Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Secret Project: The Command Nexus

[realmomentsdotcom]

I'm thinking about getting this game,should i?

[dageezerboi]

@realmomentsdotcom yes you should if you want to play the best TBS ever made. there will never be another game like it, they dont make em with this much depth anymore.

[mootime]

@dageezerboi so fucking true man. They dont make games like these anymore. Sad, because with the technology we have today coupled with the games designed in the late 90s, we would have pretty much perfection.

[Skinnyoompalumpa]

@realmomentsdotcom

YES

[insideous57]

I want to see a project video where Santiago kicks Lal into a well.

[dawitekid20]

"If you know not your enemy's brother, but you have met his sister-in-law's mother, and his dads 2nd cousin, then you might know that their uncle recently divorced his aunt and married his dads 2nd cousins sister."

[AngelusDlion]

@HerrMorbitzer Please tell me that was a TFC quote...

[WatchRyder]

Great stuff!

Thanks for posting this. I've been looking for these cool videos for ages :)

[goatshredder]

Spartans = BEST FACTION EVAR

[Nightshift10000]

@goatshredder AMEN!

[PyroDesu]

This sounds kinda like it's propaganda for the Spartans.

[moksheebs]

i want to hear cor scream THIS IS SPARTA!

[eng3d]

I bet that Sun Tzu never heard about Orks.

[patchhacker]

@eng3d Sun Tzu never knew about automatic weapons either.

[lipovan87]

@patchhacker

Although he probably did know about semi-automatic crossbows.

[patchhacker]

@lipovan87 Those weren't Semi-automatic like we know today, they have to manually reset the mechanism after each shot but without the individual bolt insertion that it's European counterparts had.

[PyroDesu]

@patchhacker they were repeaters.

[moksheebs]

@eng3d at least he knew of undeads...

nah, just joking...

but there's orclike demons in chinese mythology.

[Shadowycrafter]

"if you know your enemy and know yourself you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

The 101th battle is going to be a real pain in the ass then.

[GhostInTheShell29]

@Shadowycrafter any time you battle the 101st its a real pain in the ass.

Even Sun Tzu knew this.

[PyroDesu]

Don't you just love Sun Tzu?

[goatshredder]

Have to confess, I only ever play as the Spartans. None of yer effete 'commerce' for me.

[PyroDesu]

Thank you for quoting Sun Tzu, spartan battle manual!

[RabidWaffles]

300 or 3000 (or 7000 if i remember correctly) against 200,000 either way the odds weren't exactly great

[gyrobotZ]

A reason why Spartans are good at warfare was not just cause of military discipline, but also fighting wars that they are sure they will win. They do not win wars by heroics and honour. But through sheer calculation and professionalism.

The Command Nexus allows such things to be given to every base in Alpha Centauri, A means to precisely calculate odds so few things will surprise you.

[Jensaw101]

correct me if i am wrong (note: i am not replying to that chain of comments as this will never be seen then) but wasn't the battle of Thermapolye a 'last stand' of sorts after a greek loss earlier? If what i've read is correct then; A small army of spartans and various greeks got their asses handed to them by the persians and the Battle of Thermapolye was a 'last stand; to buy the city states of greece time. It was a massive persian army against 300 spartans and a mediocre army of various greek.

[Arancaytar]

It's always peeved me that they didn't use the Sun-Tzu quote directly instead of paraphrasing it. :P

[Dezmixbe]

Pretty simple concept to convey even without using Sun-Tzu. Plus they already used him for Hunter-Seeker Algorithm, so 2 project quotes would have been overkill, given this is SMAC and not Civ.

[jamesgravil]

Bad intel was the main reason Hitler lost the Second World War. In 1942 he thought he had only a few dozen divisions to contend with in Russia (that's why he plunged into the Southern Caucasus and tried to take Stalingrad), when in fact there were more like a hundred - which not even Stalin knew at the time, because the Soviet Army was so horribly disorganized! Lesson for all future dictators: do NOT kill off half your generals if you know you're gonna get invaded sometime in the next ten years!

[Valkyriefury]

This is a great vid, such wise words. Someone should write a real Spartan Battle Manual.

[civver3]

Yeah, it's called "The Art of War".

[Bearfoot]

"if you know your enemy and know yourself you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

"If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat."

Sun Tzu

[RealParadoxBlues]

"If you know not yourself nor your enemy, you will know only defeat."

[NotTheAntichrist]

@Bearfoot "When a mind does not know itself, it is flawed. When a mind is flawed, the man is flawed. When a man is flawed, that which he touches is flawed. It is said that what a flawed man sees, his hands make broken. "

-Dak'kon

[PyroDesu]

@Bearfoot The victorious man wins first, then seeks battle, while the losing man goes to battle and then seeks to win.

-Sun Tzu

[InsidiousDreamer]

According to military historian John Keegan, no war's outcome was primarily decided by intelligence, so I'm not sure about Ms. Santiago's quip. Anyhoo, this is one of those projects that you build not because it does a lot for you, but rather, you don't want it falling into someone else's hands. If you're playing for a quick kill, you don't bother with secret projects at all. ***

[dude846]

Not primarily decided just by intelligence. But without knowing who your enemy is, where it is, the capabilities of the enemy's forces how many of what...

Knowing that there's 10,000 troops, instead of 100 is a big difference. I'm sure no one wants bad intel about the enemy.

[Nightshift10000]

You must remember however that 300 Soldiers Killed twice that number once. The 300 Soldiers were also Spartans interestingly enough.

[Freecell82]

It wasn't 300, it was more like 10 000. Against maybe 100-200k. And they they didn't win, they only delayed their opponents for a while, and the only reason they managed to do that was because they controlled a choke point.

[harlequin2262]

Piss off. That's a highly simplistic view of thermapolye. Not to mention there's a dozen other examples you could have used than one you probably saw in 300.

[Nightshift10000]

300 Spartans killed 1 to 200,000 Persians at Thermapolye and you say its simplistic. At Masada not even half that were killed and it's the same with the Alamo but at Thermapolye 300 Spartans Soldiers gained a kill score of 100 and maybe 200,000 Persians and no I didnt just get that from 300. I learned that in School and It always Intrigued Me

[harlequin2262]

You're school's rubbish, then. The spartans had masses of help there, and any sort of accurate count of the persians are basically beyond us, given the half a dozen conflicting sources, most of which were pretty seriously biased one way or another.

Thermapolye was never a case of 300 guys sitting there in the pass and mowing through the persian army. Go and read your textbook, it should indicate that there were at least a several thousand greeks there, at the very least, of various origins.

[MasterAsra]

Most sources say there were probably about 1700 at the pass itself and a few thousand on their flank.

[harlequin2262]

Most sources? We've got about 4 historical writers, and they all say totally different things about numbers. It's a consistent problem with ancient writers, they tend to make things up.

[idahodude1980]

"300 Spartans killed 1 to 200,000 Persians at Thermapolye"

Of course if your teachers used Herodotus's estimation of the persian army (5 MILLIONS soldiers !), you could talk about 200000 casualities.

But then again, the persian army must have been around 150000 people. If, say, 'spartians', killed 200000 soldiers, then congratulations, they won the war.

[harlequin2262]

You know your own capabilities, and those of your opponents. That way, you can attack in the most efficient manner. Every successful general does this, whether he realizes it or not.

Why does Keegan say this?

[rbellev]

ah, but you miss this: what about the decision of going to or avoiding war in the first place? the smart war is one made only where the outcome is guaranteed (unlike one prominent one i know of today... *nudge nudge*).

[madminister]

Technically, both are half truths. Intelligence is one aspect that decides warfare along with numbers / morale / eqipment / supplies etc. you dont need everything. you can win with poor numbers and equipment but good morale and intelligence. intelligence alone wont win a battle, but lack of intelligence (if your enemy has it on you) will certainly help him win

[spakka619]

Ah ha! You can watch the videos from within game...takes the good feeling away when you beat someone to it though.

[KarlNemetski]

Karl Nemetski is all about this

[SimaZao]

This is one of my favorites, it is also nearly impossible for anyone eles besides Chairman Yang to get. (woo!)

[chankljp]

The Command Nexus is perhaps analogous to the U.S. Pentagon in real life.

[dude846]

All of these technologies that Alpha Centauri had were very good. It's probably why I still have the discs and haven't tossed them out. Im glad someone found a way to decode these videos and put them on Youtube.

[spartan289]

No kidding

[luckjon]

These quotes are so relevant to today.

[HawkWProductions]

Yep! Another thing I loved about that game.