User Guide

CONTROLLING SOCIETY
There’s far more to building a successful empire than building facilities and
pushing units around. Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri allows you to manipulate
economic forces, diplomacy, espionage and political ideology to strengthen
your faction’s hold on Planet.
HQ MENU
The options on the HQ menu are your primary tools for both long-range plan-
ning and information about your faction’s progress.
SOCIAL ENGINEERING E
This screen is used both for Social Engineering proper (see Society Window,
p. 136), and for energy allocation (see Energy Allocation, p. 117).
SET RESEARCH PRIORITIES\CHANGE RESEARCH GOAL sR
This option allows you to switch from one research project to another in mid-
stream. This can be useful if, for example, the Gaians begin work on the
Xenoempathy Dome (which you consider crucial to your long-term strategy),
and you still haven’t started research on Centauri Meditation, the prerequisite
technology to building this project.
This functions in two ways, depending on whether the “Blind Research” rule
was selected for your game. (See Game Rules, p. 197.) If “Blind Research” was
selected, then you are prompted to select a new area in which to concentrate
your research (see Technology, p. 119). If “Blind Research” was not selected,
then you may choose a new technology to research.
If you elect to change research goals with “Blind Research” off, you are
prompted to select a new goal. Note that if you switch research projects with
“Blind Research” off, you lose half of the research you put in to the previous
project (see Switching Production, p. 79). This means that it’s better to switch
CONTROLLING SOCIETY
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