Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

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So, it turns out that the hero who practiced the beautiful art of propaganda of the deed against the stochastic terrorist Brian Thompson was formerly employed at Firaxis, which made Alpha Centauri and then a bunch of shit I don't care about.

What are your three favorite Alpha Centauri factions and why are they:

1. Spartan Federation
2. the Human Hive
3. alien lifeforms

Also, should I give Alien Crosssfire a go or is it redundant?

 

[Prokhor Zakharov]

I honestly only ever play "University of Planet" (I bet that is a real surprise...)

Alien Crossfire is crap.

My favorite strategy is to discover every Secret Project before anyone else by focusing on Research to the detriment of Military spending at the beginning. Once you have the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm UoP loses any downsides.

My favorite starting point is occupying only the central land mass containing Landing Bay, Uranium Flats, & Garland Crater without anyone else. No one else can reach you until they develop either water or aircraft, which usually takes a while, so you can colonize the entire land mass and no one else can deploy a base or units on your soil.

@Diana Moon Glampers and I have agreed to never play against one another since we both follow the same strategy.

 

[Londo]

Centauri you say?

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Remember a time when there was that @HumanHive avatar trend?

Kiwi Farms remembers.

 

[Spasticus Autisticus]

What are the best mods these days? I tried Thinker mod but it was honestly just not fun with the difficulty, it feels like the AI cheats even more than it did before. alphacentauri2.info forum is still BTFO so I don't know where the mod scene hangs out now.

Also, should I give Alien Crosssfire a go or is it redundant?

I have to agree with the good Academician, Alien Crossfire is crap. The new factions are mostly garbage, especially the Progenitors and the Pirates. The new xeno mobs are ridiculously OP and you have to spend a bunch of resources early on just to insure against them ruining your run. The new secret projects are underwhelming. It had a few good ideas that should have been in the base game, but most of those have been patched into various fan mods.

 

[Trump's Chosen]

What are your three favorite Alpha Centauri factions and why are they

Nah, resources exist to be consumed and consumed they will be. If not by this generation then by some future. Morganites don't have to live in pods and eat meat.

My favorite starting point is occupying only the central land mass containing Landing Bay, Uranium Flats, & Garland Crater without anyone else. No one else can reach you until they develop either water or aircraft, which usually takes a while, so you can colonize the entire land mass and no one else can deploy a base or units on your soil.

Nah it's best when you only have like 10 tiles and are on the north or south pole, where you have to haphazardly expand across water, possibly into enemy territory and still make it work.

 

[Kane Lives]

Obligatory @Sister Miriam Godwinson and whoever has that Pajeet Lal avatar too.

Also I think Alien Crossfire is good for a lark but it becomes incredibly obvious that the game was not quite designed around the extra factions.

 

[Sister Miriam Godwinson]

Also I think Alien Crossfire is good for a lark but it becomes incredibly obvious that the game was not quite designed around the extra factions.

They are, indeed, ridiculously broken, as well as the entire resonance mechanic. The bonuses from it become so absurd that by the end you are producing more pollution by working bloody xenofungus than by exploiting thermal boreholes everywhere. So much for eco-friendly approach.

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

So, it turns out that the hero who practiced the beautiful art of propaganda of the deed against the stochastic terrorist Brian Thompson was formerly employed at Firaxis

Good to get confirmation.

I saw Firaxis misspelled in an article about the killer's bio and thought it was Civ related, but remained uncertain.

I recently bought a 25$ Humble Bundle with all the Civs III-VI.

I just checked my Steam, but unfortunately it didn't come with AC. Though it did come with Pirates, Beyond Earth and some Air Combat titles from Meier I've never heard of.

 

[Kane Lives]

Good to get confirmation.

I saw Firaxis misspelled in an article about the killer's bio and thought it was Civ related, but remained uncertain.

I recently bought a 25$ Humble Bundle with all the Civs III-VI.

I just checked my Steam, but unfortunately it didn't come with AC. Though it did come with Pirates, Beyond Earth and some Air Combat titles from Meier I've never heard of.

Funny enough, among all those games, Civ IV might be the closest spiritual successor to SMAC. Not only they lifted the civics system from SMAC, they also reintroduced voiced over the tech quotes that soon became a staple of series as a whole.

By contrast, Beyond Earth is a mere cargo cult copy of SMAC.

 

[The Foxtrot]

Funny enough, among all those games, Civ IV might be the closest spiritual successor to SMAC. Not only they lifted the civics system from SMAC, they also reintroduced voiced over the tech quotes that soon became a staple of series as a whole.

By contrast, Beyond Earth is a mere cargo cult copy of SMAC.

A good runner-up as a spiritual successor to SMAC would be Terra Invicta, I'd say.

 

[Otis Mallebrok]

All of the original factions in Alpha centauri are reasonably well balanced and really well written. Neither is true for alien crossfire, where some of the factions are broken and very shallow tonally. The great appeal of Alpha Centauri is that the seven factions are written as seven actual people with depth, and that the more villainous factions are not written as moustachio twirling bad guys who are evil simply because they are on "team evil". The good guys has an evil side, and the bad guys (Yang) has a point.

The strongest faction on higher difficulties is probably Lal, and on lower difficulties it is probably Zakharov. My personal favourite is sister Miriam Godwinson.

The biggest weakness of Alpha Centauri is that the AI is awful and that the computer cheats to compensate. Like any other civ game, essentially. Also, I think that forrests are overpowered. But I have never found another game with the same atmosphere as Alpha Centauri. It really is a gem.

 

[Daily Affirmation]

Age of Wonders: Planetfall pulls off the feel of SMAC, especially the quotes, more than any other game I've tried. However, SMAC remains the best game of all time.

 

[The Grognard]

Alpha Centauri would be great for a remastering, but knowing modern Firaxis and how painfully generic Beyond Earth was, I don't see anyone making a respectable effort out of it.

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

Alpha Centauri is a good game that is as overrated now as it was back then.

 

[Dan of Steel]

Being a kid that grew up on DOS/early Windows PC games I've always loved Alpha Centauri since I first played back when I was around 10. I've Played every faction and my favorite is still Morgan Industries. Also, Firaxis made several cool games besides SMAC, including Gettysburg and the Sid Meier's Pirates remake.

 

[Rudy Coleman]

Alpha Centauri would be great for a remastering, but knowing modern Firaxis and how painfully generic Beyond Earth was, I don't see anyone making a respectable effort out of it.

always funny to me that science victory has a button that takes you to the store page for beyond earth in civ 5

 

[ToroidalBoat]

In Civilization 2: Test of Time, there is an "extended game" mode where there's a 2nd map of "Alpha Centauri" once the ship reaches there. Unlike the other game, there are only the civilizations from "Earth", and the "Alpha Centauri" natives. Also, there is a bug where the voyage there is supposed to unlock a new part of the "tech tree", but doesn't. That part of the "tech tree" eventually leads to "transcendence" -- that is, becoming "energy beings" (like Organians or Q from Star Trek): a new Science Victory.

 

[Bubble Ba'ath]

Personally its been my favorite game for a very long time. I agree Alien Crossfire really fucks with the game balance and even tone, but playing as the Pirates is fun for starting at sea. You can of course import them into the base game if you have the expansion and skip the alien bullshit.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

Such a fucking based game. Beyond Earth seriously fucked up extremely hard, they had the potential to make a insanely good game and threw it away.

The quotes from the wonders go very hard.