On the day of the Playstation 4, this release is likely far more of interest to the mraaknerds because it heralds a (possible) new dawn to a much-missed franchise: Alpha Centauri. While the base game was excellent, AC with the expansion was up their with the best strategy games ever made (I spent most of the period that AC was out playing Emperor of the Fading Suns though). Though we’ve gotten Civ after Civ (which are also excellent), there’s been no return yet to Alpha Centauri land by Sid and the gang.
Seeing a gap in gamer’s desires, Slitherine, creators of new versions and games in the Close Combat series (like Panthers in the Fog) and Battle Academy for the iPad, has released PANDORA: a 4X land-based sci fi strategy game that has been dubbed (likely by them) as the spiritual successor to the Alpha Centauri series. It looks at first blush really polished.
I figured I wouldn’t look at ANY other strategy games until 2015 or so, but with Rome Total War 2’s constant ability to frustrate and crash so much I uninstalled it– this is welcome news!