This is what all games should be like - meaningful, exemplary, different, well coded, immersive, easy to compete on, replayable, genre defining or defying generalization... It's just great - check it out, no matter what year you are reading this :D
GalCiv is alone in the throne and there have never been any challengers to the title - it's not only a perfect game - it's a nearly perfect software and an example on how continuous integration works. Constant updates and never-ending love from the devs through the ears and a mission statement like very few do - make it perfect. So few titles like this one - Path of Exile is one bright example.
AoW3 had no competition - people are still playing that one template on HoMM3 (Mareti's Jebus Cross) and i had 20+ years to know every little detail about it - it got old. AoW3 has a great myltiplayer community hosted at: the battlefield aow3 site (look it up) and PlanetFall's design was vastly influenced by all the defect flaws we - the community reported and was not able to mod-around with the balance mod. So PlanetFall has the chance to be the best for years to come (; MindControl is not that broken and has it's place now, there is a healthy amount of strats available - from single heroes roaming the map and killing creeps alone, to rushes with the starting army as it gets mods and levels to mobile stacks and turtle_ing behind doom's day weapons. The AI is weak and stupid and the templates are still unbalanced with a mix of easy, mundane battles and un-winnable gold sites - there are only those 2 options but one can see the foundation of a great game!
