My First Alpha Centauri Experience: Part 2

[KevinRuddPM]

I have a few things to write about my first few games of SMAC, for the first time beating it on the easiest level with the believers. I started my second game a few hours ago with the University. I had a whole heap of fun with them. I was so many techs ahead of everyone else. Right now they are my favourite. But I also found that the University more prone to drones. I also found that the Gaians can be a little annoying at times, same with Chairman Yang. I got rid of both them, plus Morgan and Lal. Miriam and Santiago are the only ones left. Santiago is pretty far away, but on the same continent, but Miriam is on another continent, and she grows by the minute. Now I have to be honest, my navy isn't as strong as it could be, but once I get through Santiago, time for a navy! Muhaha....

I plan for the next game to try Morgan, some of my friends recommended him to me. My friend said Morgan gets alot of energy, and gets wealthy quickly, which will come in useful. Plus he said secret projects can be done faster.

Well, thats it. Is there anything more I need to know about SMAC?

 

[Buster's Uncle]

It's always pleasant to hear from people who are new to the game, and experiencing that excitement of discovery. It's been a long time for some of us, but it's nice to be reminded of how thrilling it was twen years ago.

Your last question is a difficult one to answer- probably, but I couldn't say what. If you have any more specific questions, I'm sure there will be plenty of answers here.

 

[vyeh]

The Vintage Game Club is doing a play though of SMAC here.

You are a very prolific poster. I gather you play Civ 2 and Civ 3. BTW, are you aware that there is a project to fix Planescape:Torment at the Spellhold Studios site? A friend of mine, scient, is involved.

I assume you've already seen my last post in your first thread.

Some things you should know about SMAC (I assume you do not have the expansion):

(1) Diplomacy is more developed than in Civ 2 because the social choices you make will affect your diplomacy (in Civ 2, the AI doesn't care if it is a democracy and you are a communist).

(2) Social engineering is more complicated that Civ 2.

(3) Supply crawlers don't exist in Civ 2.

(4) The unit design workshop allows you to customize your units, trading off weapons, armor, speed and special abilities against cost.

(5) The different factions are much more distinct in SMAC than the different civilizations are in Civ 2.

I would recommend that you read Vel's Guide.

As Buster's Uncle said, please post your questions in this thread. I would be delighted to answer your questions. (And you will find that I am not alone.)

 

[Pickly]

As for picking a faction that you like, I suggest reading the strategy guides and than trying out all the factions to see what you like the best. At lower difficulty levels, you should be able to keep up relatively well with all of them, but will still learn which factions seem to work better with a particular playstyle.


Morgan is able to produce quite a lot of energy. With most factions, you'd need to use the free market social choice to get extra energy per square, with Morgan you just need to use wealth, which has much lower disadvantages than free market, and also allows you to build things faster. (Using production.) Morgan's energy can help that faction research things quickly, and with wealth's "industry" boost (that allows you to build things faster), and the money, Morgan will build things more quickly. Morganites do seem to grow more slowly, however, and will have more trouble building an army than other factions.


A couple of other points:

As you've probably noticed, most Alpha Centauri gameplay is the same or similar to Civilization 2 gameplay. (Energy=money, talents and drones=happy and angry citizens, supply crawlers can be used like caravans/freight, worms are like barbarians). This also extends to a lot of social engineering and unit upgrades, which may not be as obvious. Super formers, for instance, is a unit upgrade similar to the change from settlers to engineers in civ 2, the +1 energy.square effect from +2 wealth is similar ot the democracy/republic effect in civ 2, the effect of positive police is like martial law, negative police is like the democracy/republic effect, etc. If you haven't noticed this already, the above description might help you navigate unit design and social engineering more effectively.


There are a lot of features that are different, though, to keep track of. Forests in Alpha Centauri, if you haven't noticed before, are actually one of the better terraforming options when tree farms/hybrid forests are built. Crawlers also have a major effect, they can allow people to build all specialist cities, or otherwise get resources that wouldn't be possible in Civ 2. you also have to watch the social engineering, as mentioned before, when it comes to diplomacy (when you see something along the lines of "Your planned economics are wasteful..." or "you 'democracy' is godless and wretched", it means a social engineering choice is hurting you with other factions.

 

[vyeh]

While SMAC was designed to be Civ 2 on another planet and you can see analogies, be aware that there are significant differences. One of the biggest differences is native life. In Civ 2, when you captured a barbarian leader, you got some gold. In SMAC you can get a mindworm or an Isle of the Deep.

And do you have any idea of how valuable a unit that can attack, carry other land units, zip through fungus and never becomes obsolete from advancing tech can be?