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They just released SMAC through www.gog.com

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

This is such a value you have NO idea.

Buy it!

Example of Play Part 4

God Dammit

I spent too much time focusing on expansion to get this first.
The Human Genome Project would have been perfect for me, since the Talents (super productive citizend) would have counteracted the Drones.

However the same turn I get a very important tech:

Ind. Automation is a very useful early tech. As you can see it offers up quite a few benefits. The ones that interest me are the Social Engineering change to Wealth and:

 Supply Crawlers: these little babies  can do three things: Transport a resource from 1 square, transport mateirals from one base to another, or be used to pay for secret projects like Alien artifacts.

Wealth allows me to make more energy per base and lower production costs of built items and facilties, at the cost of morale for my troops.

Now back to further expansion: the fungus I have ignored down south has been causing problems, spawning lifeforms. The fungal launchers can attack cities from afar and blow up square improvements. They need to be taken down.

While land units threaten my cities.

Example of play - Part 3

 One of the best things about SMAC this screen.  In the buy screen you can pick how much you want to pay.  The last five minerals cost 2 credits each, so they are very cheap to pay for if a base is new and you want to make every production point count.

 During My exploration I find an Alien Artifact.  These things become moveable units, but cannot attack, and if attacked by an enemy, get stolen.  When taken to a base these devices can be used for several purposes.

After several turns I get it back to the base, If you remember, I told you that University bases get a free Network Node, meaning I can use the artifact right away, but I choose not to, not yet.

About 50 turns in, I have formers building roads, moving a Colony Pod through a gap int he fungus to make a 4th base, and am planting forests to eat up the fungus. Forests provide 1/2/1  1 food, 2 production and 1 energy. Much better than many unmodified squares. In addition they expand!, And when they expand onto a fungus square, it wilts and dies.

Next I work on my first Level 3 tech, Industrial Automation. This tech gives several benefits, and builds into my first big goal, Tree Farms. 

I'm setting up a 5th base close to the fungus, and using my Formers to build forests to eat it and produce production minerals

With a Recycling Tanks, I can maintain a city size of 3 easily. That's 6 production.

Taking a quick look, I decide to get a Secret Project done, These are like Wonders in Civ, they bestow unique bonuses and have a much bigger impact.

One of the things I can do, aside of getting a free instant tech advance, is to spend the node to advance a project 50 points! I decide to hold onto it a while to see what happens.

Example of play, part 2

Example of Play, Part 2

After Initial scouting, we pick another technology to research. There is fertile land hear the landing area, but there is alot of fungus that needs clearing. We take Centauri ecology to get access to Formers. These units are liek Engineers in other Civ games, but have many, MANY, actions they can do.

I start to move my colony pod south and my discovered rover to the East.

We found the second base, Baikonur two spaces to the south. While this will cause a little overlap, it will make the bases easy to defend and use up all the nearby fertile spaces.

My explorign rover encounters a mass of mind Worms, this games version of Neutral npc units. Mindworms  do combat via a special means.  I'll go into details later. I go ahead and kill this unit to keep it from harassing me. 

I finish the Ecology tech and now have some Formers.

Remember those pods I told you about?  They can give bad results as well as good. This pod causes a white blood cell type reaction in the native life and grows a huge mass of fungus.

Not only will clearing the fungus be a pain in the ass, (6 turns per square per former) but thick batches of it tend to spawn neutral units, which harass bases and can pick off unguarded, non-combat units.

So after several more turns I have the nearby area scouted, It seems that the bloom to the south means Ill be expanding northward.

Example of play - Part 1

It would take forever to show off this game in it's entirety, so I will spend the next few updates showing off how the early game is played.  I'm playing with the University faction.

(Ignore the title, it's the name of the Expansion, which Ill go into later)

After makign planetfall, I have two Colony Pods and a single 1-1-1 Scout Patrol  (Those numbers mean   Offensive power/Defensive Power/Movement)

The University gets a free bonus tech on Turn 1. I always go with Bioengineering. This tech allows me to build Recyclign tanks, which gives me 1 of every resource.  I try to build one of these first in every base.

As you can see, we are on the northern end of a landmass, not near any other players for the moment.  I'll go ahead and set up my main base, University Base.

Opening the base window, I can set which squares I want to pull resources from. I can extract from 1 square per 10k people. I have a Scout patrol ready to go below. Every base starts with 10 material points for building. Since exploration is more inportant early on, I leave this be and will work on making a Recycling Tanks next.

Over the next few turns I explore and find a good spot for my second Colony Pod/ You see little pods ont he ground? These contain a random item, from credits to a land rover!

My early exploration is underway and I'm off to a good start.

The Lords Believers

The Lords Believers

A fundamentalist faction wary of secular technology. Led by Sister Miriam Godwinson (Unity's chaplain) from the Christian States of America.  The Believers' convictions give them a 25% attack bonus as well as increasing the morale of their Probe Teams and their ability to resist enemies' probe attempts. Their eagerness to defend their faith allows each colony to support up to four units without cost of minerals. Because the Believers feel that Chiron is their promised land they get to ecological ratings.  The Believers are also skeptical of secular technology, thus their research rate is decreased by 20% and they may not accumulate any research points in the first ten years on Chiron. The Believers prefer Fundamentalist government and may not use Knowledge as a social engineering choice, and for reasons best known to themselves become very upset with neighboring Democratic and Police states; Sister Miriam generally decries them as "Godless". Their founding base is named New Jerusalem. The AI behavior of the Believers tends toward aggression and forceful actions to get what they want. Because they cannot gain technology at the rate of most of the other factions, the Believers prefer to deploy large numbers of technologically inferior troops, overwhelming their foes by force of numbers. They benefit from bullying and stealing tech from lesser factions. They are the only faction that gets a +25% bonus when attacking).

University of Planet

University of Planet

A technocratic faction that values knowledge and scientific advancement above all else, including ethics. The University are led by Academician Prokhor Zakharov of Russia (possibly named in tribute to physicist–politician Andrei Sakharov; the character's name was changed from Saratov early in development), Unity's chief science officer.  The brilliant researchers of the University allow them to discover new technologies 20% faster than normal, but the openness of their academic networks leaves them prone to infiltration from other factions' probe teams. Every University base comes equipped with a Network Node base facility for free (Nodes boosts research by another 50% and allows the base to study alien artifacts.) Due to the University's lack of ethics in regards to research and experimentation, the faction suffers from more drones, representing the underclasses' discontent with and distrust of their amoral, well-educated leaders. The University prefers the Knowledge value in social engineering and may not use a Fundamentalist government. They are most likely to go to war with the Believers.