alpha centauri (part 2)

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2004-06-14 12:03am

and CEO Morgan did land on the strange planet of Planet, and he deployed cities most immeaditly. and recycling tanks were built, and colony pods, deployed, and the people of the Industries did grow mightily, spreading wealth to all they surveyed. and it was good.

and they did meet the beaurecratic cities of the UN, who introduced democracy to the lands of Morgan. and they did wax mightily, and there was trade, and formers built roads between their cities, and the fungus fell back beneath green growing things. and it was good.

and the un schemed in their cities, and readied for war. and morgan didst deploy rovers, and sent them forth, driving in their thousands of iron chariots. and they did meet the plasma guardians of the un, and at the gates of their cities, the sand was turned red.

and their cities were conquered, and morgan did lay his foot about the chest of the un, subjugating them utterly. and tech advanced, and the people grew, and more cities spread, until the entire continent was of the tribe of morgan. and it was good.

in these days a strange ship arrived from across the sea, and they didst speak of a vast continent of gaian treehuggers, who were powerful, like giants, having conquered all that was about them, and they did cause the forces of the academcian to cower before them, and they worshipped strange gods.

and morgan didst not approve of this, and he grew wroth, as strange people of the green did wander his lands, and he discovered airpower. and many were the fleets of interceptors that flew to gaian territory, and they spread terror and death in their wake. and it was good.

and a force of rovers did land, conquering cities as their garrisons wre destroyed in righteous fury, and the gaians waned in power, demanding an end to war. and morgan did grant them peace, for the frothing forces of the believers did war upon him, and those of the hive did also.

and morgan did ignore the hive, as they were as a stinging fly to him, and he did send his armies forth, destroying all the believers that he could find, conquering all the projects in the land, and it was good.

and the gaians detected weakness upon him, and attacked whilst his backed was turned, and many cities were taken by the sword. and he did reinforce his troops, and the gaians were subjected to harsh measures, being left with only 3 cities in the sea. and it was good.

and the believers were subjected also, leaving them five cities, and they grew wroth, and gnashed their teeth. and they did plot violence with the gaians upon his person. and morgan did not pay them heed, as they were weak, and he didst land troops on the continent of the hive, and he didst war upon them.

and many of the hive were subjected to violence, and many were the cities that were obliterated by the might of morgans arm. and the hive did grow wroth, and began building a planetbuster, for their hatred and anger knew no bounds.

and the gaians and believers did surprise attack morgan, and he turned upon them, for his anger was great. and he did destroy them to the ground, and salted their earth, so that not may grow their again. and a planet buster did fall upon his cities, and it did seem as if mountains fell, and there was the weeping of women in his cities.

and morgan didst build two planet busters, and sent forth divisions of paratroopers, and he didst conquer the capital of the hive, and he didst ready his planetbusters, for he did not find the hive worthy. and he did launch them, and the hive wept bitterly.

and the planet grew wroth, and send forth its many mind worms, and thousands upon thouands were devoured in their lust. and morgan did plot mightlily, and discovered a solution. and he did build the voice to planet, and he did acend to transcendece. and now morgan sits at the right hand of planet, granted the blessings his work has does him, and he does rule mightily.

so it is, so shall it be, forever and ever. amen.

Temjin · Post by **Temjin** » 2004-06-14 12:54am

You just couldn't be happy creating one +10-page thread about this huh? You have to go and try to make another.

Not only that, but now that I've had a taste of AC, I have to go play it again. The next few hours of my life will be wasted because of you.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2004-06-14 01:04am

All hail the University!

I miss my AC, I'll have to get it back from my cousin.

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2004-06-14 01:49am

Temjin wrote:You just couldn't be happy creating one +10-page thread about this huh? You have to go and try to make another.

Not only that, but now that I've had a taste of AC, I have to go play it again. The next few hours of my life will be wasted because of you.

heheheh. I figured sincethat thread was archived, and my cd was getting dusty, I needed another go.

157% victory on midlevel difficulty. go me!

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-06-14 01:59am

Gandalf wrote:All hail the University!

I miss my AC, I'll have to get it back from my cousin.

Same here. I regret losing the game CD.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-06-14 03:20am

And with the credits harvested from the husks of the mindworms served a dual purpose, it trained the raw spartan soldiers in the ways and discipline of battle, and it filled the coffers of Sparta for their next series of campaigns, all lived in a great Pax Sparta, as many did sue for lasting peace rather then face the wrath of her armies. The battle for with planet was the best preperation and training against the hoardes of Hive, and cowardly morganites,

Veni, Vedi, Vichy

oh and we built the cloning labs and thus men were no longer needed for reproduction, and all of the sacred bands were happy....

Post by **Gandalf** » 2004-06-14 03:40am

And Provost Manveru was pleased, for his University's advanced armies had marched all over the primitive peoples near him. Conquered Believer territory was now enlightened to the ways of science and knowledge.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-06-14 06:52am

UN or Gaians for me. Their play styles are balanced towards both build and conquer. Spartans can pull off both, but if you're the Believers or Hive you have to aggressively expand, while if you play the Morgans and University you have a harder time of it.

Does anybody 'cheat' with colony pods? I mean, save before opening one then constantly reload until you get something good (like an alien artifact or monolith)? I used to leave it to chance, and then I discovered the awesome power of the reload.

Incredible what difference it makes.

What difficultly level do you usually play at?

Post by **Gandalf** » 2004-06-14 07:00am

Stofsk wrote:What difficultly level do you usually play at?

I usually used to play at whatever the medium setting was.

I felt the good thing about the University was that your techs came faster, that way I could get to work on wonders. Usually I got the terraforming one. It allowed me to increase my infrastructure and make my cities better. Also the better tech allows me to be more aggressive in the opening few years.

(So this is what you meant by SMAC

)

Archaic` · Post by **Archaic`** » 2004-06-14 07:37am

Another University player here. Never play below Transcend now, but it took me a while to build up to it. Reading Vel's guide and getting involved in PBEM's over at 'poly really improved my game. I still haven't cracked the MY 2200 barrier for a Transcend on a huge map though (At least, not one where I hadn't tinkered with the map beforehand. ^^; ).

Crawlers are truly the king of units in this game.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-06-14 07:45am

Archaic` wrote:Crawlers are truly the king of units in this game.

Supply Crawlers? I'm still 'new' to this game. I know what you're talking about, though I'm not sure if I'm using them right.

What guide were you referring to?

[EDIT] ADDITIONAL QUESTION: Anyone notice that sometimes you start with two colony pods at the start of the game, while sometimes you start with only one? Is this a bug, or a 'feature'?

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2004-06-14 07:46am

I like the university, but the hive has some good sides to them, as well.
But as I've been playing the add-on, I must say my absolute favourites are the Pirates now.

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2004-06-14 12:22pm

Stofsk wrote:
Archaic` wrote:Crawlers are truly the king of units in this game.
Supply Crawlers? I'm still 'new' to this game. I know what you're talking about, though I'm not sure if I'm using them right.

A crawler based in a city will allow you to use resources from beyond your sphere of influence.

Say, you have a base near a mineral deposit, but can't assign a citizen to it (because it's outside the area of influence)

You build a supply crawler in the base and send it there, and it will give the resource bonus to the city.

This way you can have cities that effectively control much more area than normal.

And you can build other supply vehicles, not only crawlers. Though I guess making supply gravships would be pretty counterproductive

Stofsk wrote:[EDIT] ADDITIONAL QUESTION: Anyone notice that sometimes you start with two colony pods at the start of the game, while sometimes you start with only one? Is this a bug, or a 'feature'?

It depends on the faction. Most only get one colony pod.

As for me...I usually play the Nautilius Pirates from SMACX

In the basic game, it's either the Spartans or the University. THough every faction is cool in some way (except the Hive and the Believers. I can't fucking stand both of them, and usually save my planetbusters expecially for the sick fucks)

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2004-06-14 12:30pm

University is the only way to play. Having sigularity lasers and temporal armor when the others only have gatling lasers is just too fun.

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2004-06-14 07:06pm

Go Cyborgs! Down with sex, up with technology!

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2004-06-14 07:14pm

Bah! Spartans are the trick. running over the enemy with about 15 cheap as hell 18/1 scooters, backed up by a fleet of helicopter gunships which can rape an entire city in one turn is the way to go. Then whip out the Planetbusters.

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2004-06-14 07:31pm

Anyone play as that insane psycho bitch religious woman? I completely forgot her name and the name of her faction.

All I remember is that they once tried to attack me once with 3 Impact rovers, which I defeated with a two-century old Unity Rover.

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2004-06-14 11:53pm

mariam godwinson of the believers.

I routinely exterminate her. I dont even negotiate any more.

SWPIGWANG · Post by **SWPIGWANG** » 2004-06-15 12:48am

Gaians rulez

mindworm rush kekekekekekekekeke !!!!111!!!!!1111

Archaic` · Post by **Archaic`** » 2004-06-15 02:25am

Stofsk wrote:
Archaic` wrote:Crawlers are truly the king of units in this game.
Supply Crawlers? I'm still 'new' to this game. I know what you're talking about, though I'm not sure if I'm using them right.

What guide were you referring to?

[EDIT] ADDITIONAL QUESTION: Anyone notice that sometimes you start with two colony pods at the start of the game, while sometimes you start with only one? Is this a bug, or a 'feature'?

Vel's strategy guide is considered the definitive guide to the game. It's no longer available on the net to my knowledge however, since he actually managed to get it published via booksurge.

But yet, Supply Crawlers are truly monster units. In my games, I've been known to have over 200 crawlers active at once, mainly crawling either minerals or energy from Forests within my bases own radius, with the bases only working the minimum amount of tiles to keep them eligible for a Golden Age (Half of pop), which I induce via improvements and a 10~20% psych allocation. The only time it's really worth it to crawl outside the radius is when you've set yourself up an "energy park" of a ton of solar's and mirrors, which you'd then crawl back to your HQ base (Where you've built all the SP's that only influence the output of one base). The "Super Science City" you get from that can often end up netting you a tech a turn even with minimum science allocation.

The Colony Pods is done depending on how your starting position compares to the other players. If you've been given a shit crop of land to start on, you'll get more. Depending on the circumstances, you may even get a Unity Foil.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2004-06-15 03:15am

I actually can't get AC to work on my P4 based system anymore; I get a 'CPU not compatible' msg and it crashes out. Any ideas? It works fine on my AMD based system.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-06-15 04:10am

Maybe the game uses assembly language instructions that are not supported by the Intel Pentium 4 CPU. A similar thing happened to me when I tried to run IAF on a non MMX machine.

Grog · Post by **Grog** » 2004-06-15 04:22am

Stark wrote:I actually can't get AC to work on my P4 based system anymore; I get a 'CPU not compatible' msg and it crashes out. Any ideas? It works fine on my AMD based system.

There is a aplhacentauri.ini or something like that with some number (only one it is a really small file you will understand when you open it) set to either 1 or 0 change it to the other and it should work.

Grog · Post by **Grog** » 2004-06-15 04:40am

from the faq at apolyton ac forum:
Originally posted by Kaboth
When launching Alpha Centauri. I receive the error message "CPU not supported". My computer has a Pentium 4 or newer CPU.

Answer
You will need to modify a line in the Alpha Centauri.ini that is located in the game folder. To do this:

Double click on My Computer
Double click on the C: Local Drive (your Hard Drive or the drive that the game is installed to)
Double click on the Program Files Folder
Double click on the Firaxis Games Folder
Double click on the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Folder]
Double click on the Alpha Centauri.ini File (The file looks like a read me text file with a little gold symbol on it).

Once the file is open in Notepad, change:

ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=0

to

ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1

Archaic` · Post by **Archaic`** » 2004-06-15 05:00am

And to avoid the question that always tends to follow that...

If you don't have that line in there, add it manually.
Also, you'll still get the message, but just hit OK. It'll still work fine.