I've just finished what, for me, was a fairly typical game.

I was playing Alien Crossfire and randomised all factions, ending up with Lady Deirdre who is not my favourite.

I was playing at Transcend level which is where I always play at because having repeatedly beaten the game at Transcend level no point in going back. I can't consistently win at Transcend so tend to rage quit if I get a bad start..

The other factions were Miriam, Morgan, Cybernetic, Domai, Lal and someone else that got wiped out so quickly they scarcely left a trace.

I'd started where I like to start which is alone on a reasonably large island in the central south. I rapidly became weakest as is usual at Transcend and then was slowly expanding. I couldn't help noticing that Miriam's dominance bar was huge in comparison to everyone else's.

Usually I don't pay for maps but sometime around the point I got R Resonance Lasers (6R) I paid someone for a map of Miriam's territory and got a shock worthy of a jump scare. Miriam had conquered already 85% of the rest of the map. I had about six or seven bases, she had, what, fifty or more. Morgan having been wiped out respawned on a medium island just north of me. He made the mistake of thought controlling one of my unity rovers thus sparking a brief vendetta which ended in Morgan's surrender and five new technologies. That may have been my key moment.

My other luck as Gaians was to grab that Manifold switch that boosts your planet score. Unfortunately this was on the bottom of Miriam's main continent.

There then followed about a dozen turns with me fighting off waves of Miriam's invasions (fortunately I'd developed air power which as Santiago says is the key to victory) before Miriam unexpectedly offered me a truce. Unexpectedly she kept to it too allowing me to build up my tech and my defences. Unfortunately it did allow her to wipe out Morgan on the small island leaving that share between me and her. I tried to protect him by putting my planes in his bases but Miriam hit them with artillery anyway which apparently doesn't break the truce) so I withdrew them. Miriam meanwhile had wiped out everyone else except a few sea bases of Domai.

When she broke the truce I was able to capture her bases on the small island.

When I eventually did venture onto the main part of her continent with the jungle and the massive cities I used my standard tactic. Air power (including missiles) to clear the defenders, Locusts of Chiron to capture the enemy base then AAA jump troops to reinforce it. Build AAA sentinels and move on to the next base.

For several turns it was just me defending against waves of Miriam attacks before I could build up my forces enough to move on. Eventually improved tech (particularly the Singularity Reactor) gave me the edge and I expanded quickly winning a diplomatic victory.

So...

1) For all some here rate the Gaians as the best playing at Transcend level it is Sister Miriam that gives me nightmares. Aggressive, remorseless, with an endless supply of troops and immunity to probe teams, prior to level 6 attacks and primarily air power IMHO she is unstoppable.

2) However the AI never gets air power right. It can't consistently use airpower to knock out defences and then use other troops to capture. Several times I've had all my defenders destroyed but the AI didn't capture the city.

3) Copters are invaluable. Their ability to launch multiple attacks is the difference in most games. Particularly when the A.I will stack a dozen aircraft in one base (unused) making them easy kills for a couple of copters. Over an average game 90% of my kills are from air power and about two thirds from copters.

4) In Alien Crossfire Sister Miriam was less aggressive than usual. Even though at vendetta with both I and Domai she never deployed her Planetbusters - even later in the game when I briefly lost my Orbital Defence pods to solar flares. I've played against her in the past when she used a dozen Planetbusters to cower me into surrender.

5) I was also surprised at her acquiescing to a diplomatic victory. She and Santiago tend to fight on to the end in SMAC.

6) The discovery that Locusts of Chiron can capture cities - invaluable.

7) SMAC/ Alien Crossfire - I think the best and most replayable of all strategy games.

Anyone got a pet hate other than Sister M in the game ? And anyone got a consistent strategy on attack other than air power/ locusts/ jump troops ?

S.x.

Nice read, can't agree more, sister Miriam's followers are the worshippers of satan. :^)

One thing about airpower is that for some strange reason Alpha Centauri lacks specialized anti-air units like SAM batteries, which are present in Civilization.

But you can make them. So once you have dual abilities you can have a mega mobile - car chassis + max Attack + AAA defence + "Attacks air units"

Will be damned expensive though and away from a base even AAA 4 armour won't protect you much from Fusion (10) and Shard (13) weapons.

S.x.

I've never seen Miriam start out near the Monsoon jungle like that; sounds like she was right fearsome using a Continental U.S.S.R. type expansion. You have guts for playing with random events on-- I think I would start developing facial twitches if my Orbital Defense Pods were knocked out.

That said, I really like playing as Santiago with an island-hopping strategy and using transports + blink marines. It seems like in all Civ games the A.I. will troll you endlessly on a land border yet is truly bad when it comes to crossing the water. It's great just being able to expand to the best resource locations with no other faction in sight, or perhaps with them bottled up on a separate landmass.

Lately though I've been running into the A.I. getting Hunter-Seeker Algorithm and then having to build probe defenders because I can't attack their probes... well, without breaking a treaty or truce. It's no surprise I guess that I end up huddled on my islands, going to war with the whole planet.

Gotta play with random events. It's not really Secrets of Alpha Centauri without them.

The problem with orbital pods is that they are a late game tech whilst Planetbusters come in the middle part. There's a long time during the game when factions can develop Planetbusters with no effective countermeasures. They are a fearsome weapon because whilst a conventional attack can be reversed Planetbusters leave nothing behind to retake. If the attack takes out several Secret Projects it can take a long time to recover, if at all. The second problem is that on any retaliation via Planetbuster all other actions declare war on you so for most conventional strategies they are of limited use. That's why Miriam is a fearsome opponent - she is the most aggressive opponent in the game and will quite happily fight against every other faction on the planet so places no weight on not alienating other factions.

Blink technology is good but for most of my games the result of the game isn't usually in dispute by the time that technology is developed.

Hunter Seeker Algorithm is brilliant. I always sulk if I don't get it because I can't choose "Knowledge" goal readily if vulnerable to probe teams. Although "Cloning Vats" I'd rate as the total game decider (constant population growth alone makes it devastating without the nice bonuses of Power and Thought Control that go with it) the Hunter Seeker Algorithm decides a lot of my strategic choices.

S.x.

Yep...

:)

Also, Blind Research settings increases the replayability of Alpha Centauri considerably.

For whatever reason I've been lucky so far in regards to the A.I. using Planetbusters in my games; I might see them building a little after I've run a pop boom and get the planetary governor's seat, but usually they'll switch the production off once I start sending in airstrikes to pick off their military units. Maybe my range to their bases is a factor too, I dunno.

I should try those other options for the extra challenge, currently I'm playing without helicopters and with no abuse of crawling sea energy-- that last part has slowed me down a little but a couple of Probe teams should bring me up to tech parity with Morgan (who began on the Monsoon and has Fusion Power already, despite the fact that my research rate is nearly triple his)

Cloning Vats and Power is great for Santiago-- much easier time getting up to Elite troops-- though I usually go with manual pop boom earlier and try to get atrocities lifted before getting the vats (So I can still disband awful conquered sea bases without the diplomatic penalty, the A.I. loves to make those)

I actually play a lot the same. I use blind research, go with air power and locust of Chiron. I will then drop in a good defender in the city with high AAA and defense.

I find this game to be very replayable. It takes so much attention to detail and can be very challenging.