Civ 2 recovery 101

[Father Beast]

I just loaded upthe AC demo for the first time and naturally, I notice the similarity to civ 2. what is driving me uts is trying to deal with the changes in names. I get a few translations:
Settlers = formers + colony pods
Bases = cities
Secret Projects = Wonders
Mindworms = Barbarians

but I'm trying to figure out if there's something like a diplomat, or a caravan, and where's my advisors? the "menu" menu is confusing when I'm used to civ 2. sthere a database for converting terminology fro civ 2 to AC?

[Famyn]

Diplomats are probe teams. Supply crawlers are your resource collecting, secret project building units.

[CBH]

You can get similar reports to the advisors in Civ2 with the Function Keys, F1 is Datalinks (Civilopedia), F2 is Research, F3 Budget, F4 Production Summary, Happiness Summary, Garrison Summary, F5 Secret Projects Built/In Progress, F6 Orbital View (won't need that in the demo), F7 Security Nexus (units built, lost), F8 Score.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Daddy B,

To expound a little on what Famyn indicated regarding carvans = crawlers.

Trade as simulated in Civ2 is not the same in SMAC. Civ2 required city to city trade initiated by caravans/freight. In SMAC trade (arrows = energy) is accomplished automatically by treaty and or pacting with another civilization( = faction). Whats more is that trade energy is always greater when pacted with another faction vs. a simple treaty. Trade energy is figured automatically by pairing largest bases to equivalent other faction largest bases and working down through the list of all available bases. If one faction has more bases than another no trade results for the excess overflow bases. Additionally, trade is impacted by trade friendly SE setting impacting ECON setting The higher the ECON rating the higher the trade rates.

Crawlers being equivalent to caravans comes into play by ability to disband the crawler much like disbanding caravans to rush build wonders/secret projects.

That's pretty much the end of the similarity. Crawlers have the unique ability to harvest a single resource anywhere on the map and return that resource to the base in question turn after turn. Imagine in Civ2 being able to harvest food, shields, or trade arrows from a special resource area outside the city limits. That utility to my mind marks one of the biggest differences between SMAC and Civ2.

Hope you like the game. Now that I'm hooked I find it hard to go back to Civ2.

[edgecrusher]

no ****? i did not know that crawlers could do that. i just might start using them...

------------------
i've become impossible
holding on to when
when everything seemed to matter more
the two of us
all used and beaten up
watching fate as it flows down the path we
have chose

[Father Beast]

Thanks guys. If I can figure this game out, I might just buy it. I only have the demo now.
What about governments? it seems as if each faction has their own government in the form of their particular bonuses and stuff, like the Master of Orion jr. scen in FW. Taken that way, AC almost seems more like a civ 2 scen than a whole new game.
the units workshop does seem nice, and having 64 unit slots makes for a variety of possible units, so I have the choice of building fast armored formers for a high price or slow unarmored formers for cheap. I keep finding myself wanting to rename thm to their civ 2 counterparts e.g. calling the synthmetal garrison a "phalanx"
what in the heck is Social Engineering? is that the AC form of government? this part confuses me mightily.if only I had a manual...
BTW, on that subject, the civ 2 manual was great, detailing the concepts involved for vets and returning civ fans alike. is the AC manual any good? I mean if edgecrusher didn't know that crawlers could do that... or didn't he RTFM?

[zbear]

After a year of playing SMAC, I still call my 1-2 infantry unit a “phalanx.”

[Stefu]

Social Engineering is indeed AC form of goverment. Instead of there being only one menu, where you choose one goverment, in SMAC you choose not only goverment but also economic structure, values and future society. Each cohice has its own pluses and minuses - Datalink (eg. SMAC Civilopedia) should tell about what happens if some value is at some level. For instance, goverment choice Police State gives +2 Police, +2 Support but -2 Efficiency - this means your units in city can keep more people happy and your armies are mre easily supplied, but you have more inefficiency (ie. in Civ, corruption.)

[LoD]

Father Beast: He didn't RTFM . The manual isn't excellent, but you might consider browsing thorugh it. Especially the part about Social Engineering at the end of the book.

One more thing that's not included in SMAC: waste. Just thought you might want to know.

Oh, and a hint: do not use governors. They're a very lousy way to manage your production.

LoD

[RedFred]

quote: Originally posted by Father Beast on 05-22-2000 07:32 PM ...AC almost seems more like a civ 2 scen than a whole new game.

Father Beast: How cynical! SMAC has diamonds to represent minerals instead of shields and Granny Smith apples instead of wheat sheaves for nutrients. Totally different game!

Actually I think you'll like it. As mentioned above some of the changes that at first glance appear to be purely cosmetic are, in fact, real improvements over Civ2.

For me the big improvements included:

- more terraforming options including biggies like raising land or constructing a borehole

- better diplomacy with the AI

- AI characters that act more in line with their agendas (I have to say that the work that went into developing these faction leaders was superb)

- build queue for single play. I now have difficulty playing Civ2 for this very reason. (There is an issue with using build queues in multiplay, however.)

- an interesting plotline

- more varied "barbarian" options

- interesting regional terrain "specials" in addition to the single tile ones

- despite the fact that different factions have different abilities, Firaxis has done a good job of balancing them. Just about everyone rapidly develops a favourite that either matches their ideology or playing style.

- more options than Civ2 on the game setup...

...I could go on and on.

To be fair, the game isn't perfect. It took me a while to adjust to the different interface. In general I like it more than Civ2's but you do have to bounce out of the "city" screen to locate each cities research and cash status. I probably use the lab and tax specialists less than I should as a result.

There are still a lot of bugs that haven't been fixed yet - the worst two for me in SMACX are the dreaded terran.exe crash and the fake drones bug.

Nevertheless, the game is my favourite of all time and I hope you like it too. Welcome to Apolyton and happy SMACing.

[Father Beast]

Stefu - Thanks for the clue in on SE
LoD - I just have the demo, no manual, though I'm tempted to read through the entire datalinks
RedFred - I have that abominable terran.exe crash all the time. I thought it was just a problem with the demo, but it goes with the whole game!?!. I can't go ten turns without it kicking me out, and then the whole system locks up and I have to reset without shutting windows down. that single bug has discouraged me from playing the demo even very often.
so, what is that fake drones bug, anyway?
On the up side, I have to say that I think the units workshop is cool, and allows me to build cheaper, weaker units if I want. how many times in civ 2 I wished I could build a 1-6-1 defensive unit for my cities. and the build queue is just wonderful! If there's one thing that HAS to make it into civ3...
You mentioned regional terrain specials. I just discovered a crater, would that be one of those?

[Basil]

"terran.exe" is the game's main code file, so a lot of different crashes might come under the heading of "terran.exe crashes". I find, playing SMAC 4/SMACX 2 on Win NT, that I get a terran.exe crash maybe once every 150 hours of play. You definitely want the patches though.

To expand on the comments above about SE choices... you kind of mix and match SE choices to produce societies that may be like, but are not restricted to, Civ II governments. You could compare Democracy + Free Market to Civ 2 Republic, and Democracy + Free Market + Wealth or Knowledge to Civ 2 Democracy, for instance. When people talk about the Hive, think of a civ running (a play-balanced) Fundamentalism... all game!

[Father Beast]

OK, I read through most of the datalinks, although the "fatal exception" errors that cropped up whenever I read for 5 minutes drove me bananas.
This is actually fairly neat. instead of having 6 forms of government, each with their ups and downs, we have 4 kinds of areas to select, each with 3 possibilities to mix and match, like Basil said. I'm little unclear about how to change to these, though. Is there a period of anarchy, or somesuch?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Father B,

Unlike Civ2 - There is no period of anarchy. But there is a cost in terms of energy to effect a change in SE philosophy. The more change the higher the cost in terms of energy.

Regarding the unit workshop, here is another neat feature of SMAC vs. Civ2. Units may be upgraded to latest and greatest armor/weaponry/special abilities by simply investing some energy in them (Cntrl -U). So say for example you load up into a transport for invasion some 1-1-1 infantry units. Turn before you actually make your normandy style landing you upgrade those puppies to best weapon-best armor-best reactor grunts (or marines!). It may cost you some cash but it is a veritable Leo's workshop for the entire game (at an energy cost that is) Makes for interesting dynamics as obsolete units still have value.

[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited May 24, 2000).]

[RedFred]

Yes, Father B, the crater is an example of a special region. You will find lots of squares with an extra mineral in those parts. For a further discussion on special regions see the Landmarks: Good, Bad and Ugly thread.

On the terranx.exe crashes - it doesn't happen to me frequently, but when it does it is extremely annoying and seems to always happen when I have the AI factions on the run. I'm told you can get rid of it by disabling your mouse wheel, but I like to keep it on especially for Homeworld.

There is a thread on all the current bugs but you'd have to dig deep to find it as I think the last post was back in February.

The fake drones bug seems to start to happen when you are about one third through the game. Your drones shown when you have the city view (what workers are on the various tiles for the city) on may actually be citizens. The base's psych screen contains the correct number of drones so you have to look there. For several games, I didn't realize this and was creating an excess number of "Elvises" and psych enhancing facilities.