Alien Nations

!IMPORTANT! I noticed that some people complain that the game is very slow, there is indeed a way to increase the gamespeed ingame by a button press! F5 = base speed F6 = faster F7 = fastest I figured that out by accident years ago and it irritates me heavily that this isn't mentioned in the game manual or anywhere on the net (afaik)! The game itself is a lovely settlers clone with unique ideas, a nice interface for the time and three very different and charming factions. It has some little quirks and oddities but everyone that loved to watch all the little guys in the Settlers games go around and do all their little jobs will definitely like it, definitely on the good side of nostalgia. But be warned there is no way (afaik) to play it windowed and there are only 800x600 and 1024x768 as resolution options.

Great game, i still own the CD version somewhere, a very fun game, hard when you first play it (or maybe that was because i'd never played a strategy game before), but once you get the hang of it then it's extremely fun

There are a lot of problems here, of which I will list just a few I have found: - As mentioned elsewhere, multiple campaign missions are of extreme difficulty to the point of being broken - Random crashes to desktop at any time - If your settlement(s) grow too large in skirmish mode, the game hits its object limit, shows a warning message and crashes to desktop - Autosave is mentioned in the game settings but does not work - If you save a game when one of the other two nations is already defeated, it will crash on loading every time afterwards and you can never play that save again - Resolution options are 4:3 only, there is no way to change this, max res 1024x768 - Game music on menus is incredibly loud and cannot be switched off or turned down, occasionally it plays over itself or continues to play in-game - Trade mechanics are close to useless - AI completely breaks and can disable entirely if their school is destroyed and they have no master builder - AI transporters slowly but surely all become criminals, completely paralyzing them IN SUMMARY, if you enjoyed this game in 2001, it's worth the £2 for the nostalgia value and a few hours of light fun. There's no real additional appeal to it beyond that. What a shame that no community ever developed that could have fixed it up and made it more stable.

I loved playing this jewel when i was younger. Game speed may be a bit slow but its just cute to see your creatures work. i'm sadly missing the add-on in this package though!

First things first: The game works fine under Win10 (haven't tried Win11), but I had to switch the compatibility mode from Win XP SP 2 to Win 7 first to convince it to do so properly. The max resolution is stuck at 1024x786 and 3:4 aspect ratio, modern monitors have black bars on both sides. There is a way to change the game speed using F5-F7, which I did rather often, particularly in the early game. The game itself plays much like ye olde "settlers" titles with some additions, i.e. land can dry up, and crop yields may go away with lack of water. Plus, the game doesn't require you to build roads, which has been a constant nuisance. Your people will find their way regardless if you click and point them on their way. Unfortunately, at the same time the game combines this with the controls of a realtime strategy title, leading to micromanagement. Your carpenter won't collect wood unless you select the fellow and click on a tree. He won't go find another after he is done, you have to click on the next tree by hand. The hunter doesn't hunt unless you select the guy and click on an animal; then the next animal, aso. The gatherer won't go find a bush unless you click on one, and doesn't move on to another patch of berries after the first is exhausted, but instead falls idle. Nobody will tell you when they are done, you have to routinely scroll around your village to check for idle workers and reassign them. Combine this with a sufficiently large map, and you have your work cut out for you. Other positive ideas are research and diplomacy. However, the implementation (again) involves similar levels of micromanagement. As cute as the creatures are and as unique as the alien races feel, you have to like these type of controls to feel at home in this game.