Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is obviously intended as a sequel to his Civilization game, though some of the history has been modified, since the colonists' arrival at Alpha Centauri is now the starting point of the game rather than the winning condition. The ship is a multi-national effort built in an attempt to save at least some of humanity from the worsening conditions on Earth. While the planet to be colonized is introduced in the manual by its official name of Chiron, it is called Planet nearly everywhere else for reasons that aren't really made clear. Due to an equipment malfunction, the colonists awake mid-journey and begin an argument about the best methods to use when conducting their colonization effort. Communication with Earth was cut off by the same accident and the leader of the mission is assassinated, leaving seven leaders, each in charge of a faction based on a given ideology.
As a player, you take the role of one of the seven leaders, controlling that particular faction. Unlike Civilization where your choice of country does little more than determine the color of your pieces, your choice of faction is arguably the most important decision you make for a game of Alpha Centauri. Each faction has particular strengths and weaknesses, some of which are modifiers to one or more of the ten Social Factors, but they all have a particular special ability beyond that and some have unique penalties as well. Also, each faction has a personality which can affect the choices you make during the game, especially if you're playing in character. For instance, while nothing prevents Gaia's Stepdaughters from building solar collectors or mines, I consider it more in keeping with their goal of harmony with nature to rely heavily on forests.
Alpha Centauri's Social Engineering is much more complex and interesting than Civilization's government system. There are now only three choices for Politics beyond the starting default, but there are also three for Economics and three for Values and all can be changed independently. This gives 64 possible combinations in all, though each faction has one choice that they are forbidden from using, so only 48 of them are available at one time. If you play in character and take the recommended choice for your faction, this brings your options down to 12-16 combinations - still more than Civilization and the available ones are different for each faction.
I think the penalties associated with a Free Market Economy are rather severe when compared to those for the other options. All eight other non-default options give a +1 or +2 to each of two Social Factors and a -2 to a third while Free Market Economy gives a +2 to Economics, a -3 to Planet and a -5 to Police. I've tried using it and it is survivable, but it takes effort if you want to have any kind of offensive capability or even military units that can be used for exploration.
While they do have three Future Society choices beyond the starting default, none of them show up until late in the game. Depending on which victory condition you are trying for, you may only get one or possibly none of those choices. Even if you do get them all, you won't really have the chance to do much experimenting with them before the game ends. I've only used one of the three, counting all four games I've played in.
I like the Base Facilities. Some are obvious equivalents of Civilization ones, but many others are new. There are quite a few that have multiple benefits of different types, but there are also a couple with negative side effects that I prefer to avoid. The satellites are really nice, since they give resource bonuses to all bases you control, not just the one that built them. The Psi Gates, which allow units to teleport between bases seem to work on air and sea units as well as land, but they do have the problem that the technology prerequisite is so high that you don't get much, if any chance to use them. I like the Secret Projects, many of which have no equivalents in Civilization. Like the Wonders of the World in the previous game, it is a good idea to get as many of them as possible, to keep them out of the hands of your opponents, if for no other reason, though they are all worth points towards your score.
While there are pre-designed unit types for those who want to use them, Alpha Centauri also allows the player to design his own. Formers (that terraform terrain) and Colony Pods (that build bases) are now separate unit types and, while Colony Pods do cost population from the bases that built them, they do not require any nutrients to support. Both of these are nice improvements from the previous game. You can also now build aquatic versions of both, allowing bases to be built in water squares and ocean squares to be terraformed.
Unlike Civilization, anyone can upgrade obsolete units to a superior model, though it takes energy credits (the local form of currency) to do so and the superior model may need to be prototyped first. At Citizen level of difficulty (the easiest) there is no additional cost for the prototype as long as it is built normally in a base rather than gained by upgrading an old unit. At higher levels, it costs additional minerals to build a prototype, unless you have a Skunkworks Facility in that base or are playing the Spartans.
There is now a scale of unit morale from very green to elite. Though the combat bonuses are given as a percentage, there seems to be something wrong with their multiplication. If you look in the box that compares the two units involved, you may notice a 25% bonus tripling the attack value of your unit. The native lifeforms, whether wild or bred (or captured) by one of the factions, all use psionic combat rather than standard weapons. Eventually, one can learn how to add psionics to constructed units as well. Morale (or life cycle for native lifeforms) is essential to psionic combat, as the base value used is calculated independently of weapons or armor.
The clean reactor special ability for units can be invaluable, especially if your Support Social Factor is low, as it means the unit does not require minerals to support it. You can put it on pretty much any type of unit you build, if you want, as long as you don't need two other special abilities on that unit. Unfortunately, since they are still associated with a base, you may still have problems with drone riots if your Police Social Factor is low. This may be especially problematic if the game automatically assigns your combat units to use the newly captured base as its home, rather than the one that built it.
Native lifeforms cannot be modified, so they can't have clean reactors added. However, if you have a positive Planet Social Factor, you can capture wild ones. If you do so while exploring far from any of your bases, you may end up with quite a few that are Independent and don't require support of any type. Also, they have their own special abilities built in. All have psionics for both attack and defense much sooner than available to other units. (And the psi defense is hard to get the technology for.) The Isle of the Deep is the only unit in the game that can both attack (psionicly) and carry other units. While the Locusts of Chiron are not the only air unit that doesn't require returning to base to refuel, the gravship is one of those things that is hard to get soon enough to get much use out of.
Commerce is automatically set up between bases of any two factions that have a Treaty of Friendship between them, which can be nice. You don't have to send caravans to them or even know where they are. The drawback is that it automatically turns off again if you declare a Vendetta on each other. There are still Supply Transports, which can carry any type of resource either from one base to another or from a square outside a base to the base that controls it.
All the faction leaders sometimes get together for the Planetary Council. There are a variety of things on which they may vote. If you can, get yourself elected the Planetary Governor, as this gives you Commerce bonuses, as well as veto power in other elections. For leadership elections, you have a number of votes based on your population, though the Peacekeeper's special ability and two of the Secret Projects can modify this. Other votes are done by simple majority.
There are four different winning conditions. To win by Conquest, you must defeat all your opponents, however, they do have the option of surrendering to you instead of being completely wiped out. This is the victory worth the least amount of points, though I don't believe it's the easiest or fastest method. The Diplomatic victory requires that you collect enough votes on the council to get elected the Supreme Leader of Planet. However, if one of the other leaders really doesn't like you, he can refuse to submit, forcing you to wipe him out for a Conquest victory. For an Economic victory, you must spend an amount of energy credits based on the number and size of all bases you do not already control. Then there is a time delay for your opponents to attempt to thwart you by capturing or destroying your headquarters. The victory worth the most points is Transcendence. After one faction has completed the Voice of Planet Secret Project, any faction may attempt to build the Ascent to Transcendence Secret Project, even if they do not have the pre-requisite technology for Voice of Planet. Whomever completes the Ascent to Transcendence wins the game.
Overall, I would say that Alpha Centauri has enough similarities with Civilization that someone experienced in the previous game already understands the basics, except for the modified terminology. However, it also has enough differences that someone who is getting bored with Civilization will still enjoy Alpha Centauri. And it's independent enough that someone who has never even tried Civilization can still have fun and won't feel like he's missing some essential part of the game. However, I will warn that Alpha Centauri is just as addictive as the previous game, so don't buy it if you can't afford to spend huge amounts of time playing it.
This review previously appeared in Interregnum #32.