Possibly the best game ever. Other than updated graphics, I honestly don't know how you'd improve on this for the sequel.

So what was your favorite faction? Mine was the University, for both ideological and gameplay reasons. In the expansion, the Pirates and Data Angels were awesome, too! The Pirates' ideology was a bit incoherent - "we're pirates!" is cool and all, but I wish they'd had more substance than that. And the Angels, while having the best plot (cyberpunk hackers!), had some of the worst faction bonuses; basically the Believers minus the badass army or the urgent need for tech stealing (which kinda defeated the point of their Probe skills).

I liked the Morgans as allies, and the Spartans were pretty neat, up until they betrayed you. I hated the Believers and the Hive, often to the point of genocide, but my least favorite was probably the Peacekeepers. They always wound up attacking me, no matter how much I tried to be nice to them. With the Hive and the Believers, at least you knew where you stood: they were going to try killing you the moment they met you. But the Peacekeepers? They were devious fucking snakes. As long as they were the ones on top, they were all gracious and helpful to you, but the moment you start pulling in more votes than them, oh here come the drone strikes. Sid Meiers' commentary on Western imperialism?