Now Im hooked on CIV 3, but it states its going to retire the game in a few rounds. Does anyone know how to stop this from happening?

Dude... how many years have you spent on that one game ?

It's what happens. You go 6000 years (something like 500 turns or so) and then the game ends in 2020. They just call it "retirement".

I certainly think SMAC is better than Civ3, but I'm splitting hairs. Play both! My SMAC CD went bottoms up a long time ago, so I no longer play it, but I just bought Conquests for Civ3 because I started playing it again after this thread came about.

props to Randerolf for the SMAC.