Civ/Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri/Unit Construction
Alpha Centauri features a Unit Design Workshop which is very flexible in comparison to other Civ games. For each unit, the workshop presents you with choices for each of a unit's weapon (attack strength), armor (defense strength), chassis (speed and terrain movement), reactor (hit points and build cost), and up to two special abilities (but only one until the discovery of Neural Grafting).
Unit Cost
editUnit cost is calculated using the following formula:
C = W * (A + S) * 10 / (2 ^ (R + 1))
Where: C is the total unit cost in Minerals; W is the unit's Weapon value (Equipment for non-combat units); A is the unit's Armor value; S is the unit's Speed expressed in move points; R is the unit's Reactor value.
It can be determined that units with a high value in all three areas (Weapon, Armor and Speed) will be much more expensive than units with a high value in just two. Therefore, it is advantageous to design your units for specific tasks rather than attempting to create all-round utility units. For example: a unit built for defending a base will need a high Armor value, but has little use for heavy Weapons or a high Speed, while for an attacker, a powerful Weapon is tantamount to effectiveness, while Armor may not be as important (the idea being that your opponent will be destroyed before they have a chance to fire back).
The basic unit cost formula is subject to several modifiers:
- Weapon value may never be less than half the unit's Armor value
- Final cost is halved for units with a Speed of 1
- Armor value is halved when calculating the cost of sea units, and the final cost is halved again
- Armor value is doubled when calculating the cost of any air unit; the final cost is quartered for combat air units
- Add 25% to final cost for each unit of Special Ability cost
- Add 10 Minerals if both Weapon and Armor values are greater than 1
- Add another 10 Minerals if Weapon, Armor and Speed values are all greater than 1
- Cmin = (R * 2 – R / 2) * 10 where Cmin is the unit's minimum final cost.
Chassis
editThe chassis is the most important part of the unit. It will determine where it can go (land/sea/air), how fast it goes, and what weapons or equipment it may use.
'Copter
edit- Prerequisite: Mind/Machine Interface
- Speed: 10
- Terrain: air
The 'copter is like the needlejet, except that it can survive running out of fuel in a space without a city or airbase. Instead of being destroyed outright, it simply crash-lands, taking some damage. The 'copter can also attack as many times per turn as it has fuel remaining; however, attacking with the last unit of fuel will result in the unit crash-landing. Care must be taken when assigning go-to commands to a 'copter, as they will always end their turn upon entering a friendly base square, regardless of how many moves they have left. They are unique among non-land units in that they can blitz, or attack multiple times per turn.
Cruiser
edit- Prerequisite: Doctrine: Initiative
- Speed: 6 (8 with Maritime Control)
- Terrain: Water
The cruiser is the ultimate transport unit. When fully upgraded, it can carry up to 16 units! In addition, it has the most movement points of any sea unit. Ideal for large maps, and long range transportation.
For warships, it may be better to buy the cheaper foil, unless of course, the distance from your base to the target is a far away.
Consider using for maritime probe team strikes, simply due to the large amounts of movement points. Do not engage in probe team warfare unless you can afford to lose the probe team. Just get to the target, do whatever sabotage you need to do, and do it quickly.
Foil
edit- Prerequisite: Doctrine: Flexibility
- Speed: 4 (6 with Maritime Control)
- Terrain: Water
The early waterborne unit isn't as fast as a cruiser.
Gravship
edit- Prerequisite: Graviton Theory
- Speed: 8
- Terrain: air
Late-game chassis that is strictly superior to the needlejet, equal in speed but with no fuel limitations. Very valuable chassis when equipped with high-power weapons and armor. However, unlike the 'Copter, it can only attack once per turn.
Hovertank
edit- Prerequisite: Nanominiaturization
- Speed: 3
- Terrain: land
This is a middle-to-late-game unit that moves faster than the rover. One strategy that could be effective is building the ascent to transcendence at whatever city has the highest industry, then building these with a supply module attached to them at every other city you own and rushing them toward that city.
Infantry
edit- Prerequisite: None
- Speed: 1
- Terrain: land
The default chassis for units. Some units (Crawlers, Formers, Colony Pods) do not display an actual infantryman in the unit graphic, instead using a custom chassis graphic sitting on enlarged treads. Infantry have a bonus to attacking cities.
Missile
edit- Prerequisite: Orbital Spaceflight
- Speed: 20 (depends on fuel)
- Terrain: air
Middle-game chassis designed for kamikaze-style attacks. Cannot be equipped with weapons (except for special missile-only weapons) or armor and very few abilities. Can be very powerful if one uses it wisely.
Needlejet
edit- Prerequisite: Doctrine: Air Power
- Speed: 20 (depends on fuel)
- Terrain: air
Though it can move an impressive distance, the needlejet will crash and burn if it ends a turn outside of a city or airbase. Also, the needlejet has the ability to attack twice in one turn, but if you choose to do this, it will die at the end of the second attack, as a bee dies after stinging something.
Speeder
edit- Prerequisite: Doctrine: Mobility
- Speed: 2
- Terrain: land
This creates a rover, which, in addition to its increased speed, also applies other properties, such as the loss of the infantry unit's bonus to city invasions. Also, it counts as a mobile unit for the purposes of special armor bonuses.
Weapon
editWeapons determine a unit's attack strength. Higher attack strengths give a unit better chances in battle. Missile payloads may only be equipped on the Missile chassis.
Hand Weapons
edit- Strength: 1
Psi Attack
edit- Prerequisite: Centauri Psi
- Strength: uses psi combat; depends on morale or lifecycle
- Cost: 10
Units with the Psi Attack ability attack with psi instead of weapons. The most common and basic example of such an attacker is a Mind Worm boil.
Laser
edit- Prerequisite: Applied Physics
- Strength: 2
Particle Impactor
edit- Prerequisite: Nonlinear Mathematics
- Strength: 4
Gatling Laser
edit- Prerequisite: Superconductor
- Strength: 5
Missile Launcher
edit- Prerequisite: Synthetic Fossil Fuels
- Strength: 6
Resonance Laser
edit- Prerequisite: Bioadaptive Resonance
- Strength: 6
- Cost: 8
- Alien Crossfire Only
Provides a 25% bonus against units with Psi Defense. The most common such defender is a native unit.
Chaos Gun
edit- Prerequisite: Superstring Theory
- Strength: 8
Fusion Laser
edit- Prerequisite: Organic Superlubricant
- Strength: 10
Tachyon Bolt
edit- Prerequisite: Unified Field Theory
- Strength: 12
- Cost:
Resonance Bolt
edit- Prerequisite: Sentient Resonance
- Strength: 12
- Cost: 16
- Alien Crossfire Only
Provides a 25% bonus against units with Psi Defense. The most common such defender is a native unit.
Plasma Shard
edit- Prerequisite: Advanced Spaceflight
- Strength: 13
Quantum Laser
edit- Prerequisite: Quantum Machinery
- Strength: 16
Graviton Gun
edit- Prerequisite: Applied Gravitonics
- Strength: 20
Singularity Laser
edit- Prerequisite: Controlled Singularity
- Strength: 24
String Disruptor
edit- Prerequisite: String Resonance
- Strength: 30
- Cost: 40
- Alien Crossfire Only
Missile Payloads
editConventional Payload
edit- Prerequisite: Orbital Spaceflight
- Strength: 12
Fungal Payload
edit- Prerequisite: N-Space Compression
- Strength: N/A
- Alien Crossfire Only
Fungal Missles target a land square without a base or unit. Depending on reactor this plants an additional 1 – 4 squares of fungus, destroys most improvements and generates mindworms and a fungal tower in the detonation square. It leaves boreholes, bunkers, condensers, and solar mirrors. It destroys roads, forests, farms, soil enrichers, mines, and sensors.
Planet Buster
edit- Prerequisite: Orbital Spaceflight
- Strength: 99
- Cost: 32
Tectonic Payload
edit- Prerequisite: N-Space Compression
- Strength: N/A
- Alien Crossfire Only
Tectonic Missles target a land square without a base or unit. Depending on reactor level the land will be raised 1 – 4 levels, up to the maximum of 3500 m. This does not destroy improvements.
Equipment
editUnits with equipment cannot attack – instead they are granted a number of special actions.
Colony Module
edit- Prerequisite: none
- Equipment cost: 10
A unit with a Colony Module can build a new base. Producing a unit with a colony module consumes one population. When deployed in a base, it will add one population to that base's total population.
Probe Team
edit- Prerequisite: Planetary Networks
- Equipment cost: 4
Units with probe equipment can perform a number of covert actions.
Terraforming Unit
edit- Prerequisite: Centauri Ecology
- Equipment cost: 6
Terraforming units can create all manner of terrain improvements. The Terraforming Unit can be later enhanced with the special abilities
Terraformers are the single most important unit in the game. The AI's poor use of them contributes greatly to its poor performance. Formers are the primary way to make your cities more productive, and are the only way to make tiles more productive (except fungus, which improves with the Centauri techs). Centauri Ecology should always be one of your first techs, or a competent opponent will defeat you.
For comparison, a good unterraformed tile yields 2-1-1 (rolling and rainy, on a river), before nutrient/mineral/energy bonuses are considered. A good terraformed tile yields 0-6-6 (borehole) or 4-1-1 (condensor-farm). A fair unterraformed tile yields 1-1-0 (moist and rolling). A fair terraformed tile yields 1-2-1 (forest).
Supply Transport
edit- Prerequisite: Industrial Automation
- Equipment cost: 8
Supply units can extract one type of resource (either energy,mineral, or nutrient) from any non-cultivated square and convey it to its home base, and can also be brought to a base to apply its full production cost toward the production of a unit prototype or Secret Project.
Supply crawlers are the second most important unit in the game (second to Terraformers). Since they allow you to harvest more tiles, they act like extra population units, but without the drone problems or the nutrient requirements. In effect, supply crawlers are constructed population points, and at 30 minerals are a bargain.
Troop Transport
edit- Prerequisite: Doctrine: Flexibility
- Equipment cost: 4
A Troop Transport, as the name implies, can transport land troops from one place to the other. In combination with the Carrier Deck ability, can also transport air units. The number of transported units depends on the chassis and reactor: Foils can transport twice the reactor strength, Cruisers can transport four times the reactor strength, all other units can only transport one unit at a time.
Having a transport in a sea base along the coast allows units to freely enter and leave the base from the coast.
Defense
editA unit's defense determines how well it fights when it is attacked. Defense strength affects a unit's mineral cost. Some defenses affect a unit's cost by more than just their defensive strength.
No Armor
edit- Strength: 1
Psi Defense
edit- Prerequisite: Eudaimonia
- Strength: Psi
- Cost: 6
Units equipped with a Psi Defense always engage in Psi combat when attacked, ignoring weapon and armor strengths. This is useful for defending against opponents whose weapon technology exceeds your defensive technology.
Synthmetal Armor
edit- Prerequisite: Industrial Base
- Strength: 2
Plasma Steel Armor
edit- Prerequisite: High Energy Chemistry
- Strength: 3
Pulse 3 Armor
edit- Prerequisite: Adaptive Doctrine
- Strength: 3
- Cost: 5
Same as Plasma Steel Armor, but more expensive and with +25% bonus vs. mobile attackers. Alien Crossfire only.
Generally a bad choice of armor, since it costs just as much as Photon Wall, yet is less effective than Silksteel Armor even against mobile attackers. Still, it comes earlier in the tech tree than Silksteel, and might make the difference against an Impact Rover. Provides no benefit to ships except perhaps when defending in a base against a mobile land attacker, since ships are never mobile attackers. The AI prefers Pulse-3 Armor, which needlessly pushes up its unit costs. Disable it or decrease its cost to help out the AI.
Resonance 3 Armor
edit- Prerequisite: Field Modulation
- Strength: 3
- Cost: 5
Same as Plasma Steel Armor, but more expensive and with +25% bonus vs. Psi attacks. Alien Crossfire only.
Mainly useful for combining with Hypnotic Trance on a foil for a great Psi defender. Other than that, see above.
Silksteel Armor
edit- Prerequisite: Silksteel Alloys
- Strength: 4
Photon Wall
edit- Prerequisite: Photon/Wave Mechanics
- Strength: 5
Probability Sheath
edit- Prerequisite: Probability Mechanics
- Strength: 6
Neutronium Armor
edit- Prerequisite: Matter Compression
- Strength: 8
Pulse 8 Armor
edit- Prerequisite: Super Tensile Solids
- Strength: 8
- Cost: 11
Same as Neutronium Armor, but more expensive and with +25% bonus vs. mobile attackers. Alien Crossfire only.
Resonance 8 Armor
edit- Prerequisite: Sentient Resonance
- Strength: 8
- Cost: 11
Same as Neutronium Armor, but more expensive and with +25% bonus vs. Psi attacks. Alien Crossfire only.
Antimatter Plate
edit- Prerequisite: Matter Editation
- Strength: 10
Stasis Generator
edit- Prerequisite: Temporal Mechanics
- Strength: 12
Reactor
editFission Plant
edit- Prerequisite Tech: N/A
- Strength: 1
The default reactor for units. Later in the game, it is ideal for worm-killing units since psi combat ignores reactor strengths, and without a strong weapon, more advanced reactors will usually make the unit more expensive.
Fusion Reactor
edit- Prerequisite: Fusion
- Strength: 2
The first more powerful reactor you can get. The decrease in build costs is noticeable, and your units will be nearly unstoppable until your opponents discover Fusion as well.
Quantum Chamber
edit- Prerequisite: Quantum Power
- Strength: 3
Reactors beyond Fusion are of little use, since the game will probably be over by this point.
Singularity Engine
edit- Prerequisite: Singularity Mechanics
- Strength: 4
Special Abilities
editAAA Tracking
edit- Prerequisite: Advanced Military Algorithms
- Cost: 1
+100% defense vs air units.
Air Superiority
edit- Prerequisite: Doctrine: Air Power
- Cost: 1
Allows a unit to attack air units in flight. Air units with Air Superiority gain a +100% combat bonus versus other air units but suffer a -50% combat penalty against ground and sea units.
Algorithmic Enhancement
edit- Prerequisite: Nanominiaturization
- Cost: 1
- Alien Crossfire only
Improves probe team success rate and decreases probe attack energy costs. Also allows a probe team to attempt an attack on a base or unit under the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm, though at an extremely low success rate.
Amphibious Pods
edit- Prerequisite: Doctrine: Initiative
- Cost: 1
Allows ground units to attack sea bases, and allows ground units to attack from on board a sea-going transport. Also allows ground units to cross the gap between a friendly sea base and dry land without needing a transport in the base.
Antigrav Struts
edit- Prerequisite: Graviton Theory
- Cost: 1
+1 movement rate for ground units, and ignore terrain movement penalties. An air unit with Antigrav Struts gains a movement rate increase equal to its reactor level.
Blink Displacer
edit- Prerequisite: Matter Transmission
- Cost: 1
Attacker ignores base defense bonuses.
Carrier Deck
edit- Prerequisite: Nanometallurgy
- Cost: 1
Transport may carry air units.
Clean Reactor
edit- Prerequisite: Bio-Engineering
- Cost: 2
Unit does not require support from its home base. Not to be confused with the unit's Reactor, the Clean Reactor trait eliminates the cost of support. Note that probe and supply units inherently do not incur support costs, hence do not need this ability.
Cloaking Device
edit- Prerequisite: Frictionless Surfaces
- Cost: 1
Ground unit ignores zones of control (may move past enemy units without stopping).
Comm Jammer
edit- Prerequisite: Advanced Subatomic Theory
- Cost: Attack/Defense (rounded down, maximum 2)
+50% defense vs. fast units (rover, hovertank).
Deep Pressure Hull
edit- Prerequisite: Nanometallurgy
- Cost: 1
Deep Radar
edit- Prerequisite: Advanced Military Algorithms
- Cost: 0 for air or sea units, 1 for ground units
Unit can see two squares away instead of one. Note: units still cannot see into fungus (as sensor arrays do).
Dissociative Wave
edit- Prerequisite: Centauri Psi
- Cost: 2
Halves all positive combat bonuses (such as the +25% defense against fast units conferred by the Comm Jammer special ability).
Drop Pods
edit- Prerequisite: Mind/Machine Interface
- Cost: 2
Allows a unit to make an Airdrop over a range of eight tiles, instantly moving from the tile of origin to the destination, provided that there are no air defenses near the destination tile, that the unit has not moved yet this turn, and that the unit is starting from a friendly base or airbase. Upon discovery of Applied Gravitonics (or upon completion of the Space Elevator, whichever comes first) any units with Drop Pods may instead make Orbital Insertions, which removes the eight-tile restriction. A unit that has made an Airdrop or Orbital Insertion may attack on the same turn, but will suffer a -50% combat penalty.
Empath Song
edit- Prerequisite: Centauri Empathy
- Cost: 2
+50% to psi offense.
Fuel Nanocells
edit- Prerequisite: Matter Compression
- Cost: 1
Adds +2 to an air unit's fuel supply, effectively increasing its range by 1.
Fungicide Tanks
edit- Prerequisite: Synthetic Fossil Fuels
- Cost: 1
Formers remove fungus at double speed.
Heavy Artillery
edit- Prerequisite: Polymorphic Software
- Cost: Armor+Speed-2 (rounded down, maximum 2)
Ground unit can make long range bombardment attacks from up to two squares distant. It is important to note that artillery units are incapable of attacking any other way.
High Morale
edit- Prerequisite: Intellectual Integrity
- Cost: 1
Unit gains one automatic Morale upgrade, in addition to any conferred by the unit's respective facility (ie. Command Center, Naval Yard or Aerospace Complex).
Hypnotic Trance
edit- Prerequisite: Secrets of the Human Brain
- Cost: Attack/Defense (rounded down, maximum 2)
+50% to psi defense. This is probably the most popular special ability in the game, perhaps rivaling Clean Reactor, putting defending land units on equal footing with attackers, and turning sea or air units into veritable psi fortresses.
Marine Detachment
edit- Prerequisite: Adaptive Doctrine
- Cost: 1
- Alien Crossfire only
Allows an attacking unit to capture a severely damaged enemy sea unit.
Nerve Gas Pods
edit- Prerequisite: High Energy Chemistry
- Cost: 1
+50% attack bonus. Additionally, when attacking a city, kills half of the city's population (round up) if the attacking unit wins.
WARNING: using a unit equipped with this in combat is considered a Simple Atrocity. That means if the UN charter is in effect, sanctions will be imposed upon you (nullifying commerce for at least 10 years), and regardless of the UN charter, the opponent on whom you used nerve gas will hate you forever.
Non-Lethal Methods
edit- Prerequisite: Intellectual Integrity
- Cost: 1
Unit counts as two for police purposes (suppressing two drones instead of one).
Polymorphic Encryption
edit- Prerequisite: Pre-Sentient Algorithms
- Cost: 1
Doubles the energy cost incurred by an enemy probe team attempt to subvert the unit.
Repair Bay
edit- Prerequisite: Nanometallurgy
- Cost: 1
Transport acts as a bunker (units heal while on board).
Soporific Gas Pods
edit- Prerequisite: Bioadaptive Resonance
- Cost: 1
- Alien Crossfire only
Unit reduces Morale of non-native enemy units by two when attacking.
Super Former
edit- Prerequisite: Advanced Ecological Engineering
- Cost: 1
All terraforming orders except for Remove/Plant Fungus are executed at double speed.