Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri™ Planetary Pack

This game was awesome to begin with, AND they finally added the Alien Crossfire expansion! So amped on this!

As man traverses into the realm of space, the epitomey of man's faults is fully revealed as the leaders of several colonies wage an endless war for resources. Alpha Centauri is not just a strategy game, but an actual study of mankind's true philosophical and ideological depth. The game begins with the Unity's disasterous voyage to Chiron or "Planet." Several of the U.N. leaders are split into colonies that begin terraforming parts of "Planet" and creating empires from scratch. The game is very fast-paced as, contrary to the Civilization series, the attacker usually has the upper-hand. You have to build, research, and terraform faster than your opponent. Other than the combat, the best thing about this game is the voice acting. The creators of the game hired top-notch actors with incredible voices. One major con of the game is the huge learning curve. I would recommend just playing the game and getting adjusted to everything instead of trying to memorize everything. Other than that, this game is beyond excellent, and it ranks as one, if not the greatest, strategy game of all time.

I have to admit, I played SMAC when it first came out in the late 1990's and loved the theme of Civ in Space so when I found it on sale on gog, I bought it. Yes, I now have a 40 inch display, rather than my 17 inch back then, so was limited to 1024x768 but the gameplay was and still is the reason to play. However, I had to modify the Alpha Centauri.Ini file with settings Video Mode=1024 DirectDraw=0 in order for it to work in windows7 64bit. Gog had its own general tips on making "old" games work, but only these specific setting worked for me and hopefully, they will help other people who have a similar problem. SMAC installed fine, but before the changed settings in its ini file, the graphics look corrupted and barely navigable. Needless to say, if you don't know how to edit a text file, like Alpha Centauri.Ini, then you will have to first learn how do do that.

I found this game in the dusty computer room of my grandpa, just the disk without cover or manual. After I installed it I played it for days, I didn't understand a lot of it at first but the game has a very detailed in-game manual, so it didn't take long before I understood how everything worked. I think the thing that most gripped me was the mystery surrounding this planet, and the very different factions each having their own structure and morals, something that makes diplomacy an interesting and necessary aspect of the game. Unlike most games I played, diplomacy and technology is much more important than all out war. I really liked how each of the faction leaders behave different, having their own quotes about new technology gives them a real personality. some of them are peaceful, some are openly hostile, some are just about business and then there are the treacherous self-righteous kind that has a masters degree in gunboat diplomacy. ( yes I'm talking about you, sister miriam). A very Interesting game, with many different ways to victory, or death.

I so want to love this game. Let me list the good aspects first. 1.) Great atmosphere. 2.) Engaging storyline. 3.) Interest setting featuring a sentient planet, your citizens evolving into brains in jars or transcendent beings, etc. Now the bad parts. 1.) TERRIBLY UNBALANCED FACTIONS. The Hive or Spartans wins almost every AI map. Just look up "Vel's SMAX Guide" for confirmation. Some factions (Morganites) are terribly weak. Starting off on the same landmass as either means near instant death. This KILLS the single player game. 2.) AI cheats and is a bully. All AI players will say "Give me money or tech, or die". Because of this the entire game breaks down into a wargame. At even middle difficulty (Talent) one AI player will start to expand exponentially. I've no way of knowing how they can grow so fast apart from cheating. At higher difficulty levels, the enemy does in fact cheat. 3.) Broken victory conditions. Transcendence is about the only way to win, because domination is insanely time consuming. You can't drag select a bunch of units and tell them "go to this base", but instead select units individually. This makes domination a lesson in mouse clicking. You can try to be planetary ruler. I tried this, and even won the election, but then the other factions either refused (and I had to conquer them to win) and the other faction wasn't interested in helping me win, so winning diplomatically is just another form of domination (even down to the ending text... not even a movie like in Transcendence). Don't get me started on the broken economic victory... I feel like this had such great potential, but wasn't play tested. There's a reason few play this in single player and upload to youtube; it is punishingly difficult if playing as anything but Spartan, Hive, or Academics, and it gets monotonous.