Hey, /vr/, how do I into Alpha Centauri? I've played Civ

>>3603276

welp start with a decent faction, some are easier to play then others. Zhakarov with the university gives a substantial early lead in tech, Deidres gaians have an easier time terraforming and capturing mindworm boils. Morgan gets early economy boost that helps buy units.

set your formers and early explorers to auto for quicker turns. you want two to 3 cities dedicated to pop growth for research and energy and at least one city next to a good mineral source to be a production factory.

is there anything specific you are having a problem with? mid and late game can be interesting depending on where people start off at on the map.

also get xfire if you don't have it already.

>>3603292
i have xfire and the 3.5b mod


well the interface is kind of obtuse and i don't follow what my goals by midgame are

this game doesn't really punish you for infinite city sprawl right?

>>3603318

It tries too by spawning more mind worms and locusts but by then it's hard to lose a city to them unless playing on higher difficulties. Also drones riot and you gotta nerve staple them if your policies allow. Policies generally determine your playstyle after that, police state or democracy type of choice.

midgame you can get an early UN victory when you have everyones comm and are strong enough. I usually start pushing for planetbusters and covert ops by that time, also getting viral/chemical weapons units on standby. generally it's a good idea to secure your own continent by then and develop sea bases and an air force.

also since you have xfire the alien races have different race specific victory conditions that are pretty cool

>Go Zhakharov
>Build just enough of an army to defend myself
>focus heavily on tech
>build planet busters
>nuke everyone I can
>nerve staple any rebellious cities
>entire planet goes fucking insane
>global warming
>mindworms everywhere
>I never win but at least I destroyed as much as I could so the winner only has an ash heap to rule

Every fucking game. Is there any other way to even play SMAC?

>>3603276
Play your first game as zhakarov as the other anons said
then realize how much of a cunt Yang is
then play as yang as for your second game and do as follows
>spam cities like no tomorrow
>use your inefficiency immunity to pick some of the best policies with no repurcussion
>supply crawlers on every mineral and mine you can possibly terraform
>build tree farms and hybrid forests, begin planting forests
>use your retarded high mineral levels to hold every secret project hostage
>also use it to construct 60 thousand chaos choppers to terrorize anyone who dares to oppose you
>be motherfucking chairman yang

>>3603276
It's a pre civ 4 game, so literally all you have to do is spam cities nonstop.

>play on Transcend difficulty
>go with Lady Deirdre
>cap every mindworm you come across
>kill everyone early with the unstoppable mindworm army
>reduce them to one base before letting them surrender and swear a pact to serve you. and then give them a few of their bases back before sicing them on the others.
>aim for tech victory while stomping out any faction who turns on you. but repeat the process of making them surrender. try to keep them all balanced and alive. give someone a secluded base if you have to.
>spam the planet with as many bases you can and get their pop up by also spamming orbital hydroponics sats
>make sure you own every single secret project before getting tech victory and then see how ridiculous of a score you got. and see the full "bookshelf."

by time you've done that you can handle anything the game can throw at you and should play as the other faction leaders. except sister miriam because shes a religious cunt

what i want to know is if anyone has ever gotten the multiplayer to work. I've been dying to play it with others ever since i was a kid playing it on a W95

iirc it's a slightly more complicated/customisable civ ii
play a game or two of freeciv, and you should be prepared for smac

honestly this http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Alpha_Centauri is a very good guide.
Lal is insanely powerful in a weird subversive way. He basically starts out with 2.5 very powerful wonders (clinical immortality, lift on restrictions for population and the human genome project.)
People say build cities everywhere all the time and that works but you can go less wide with only 6 cities and still do fine on transcend, if you do though, POP-BOOM. The most insanely powerful mechanic in the game only perhaps behind everything about supply crawlers.

>>3607971
Multi worked for me back in college.
We lived off campus so I set up my own LAN for my roommates.
Dunno how easy it is to do that over the 'net.

>>3603276
Rush projects with money.

>>3610830
mathematically, unless you're concerned about flexibility, you should spend your money as soon as possible (after the first 10 minerals of a building is done) and never on secret projects, it's more efficient to just rush supply crawlers.