8 ms·

While the writing in Alpha Centauri is some of the best in video games, the actual game itself is less fun than Civilization. The hostile terrain and alien lif

While the writing in Alpha Centauri is some of the best in video games, the actual game itself is less fun than Civilization. The hostile terrain and alien life you spend most of the game dealing with just isn't as interesting as the enemy AI.

Apocryphon 7y ago
I contend that it's one of the best games in the Civ franchise, but someone else can articulate it better than I can.
grawprog 7y ago
I've played a lot of civilization, mostly 2 and 3, but before I ever played those, I played a lot of alpha centauri. It was my first 4x game. The thing is, I don't really remember much about it at all. I remember it being harder than civ and I remember not really being able to figure things out and even when I did, it was still kind of confusing in comparison to civilization. But, I'm pretty sure i got to the end game at least once and when I think about it, I remember still having fun and I still spent a lot of time on it. It's actually one i've thought about going back to play as an adult, just because I feel like I'd have a better time of it now.
mikl 7y ago
If you compare SMAC to the contemporary Civ2, SMAC is a much deeper game in many ways. The terrain and alien life is not really something to be conquered, more like a natural hasard like barbarian raids in Civ, it never really goes away.
- uxp100 7y ago
  I think Civ 3 was the contemporary.
  - softwaredoug 7y ago
    Civ 3 came after Firaxis got the Civ trademark. They made SMAC in part because they didn’t have the TM after breaking away from Microprose. The contemporaries to SMAC are the Civ: Call To Power games.
    - thrower123 7y ago
      I picked up Call to Power recently, and despite playing hundreds of hours of Civ 2, I just couldn't get into it. Probably in an earlier era, where I'd buy a game or get it as a Christmas present and spend the time until I could actually get home to install and play it reading the manual cover to cover, I'd have handled it. But I just don't have the tolerance for the opaque complexity and clunky UI anymore.
      - deleted 7y ago
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thaumasiotes 7y ago
The enemy AI in every Civilization game is incredibly stupid. "Interesting" isn't really the word.
- xchaotic 7y ago
  You are more than welcome to create a game with better AI and therefore better playability. The rules of Civ games are complex enough imo. It’s just a game after all.
- evanweaver 7y ago
  There have been talks at GDC and elsewhere about this...my memory is that humans don’t like being surprised by a smart AI that silently builds up resources and suddenly and mercilessly betrays and annihilates them, which is the obvious winning strategy. Humans don’t even like the random battle results to be truly random but expect them to hew very closely to the outcome of the odds as presented. The AI is grindy and unsophisticated on purpose.
  - rangibaby 7y ago
    > Humans don’t even like the random battle results to be truly random but expect them to hew very closely to the outcome of the odds as presented. Because of this Civ2 added health and firepower stats to units, random battles sometimes meant an ancient trireme could destroy a battleship, which is fun to imagine...
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      The classic example is a militia (the weakest unit in the game, relying on no technology at all) defeating a battleship bombarding it from the sea, causing the battleship to sink. :D
      - inetknght 7y ago
        Warrior, actually. But yes. Militia required gunpowder.
leggomylibro 7y ago
It had some great ideas, though. The planet had prevailing winds, and you could terraform mountains so that your cities had lush farmland while your competitors were left with arid deserts. And the terrain didn't have to be hostile in the late game, depending on how you treated Planet. It was also cool how you could mix and match technologies to make different units. But it was sort of overambitious, and a lot of the features were ridiculously opaque. I think it's a sci-fi gem, but it definitely takes a bit of patience. If you don't have patience or time, most of the pithy quotes are here: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_Centauri https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_Centauri
- RomanBob 7y ago
  creating mountain to get more precipitation sounds good until you realise that the optimum strategy is either forest spam or getting weather control and then borehole and condensor spam.
EthanHeilman 7y ago
Two things make a great narrative game, the narrative and the game mechanics. As one would expect Alpha Centauri's game mechanics have been significantly improved on since it came out, however the narrative and setting is so strong that poor mechanics connect you to the nature of that reality. For instance mindworms (Alpha Centauri) vs barbarians (Civ). The mindworms should be annoying but because the game shares stories of mindworms attacks the annoyance is transmuted into a feeling of sympathy with the settlers of the game. You never get that sense with barbarians in Civ. The best example is horror games like Amnesia. They are essentially "walking simulators" with almost no game mechanics beyond movement. Yet the atmosphere is so good that the players don't notice. Personally I think too much attention in the game industry has been placed on flow and artificial-sweeteners such as RPC leveling reward systems at the cost of neglecting atmosphere and as a sense real presence.
g051051 7y ago
I have to agree here. While I really love this game, the increasing hostility of the environment really drags the game down.

Apocryphon 7y ago

I contend that it's one of the best games in the Civ franchise, but someone else can articulate it better than I can.

grawprog 7y ago

I've played a lot of civilization, mostly 2 and 3, but before I ever played those, I played a lot of alpha centauri. It was my first 4x game. The thing is, I don't really remember much about it at all. I remember it being harder than civ and I remember not really being able to figure things out and even when I did, it was still kind of confusing in comparison to civilization. But, I'm pretty sure i got to the end game at least once and when I think about it, I remember still having fun and I still spent a lot of time on it. It's actually one i've thought about going back to play as an adult, just because I feel like I'd have a better time of it now.

mikl 7y ago

If you compare SMAC to the contemporary Civ2, SMAC is a much deeper game in many ways. The terrain and alien life is not really something to be conquered, more like a natural hasard like barbarian raids in Civ, it never really goes away.

uxp100 7y ago
I think Civ 3 was the contemporary.
- softwaredoug 7y ago
  Civ 3 came after Firaxis got the Civ trademark. They made SMAC in part because they didn’t have the TM after breaking away from Microprose. The contemporaries to SMAC are the Civ: Call To Power games.
  - thrower123 7y ago
    I picked up Call to Power recently, and despite playing hundreds of hours of Civ 2, I just couldn't get into it. Probably in an earlier era, where I'd buy a game or get it as a Christmas present and spend the time until I could actually get home to install and play it reading the manual cover to cover, I'd have handled it. But I just don't have the tolerance for the opaque complexity and clunky UI anymore.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

thaumasiotes 7y ago

The enemy AI in every Civilization game is incredibly stupid. "Interesting" isn't really the word.

xchaotic 7y ago
You are more than welcome to create a game with better AI and therefore better playability. The rules of Civ games are complex enough imo. It’s just a game after all.
evanweaver 7y ago
There have been talks at GDC and elsewhere about this...my memory is that humans don’t like being surprised by a smart AI that silently builds up resources and suddenly and mercilessly betrays and annihilates them, which is the obvious winning strategy. Humans don’t even like the random battle results to be truly random but expect them to hew very closely to the outcome of the odds as presented. The AI is grindy and unsophisticated on purpose.
- rangibaby 7y ago
  > Humans don’t even like the random battle results to be truly random but expect them to hew very closely to the outcome of the odds as presented. Because of this Civ2 added health and firepower stats to units, random battles sometimes meant an ancient trireme could destroy a battleship, which is fun to imagine...
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    The classic example is a militia (the weakest unit in the game, relying on no technology at all) defeating a battleship bombarding it from the sea, causing the battleship to sink. :D
    - inetknght 7y ago
      Warrior, actually. But yes. Militia required gunpowder.

leggomylibro 7y ago

It had some great ideas, though. The planet had prevailing winds, and you could terraform mountains so that your cities had lush farmland while your competitors were left with arid deserts. And the terrain didn't have to be hostile in the late game, depending on how you treated Planet. It was also cool how you could mix and match technologies to make different units. But it was sort of overambitious, and a lot of the features were ridiculously opaque. I think it's a sci-fi gem, but it definitely takes a bit of patience. If you don't have patience or time, most of the pithy quotes are here: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_Centauri https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_Centauri

RomanBob 7y ago
creating mountain to get more precipitation sounds good until you realise that the optimum strategy is either forest spam or getting weather control and then borehole and condensor spam.

EthanHeilman 7y ago

Two things make a great narrative game, the narrative and the game mechanics. As one would expect Alpha Centauri's game mechanics have been significantly improved on since it came out, however the narrative and setting is so strong that poor mechanics connect you to the nature of that reality. For instance mindworms (Alpha Centauri) vs barbarians (Civ). The mindworms should be annoying but because the game shares stories of mindworms attacks the annoyance is transmuted into a feeling of sympathy with the settlers of the game. You never get that sense with barbarians in Civ. The best example is horror games like Amnesia. They are essentially "walking simulators" with almost no game mechanics beyond movement. Yet the atmosphere is so good that the players don't notice. Personally I think too much attention in the game industry has been placed on flow and artificial-sweeteners such as RPC leveling reward systems at the cost of neglecting atmosphere and as a sense real presence.

g051051 7y ago

I have to agree here. While I really love this game, the increasing hostility of the environment really drags the game down.