Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri™ Planetary Pack

This game always brings me back. Try to let the voice acting play out. Watch out for Yang, he's an ass. Really cool that they included Alien Crossfire.

So happy GOG created a working copy of this game. Def one of my favourite strategy games, a lot of philosophy in it too.

The 4X gaming has reached its current peak in Alpha Centauri. Though the diplomacy is still vague its far beyond what Civ games have ever offered. Otherwise the factions are a great addition, building your own troops and listening to the (real) philosophical comments on technologies deepens the mood of the game. Simply: One of the best games ever released.

I've had this game since I was a child, and I have always turned to it when I needed a good Turn-Based-Strategy Game fix. To start with, every faction is wildly different in their strategy and approach. One focuses on making a large amount of money, another is purely combat and warfare and yet another is a tree-hugger with the ability to psychically control aliens. The ability to research individual pieces of equipment and then build a unit from scratch with those materials is an innovation that I would like to see more of in recent titles. This allows you to field armies custom-suited to the situation. You could make a platoon of infantry that have amphibious abilities to strike enemies from the sea, or you could make them able to airdrop on your enemies' heads. Combined with a long, detailed and fully voiced research tree, you'll find yourself completely immersed in this game's world. Every now and then the game switches to a screen with text and a voice-over that updates the game's story. This all adds together to form an unparalleled extraterrestrial strategy game. I only wish the expansion was included.

I was thrilled when I saw this game available. Better than most of the main Civilization games. Interesting story, excellent gameplay mechanisms like diplomacy and unit design.