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[IronyOwl]

I was inspired to start up a game, and ended up with a pretty cool Gaia situation. Started on an island, decided to stick there despite that not being a fantastic idea. Seven cities is alright expansion-wise, right?

So of course most of the game was spent giving Yang literally anything he wanted please don't hurt me oh god. Then I hit both the Clean Reactor Air Power and Yang Is Not Having It phases of the game, which currently means my needlejets are mauling whichever of his infinite forces happen to wander into reach in stacks of one or two. This has put me in the odd position of not being sure what to do from there- I don't actually want to conquer his stuff, I want to stay on my paradise hippie island. But I also don't want to play infinite pingpong with a world superpower, so I should presumably be pushing my advantage to wreck his shit somehow.

Speaking of which, I forgot how expensive planet busters are. 20 turns for a fusion one, versus 3 for a clean shard needlejet. Might as well just airwipe his forces and terraform his lands into the sea if I want them gone.


Another thing I had forgotton is just what a story this game is telling. You go through multiple gamechanging revolutions in how you do business despite keeping the same basic civ formula. Sea travel, air power, crawlers, forest economy, gradual fungus upgrades, increasing specialization in starting unit morale, all the wonders and social engineering possibilities. It really feels like you're witnessing humanity repeatedly transforming itself on an alien world, something I don't think I've ever really seen elsewhere.

And the quotes, of course. This game is really a work of art.

[Robsoie]

I don't think i played any other 4X in which the opposite factions were that interesting and the writing of their leaders really felt fitting with their faction ideology. The background story evolving with the player action is also a great touch.
Diplomacy was also one of the best as everything felt right in it, nothing in common with those Civ-like Ghandi politely telling you about joining force for peace and the turn after throwing a couple of ICBM on your cities...

To me Alpha Centauri has been the best 4X game easily.

[Sharp]

I don't think i played any other 4X in which the opposite factions were that interesting and the writing of their leaders really felt fitting with their faction ideology. The background story evolving with the player action is also a great touch.
Diplomacy was also one of the best as everything felt right in it, nothing in common with those Civ-like Ghandi politely telling you about joining force for peace and the turn after throwing a couple of ICBM on your cities...

To me Alpha Centauri has been the best 4X game easily.

Yeah, it was a labour of love and it really shows. I was really disappointed in Civ 4 which seemed more basic than Civ 2 for me.
Civ 2 felt like a learning experience with the Civilopedia showing facts as well as game details, and the wonder videos.

SMAC with it's wonder videos and rich detail in the tech made it seem so educational even though it was fictional. I also liked how energy was the currency, because that is something that is useful and tradeable (in SMAC time).
I'm not saying it's hard sci-fi or that realistic, but you can feel all the effort that went into the world building and showing it with the writing, the voice actors, the videos.

It seems weird how no other 4x game has really come close to capturing that for me.

[Rince Wind]

For me the Fall from Heaven 2 mod and its Orbis Submod for Civ 4 come close. I only bought the Beyond the Sword expansion to be able to play the newest FFH2 version.

[EuchreJack]

Alpha Centauri had the advantages of dedicated developers with extensive experience in this particular game type, and sufficient resources to do everything they wanted to do at a high quality.  It's rare that a game has that going for it. It's sort of why Crusader Kings 2 is among the best that Paradox offers.

[Loud Whispers]

Alpha Centauri had the advantages of dedicated developers with extensive experience in this particular game type, and sufficient resources to do everything they wanted to do at a high quality.  It's rare that a game has that going for it. It's sort of why Crusader Kings 2 is among the best that Paradox offers.

It's also strange how they focus more on developing the graphics of games instead of developing on the mechanics - like sure I can get focusing on graphics for a first person game, but for a turn based 4X or a GSG it's an odd move. CivBE removing terraforming and stacking, CK3 being worse than CK2 but adding a graphical depiction of the court, vic3 having better fish graphics but hoi4 economics... A lot of times the graphical additions take me out of my immersion SWIFTLY

Those are incredible and I had no idea there were econ strategies other than getting as many bases as possible and going from normal improvements to forests to fungus forests.

Curious that you don't seem to have experimented with water much. I seem to recall kelp + tidals being very strong if you could get the minerals from somewhere.

Captain Sven might actually be overpowered as hell because of his voodoo powers over deep ocean sprawling & mineral acquisition. But for the most part I find water a bit strange to work with for the other factions. You get more food and money than god but terraforming ocean tiles is expensive. For defensive reasons I also like to stay away from the water, and if I build any bases in the water then they're usually just cheap bases to "zone away" neutrals/allies from claiming my coastline. It does make sense to abuse the coast if you have few bases but if you are spamming a horrifying amount of bases you start racking up horrendous inefficiency penalties which render the energy advantages of coastal bases moot

*EDIT
I would also say ocean sprawl is not as optimal as creating land sprawl, just because of the lack of minerals and how it's locked behind doctrine tech and really needs fusion reactors to cut down the cost of colony pods/sea formers. Generally with big ocean worlds I would say it benefits a more pacifistic wealth-building style where you spam the ocean with tidal collectors that feed into one base using sea supply crawlers. If you're going for an "optimal" continent-devouring metropolis the sea presents a big obstacle to growth and is also a significant obstacle to playing one of the offensive conquerors like Miriam or Yang. Especially since the AI always knows where your transport ships are ;-;

A disgusting exception might be Miriam with the planetary transport network, which starts off colonies at base size 3. Even better if you have the maritime secret project for that extra 2 sea movement, but it's not necessary.

1. Build sea colony from base A. Use sea colony pod to build base B.
2. Use starting 10 minerals from base B and rush build a new sea colony pod. Wait until next turn.
3. Because sea colony pods move far faster at sea than pods on land, you can immediately use that sea colony pod to build another sea base 3-4 tiles away from the first one, and rush build a new sea colony pod from that one whilst you begin building police units for base B.
4. Exponential sea-colonisation until the entire ocean is yours.

Technically anyone can do this strat but it suits Miriam who can use democracy without losing the 10 minerals starting bonus, for that extra efficiency & pop growth. Each sea base starts off with recycling tanks equivalent so even in deep ocean and no terraforming each base is worth a little bit and magnified over so many bases, it can get very silly

Also: Reminder that you can place your own landmark names using SHIFT N. Use this knowledge to your amusement. CTRL SHIFT N to delete a landmark