Yeah, i'd be lying to you if I said I wasn't buying into the hype right now. I love Civ5 and Alpha Centauri back in the day. Easily in my top 5 favorite strategy games of all time. My rationale is if you combine both, then holy sheet that's going to be awesome. I do have some concerns about certain features that will be missing from Civ 5 BNW though.
- No religion - replaced with new Affinity system. Ok, I'll give it a shot.
- No Great Person units - This kinda sucks IMO
- No Culture, Diplomatic, or Time victory conditions - Meh, they have different specific VC based on your Affinity. I'll give it a shot.
- No Happiness metric - replaced with Health which acts in the same exact manner, not a biggie
- No luxury resources - no tradable luxury resources. Not really a fan of this TBH. I liked having luxury resources nobody else had.
- No Natural wonders - replaced with Progenitor ruins, Crashed satellites, Derelict settlements, and Alien skeletons, etc. Ok, seems worth a try.
- No Golden Ages - Having excess Health doesn't trigger any kind of additional benefit like a GA. Not a fan. Really liked working towards a GA and it's extra benefits were a nice boost.
- Only 8 factions - At this time, only 8 factions. Seems small compared to Civ5. I guess they've left room for DLC later. IMO, They are missing a North/Central European (Anglo,Celtic,Germanic,Nordic) and a Middle Eastern (Turkish, Arab) Caliphate type factions
American Reclamation Corp - Basically North America
Brasilia - Basically South America
Franco Iberia - France, Italy, Spain, Portugal
Kavithan Protectorate - India, Iran, Pakistan
Pan Asian Cooperative - China, Koreas, Japan, SE Asia
Peoples Africa Union - Africa
Polystralia - Australia, Polynesia, Indonesia, etc.
Slavic Federation - Russia, Eastern Europe, Kazakhstan
I have my concerns and the jury's still out on this one but hopefully it meets the hype. Firaxis has a good track record and I've been impressed with expansions & DLC for Civ5. If BE has some struggles at initial release, i'm sure they'll improve upon it down the road. We'll find out soon enough!
On a side note - I never was a personal fan of SIM city though I understood it's appeal to others. What happened with the recent SIM city cluster as someone put it earlier?