Greetings all. I played a game a few times years ago, but I can't remember what it was called, and thought someone here might recognize it.

I played it around the year 1996 give or take a couple years. It was new at the time I played it. It was a space sim city/civilization type of game, but it had a story line. You were on a ship that crashed, I think, on this planet and you had to help grow your cities and explore the world. You could find alien tech scattered around that would help progress the story and increase your scientific knowledge. I remember a world map where I could choose to explore and found new cities. Sadly, that's all I can really recall about it, other than that I really enjoyed it. I don't even know if you could eventually go to other planets or not, but it seemed like the objective was more to just escape the planet you crashed on.

I know it's not Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, this was out a few years before that. I played it at a friends house, but he doesn't remember what the game was either.

Anyone have any ideas?

How about Emperor of the Fading Suns?

Maybe it was Alien Legacy?

http://www.mobygames.com/game/alien-legacy

Cool! I didn't know that and I like Fading Suns (Pen&Paper). Let's try to get it here!

http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/emperor_of_the_fading_suns

Aside from what has been mentioned, only the XCOM games come to mind.

My first thought was Reunion

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/reunion

I only got to play a little bit of it but it seemed good, and the DOS version was release around that time.

Voted long time ago ;) It's a pretty nice game... hmm... I believe I should have the retail version somewhere around...

Wow, thank you all for the suggestions. I had no idea there were that many similar games out in that time frame. Looking through them, I'm pretty sure it was Alien Legacy.

Again, thanks all! You've been a tremendous help! I may have to try some of these other one listed too. :)