I almost always go as Santiago. It's been awhile so I forget the specifics, but I know that without fail I always set the map to be mostly water and I immediately go about dominating whatever island I find myself on. Sometimes I've shared with a few people, but the early military advantage really pays off; Hardened vs Green?
Then I just consolidate my power and go for a war of attrition. Treaties with as many people as I can manage, and then when someone asks for my help in a war I make a choice and kinda ad lib it from there.
Good Old Games is basically a steam subscription style thing, that ports old games to new systems, with their own dosbox conversion or whatever they need to run on windows a trillion, and hands you said game for like 5, ten bucks.
Alpha Centarui is currently 50% off, which means, 2.99 american.
For serious.
My bad, though, SMAX isn't on gog.
But alpha centauri that'll never go away, you can download it over and over, drm free, etc, with tech support, for 3 dolla.