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[vv221]

Okay, time to introduce myself!

I'm vv221 or vv222 on the Web, dave, vv222 or "sale pute" on IRC, dave on my computer, Antoine, Hippie or Jesus in real life, 23 y.o., and a real SMAC freak.

How I happened to come here?
It all started a little bit more than a week ago…

*read in a strong, deep voice*

I went to a friend's place and we began a Civ5 hotseat after trying to start an Endless Space one and realizing it doesn't have that essential feature.
But I thought I would soon turn bored, and made a proposal: an alternation between two hotseat games. No need to say which game I choose, I guess?

Only a slight thing was disturbing my friend about SMAC: I had only an English version at my disposal.
So, I went to work and realized a full translation pack (the only one including tranlation of movies that I know).

This work took me such time I decided when it was done to share it all over the Internet, so I DuckDuckWent "alpha centauri forum" and started to post links to my pack here and there.

But there was something that happened here and didn't elsewhere: I've been warmly welcomed!
It turned me into lurking a bit over the forum, and I realized I was in a place I had never ever dreamed of: an ACTIVE Alpha Centauri community! Not a Civilization one with bits of SMAC here and there, but a truly, fully dedicated to SMAC community…

Now that I'm here I realize it is not the first time I come to alphacentauri2.info, but I think I only went before through the Downloads section and the Wiki, not even realizing there was a real active forum here.

I'm playing Alpha Centauri since something like 2001~2002, and it is with no doubt my all time favourite.
Not only the best 4X I've played, simply the BEST VIDEO GAME EVAR!!1!

I think I'm the kind of SMACer you don't see everyday: the GNU/Linux user one
I started with SMAC on a Windows 98 or XP (can't remember exactly), with a French CD version, and soon bought the expansion pack for even more fun.
When I switched to Linux around 2008, I discovered that there has been a Linux native version published by the now defunct Loki publisher, and did everything I could to find a copy. When I understood there was no way I could buy it from anywhere, I resorted to *cough*find*cough* it by other means…

Geek as I am, I even turned it into a Debian package (now two packages, one for the English version and one for the French one).

Now here I am, and here I intend to stay!
It's quite cosy here, isn't it?

[sisko]

welcome to ac2, vv221! this place is yours too 

[KingCrimson]

Hey! I'm KingCrimson. I've been making use of the AC2 wiki for absolutely ages, but for some reason I only discovered the forum today.

So glad to see such a vibrant and helpful community still revolving around this amazing game. I'm a huge fan of the work Kyrub and Yitzi have put into improving it - between them they've addressed 90% of the things that sometimes dampen my enjoyment of the game.

Looking forward to being a part of the community here.

[Buster's Uncle]

Your second post makes it unmistakable that you're one of us.    Welcome.

[filippe999]

Hi everyone i'm filippe999 real name Filippe(spoken like Phillip) and i found out about this forum while looking around for tips and tricks for the game and googling for mods.
What made me buy the GOG version of the game at last was the announcement of the Beyond Earth civ game, that looks a lot like alpha centauri would be, although i'm yet to finish my first game , i choose Zakharov because he looks a lot like Zaphod Beeblebrox from Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy series, read all books and loved the series, plus i'm a "techy" guy in most strategic games, but in alpha centauri, although i'm playing as the university i have single-handedly exterminated the human hive, the spartans and the morgan corp, now i'm going for the believers and thank god i got the hunter-seeker algorithm, BTW those cinematics just give a great feel to the game,(the one on the neural amplifiers was slightly disturbing).
What are good tactics to employ as the university? so far i have failed miserably to keep other leaders happy during diplomatic negotiations and the small pieces of text you have sometimes as the leaders is another thing that adds the immersion and makes the game much more awesome in general(i just had the one where the leader undergoes gene therapy for cell rejuvenation and dreams of the fungae lifeforms calling him in his dreams).
Loving the game so far and i hope to find someone to play online with here, this definitely a game setup worth burning and storing in physical medium as well as my personal game repositery

thanks filippe999

[DrazharLn]

Hello and welcome, vv221, KingCrimson and Filippe!

@vv221,
Where might I find your debian packages for SMAC?

@Filippe
What difficulty are you playing at? Above Librarian the AI can be unreasonably aggressive. As for strategy for the University, other players will be able to help you out more. I just wing it every time. Yitzi seems fairly confident with strategy advice.

Talking of whom, you might want to consider using one of the patched binaries for the game. They fix loads of bugs and add a load of new features for modding. Kyrub's patch even makes the AI a lot smarter (which is something you want even as a new player, just play on a lower difficulty if you need to).

Kyrub's patch is for Alpha Centauri (terran.exe), Yitzi's is for Alien Crossfire (terranx.exe). There's a project in the works to port the original game to the new engine too, so that we can unify modding effort on one version.

[Yitzi]

Yitzi seems fairly confident with strategy advice.

Well, depends on the details.  I'm not that experienced, so my advice is unlikely to be as good as someone with a lot of experience like Earthmichael...but if nobody has experience (e.g. the current GotM), my advice might be more useful.

As Zak, I would try to grab the Virtual World, and not be afraid to set some energy to psych to help with the drones.

[Buster's Uncle]

I would like to see more conversation in Theory of Everything, BTW.  We do well for serious heavy talk, but I would like to see more newb questions and casual "Which faction would YOU have joined"-type chatter topics.  I've had a few SMACers tell me we seem too hardcore for their blood. 

[vv221]

Hello and welcome, vv221, KingCrimson and Filippe!

@vv221,
Where might I find your debian packages for SMAC?

PM'd you about it
(maybe twice, I'm a bit tired)

[DrazharLn]

Received (twice). Thanks, vv221.

[Ultimatum]

Hi,I'm Ultimatum,I found you guys after searching for this game(which I brought from Gog.com)

Anyway,I'm a Believer player and today I achieved my first  transcendence victory!(Took me awhile though!)

[Vishniac]

Cool name, Man! 

[Ultimatum]

Thanks

[Geo]

What's the... ah... ultimatum?

[Ultimatum]

Give me your technology or else!