Alpha Centauri
Page 2
So what I'd like Alpha Centauri to present is a series of logical, interesting, and coherent choices that allow the player to create the future. You're not learning about human history, you're creating human history. With that in mind, let's proceed to the part you've all been waiting for, examples from gameplay....
The thought of colonizing an alien world immediately brings to mind the idea of altering, or "terraforming," that world to make it more livable for humans. To allow the player to actually make meaningful changes in the climate of a world required us to create a world builder and climatic model far more powerful than anything we'd done before. Temperature, wind, and rainfall patterns have been modeled in ways that allow players to make changes and watch the effects. For instance, with a modest array of future technology, you can raise up a new ridgeline or mountain range. With the prevailing wind coming off the sea to the west, your new mountains will tend to empty moisture from the air on their western slopes, leaving their eastern slopes and the downwind valleys quite dry. So you can raise ridgelines to increase the rainfall (and thus nutrient production) for your own bases while simultaneously drying out your downwind enemies!
As your technology progresses, you can also divert the courses of rivers and dig huge thermal boreholes down to the planet's mantle to release heat (not to mention the mining opportunities). Still later, if enough players work together, you can alter the climate on a worldwide basis - global warming to melt the icecaps and raise sea levels, for instance, where you can watch enemy bases sink beneath the waves. The ultimate terraforming triumph is a breathable atmosphere, but watch out, since some changes may lead to a population explosion among the native life-forms!
Next: Predicting the future
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