Alright, hopefully I don't come off as too much of a whiny ass with this. I'm completely new to Civ4, so here's my wall of text of issues as purely an Alpha Centauri fan (specifically, a Hive player):
1. Tech Trading Doesn't Really Make Sense
It doesn't seem to make sense, from a fluff perspective, why the default setting don't allow tech brokering. Turning it on, however, means that the first faction to get Holographics ends up way ahead in tech. Frankly, SMAC's tech trading system worked fine, and I don't see what the point of changing it is.
2. No Natural Rivalries
As a Yang player, this just completely changes the game. The name of the game in SMAC was trying to keep yourself from fighting too many factions at once - going Police State would always put me at odds with Lal and Miriam, and going Planned would irk Morgan and Deirdre. If I chose to go Wealth, I'd be on the bad sides of Zakharov and Santiago as well, meaning wars happening 24/7. I recognize this didn't happen to such a large extent with the other factions, but losing all the natural rivalries between different factions and their chosen ideologies hurts the game, I think. If I'm playing Zakharov, I'd like to encounter the Believers and be a little worried. Now, rather than opposing ideologies, we just have a bunch of groups on Planet who mostly just leave one-another alone. Like in SMAC, it'd be nice to have the factions so hostile towards one-another that they essentially sounded like they were blaming each other for Earth's downfall. On that same note, it'd add a bit of flavor to each of the factions if they were once again forbidden from using their hated civic.
3. Borders and Religions
Maybe this is a Civ4 issue more than anything else, but I strongly preferred being able to pass through rival borders without a formal passage agreement for a relation hit. It's terribly annoying when you have to turn your Scout Patrol back around in the canyon they were exploring just because another faction controls one square in said canyon. As to religions, I'm not certain what they add other than more busywork. Though, it's possible I just haven't grasped exactly what you can do with them. Even then, though, they seem more like subcomponents of different faction ideologies - things the factions should have already.
4. Slow Growth
Again, probably a Civ4 thing, but it's annoying having to wait and do nothing as your only base spends 20 turns producing a colony pod.
5. Terraforming
It doesn't really feel like there's much terraforming at all - just building labs and the like. If Civ4's engine allows it, we should be changing terrain types, drilling for aquifers, and all that.
Then, since Civ4 has no Unit Workshop, I don't think there's any reason not to have faction unique units or anything.
On the bright side of things I really like, some of the new terrain and buildings are pretty cool - the DNA, and the Empath Guilds - specifically, the quote that plays when you build them. That's exactly the sort of thing that should be in the game. And the model for Scout Patrols looks really perfect.
1. Tech Trading Doesn't Really Make Sense
It doesn't seem to make sense, from a fluff perspective, why the default setting don't allow tech brokering. Turning it on, however, means that the first faction to get Holographics ends up way ahead in tech. Frankly, SMAC's tech trading system worked fine, and I don't see what the point of changing it is.
2. No Natural Rivalries
As a Yang player, this just completely changes the game. The name of the game in SMAC was trying to keep yourself from fighting too many factions at once - going Police State would always put me at odds with Lal and Miriam, and going Planned would irk Morgan and Deirdre. If I chose to go Wealth, I'd be on the bad sides of Zakharov and Santiago as well, meaning wars happening 24/7. I recognize this didn't happen to such a large extent with the other factions, but losing all the natural rivalries between different factions and their chosen ideologies hurts the game, I think. If I'm playing Zakharov, I'd like to encounter the Believers and be a little worried. Now, rather than opposing ideologies, we just have a bunch of groups on Planet who mostly just leave one-another alone. Like in SMAC, it'd be nice to have the factions so hostile towards one-another that they essentially sounded like they were blaming each other for Earth's downfall. On that same note, it'd add a bit of flavor to each of the factions if they were once again forbidden from using their hated civic.
3. Borders and Religions
Maybe this is a Civ4 issue more than anything else, but I strongly preferred being able to pass through rival borders without a formal passage agreement for a relation hit. It's terribly annoying when you have to turn your Scout Patrol back around in the canyon they were exploring just because another faction controls one square in said canyon. As to religions, I'm not certain what they add other than more busywork. Though, it's possible I just haven't grasped exactly what you can do with them. Even then, though, they seem more like subcomponents of different faction ideologies - things the factions should have already.
4. Slow Growth
Again, probably a Civ4 thing, but it's annoying having to wait and do nothing as your only base spends 20 turns producing a colony pod.
5. Terraforming
It doesn't really feel like there's much terraforming at all - just building labs and the like. If Civ4's engine allows it, we should be changing terrain types, drilling for aquifers, and all that.
Then, since Civ4 has no Unit Workshop, I don't think there's any reason not to have faction unique units or anything.
On the bright side of things I really like, some of the new terrain and buildings are pretty cool - the DNA, and the Empath Guilds - specifically, the quote that plays when you build them. That's exactly the sort of thing that should be in the game. And the model for Scout Patrols looks really perfect.
). I realize this mod is dead. However, I still need to get this complaint out of my system, no matter if someone is gong to reply or not: Why can't I raze cities? How are one supposed to win a military victory if you have to keep all those cities? More to the point, I was playing as Miriam and chose to adopt Edenism as I thought it suited them. As a result, I was determined to destroy every fungus I could find, and to keep the Planet Awareness-meter down. Pollute and destroy the environment, Earth style. As a result, nearly everyone declared war on me, and I started to produce In Vitros like mad, and captured a city... and could not raze it. And another, same thing. Sensing a pattern, I tried to see if something in game was preventing me from razing cities. Switched to "no member" but that did not help. Searched the forums and finally found out the mod does not allow you to raze cities at all. 
