Whither SMAC 2?

[Guynemer]

I know this is an odd title for a topic in the Civ4 forum, but bear with me.


I was a relatively quiet member of a large segment of longtime Civvers who feel that the series truly peaked with Alpha Centauri. Civ3 was a major disappointment following SMAC, and many of us called for a SMAC2.

But now, one year after Civ4's release, one wonders if all the major setbacks have been rectified. Is SMAC2 now redundant?

Some of the advances that SMAC made, and their status in Civ4:

--Diplomacy: Civ4 is clearly better than SMAC in this regard in nearly every way. Except for the UN. There is so much room for improvement here in Civ4, if only they harken back to Planet.

--Social Engineering: Civ4 has more governmental options, without the hard coded and inelegant pluses and minuses of SMAC.

--Unit Workshop: Civ4 may have fewer options in this regard, but the unit promotion system has essentially the same effect with a much easier and more interesting modality. Also, thankfully one can't make such unbalancing superunits in Civ4.

--Immersion: The quotations and icons and music and movies of SMAC created a deeply immersive experience, that has yet to be matched. Civ4 is a huge step up from Civ3 in this regard, but still lags behind SMAC.

--Faction Traits: This was in large part hardcoded into the same matrix as government in SMAC; again, Civ4's multiple shared traits are less unbalancing and far more elegant.

--Resources, Religion, Golden Ages, Great People, Culture: Innovations of the post-SMAC era, and all of them terrific.

--Alterable Maps: This works in the SMAC sci-fi universe, but not in Civ4. At this point, Planet Busters and large-scale terraforming are centuries in the future.





With Civ3, it was hard to imagine the Civilization series recapturing all of the glory that was SMAC. But Civ4 has now come so close in some eras, and quite surpassed SMAC in many others, that one can't help but think that we will never take a new trip to Planet, and that Civ5, whenever it comes, will have made SMAC totally and utterly obsolete.

[Solver]

I still wouldn't mind having SMAC2. It would sure be a different game, and that would be good. Yep, Civ4 has pretty much everything we'd need, but that's not to say that a most excellent SMAC2 could not be made.

Immersion, though... I'm having a hard time believing that any strategy game, ever, will match the atmosphere & immersion of SMAC. Civ4 has some very good atmosphere, Civ3 had nearly none. SMAC, I feel, is even one notch higher than "excellent" in this regard, so meeting that would be a truly epic task.

[Badtz Maru]

I think a lot of the love for SMAC is due to two things.

First, it was a truly groundbreaking game for it's time. There hadn't been any strategy games like it yet, it took the Civ concept and went really far with it. It had great production values and had a lot of replay value.

Second is nostalgia. I remember staying up all night with SMAC and getting really into it's backstory and ideas. I remember how the game made me feel, but if I were to pick it up today I'd probably be pretty disappointed with it.

The game had a lot of flaws. It was very unbalanced. Combat was no fun. The tech tree was very dry and uninteresting. One of the things that people seem to think was great about it is one of the causes of it's weaknesses - the Unit Workshop. It's a good idea in concept, but it doesn't really work with the type of game Civ is. One of it's worst offenses was it sucked all the flavor out of technology upgrades - in Civ4, when you get Chemistry, you get a whole new type of unit. In SMAC, many of the techs did nothing more than giving you another + on your combat strength. A new esoteric discovery in physics would often result in no more than a potential +1 to your defense or offense. It also made it so that they had to get crazy in their tech descriptions to justify all the upgrades - you had helicopters shooting antimatter or black holes, it just seemd unrealistic.

[Randolph]

Well said Badtz.
SMAC and civ3 excelled in opposite areas, and civ4 has synthesized these aspects to make a great game. SMAC had all sorts of great ideas and options, but was so horribly unbalanced, had such a horribly retarded AI, and otherwise poorly implemented, that it really wasn’t much of a “game.” More of an exhibition of a bunch of great ideas for a game.

Civ3 on the other hand was second only to the original civ in terms of simplicity, but it was very well balanced, and the AI was able to use the majority of the options in the game reasonably well (better then any similar game at that time). A lot of people decided they hated it in the first week because of the lack of cool goodies, new ideas, and options, but those of use who played it a far amount really learned to appreciate its quality “as a game.”

Civ4 has managed to include a lot of the great ideas of SMAC, implement a system that is reasonably balanced, and an create an AI that is at least good enough to suspend disbelief most of the time. There’s still plenty of room for improvement, but CIV is certainly the best civ-line-game to date.

That doesn’t mean that an SMAC2 wouldn’t/couldn’t be great. First SMAC has a totally different flavor, so the two aren’t mutually exclusive (you could have both a great SMAC and civ, and I’d play them both). Second, it could be a chance to try out a lot of novel ideas that fraxis wouldn’t want to implement in their flagship title Civilization.

[SebP]

Originally posted by Badtz Maru
Second is nostalgia. I remember staying up all night with SMAC and getting really into it's backstory and ideas. I remember how the game made me feel, but if I were to pick it up today I'd probably be pretty disappointed with it.

The game had a lot of flaws. It was very unbalanced. Combat was no fun. The tech tree was very dry and uninteresting. One of the things that people seem to think was great about it is one of the causes of it's weaknesses - the Unit Workshop. It's a good idea in concept, but it doesn't really work with the type of game Civ is. One of it's worst offenses was it sucked all the flavor out of technology upgrades - in Civ4, when you get Chemistry, you get a whole new type of unit. In SMAC, many of the techs did nothing more than giving you another + on your combat strength. A new esoteric discovery in physics would often result in no more than a potential +1 to your defense or offense. It also made it so that they had to get crazy in their tech descriptions to justify all the upgrades - you had helicopters shooting antimatter or black holes, it just seemd unrealistic.

I think that's pretty much exactly the thing. I recently started playing SMAC PBEMs again, and i have a feeling they will still be great as soon as the real part starts.
However i can't sit through single player games anymore, because the AI is no challenge at all and doesn't even get the most basic economic concepts, and civ4 is there, where the AI with modest boni (thinking monarch to emperor) can be a challenge, or at least fun to beat.

Even worse, I'm beginning to get bored by the graphics. Different from other players, i never had this problem before with smac/x. The other parts of the immersion department are still great (quotes, wonders) but, well, we have all heard and seen them too often.

And that's a problem. It's kinda sad to know that i will probably leave smac behind at some point, especially because i loved the theme. That's why i want SMAC2. Even taking the risk that it would suck. On the other hand, after i've seen what can be done (civ4) i have high expectations. Well, or not, because i don't believe in SMAC2 ever becoming a reality.

[Prussia]

Keep in mind that SMAC2 might also have been a dissapointment if it came out before Civ 3.

[ajbera]

I just started a thread a few hours ago, saying the next Civ4 XP should focus on the Cold War, and the espionage/diplomacy/combat-by-proxy ideas that developed in that era.

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=155064

Since many of the suggestions were taken from SMAC, if some extended modding tools are included in a Cold War XP, SMAC2 could be included as an official scenario/mod.

It won't be the same as a focused-effort SMAC2, but it would be better (assuming it was done properly) than no SMAC2 at all.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Whither SMAC 2?

Originally posted by Guynemer
Diplomacy: Civ4 is clearly better than SMAC in this regard in nearly every way. Except for the UN. There is so much room for improvement here in Civ4, if only they harken back to Planet.

In Alpha Centauri your faction has sort of a diplomacy rating, basically a measure of how many times you have backstabbed others and such. The fun thing about this is you can actually launch a surprise attack on somebody.

Originally posted by Guynemer
Social Engineering: Civ4 has more governmental options, without the hard coded and inelegant pluses and minuses of SMAC.

I like the inherent plus and minuses. It means you have to take the good with the bad. In Civ 4 there doesn't seem to be anything bad, i.e. no penalties on any choices. I would think that slavery would at least give you a minus in production, but no. They even lifted the cap on production for more primitive forms of government in older Civ games.

Originally posted by Guynemer
Unit Workshop: Civ4 may have fewer options in this regard, but the unit promotion system has essentially the same effect with a much easier and more interesting modality. Also, thankfully one can't make such unbalancing superunits in Civ4.

I still don't understand the use of "units" in Civ 4, because for most of our history there weren't any standardised military units. The EU way of raising troops of x number of men makes more sense.

At any rate the promotion system isn't bad, the Unit Workshop is still better. I would also like them to reintroduce morale back into the game as well.

Originally posted by Guynemer
--Alterable Maps: This works in the SMAC sci-fi universe, but not in Civ4. At this point, Planet Busters and large-scale terraforming are centuries in the future.

Some amount of terraforming should be allowed, though, after certain tech advances. For example, one should be able to build roads and railroads through mountains, flatten hills, and grow crops in deserts.

One thing I miss from AC is blind research. That really gives the game a totally new dimension.

[ajbera]

Re: Re: Whither SMAC 2?

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
One thing I miss from AC is blind research. That really gives the game a totally new dimension.

QFT. That was great, and I miss it.

[gdgrimm]

Strange this hasn't been mentioned yet, but.......

One of the primary things that really impressed me with SMAC was the dual warfare system. Understandably, that wouldn't work in a non sci fi system like Civ, and I think SMAC didn't balance it very well.

But the ability to wage an effective war with Psi units (mostly native life form), even if woefully lacking in conventional military technology, and vice versa, brings a different dimension to the warfare planning than one could ever get with a Civ type system (even with promotions and a good unit workshop).

[Cort Haus]

I never really got going with SMAC. I liked the characterisation of the leaders and the storyline, but I never really got to grips with the unit workshop, and the Sci-Fi tech tree didn't inspire me in the same way a historical one would. Perhaps if I'd been on 'poly at the time I might have got further with it, but I think I spent my time playing CTP1/2 in much of the prev Civ 3, SMAC era.

I also think that some folks might have dismissed Civ 3 prematurely, before the patches sorted out the bugs & imbalances. One of the developments I did like about SMAC was borders. I hated the lack of borders in Civ 1 and 2. Which came first, CTP1 or SMAC?

What I'd really like is Colonization II.

[padillah]

Re: Re: Whither SMAC 2?

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

Some amount of terraforming should be allowed, though, after certain tech advances. For example, one should be able to build roads and railroads through mountains, flatten hills, and grow crops in deserts.

Yes, something must be done about deserts. One of the largest cities in the United States is in the middle of one of the largest deserts in the world (on purpose, to avoid the cops, but still), surely we've gotten to the point of irrigation in the desert.

I wonder if there's a way to mod it in? I know it's a simple XML change to make farms give extra food but how do I let desert be farmed? And how do I tie that to a tech?

Tom P.

[Arrian]

I'm another one who never really liked SMAC. I am one of a very few people who actually hated the unit workshop.

I honestly didn't want to spend half my time tinkering with unit builds, then making prototypes, etc. Maybe if I went back to it now I'd like it... I dunno. I like the simplicity of CIV's units and promos (and I was worried about the promos at first).

But then I also liked CivIII. :shrug:

-Arrian

[fed1943]

I got the point of the OP and agree.

civ1/2, smac and civ4 are brilliant ideas.

civ3, no; a very good developement of a poor idea. Still a

good game, but the others are much better.

Best regards,

[DrSpike]

I think the OP is rather good actually. Civ4 does capture the majority of depth of SMAC (and Civ2, preference between the 2 is actually just preference for a historical or sci fi setting) without having too many features the AI can't understand, leading to a less interesting SP experience than would otherwise be the case. However, for the same reason that Civ2 and SMAC co-existed, the premise that we don't need SMAC2 is not correct.

I just really hope they don't screw it up with the x-pack, and then not fix it, then release Civ5 (or even SMAC2). But that would never happen, right?