Is anyone playing the science fiction world?

[tobyr]

I have scanned the topics in this forum, and it appears that no one is posting on the ToT science fiction world. Is anyone here playing it? What do you think of it?


(1) Is it fun? Sufficently different from the original game?
(2) Does it feel sufficently like science fiction to you?
(3) If you've tried both, which do you prefer: the fantasy world or LaLande?
(4) Etc.

COMMENTS PLS...

- toby robison


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[SixArmedMan]

I've been playing it and I was engrossed, only as long as I read the entries for EVERYTHING in the civilopedia. THAT is what draws you into the world. Read EVERYTHING from terrain to techs to units to EVERYTHING. Only then, you begin to understand and appreciate the setting much more. Not doing so probably leads to a drab experience.....
It IS fun but I'm disappointed that they rehash so many units from the extended original game...... oh well.....

All in all, though, The fantasy and midgard are better over all and more interesting. The concepts are much less abstract then the ones presented in Lalande, and thus, immerses you into the setting much better than the SF game.

[McSweeney]

I've been playing SciFi games quite often the last few weeks. It took me some time to get to know the new units/techs/advances etc. As SixArmedMan said, you've got to read the whole Civilopedia, but once you get used to it, it's fun. Really, it's great!
The only thing I didn't like about it is that you have to trade knowledge with Alien civilizations in order to enable advanced researches. Most of the time these guys didn't want to trade anything, and so I got stuck pretty often.
Also, it would be great if those Guardians from Nona didn't come back all the time. I've killed them over and over again and they just keep coming back again!
But apart from that it's really worth playing. I haven't tried the fantasy games yet, but I will soon.

[ghosh9]

I agree with SixArmedMan and McSweeny. They did an absolutley great job with the civilopedias of the fantasy and sci-fi games. They must have some good imaginations at Microprose! The best thing is that the entries just don't say "Blah blah unit attacks for blah and is a land unit blah blah" but it actually will give a storylike background, mention some "history" or reference to something in the storyline itself. Even hints about strengths and weaknesses as programmed by rules.txt is given in the form of history or "observations" by some scientist or another. Excellent fiction writing!

To stay on topic: I haven't really played the Sci-Fi game much yet. I have played the Fantasy one, as the Merfolk, and that one is quite good. The Sci-Fi game looks sort of confusing to me if only because each map is quite different is meant for a particular use (production on Naumachia, research on Nona... etc). It almost forces you into the "specilized city" strategy approach, which is opposite to what I do as I try to go for the "super city" approach and develop each of my cities as much as possible. So, its good in that its making me change my old set ways.