Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri™ Planetary Pack

I can't believe I still return to this game after all this time. Even though the graphics look "rough" and the wonder movies, sorry special projects animations, are equally quaint, bonkers, scary and cheesy, the concept and execution remains one of the best 4x games ever written. Yes really. The alient planet feels exactly that with it's living fungus and PSI attacks. The humans naturally spent the journey here arguing resulting in seven factions with distinct advantages and drawbacks that are able to define themselves (and hint at corresponding gameplay) on their own without subtracting from or relying on anyone else (save the actual alien races in the CrossFire expansion). Eventually the human can copy the PSI ability, capture or breed Mind Worms and shit really gets going then. The under-rated part of this game is actually the unit building part. Yes you can leave that on auto and still have a first rate game. However plugging together different parts that you've researched, building said monstrosities and sending them over the map has never lost it's appeal. In case you're not sold the game lets you build Buster weapons, which in their finally incarnation literally wipeout 25-ish squares including any units and cities on them and the land too. Of course you've just committed an atrocity which causes everyone to declare war on you but then with a few more Buster weapons there won't be anyone around to complain and you can spend the rest of the game with your pet Mind Worms, launching the terraforming buster to replace the land for them to play on. If I had to have one gripe it's that the hardest difficulty isn't that hard, but maybe that's because I've played it a lot.

One of the greatest games ever produced, still kicking my anatomy 20 years later. Works perfectly with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and WineHQ 4.0 Stable. Go to WineHQ.org and follow the instructions to install for Ubuntu. It's literally a bit of reading comprehension and copying and pasting the commands. Don't be scared! Then download the GoG.com offline installer for this game and run that, clicking through to the end. Works perfectly.

The most complete game I've ever played. The perfect "spin-off" of the Civ franchise which beats it in every way. All that's missing is the lack of continuing content, but the replayability of SMAC and SMAX is great enough you don't even notice. The story is incredible, the factions are perfectly balanced and the gameplay is new, yet familiar, and complex yet simple enough to understand to get through games, although it takes a few plays to master (like any 4X game). This remains on my list as one of the best games I've ever played. It's just so disappointing that Beyond Earth was a Civ V clone instead of an attempt at creating the best sci-fi 4X game.

This is a classic in its finest. And this is a classic i don't want a remake of. Why? Because its sow damn near perfect that id doesn't need one. Remakes introduce some changes, which are fine very often or change something that was broken (eg.: the recent remake of UFO enemy unknown has everything awesome that the original had, without its shortcomings), or introduces changes that were needed, as the case with civilization: its hard to argue that parts 2 and 4 were better than 1 and 3, though the differences produced slightly different games that all had their fans. This one doesn't need it. Even the graphics, admittedly dated, have an atmosphere that only adds to the games quality. If you played back in the day, do so again - you'll see how great it is and how well it withstood the test of time. If not, try it - its in the pantheon of 4x games.

It's not mentioned on the website, but it seems GOG has silently added Alien Crossfire to SMAC :) So if you already own the game - download the new installer (2.0.0.19 as of this writing) and you now have SMAC and Alien Crossfire. It was a great buy even before, now it's a sin not to buy it :) The pinnacle of 4X gaming, and no matter it's age I personally still enjoy playing it every now and then. For just one more try... :)