[Lord_Bob]

Alpha Centauri was nice, but it had some very serious problems.

First:
Deliberate limitation of "Victory Options"
Military Victory made extremely tedious:
The only way to win "militarily" was to wipe everyone else out. But of course if you have conqueored half the planet, then a "diplomatic" victory should be easy, right? You have half the votes already! NOPE!

Diplomatic Victory made almost impossible!
Decision to basically stop any group except the "Peacekeepers" from having a diplomatic victory. In fact, they were apparently trying to stop a diplomatic victory entirely. The requirment of needing 75% ! of the votes in your favor to win, with the peacekeepers having twice as many votes per population unit was ridicilous. With 7 groups, if the Peacekeepers were very slightly larger than "average size"(1/7 the population), then they would be able to stop another race from achieving diplomatic victory ALL BY THEMSELVES! Also, because they have twice the votes of everyone else per population point, unless they have been wiped out, they will always be one of the canidates and will always vote for themselves! Thus you need EVERY SINGLE OTHER RACE ON YOUR SIDE, even if they only have four cities, in order to counter the Peacekeepers. Or you have to wipe them out. If the peacekeepers are on the other side of the map, then to bad.

Also:
For a "technological" game made by a computer programmer, the nasty descriptions of Cyborgs and certain other projects was unnecessary. IF it could be done, Cyborgs would be awesome and a "step up" on the evolutionary ladder. Forget typing, go straight to "thinking" it in. Oh, and surgery? Through electronic eyes and with mechanical hands both extremely strong and extremely precise? But all we get is some crude limeric.

Also, the planet may be tough, but it isn't dealing with some "clever cow" that happens to be able to resist it's pyschic attacks. It's dealing with aliens from another world with advanced technology and the will to use it. R'yleh! R'yleh!

I believe the need to DEMAND the technological "planet contact" victory is why all the other victory conditions were crippled. I don't like being forced to follow one path to win.