starships. The thought simply boggles the mind.

Ctp: I loved the PW system and would hate to see it go.

SMAC : The formers automatic AI didn't work properly. Sometimes they would just run aimlessly about doing no good at all,eventhough there were plenty of nearby cities in need of terraforming.

Ctp: Empire size should not be a factor in the future stages of the game, for instance with virtual democracy you should be able to build unlimited size empire.

I have also played CTP a few times - I got SMAC about the same time. For me, there was no contest. The one thing SMAC has - in spades - is differentiated factions, with varying social agendas. This is what gives it the replayability!

I got so tired of the way that all the factions in Civ, CivII and CTP are virtually identical. And the SE settings in SMAC/X really set it apart ...

Civ/Civ II are great games ... but they simply don't have the depth of SMAC/X, in my opinion.

Take a look at the proposed AI for Stars Supernova over on www.crisium.com