I bought this when it came out, I still have the box and the CDs, and it's been on every machine I've owned since it came out 15 years ago. It's a masterpiece, with a great story and world-building (literally), a truly unique and oddly timeless visual aesthetic, and many different ways to play it. The sci-fi is superb and told through achievement/wonder videos that will stay in your head for years, thanks to fantastic voice acting. Very appealing: the factions are more defined by their philosophies than their origin, and you can really take social and environmental engineering to worrying extremes. Great fun! The interface is somewhat dated, admittedly, especially the click-heavy build queue management, but the rest still works well. With a tiny bit of config file editing, the game is also capable of running at modern resolutions (check here for a Mac guide, and generally take a look at the game forum on GOG: http://www.gog.com/forum/sid_meier_s_alpha_centauri_/widescreen_for_mac_version_heres_how_to_do_it). Runs perfectly on my early 2011 13" MacBook Pro on Mavericks. So, in short: one of the great classics of desktop gaming and well worth getting into.
