Beginners' Strategy Guide for Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire

[bvanevery]

Can I suggest posting the details of these games as an After Action Report, in the forum for that?  I know that trying to formulate a concise question can be complex, but this is getting beyond what would be a "beginner's guide" for anyone else coming here.  Or if you think it's more of a question than a report, just post some thread about your ongoing games, and hopefully someone (like me?) will try to answer.

Free tip: the key to getting rid of unwanted Alien factions, is to nerve gas them.  You need High Energy Chemistry for that.  Because they are aliens, there are no UN consequences for committing minor atrocities against them!  Nobody imposes sanctions.  If you aren't getting along with aliens, commit genoicde.  Just be sure to wipe them out before they get nukes, so that they don't nuke you.  Also, don't nuke them.  That's a major atrocity and even if you've voted for "UN Atrocity Prohibitions Lifted", using a Planet Buster on someone will still get you kicked out of the UN and all human factions going to war with you.

Also be advised that as long as there are aliens in the game, you cannot do a Diplomatic Victory.  So that's another incentive for racism.

[Kurvivor]

So, i decided to try being Yang. Nerve stapling drones, trying out base crawl, bullying weaker factions... the works
That caused several questions:
1) I have only used nerve stapling once... i mean, once when there weren't solar flares and atrocities weren't permitted. However, it seems my integrity just kept on plummeting. Why though?..
2) Is there anything wrong with supporting units for minerals? All that mineral production has to go somewhere - why not into military might? It is not like there are many facilities that need support or any energy income anyway. So: why not pump out units until they cannot be pumped out anymore?
3) Does provoking Vendetta by probe operations lower integrity? Not like it matters much, as my integrity is Wicked already. But i am curious
4) can marine units invade from land into adjancent sea bases? There are pirates that need spanking, but it would take a long time for my Death Fleet of missile marine cruisers to get to them...

Also: that feel when you are about to take Sparta commands with mindworms...

[bvanevery]

1) I have only used nerve stapling once... i mean, once when there weren't solar flares and atrocities weren't permitted. However, it seems my integrity just kept on plummeting. Why though?..

I don't think they have anything to do with each other.  Your integrity is about dicking over others in negotiations.

Nerve stapling is one of my least used features of the game.  Sure it was neat as an atmospheric when I was first playing SMAC, but I don't see it as having any play mechanical advantage.  In terms of mouseclicks, it's not better than clicking on a tile to remove a worker and turn them into an "Elvis" (Civ II term).  Sometimes there isn't enough food to do that, but often a building can be completed before citizens actually starve.  Sometimes a citizen starving is acceptable - how are the economic penalties of nerve stapling better than that?  If I must prevent a whole lot of starvation, I just cycle through turns of losing food up until hunger would set in, then making everyone work so that some food is gained.  This triggers a drone riot next turn, but typically enough food is gained to hold off the starvation.  So you can have drone riots every 2nd turn and keep doing that indefinitely in many cases.

Nerve stapling might be useful if everyone is at war with you anyways.  Economic sanctions are meaningless at that point, you aren't making any money from people at war with you.  Somewhat ditto the nukes.  If everyone hates you and it won't change, then you might use them... if you don't mind flooding and mindworms, which can be problems.  But these are all late game considerations, and by that point in the game, you probably don't need nerve stapling to get anything done.

2) Is there anything wrong with supporting units for minerals? All that mineral production has to go somewhere - why not into military might? It is not like there are many facilities that need support or any energy income anyway. So: why not pump out units until they cannot be pumped out anymore?

If a mindworm, or faction you are at war or Truce with, steps onto a tile that is responsible for providing you minerals, it will block your access to the minerals.  If you don't have comparable minerals available somewhere else, your minerals can drop into negative numbers.  Then your units will disband, until minerals is 0 again.  So you want to be very careful about pushing to the bottom of your minerals.  The rules for which unit is disbanded are not completely random, it has something to do with the order they appear in the support column.  But you could lose expensive units that way, or tactically valuable units.  Ever had a Transport disband that was carrying an Artifact home?  I replayed that turn.

If you commit all your minerals to military units, you will not have any productivity left for building anything substantial, like a Secret Project for instance.  A "Secret Project producing city" should have a lot of minerals and NO units that require extra support.  Once past the early game I think it is a good idea to keep your capitol free of any extra support requirements.  Many Secret Projects are best when they're built in your capitol.  This also requires committing to where your capitol is going to be in your empire over the long haul.  You want maximum efficiency from things like The Merchant Exchange.

In the beginning of the game, it's not a given that you're going to be able to afford having Command Centers, Naval Yards, or Aerospace Complexes in every city.  It is more practical to have a few cities with a lot of minerals production that have those training facilities in them.  Send the units out to other cities, and reassign their support to those cities.  That way your "training center" productivity remains high and doesn't stop being able to produce units.  In the early game I usually build all my garrison units from one Command Center.

If you are "vapor locked" with too many military units to support, and you suddenly discover that you need to build Happiness facilities to keep your civilization working, you're going to have a hard time without the minerals to do it.  In the worst case you may get drone riots.  In the worst worst case, rioters can destroy your city improvements, or your city can even join another faction!

So no, minerals are not a "free ride".  You need to decide what to do with them.

3) Does provoking Vendetta by probe operations lower integrity?

Nope.  Probe Teams have no official existence.

4) can marine units invade from land into adjancent sea bases?

Absolutely, and it's the best way to clear out coastal pests.  The AI is completely stupid about fighting back.

Also: that feel when you are about to take Sparta commands with mindworms...

Oddly, Deirdre did it with a Quantum Tank.  Rather non-Green of her.

[Kurvivor]

Exactly how much must one tick off AI to get nuked?
In my last game i have been crinding against nuclear-armed Pirates for some time. However, even when we went to war under border disputes ("you get off my land - no you first - i will not but you must - VENDETTA") he kept being polite (for a given value - he mentioned distracting me from torturing my subjects and such) and did agreed to a truce once i switched of Knowledge to Power.

[Kurvivor]

I have had a remarkably frustrating and unsatisfying experience recently. My PC is not very well, and good ol' AC sometimes slows down to crawl. As in: i have time to go for a drink during enemies turn and next five minutes i am clickng through various announcements. And sometimes game just crashes

I have been playing a fairly long iron man game as Yang, on the map of "terraformed Mars". I have been doing quite well for myself, and game would have been fun.... and it was for a time, until
1) it got kind of bogged down in management of the empire - build queues, manual terraforming, notification about all the things and the like
2) i have just lost around 10 turns wirth (or more) after loading the save by accident and losing autosave

Never again. I was several turns from the Transcedence! I was building units that cost more then majority of secret projects!
with no willpower to play those turns again, i just voted myself into victory, which i have been able to for quite a time...

Lessons learned: no reason to try Iron Man game ever again
Is ther a way to have 2 or 3 or 5 autosave files?

[Buster's Uncle]

There are - all those numbered autosave files under the current turn one are previous turns.  They do skip more and more turns as the number goes up...

[Kurvivor]

I have had but a single Autosave file in "auto" forder for quite a time. I do not know the reason. I thought i have messed things up and set number of autosaves to 1 somehow. Maybe tha's effect of "Iron man"?

[Buster's Uncle]

Maybe - I've never tried Iron Man.