Pretty much. Alpha Centauri by name is owned by EA, so Firaxis can't use the actual IP.

Oh shit, really? Can't watch this right now, but is this really Alpha Centauri 2?! Pleasepleaseplease

Yep. Rejoice!

I hope this has a less annoying late game than Civ V and different religion mechanics. Different mechanics altogether would be nice.
They already have my , so all I can do is beg. Didn't love Civ V. Don't remember Alpha Centauri well enough.

I stopped playing with Civ 2. While I don't like to consider anything the "best ____ ever," Civ 2 is up there with games like Duke3D, Dungeon Keeper and albums like The Replacements' Tim.

Like Windows only every other Civ game is any good (ignore Civ 1 for a second). Civ 2 was seriously great but Civ 4 with some mods is SUPER seriously great.

Oh, go snarf yourself, Deirdre. You and your hippie mindworms can suck my throbbing University planet buster. I'll lay down as many Thermal Boreholes as I damn well please.

Best video game news I've gotten in a long long time. I just hope it has that same dark humor that Alpha Centauri had.

I played a game on easy from beginning to Trancendance victory yesterday due to this news. I didn't see so much dark humor as I saw the really slick presentation of fake quotes that build this awesome unspoken narrative. Deirdre becomes the voice of the planet, Morgan Industries goes to space and ditches the planet, the University faction are destroyed by their own hubris, Spartans are overwhelmed with mind worms, the religious faction stays in the stone age and becomes progressively anti-technology couldn't figure out what happened to the UN or the Hive. Of course, this is all secondary to the narrative created by your choice of victory condition, but the quotes tell a story if you notice the progression.

And It's totally the space hippies that get the happy ending. If becoming one with a planet-sized sentient fungus is a happy ending.

I hated the space hippie ending. The best one was where you conquered the planet and left the stupid mindworms behind. The Planet Cult can pretty it up all they want with their New Age jargon, I for one have no interest in being Kerrigan'd by the planet-zerg.

The Data Angels and the Pirates were awesome, too. I wish they'd had more flavor text for the Alien Crossfire factions, but what can you do?

Could have sworn I got one once where everyone becomes immortal demi-gods that live in harmony with the planet without being absorbed into one being.

It describes that in the transcendence ending there are those that opted not to get assimilated, as it was voluntary, and instead took adaptive nano-tech to active the same thing and return to Earth. The whole point was that Planet was about to have an uncontrolable 'bloom' that would destroy all biological life, so those that didn't join had to stay out in space on stations or in freeze pods. There was also a reference to some reforming their bodied with the fungus from planet and animating them. It was all quite weird, Original Star Trek stuff.

I also did a vote victory and a miltary victory, they are the same, just a bit of text that mentions that now you are unified, and thus you can face whatever is coming as one species. I suspect that just means you all die anyway, since the 'flowering' destroys everything, including the intelligence of Planet itself.

For all the slick quotes, the interlude text was written like a drunk L. Ron Hubbard. It was much cooler going with the implied plot that features suggested endings to each faction separately from each other (and regardless of the gameplay for your game) through the quotes more than the actually plot itself.

The military ending suggests that the planet is indeed on the verge of blooming, but it doesn't matter, because your faction is back in space and beginning to colonize new worlds (starting the cycle all over again?) I'd like to imagine that, when the heavily polluted planet was finally abandoned, you got to detonate a hundred planet busters in it's core, just to spite the mindworms. Hope you like your going away present, you alien bastards!

There is one, since Brazil has given some thought to getting into the satellite-launching game. A couple of years ago a launch went awry and killed some of its most important scientists, though.

Stereotypes are a real time saver.

Você não va poder comprar um bilhete pra nossa nave espacial!

Civ V was boring, but Alpha Centauri was dead brilliant. The Civ series peaked with AC; basically, everything after AC has seen the series get steadily worse.

Granted, if current trends are any indication, this one will probably play like ass, too. But one can hope!

Alpha Centauri was cool, friends of mine loved that.

What struck me the most was the last game I played in the Civ series was Civ II and other than the graphics there felt like very little difference.

Oh no. Civ IV was so, so much better.