Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, the computer game.
If so, what’s your favorite faction? Why? I thought I’d post this mainly so that we could exchange stategies and such. Also, is the expansion game worth it? Can it still be found anywhere?
My personal favorite faction is the Morgans. My strategy is generally to use democracy and planetary economics (I know, Morgan heresy) so I get Lal and Diedre on my side. Then I focus less on expansion and more on infrastructure. Is that a good idea?
My favorite faction was the Collective. I’m not sure if that’s their name, but Chairman Wang was the leader. I liked them because the growth bonus. Major point in all my strategies in Civ, Civ2 and Alpha Centauri were to have my people reproduce like rabbits. More people=more cities=more knowledge
As a sidebar to this thread, was anyone disappointed in Alpha Centauri? There were several minor improvements over Civ2, but was the playing experience fundamentally different? It wasn’t for me. They renamed the city improvements, but other than that…
I’ve been interested to read about the new features in Civ3, which should be coming out soon.
I love that game. It sucks multiplayer, though.
I like the University, mainly because of the free network node and the research bonuses and stuff. If you are the University and you build the Virtual World secret project, you almost never have to worry about drones.
I guess I play less combat and more “develop the crap out of the game.” I’m generally amicable with all the other factions, at least at the beginning. Then, if I’m close to a smaller faction, I’ll crush them and develop their land too. I generally don’t do the ocean part of it too much.
This should be interesting to see what other people think.
First of all, I love the name. I have a magazine subscription coming to “Hugh Jass.”
Anyway, I never played Civ 1 or 2 so I cant really say. But I love Alpha Centauri.
I bought the expansion pack and reg combined. All I really ever do is tech like mad.
I don’t think that they know what the word innovation means though. They just get the same product and produce it a little differently and call it a different game.
While the gameplay was just as solid, I felt really let down by the graphics. It took me forever to tell the different types of units apart, and the land masses still look like chopped liver to me. Maybe Civ2 spoiled me, but I liked to be able to look at a map square and say - hey, that’s a forest, one food and two shields. I still have trouble guessing the resources of AC sqaures.
Thanks to AC, whenever I play Civ2 now, I find myself wishing for some orbital drop pods. Those things are damned handy.
And yes, I’d say the expansion is definitely worth it.
I really think that the main selling point of Alpha Centauri was the ability to design your units. And it was helpful. If you wanted some shock troops all you had to do was design infantry without all the bells and whistles and they would be pretty cheap to produce.
I like the University faction. In these games (like MoOII also) technology usually overcomes all problems.
I’m a fan of the U.N. Peacekeepers. The extra votes you get in elections make winning a diplomatic game easier.
I’m a huge lover of Diedre, nothing is more fun than saturating the planet in great-boil mindworms, nothing can stand up to them until the late stages of the game.
My knocks against SMAC were primarily with the diplomacy portion. Inevitably, it all comes down to open warfare, factions rarely last long and alliances are fleeting. You will always reach a critical mass in technology or number-of-cities where everyone else turns against you, even if you are just minding your own business. Nothing is more irritating than having a firm ally with only a dozen cities about face all of a sudden and decide that they are my mortal enemy. No matter what, I am forced to beat them down which only pisses off all of the other factions.
I would love a Civ or SMAC type of game where politics and diplomacy really were the driving forces and militarism and war were just occaisonal occurrences (like the real world) instead of perpetual world wars that last for centuries.
Oh well.
Lord Protector ** Space Ghost** , of the ‘Fremen’ (Spartans).
Man, I wish I could change it to God-Emperor at a later time.
SMAC is okay, I suppose. My big problem is that near the end of the game, eco-damage gets to be too big of a problem. Every turn I get several xenofungus eruptions, even if I don’t build any factory type improvements, have native life set to rare, and play as the Gaians with green econics and cybernetic society (and have the manifold nexus). Am I missing something about avoiding eco-damage? Is there a patch to fix this.
Hugh Jass: You want good growth? Democratic Government + Planned Economics + Children’s Creche = +6 Growth = Population Boom. The Peacekeepers seem to be the best at having larger bases early on (with hab complexes and the Ascetic Virtues, you can get up to base size 18 without hab domes).
Yeah i like that game. I like the University the most. I love just developing technology and kicking the crap out of anyone who wants to interrupt me. I think my favorite way to win is through transendence. I just love the storyline and stuff.
There is an expansion? What is it called?
I played it for a while, but I think it’s inferior to Civ2. I like designing your own units, but that doesn’t make up for the dumb tech advances. In Civ2 it made sense that your actions were quite limited early on, because you were primitives. It always bothered me in AC that you had to make several technological advances before you had aircraft.
I just got AC back from a friend who’d been borrowing it for a year. Fantastic game. Gameplay was not much different than Civ2, which is not a bad thing. But I loved the qoutes and recorded dialogue that came with every tech advance and newly constructed building. The tech advances themselves were some pretty cool sf. I never bothered much with designing my own units, but I’m not much of a hawk in these sorts of games: I prefer building up serious infrastructure while buying off potential enemies with my obsolete tech.
I loved the diplomacy, too. Best diplomacy I’ve ever seen in a four-X style game. Your options for wheeling and dealing the other factions was totally flexible, and when people were pissed at you, you knew why, and you had a good idea of what to do to stay on their good side. Closely tied with that, to me, was the whole Social Engineering aspect, which was flat-out brillant.
I usually played as the Morganites, but the Peacekeepers were a close second (lets me use that diplomacy interface more).
Badtz: There’s a reason why your advanced, space faring humans have to work so hard to get back into the air: there’s no petroleum on Planet. It takes a lot of research to find a fuel source that efficent, other fuels are too heavy for heavier-than-air flight to be practical. Planet is so radically different from Earth that the colonists have to re-invent almost every aspect of their society, hence the seemingly primitive tech list.
It’s been a while since I played, refresh me - what is the advance that allows you to build aircraft? I don’t recall it having anything to do with fuel sources. I know that you get wheeled vehicles for researching ‘Doctrine: Mobility’. I would have bought into that excuse better if it had actually been presented to me as ‘You need to research better fuel sources before you can build a helicopter’ but it’s not.
my fav’s are the university and sparta depending on my mood. usually with sparta I have to make a effort to keep my tech up and sometimes fall behind - so then I have to send my obsolete bad boys over to kick some high tech @$$ before they get too far.
Also I don’t like how there is no forgivness for using planetbusters - they are really fun to use but you really can’t unless you want to chalange everyone.
I often colonize the sea. This gives me room to grow and a buffer (if my land cities are attacked the sea cities are normally not bothered (or the other way around)). I normally have such a moble sea force that the sea is not an obstical. It is much less a protective barrier then in CIVx - almost like it’s not there (or that’s how I feel about it).
One race I hate going against is the piecekeepers mainly because their population bonus usually gets that guy elected. by the time I get him kicked out of office the game is pretty much over (but not before I launch that solar shade).
To develp Doctrine: Air Power, you need to first develop Synthetic Fossil Fuels. Never mind that we may already have that technology on Earth…
k2dave, if you can manage to get the UN charter repealed you can use planet busters on your enemies without going to war with all of them at once. They’re murder on your eco-damage ratings, though. Besides, I repeal the UN charter more for the nerve gas than anyting else (nerve gas rules!).
Damn eco-damage… I wish I could turn it off.
I rarely get to have that charter repealed till close to the end. Yes the ecodammage sux but nothing like actually loosing HUGE sections of land (from planet busters). In CIVx I would use global warming to my advantage as land would revert to swamps which could be turned into grasslands (which are the most productive) - I just need lots of settelers/engineers. in a few years I’m the only one with a decent population. using that stradigy in AC doesn’t seem to be that effective.
Arrr, my favorite faction be the Nautilus Pirates!
They’re in the Alien Crossfire expansion.
I get a huge kick out of sending messages to people like, “Arrr, matey, shiver me timbers! Would ye see fit to share Centauri Ecology with me for a few pieces of eight?” and “Avast, ye scurvy dog! Withdraw your units from my territory or I’ll scuttle the lot of them!” (We play multiplayer with farflung friends.)
Okay, so maybe I enjoy the role-playing element a bit to much.
On the practical side, the Pirates start with Doctrine: Flexibilty so you have naval power and can spread out and colonize the ocean without much interference from other factions, plus you have a bit of a leg up on Doctrine: Airpower.
That, and, you know, parrot jokes. Lots of parrot jokes.
Not to be nitpick or anything, but it’s Chairman Yang. Chairman Wang brings forth images of state-producted pornography in People’s Republic of China. Adventures of People’s Glorious Ass-Fucking Collective or something.
Anyway, I love Alpha Centauri. My favorite faction - well, perhaps Morgans, but mainly because computer couldn’t play them worth a damn, so I felt it was my responsibility to ensure that all seven factions actually could prosper more or less equally. Hopefully, after Sid Meier gets through Civ3 and that golf game and that dinosaur game he’ll concentrate on making Alpha Centauri 2.