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[Haspen]

In the year 2060 of United Nation's Calendar, or as some might it remember more precisely, in 1838 of Chinese New Era, the C.S.S Wu Zetian (masquerading as United Nations spaceship Unity) has been launched toward Alpha Centauri, carrying the strongest, smartest and the best of humanity toward the distant planet.

And now, it has arrived.

Welcome to my Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri playthrough! This will be basically my 3rd game ever in SMAC, so hey it will be still a learning experience for me.

Hop in into your landing pod, because we're soon gonna do...

Update 0: THE PLANETFALL!!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Options! These are the ones I'm comfortable with. What I'm not comfortable with will be the difficulty - from by previous 'Citizen' (easiest) we will play this as Talent (3rd out of 6 difficulties). Earlier I focused on tech, trading with neighbours, keeping them happy, and then rolling technologically and economically into Trascendent victory. I guess this time I will be having some difficulties.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My authocratic/totalitarian/communist inner self devil speaks to me via Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, and so we will play as The Hive!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

*fffwwooooOOOOOOOSSHHHhhh...*

In this playthrough instead of usual Huge Planet map that I played previously, I went with custom generated Planet: 30-50% water coverage, medium erosion, planetlife, and so on, huge size.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is our landing spot. No water in immediate area which is good. Sporadic fungus, and few supply pods in arm's reach. We will send the Scout Patrol and Colony Pod on immediate scouting mission.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fastest ever I got an Alien Artifact!
On the same turn, the Colony Pod found a hydrology pod - a river was discovered running by The Hive and then south, pretty neat!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We will mix military and science. This way we can trade with Morgan for economy techs and Deidre for ecology techs.

If we find them fast, that's it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A new town was created; unfortunately as the omniscient Advisor said in the screen I wasn't able to capture, Brother Lal of the Peacekeepers founded the first new city 2 mission years earlier.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our lone scout was accosted by some ugly bolognese pasta, but managed to repel it and get a level up. Yay!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our scout went east, and found another pod by the river- wait, Datapod? I don't remember these-

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Awww yee. I always have gotten artifacts, resources tiles or energy credits or local maps, but never before a free tech. This is nice!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our first breakthrough is in Applied Physics. LAZORS PEW PEW PEW.

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Of course The University would get the first tech.

They always do.

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Our Scout unleashed an earthquake and raised a hill. Also, have this as a map of our current antics in the region. The Colony Pod is moving to a tile just east of those 2 Minerals piles. With river nearby, the city founded there could be a good industrial center in the future.

That's all for now; it's mostly a thread set-up update than anything majorly important

[Sheb]

First! Haven't read anything yet, but I'm sure it's going to be great!

[Solymr]

Yay!

Aren't the images a bit too fuckhueg tho v:

[Parsely]

PTW

[A Thing]

Pretty sure you already know about this, but you resize images with [width=numbers height=numbers] this can mess up some images though. Also, you might want to cut down on extra space in some of these images.

Spoiler: Original image (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Slightly edited image (click to show/hide)

Besides that the update was enjoyable.

[Haspen]

alt+printscreen works wonky with this game. Imma try with next updoots v;

[A Thing]

alt+printscreen works wonky with this game. Imma try with next updoots v;

If the game allows you to alt+tab you could probably just use the snipping tool that comes with Windows (Well, Windows 8.1 at least, I can't remember if it came with 7) as that is what I do and it works fine for the most part. I'm sure there are other programs that do the same thing if you don't use Windows, they probably do it better really. Snipping tool is kinda basic, but it takes screencaps and that's what matters.

[Iituem]

Yang is one of my favourites to play in SMAC, right next to Morgan, whose strategy is completely different.  Morgan excels in the mid-late game once Industrial Automation emerges and credits flow freely.  Credits mean money (rush-building), tech and luxuries (less drone control).  Morgan can pretty much buy the world, if he survives to the mid-game.

Spoiler: Accidental infodump! (click to show/hide)

Yang is the exact opposite.  Yang is strongest early-mid game because he has excellent resource-gathering ability and terrible energy production (no economic freedom).  But who needs credits?  You started with Doctrine: Loyalty, immediately switch to Police State.  Will it kill your efficiency?  Faster than a drone who talks out of turn.  But you're Yang, you will never have decent energy supplies.  It's honestly not even worth trying to generate energy beyond the capital.  Instead, take advantage of that high Police and Industry rating and never have drone problems again.  Even without nerve stapling, Yang never has to spend money on luxuries or drone-reduction facilities (such as the Rec Commons) because he can staff three scouts in a base and suppress three drones off the bat, rising to six when he gets Police.  Also, the Hive's excellent Industry means that a base can happily support those drone-silencers with little impact on your minerals - especially if you're running Police and suckling from the teat of that +2 Support bonus.  With that you can produce enough soldiers to crush dissent, garrison your (automatically fortified) bases and mount an attack force to put Genghis Khan's hordes to shame.

Santiago fights best with superbly trained, highly advanced weaponry that costs an arm and a leg to produce.  Yang fights best with hordes of poorly-trained, extremely cheap conscripts; it is entirely acceptable to lose 8 Laser Infantry to take out an Elite Impact Plasma Garrison if you can produce 12 laser infantry in the time it takes your foe to make one plasma garrison.  Santiago's strength is her army.  Yang's strength is his economy.

Yang is terrible at research, or so it seems!.  Planetary Networks, Planetary Networks, Planetary Networks!  PN is a Discover tech, I believe, and is as vital to Yang as Industrial Automation is to Morgan.  PN unlocks three vital pieces of Yang's toolkit: Planned Economy synergises extremely well with Police State, upping your growth and Industry and gunning down your Efficiency like a drone who doesn't meet his production deadlines.  Did I mention that you are going to have horrendous Efficiency?  Who needs energy, anyway?  Capitalist pig-dogs, that's who!

Secondly, you get Probe Teams.  Now, unlike other factions, you are not going to have a surplus of energy (until you run lots of Technicians), so most offensive probe actions won't work for you.  Bribery is right out, of units or cities, but you're the Hive - just throw replaceable minions at them until they are crushed by the tide of bodies.  What pProbe teams let you do is catch up on all the tech you will be behind in - and you will be behind in tech until you get your cities optimised.  A word of warning: you can't probe Miriam.  As soon as Miriam shows up on the map, she will savage you with probes like a drone who requests additional rations at the feeding bay.  Probe teams are your main defence against Miriam; once you meet her, mass-produce them and stock every base with one.

Finally, you get Librarians.  You know how I said you'll never produce any energy because your Efficiency was ganged up on and beaten into a bloody pulp by the dual forces of Police and Planned, like a drone who makes eye contact with a supervisor?  That's because energy is for the fat bourgeoisie.  Librarians let you convert excess population (in bases over 5 pop) from useless, miserable drones to productive members of society.  Specifically, productive members of society who produce research and let you actually progress in the tech race.  Librarians are more important to you than Planned and probes put together, and don't forget that you can use colony pods to bring a colony up to 5 pop if need be.  What you lack in money, you can make up in Great Leaps Forward.

If you can't get Planetary Networks?  Beg or trade for it, because you don't have the tech to steal it.  Trade a base for it, it's that important.  (Then take the base back by force because only the capitalist bourgeoisie would insist on holding knowledge to ransom rather than freely spreading it to you to be released in extremely tightly controlled amounts.)

[Pencil_Art]

I have this game on hard-disc, but I don't know if it works on my computer, or if it is damaged, having not checked it thoroughly.

[Patchy]

Good luck on your smac run. This one is good fun too, and The Hive is usually a fun faction to play. Definately suited to an early conquest victory. So borg away and crush the opposition under the weight of your empire.

[Rince Wind]

Rivers are only good for energy, iirc. That base will have next to no food, unless I am missing something. (Which is entirely possible, given that it's been years since I played SMAC. Still a brilliant game though.)

[highzealot]

PTW

[Bacos666]

I love this game. I tend to prefer to play as Lal or Diedre, though. Never got the hang of The Hive.

PTW

[Haspen]

Update 1: Some Commlinks and Many Technologies



The first thing we get is that a scout I had auto-ed toward a pod discovered Doctrine: Mobility files. We can now make speeders, the horsemen of Alpha Centauri, if you will.



Few very uneventful turns later, Social Artery is build; it's the base near those minerals I talked about in previous update.
Also, The Hive spawned the last Colony Pod so I told it to start working on Command Nexus which gives you Command Centers in every base for free.

Next turn we find another Artifact. Curses, I really need to get Network Nodes so I can finally open those.

Then we get more mindworms, attacking freshly trained Scout Patrol at Social Artery...

...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Next turn after that, we create People's Endeavor, the fourth base of The Hive.

Also, I decided to spend one of the Alien Artifacts to hurry up Command Nexus project; it cut off half the required time, neat.



Eeeespecially that our scout found yet another Artifact!



By 2129 we are like a spreading wildfire, and now we have 5 bases.



Ah yes, the Biogenetics. They allow us to build Recycling Tanks, which get us extra minerals and are eco-friendly (a tiny bit). Every base will have one, because 'It is every citizen's final duty to go to the tanks, and become one with all the people'.

Aren't we Hive-Humans efficient, teeheehee~

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oops, our scout fell through a dimensional gate hidden under a Unity pod.



6 Turns later and we get Information Networks! We can build Network Nodes and cash-in those artifacts we have.



And a Colony Pod trips over a Datapod next turn which earns us Centauri Ecology tech. Sweeet.



Look whom our unlucky dimensional-gate-tripping scout found.



I have accepted the offer. Then we also traded Doctrine: Mobility for her secrets on Nonlinear Mathematics.



Now it's time to switch channel to:



CEO Nwabudike Morgan!

As we do not have Planned economy (yet), he is OK with being our buddy. I gave him Biogenetics for map of Spartan territory, and then gave him Doctrine: Mobility for his Social Psych.



He also signed Pact of Friendship with us. Can we take it further?



D'aww, Morgan is best buddies with us <3

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But here is something that worries me: the borderlands of Col.Santiago. Will we have to go to war soon? Or mayhaps Santiago can keep out of our lands?

I guess we will see about that in next update!

[EuchreJack]

Santiago makes an ideal vassal, just saying...