Data pod recovered

Indigenous lifeforms

Please don't go. The drones need you.

Favorite faction?

I say the Gaians are best of original 7.

Their +1 planet bonus is not just for taming worms.
It make land units almost always penetrate fungus tiles. This let's you explore easily when other factions are struggling to enter the fungus, even explorer Santiago's rovers get hemmed in by it.
Gaians also get +1 food on fungus which makes it viable to supply crawler them.

They start with Centauri Ecology the best tech in the game.

+2 Efficiency means you can build more bases and farther bases before you get bureaucracy drones and energy loss.
Combined with Democracy or Green you get +4 efficiency and can go 100% research or money losslessly letting you hit goals very fast.

Their weaknesses?
-1 police just means you can't nerve staple. No big deal. It also makes choosing police state less effective but that setting is only good for Yang anyway.

-1 morale only matters during wartime. Just build some extra units to compensate. It doesn't stop your units from reaching elite anyway.

Their last weakness is they can't run free market which only advance players can manage anyway. They can still get +1 energy/square with wealth and a golden age (efficiency helps with that).

The first faction to discover Secrets of the Human Brain gets a free technology.

Its prerequisites are Social Psych and Biogenetics.

The University usually gets it first since they get a free tech (can pick Biogenetics), have a research bonus and free network nodes in every base.

Peacekeepers also often get it because they start with Biogenetics.

Morgan Industries is third in line to get it because they have good energy income.

Gaians are fourth because they already come with Centauri Ecology(CE) and so they can beeline to SotHB without sidetracks.

Spartans are fifth because their industry penalty slows the building of new bases/formers.

Hive is sixth because he has no energy.

Believers are last because they have research penalty and cannot research at all for the first 10 years.
Do you think it is worth it to skip CE in a rush to get SotHB if you're in the top 3 factions which has a chance to get it?

Assuming you get CE first then SotHB, which tech do you select as your reward?

>>3643264
>Do you think it is worth it to skip CE in a rush to get SotHB if you're in the top 3 factions which has a chance to get it?

Only if your landing site has great resources (monolith, resource special, landmark).

>Assuming you get CE first then SotHB, which tech do you select as your reward?

Information Networks then Planetary Networks so you can switch to planned economy. +2 growth and +2 industry is huge and the -2 efficiency has no effect when your empire is small and hasn't spread far.

I just finished my deidre game yesterday, did not go as expected
Initially I wanted to be an angry hippy and make mad mind worm armies to fuck with miriam, but santiago betrayed me for yang like the whore she is, lal killed off zak my only true ally, and morgan who i ignored all game got involved with yang
I ended up fighting a 4 war front near the end with yang, santiago, morgan, and lal who basically all surrounded me, murdering all of them with shard copters and locust swarms until I got sick of how long late game takes and start nerve stapling my citizens a lot. By the end I was a tyrant and lal refused surrender even though he had a single ocean city left with no units surrounded by 18 clean shard destroyers on all sides. I left him there, decided to build nothing but science structures to rush transcendence victory and future thoughts

>>3643812
I wonder if it's possible to delay factions from warring you by taking loans from them. Payments cease during vendetta.

>>3641210
Is that Alpha Century or Planetary Conquest? I can't tell.

>>3643948
it's alpha centauri you fucking heretic

>>3644190
Fuck, it was the auto-correct.

>>3644229
no, i mean that hte game is alpha centauri, what kind of kissles virgin gamer are you?

>>3643948
Tell me about Deadlock: Planetary Conquest and Deadlock 2: Shrine wars; I've never heard of them.
Are they good games?
How do they compare to Alpha Centauri?

>>3644259
Actually I've never played them either, I was going to ask the same thing if this thread was about them.

>>3644259
Deadlock 2 is fun, feels like MOO2 ground war edition. The AI is awful at sea and air though, and since most maps have those it ends up being a cakewalk.

File: Aki_Zeta-5_(SMAC).jpg (7KB, 149x178px) Image search: [Google]

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>>3641210
>tfw nobody ever talk about SMAX

>>3644259
Only played the first but it's really comfy, at least until you realize the poor AI. Then again maybe it's also because of it.

Spartans are probably the weakest of the original factions.

Their -1 industry and inability to run Wealth social setting really slows development. Free prototypes doesn't come close to offsetting this.

Their morale bonus only helps during war. The free rover they get doesn't explore much faster than infantry with all the fungus and rocks everywhere.

In peacetime the only thing they have is +1 police which let's you use an extra cop unit per base. I would rather have such units hunting worms and locating other factions.

Formers are always able to enter fungus squares. Other units stuggle to enter them unless you have a planet bonus.

You can use former to help your army move across fungal terrain. Send the former into the fungus first, then the rest of your units.

Units can always enter tiles if a friendly unit is already there.

It's been a while since I played this game.

How does stealth work in this game?
Do you have to move into a hidden unit's square to see them or just move next to them?

I know submarines and sealurks are hidden. Are probes hidden too?

Do forests, land fungus, and sea fungus hide units?
What about jungle tiles?

Sometimes when I am exploring my units are able to see 2 tiles ahead instead of one.

What causes this? Is it because of elevation differences? Or something to do with sea and land tiles?

>>3646435
>Do you have to move into a hidden unit's square to see them or just move next to them?
Onto. Or if you're next to them and you try to move through their zone of control.
Sensor improvements in your territory can see them from two tiles away though. They also give you +25% defense bonus and prevent worms from spawning in that 2 tile radius (except for planetblooms from eco destruction). Sensors are great.
>I know submarines and sealurks are hidden. Are probes hidden too?
Yep. And units with cloaking but that's so late game you usually have much better options for special abilities.
>Do forests, land fungus, and sea fungus hide units?
>What about jungle tiles?
Only sea/fungus

>>3646804
Sea and air units have the Deep Radar special ability by default which gives them a view range of 2, otherwise its 1.
There might be elevation stuff? I've never noticed.

>>3642881
Gaians are my favorite because I believe they're one of the easiest to play, making economy and barbarians easier to manage is almost like playing a difficulty level down. But now that I'm breaking into difficulties where the game doesn't hold your hand anymore I'm warming up to Morgan Industries. Playing a military faction sounds fun but the Believers and Spartans both seem harder to play and less practical than Hive, spawning next to either of the former isn't too bad but bumping into Hive within my first 50 turns triggers immediate panic mode.

Was Beyond Earth any good?

I feel like Firaxis released it and then immediately pretended it didn't exist.

Alien artifacts can be cashed in for 50 minerals towards the construction of secret projects.

Is it ever worth it to use this and get wonders earlier or should I always wait till I get network nodes for the free technologies?

Is it true that the base square of a base is immune to energy loss from inefficiency penalties caused by distance from headquarters base?

>>3647139
Pretty much. I like some parts of it, but it's no SMAC.

It had a lot of potential. Personally I think the nationality-based sponsors are a steep drop down from SMAC ideologies, but there's too many other weird design decisions to count. Space 4x with the Civ 5 engine should have been a no-brainer, but it just feels unfinished. I don't think a third DLC would have fixed it.

In some ways they did actually nail the idea of being on an alien planet, and they clearly love the material, but it doesn't translate well into game mechanics or have that balls-out sense of serious SF wonder that SMAC had with its personalities, tech quotes, videos, etc.

Always trade Centauri Ecology to the AI.

If you don't their territory will be covered with fungus and difficult for you to trek there.

When you do, fungus will be cleared and you can drive right up to their base on the roads.

Since you will conquer them anyway it's nice if they get some terraforming done before you arrive.

File: SMAX techtree.gif (78KB, 601x450px)

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What technologies should I go for in the beginning, mid game, advanced game, and end game?

Once you do SMAC, there's no going back.

>>3644501
>tfw nobody ever talk about SMAX

I actually think the Pirates work better on medium ocean than heavy ocean.

On heavy ocean setting all factions are forced to go to sea and the Pirates have to fight them off. Pirates are strong at sea but they can't stop everyone at once and some sea territory will be taken from them.

On medium ocean setting, the other factions will expand on land because it's easier, leaving all the ocean (and all water unity pods) free for Pirate exploitation.

On small ocean setting the Pirates may be forced to climb onto the land where their bonuses don't apply and may be pushed back by better developed land factions.

Sign a treaty with Morgan as soon as you find him.

He needs all the help he can get as the AI performs worse with him than anyone else.

In return you can get commerce income long before trading with anyone else owing to Morgan's extra energy production.

The only difficulties worth playing on after you complete the tutorial scenarios are librarian and transcend.

On librarian you are on equal footing with the AI.

On transcend the AI get 30% growth and industry bonii and you get additional drones to pacify.

Once you have mastered transcend the next step is to play against other players online.
Find opponents at alphacentauri2.info

>>3648303
No.
It only takes one tech and one facility to get a tech from an AA.
You are going to research information networks and build network nodes anyway.

Only cash AAs in for secret projects if you REALLY need that project and someone else is going to get it before you if you don't.

It takes 4-6 AAs to instabuild a project so that's 4-6 techs you are missing out on if you do.

Tech stagnation yes or no?

Does tech stag make the game easier or harder?

More enjoyable or more tedious?