The absolute massive gushing over this title is not accident, it is by far the finest variation on the Civilization theme to date. Other poster have done an excellent job of extolling it's virtues but one of the features that I still long to see in newer games of this genre that SMAC and SMAC X had is the ability to transform the landmass. Not just in a terraforming sense but literally raising and lowering land levels, even doing so offensively using planet busters. The joy of drowning an enemy beneath the waves by demolishing a mountain to let the sea roll over their low lying dominion is hard to beat. It is still balanced enough that if you have enough resources you can protect yourself from such fates. That is true depth (pun very much intended) and for its era unheard of. Buy it now, grumble about the controls (especially if you like me are Mac user at heart as the Windows version is inferor and was even at the time) yet smile for hours as you design your utopian future among the stars.
