I've only been playing SMAC for about six to nine months. I know it can't have been more than nine months ago but can't remember exactly when I started. I didn't even mean to buy the game. It came in a multipack game (I bought the multipack to get the Axis and Allies game in it a couple of years ago, because I liked the Axis and Allies Board game).
After playing Axis and Allies for a while, out of curiosity I put the SMAC cd in. There were no printed manuals, but I followed the tutorial on the game.
After reviewing the seven choices of factions, I figured, well, since I don't know how to play this game it probably would be a good idea to at least be well armed. I choose Spartan and the Citizen difficulty level for my first game. I took a while but despite my best efforts at watching the forests in my part of the world grow, the AI finally got around to annihilating me (and I was trying so hard to be nice to it).
Lessons learned the hard way in that game and the games that followed.
You can build units.
When someone offers a treaty accept it.
Trying to place a research hospital in, every one of your bases, before you make your first impact rover, generally leads to a short game if your empire is in the same solar system as Miriam.
Miriam - she's not to be trusted.
Finally, although you can do a lot of things with the free units you get when you pop a pod, different units are good for different purposes. It appears using an Alien Artifacts to explore unknown terrain is not the best use of the unit. Nor is sending Alien Artifacts towards those units that don't seem to respond to your efforts to direct them and look kind of like yours except for that strange orange or bluish tinge.
I've learned how to play the game a little bit better since then, but would be interested if anyone has any similar early learning tidbits they can pass on.
Mead
P.S.
The more entertaining and embarrassing the better.
After playing Axis and Allies for a while, out of curiosity I put the SMAC cd in. There were no printed manuals, but I followed the tutorial on the game.
After reviewing the seven choices of factions, I figured, well, since I don't know how to play this game it probably would be a good idea to at least be well armed. I choose Spartan and the Citizen difficulty level for my first game. I took a while but despite my best efforts at watching the forests in my part of the world grow, the AI finally got around to annihilating me (and I was trying so hard to be nice to it).
Lessons learned the hard way in that game and the games that followed.
You can build units.
When someone offers a treaty accept it.
Trying to place a research hospital in, every one of your bases, before you make your first impact rover, generally leads to a short game if your empire is in the same solar system as Miriam.
Miriam - she's not to be trusted.
Finally, although you can do a lot of things with the free units you get when you pop a pod, different units are good for different purposes. It appears using an Alien Artifacts to explore unknown terrain is not the best use of the unit. Nor is sending Alien Artifacts towards those units that don't seem to respond to your efforts to direct them and look kind of like yours except for that strange orange or bluish tinge.
I've learned how to play the game a little bit better since then, but would be interested if anyone has any similar early learning tidbits they can pass on.
Mead
P.S.
The more entertaining and embarrassing the better.
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