[raynor]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Well of course if you make the game feature-barren you can have a strong AI. That is what allows very difficult chess programs to be written. But, it is variety and complexity that make 4X games great, not simplicity.

I don't remember getting blown up by a dozen battlecruisers in my Last game of chess. Although, I really did enjoy the final scenes of National Lampoon's Chess Maniac 5 Billion and 1. I downloaded that off an "abandonware" site the other day when I was getting Master of Orion 1. Man, even without sound, that game is still great. (Playing a DOS game in W2K Server, it's kinda hard to get sound.) You can sit down and play a complete game or two in a single sitting.

But I digress. Space Empires IV is an awesome and addictive multiplayer game. But there are some number of folks out there who may never take the plunge and play the game against other humans. For those folks, they may prefer a game that can be played on their own timetable. In such a case, all the cool features aren't going to matter much if the AI doesn't use them.

We'll just have to wait and see. I'm telling myself that I'm gonna wait for the GameSpot review before buying Gal Civ. But that's a lie. I'm gonna buy every space game that comes out. Oh well...