So where is a cheap downloadable way to get SMAC?

I'm terrible at searching for things and I really want to play this game again.

http://www.gog.com/game/sid_meiers_alpha_centauri

GoG.com offers SMAC and SMAX combined at $5.99. If you look in during a sale, it might be down to $3.99 or so, as if it wasn't cheap enough. I would have bought it there but they didn't have SMAX when I was looking, so I ended up buying a disc version from Sold-Out Games.

At the moment I'm reinstalling Civ 4 for this

http://www.moddb.com/mods/planetfall

Cool. Never got Civ4, and honestly don't think I will, or at least not for the vanilla game. I've seen videos of Civ5 after the new expansion and it seems really fun, because I've always been the tall builder type. Yeah, even in SMAC, where that strategy kind of sucked.

If you played any previous Civs, skip 5.  Civ4 is pretty good, and the expansions and mods available make it better.

5 is only any good if you never played any of the others.

My only issue with Civ 4 is the constant unit stacking

I've read that Civ5 was pretty bad on release, but honestly I've found it much more interesting just from the perspective of a watcher of Let's Plays than Civ4, which to me felt kind of bland. I'm not sure if I really want to get either, though, SMAC fills the Civ-game niche forme and I tend to prefer more along the lines of RPG/4x hybrids.

Every play Crusader Kings 2? Its 4x meets rpg

Haven't played it (I don't think my computer actually meets the requirements) but I do love watching Let's Plays of it, yeah.

In my current game, I am the Emperor of Scandanavia and the Viking pope.

Same, I put it into EU4 as well

I'm waiting for the price to come down before getting EU4, then the glory of the Odin will be spread to the entire world!

It is REALLY hard to maintain a massive empire in EU4 if you aren't ready. I own all of Northern Europe, from Ireland to Western Russia

Is that all? I'm firming up my hold on Aquitaine as I march on what remains of Germany, Bavaria and Bohemia. And its just past 1050.

Well I have, Germany, Northern Italy, UK, All of Scandinavia, Russia (western), France, East Spain, the whole Baltic and I am sure I am forgetting something

A good start. How goes the expansion of the faith? Have many embraced Odin's call?

And have you tried any of the mods? Sengoku is pretty good rebuild for the Japanese island, A Game of Thrones can be fun, and Elder Kings makes the game into Tamriel.

Pff... try maintaining a large empire in Victoria 2 then start talking... :p

I have Civs 3, 4, 5 and I think Civ 5 is one of the best. Not because of graphics or anything but the expansions really bring out the game especially the most recent one "Brave New World." BNW really overhauls the diplomatic portion of the game and also vamps up the culture element a lot. The best mechanic was the archaeology tech because if you fought barbarians way back in the beginning of the game you can build archaeologists after you research archaeology to dig up the ruins of that battlefield for artifacts for your culture. Also playing as Venice is hilarious because they added a trade mechanic to the game where you can set up trade routes with other civs or other cities you own. As Venice you can only directly own one city, your capital. Other cities you take automatically become puppets. Whats fun about this though is you can use your massive trade fleet to exploit those puppet cities to make your capital super amazing. Hell in one game as venice I used my trade fleet to send excess production and food from my puppets to my capital which allowed me to build almost 4/5 of all the wonders in the capital and make Venice a 89 population city lol.

@Christana: I play CK 2 all the time. I especially like the new customization DLC they added where you can take your ruler to the barber shop if he looks ugly or something and make him look better and also the fact you can now name your titles to whatever you want. All hail the Kingdom of GoFuckYourself!!! LOL

So I got SMAC again with the expansion. Who should I play as to reintroduce myself? Also I never played Alien Crossfire.

Who should you play? University is pretty easy, last time I recall, because they tech really well. Peacekeepers are basically the Civ that can just grow and pretty much do anything. Basically, just not the Believers or the Morganites, because those two are harder to play than the others.

I usually don't play with the SMAX factions, because I just don't like how they feel thematically compared to the old ones (the Free Drones and the Cybernetic Consciousness are IMHO a bit better, though). It does add a lot of new content even if you play with the old factions, though.

Wait can you not play with old factions and new factions? LAMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

No, you can play with both together just fine. You just can't play all 14 at the same time. I personally just play the original 7, they have the most personality.

But I want all 17 at once. *Cries*

I'm not convinced that would be any fun, though. There's the three super-OP factions (aliens and pirates) from SMAX that are really annoying, and then you'll still have to deal with the likes of Miriam and Santiago.

The weak would be destroyed early on. Besides I find that Miriam goes under pretty quickly.