What sets Alpha Centauri apart?
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Axis Kast
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From a design standpoint, SMAC was a worthy successor to the turn-based classic Civilization II. The new title introduced important innovations on its predecessor’s basic 4X foundation of eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate: a living world that reacted to the player’s decisions, a system of borders that changed with each skirmish, a unit creator, and a realistic weather paradigm. The staying power of SMAC, however, can best be explained not by its game mechanics, but by the quality of the story that framed them.
Everything in SMAC was slavishly devoted to the creation of an atmosphere, from the eerie sound effects to the retro-futuristic user interface. Research and construction were supported by immersive quotations spoken by the actual characters found in the game. Colonization and even Civilization II had better music, but SMAC sounded better.
Unlike previous games from Microprose, the leaders of each faction had fully-realized personalities, relatable motivations, and sharp-edged agendas that directly informed their in-game strategy. They were all world-class intellectuals with something meaningful to say about the great problems of our time. They felt alive. And they also felt relevant.
The seven factions in the original game spoke directly to the anxieties of the global moment in 1999 when the game hit store shelves. Superpower conflict had given way to ethnic conflict. We were mapping the human genome and cloning the first sheep. Famine, acid rain, and the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest were raising questions about whether humans would soon push our natural environment past its breaking point. “One World Government” came into the popular vernacular. And every Friday night, X-Files promised millions of viewers: the truth is out there. So here came the Academician Zakharov to talk to us about research, and here came CEO Nwabudike Morgan, a clear send-up of Bill Gates, to assure us that we should never feel guilty for excess.
Each faction’s philosophy implicitly answered three questions. What is the essential truth of the universe? Why did civilization on Earth fail? What is needed to ensure humanity’s survival into the future? The distinctiveness of each answer goes a very long way toward explaining why players found game designer Brian Reynolds’s creation so compelling--and why they continue to do so a quarter-century later.
Everything in SMAC was slavishly devoted to the creation of an atmosphere, from the eerie sound effects to the retro-futuristic user interface. Research and construction were supported by immersive quotations spoken by the actual characters found in the game. Colonization and even Civilization II had better music, but SMAC sounded better.
Unlike previous games from Microprose, the leaders of each faction had fully-realized personalities, relatable motivations, and sharp-edged agendas that directly informed their in-game strategy. They were all world-class intellectuals with something meaningful to say about the great problems of our time. They felt alive. And they also felt relevant.
The seven factions in the original game spoke directly to the anxieties of the global moment in 1999 when the game hit store shelves. Superpower conflict had given way to ethnic conflict. We were mapping the human genome and cloning the first sheep. Famine, acid rain, and the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest were raising questions about whether humans would soon push our natural environment past its breaking point. “One World Government” came into the popular vernacular. And every Friday night, X-Files promised millions of viewers: the truth is out there. So here came the Academician Zakharov to talk to us about research, and here came CEO Nwabudike Morgan, a clear send-up of Bill Gates, to assure us that we should never feel guilty for excess.
Each faction’s philosophy implicitly answered three questions. What is the essential truth of the universe? Why did civilization on Earth fail? What is needed to ensure humanity’s survival into the future? The distinctiveness of each answer goes a very long way toward explaining why players found game designer Brian Reynolds’s creation so compelling--and why they continue to do so a quarter-century later.
Great stuff:
1. Fleshed out faction personalities.
2. The original factions were very well balanced.
3. Units are very customizable.
4. The terraforming is fun and can lead to really powerful cities.
5. The world attacking you for polluting is a nice touch.
6. The world is moderately alien while also still being a watery planet you can plant forests on.
7. Story is fun.
8. It's fun.
9. The expansion adds some fun bits.
10. Faction abilities are stored in a text file so you can make custom factions ridiculously easily. No need for hacking or special utilities.
Downsides:
1. Espionage is overpowered just like it was in Civ 2. This can result in really silly outcomes like priority #1 of your doom fleet is to blow up a guy with a briefcase, or the guy with the briefcase being able to mind control your entire army and airforce plus the city they were in for just a bit of money.
2. Attackers are overly favoured in combat.
3. The expansion factions are poorly balanced with the pirates and aliens being too good and the rest being too weak.
4. Borders aren't hard - just like Civ 2 you can get enemies who park on your land and won't leave.
5. Just like Civ 2 the enemy AI is suicidally aggressive. If you want to be a builder it's very frustrating to be stuck in forever wars with the AI, with the AI attacking when it has no chance of actually winning. Either beacause they are too weak or too far away. Also no forced cooldown so if you pay off a faction just so they go away and stop being a nuisance... they immediately attack again.
6. The random events include stuff like "You lost all your money" when a win condition is to hoard a stupid amount of money in order to basically buy every enemy. Ie, it's ridiculously punishing when that is a very weak win con anyway.
7. The game has problems running on Windows 10.
So basically gameplay nitpicks but its a fun game, I just wish I didn't always have these forever wars on hard difficulties.
1. Fleshed out faction personalities.
2. The original factions were very well balanced.
3. Units are very customizable.
4. The terraforming is fun and can lead to really powerful cities.
5. The world attacking you for polluting is a nice touch.
6. The world is moderately alien while also still being a watery planet you can plant forests on.
7. Story is fun.
8. It's fun.
9. The expansion adds some fun bits.
10. Faction abilities are stored in a text file so you can make custom factions ridiculously easily. No need for hacking or special utilities.
Downsides:
1. Espionage is overpowered just like it was in Civ 2. This can result in really silly outcomes like priority #1 of your doom fleet is to blow up a guy with a briefcase, or the guy with the briefcase being able to mind control your entire army and airforce plus the city they were in for just a bit of money.
2. Attackers are overly favoured in combat.
3. The expansion factions are poorly balanced with the pirates and aliens being too good and the rest being too weak.
4. Borders aren't hard - just like Civ 2 you can get enemies who park on your land and won't leave.
5. Just like Civ 2 the enemy AI is suicidally aggressive. If you want to be a builder it's very frustrating to be stuck in forever wars with the AI, with the AI attacking when it has no chance of actually winning. Either beacause they are too weak or too far away. Also no forced cooldown so if you pay off a faction just so they go away and stop being a nuisance... they immediately attack again.
6. The random events include stuff like "You lost all your money" when a win condition is to hoard a stupid amount of money in order to basically buy every enemy. Ie, it's ridiculously punishing when that is a very weak win con anyway.
7. The game has problems running on Windows 10.
So basically gameplay nitpicks but its a fun game, I just wish I didn't always have these forever wars on hard difficulties.
1. The story. I'm a big fan of science fiction and fantasy and so have read quite a lot of the classics. Alpha Centauri's story telling ranks among some of the best. It has quotes ranging from Augustine to Nietzsche, as well as interesting comments made by the faction leaders. My favorite one is when you have researched Superstring Theory and the leader of the science faction says "A brave little theory and actually quite coherent for a system of 5 or 7 dimensions - if only we lived in one." Superstring Theory was cutting edge physics back when this game was made, so it amazed me that a game dev would know that. Each of the faction leaders say things that flesh them out, like you would characters in a novel.
2. The Design Workshop. The game pre-designs units for those who don't want to deal with it, but it's a lot of fun for those who do want to design units. I had fun making a former (short for terraformer) that had max level shields on it. Enemies that tried to attack would die. When I added max level shields to an endgame flying unit, the game gave it the name "Deathsphere" (or something like that - it's been a long time since I made one). Neither one is efficient to make, but it's fun being able to do it, nevertheless.
3. Units you made at the beginning of the game can be upgraded to still be effective at the end game.
4. Terraforming.
2. The Design Workshop. The game pre-designs units for those who don't want to deal with it, but it's a lot of fun for those who do want to design units. I had fun making a former (short for terraformer) that had max level shields on it. Enemies that tried to attack would die. When I added max level shields to an endgame flying unit, the game gave it the name "Deathsphere" (or something like that - it's been a long time since I made one). Neither one is efficient to make, but it's fun being able to do it, nevertheless.
3. Units you made at the beginning of the game can be upgraded to still be effective at the end game.
4. Terraforming.
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