Alpha Centauri Game Download Mac

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Sid Meier 's Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire Expansion review. English: One of the reference 4X ('explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate') games. 7 human factions have landed on first planet of Alpha Centauri and must cooperate or compete with each other. Alpha Centauri 2 » Downloads » Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien. Category Name Total Files; SMAC Official Patches (windows) Patches for SMAC (the original game) 3: SMAX Official Patches (windows) Patches for SMAX (Alien Crossfire) 2: SMAC Official Patches (Mac) Patches for SMAC (the Mac release) 3: Title Views Downloads Filesize Date.

  1. Alpha Centauri Game Download Mac Full
  2. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Complete

Sid Meier, the man who came up with a little computer game called Civilization that became a PC gaming institution, has managed to reinvent the strategy game genre. For those unfamiliar with Civilization or its sequels, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri begins where Civilization leaves off: your colonists, last seen blasting off into space toward the nearest star, are now building a new civilization on a planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri. While Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri superficially resembles Civilization, the game incorporates such sweeping changes to the latter’s civilization-building model as to give this game a completely new feel.

Life on a New World

Alpha Centauri’s interface is reminiscent of Civilization, but with a more futuristic bent. (Click on the image to see a larger version.)

Alpha Centauri presents a complex view of the future. Those colonists, while en route to their new home, separated into seven factions. These factions are not based on arbitrary notions such as nationality, but rather ideology. The central crisis of the game is that each faction leader would like to see the new planet developed along their own ideological lines. As a player, you assume the role of one of these faction leaders and work to develop the virgin planet to your satisfaction, all the while attempting to buy, cajole, force, or even beat cooperation from your neighbors as you compete with them for the planet’s precious resources.

One of Alpha Centauri’s strengths is the amount of work that obviously went into the political models underlying the game. They show a sophisticated understanding of political and economic theory — while never losing the elegance and humor necessary for a good game.

Alpha Centauri allows you to select your government and economic types based upon all of those in the world today, and a few that have been suggested in literature. You might have a free-market democracy or you could have a centrally planned police state. Additionally, the economic system is treated separately from the political system, leading to wonderful combinations like free market fundamentalist states or planned economy democracies. Dozens of distinct paradigms are possible for organizing your people to face the threats of life on an alien world.

New Technologies, New Perils

Alpha Centauri has far more technologies and wonders to discover than those offered by the Civilization series. Many of these technologies come from science fiction, but others are taken from contemporary philosophy and the most advanced speculations of modern science. As developments like self-aware machines and superstring theory become available to your faction, the philosophies of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard seem to fight over new beliefs and their applications to the social fabric.

As the technology becomes more impressive, the timbre of the game becomes more frightening. Just as human equality and earthly paradise become possible, forces within the game conspire to ensure that you can control people more completely. Additionally, the game suggests that more and more control is handed over to machines and questions the viability of that option.

As in Civilization, you can produce both combat and non-combat units to perform basic tasks for your faction. However, Alpha Centauri’s method for pricing and creating units is far different. In Civilization, when you develop a new technology, a new unit becomes available at a fixed cost. In Alpha Centauri units are created using all available technologies–no one technology produces a totally new unit. For example, you can go to the workshop and select a new weapon type for your infantry, or new armor for your hovertanks. As you develop new technologies, new unit options become available. Each unit cost is based on a formula that values all options selected. Just like in the real world, new units have prototype costs, and using cutting-edge technologies or multiple functions carries a hefty premium.

Alpha Centauri’s graphics seem to have been chosen to accentuate players’ anxieties about the future. The game looks dark, with duller colors chosen for graphics and video clips.

Oh, yes, video clips. Alpha Centauri is a full multimedia experience, with movies that play upon completion of secret projects, aural feedback — the game talks to you — and user interfaces designed to move and beep for your entertainment. Older Macs will be slowed down by all of these features, but you’ve got the option of turning off most of the multimedia whiz and bang for quicker play. While the Windows release of Alpha Centauri has been criticized for its the dark colors and spartan graphics, I found the choices made in designing the game quite appropriate. Additionally, considering the game’s premises and ultimate goals, the color scheme and graphic design of the game work to stimulate the imagination and provide for an overall enhanced game experience.

You control the action with an easy-to-use on-screen console — quite a feat considering the complexity of the rules and the number of features under your control. While not perfect, and in no way Mac intuitive, the pop-up menu controls in the console window allow you to handle loads of data and options efficiently. Additionally, you rarely need to leave the console in order to play.

Macworld’s Buying Advice

Sid Meier has done it again. Alpha Centauri allows armchair diplomats the opportunity to manage a society. All of our world’s debates about government, economics, ecology, and research are addressed within the game, and it’s refreshing to not have any ideology presented as preferred or overly powerful. Alpha Centauri is well balanced, and ultimately becomes an interesting test of your own intellectual integrity. It’s also an extremely complex game and includes excellent reference material both in print and online, as well as tutorials. It isn’t hard to play, but it will take time to learn to play well. It’s simply the next generation of strategy gaming.

RATING:PROS: Engrossing sci-fi plot; addictive game play with both single- and multiplayer options; sophisticated and detailed social modeling. CONS: Level of detail may be overwhelming for players new to this type of game; rich multimedia features can tax older Macs. Company: Aspyr Media, Inc. (512/708-8100, www.aspyr.com ). LIST PRICE: $50.


A Quick Stroll Around Firaxis' Officesx-Com 3: Apocalypse Was Simply Described In Our July in Washington is enough to explain why Sid Meier chose to break his partnership with MicroProse and form his own company. As I w'alk from one office to the next it's interesting to see that everyone I meet is relaxed, happy and incredibly enthusiastic about their new project, Alpha Centauri. No one's in any hurry to get the game out the door and one and all cite the Firaxis philosophy that a game is only released when it's finished to their satisfaction and not before.

My first port of call is the office of Brian Reynolds, Vice President of Software Development. I asked him the question that a multitude of Civ fans have been asking PC over the last couple of months: Alpha Centauri, we all know it's going to be Civ in space, but is that it? Alpha Centauri is going to be much more than an upgrade to Civilization,' says Brian. 'One of the key changes from the original Civ game is the ability to design new units. An average ship with an average laser can be upgraded to use better lasers and better armour for example, making it much more efficient in battle. This will obviously come at a hefty cost of course, but you've got to offset the expense you'll incur against the advantages you'll gain during the game. You can also select a special ability, thus creating a sort of supervehicle as it were. There are 20 or 30 of these in the game at the moment but this may grow as we continue development. An example of the kind of special abilities at your disposal is the stealth option, which when selected will place a deep radar on your vehicle thus allowing that particular ship to move around the play area undetected.'

All change

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Click the Download Free Trial button above and get a 14-day, fully-functional trial of CrossOver. After you've downloaded CrossOver check out our YouTube tutorial video to the left, or visit the CrossOver Chrome OS walkthrough for specific steps. Alpha Centauri really shines in its depth. The well crafted story, admirable science-fiction world, fully realized scenario, and quality core gameplay are sure to please. In this sense, Alpha Centauri is at least as good a game as Civilization 2. But it is its great similarity that also does it the most detriment. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is a sci-fi strategy game for Mac. Main features: - Includes the Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire expansion. Great spin-off of the legendary Civilization series, in a refreshing Sci-Fi setting. Design your own units. Balance their speed, power, and toughness to suit your current tactical needs. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is the next generation of strategy games. Living in the 22nd century, players must fight for survival and forge a future for mankind in a hostile world. Alpha Centauri is the perfect balance of exploration, discovery, building, and conquest. The result is the most compelling and addictive strategy game in the industry. This is the latest official patch for the Macintosh release of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. This is the v1.5 update for Alpha Centauri for the Macintosh, developed by Aspyr Media (www.aspyr.com). Please note that Firaxis does not support this product; all sales and support of this product are provided by the publisher, Aspyr Media.

Alpha Centauri Game download free. full

The ability to create your own units will obviously change the way you play the game to a large extent, but Brian is very keen to stress that this is not the only major change in the game design: 'Although there were many different ways to achieve success in Civ 1 and II, the easiest way was to build up your military arsenal to the point where you could simply wipe out all the other players, and that's the way most people chose to play the game. You won't be able to do that quite so easily in Alpha Centauri. Many of the units will have psionic powers which will make it very difficult for players to take them out by normal means. This will encourage you to find other ways of gaining the upper hand over the opposition, be it through economical pressure, diplomatic use of alliances or whatever other means the player can find. I'm not saying players won't be able to win through military conquest, I'm just saying it won't be nearly as easy to do this as it was in Civilization I and 2. This should make for a much more challenging game.'

Fancy that, a peace 'em up from the makers of some of the most confrontational and violent games ever. Whatever next? How about throwing in a few elements of Populous to stir things up a bit? As it happens. Firaxis are about to do just that. Brian explains: 'Another really cool feature in the game is the ability to terraform. This allows the player to raise or lower the land as they see fit, depending on the situation at hand. You can use terraforming to your advantage in many ways. If for example you've got a mountain with rain on one side and desert on the other, and you don't like the fact that you've got a desert in that particular place, you can lower the mountains which will cause rain to fall on the other side of the mountains. This reflects real-life weather patterns, which is something we're particularly proud of. Another reason you might want to build a mountain is military units get a bonus if they're on high ground. This will take a few turns but it's worth it for the advantages it gives your army. For this reason terraforming near enemy lines is considered to be an act of war, so don't do it anywhere near races you've got alliances with, unless of course you want to break that alliance.'

There are far too many new features planned for Alpha Centauri for us to go into any great detail in two pages: we could fill these pages just by explaining the incredibly detailed unit building, which is so intricate you can mix and match components from all your different units to make completely new ones. Fear not however, as we'll give you the full gen when we returnto the project as it nears completion next year.

Alpha Centauri Game Download Mac
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  1. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Windows - 1999

Also released on: Mac

Description of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Windows

Read Full Description

On SMAC's official website, we learn of an unexpected reactor malfunction aboard the colony ship (christened U.N. Unity) that wakes everyone from cryo-sleep and damaged the communications equipment and contact with mother Earth is lost. The travelers splinter into 7 ideological factions and when Alpha Centauri is finally reached, each one grabs an escape pod and abandons the crippled ship. As leader of a faction of your choice, your goal is to colonize, explore, and expand-all in the fine tradition of '4X' space strategy games.

The basic gameplay is nothing new to fans of 4X games: build cities, explore the land, research new technologies, make peace or war with other factions. What makes SMAC an outstanding game as opposed to merely a 'good' game is the near-perfect play balance that fans of Civilization know and love. Each of the seven factions has unique advantages and disadvantages which offer excellent replayability. For example, if you play as Morgan Industries, your best strategy is to build your cities and avoid war in the early portion of the game until you can buy your way to the top with amassed fortune. In contrast, as the leader of the Spartans, you will want to attack early and often and avoid letting your neighbours build in peace.

Although SMAC inherits the very limited diplomacy model from Civilization 2, the strong economic, technology, and combat models more than make up for this weakness-so much so that you can win the game most of the time without caring too much about your diplomatic stance towards other factions. In addition to dozens of intriguing futuristic technologies you can research, there are also many sci-fi elements that liven up the game considerably. Not only must you deal with other factions, but you must also contend with the mind worms-- one of the planet's most lethal alien life forms. You will also come across parts of the U.N. Unity (which can contain anything from new units and technologies to more mind worms), and encountering strange alien monoliths which can have unexpected effects on your units.

SMAC also features an overarching plot, which develops by way of the 'Interludes from the Book of Planet' that are woven seamlessly into the game, giving it an excellent fantasy/sci-fi overture reminiscent of Ursula LeGuin stories. SMAC offers many possible conclusions, all of which are directly related to the ideology and goals of your faction, as well as actions you perform throughout the game.

With a strong AI, excellent play balance, virtually limitless replayability, and overall polish, SMAC is a true successor to Civilization 2 that deserves a permanent home on everyone's hard drive. In a welcome change from today's trend of flimsy manuals that are actually 10-page CD inserts, SMAC comes with an excellent 240+ page manual that does justice to the game's complex, yet accessible gameplay. Three alien thumbs up!

Review By HOTUD

External links

Alpha Centauri Pc Game

Captures and Snapshots

Screenshots from MobyGames.com

Comments and reviews

Tek2019-07-071 point

Alpha Centauri Game Download Mac Full

It probably used to be abandonware, but more recent a deal was struck with GoG for redistribution.

LeCarre2019-03-090 point

If I have to buy it on GOG then why is it on an Abandonware Site?

Write a comment

Share your gamer memories, give useful links or comment anything you'd like. This game is no longer abandonware, we won't put it back online.

Buy Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is available for a small price on the following websites, and is no longer abandonware. GoG.com provides the best release and does not include DRM, please buy from them! You can read our online store guide .

Other Releases

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Complete

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri was also released on the following systems:

Mac

  • Year:2000
  • Publisher:Aspyr Media, Inc.
  • Developer:Firaxis Games East, Inc.

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