Blizzard may have started up their Starcraft II beta yesterday, but I wasn’t invited. Luckily, the newest installment of turn-based digital crack was announced today. And it’s already up on Steam.

I haven’t even spent NEARLY enough time with Civilization IV. Of course, it’s not like I need to buy its successor when it comes out — but I won’t be able to help myself. I’ve had 12 years to play Starcraft, and got plenty of time out of it back in middle and high school. Civ4, on the other hand, I only bought about a year ago. I think I’ve only actually finished one game of it; I also have played maybe 15 hours on another massive session. But that’s not nearly enough. A game like Civ4 deserves a triple-digit number of hours dedicated to it; that’s an amount of time I’ve only given to a small handful of games — namely Starcraft.

But enough of me lamenting over time wasted not playing Civ4. This is about the future. This is about HEXAGONS.

Look at those pretty, more strategic things. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities, and gives the PC gaming elite boners across the world. I can’t say I have much experience with hex-based gaming, but it intrigues me greatly. I. Am. Excited.