Here's the idea

Inspired by the great 'Alice and Kev' Sims 3 diary and a couple of excellent Dwarf Fortress diaries, I decided it was about time I sat down and did a game diary for one of the best Turn-Based Strategy games of all time, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Anyone who has played the game will testify as to its amazing faction leaders, who are, for all their epic proportions, some of the most realistic-seeming characters I've encountered in a lifetime of gaming. This is due to the incredible amount of effort the development team put into the stories—and backstories—of these characters, even authoring an immense 90-page backstory that acts as a prequel for the game (and which delayed this blog post by a few hours as I sat around reading it).

The interesting character interactions, incredibly imaginative yet realistic-seeming research technologies, and the chaos and opportunities that come from the game's random events make every game of Alpha Centauri an amazing story, but often one that you've half-forgotten by the time the game ends, and would be long enough to talk even a dedicated fan's ear off if you didn't. However, I realized that doing a gaming diary for this game would be a perfect way to bring other people along for the ride as it was happening, giving them a chance to experience the joys and disappointments of life on Planet without having to learn a game whose main failing is that it requires a lot of experience to get along well in and hides all its secrets in massive, sprawling Datalinks files without ever really telling you it anywhere else. Notably, my friend Nathaniel has been playing this game for many years and is still unearthing obscure facts and quirks of the game he hadn't known before. Indeed, it was a long-standing inside joke of ours that Terraformers were able to move mountains, but somehow couldn't remove the rocks from "rocky" terrain to make it suitable for farms... then we found out that that's exactly what the "Terraform Level" command is for.

Anyway, having played quite a few Alpha Centauri games recently, even managing the difficult task of beating a game on Transcend difficulty (the highest) with Alien factions present (they are CHEATERS) I decided to think outside the box a little and come up with a scenario for this game diary that would be fun both to play and to read. I'm hoping for a game that will last long enough that I can attempt victory by Transcendence, which requires that you have researched basically every technology there is, so it's only possible in the late lategame, before which you've usually won or lost anyway. Therefore, I made my game on a Planet of immense proportions, custom-sized to be much larger than the largest the game reccomends by default. I also turned the ocean coverage down to Low, meaning that hopefully no faction will find itself crippled by being stuck on a tiny island, and will make wars a lot more interesting to read about than the "Spent 20 years shuttling my helicopters between sea bases before even reaching the enemy" that they can often be otherwise. Most interestingly, I've set the game to "Iron Man" mode, meaning that the game disables saving and loading except for when you exit the game, meaning that if my first colony pod gets eaten by mind worms... I guess I'll have to live with that. I'll admit, I did set the difficulty to "Thinker", (second-hardest) instead of Transcend this time—I want to be an underdog, not a doormat, and I've filled the game with a selection of really tough opponents. I'm sure you'll be hearing plenty about them as the game progresses.

Hopefully the most fun part will be trying to play as true to Zakharov's character as I can—the Academician has a brilliant intellect, but rather fails to grasp the nuances of so-called "emotions" and decidedly inefficient "ethics", as well as having somewhat awkward social skills. One can safely assume that these traits, combined with his faction weakness of having an increased number of rebellious citizens (known as Drones), will lead to a lot of amusing situations. The oft-considered but rarely-implemented Final Solution to a Drone Riot is the appalling practice of Nerve Stapling, which is considered an Atrocity by other factions and severely decreases your reputation with them. Given that Zakharov has a tiny bit more concern for the efficiency of his worker's research efforts than he does for their personal well-being, it's safe to assume that I might be doing a little bit of Nerve Stapling (pictured euphemistically at top right.) So I'll try to "play it straight" to Zakharov's character, refraining as much as I can from the usual metagaming one does after accumulating a large amount of experience. Despite my personal preference for a Build/Explore combo early on, I'll be keeping my research priorities set to purely "Discover" throughout the game, as that is Zakharov's default setting. However, I'll readily admit that my own sense of humor will doubtless creep into my characterization—"my" Zakharov will probably have a little more of the Mad Scientist to him than does the coldly logical version of the canon—but that's all for the... "good", right?

Hopefully I'll remember to avoid too much game jargon and inside jokes, but if you have any questions or comments, not sure what a Foil is or if using Nerve Gas Pods on a city is naughty or nice (one guess), feel free to make yourself heard in the Comments. Honestly, I'd be pretty amused to try and answer questions in-character if possible ("In an attempt to improve public relations, Provost Zakharov has begun a weekly vidcast answering mail from querulous Drones throughout the territories!") so if you have any ideas (strategic suggestions, names for bases or custom units, diplomatic advice...typos...) you think would make a good contribution to the story, let me know and I'll see what I can work in.

So I think it's about time we get this thing rolling and find out what fate the daring Academician, Prokhor Zakharov, has in store for him. Eaten by Mind Worms? Crushed beneath the combined armies of the Caretaker and the Usurper? Disintegrated in a tragic Supercollider accident? Buried beneath a rising tide of Drones? Will he finally reveal his true feelings for Colonel Corazon Santiago? What is the dark secret from his past that threatens to undo all he has worked for? Only time—and I—will tell!

See you Planetside!

—Zindaras