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Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

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Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri cover
Developers
Firaxis Games
Mac OS (Classic) Aspyr Media
Linux Loki Software
Publishers
Electronic Arts
Mac OS Aspyr Media
Linux Loki Software
Release dates
Windows February 12, 1999
Mac OS (Classic) February 2000
Linux August 2000
macOS (OS X) January 24, 2013[1]
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri guide on StrategyWiki
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri on Wikipedia

Warnings

The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.

General information

Official Website
alphacentauri2.info - Active Alpha Centauri modding, patching and multiplayer community. Perhaps the last on the web.
Civilization Wiki - A detailed wiki for all Civilization games and their spin offs
Apolyton Civilization Site's Alpha Centauri section - A huge forum dedicated to all Civilization games and their spin offs.
GOG.com Community Discussions
GOG.com Support Page

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
DRM-free
The game will run without the CD if you have performed a full install. SecuROM DRM otherwise.
Windows
Mac OS
Linux
GOG.com
DRM-free
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Origin
Origin
Windows
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack includes the base game and the Alien Crossfire expansion

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire Included with Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack.
Windows
Mac OS
Linux

Essential improvements

In-game general settings.
In-game general settings.
In-game advanced settings.
In-game advanced settings.

Patches

The GOG.com version already has the official patches, but you should strongly consider installing an unofficial patch.

Unofficial Patches

The original .exe is filled with exploits and prone to crashing. The patches below will fix the vast majority of crashes and bugs.
  • Yitzi's patch (SMAX only) - Built on kyrub's SMAX patch and yitzi's patch, and contains even more fixes. v3.4 includes PlotinusRedux's PRACX graphical patch, but you need to install PRACX separately as it wasn't packaged properly.
  • kyrub's patch (SMAC, SMAX version not recommended) - Aimed primarily at improving AI performance but also fixing some bugs. SMAX version has only minor AI improvements and is superseded by Yitzi's patch.
  • scient's patch (SMAC and SMAX) - Fixes bugs, crashes and exploits and includes text file improvements.

Recommendation: You should install Yitzi's patch if you're using SMAX and either kyrub's or scient's if you're using SMAC.

Yitzi's patch breaks backwards compatibility for alphax.txt. If you use old scenarios that require a custom alphax.txt this means that you may need to manually move the changes over. This will not be a concern for most users. Not using Yitzi's patch means that some newer scenarios and custom alphax.txt will not work for you.

To use any patch, extract the zip file into the installation folder and overwrite the existing files.

The patches' AI improvements won't make the AI too hard for new players, and instead aim for a reasonable level of challenge at "Librarian" difficulty. Tweaks mostly involve teaching the AI how to do not-terribly without cheating.

Patches are primarily developed on the Alpha Centauri 2 forum.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Mac OS (Classic)
Linux
It's unknown whether this game follows the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux. Please fill in this information.

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\saves[Note 1]
macOS (OS X) ~/Library/Application Support/GOG.com/Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri/saves
Mac OS (Classic)
Linux

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin

Video settings

In-game audio/video settings.
In-game audio/video settings.

Template:Video settings

Widescreen resolution

Try PRACX, a modified renderer for Alpha Centauri with a number of other improvements. v1.06 is included in version 3.4 of Yitzi's Unofficial Patch, but lacks an essential file and won't work properly unless you've already installed PRACX. You should probably install PRACX separately from its release thread. PRACX Release Thread. PRACX Source Code

PRACX + Official Alien Crossfire doesn't work, you need to install an unofficial patch first. Yitzi's 3.3 patch has been tested to work.

Edit Alpha Centauri.ini[citation needed]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Open Alpha Centauri.ini.
  3. Add DirectDraw=0 under [Alpha Centauri]
  4. The game will now run at your desktop-resolution

Input settings

Template:Input settings

Audio settings

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
German
GOG.com version is English only. German text/audio/video files have to be copied over from the retail version. Due to game values and display texts being in the same file, many unofficial patches will overwrite German retail files.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
Hot seat
Requires the v2.0 Update or later.[2]
LAN play
7
Online play
7

Issues fixed

The game hangs

Try the latest copies of Yitzi or kyrub's patches.

Otherwise, might be related to a bug with automated artillery units (though I think Yitzi might have fixed this one sometime). Try turning off automation and see if it helps. More info here.

AMD/ATI compatibility

GOG.com recommends using Catalyst 13.4 or earlier but the game also works with 14.x or earlier.

Other information

API

ExecutablePPC16-bit 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Mac OS (Classic)

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95, 98
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 133 MHz
System memory (RAM) 16 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 60 MB
Video card (GPU) 2 MB of VRAM
macOS (OS X)
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 10.6.8
Processor (CPU) 1.8 GHz
System memory (RAM) 512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 2 GB

Notes

  1. When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References