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[TBS] Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Megamaniaco
Madrid, Spain (again!)Registered User regular
Madrid, Spain (again!)Registered User regular
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Welcome folks, to my humble thread. It is not often I post stuff in the forums, and even less often I create whole new threads, but I do think that this game deserves it.
My idea was to create a thread about this great game, to raise some interest around it, to make old players remember it and new ones be amazed with this jewel of gaming.
First, let's leave the introductions to wikipedia, where they have summed it up beautifully (spoilered, it's a bit long):
Clear enough?
Now, we should talk about the Factions, one of the most important features of the game; humans in the game are not divided by their nationality, but rather by their ideology. The whole plot revolves around this point.
- The Spartan Federation, led by Coronel Corazon Santiago. A pure militaristic survivalist, she fights for the right to bear arms, and strongly suspects of factions that amass wealth or pure researchers.
-The University of Planet, led by Academician Prokhor Zakharov, a technocratic faction that values knowledge above everything else, sometimes even moral impediments.
- Gaia's Stepdaughters, led by Lady Deirdre Skye; they abhor ecological destruction and want to live in tune with Planet (with a capital "P", yes).
- Morgan Industries, led by CEO Nwabudike Morgan. A corporate capitalistic faction, energy credits are everything for them.
- The Human Hive, led by Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang. A totalitarian faction, founded on the principles of security and control.
- The Lord's Believers, led by Sister Miriam Godwinson. A fundamentalist faction wary of secular technology, they firmly believe Planet to be their "Promised Land".
- The Peacekeeping Forces, led by Commissioner Pravin Lal; this faction works hard to keep the peace through diplomacy and following the UN charter.
Once we are done with that, we should talk about the strong and the weak points of the game.
· Strong Points:
- The Unit Creator: Alpha Centauri features a Unit Design Workshop which is very flexible in comparison to other Civ games. For each unit, the workshop presents you with choices for each of a unit's weapon (attack strength), armor (defense strength), chassis (speed and terrain movement), reactor (hit points and build cost), and up to two special abilities (but only one until the discovery of Neural Grafting).
Each time you discover a new tech, it allows you to use new components in the Creator, unlike past (and future) Civ games, where units are pre-designed.
- Social Engineering: Social Engineering is equivalent to what the Civilization games refer to as form of government. However, Alpha Centauri's system is the most flexible of any Civ game (until Civilization IV): you can not only choose the form of government, but fine-tune its economy, values, and how it embraces advanced technology.
Do you want to create a Democracy with an economy ruled by a Free Market, focused on Knowledge values and hoping to become one day an Eudaimonic society? Or would you rather create a Police State, with an Green economy, focused on Power values and hoping to become a Cybernetic society one day? A mix of both? None? You can!
- Terraforming: From creating farms, solar collector and mines to raising and lowering the terrain, sea kelp farms, tide harnesses, thermal boreholes, echelon mirrors, hybrid forests...you can basically shape your terrain in any way you want.
- The Story: One of the reasons SMAC was so memorable is that the storyline was, well...there was
a storyline, unlike other Civ-type games where you have none. And it was well written too, with interludes where you read how were things going with Planet, etc.
- The Mindworms: In SMAC you don't have barbarians, you have MINDWORMS. And tought little buggers they were! You have them in three varieties: Land-based mindworms, sea-based Isles of the Deep and airborne Locusts of Chiron. A lot of technologies and background revolve around your fight against them. Or your understanding of them, if you were into that sorta thing.
- The Secret Projects: The equivalent of Wonders in other Civ-type games, these were special because each time you finished one a movie was shown to you. You must see them to understand, but many of them were really great, playing with philosophical concepts and whatnot.
· Weak Points:
- MP Games: Sadly, one of the serious lacks of this game is a robust multiplayer mode; it worked and you could play up to 7 players, but it was -very- problematic; you often didn't really know why you couldn't connect to the host of the game.
PBEM (Play by Email) was an option and was used for the longer games; it gave less problems too, so that was a plus.
- ICS: Infinite City Sprawl refers to the strategy based on the concept that a player should have as many cities as possible to crank out hordes of cheap military units; this was an strategy used a lot in Civ1 and 2, and altough SMAC compensated a bit for it, it was still a viable strategy; altough using it in MP was considered a gross breach of etiquette.
- Attack and Defense: Basically, A&D works in a weird way in SMAC. A unit with an ample advantage in its attack rating will still lose to a unit with a more balanced A&D ratios. Also, you had to seriously dig to find out which type of armor was best against which type of weapons.
+ + +
I could also talk about SMAX (Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire), the expansion pack for SMAC. It added 7 new factions, new technologies, secret projects, etc...but I think that for now that's enough.
My thanks to Demiurge for the help writing this post!
Welcome folks, to my humble thread. It is not often I post stuff in the forums, and even less often I create whole new threads, but I do think that this game deserves it.
My idea was to create a thread about this great game, to raise some interest around it, to make old players remember it and new ones be amazed with this jewel of gaming.
First, let's leave the introductions to wikipedia, where they have summed it up beautifully (spoilered, it's a bit long):
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) is the critically acclaimed science fiction 4X turn-based strategy video game sequel to the Civilization series. Sid Meier, designer of Civilization, and Brian Reynolds, designer of Civilization II, developed Alpha Centauri after they left MicroProse to join the newly-created developer Firaxis Games.
Electronic Arts released both SMAC and its expansion, Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire (SMAX), in 1999. In 2000, Aspyr Media and Loki Software ported both titles over to Mac OS and Linux.
Set in the 22nd century, the game begins as seven competing ideological factions land on the planet Chiron ("Planet") in the Alpha Centauri star system. As the game progresses, Planet's growing sentience becomes a formidable obstacle to the human colonists.
Alpha Centauri features improvements on Civilization II's game engine, including simultaneous multiplay, social engineering, climate, customizable units, alien native life, additional diplomatic and spy options, additional ways to win, and greater mod-ability . Alien Crossfire introduces two non-human factions as well as additional technologies, facilities, secret projects, native life, unit abilities and a victory condition.
The game received wide critical acclaim, being compared favorably to Civilization II. Critics praised its science fiction storyline (comparing the plot to works by Stanley Kubrick and Isaac Asimov), the in-game writing, the voice acting, the user-created custom units, and the depth of the technology tree. SMAC also won several awards for best game of the year and best strategy game of the year.
However, despite the critical acclaim, the game had the lowest sales of the Civilization series.
Electronic Arts released both SMAC and its expansion, Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire (SMAX), in 1999. In 2000, Aspyr Media and Loki Software ported both titles over to Mac OS and Linux.
Set in the 22nd century, the game begins as seven competing ideological factions land on the planet Chiron ("Planet") in the Alpha Centauri star system. As the game progresses, Planet's growing sentience becomes a formidable obstacle to the human colonists.
Alpha Centauri features improvements on Civilization II's game engine, including simultaneous multiplay, social engineering, climate, customizable units, alien native life, additional diplomatic and spy options, additional ways to win, and greater mod-ability . Alien Crossfire introduces two non-human factions as well as additional technologies, facilities, secret projects, native life, unit abilities and a victory condition.
The game received wide critical acclaim, being compared favorably to Civilization II. Critics praised its science fiction storyline (comparing the plot to works by Stanley Kubrick and Isaac Asimov), the in-game writing, the voice acting, the user-created custom units, and the depth of the technology tree. SMAC also won several awards for best game of the year and best strategy game of the year.
However, despite the critical acclaim, the game had the lowest sales of the Civilization series.
Clear enough?
Now, we should talk about the Factions, one of the most important features of the game; humans in the game are not divided by their nationality, but rather by their ideology. The whole plot revolves around this point.
- The Spartan Federation, led by Coronel Corazon Santiago. A pure militaristic survivalist, she fights for the right to bear arms, and strongly suspects of factions that amass wealth or pure researchers.
-The University of Planet, led by Academician Prokhor Zakharov, a technocratic faction that values knowledge above everything else, sometimes even moral impediments.
- Gaia's Stepdaughters, led by Lady Deirdre Skye; they abhor ecological destruction and want to live in tune with Planet (with a capital "P", yes).
- Morgan Industries, led by CEO Nwabudike Morgan. A corporate capitalistic faction, energy credits are everything for them.
- The Human Hive, led by Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang. A totalitarian faction, founded on the principles of security and control.
- The Lord's Believers, led by Sister Miriam Godwinson. A fundamentalist faction wary of secular technology, they firmly believe Planet to be their "Promised Land".
- The Peacekeeping Forces, led by Commissioner Pravin Lal; this faction works hard to keep the peace through diplomacy and following the UN charter.
Once we are done with that, we should talk about the strong and the weak points of the game.
· Strong Points:
- The Unit Creator: Alpha Centauri features a Unit Design Workshop which is very flexible in comparison to other Civ games. For each unit, the workshop presents you with choices for each of a unit's weapon (attack strength), armor (defense strength), chassis (speed and terrain movement), reactor (hit points and build cost), and up to two special abilities (but only one until the discovery of Neural Grafting).
Each time you discover a new tech, it allows you to use new components in the Creator, unlike past (and future) Civ games, where units are pre-designed.
- Social Engineering: Social Engineering is equivalent to what the Civilization games refer to as form of government. However, Alpha Centauri's system is the most flexible of any Civ game (until Civilization IV): you can not only choose the form of government, but fine-tune its economy, values, and how it embraces advanced technology.
Do you want to create a Democracy with an economy ruled by a Free Market, focused on Knowledge values and hoping to become one day an Eudaimonic society? Or would you rather create a Police State, with an Green economy, focused on Power values and hoping to become a Cybernetic society one day? A mix of both? None? You can!
- Terraforming: From creating farms, solar collector and mines to raising and lowering the terrain, sea kelp farms, tide harnesses, thermal boreholes, echelon mirrors, hybrid forests...you can basically shape your terrain in any way you want.
- The Story: One of the reasons SMAC was so memorable is that the storyline was, well...there was
a storyline, unlike other Civ-type games where you have none. And it was well written too, with interludes where you read how were things going with Planet, etc.
- The Mindworms: In SMAC you don't have barbarians, you have MINDWORMS. And tought little buggers they were! You have them in three varieties: Land-based mindworms, sea-based Isles of the Deep and airborne Locusts of Chiron. A lot of technologies and background revolve around your fight against them. Or your understanding of them, if you were into that sorta thing.
- The Secret Projects: The equivalent of Wonders in other Civ-type games, these were special because each time you finished one a movie was shown to you. You must see them to understand, but many of them were really great, playing with philosophical concepts and whatnot.
· Weak Points:
- MP Games: Sadly, one of the serious lacks of this game is a robust multiplayer mode; it worked and you could play up to 7 players, but it was -very- problematic; you often didn't really know why you couldn't connect to the host of the game.
PBEM (Play by Email) was an option and was used for the longer games; it gave less problems too, so that was a plus.
- ICS: Infinite City Sprawl refers to the strategy based on the concept that a player should have as many cities as possible to crank out hordes of cheap military units; this was an strategy used a lot in Civ1 and 2, and altough SMAC compensated a bit for it, it was still a viable strategy; altough using it in MP was considered a gross breach of etiquette.
- Attack and Defense: Basically, A&D works in a weird way in SMAC. A unit with an ample advantage in its attack rating will still lose to a unit with a more balanced A&D ratios. Also, you had to seriously dig to find out which type of armor was best against which type of weapons.
+ + +
I could also talk about SMAX (Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire), the expansion pack for SMAC. It added 7 new factions, new technologies, secret projects, etc...but I think that for now that's enough.
My thanks to Demiurge for the help writing this post!
Steam ID: Megamaniaco // LoL summoner: Corcorigan (NA), Megamaniaco (EUW) // Hearthstone: Megamaniaco.2120
Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you.
Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you.
Megamaniaco on
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Posts
Let's hope it raises an interest in them youngster gamers.
Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you.
gaians are the best faction even if you can't run free market. catch 20 mind worms then kill everyone
But yes, gaians were the best, along with the university. Free Network Nodes? Don't mind if I do~
Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you.
Oh, and the screenshot is from IGN, heaven know from what year, or system.
Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you.
That was a good time.
Always fun to tell Lal to suck on my Planet Busters.
EDIT: After looking at the wiki it looks like I had the spaceflight win confused with another game. Whoops
Or you could try the other usual sources.
Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you.
But I would be satisfied with even a spiritual successor...
Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you.
Anyway I installed it and got to playing it a few weeks back and I have to say that I am now a SMAC-head. I'm running it on a Vista 32-bit machine, not sure how it would work for 64-bit or windows 7 users.
Just a thought.
Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you.
Buy it at Sold Out, since they are new copies and are like $15USD
http://www.mastertronic.com/productSoldOut.asp?pid=756&productLabelID=1
I'm running Windows 7 64-bit and it runs fine on my machine. Also, be sure to grab the Windows 2000/XP compatibility patch and then add DirectDraw=0 to the Alpha Centauri.ini under the Alpha Centauri header. This enables the game to run in your desktop's resolution instead of the default 1024x768. It makes the game much nicer to play on newer monitors.
Also, I reinstalled this after seeing this thread, with the intention of seeing how well it works on my new machine. Three hours disappeared in an instant. What an awesome game.
I did a retrospective of it for RPS last month.
Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you.
Once I get the fucking hunter-seeker algorithm that is. :P
And yes, the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm is the greatest thing ever.
Hunter seeker this university
True. And once you get it, you can become all, "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm busy transcending time, space, and matter. Did you want something to dig your first borehole with? Maybe a shovel?"
I'm very much an original faction player. The expansion factions never really grabbed me, they didn't seem to have the same detail, I guess. Though I do wish you could have a game on a super-huge map with literally all the factions.
One of the things that makes this game so great is how everyone has a different favorite faction. Except for the Believers, everyone hates Miriam.
I, for example, dislike the Spartans. Mostly because they love to fight with you if you share a border (or really for any excuse). And fighting means one of two things: either you lose, which is bad, or you win, which just leaves you occupying a bunch of starving, underdeveloped, bankrupt Spartan bases. The only way to win is not to fight (or, I suppose, planetbusters).
But everyone hates the Believers. They're not an easy faction to play as either.
Select unit that captured Spartan Base->Actions->Exterminate Base.
Problem solved.
Yeah, yeah, but if you're going to commit atrocities, you might as well go big and turn their own territory into a bunch of lakes. Not like the Spartans bother building many cities either.
Hence, planetbusters. That's my thinking anyway. I really like building expensive stuff.
Actually, a less controversial fix is simply to "force relocate" everyone buy churning out the cheapest model of colony pods, speeding up the rate of starvation. I'd forgotten about that.
I suppose. Too much playing as the Hive tends to leave a mark on one's playstyle I guess. :P
Seems so.
Man, that's a thing about games, especially good ones. You start to see things from a certain angle when considering the game that matches the chosen playstyle. It's interesting.
Especially when you start playing someone else for a change of pace.
Why I fear the ocean.
The Hive, on the other hand, tends to turn into a sprawling empire made of far too many crap bases. You would need the votes against them.
When I played the Peacekeepers, I had to rely on a coalition to keep me alive while I furiously strove for enough votes to get myself elected head of the council. Which inevitably meant a three-way alliance with the University and either the Gaians or the Morganites (whoever hadn't killed the other). That's a lot harder if you keep violating the charter.
Plus, if you spend any length of time as the University, you learn that their apparently hilarious disregard for ethics results in plenty of drones, so you come to automatically deal with them as quickly as you can, through base upgrades and careful planning.
The Morganites will often ally with you early on until you actually can change your economic models. The AI tends to like to cooperate with the human player anyway.
The Hive don't seem to care at all, either way.
The Peacekeepers get along with you pretty well, even though, like everyone else, they annoyingly ask for handout tech.
The Gaians do the same as the Peacekeepers but, again, unless you adopt Free Market economics, they don't seem to get upset.
So that leaves the Spartans and the Miriams as the two real points of contention (and possibly the Morganites, late game).
This is only based on my own experience, though. I'd really like a huge game with all the factions, original and expansion, in play.