[WraithLord]

I think SD are making terrible marketial mistakes and are rapidly burning that most important, yet ellusive, coin - their good reputation.

For me personally it's a done deal, any expectations I might have had from SD to release fun TBS games are now completely gone. I gave SD a lot of credit, mainly b/c TBS games are so rare these days and b/c the high praise gamespot reviews gave them.

So I tried, I really did to like the GalCiv series but DonC has put it well, it's just lacking sou/fun/"magic" - you name it.

So, after years of lurking on MOM2 sites I read this exciting news that SD and Atari are negotiating for SD to do a sequel to MOM. From that point of excitment it was a down hill journey: first that deal blew off, so instead of a real sequel SD was doing a "spiritual" successor to MOM.
Still, could be great, but, as time goes by I notice that SD devs don't have a clear concept of how they want their game to be like. I follow their forums, their devs diaries and the fan comments and it all translates to a sinking feeling. No, they won't do PBEM, no they won't take great concepts from AoW/Dom, no-no: they want to do their own game - albeit they still haven't decided what exactly they want in and how the economy, military, combat and spell systems would all bind together to work seemlesly and smoothly. That was my feeling but I tried to tell myself I'm probably exaggerating. Luckily I didn't preorder.

I hope there will one day be reall sequel to MOM2, AoW SM & Dominions 3. Or that a good FTBS game would come along.
As of now, FTBS genre seems to be withering. Good titles are hard to come by and are growing ever more scarce.