Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri™ Planetary Pack

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is often compared with the games in the main Civilization series, and is (in my experience) usually rated higher, and for good reason. There's an engaging story, and each faction is truly unique and each has its own play style and path to victory, unlike the superficial or absent differerences between the nations of civilization games: Gaians and Cultists thrive off of massing mind worms to overrun their enemies or holding out for the late game where they can win by transcendence. The University benefits from huge technological output which can give them the edge at significant turning points, such as the dawn of air combat. The Believers have stangant technological development, instead relying on the strength of their probe teams to steal the technology of their rivals. The combination of two different types of combat (normal attack and psi attack) makes combat deeper than in most other games - the most powerful weapons and armour are useless if their wielders don't have the psychological strength and experience to withstand hypnotic mind worms, and a demon boil of mind worms can be easily overcome by a moderately experienced scout with empath song. Unlike in the Civ games, expansion is limited by inhospitable, fungus-covered terrain. In my opinion this gives a much more realistic and engaging challenge than fiddling with numbers representing happiness, upkeep and corruption. The game is not without its flaws - the unit design workshop is a nice idea, and the combination of weapons, armour and abilities is an important part of the game, but it does become tedious when it comes to replacing the weapons, armour and reactor of almost every unit every time you get a new military technology, and there are occasional bugs and glitches with certain units not upgrading or being declared obsolete. The combat works well, but often gives too large an advantage to attacking units, as attack stats are generally much higher than defense stats.

sid meiers master piece. if your into sf and strategy a must buy better then the newer space based civ games ;)

You won't be disappointed. Still stands thru test of times :) This game is so well designed it blows my mind.

The traditional goal of each game in Sid Meier's Civilization series is to reach Alpha Centauri. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, based on the Civ II engine, takes the next step and imagines how human colonies on Alpha Centauri might develop. Loads of quotes from the Datalinks and the faction leaders form the voiceovers when a new tech is discovered or a building is constructed for the first time, and there are "Secret Project" movies similar to the Wonder movies in Civ II. It may require some tinkering to get this game to run on modern computers; check the forums on this game for links to patches and mods which should help, and don't hesitate to reach out to GOG tech support if you're still stumped (they were a great help in my own case!). There is the "Planetfall" mod for Civ IV out there too, of course, as well as the "Beyond Earth" and "Rising Tides" spiritual successors to SMAC/SMACX, but it's worth the effort to get the Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack running. Highly recommended!

This is one of the few games that can be replayed over and over again, this game is brilliant, even by todays standards, the graphics and Cut scenes have stood the test of time... in the history of games Sid Meier's games are truly one of a kind