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To me, SMAC was the legtimate heir to Civ 2. Civ 3 was the pretender to the throne. Civ 3 had a ton of annoying features such as corruption, excessive city flipping and captured cities had all improvements destroyed. It also had low-production values, they cut corners on things like wonder movies.

SMAC on the other hand was well-balanced, innovative and a logical extension of Civ 2. The story (there actually is one), takes place after the Unity Spaceship (the one you sent from earth after winning the space race in Civ 2!) arrives in the Alpha Centauri system. Factions break out after disagreements between the new colonists and they are segregated by ideology and philosophy rather than the usual race and language.

The symbiotic relationship between man and the planet was dealt with very simply in civ. Man creates pollution, man has to clean it up of face the consequences. The Planet in SMAC reacts to human development by sending hostile swarms of locusts, mindworms and sea creatures. Factions can either choose to fight them off or to harness them for their own use.

Another interesting feature is the way players can actually customize their own units. In civ, each technology grants you a standard unit. In SMAC, each technology grants you an advance in one aspect of a unit ie: armor value, attack value, movement...etc. There are also many 'special abilities' that can swing the tide of battle and are a welcome break from the attack vs defence value battle resolutions.

To summarize: SMAC is a finely balanced game, with high production values (many of the wonders are worth building, just to watch the movies) and a worthy successor to Civ 2. I play Civ 4 regularly but occasionally load SMAC just to remind myself that gameplay is so much more important than fancy graphics and a whole host of unecessary features. SMAC and its expansion are both worth getting at the discounted price. It also makes a really good present for those hardcore gamers who yearn for the good old days of turn-based strategy games.

The winner is the faction that achieves one of a few goals, including killing/conquering all of the other faction leaders' troops/bases; making a lot of money (or Energy, as it's called); and discovering everything there is to discover, science-wise. Obviously, the ideal party to do this is yours, but some very good AI, in the form of your opponents, thinks otherwise.

There are lots of things to tinker with while you're playing, my favourite being the Workshop, where you can create entirely customised units to serve you with the technology you have at your disposal. This can add a whole new level of fun to the game if you have plenty of technology and a mind as demented as mine.

The multiplayer mode supports many different methods of inviting your friends to join the fun, from taking turns at a single keyboard (hot-seat, as we call it in the Loop) to connecting via the internet to your opponents. If you're the kind of person who likes the odd quick multiplayer game, though, look well away from the multiplayer option in THIS game. Strategy games like this can take hours to play, though, if you're prepared to give up so much of your life, you'll be happy to do so because this game, for want of a better term, rocks.

The sound is amazing in places, although the music (or, rather, the lack of music) annoys me. This hasn't reduced the score I'm giving it because it can easily be sorted out by listening to your own music (run Winamp in the background or put on a CD).

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is a great game... IF you're into this kind of thing. I'm praising it a lot here, but thats because I find fun in commanding fictional armies and playing around with features/options. Want a quick action-packed funfest? Go away. Want an involving, addictive and very very cool strategy game? 5 out of 5.