Editing Alpha Centauri (section)

== Spiritual Successors and Spinoffs ==

There will never be a sequel to Alpha Centauri because the intellectual property rights are a clusterfuck. But if you really want a spacey 4x game, there's still Galactic Civilizations 2, although unlike SMAC, GC2 is way, way, way the hell soft scifi and doesn't take itself seriously even for a moment (3 specific types of armor which only work for one weapon attack each, and space systems being completely intertwined in terms of distance-Failing Physics and Distance Forever).   On this subject, SMAC is noted for adhering to science, or at least throwing around sciencey sounding terms quite well.  Everything in the setting is just fudging with (then) current understanding of physics to do nifty things. Yes, even the psychic death worms who lay eggs in your brain. Because you can drill to Aquifer and make elaborate giant rivers to boost trade after raising a fuckhuge mountain, or make a series of hills and use the winds and the rotation of the planet to make natural rainforests. Or fuck it, build mega-sized rain condensers and echelon mirrors to channel rain and sunlight over the whole fucking continent to boost solar energy.

Alternatively, there's ''Civilization: Beyond Earth'', which is, if not a sequel, than at least a game built with the same creative DNA with some of the same concepts, minus the government civics, plus D.I.Y civ properties (from start to endgame, choose your own bonuses to adapt on the go). It's set in the future, when a deliberately-vague calamity (heavily implied to be climate change and a number of resulting wars and humanitarian crises that sprung out of it) has forced the human race to look to the stars for a new home. On top of the different national Sponsors (as follows: Suzanne Fielding of the American Reclaimation Company, genderbent Morgan, backstabbing corporate bitch; Samatar Jama Barre of the African Union, bro-tier leader, ironically built around food and population growth; Kavitha Thakur, Indian religious leader, mix of Miriam and Yang; Daoming Suchua, genderbent half-Chinese half-Cambodian version of Zakharov, crazy science output and INSTANT Wonder production(what the fuck gamebreaker, actually); Rejinaldo of Brasilia, male version of Santiago but also mixed with the badass Colonel Quaritch from Avatar; Élodie of Franco-Iberia, typical Eurotrash "nobility" snob but not to be underestimated if she starts stacking Culture to rapidly climb up the Virtue tree; Hutama of Polystralia, populist Australian politican with a faction built around the almighty dollar, beer and trade routes; and Vadim Kozlov of Slavic Federation, gopnik Russian representative, hybrid of Zahkarov and Yuri Gagarin (firm fan favourite). Expansion brought a space recycling expert, [[SJW|Hijabi Arabic Muslim woman of color]], pot-bellied, Scottish blue-collar marine engineer and a creepy little Korean savant faggot in a suit with a punchable face that will boil your blood the moment you see him. There is also Affinities to wrangle with.

Affinities represent different ideological approaches for human colonists on an alien world to get past the whole biochemical barriers thing. There's three: Purity is all about changing the planet to fit humans, which means [[Imperium of Man|rejecting xeno and transhumanist filth]] and blowing them to fuck with well organized armies toting big guns, [[Tau|battlesuits and floating tanks]]. Harmony is the opposite, changing humans to fit the planet, which means lame [[Avatar]] love-thy-xeno-neighbour shit - you domesticate the chittering bug monsters and [[Heresy|gene-splice them into your colonists' DNA]]. Its armies consist of lone wolves, units stronger when alone: weird bio-technology tanks along with bioengineered monsters and half-alien supersoldiers that shoot/breathe poison gas and heal with it; its super-elite unit being a LAB-GROWN KAIJU-SIZED ALIEN(actually admittedly that is kinda badass-plus its the strongest unit in the game). Finally there is Supremacy, which is about becoming [[Adeptus Mechanicus|cyborgs tied to each other via supercomputer nodes]] so you can be independent of the planet's biosphere entirely. Opposite of Harmony, its armies are individually weaker, but get stronger the more are next to each other and look sexy as hell which helps sell them.

Unfortunately, it's just a watered-down version of Civ V with all traces of character or complexity utterly stripped away, made even worse with the sequel where ALL DIPLOMACY IS SCRAPPED and turned to simple, predictable variables. [[Skub|It is a topic of heated discussion]] whether the new [[Noblebright]] setting is as fun as the [[Grimdark]] setting of Alpha Centauri.

There's also ''Pandora: First Contact'', which was quite good and let you shoot black holes at people, but which never really attracted much of a fan base, because while the gameplay was sort of there, the charm and character weren't and it's just kinda bland.