For reasons that are likely obvious, when anyone thinks of MicroProse, of Firaxis Games and of any game tagged Sid Meier’s, the first thought is almost always Civilization. The reason is clear: it was a standout title that gave birth to its own breed of strategy game, and one that has been a retaining part of the games industry since its initial birth. Yet while it is true that Alpha Centauri couldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Sid Meier’s earlier work on Civilization, the story behind its creation is so much more than ‘Civilization in space’.
The important thing to remember first is the timeline. Sid Meier, Brian Reynolds and Jeff Briggs left the sinking ship that was MicroProse and formed Firaxis Games in May of 1996, with a goal to leave behind the mess of manufacturing and distribution and instead focus solely on designing great games. While the studio got up and running, it would need to start making some games, and so Sid and Brian individually went away to prototype their ideas.
“I developed the underlying code systems to support both,” recalls Jason Coleman, who had worked previously on and others over at MicroProse before joining the newly formed Firaxis team. “As I recall, Brian started work on what became right away, while Sid had a few prototypes going before settling on . We didn’t have an office at first and no substantive
