GameSpot's Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Game Guide

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part 1

Chapter 1: Exploration
Chapter 2: Infrastructure
Chapter 3: Research and Development
    Paths to Dominance
    Explore
    Discover
    Build
    Conquer
    Secret Projects
Chapter 4: Military Fundamentals

Chapter 3: Infrastructure

Labs
Labs are the lifeblood of your research. The more output coming from your labs, the faster you research new technologies and secret projects. The amount of your lab output is directly related to how much energy each of your cities is producing. Low output means it will take significantly longer to make breakthroughs. It is for this reason, especially at the outset of a new game, you generate as many energy credits as possible. Tweaking your social engineering and adjusting the output of psych, economy, and labs is covered in great detail in Chapter 5.

NOTE

You'll find references to secret projects in the following section. They are world monuments that confer great bonuses on the first faction to build them. Secret Projects are unique buildings. Secret projects, though incredibly beneficial, require a tremendous amount of minerals to build, sometimes taking 10-15 times longer to build than regular base improvement. You'll find more about them at this end of this chapter.

Paths to Dominance
There are so many routes to take in research that nailing down a set path is next to impossible. What research you want or need to engage in is usually dictated by the atmosphere of the game you find yourself in. For instance, if you start the game near a rather irate neighbor, channeling your insight into conquer research will be extremely important. On the other hand, if you begin the game secluded from the opposition, you may want to forsake conquer research until later in the game and focus your energies on build and discover research. Let's take a look at each of the four categories of research and see how they evolve and what they offer the player. Full details on every technology and secret project can be found in the reference section.

NOTE

Every technology has a level rating indicating the category of research and what level it is. E1 means Explore Level 1, meaning this is the first step in the Explore path, leading to E2.

Explore
Explore is the gateway to mobile units and terraforming. Without research into Explore, you'll never develop formers or wheeled military units. Considering that formers are vital to a burgeoning city, focusing on this field of research is extremely important in the early stages of the game.

Centauri Ecology (E1)
This is one of the first technologies you want to research. It allows for a new unit, formers, and a new unit add-on, the terraforming unit. As with every technology, Centauri Ecology opens the gateway to other areas of research - in this case, the secret project Weather Paradigm and technologies such as Ecological Engineering and Centauri Empathy, all of which make your empire slightly more Planet friendly.

Doctrine Mobility (E1)
Everyone needs wheels, and this is the starting point. If you happen to start a new game, and you're perilously close to a rival faction, researching Mobility should be your first priority, as it will allow for the construction of the speeder land unit and the command center base improvement, additionally opening up a new research avenue to Doctrine Loyalty and Doctrine Flexibility.

Next: Discover & Build