Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) was a very interesting title. It came about because Sid Meier lost his rights to the Civilization franchise for a period of time. Yet SMAC was considered the real successor to CivII rather than Civilization Call To Power because of the recognition and the genius of Sid Meier.
But SMAC was in its day quite divisive. Some Civ fans (self included) weren't able to get into the world with unfamiliar tech tree, obscure terrain features and the whole nomenclature of the game just being so... alien.
Now, granted it was likely the best sci-fi turn based title ever made but at the time us fans of Sid's work were really craving for a sequel to CivII and as a result SMAC received a somewhat lukewarm welcome. Likely undeservedly so.
For others who are more curious about Sid Meier's life in game design and development, the appropriately titled "Sid Meir's Memoir" (https://sidmeiersmemoir.com/) was an OK read that goes through everything from the founding of MicroProse, selling it to Atari, to founding Firaxis and a lot in-between.
I was disappointed that the book didn't have much to say about Alpha Centauri. I wish he would do a GDC postmortem for Alpha Centauri like he did for Civ 1.
I think in general the book isn't so much focus on the game design itself, sadly, but a lot of stuff around it.
However, is the whole "Back to the future" chapter basically about Alpha Centauri? Some time ago I read the book, but seems to be mentioned a bunch there: https://imgur.com/a/6d0U6oH
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Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) was a very interesting title. It came about because Sid Meier lost his rights to the Civilization franchise for a period of time. Yet SMAC was considered the real successor to CivII rather than Civilization Call To Power because of the recognition and the genius of Sid Meier.
But SMAC was in its day quite divisive. Some Civ fans (self included) weren't able to get into the world with unfamiliar tech tree, obscure terrain features and the whole nomenclature of the game just being so... alien.
Now, granted it was likely the best sci-fi turn based title ever made but at the time us fans of Sid's work were really craving for a sequel to CivII and as a result SMAC received a somewhat lukewarm welcome. Likely undeservedly so.
For others who are more curious about Sid Meier's life in game design and development, the appropriately titled "Sid Meir's Memoir" (https://sidmeiersmemoir.com/) was an OK read that goes through everything from the founding of MicroProse, selling it to Atari, to founding Firaxis and a lot in-between.
I was disappointed that the book didn't have much to say about Alpha Centauri. I wish he would do a GDC postmortem for Alpha Centauri like he did for Civ 1.
That's because he never had much impact on it (or Civs after the first one).
His name in the game title is just a brand, the lead designer for SMAC (and Civ II) is Brian Reynolds.
I think in general the book isn't so much focus on the game design itself, sadly, but a lot of stuff around it.
However, is the whole "Back to the future" chapter basically about Alpha Centauri? Some time ago I read the book, but seems to be mentioned a bunch there: https://imgur.com/a/6d0U6oH
I don't think he designed alpha centauri.
It’s the “Civ” game I probably most got into. Maybe because I was a bit ambivalent about earlier ones.