I'm playing Alien Crossfire. At the start there's me (Gaians), Yang, Morgan, the Pirates, The Consciousness, the Peacekeepers, and some other faction that hit the dirt early. As did the Consciousness and Peacekeepers and I'm fairly sure that it was Yang that was responsible.

So - I've got one large continent nearly to myself with Morgan and the Pirates (Svensgard) on two tips. Yang is now the sole occupier of another continent. Morgan has a small but densely populated continent to the lower right of the screen and a lot of the surrounding sea. Svensgard has captured a large area of sea. Yang too has a large naval empire. It starts between me and Yang with him launching air attacks on my Formers and cities which I eventually beat off with Interceptors. I'm also picking off his sea bases. Svensgaard is seething but won't actually declare war. As usual I befriend Morgan.

Morgan acquires a lot of the best Projects - the Hunter Seeker algorithm (sob - I can't go to knowledge until I have that project), The Cloning Vats, the Telepathic Matrix. Svensgaard launches a pre-emptive attack on me, gets badly beaten, and sues for peace with the offer of a tech which I accept. I'm still going hammer and tongs with Yang and don't really want a second front.

Eventually Locusts of Charon (THE best troops for capturing enemy cities) and Drop Troops get me across the water and I start fighting on Yang's turf. Unfortunately (partly through stealing my tech) he gets a probability sheath which means my Shard copters are no longer taking out his defences 13 vs 6 (basic) + 6 (AAA) +6 (Aerospace Complex) + 1.5 (base) + 1.5 (sensor) = 21. So I'm a bit stalled.

Then the communications go down and suddenly Morgan's tearing into Yang with Str 30 copters. I steal a few cities from under his nose but he still takes a lot. Svensgaard unwisely has attacked me again and I'm picking him off at the rate of a city a turn.

So - Morgan has completed the planet wonder and is building the Ascent to Transcendence which he will finish in 16 turns time. Mine won't be finished until 35. However a flare has just taken out his defence pods. Should I try to use my one Planetbuster to take out his base ? He's now "belligerent" towards me but we are not actually at war.

I've never used nukes as first strike weapons - I'd much rather capture projects for me.

Or I could wait, wait until he declares war, just build tons of penetrators, send them on a suicide mission to destroy the city defences, and then use Locusts to take it out.

My time is running out. It will take at least two turns to get my planet buster to the target by which time he could have a defence pod back up. But I'm worried - Level 4 Strength 30 copters will mess up by level 3, defence 8, AAA troops very badly. I'm new teching every three turns. Sudden shift to knowledge ? The pirates aren't in a good position with probe teams because I've captured every land base, I'm tearing through their cities, and they are losing 75 energy a turn. What's the advice people ?

S.x.

Just in case anyone wanted to know...

A fresh examination of Morgan's base revealed that he was now taking just as long to complete the Ascent to Transcendence Wonder as me. Perhaps a resource boost came offline. Not only that - he was losing food every turn at the rate of seven boxes. Since I was outclassed militarily I decided not to attack hoping that by wiping out Svensgaard and popping up power boosting satellites I could catch up on energy production.

I didn't do what would be my normal tactic at this stage which would be simply to stockpile energy on every base to get the Ascent to Transcendence quicker because Morgan was militarily so powerful I couldn't abandon my defence and production boost spending.

Anyway Plan A worked. My tech advantages (Level 3 and Level 4 reactors vs Level 2, Level 13 and Level 16 attack versus Level 6 max defence, a lack of aerospace facilities in his bases and sensors near them) meant my helicopters and locusts rapidly tore through what had been a largish empire for Svensgaard leaving only one base standing at the end. Morgan meanwhile shifted production of his Ascent to Transcendence Project to the other end of his empire slowing it further. That meant even up against the Cloning Vats I had a larger population than Morgan by the end. As a final move I spent the 7,000+ energy credits to finish the Ascent at the same turn that Morgan put five orbital defence pods up. I wonder whether he'd planned to wipe out my three orbital defence pods and then Planetbuster me ?

The 270% win score was definitely appreciated. I don't think I've ever had a win go as close to the wire as that in all the times that I have played the game.

Morgan should have won the game. The enemy AI is not that strong and with similar tech levels human players outfight the computer all the time. It would be an interesting programming challenge to have an AI that was unbeatable without material advantage at the highest level on a Civ game as chess computers are effectively now. There are only a handful of humans that can beat the best computers at chess and a computer has beaten Gary Kasparov, the greatest chess player ever.

Secrets of Alpha Centauri/ Alien Crossfire is not perfect. The large planet size even on standard means that beyond the middle of the game each turn takes fifteen minutes. I never fortify because there is no defensive advantage and for the need to attack Mind Worms (psy battles give a big advantage to attackers and you only get credits on an attack). Working out where best to move your forces takes thought with a large battlefield and fast moving air units. The enemy AI is not very strong. Some of the rules still have flaws - for example at the end of the game I was still able to see inside Morgan's bases even though I was no longer Planetary Governor and I'd never infiltrated him. Infiltration probably should have been effective for only twenty turns at a time.

But still it is a brilliant game, perhaps the best realised of all the Civ games. The bedrock of the game are the vividly realised faction personalities, the little monologues that accompany each tech advance and new base facility giving you the impression of a vibrant, living developing world. The back story is innovative and epic. But the gaming fundamentals are what makes this game a joy. The very significant benefits of being Planetary Governor make diplomacy critically important. The ability to customise units gives each player the opportunity of improvising their own units. Drop Colony Pods and Drop Probe teams were my particular innovations. Since each individual base has its own happiness quotient each base counted. Valuable resources make a real difference to city development so there is real excitement at finding and seizing the (square of pillars - sorry too lazy to Google) and the jungle. Even resource bonuses matter, and matter a lot at the beginning of the game. The different ways of winning - Military (and Diplomatic is simply military with no requirement to destroy the last few enemies), Ascent, Energy victory do leave open different strategies. Morale levels and damaged units were a huge improvement over the original Civ. But it was the short films that accompanied each building of a Secret Project that really gave the game its atmosphere. Imaginative, inspiring, haunting. Seeing the travesty that was Civilisation: Beyond Earth (which simply ported over the Civ 5 faction leaders unchanged - WHAAAT ?) makes one weep that designers and publishers that once released the most creative and inspiring of games now release poor, soulless, cut down versions of their greatest games with the selling of DLC their sole raison d'etre.

Once I would have loved Firaxis to remake Alpha Centauri. Not any more.

S.x.

It sounds like you had an exciting game, what was your end year? I usually knock out a game in 200 turns, so I don't get the see the cool situations from advanced A.I. opponents. One tip for using air power, sometimes it's better to use it to bleed enemy units in the field than it is to break it against city defenses. Personally I'll use transports and swarm the A.I with 13 - 8 Blink Shard Marines for base capture. Reactor 3 on these, Reactor 4 generally costs too much.

Inspirational read! Congratulations on the win. Firaxis is far gone, agreed. Alpha Centauri is one of those rare beasts that were made with 100% passion and it came together better than most projects of any kind ever does. Just read the designer notes in the manual, there is a lot of heart in this game. Now Firaxis is just another company where people come and go to work on whatever projects fill up the schedule. It is just how most games are made these days.

Really enjoy reading your scenarios! Thanks for sharing.

Agree 1 trillion percent!
:)

As high tech and Hollywood-like as these new games appear to be, it seems as if the new games cannot match the level of detail or creativity found in the older games.

The new games need talented & dedicated heads to create the games I play.