[yread]

I also don't really like 5 and I think 2 was by far the most balanced one and fun to play. SMAC had an amazing story and varied factions but the replayability just wasn't there for me.

Recently I've found Endless legend and that is a bit of cross between SMAC and Civ 5. Very pretty but a lot of depth too, different strategies possible, varied factions, you HAVE to make custom units (there are only 5 by default, each has ~6 slots for one of 20 pieces of equipment). The combat is completely fucked up though.

EDIT: oh yeah and another thing I kinda like about it is how there is no civilopedia or good tutorial so you have to figure stuff out