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Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri lovers, tell me what sets it apart
I'm currently researching the 4x Alpha Centauri, and I'm wondering what, in your mind, sets it apart from other 4x, or what makes it better.
Thanks for providing some rationale and not just dumping on other 4x
The graphics are nothing to write home about but the balance and deep faction philosophy / lore are what set it apart. As the game unfolds, I find myself sympathizing with different leaders and their mindsets - even Sister Miriam. The unfolding of dystopian technologies and decisions without judgement is really well done. Finally, (spoiler alert) having the planet itself as an entity with agency and self preservation goals has a very Speaker for the Dead kind of feel.
https://youtu.be/24OXzIRIiMQ?feature=shared
There is also an undercurrent of ironic humor that’s prevalent in the choice of quotes - see retroviral engineering, for example.
The gameplay mechanics are also fun in that you can flexibly customize the units and that adds value to tactical combat beyond most civ games.
The expansion doesn’t live up to the original.
MASSIVE SPOILERS
To me, Miriam Godwinson has maybe the most interesting character/faction arc in the game's narrative: Beginning as the basic stand-in for "Organized religion", she seems shrill and staunchly opposed to anything that would provide for humanity's genuine progress at first. But as the narrative develops and the other factions (with the exception of the U.N. / Pravin Lal) all seem to adopt some form of "techno-nihilism" (or "eco-nihilism" for Deirdre) for various reasons germane to their faction ideals, she stands with Lal as the only remaining voice defending what's left of humanity on Planet.
Seeing what has happened in the wake of the "social media era" and our own society's de facto embrace of techno-nihilism, it's kind of hard not to see her position as kind of didactic to our own. I was watching a clip the other day of an avowed atheist on the Daily Show talking about how kids growing up without any "group social/moral" structure have vastly elevated rates of serious anxiety compared to those that do and I couldn't help but picture Godwinson glaring righteously from her little thumbnail picture above some kind of quote indicating how this was inevitable.
Today, I find myself aligning most closely with Pravin Lal I think - which is interesting because I hated Lal and his faction when I used to play Alpha Centauri. I think his faction and Yang's were the only ones I never finished the game with because I just didn't like him that much. Maybe a good reason to pick up a retro copy of the game and make planetfall with the good old U.N.
Setting yourself back to 1999 is a big part of it. Been playing Civilization II for years and always enjoyed doing the space race, so the concept of getting a game entirely based on the science fiction aspect of Civilization was really huge. The game took the science fiction genre seriously, with a very well developed lore and well thought out technology tree. It was very far from the usual "pew pew shoot aliens" type of approach to games set in space. The whole atmosphere of the game is unlike anything else.
As a fellow Civ II fan, if you never played Civilization II: Test of Time, you should check it out. It's Civ II with slightly updated graphics/animations, and an option to have the game continue after you reach Alpha Centauri with more technologies and cities on both planets.
Definitely one of my top 5 games of all time.
The lore and setting, as others have mentioned, is incredible. The quotes on tech tree advanced do a lot of the lifting to build the characters of their respective faction leaders. The quotes are really thought-provoking on a wide variety of issues from ecology and philosophy to capitalism and politics - and still super relevant 25 years later. It's been remarkable to see actual scientific progress largely track with the tech tree/story in the game: AI, human genome project, Mind-machine-interface.
The gameplay is also amazing. I don't know if I prefer it to Civ, but it's more than just a "slapdash Civ in space". For one, the modular design system for units is really fun and a reminder of Master of Orion 2. The decisions you make to work with or against the ecology of Planet make some really interesting choices.
Overall, I'd highly recommend it now.
On the one hand, it gets a lot of points from nostalgia and being "The first" to screw with some really unique things.
The actual gameplay that matters is "ok". Customizing units and what not can just as easily feel like busy work rather than anything fun (as sooooo many games have demonstrated over the years). Technically you can terraform entire areas of the map and what not, but the actual need to do that is mostly non existent.
I think a large part of it just stems from having dramatically asymmetrical factions, and a tech tree that told a story (with a cannon "winner", although it always made me sad that one of the more difficult to write for factions just loses first). It really helps set the mood, and there are a couple of "engines" you can screw around with to have fun and try things out.
It's a shame that Beyond Earth was so phoned in in comparison, and didn't take advantage of what it did do right.
I thought this when I was playing single-player, but then played multiplayer against some significantly better players who did massive amounts of terraforming, often with extensive convoying. They outpaced me in all metrics to an embarrassing extent.
Its been a LOOOOOOOOOONG time since I've looked at anything competitive for Alpha Centarui, but I recall minor terraforming kinda being useful and that was about it (compared to the depth of the system).
That said I could be wrong and there's more to it in a really competitive environment, but that's kinda the other problem with genres like this. Everyone has vastly different play experiences based on how they play and what they play. Single player, casual multi, and competitive multi all play very differently.
I played it obsessively back in the olden days, it got a 98% from PC Gamer back when the original Half Life was the only other game to be scored so highly (as far as I remember). As a 4x game, it allowed for a huge amount of flexibility for strategies, allowing many development paths a decent chance at victory. This is in contrast to Civ V for example, where science is overpowered and anyone able to lead in it dominates basically everything. Prioritizing military might, or expansion, or secret projects, or taming the ecology, or economy etc, were all valid and relatively equal paths to victory that each faction had their respective strengths in. There was definitely a sense of flexibility, adaptability and evolution. As others have said, as you play, the ideologies and characters of these leaders is revealed and they speak about their visions of the future, the things they find important, and their feelings about each other. There are also some story interludes as you play that are just text on a screen, but it will change based on the decisions you make and projects you complete. It all makes for a compelling and interesting story experience where you get to play through a scenario that itself feels like a self contained sci-fi story. I found myself feeling aligned with my leader, trying to propagate my own values and ideologies and visions for the future onto a new and alien planet. Again as others have said, a lot of the science fiction elements were quite prescient and quite a few things in the tech tree are no longer fiction. It was a very thoughtful, deep and ground breaking game that is still worth a play through 25 years later.
The actual 4x elements in SMAC weren't that much different than other games but the faction leaders were so well defined, not just in the excellent writing, quotes and voice acting but also in how their strengths tied into the gameplay. They didn't feel like cookie cutter leaders with a few tweaked bonuses, they really had powerful strengths and devastating weaknesses. This could be both a spark for conflict but also a way for co-operation to mutually benefit each other greatly.
While I can guess why they did it I was pretty disappointed in Civ6's faith system where they are all completely the same and you just choose from a list which bonuses you want it to have.
Yes, this absolutely. I think Stellaris is the only other 4x game I've played that has been able to really embrace the aspect of role playing you would usually get in other genres, but even then it's not to the same extent. I found my decisions, strategies and mindset very influenced by the character I was playing, both from their mechanical bonuses and weaknesses and from the lore and story. I wasn't just going for science domination as Zakharov, I was attempting to transcend the human form and bring humanity to the next step in evolution! Why can't those uneducated primitives understand that?!
The callout about Stellaris is really interesting. In many ways Stellaris is more of a spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri than Beyond Earth. It has a thematic depth that other games lack.
I feel like this was significant enough to really be a different type of 4x game than many at the time, especially for players coming from Civ. The factions were different enough that they needed different strategies, and players often specialized. I was initially a Zakharov player who moved to a heavy-terraforming Morgan. I had a friend who was a 'destroy the environment and ride out the catastrophe' Deirdre player, and another who was an aggressive-conquest Miriam and Santiago player.
I was just listening to a podcast where one of the designers was talking about the challenges making this game. He said a big problem was that I'm Civ, they can build on the shared world history that the players are already aware of. But the future setting meant that their first version of everything was feeling too abstract. I know why steel tools are better than bronze ones but it's harder to get why one future tech is an advancement over another. So they had to really invest in the lore and story much more than in Civ and Colonization.