Solver: How do you treat the non-inclusion of multiplayer support in CivIII, and has that changed your opinion about Firaxis?
Xin-Yu: CivIII is not suitable for multiplayer since you have different traits and UUS. If you remove them then you are playing CivII with better graphs but slower game machine. So multiplayer is not important. I never expected a lot from Firaxis so there was no change in opinion from this.

Solver: Sid Meier. Is he really the gaming mastermind, or is he no longer the brightest person in the gaming industry. Sid, if you ever read this, personally I think you're the most important person in PC gaming history.
Xin-Yu: In my opinion Sid Meier stands for Sid and his men. He'll no longer be the brightest if he loses his men. It seems to me that he lost some of them.

Solver: Do you have any experience with other Civ games, like SMAC and the alternative CtP series?
Xin-Yu: No. They are too complicated. CivII is simple and great. Just like chess. You can have many fancy games but none of them will replace chess.

Solver: CivIV. Might there be such a game, and can it be any good after three games already here?
Xin-Yu: There's always some room for improvement. Especially as I mentioned before, we can allow managing multiple cities and units at the same time, and that will be a great improvement with respect to game play.

Solver: SimGolf. Sid has recently released this. Are you buying the game, or doesn't it have any interest for you?
Xin-Yu: I stopped buying new games a while ago. They are just way too expensive. If in 2-3 years the game is still around (as in the case of SimCity) I'll pay a visit to it.

Solver: Are you playing any other games than Civ, and, if yes, have you mastered the strategies for them, just like in CivII?
Xin-Yu: I play C&C/Red Alert, AoE and StarCraft. But I'm not so good in real time strategy games.

What do you think of those cute spammers at Apolyton boards?
Xin-Yu: It's a price to pay to keep a good site around.

Solver: Now you're not an active poster at the boards, like before. Why so?
Xin-Yu: I still browse it frequently. Since I don't play a lot recently (spend time with family) I really don't have much to post.

Solver: Well, tell us a bit about yourself, to give this a nice finish?
Xin-Yu: I was born in Shanghai, China. I went to the United States in 1994. Now I am close to 40 but still feel very young. I have a job in Seattle as Biostatistician for a drug company. My wife is still in graduate school now and we have no children. That's all.

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