Chapter 15: Multiplayer Strategies
As intriguing and challenging as Alpha Centauri is as a single-player game experience, the entire atmosphere changes when you add other humans to the mix. Played over the Internet or LAN, Alpha Centauri lets up to seven human players engage in a game. Suddenly, diplomatic discussions carry significantly more weight. The question of who to trust and who not to turn your back on becomes considerably more murky. This chapter will guide you through the setup concepts that affect the flavor of the game as well as in-depth strategies to overcome human opposition.

Setting up a Multiplayer Game
When hosting you own multiplayer game, you should take the time to consider the many options available. How you set the game up will have a big influence not only on pacing, but also on the activities all the human players can engage in.

Number of Players
The number of players can have a big impact on the game. While Alpha Centauri is perfectly balanced for seven factions, any and all of which can be human or computer controlled, you should consider how this affects the length of the game. If you're in the market for a short game, having seven factions is not the way to go about it. Instead, for short and fun play sessions, bring the number of players down to four or lower.

Planet Size
The larger you make the planet, the longer the game will take. If your game is just going to be you and another human, select the small planet and four players for a balanced play session. Planet size can greatly affect early game conflict. Selecting a tiny planet could create some tense early game situations and some quick skirmishes. While this could create exciting games, it could also create huge disadvantages for some human players stuck in the middle of several computer-controlled factions who ally together. Larger planets unusually mean that contact and conflict will occur much later, giving you more time to build up defenses or advance through the technology tree.

Simultaneous Moves
This is an important feature that really affects the flow of the game. Under normal circumstances, when Simultaneous moves is off, each player will engage in his turn, move his units, engage in research, and so on. When he's done, he clicks End Turn and play moves to the next player. For games with two or more human opponents, set Simultaneous Moves on. This lets each player play the game at the same time, virtually making Alpha Centauri a real-time game with no turns. This is a great way to speed up the flow of the game and make it infinitely more enjoyable. The alternative is that every player will have to wait his turn, transforming the game into a long waiting session with only intervals of real playing time.