Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (sometimes abbreviated to SMAC or Alpha Centauri) is a turn-based strategic computer game created by Brian Reynolds and Sid Meier under the auspices of Firaxis Games in 1999. It is based on a fictional attempt by human beings to colonize a planet in the Alpha Centauri star system. It picks up where Meier and Reynolds' earlier title, Civilization II, left off. An expansion pack called Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire (aka SMACX or just SMAX) was also released.

According to the storyline of the game, Earth destroyed itself through war, famine and poverty, but before it destroys itself completely, the U.N. launches a colonization starship called "Unity". The Unity is destined for a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, thus the name of the game. This planet is very similar to Earth, and they hope that the people can establish a new colony on Alpha Centauri (generally just called "Planet" though the real name being "Chiron").
However, before the starship fully reaches Planet, 40 years into the journey, the Unity suffers a core malfunction and awakens many of the crew, who then proceed to fix the malfunction. Before they are done, however, the captain of Unity, Captain Garland, is assassinated by an unknown assailant. This causes the remainder of the crew to wake up.

When the assassination occurs, all of the crew panics. Seven leaders take up the challenge of leading a faction onto Planet by use of one of seven colony pods. Unity crashes onto Planet and the supplies spread everywhere. That is where the player comes in.

Within the game, the player assumes the role of one of the seven faction leaders and attempts to expand their colony and achieve victory. Players engage themselves in a race against the other factions, and are free to adopt any number of strategies in pursuit of their goal. Scientific discoveries within the game determine what technologies are available to particular factions, which in turn determines what facilities and units they can build at their colony bases. Alpha Centauri allows the player to fully customize units.

Alpha Centauri is open-ended and has multiple, customizable parameters for victory. The player can choose to work toward a victory based on diplomacy, economics, conquest, or transcendence.