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[Sartain]

Which is weird, 'cause I could swear I remember the game just saying outright it was Santiago that offed 'em? Maybe I just misread something, back in the day.

In the story that was delivered with the game (remember when that was a thing?), the others suspected Santiago was the one behind it (given her general gun nut behavior), but were never 100% sure.

Considering I initially thought the Spartans were totally awesome I'm pretty sure I'd have noticed if it was mentioned that they were responsible for the assassination, in-game, as I played them all the time. Never had the physical extras though as this was during the Golden Age of Piracy, for me at least

Regardless, I find it very nice that even today the factions of SMAC more or less hold up, none of them are default good guys or bad guys, they all have layers

[Rolan7]

The 2 free background story of Alpha Centauri that were available on the now defunct website can still be downloaded from there  on the bottom of this page :
http://alphacentauri2.info/official/Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri The Story_cfm.htm

"Journey to Centauri" is the one that setup everything from before the start of the game and in the end the journal of the murderer, just usual nihilism crap , cert

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sarah Jaydo's Journal
Why have we come to the stars? Why didn't we surrender when we had the chance? Are we so blind, that we believe this new world will be different, immune to suffering and crime and violence?
The Unity mission was a feeble candle flickering in a blasted night. We rode this illusion into the sky, and now we will die here, or, perhaps worse, die on Planet. Those of us onboard rode an illusion into the night; those who stayed behind took their chances on a dying world.
As for now, we continue to do what humans have always done. We eat, sleep, make love, hone our skills, pass the time. And deep down we wait for someone, some special human, to rise above it all and make the thousands of years of history, of suffering, all worth it. To enlighten us, by which I mean end our pain, heal our wounds, take away the uncertainty.
But I have seen the sweep of history, and we are no better off now than we have ever been. Just more aware. Planet will be no different.
Unless...

Thanks for sharing this!  I vaguely recall a short fic describing the factions racing towards an alien monolith, which I think supported the Santiago-as-assassin theory, but I think it incorporated a lot of Expansion content.  Which is allowed in this thread, but I don't think holds up as well as the original seven factions.  Anyway, I don't think the game itself ever explains who did it.

That writing though.  Ugh.  Nihilistic crap is right, really doesn't measure up.

I generally see Lal's Peacekeepers as the only faction that actually wants to rule with the other factions.  They WANT to bring the other factions into the fold.  Every other faction basically wants to rule alone.

I also find the Spartans hard to characterize, other than the brute force need to survive.  Once the basic threats of survival are over, what are they offering?  When they have become masters of Alpha Centauri, what is their goal?  Fortify in fear?  I'd actually respect them more if they tried galactic dominion in order to keep humanity secure.

I've been thinking about this.  Some factions are more suited to a military victory than others.  Conquest always helps, but Diplomatic or Economic victories are very possible without painting the map.  Whereas the "tech" victory is basically impossible unless the player is intentionally holding back.

Which factions would be happy letting the others exist?

I say the Morganites would.  As the literal Power Company, secure to pursue hedonistic bliss.

The University - why not?  They only want to study.  Atoms, stars, humans - If they are allowed their little projects, why should they care that other people exist?

The Spartans, ironically.  Yes they're geared for war, but Santiago's quotes are not about conquest.  Simply obsessive self-defense.  Sure they probably want a shitty police state where weak babies are thrown in the vats (little nod to Earth's Sparta there) but maybe -  *maybe* they're so obsessed with training that they'll never need to use their arms against others.  I'll give them the benefit of the doubt there, maybe they're not just a repeat of fascism.  Maybe.

The Hive, perhaps.  Yang wants to transform humanity.  Does he need to transform all humanity?  Much like the Spartans and University, I see the Hive as looking inwards for perfection.  I see Yang as a true believer, who would rather that people join his little... experiment, willingly.

The Peacekeepers obviously.  They're willing to form a coalition like the UN, and chat ruefully about the human rights abuses.  Maybe even enact those "sanctions" as the game jokes about.

But not the two remaining factions.  The Gaians and the Believers cannot abide the others.  The Gaians cannot watch as Planet is stabbed deep by boreholes and scorched with fungicide.  The Believers... have an evangelical doctrine.
The transcendence ending superficially looks like it's tailored for Gaians (obviously), or maybe University (Zakharov's shooting the collected works of humanity into a literal god, and thus becoming god).  What unnerves me is that it's more of a Hive victory.  There is no way for the Centaurans to keep their humanity, not forever.  Imagine how awful that is for the Spartans or Peacekeepers.  Perhaps the Believers, depending on how their faith adapts.

I feel like the Morganites are fine sipping stardust, though.

[EuchreJack]

I'm not sure about the Spartans willingness to co-exist.  The prequel starts with them trying to kill Yang before he even wakes up.
Maybe they could co-exists with the Morganites and University (guns and better guns?), but I think their attitude for the other factions is a shoot first, ask later policy.

Originally, I had thought that Yang would be against co-existing.  Everyone must join and all that.  But he plays the long game, so if he could achieve unity via diplomacy, he would do so and manipulate the other factions into being more like him over time.  Actually, your discussions about what it means to be a Centaurian show that, in the long term, Yang eventually wins, even if he doesn't live to see it.  Which probably doesn't bother him too much, petty individualist feelings being obsolete and all.

[Robsoie]

I wonder if any factions would really be that happy to co-exist with the Peacekeeper, i mean the faction systems in Alpha Centauri are built around extreme level of their leader ideals, with the rights and wrongs that come with it (though "wrongs" only in the eyes of other factions obviously) .

The notion that another faction can then put a limit to their ideals (preventing the "wrongs" to be done despite in the eyes of the leader they're not "wrongs") seems to be a great reason to be at war with them.

[Teneb]

I'm thinking of going back to the game and are there any ai/bugfix mods that haven't already been linked here and I should know about?

[Überzwerg]

I loved that big technology tree poster that was included with the game.

[Iduno]

I came back to this game, because I loved it years ago when I played it.

My memories of enjoying it must have come after I got very good at the game, because there's a lot of "Die because you didn't research enough and everyone has better technology than you" and "die because you researched too much and everyone want to kill you for your techs". The AI is also able to get the spies to work correctly every single time, and I have never had success with one (I only built about a dozen, but if they're low-chance of success, the AI has legendary luck).

I do not have the patience for 4x games anymore.

[Rolan7]

I suspect that a lot of what you experienced was bad luck.  I'm not sure, though - I've almost entirely experienced the game on "Specialist", which translates to difficulty 2/6.  It lets me stretch out an interesting win while being able to safely ignore optimal gameplay...  Though I have been surprised in the early game.  Being on 2/6 difficulty does seem to give a significant advantage in combat.

I kinda know what you mean about enemy probes, though.  I'm not sure if I've ever seen them fail.  They're usually not a big deal, and at most take a technology IIRC, but still.  It's not really about the individual probe teams - it's about having the sheer energy from economy to suborn enemy cities.  Tech tends to propagate on its own, traded around.  I'm sure the Data Angels like that.

I don't think being tech-ahead specifically makes you a target.  It contributes towards you overall threat, and it's the first thing they'll tend to demand as tribute.  But if it weren't for the tech, they'd be demanding credits.  They tend to make demands they aren't willing to back up.

4X games absolutely demand frustrating amounts of time, though.  I'm not playing them nearly as much as I used to.

[Sime]

Does anyone have an opinion as to which is the better AI mod?      AI growth,  thinker, or will to power?

I get the  impression from skim-reading the forums that  the AI playstyles of thinker and will to power (which builds upon thinker) don't  cohere to the distinctive lores of each faction as much as AI growth, but i could be wrong.

[Rolan7]

So, a year later... even before I started this topic, my mom had talked about SMAC in some depth.  But not as SMAC.  She keeps encouraging me to read the stories of Darkover.

I still have read very little, but when it came up again I remembered SMAC and this thread.  It's... almost nice, isn't it, a world where no one is driven by hate.  Everyone is trying, in their sometimes strange way, to uplift humanity.

To be even more self-absorbed, I'm fond of this post (on this page).  I still agree:  Most of the factions can coexist.  But Gaians and Believers can not tolerate any others, not really.
I say this as a Gaian at heart, despite enjoying Morganite and University runs.  It is... fun, to execute Morgan's theories in a game.

Edit: Oh right, SMAC takes extremely heavy inspiration from Darkover, it's obviously not a coincidence.  We can have conversations about the factions despite me not reading the books and she not playing the video game.  It's kinda cool.

[Robsoie]

I never heard about Darkover before, looked into the wikipedia entry and it seems there's a lot of world building with it, with lots of fans making fan factions that sometime were acknowledge by the author and incorporated in its lore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkover

Then i checked the author's wiki entry to see what else she may have wrote :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley

And ... what the hell ... if those accusations are true she and her husband were fracking horrible people.

[Rolan7]

Oh shit oh fuck, I hadn't heard about that at all. Thanks for the heads up. Oh no.

[EuchreJack]

What I learned from Michael Jackson is that you can like an Artist's work while still being critical of the Artist. Although I'm unsure if Michael Jackson's child molestation allegations were actually proven, he DID hang his baby upside down over a balcony.

[Robsoie]

That reminds me of one of the wrestlers that i found amazing back when i watched some WCW , Chris Benoit .
He  had incredible wrestling skills and such an aggressive intensity that even if you knew wrestling was all scripted, you would not want to be the other guy in the ring.

Past the end of the nineties i ceased to watch any wrestling, i just had lost interest with the amount of crap matches that were going on more and more often and other stuff in life caught more my attention.

So some years ago, googling to see what happened to those old wrestlers i appreciated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKTrQWRSqL8

I learned that Chris Benoit murdered his wife and one of his children (that was 7 years old) by strangling them before off-ing himself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Benoit_double-murder_and_suicide

Apparently in the article it is mentionned that doctors found he was under some level of brain damage from his wrestling years but some other article dispute that and some investigation apparently showed that he was preparing the murder since a long time before, but whatever is the reason it's hard to separate the incredible wrestler he was and the fracking evil wife and child murderer he became when i see some video featuring him.

[hector13]

Old school stuff brah. He was a tremendous performer.

Considering one of his signature moves was a diving headbutt off the top rope, I would be frankly astounded if he didn’t have some variety of CTE. I remember reading some years ago that his brain was physically like that or someone in their 80s when they did the autopsy.

Equally so there were suggestions it was ‘roid rage, which were hugely prevalent in at least the WWE, and probably elsewhere.