I am an old 4x strategy ( and not only
) gamer , the SMAC ( alpha centauri and it's expansion ) is truly in my heart . If i were in a desolate place with one game to choose to play for an eternity i would choose this with no seconds thoughts.I have tried the modern ones too ( Endless space , Sins of solar empire , CIV5 , Stardrive , Sword of the Stars 1&2 ... and so on ) . The only game i have bought from Slitherine was the panzercorps and i had a real blast with it , accidentally when i was searching for news about this game i fell upon Pandora First Contact and you can imagine that was love at first sight . I read some posts about it and made a research ( i was going to buy it already though
) .I was eager to start my first playthrough with the Terra Salvum ( as the Gaians was my fav faction in SMAC ) , i choose medium difficulty , normal pace and random planet ( pangaia was what i encountered ) . I started at the south part of the map surrounded by forest ( that gave me an extra advantage in minerals from my factions special characteristics ) and i continued to build , improvise and colonize the southern part .. The interaction with the other factions was harmless so far , some denouncements from Lady vermillion ( i hate her so much as the believers and lady Miriam ) some trade pacts , scientific pacts , open border requests that i denied to all , the only faction that was really friendly to me and we had an alliance as i remember ( i am not sure about the alliance ) was the Togra University .. At the end of colonization era i realized as i was so focused with my own thriving world , that Solar Dynasty had wiped out by Imperium , from that point Lady Vermillion and Imperium started to wipe out the other two factions Noxium and Togra , it was a real blitzkrieg as the war reached my front lines too quick as these factions didn't resist so hard .. I had a hand full of military units , i was in scientific tech at good point and i could produce the same advance units as my enemies , i had a strong economy and i could buy lots of units everywhere . Unfortunately the end game meet me after some turns , my two most remote colonies fell easily while my capital an the other two major cities gave some real resistance but not enough to save me and to give me an opportunity to counter attack . The game ended with my eradication and the only happiness for me would be a war between Lady Vermillion and Imperium that never happened , they continued to praise each other ( grrrrrr...) , Imperium replaced my forest's ( as i was planting them everywhere ) with an industrial desert and i saw a message about the eradication of the whole alien life . Human kind is really a scourge .
The gameplay is very fast , i completed a whole playthrough in some hours , that's very good as the most 4X games are boring after a point sometimes . I never felt tired , always i had something to do and i was stressed out whole the time .
The AI knows how to fight , when war reached my door , enemy troops were invading all my cities instantly !! ( not like other game as *cough* CIV5 *cough* )
There is a distinct diversity between the factions , i assume in my next playthrough as Solar Dynasty i ll get another " feeling " with the extra pop grouth polution and so on .. Don't water down the characteristics of factions ( something i hate about other games is that the devs afraid all this about balance stuff and you end up to play the same game again and again and .... ) , I could imagine with some special policies , political options and agenta's ( that we have no here and i liked that in SMAC) , other bonuses or faction based tech's the game would get a boost..
For my tastes , the game has awesome graphics lacks some polishing that could add in the atmosphere , i would like other more " serious " portraits and names for the leaders ( Lady Vermillion and Lady Gardinier made me laugh , i couldn't immerse so much ) .. The factions are n't memorable , i have the impression that they are rushed waterdown versions of SMAC ( from SMAC i remember faces , icons , phrases .. a leader had his own personallity , Chairman Yang and Miriam were complete paranoid and aggressive ) .. I don't know maybe it's wrong to compare this game to SMAC but i make this comparisons to show what this game misses most , i don't want to be a modern copy of SMAC .
I liked very much the operations and some abilities that you produce and use on the map . That was a real blast . Aerial bombardment , Area reveal , Cloning etc ... that's awesome that you can produce some bonus " cards " to use later on ..
Anyway, i liked this game so much that i want to see patches , expansions , dlcs whatever could add more .. All these are in my " instant buy " list for me . I had more fun than Civ5 , the interface is awesome and i had n't noticed any bugs , glitches or crashes so far ..
The only thing that annoyed me was about the battle between the unit stacks .. when i was defending in my cities , the enemy was attacking with a tank i was defending with a flame infantry from my stack ( i had pulse tanks there too !) and that was the reason i lost , i think .. If this is true , that's a serious problem , if i am wrong in this , explain me how the battle between the stacks happens .. I noticed that i lost my cities so easily despite the fact that i had built the defence module , it was like i had n't any bonus from that ..
That is my first impression , i feel that there is so much potential about this game .. SMAC is still unsurpassed for me but i see this game as a true successor ..
For i have tasted the fruit - Prokhor Zakharov