HomeFeaturesSid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
The Rally Point: Why Alpha Centauri kind of helped when I had a breakdownA staple for the nerves
A staple for the nerves
Image credit:RPS/Firaxis Games/EA
Image credit:RPS/Firaxis Games/EA
I had, shall we say, a bad experience some years ago. Several days of lying in a darkened room eating cold party leftovers were to be expected. The amount of comfort I got from playingAlpha Centaurithroughout, though, was a surprise.
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Much of this characterisation comes across in the quotes that accompany every research discovery, from diaries, in-world books, and PR statements, a system many 4Xeses have copied since without ever nailing anything as rich as “Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master”. If it’s not already a case study for how excellent writing can become excellent narrative design, it damn well should be.
It lets you choose who to play, and who to befriend or oppose based on whose vibe you like, and makes those relationships more personal. Planet itself is a character of sorts. It’s immediately hostile to humans, requiring gas masks, domes, and intense terraforming just to get a foothold. The native life is a sinister pink fungus, home to mind worms who overpower your units with terror. This opens up psionic warfare, gives the game room for more powerful external threats even in the late game than the unlikely “barbarians spotted near Milton Keynes”, and complicates your relationship with Planet. Planet is, you learn, a living thing itself, its ecosystem forming a macro-organism with a life cycle that your development is threatening. Not just mining and pollution, but your very presence is a threat.
Image credit:RPS/Firaxis Games/EA
To exacerbate this, terraforming isn’t limited to the typical mines/farms/roads, but its 3D modelling allows you to raise mountains, manufacture rivers, manipulate the local climate and even, with the right inter-faction vote, raise or lower the oceans. The land inevitably changes as everyone spreads, ugly browns and pinks turning to the greens of farm and forest, each representing more damage even as it makes things more fit for humans. The best mines are huge boreholes that I often fail to use even when I’ve built a special project to unlock them early, because theylooklike such deep, invasive scars. Teeming with horrifying monsters as Planet is, I’m the invader here. What right do I have, really?
Humans have, of course, far more advanced technology on the new planet. Consequently, formerly lategame things like aircraft come out relatively early, as do “planet buster” missiles, whose very name discourages their use in the light of Planet’s rising sentience. Using one is visibly monstrous, gouging huge craters in the land and triggering a cascade of hostile mind worms even before you consider the diplomatic consequences.
Image credit:RPS/Firaxis Games/EA
Most unusually, even today, is howhelpfulallies can be. Truly aligned friends will actively aid you. I’ve had several games where my armies defended allied colonies while their leaders showered me with free technology without prompting, or I bankrolled an industrial power as they bombed our enemies. It encourages less gamey thinking. In my latest game, the socialist revolutionary Free Drones lagged hopelessly behind, and as my only contiguous neighbour would have been an easy conquest before the coming war with two other nascent superpowers who refused my alliances (excellently, the then-allied leader of the Pirates had asked me for 500 credits, and when I said I could only send 250, told me not to bother at all). But I gave them my entire research bank instead, bought, improved, and then gave their weakest colony back. Why? Well, grateful allies are more useful than subjects, but moreover… I’m the Data Angels, whose whole thing isn’t “information wants to be free”; it’s “make sure you free it in the coolest way possible”. I can’t crush the socialist workers. They’re good lads. And what happened? They came to reinforce me when the Pirates inevitably turned on us.
Image credit:RPS/Firaxis Games/EA
The whole game is like that really: a strong design extraordinarily balanced between complexity and comprehensibility, and I haven’t even got into how you can screw with your neighbour’s climate, or bully and bribe the UN council to enact policies that favour you. Because it’s the vibe that really marks it out today. I could recommend it as very sturdy design with loads of interesting details once you’re overthe deposit, but especially because it uses that model to explore ideas, to beaboutthings, to advance the genre in a way I still haven’t seen since.
