GameSpot's Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Game Guide

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part 2

Chapter 5: Controlling Your Empire
Chapter 6: Terraforming
Chapter 7: The Art of War
Military Might
Unit Design
Chapter 8: Diplomacy
Chapter 9: Situational Awareness

Chapter 7: The Art of War

The Art of Unit Design (cont)

Artillery
Artillery units are outfitted with the heavy artillery special ability, letting them attack units and bases from two squares away. The act of bombarding will seldom destroy a unit by itself, but it does soften up defenses for a coming invasion. The true power of bombardment comes with sheer numbers. While one unit bombarding a city won't be very useful, four or more can really do some damage!

Blink Recon Battery
* 2-2-2
* Cost: 60
* Chassis: speeder
This interesting unit is built from the chassis of a speeder, allowing for a good movement rate over any terrain. Even at the later stages of the game, this is a valuable unit, if only because it is cheap to build. When it comes to artillery, armor isn't that important... sheer numbers is. It's for this reason that you should keep your artillery units sparse with weapons and armor, so you can build large armies of blink recon batteries. The more units you have bombarding a city, the more damage you will inflict.

X Recon Battery
* 2-2-3
* Cost: 110
* Chassis: hovertank
This peculiar unit packs quite a punch because it has an ace up its sleeve in the form of nerve gas pods (special ability). Made from a hovertank chassis, the X recon is not hampered by fungus, has bombardment capability, and can drop nerve gas any time you want, as often as you want. Nerve gas is a sure way to cut the population of a city by nearly half! Unfortunately, this counts as an atrocity, so make sure you're prepared for the economic sanctions that will be levied against you.

X Singularity Artillery
* 24-12-3
* Cost: 620
* Chassis: hovertank
Pricey, yes. Lethal, yes. Need an army of them? No. Just one is enough to cause the enemy fits. It is extremely difficult to kill because of the dense stasis generator shielding. It's punishing because of the singularity laser mounted on the hood and has a good movement rate, thanks to the hovertank chassis. This nasty creation bombards and can release nerve gas pods. This is one unit the enemy will not want to see coming.