Alpha Centauri (AC) is one of the most well-made video games ever. It is the best of the civ series and the zenith of strategy games. When any game, elemental especially (EWOM), attempts to compete in the same field, video games and strategy video games, it is important to ask yourself what makes players gush about a 10 year old game in my beta forums? I hope to answer that in this post and I hope that some of this will be new or prove insightful for the developers.

AC has very few "features" that make it such a phenomenal game. Instead, the genius of AC is the entire feelings of the game. For example, the brilliance of their naming convention would be pointless without the robust unit creation. Because of this I will break the game into broad strokes. 

Craftsmenship

AC is still so fondly remembered and still extremely playable to this day because of the amazing attention to detail. All the little things add up to create a living game world. What I mean by this is that the "stitching" of the game is so expertly hidden that you don't notice it during the transitional times. Very simple things like having your information text integrated into the game universes' HUD goes a long way to tricking the player into thinking he isn't playing a game, contrived by some guy in a basement, but that he is experiencing the narrative from the perspective of a faction leader.

A more salient example would be the secret project cut-scenes and flavor texts. AC is most famous or most remembered for these cut-scenes. There are two things I would like to point out: 1) 98% of cut-scenes are complete cheese dick, on the nose, heavy handed garbage. Whether this is unintentional or by design (an attempt to appeal to the player base) I can't say, I would guess a mix of both, but in both cases it is wholly wrong. You may get the "cool" factor in someones head for a few minutes but that is all you will get. 10 years from now will you go back and watch cut-scenes from mass effect 1/2, no, you won't. Why? Because they are horrible, they are trite, deterministic, poorly directed and they don't even advance the narrative.

Oh look, you, the hero, running from a hail of bullets shot by faceless evil-doers incapable of aiming only to make a slo-mo leap onto your escape craft and get away before the giant explosion. I've never seen that before. No one will remember it because it's so generic and so poorly done.

Let's do a side by side to illustrate the point.

Mass Effect 2

Alpha Centauri

The AC video occurs after you develop a secret project called "The Cyborg Factory"

The brilliant AC video does a couple things right. It's not boring, like the ME2 video, the sound makes sense, no horrendous attempts at an epic composition (see blizzard for the worst abusers in the business) No spaceships making "WHOOOOSH" sounds in out space, no terrible melodramatic voice acting and on top of all that, the AC video does something of supreme importance, it advances the narrative. You see, not only did one of our bases just create a secret project named "the cyborg factory" the game narrative subtly changed. You experience the effects of cyborg's have on a living breathing population by hearing an humorous poem as if your friend was telling you a casual anecdote. You begin to feel -something- about the effects of the secret project that are entirely unrelated to any game mechanic. You are pulled into the narrative as a leader who is making decisions at a level that highlights the dichotomy between you and your subjects; you care about the production bonus; your subjects care about the day-to-day of dating. This also makes it possible to relate to your cities and population as more than just numbers. Finally, despite being humans in the future and on another planet with exotic technology, you begin to realize that these people are the same, petty, smart, courageous, spiteful, mean, nice... humans that you interact with on a daily basis. This pulls you into the world and advances the narrative.

2) The AC cut-scene required significantly less man hours than the mass effect 2 cut-scene. Proving the point that one talented game designer is worth more than an office full of mediocre ones. What it also means is that resources should not be directed towards fluff. I think many game developers are compelled to do things because gamers expect. Did you just kill the end boss dragon in mass effect 2... time for your cut-scene reward. What they don't understand is that good games that used these conventions in the past used them to an effect. They are never an end unto themselves. You don't just put a bunch of crap in your game because people expect it, your objective as a game designer is make the best game not make a game that has the best aspects of all games.

Another brilliant move was integrating the game menu with the game universe menu. You exited the game in the same way you changed the social policy of your faction or diverted resources from research to culture. This blending is really what is meant by craftsmanship in a game. Even the quit game menu in AC encompassed this philosophy.

well this is longer then I intended, I'll touch on some other points later