disappearing cities?

[raman]

It's the year 2435 and I'm Aki Zeta and as soon as I hit the turn complete button, all my cities disappear and I get one colony pod to start all over with! What's going on? I've been playing this since SMAC was released and this has never happened! Got all latest patches installed, etc. Anyone ever see this before?

[Petek]

A known bug. Have you eliminated another faction? Sometimes this bug is associated with another faction trying to free a faction from your HQ, except that they "free" you instead. Other times, the situation that you describe takes place for no apparent reason.

You might be able to prevent this by reloading from a prior turn and making sure that your HQ is garrisoned by one or more probe teams. This doesn't always work, however.