Alpha Centauri - the darkest, most disturbing game ever?

[almondblight]

Alpha Centauri style factions would be awesome in an RPG. I guess it'd be like AoD; no good vs. evil, just different flavors of tyrants.

 

[Whisky]

Well, Lal is mostly good. At least, he's a lot more sane than the other leaders, vanilla or expansion.

 

[oscar]

It could be argued that Lal's liberal democratic humanism individualism (he even gets a -1 efficiency penalty due to the ineffectiveness of his UN-style administration) would just lead to Alpha Centauri repeating the same fate as Earth (overpopulation, greed, disintegration of authority) compared to the more radical, revolutionary or transcendent factions.

 

[Borelli]

Morgan's liberal capitalism may seem like evil, but when compared to other factions he isn't so ideological, his "ideology" basically goes down to "i like money" which just doesn't lend itself to hardline extremism that people like Yang or Miriam have. This is a good thing because if you ever get tired of religious fundies, autocrats and i love worms greens you can always find familiarity in his down to earth materialism.

Well, Lal is mostly good. At least, he's a lot more sane than the other leaders, vanilla or expansion.

I would also rate Zakharov as Good. He is for science which means freedom of information which as the good Lal says leads to freedom.

 

[laclongquan]

What is that about mad scientists you dont understand?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

"Mad" is just a stamp imposed upon the free from the imprisoned, that refuse to accept that their lives can be enriched by casting off the shackles of society.

(I hope I'm just paraphrasing someone else, because no way in hell am I this creative on a Monday morning.)

 

[General Maxson]

Dudes, sharing the official Prima guide here for your own reading/reference pleasures.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z5sizbdz6jbf2p3/Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri Prima Official eGuide.pdf

Bro how about those novels, backstories (whatever they're called) you also have too, please?

 

[Heresiarch]

Dudes, sharing the official Prima guide here for your own reading/reference pleasures.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z5sizbdz6jbf2p3/Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri Prima Official eGuide.pdf

Bro how about those novels, backstories (whatever they're called) you also have too, please?

You can download Journey to Centauri and Centuari: Arrival here:

http://alphacentauri2.info/official/Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri The Story_cfm.htm

I don't have the trilogy novels though.

 

[Johannes]

"Mad" is just a stamp imposed upon the free from the imprisoned, that refuse to accept that their lives can be enriched by casting off the shackles of society.

(I hope I'm just paraphrasing someone else, because no way in hell am I this creative on a Monday morning.)

What actually transpires beneath the veil of an event horizon? Decent people shouldn't think too much about that.

 

[oscar]

I've just reviewed a modern take upon the game.

 

[asper]

Starting a playthrough of AC because of this thread.
Are there any new patches or mods I should be aware of?

 

[hoverdog]

Starting a playthourgh of AC because of this thread.
Are there any new patches of mods I should be aware of?

kyrub's patch.

 

[Silva]

Dies Brother Law.

 

[TripJack]

Starting a playthourgh of AC because of this thread.
Are there any new patches of mods I should be aware of?

yitzi's patch.

enhanced

 

[kyrub]

Starting a playthourgh of AC because of this thread.
Are there any new patches of mods I should be aware of?

kyrub's patch.

Yeah, that one is really old. Very close to a much improved version.
SMAC has been my main toy for the last two month.

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

I know that I am really late to this discussion, but I think that thinking that Planet can just be "killed" or wiped clean of the fungus woefully misses what is arguably the whole point of the pseudo psycho-intellectual message in the game.

You can hear it from Deidre's first quote upon picking the Gaians to start a game: "In the great commons at Gaia's Landing we have a tall and particularly beautiful stand of white pine, planted at the time of the first colonies. It represents our promise to the people, and to Planet itself, never to repeat the tragedy of Earth."

One of the reasons that the expedition to AS happened was because Humanity had made Earth into a smoldering, overpopulated wasteland, and the ship was supposed to be an attempt to save Humanity from extinction. I think that the whole conscious, living planet-wide hivemind was supposed to be foil what happened with Earth. The humans had a perfectly fine place to live, but they destroyed it and made it nigh uninhabitable because of their own reckless folly.

Planet is Earth 2.0, but instead of the silent "Mother Earth," you have a telepathic superbeing with incredibly dangerous mind-worms that is actively trying to save itself from the humans that it sees as an infection of some sorts. Planet only really begins to whip itself into a frenzy when you start causing serious ecological damage. The only solution to the problem, killing all the fungus, would cause even more ecological damage. Since Planet is supposed to be thought of as a living entity, destroying the fungus would kill the planet and make it uninhabitable just like what happens a lot to Earth at the end of a normal Civ game.

Sure, Humanity gets incredibly advanced near the end of the game, but none of that matters if they do not have a place to live, grow food, and call home. Fighting the planet would lead to the exact same circumstances that preceded the start of the game.

This is all baseless, elementary posturing on my part, obviously.

 

[Zeriel]

Planet is bio-engineered. I don't think there's any greater meaning to be found in the fungus hivemind. It was an alien experiment, and no more righteous than the yogurt you've got in your fridge.

It's not impossible to live in an industrial society that doesn't destroy itself and the resources it needs for survival. Alpha Centauri's Earthbound civilizations just didn't manage that, presumedly. There's no reason to suppose that whatever faction came out on top couldn't both annihilate the fungus and build a civilization on planet that doesn't culminate in its own destruction. Admittedly SMAC's outlook on things is decidedly dystopian and nihilistic.

 

[suejak]

This is easily the best 4x game ever made. There is so much about it that I've always loved, and the reasons are mostly thematic.

I too dislike the aliens in most of my games, so I turn them off. All the other factions are okay, but definitely the core seven are the most authentic experience.

I have trouble playing anything other than Morgan or Yang, because I like the feeling that I'm in a psychic war with Planet.

 

[suejak]

Where the fuck is the Brian Reynolds kickstarter?

Don't give the guy too much credit. He also made Rise of Nations, which though a great idea, wasn't terribly good.

Sid catched a Molyneux disease.

Bullshit. Sid's forte has always been mobile-esque games. He creates mindless fun games without effort. Civ is and never was a Sid Meier game.

Sid Meier is still responsible for some of the most kick-ass games of the late 80s and early 90s, including Pirates!, Covert Action, and Colonization. Don't fuck with the best just to be a cool guy. You ain't no cool guy; you're just sniveling, ungrateful, uneducated scum.

 

[IDtenT]

Sid catched a Molyneux disease.

Bullshit. Sid's forte has always been mobile-esque games. He creates mindless fun games without effort. Civ is and never was a Sid Meier game.

Sid Meier is still responsible for some of the most kick-ass games of the late 80s and early 90s, including Pirates!, Covert Action, and Colonization. Don't fuck with the best just to be a cool guy. You ain't no cool guy; you're just sniveling, ungrateful, uneducated scum.

I'm defending Sid.

 

[codexian reject]

Sid catched a Molyneux disease.

Bullshit. Sid's forte has always been mobile-esque games. He creates mindless fun games without effort. Civ is and never was a Sid Meier game.

Sid Meier is still responsible for some of the most kick-ass games of the late 80s and early 90s, including Pirates!, Covert Action, and Colonization. Don't fuck with the best just to be a cool guy. You ain't no cool guy; you're just sniveling, ungrateful, uneducated scum.

Oh, it was of course obvious brofist harvesting, but...

If you read some interviews with Sid, even very old ones, he keeps repeating, that he always wanted to make games that a daddy could play with his son. He always wanted to make games for soccer dads.
The only games in the last 10 years that were designed by Sid himself I know of, are Civ Revolution and Ace Patrol. His heart was always with casual.
It's obvious that SMAC is not his baby at all, but he allowed it to be made because casual market in the late 90s was still not big enough, to make any other audience insignificant for his company.
At this point it is guaranteed that he'll never allow anyone at Firaxis, to make a good game, even if one of his designers wanted to, as evidenced by this story.

I don't hate on Sid for being a very good CEO of a succesful company, it only speaks good of him.
I always blame the retarded audience for making shit games much more economically viable, not companies for being successful.
Firaxis at this point is just too successful, while making dumbed down versions of old classics, to even try to make a good game ever again. It's simply not relevant anymore.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Oh, it was of course obvious brofist harvesting, but...

If you read some interviews with Sid, even very old ones, he keeps repeating, that he always wanted to make games that a daddy could play with his son. He always wanted to make games for soccer dads.
The only games in the last 10 years that were designed by Sid himself I know of, are Civ Revolution and Ace Patrol. His heart was always with casual.
It's obvious that SMAC is not his baby at all, but he allowed it to be made because casual market in the late 90s was still not big enough, to make any other audience insignificant for his company.
At this point it is guaranteed that he'll never allow anyone at Firaxis, to make a good game, even if one of his designers wanted to, as evidenced by this story.

I don't hate on Sid for being a very good CEO of a succesful company, it only speaks good of him.
I always blame the retarded audience for making shit games much more economically viable, not companies for being successful.
Firaxis at this point is just too successful, while making dumbed down versions of old classics, to even try to make a good game ever again. It's simply not relevant anymore.

Brilliant post sir. I can't imagine why you were rejected. This is exactly the thing the Codex needs.

 

[Monocause]

Where the fuck is the Brian Reynolds kickstarter?

Don't give the guy too much credit. He also made Rise of Nations, which though a great idea, wasn't terribly good.

Wut. RoN was one of the more interesting RTS games ever made. It tried to blend all the different gameplay mechanics and was *this* close to doing it successfully - and even if it fails here and there it's still a darn good game which doesn't receive the recognition it deserves.

If they made a proper sequel and the rough edges would get polished it'd be brilliant. What they did instead was to develop Rise of Legends which also tried to mix different mechanics but was more of a failure, again because of lacking polish but some of the ideas in that one were still very, very cool.

 

[IDtenT]

There is nothing wrong with casual when you can pull it off like Sid Meier.

Stay being classy Codex.

 

[80s Stallone]

Alpha Centauri is pretty much the only Civ game I have liked so far. And I played lots of them.