S.M. Alien Crossfire - by Griffin Bain
Griffin Bain on 20/6/2009 at 15:50
Any of you guys play alpha centauri alien crossfire on windows XP. Was it hard to get working properly or not. Is it worth editing the .ini and getting the XP patch to play the game?
On another note, what are some happy moments playing regular alpha centauri. Mine was playing it while in college and actually stopping and thinking to myself, "would I be cut out to live on a new planet as one of the first colonists?"
demagogue on 20/6/2009 at 17:23
I don't know about Crossfire.
Two memorable moments I have from playing Alpha Centauri are
1. Sending out patrols and guiding them through unknown territory. I really had the feeling I was ordering those guys out to probable death as they roamed the harsh and hostile unknown landscape, full of mortal dangers at every turn.
And 2. Of all the unsettling activities the colonists would get involved in, the one that got to me the most was the psychological warfare, distorting and subverting the very thoughts and dreams of your enemies, so their own psyche turns on them and attacks them from within. Really chilling way to fight.
Slasher on 20/6/2009 at 22:22
"INDIGENOUS LIFEFORMS"
*Scout Patrol explodes*
Some of my favorite moments were using Probe Teams to drain energy credits from another faction then implicating a third faction as the culprit. I'd have a bunch of Planet Busters on hand in case I got caught red handed and started to lose the conventional war against both new enemies. Scorched Planet policy and all that.
Speaking of WMD, the conventions against them don't apply to the two alien factions in Crossfire. If you're at war with them you can equip your units with VX gas or whatever it is and get a +50% combat bonus in every engagement with them. Just be sure you deny permission to use it against human opponents unless you like permanent Vendetta and sanctions and all that. Cruel, but life on Planet can be that way.
SubJeff on 21/6/2009 at 01:23
I loved all the psuedo-intellectual stuff in it, and all use of all the famous quotes and the cutscenes. I enjoy the first 2 hours of every game more than the rest of the game though - the management gets to be a bore and automating terraformers seems to give substandard results.
Nameless Voice on 21/6/2009 at 01:28
I don't know much about Alien Crossfire, since I tried it once and didn't like it (the new factions felt stupid and unbalanced to me), but I've never had any real trouble running Alpha Centauri in Windows XP.
It does love to set the colour depth to 256 colours at 1024x768, which is annoying, but you can always manually set those back (starting two copies simultaneously and then quitting one is the most efficient way).
Silkworm on 21/6/2009 at 02:49
SMAX is still my favorite game ever, I play about one full game a month, depending on my schedule.
Yes, you can easily get the game to run on XP: (
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=184375)
I strongly recommend #18 and #22
Tip: don't build any eco-damage controlling facilities (ie Centauri preserves) in your bases until AFTER you get your first fungal pop...as a matter of fact, try to FORCE a fungal bloom
on purpose and
then build them. This is by far the most efficient way to deal with ecological damage. If done properly, you can go through the entire game without any negative effects on the planet and still have maximum industrial output even with an industrially powerful faction (ie the hive or - my favorite - the Drones).
Renzatic on 21/6/2009 at 03:11
I've only recently come to it. Despite it's age, I love it easily as much as any game I've played recently.
I'm only 4 days in and have yet to truly complete a game yet. But even with my limited experience, I can see the breadth and scope of it all is just incredible. I can easily see this as being a game I play on and off again for months to come.
Chuck on 22/6/2009 at 04:09
Quote Posted by Renzatic
I've only recently come to it. Despite it's age, I love it easily as much as any game I've played recently.
I'm only 4 days in and have yet to truly complete a game yet. But even with my limited experience, I can see the breadth and scope of it all is just incredible. I can easily see this as being a game I play on and off again for
years to come.
Fixed that for you.
Griffin Bain on 22/6/2009 at 21:25
I got it working excellent now. It is amazing, but whenever I play it lose track of time. But I'm going to try to play a little bit every night but not for like 4 hours unless I am rewarding myself. I am playing as the spartans but am trying to keep everybody happy and off each others back because huge wars keeping breaking out and I could give them a run for their money but it just takes so dang long, so I want to explore and grow my colony. I think when I replay it I will try as the drones. I usually let the factions fill in randomly, this way it seems more realistic abnd I like when the old and new factions mix. It was worth it . . . . and I got it in a bargin bin with 3 other games a few years ago . . . . discovering crossfire now is like finding a free game behind a bookshelf. (I played regular before because it didn;t need patching)
