Sid Meier's: Alien Crossfire Walkthrough

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===========================================================================
Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire (SMAX)
System: Windows (PC)
Authors: Jim Chamberlin and
Chris Hartpence (aka Velociryx)
Contact: Jim Chamberlin -
red_phoenix_1@hotmail.com
Chris (Vel) - quazimojo1@aol.com
Version: Final (12/30/04)
Note:  Chris Hartpence has recently had an updated and more detailed version
of a Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire Guide actually published in both
paperback and e-book form.  If you're interested in purchasing this
book, check it out at:
http://www.gubookstore.com/shopgu/author.php3?accountID=GRTU00118
===========================================================================
>
This Document is Copyright 2001 Jim Chamberlin.  All Rights Reserved.
This guide can be FREELY distributed as long as you agree to a few
things:
- You do not alter this guide, leaving it in the original .txt
file format
- You do not charge for viewing this guide.  This includes, but
is not limited to websites, cds, dvds, magazines, etc.
- You give me credit.
- Visit GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com) on a regular basis and
download any updates to the guide.  Authors hate responding to
questions that were answered in newer versions of the guide.
===========================================================================
===========================================================================
Vers. -  1.0 - Released.
1.1 - Added some strategies.  Actually, I added a whole new section.
1.2 - Added Cheat City to the list of sites.
1.3 - Minor changes.
===========================================================================
Table of Contents
===========================================================================
Introduction
Changes in Alien Crossfire
Key Terms
The Factions
Early Game
- Expansion and Growth
- Terraforming
- Supply Crawlers
- Defining your Style
- Defining your Focus
- Early Game Secret Projects
- Comparative Turn Advantage
- Getting Ready for the Bad Guys
- Single Player Diplomacy
- Multi- player Diplomacy
- A Primer on Combat
- Basic Combat (Single Player and Multi- Player notes included)
Middle Game
- Expansion in the Middle Game
- Terraforming in the Middle Game
- Supply Crawlers
- Developing your Style
- Developing your Focus
- Creating Economy of Scale
- More on Combat
- Studying the Meta- Game
- More Single Player and Multi- Player Notes
Late Game
- Locking Things Down
General Tips
Message Board Posts
Final Notes and Odd Musings
Credits
================================================================================
Introduction
================================================================================
ALIEN PLANETFALL
The early human exploration of Planet found many mysterious signs pointing to
a long- vanished alien race.  The questions raised by these discoveries were
soon answered when two alien factions arrived on Planet a few years after the
crash-landing of the "Unity."  Their true motives were vague, but it appeared
they had returned to Planet to settle the fate of Manifold Six (their name for
Planet) and the grand experiment in which they were involved.  The Usurper
faction has been pushing for the Progenitor race to exploit the powers of the
Manifold, and essentially set themselves up as gods.  The Caretakers see Planet
as a sentient being, whose death would result from Usurper policies.  Two scout
ships arrived in the space above Manifold Six to settle the issue.
Unfortunately for both sides (but perhaps fortunately for the humans on
Planet), the two ships were evenly matched, and nearly destroyed each other.
Survivors of the two factions managed to jettison in escape pods down to
Planet's surface, where they prepare for battle, and for the day on which they
can contact their respective factions and send in reinforcements.  If that day
ever comes, human existence on Planet will be in grave jeopardy.
The human factions must choose whether to band together to fight the
off-worlders, or side with the aliens as a means to ultimate victory.  The
picture is further complicated by the rise of new human factions preaching
radical philosophies, from the Drones who seek liberation of the working
masses, to the strange Cybernetic faction unleashed by amoral University
researchers.
[Taken from Alien Crossfire Game Manual]
[A full story about Alien Crossfire may be found in my Alien Crossfire Story
FAQ.]
================================================================================
Changes in Alien Crossfire
================================================================================
So, what's changed since Alpha Centauri?  A lot!  We've got new everything, or
so it seems.
New kinds of worms:
Yep....three of them, to be specific. First, Sealurks. Watch out for these
guys....they're rather similar to IoD's, except they don't act as transports and
tend to be "lone wolf" units. I've not had much luck in catching them (none,
actually), so I can't say either way whether they're any good as an addition to
your naval forces.
Next, Fungal Towers: I've never captured these guys either, and frankly, I doubt
it's possible. They get morale upgrades depending on how much fungus they're
surrounded by, and tend to spawn worms fairly regularly.
Finally, spore launchers: Artillery for worms, and they are annoying!
Oftentimes, when and IoD comes to pay you a visit, the Spore Launcher will not
land on the shore, but remain on the Isle, and snipe at your terrain
enhancements, forcing you to build an empath foil to deal with the IoD in order
to get rid of the sniper. UGH! (Alternate plan: Build an artillery unit of your
own and duel with the sniper).
Seven new factions:
Five human, two alien. You'll find details on the new bunch a bit later in this
guide!
New techs, weapons, facilities, and secret projects:
'bout half a dozen new techs, spawning a variety of new weapons and abilities.
I'll not go into specifics here, as all of this is covered elsewhere in the
guide, but suffice it to say for the time being that there are a LOT of new
capabilities you can give your troopers, opening up whole new vistas as far as
exotic and special purpose troopers go! The new facilities are great as well,
giving you base-specific probe modifiers, missile defense systems, additional
defensive bonuses and ways of getting better still production out of sea
squares!
Project-wise, it's a mixed bag, with far and away the most useful (overpowered!)
project being the Cloudbase academy. One thing further, the Hunter-Seeker
Algorithm has been weakened so that it's not quite the final word protection
against probes that it once was. Nonetheless, it's still a crucial project to
snag, but again, more on that later.
Bug Fixes....LOTS of Bug Fixes: Most significantly, artillery now actually does
something in the game, and on Transcend level, the maintenance cost bug has been
fixed, meaning that Transcend level bases are only one third as profitable as
they used to be, but that is as it should be.
================================================================================
Key Terms
================================================================================
Before we get down into the guts of the guide, let me outline a few terms you'll
see cropping up repeatedly, and before I do that, let me say this: There are
probably as many different approaches to the game as there are players who love
the game, but these (often wildly varying) approaches can, in at least a general
sense, be grouped into three basic categories or "styles" of play. Understanding
what is meant by each play-style is essential to understanding the viewpoint
from which the rest of the guide is written.
Builder-Style: Builders don't care much for fighting, preferring to cloister
themselves off on some small to mid-sized continent, terraform, build
infrastructure, and research new technologies. The hallmarks of Builder style
play are: 1) Long delays in prototyping new weapons and defensive systems, in
favor of constructing infrastructure, 2) The preservation of as close to 100%
of industrial capacity as possible in order to speed the completion of the
abovementioned infrastructure (in short, this means minimizing support costs),
3) very aesthetically pleasing empires in general (let's face it,
Builder-Empires just look cool!), and 4) Strict adherence to industrial caps,
with regards to ecological damages (i.e. - Builders spend a LOT of time
terraforming, and they don't like to see their efforts undone by sudden fungal
blooms, so you will seldom find any, and certainly no significant eco-damage in
a Builder Empire). For the reason of preservation of Industrial Capacity alone,
"Biogenetics" is probably a Builder-Players most treasured tech, and many a
Builder player will micro-manage his/her bases down to the unit level,
upgrading ANY unit which is tying up support costs.
Hybrid-Style: The Hybrid's main watch-word is Flexibility. He's the guy who
wants to be ready for anything that might come up, and while he greatly admires
the Builder's stunning efficiency and sterling industry, he also knows that
somewhere out there on the map, and maybe closer than he thinks, are people who
would like nothing better than to take it all away from him. To that end, the
Hybrid player makes some "strategic sacrifices," developing a stout standing
army as early as techs permit it, and upgrading and honing them constantly.
Often, the Hybrid Player has half (or more) of his army on the prowl, looking
for pods, and looking for potential enemies of the state. Yes, he's interested
in developing an economy to rival his Builder counterparts, but not at the risk
of being blind-sided by some fast-moving attacker.
Momentum-Style: Fast and loose! The Momentum player's main goal is to expand
with lightening speed, get a horde of small bases (production centers) up and
running, and then use them to build a war machine that is second to none, and
while he's getting his production centers geared up, his scouts are on the
prowl, a sharp eye open for signs of anybody else. The moment he finds someone
else, the real show begins, and the Momentum player is banking on the fact that,
because he's so active, even if you have a technology edge, he'll be able to
probe his way to technological parity and smash you with his relatively large
standing force. Bases are seen as little more than barracks, and not much
attention is given to infrastructural builds, beyond that which absolutely
essential (i.e. - network nodes, to cash in artifacts found or stolen).
Early Game: Generally describes the game up until the time all those annoying
restrictions are lifted, and before you get the chance to start playing with the
more interesting unit types. Specifically then, the techs that provide the
boundary to the early game are: Resource-Wise: Gene Splicing, Ecological
Engineering, and Environmental Economics. Weapon wise: Lasers (Applied Physics)
and Impact (Non-linear Mathematics) will be most prevalent (with Missiles
falling at the outer edge of the early game, much as Enviro. Ec,
developmentally). Defensively, you've got Synthmetal (Industrial Base), and
Plasma (High Energy Chemistry) with some interesting variance provided by 3-res
and 3-pulse armor, and of course, all units will be powered with the old-style
Fission generators (weakest, and most expensive).
Implications of the early game:
1) Stuff is expensive to build. The old generators are not cheap, to put it
mildly, and that's bad news for you, because you're mineral production is
wretched, and while there are ways to improve that, none of them will happen
quickly, or without a fair amount of planning on your part.
2) Terrain squares are not very productive. Pre-restriction lifting, you're
faced with a limit of 2r (r being whatever resource you're harvesting) in each
category, for an absolute maximum of six resources per square (i.e. - Monolith,
2r for each of the three resource-types).
Taken together, that's a pretty punishing two-edged sword. Not only are you
having to pay more for your early game units in terms of time to build, but
you're also faced with terrain squares that have limited value.
There is some good news though, in the form of special resource squares. These
squares are not limited by the early game restrictions, and as such, they should
receive your immediate attention. If you find one that's located in an
unattractive base-building spot, that's no problem....the moment you get
industrial automation, send a supply crawler out that direction and start
taking advantage of the resource! (and more about this in particular on the
section on Terraforming!)
The Middle Game: The Middle Game is bounded on one side by the lifting of energy
restrictions, the acquisition of Missile techs (with Air Power coming soon
thereafter), and the discovery of Fusion Power and runs all the way to the
acquisition of Hab-Domes and is where the bulk of your game will be played out.
Terrain squares get more productive as more terraforming options become
available, your formers get a ton of new things to do, and your units (both
offensively and defensively) become vastly more dangerous.
The Late Game: From Hab-Domes on. Generally, single player games don't last very
long once you get here, and few multi-player games ever make it this far, so
don't expect to see much of the late game, unless you really enjoy playing
single player mode, and really like to take your time.
Notes on stylistic approaches:
So, you've thought it over a while and settled on a style that's "you." Good,
because you'll need a well-organized, well-considered plan to proceed from, and
that's the first step. Whatever your style, your next step will be to select
specific technologies from the Tech-Tree that "play into" whatever style you're
going for.
For Builders, this means a straight shot to Industrial Automation for the
acquisition of Supply Crawlers, and from there, moving right on into the liftin
of those previously mentioned restrictions. Builders then, live and die by the
following five techs: Centauri Ecology, Industrial Automation, Gene Splicing,
Ecological Engineering, and Environmental Economics. The goal of the Builder
Game is to reach Environmental Economics as quickly as possible and create such
a vast economy in terms of total outputs, relative to the opposition, that when
the combat techs arrive (and wise Builders will begin pursuing them the moment
they get Environmental Economics), their superior economic sub-structure will
enable them to out-produce and out-tech everyone else in the game.
For Hybrids, again, with flexibility being the watch-word, the key technologies
in the early game are: Centauri Ecology, Industrial Automation, Doctrine
Flexibility, Gene Splicing, and Ecological Engineering. This gives you several
of the key advantages of the Builder Player, but also gives you more options in
terms of exploration and response to incoming threats.
Momentum players will want the biggest bang for their buck, and they'll want
that as quickly as possible, so for them, the key technologies are: Centauri
Ecology, Industrial Automation, Doctrine Flexibility, Non-linear Math, and
Ecological Engineering.. They're willing to work around the mineral restrictions
to get a decent army in the field, and many of the factions this group favors
come with support bonuses, giving them a relatively large number of "free"
troops anyway. A perfect example of this would be Miriam Goodwinson's
"Believing" faction. With their +2 Support rating, each of their bases gets four
free units. Figure one former and one garrison, that still leaves her two
attackers per base that can go out hunting. Multiplied out over ten or twelve
bases, and it's no wonder she's so feared by the Builder crowd!
As you can see, while there are key differences between the various styles of
play, there are also some similarities between the three styles, and two techs
in particular popped up all three times. These are quite possible the most
critical techs in the entire game. Centauri Ecology, and Industrial Automation.
If you have them, and your opponent does not, you are in a VASTLY superior
position.
One final stylistic note to point out is this: Do not make the mistake of
believing that Builders never fight and Momentum players never build
infrastructure! All players of note will shift and change their strategies based
on prevailing game conditions, and because of that, these "styles" mentioned are
more archetypes than anything. They point to the tendencies and pre-dispositions
of players toward one end of the spectrum or the other. The implication is not
that Builders can only build, and Momentum players can only crank out an endless
supply of troops. I don't know of anyone who plays that way, and even against an
average player, such a strategy would come apart rather quickly. Essentially
then, the stylistic approaches speak more to the timing than anything else.
For Builders, the key to the game is the rapid development of infrastructure.
They figure that the faster they can develop vast efficiencies, the better off
they will be, and those greater efficiencies will enable them to quickly catch
up militarily in the midgame.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Momentum gamers recognize how much damage
a few early game attackers can do, and seek to maximize that damage against
their opponents, forcing their rivals to divert resources to deal with threats
to hearth and home, while the Momentum player is free to build infrastructure
without such threats.
In the center are the Hybrids, who will strike opportunistically (and divert
some portion of their early game resources to be ready to do that), but are
unwilling to go full bore in that direction, lest they fall behind in
infrastructural development.
================================================================================
The Factions
================================================================================
It is possible to play any of the 14 factions in any of the three broad styles
outlined (Builder, Hybrid, Momentum), but some are clearly more ideally suited
to one style than another. Below, you will find an outline of each of the
factions (strengths and weaknesses in game terms), along with play notes and
tested, workable strategy tips for playing each faction in any of the styles
mentioned above:
The Original Seven:
Morganites:
At a Glance: Extra Commerce income, +1 Economy, -1 Support, smaller bases, more
cash at start
General Notes: Probably the most underrated faction of the original seven,
Morgan is terrific if played correctly, but a novice will probably have to work
a bit to get the faction humming. This is mainly due to the fact that Morgan's
playstyle is somewhat different from the others. If you're playing Morgan, then
you've got to make the most of your one big advantage, and that's money. Morgan
is the only faction in the early game that can go to war and still rake in the
big bucks. Just run wealth, live with the Morale hit, and you make +1 energy per
square, and get an industry bonus to boot! Many people regard Morgan is
incredibly weak because of the smaller base size thing, but nothing could be
further from the truth. Wealth is an integral part of almost any Morganite
strategy, and Wealth comes with Industrial Automation, which also gives you
Supply Crawlers, a terrific Morganite Secret Project, and Hab-complexes, which
allows Morgan's bases to grow to size 11 without stopping. More pervasive a
problem for the faction is the support hit, which tends to reduce the total size
of the army you can raise (at least until clean reactors), but again, this is
largely offset by the acquisition of supply crawlers via Industrial Automation.
Need more troops? Just build a new base and some more crawlers! Viola! Support
issue rendered moot. Now I grant you, most Morganite players will tend to keep
expanding a bit longer than the other factions to keep pace with overall
population numbers, but in truth, another 1-2 bases will generally put you at
parity, population wise. It's just not that big a deal, and remember, if you get
the Ascetic Virtues, you're small base problem all but disappears anyway, and
the Living Refinery undoes your support problem once and for all (though at the
point you get it, you've usually had clean reactors for quite some time).
Morgan, the Builder: This approach to the Morgan game takes his mercantile
nature to heart. You don't profit by killing off your customers, and Morganite-
Builders can make utterly obscene amounts of cash. The commerce bonus gives you
the kind of windfall normally reserved for the Planetary Governor (magnified
further still if you ARE the Planetary Governor), and by running Free-Market,
Wealth, and "doping" your citizens into a golden age, you not only achieve pop-
boom status (if you're running Dem too), but also get +5 Econ, which does
amazing things to the energy you get from your base squares! A Builder game,
Morgan style revolves around defending all your bases with trance scouts until
you get clean reactors, and catching up on all your prototyping/building a
defense force at that point. In the meantime, all the money you're making each
turn, combined with the industry bonus from wealth, enables you to rush-build
your infrastructure with a speed that will make the other factions green with
envy. It's all too easy to beat out even Domai's vaunted industrial capacity
with Morgan's cash. As much as possible, the Morganite Builder will want to run
Dem/Market/and either Wealth (while building and enjoying the benefits of many
pacts or treaties) or Knowledge if an extra bit of research boost and efficienc
is needed. If you need to go on the offensive, your SE settings of choice will
be Wealth/Green, with or without Democracy (mostly depending on if you have
clean reactors or not yet), and if you want to push your labs up to 100%, run
Dem, Green, Wealth (+4 efficiency), make your +1 energy per square, and dump it
all into your labs. In this manner, you can out-tech even Zak, despite his
research bonus!
Even if you've got your heart set on playing the Builder game, you need to be
prepared for war, but the good news is that you start with Synthmetal armor, and
will find yourself only a few steps from Silksteel once all the early game
resource restrictions are lifted (though in most case, getting to Biogenetics
first, for clean reactors, will serve you better). Still, Morganite defenses
revolve first and foremost around covert ops. If an opponent builds a base too
close to you for comfort, either buy it and burn it down, or stack so many clean
defenders in it that, regardless of your almost guaranteed lower morale, your
enemies will have a hard time taking it back, and when fighting a defensive
campaign, the presence of Children's Creche's everywhere will offset Wealth's
only minus, putting you in reasonably good shape.
Morgan, the Hybrid: Industrial Automation is all the more crucial for this style
of play, as some portion of your industrial capacity will be tied up in the
maintenance of a standing force, and if you have to make use of that force to
launch an attack, simply drop out of Market in preference for Green, keep wealth
unless you just really need the extra morale percentages, and use Wealth's
industry bonus and your inherent cash to replace lost troops at a faster clip
than your opponents can kill them. Morgan excels at the art of attrition
warfare. It does not matter if your first unit makes a kill, because one of the
four of five coming right behind surely will, and you'll wind up with a core
force of elites (survivors of the many battles) in the end! Remember, it applies
to all the factions to a degree, but even moreso with Morgan: You should never
actually build the kind of unit you want! Build laser scouts or rovers, and
selectively upgrade your way to the kind of force you need, and don't worry
about ignoring the weapons techs in the early game. If you're behind,
militarily, just make it a point to capture an enemy unit with whatever weapon
you're looking for, and you can start building them as well, even if you don't
yet have the tech for it!
All the basic fighting strategies for the Morgan-Momentum game work just as well
for the Hybrid game, and unlike most other factions playing a Hybrid scheme,
you're cash position will be so good, that you can almost always make offensive
use of your probes. Do so!
Morgan, the Conqueror: Again, put your eyes, mind and heart firmly on the goal
of acquiring Industrial Automation. Crawlers, coupled with the building of new
bases, will quickly put you in a position where you will be able to crank out as
many, if not more troops than your opponents!
Two basic ways you can go about this are: Beeline for the Command Nexus to
offset Wealth's Morale hit, and rake in the cash while beating your opponents
with average to slightly above average troops, or, forget the money, run Green
(still beelining for the Doctrine: Loyalty) and beat on them with better than
average troops. Either way works, but running Wealth opens up more options for
you with Morgan, enabling you to offset your average troops with regular and
very active offensive probe teams, subverting a base or two to establish a
foothold, and then pouring your troops into it (and, if you really want to get
mean, run Fundy Wealth, to make it harder for your opponents to run probe
actions against you). The Support problem is offset by an early emphasis on
crawler production at all bases to spike up mineral outputs, and troops can be
easily reinforced by rushing selective defensive structures in captured bases
and by upgrading scouts produced to best/best configurations. Remember, as
Morgan, you have a far easier time at paying for a war effort as you go, because
you can get that magical +1 energy per square and still fight before Punishment
Spheres. Everybody else has to either wait till higher up on the tech tree, or
save for the invasion in advance. Use that to your advantage and attack earlier,
rather than later. Also, make active use of your probe teams to subvert enemy
troops, adding them to your available force pool. Best of all, you can compare
morale levels, and make suicide attacks with the worst of the lot, keeping the
best for "sure kills" and consistently raise the morale of an elite core of you
army, which will soon have you fighting on "Morale Parity" with whatever enemy
you are attacking, even if they began with an advantage in that department.
About the only person you'll be hampered against in the early game is Miriam
running Fundy, as that will shut down your probe actions, but even then, with
your better research rates, you should be at a higher tech level when you begin
your attacks, and a series of swift, hard, unexpected blows (and who the heck
expects Morgan to come out fighting?!) will give you all the edge you need.
University of Planet:
At a Glance: More Drones, +2 Research, -2 Probe, Extra Starting Tech
General Notes: Zak is plagued by drone problems, making the acquisition of
either the HGP or the Virtual World of Paramount importance. Fortunately, since
you start with the pre-requisite to Planetary Networks, it is often quite easy
to grab the Virtual World. Probe actions are expensive for you, and it's
relatively cheap for your enemies to launch probe actions your way, so guard
against that, and make the Hunter-Seeker project a high priority, but in the
meantime, bulk up on defensive probes. You'll need them. Your main advantage is
your labs, and whichever way you decide to run your game, your inherent research
advantages will put you ahead of the pack quickly. Persistence and good planning
will keep you there. Remember, you're getting the benefits of a no-maintenance-
cost Network Node from the first turn you found a base. Everybody else has to
build their Net-Nodes, and pay maintenance costs for them, so build bases like
crazy! Not only does this keep your bases smaller (to a point, offsetting the
drone issue), but it also makes your colony pods VERY good investments for the
minerals spent!
Zak, the Builder: This approach plays to your native facility. You're already a
step ahead of the game, and if you get the Virtual World, then