I have been reading the article

and I must say, I should have been more trusting of Firaxis

the way they are using leaders and soo on is both interesting/ballanced/historic

I will be more trusting on Unique Civs too (and we get an inkiling for how they will work)

Can I preorder Civ 3 now?

Yes, I know Sid makes good games and I was never worried that it would be horrid. But I was somewhat worried by the unique civs and leaders (I was afraid they would change it to something like AoE or Moo/MoM, both great games nut not Civ). Mostly I just think that the way they will have leaders work sounds interesting and makes me feel bad about my worry with unique civs and leaders.

"Then there's the addition of Great Leaders. Any time a unit wins a battle and gets promoted to veteran status, there's a small chance a Leader will be spawned. When this happens, get the Leader back to a city without being captured, and then you can use him for three tasks. He can build an army (essentially a stacked unit that fights all at once), form a Military Academy (which builds armies), or accelerate the construction of one building in your empire. "

I like your insight into why you have to have academies to build armies. It makes sense and I think you may have the reason Sid went for it as well.

I have read this article and I think all the information in it has appeared elsewhere, except for one additional piece. That peice is the part about Barbarians having encampments that you have to go out and destroy. I like that addition. I gives a good historical feel to the game too I think. I also like that once you have destroyed a Barbarian encampment that they can go and build another one, but only in un-explored territory. That has a nice historical feel to it as well.

Like everyone else here, I am really looking forward to Sid's new heir to the Civilization tradition.

And yes mister fun, I have heard others worried about that too (for the last month I beleive). But since you only need one resource (if your cities are all connected), it shouldn't be bad and should instead add some interesting strategic implications. I am personally excited by it but then I lean more towards complexity. I think it will be a realistic and fun addition to the game.

I think it makes since to use a leader for stacked combat since doing stack combat shows the units know how to work together. This can only be doe well with millitary intellegence. Instaed of having some sort of tech you learn to be able to do this, Sid made it a funciton of leaders.