Alpha is a turn-based strategy game, which gives you all the time in the world to take care of your cities and units before the computer (or multiplayer opponent) has his go. This does mean that no game is over in a hurry.

Like Civ, you need two or three days (eight hours minimum per sitting) to work through the game, with the ultimate aim of utter destruction of the enemy or, perhaps a little more delicately, ascendance to a transcendental, God-like state that grants you immortality.

It’s utterly familiar to anyone that’s played Civ: the control system is identical, terraforming and trade are essential, battles are simplistically realised, and all the while you have to keep your people fed and happy, and the treasury coffers in the black.

There are some excellent additions and improvements, such as the city governors who can generally be left to look after your city, build improvements, control the populace, etc and the unit workshop, which lets you construct your own design of military units from a bucket of invented body parts.

But deep down it’s still Civ, and that’s to take nothing away. The gameplay is utterly compelling (that “just one more turn” factor is still there), and despite the unfamiliarity of space travel, Meier’s world is so intricately constructed that you can’t help but feel you are modelling some great history. He is a strategy genius, and Alpha Centauri is damn fine.

Min Specs: P166, 32Mb RAM, Win95