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[Nilocy]

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/sid_meiers_alpha_centauri

I think I'll just buy a copy because its so freaken awesome

[Levi]

I would buy it so I could play some sweet multiplayer games, but my bro has a long standing grudge against me for once winning the game really early after buying out the world energy market as Morgan.   

[freeformschooler]

Reviving this topic as a place for me to talk about alpha Centauri, if only even for one post.

Recently I bought this on GoG dot com. I was like "Wow, I've never played AC, but I love Civ! I should totally play that!" So I bought it for 6 bucks. At first I had some issued getting it to run well on a win7 netbook, but now it's fixed up all nice - and in windowed mode, too!

I started out on a regular game. It was frustrating at first because it was a little more complicated than regular Civ 2, but with the help of the Tour, I figured it out. Some things I still haven't completely solved (like when you're a land unit sandwiched between a vertical line of water on one side and an allied yet not owned unit on the other, you can't make any moves because all of the ones involving backing away from the unit are blocked by water!) and how to most effectively transport land units across continents (I'm guessing a Troop Transport unit but I haven't tried that.)

My first game ended in a spiral of disaster as both my bases were surrounded by mindworms and one faction had broken our treaty because I didn't get a low-move unit outside of their borders in enough time. My second game was better: I found an artifact in a monolith at the very start, made an alliance with a faction in the first two turns... and then two turns after that, the faction stole my artifact! You know what I did? I used two of the starting units and CRUSHED THAT FACTION into a small powdery substance.

In fact, I've found that eliminating at least one faction very early on in the game if I can somehow makes the game a little easier on me. I haven't gotten to the mid game yet, though. Meanwhile, I've discovered that armored units with laser or impact are wonderful for taking on wandering enemy aliens.

Things I love so far about SMAC:

1) Unit crafting. So many possibilities. I like to attempt to get the first armor as early as possible and then mostly only produce armored units.
2) The mindworms. Great way to level up a unit, and provides me with an actual reason to defend my bases when I'm not at war.
3) The vast amount of things you can just find lying around in pods, even on water. Like Civ 2 tribal villages on steroids.

Things I don't understand about SMAC:

1) What does leveling up a unit actually do? Or, ranking it up. I can see no visible stat difference between the first rank and Hardened, for example.
2) How do I choose which specific technology to work towards next? The tour never seemed to bring it up, maybe it's just a menu item I'm missing or a GUI element I haven't noticed.

[Vattic]

I'd like to give this a try but I've not played a Civ game before. Is this a reasonable first game?

[freeformschooler]

I'd like to give this a try but I've not played a Civ game before. Is this a reasonable first game?

I can't really say. I'd recommend you try and play FreeCiv before you spend the money. It's free, after all.

[Nirur Torir]

1) What does leveling up a unit actually do? Or, ranking it up. I can see no visible stat difference between the first rank and Hardened, for example.
2) How do I choose which specific technology to work towards next? The tour never seemed to bring it up, maybe it's just a menu item I'm missing or a GUI element I haven't noticed.

1) I seem to recall level/morale adding a percentage bonus to combat. I think it was 12.5% per level, but I'm not sure on that. Getting a unit to the max level gives +1 movement point.
2) Turn "Blind Research" mode off before starting a game.

I'd like to give this a try but I've not played a Civ game before. Is this a reasonable first game?

I'd say yes.

[freeformschooler]

2) Turn "Blind Research" mode off before starting a game.

Is that in the options menu where you select what victory conditions are available? If it is I missed it. I read that pressing the option key as the game starts up leads to a different options menu, but my netbook doesn't have an option key.

[gamefreak1]

It's under custom game I think.

[freeformschooler]

Yeah, I got it. Custom rules, I figured that's where it was. Man, I can't get enough of this game

[HLBeta]

I'd like to give this a try but I've not played a Civ game before. Is this a reasonable first game?

It's what I started into Civ games on and that seems to have turned out fairly well. It's probably the most complex of the Civ games to ever see publication, but the game's difficulty settings do a very good job of easing you into the advanced mechanics.

That said, I fell in love with Alpha Centauri and every other Civ game has seemed shallow and/or gimmicky by comparison. Especially with regard to the way maps are handled. AC actually tracks elevation and global weather patterns far beyond the crude climate belts of the later Civ map generators. It is the only Civ game where building a mountain range to starve your opponent's cities of rainfall is a serious and viable option. The player-terrain relationship is starkly different from the other games and I feel that AC benefits greatly from those mechanics.

[Christes]

1) What does leveling up a unit actually do? Or, ranking it up. I can see no visible stat difference between the first rank and Hardened, for example.
2) How do I choose which specific technology to work towards next? The tour never seemed to bring it up, maybe it's just a menu item I'm missing or a GUI element I haven't noticed.

1) I seem to recall level/morale adding a percentage bonus to combat. I think it was 12.5% per level, but I'm not sure on that. Getting a unit to the max level gives +1 movement point.

Something like that.  It's very important against mind worms.

Also:

Does GoG have alien crossfire?  If they don't, I'm a little surpirsed since mastertronic has bundled them together and is selling them right now.

[freeformschooler]

Does GoG have alien crossfire?  If they don't, I'm a little surpirsed since mastertronic has bundled them together and is selling them right now.

No, they don't. For me that is not important as I am still just now getting into it and such.

[Christes]

Yeah, but if you do want to get the expansion, you'll probably have to buy the bundle anyway.  It's cheap, though.

[GlyphGryph]

But the expansion is terrible and you really should only consider it if you've exhausted the real game and want a bit more.

Anyways!

This is in my opinion the best civ game ever released.

Vattic:

I'd like to give this a try but I've not played a Civ game before. Is this a reasonable first game?

This is a reasonable only game. Seriously, the only drawback is that you'll spoil yourself for all the others because they will never quite live up to it (terraforming, plot, creativity, personality, customization, its all here). It IS a bit complicated, but you can just plain ignore most of that until you want to learn about it. (And also don't play FreeCiv, god that game is terrible, it makes babies cry and its low quality does not reflect on the genre - if you DO like it though, you'll love SMAC)

Now, some advice!
Freeform: Weapons and armor don't actually work  all that well against mindworms, unfortunately! Because of their psychic abilities, your units mental fortitude (determined by veteran level) is the prime determinant of whether or not they win in a fight (especially when on the defensive). And the combat boost is nothing to sniff at, either! And as has been said, it means they get an extra move at the highest levels. (And if you think the mindworms are cool, wait until you can... hehehe)
Also, you should still be able to guide your research in some general directions, I believe? I'm not sure about the details though.

[mainiac]

For a newbie, I recommend turning off blind research in the rules when you start a new game.  It makes things simpler to be able to pick your research at first.