Announcement

**Matrix** · January 31, 2000, 15:56

I found the Unit Workshop to be a nice element to the game. It is much more fun to adjust basic units to your own specs rather than take what is given to you.

It would have been very cool to be able to get off the planet and explore the Centauri solar system. That is something that these types of games are missing. To have to plan for both Planet and Off planet would be outstanding. Think of the different 'factions' that could have evolved!

That's my .02!

------------------
Rick

**Pythagoras** · January 31, 2000, 17:53

quote:

Music--Okay, there ain't much of it, but, on the other hand, I never felt the inclination to turn it off. I always end up ditching the music in other games after 15 minutes, even if it is good. Sometimes less is more.

I enjoy the music, unless I'm listening to a CD of my own. I like how the music changes as you do things, its functional, and its simple.

quote:

Endgame--This is my biggest gripe about SMAC. After an epic job of building your civilization and defeating your enemies, all that happens is you build the Transcendence Project and you win. Firaxis tried to increase the suspense by putting in the mindworm explosions as you approach Transcendence, and this works--- the first time you play the game. But after that, fending off the mindworms is just a boring chore that nets you huge amounts of cash.

Although Transcendace is simple for advanced players, I find it challenging to try and build it and ward off mindworms. I can see if you own most of the world and your just sitting their waiting to transcend, it gets boring. But why not just conquer the world or win a diplomatic victory and get it over with?

quote:

Graphics-- The only problem I have with the map graphics is fungus. It just doesn't look very impressive.

Looks fine too me, what do you mean by "impressive." When I see it on the map I think "annoyance, LOTS of annoyance" - slow movement, mind worms.. etc, which is what its there for.

quote:

The rest of the map was fine. Unit graphics were much less impressive---with only a couple of frames of animation they were incredibly slow.

Well, I enjoy the functionability of most of the terrain/unit graphics. I wish they had done a better job with the 3D unit graphics, but I find once I turn animation off and fast movement on, it all pans out.

quote:

Game System-- The basic Civ game system has been around the block one time too many IMHO.

Well if it aint broke, dont fix it. The system has been modified extensively to support a energy based economy over a trade based economy. Also the Social Engineering and Unit workshop.. These subtle differences that make SMAC a much more futuristic Civ.

quote:

AI-- This is really a problem with all wargames, but SMAC is no exception. Current AI is not up to the demands of complex, open ended strategic games. However it should be possible to personalize the AI a little better so it responds more like it "should". IE the faction leaders should act according to their personalities. Also tactical decision making could be improved.

No argument there, AI coding is a tedious pain in the butt, so I can sympathize with Firaxis. They did good enough job given their time.

quote:

Bugs-- Fewer bugs please.

better than CTP... pretty good for their deadline...

quote:

the techs in SMAC are really just names acting as placeholders for unit or base advances. This almost makes the whole game seem like one of those Civ2 scenarios where "Sabatier Converter" is just the current name for the "Market". Also the tech tree seems too crosslinked to me. This means that you can't make strategic research decisions because you basically need the entire lower part of the tree to make any advance in the middle.

I disagree entirely. These tech names are well researched, and are very intuitive. There are only a few directly eqivelant improvements also. And the ones that are are a nescesitty to maintain the gameplay. Such as Energy Banks and rec commons. The developers do a good job of making educated guesses what the future technologys. I also think the tech tree being crosslinked is a good thing. Differing Factions being played by the AI would get 90% of one type of Tech and 3% of everything else! It works perfectly so you can be somewhat dominate in one thing, but not OVERLY dominate. Think how easy it is to kick butt early on when you have impact weapons. What if you had missles real early? This also makes sense, since stuff like man-made fossil fuels require enough infrastructure to research/maintain/etc. This implys that good enough steps have been made in all 4 areas to be able to maintain and mass produce such technologies.

quote:

It would have been very cool to be able to get off the planet and explore the Centauri solar system. That is something that these types of games are missing. To have to plan for both Planet and Off planet would be outstanding

Although I agree this would be cool, you are talking about creating a whole new game with whole new dynamics. A Game has to stay focussed on its subject matter and its goals, otherwise too much time will be spent by 1 development team on developing 2 seperate games. And in the end, you get 2 crappy games. The fetures that are included in SMAC that are "in space" are only complementary to the gameplay being developed on the surface.

Anyway,

**edgecrusher** · January 31, 2000, 18:51

i like the idea of factions, instead of the way civ does it. each faction is unique, and has its own way of being played.

**gnome** · January 31, 2000, 20:17

I have to disagree about the unit workshop. In general I found it to be a pain in the butt to use, caused me to dread instead of anticipate the latest military technologies, and led to oversimplification of the design of units... for example, defense being the result of armoring and nothing else... energy weapons being used as artillery, etc.

**SoHappy** · January 31, 2000, 23:35

Sorry gnome but I disagree, the one thing I really liked about SMAC is the ability to design your own units, I only wish they went further and allowed further options like weight, size, materials etc. This makes it a lot of fun trying different options, and making trade off's. It also allows for more options with multiplayer.

**Darkstar** · February 1, 2000, 04:48

Music? SMAC has music? I don't agree. It has some running sound effects. Music is almost NEVER played, except for a few factions. This bombs, IMHO.

Factions? Great job. This gives the IMPRESSION of fighting the Hive, rather then the Blue player.

Graphics? Didn't work. I know that it was suppose to be an alien world, but it was just a bomb... Plus side: Visual display of height was nice, but it SHOULD have had rotates then. Not being able to rotate the view seemed criminal to me... and would have been useful many many times...

AI? Failed. I KNOW they worked hard on it, but it took a step back. The AI just didn't have the logic to handle all the new options and tactics possible. I realize that is asking TOO MUCH, but a simple PROBE foil would have helped. So many SMALL things would have helped.

ALL KNOWING AI. BIG BOMB! Come on gang! There is no reason reason for this other then sloppiness or laziness. The AI should work on what IT knows, not what the Universe knows. The average machine will have the memory/swap space for the extra maps... and will make things like stealth, exploration, trading maps, etc a LOT more important. No more of the AI high tailing half way across the world to get the Jungle on a random world until it KNOWS the Jungle is there.

Big time advancement: Borders. Let's extend them to the sea better, and add ways to fix, trade, extend them by Diplomacy.

Moderate works: Workshop. Not bad for a first pass. I DO like being able to design my own units. BUT... the limitations, and design imposed restrictors were highly aggravating. As was auto-upgrade behavior and a few other things. There was a LOT said about this gang... you have a long list of complaints and suggestions for betterment. I hope you can implement some of them. (It would be NICE to be able to place as much specials and whatnot on a particular "special" unit... let engineering techs determine how complicated unit design can get... not a game design structure/template)

World Map: BIG TIME BOMB! Why in the world are we still stuck on a cylinder? ESPECIALLY in high tech settings? A GLOBE is a sphere, not a cylinder... It has a high level of strategic impact. Cylinders have been around since the first mainframe Empire map allowed wrap around... come on gang. Step up to the bar! Let's get up to the average!

Tech Pyramid: Thumbs down. I know the fun of DISCOVERING the game is figuring this out, but after that, it's just a planned assault to fit your play style for that game. The random element was nice, as it spiced up the game (and is the only way I play), but with a little knowledge, it's still easily guidable. Techs advances come from a wide array of sources... radar came from looking for death rays... look around! You guys have done the research... you know very little was ever directly looked for until recently...

That old City State Arrangement: SUCKS. Let's get nationistic. Use something more like Master of Orion 2, or CtP or... Come on. The unit maintenence model works for ANCIENT confederations of city states, but not national/factional powers...

Cities only being a Center point for farmers/miners: Sucks. Let's move away from this model, eh? I mean, look at it in SMAC. I have a 10 pop unit base. 10 people are out working the LAND... the city? It's free... noone works it. Let's go to something more Deadlockish... When you BUILD a facility, it goes out on the city bounds land... people are assigned to it. Building extra facilities (expanding existing ones) allow you to get more of that resource type worked... Need more output from the factory? Move more workers to it. Advantage to facilities out on the land? Now you can BOMB them... wow. What an idea. And if you have to build facilities, it will give a more natural look to things... old cities will have housing (population) centers... commerce (banking/stockmarket) areas, industry (factories, steel mills, etc) areas... new cities and back water cities will have farms... and be connected to your core developed cities by way of transportation networks (dirt roads {permits 1 or 2 goods per tile worked up node, reduces move cost}, paved roads {raises limit, upgrades unit move by dropping move cost further}, railroads {raises limit, allows for very long distance shipment, reduces cost}, mags {etc/etc}).

A basic cost increase to maintain units in the field... the further they are from their base, the more they cost. This represents how much more it costs to support and resupply units away from supply chains (the LARGEST strategic factor in war)... after certain advances, have the ability to make supply depots/forts. Act as a city for calculating costs for units in the field. Makes protecting your supply depots/chains the strategic necessity they are. An opponent with a small number of units can do a LOT of damage by destroy supply points/depots...

I like the SP movies in SMAC.

I liked the way SMAC utilized space so that you didn't have to consider it (only one world map). That was a good system (tile systems in space look REALLY ridiculous...)

Combat system: BOMB. Armor should SHIELD you from damage. Use an Attack Strength, Hitting Strength, and Armor. The armor reduces the hits done... so that Heavy Tank with a 4 armor can't be touched by that recon infantry that has an Attack of 1 and Hitting Strength of 1...

Morale: Loved it. Great addition.

Set Opponent limit: Bad. 7 Rings. 7 Opponents. ARG! Let this be more fluid. Allow for fewer starting, and allow for new ones added... let distant cities sucede! Let new factions/nations spring up like this! It's certainly better for a Civ setting... and it can easily work for SMAC. After all, 5 of the new factions practically arose out of the others...

Big minus: Feature missing: STACK COMBAT! The collateral damage feature barely touched this. Let's expand this out, so that units can support each other... have multiple elements join upon attacks and defense... base the number permitted on morale (the better trained a unit is, the better it's possibility of coordinating with other units), and on Military Tech knowledge. You can throw in a base number that works off of SE...

Big plus: SE. This worked well... although it could be improved upon (what couldn't?).

Another plus: Supply Crawlers - Hey, transport of resources to where you want them! Positive step forward.

Trade system: I liked the one SMAC used. Bases automatically establishing trade. Now, add in them trading INTERNALLY (not worth as much as externally), and we can really get an economy cooking... Imagine having facilities that when worked, increase the number of trade lines. Or, have internal trade based automagically on the city facilities worked... Mine has one internal (to city center or smelter... smelter accepts X number of mine trade, and generates a metal which can be used at centers or factories... factories generate X number of trade...) Think along the lines of Railroad tycoon, where the web is automagically generated (those industry barons at work in the background...).

Well, that's a few thoughts about SMAC, and what features worked and didn't work... all in my humble opinion, of course.

-Darkstarr

**Aredhran** · February 1, 2000, 05:58

Good points Darkstar.

**Sikander** · February 1, 2000, 07:22

What do I like / dislike about SMAC?

One of the best features was the unit workshop. This is really fun, and allows you to tailor your force to a particular tactical style. My one problem with it is that it doesn't really come in to play until the mid-game. Before then, it's just a few basic units, like Civ.

The tech tree was difficult to wrap my imagination around. I suppose that this shows a good degree of originality, but an awful lot of it didn't really make sense to me.

Probably the biggest weakness in the game is the reliance on the Civ engine. This had negative effects on almost every component in the game. The things I tended to like were the things which departed from the Civ model, like SE. Combat in Civ bites, as does the tiny movement allowances, in fact almost everything having to do with units sucks in Civ. Civ was a great game years ago, and a good game not that long ago, but it's limitations are legion. As mentioned above, moving away from the Civ city model and combat model would really be a step forward.

Realism: The game is weak here. What would the re-discovery of fusion power do to an energy based economy? Nothing in the game, but the effects on the military are overwhelming. What is being done with the energy? There should have been wonderful things which could only be done when plentiful energy was available. Instead only your military power grows. Fusion etc. should increase your industrial productivity, rather than making only military units cheaper. If the economy is truly based upon energy (a dubious idea), then there would be an enormous amount of inflation when a vastly better energy source was discovered.

The other weak point as far as realism goes is the factions. They are fun and all, but they really are only nations by another name. You pretty much are assured that world opinion (including your own citizenry) is meaningless, and set out to either conquer early, or build until the inevitable point where the AI comes after you.

I would like to play multiplayer, but the Civ model sequential movement system seems to condemn everyone to an extremely long game. Simultaneous movement would be more challenging for the players, in both types of game, and has the added benefit of (probably) improving the AI's chances, as well as speeding multiplayer.

I too liked the supply crawlers, but they needed to be limited by dividing the output by the number of turns it would take to move back to the recipient base. They do help alleviate the stupid premise that the population is almost entirely devoted to resource extraction, rather than industrial production, research, private sector economic activity, or military service.

All that said, this is a fun game for a builder, but a more realistic model would improve the game (or rather the next one) for the builder, or the conquerer.

**waynehead** · February 1, 2000, 10:27

gnome: When I first started playing SMAC, I too dreaded new innovations b/c the Design Workshop seemed so cumbersome. But after I got into it and played around with it, not only was it fairly easy to use but it greatly enhances gameplay.

**Lord Maxwell** · February 1, 2000, 14:30

Hmm, Sikander touches upon something here. Inflation. Yes, I want inflation in SMAC II. When I discover fusion power, and build fusion labs (why do we not build fusion power stations as well?) I want the world economy to inflate. It should get more expensive to rush build everything. Not so much that getting fusion power won't pay off, but enough to hurt those lagging in the tech game.

And one thing, which will help the AI immensely, speed up multiplay and make the game more realistic: GIVE EVERYBODY THE EQUIVALENT OF PLANETARY DATALINKS. Once 3 ou of seven knows a tech, and you have contact with them, it should be only a matter of turns before you find that tech through leakage. (Could set it to #of contacts multiplied by ten. Plus an additional ten for every owner you have infiltrated. So with contact with one of the three owners you get a 10% roll every turn to see if you get it. If you have infiltrated all 3 owners you will get a 60& chance. Or for simplicities sake, give it to everybody once three people knows it. Could even add a probe action to lower somebodys chances of learning the rumours.)

The economy is basically good in smac, dividing between three resources is a good idea. But make the map contain more squares, and make each city bigger. (And no more units with one move, make the slow ones move three.) This enables you to let cities grow. Which will add a new element of strategy. When do I want to stop adding facilities because they starve me?

Military should be supported from a "factional pool" of resources. Say that a given city adds 2 of it's food, 1 of it's energy and 2 of it's minerals to the pool. Then any unit can take what it needs from the pool. Gives more of a feel of "nation" to the game.
Also, food etc should flow pretty freely once roads are in place. Make roads upgradeable twice, with easier flow of goods for each upgrade. Make trade with other faction cities much more profitable once roads are in place. (This allows for some riskier deals with the other players, as well as giving you a bit more of a realistic feel. Americans living in NY don't go out to the surrounding fields to gather food. They ship it in from the midwest. lets emulate that. Which would mean that hitting supply lines also becomes a major strategic element.)

Just some ideas, be back with more later on.

**SoHappy** · February 1, 2000, 16:01

'If it's not broken don't fix it' The Civ engine for base production is one of the best, if we went down to further detail then micro-managing would overwealm the other aspects of the game. If you want to micro-manage every aspect of your city then their are games that do that. I don't want to have to go through each city in my empire and tune everything.

However (always a however) I would love to see more global economics and diplomacy. Thus allowing more micro-management of your empire at a global level (or in economics land "macroeconomic policies). This was roughly achieved to some degree with the social settings, or in CIV the tax levels. But what about global trade settings, exchange rates, setting monetary or fiscal policies. This would allow you to compete against empires and kill them through economics, the real weapons used today.

**pris** · February 1, 2000, 18:06

Music: Perfect. If your playing a game for <1 hour then a decent soundtrack is a good thing. For 4h+ sessions of SMAC it's not.

Graphics: Height worked & Planet looked the part.

AI: OK for 90% of players (i.e. non-hcore) but can't handle aggressive tactics early on. AI for each faction was beleivable (except Spartans).

ALL KNOWING AI: Fact of life. People who think this is easy to work around should try actually writing the code. There's a project called FreeCiv (freeciv.org) where you could prove your point...

Borders. bloody awesome.

World Map: Correct. I wouldn't have played it had they used a globe. Globes are nice in theory but they just don't work in practice (e.g. Populous 3)

Random Tech: Perfect. Make's the game a lot less spreadsheet like.

Diplomacy: The current state of the art. Very good but there's still room for improvement, e.g. more options for playing factions off against each other.

Terraforming: Love it.

Environment: Still not enough here. Polution should have real effects & it should be possible to make the game world uninhabitable through enviromnental damage & war.

**edgecrusher** · February 2, 2000, 12:24

what works for me:
Civ engine. although it's not an exact replica, it's close enough. and it does a decent, if not commendible job.

Borders. in civ, i've always had the trouble of the ai cramping my personal space, now, no more.

graphics. true, not as sophisticated as they could be, but too much may be distracting. in Civ 2 TOT, the graphics are a step up from what they were, but now it's hard to see somethings. the elevation in smac also works ver nicely, the only proble mith it it's elevation relative to the sea. if you freeze the world up, mount planet looks more like a volcanic vent, rather than a mountain. i'd like to see a true 3-d map sometime soon.

AI. adaquate. we're a ways away from designing software to think like humans, let alone, six, and a sentient planet.

bugs. fact o' life. deal with it. anyone remember the loopholes in civ? there were only two gov'ts worth using, and numerous other bugs... but somehow we just didn't seem to mind back then.
[This message has been edited by edgecrusher (edited February 02, 2000).]

**Vanguard** · February 3, 2000, 01:59

I just don't find the "cylindrical" world to be a problem. When your infantry units only move one square per year anyway, map inaccuracies are pretty much meaningless. Why not just stick with the easy to implement(and use) "big square map" system? It's only annoying if you think about it---so don't think about it!

I agree that the city-state model is "used up". A great system for Civ and Civ2, but now it's inadequacies are getting annoying. I normally agree that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but this system is broke--- the purpose of games, after all, is to provide enjoyable novelty, and the city-state system is no longer either novel or enjoyable. As I said, realism is not a big issue to me, but if a system isn't enjoyable or realistic, then why is it in the game? Legacy compatability is not something I need in my next piece of entertainment software.

DS also makes good points about morale (nice addition), borders (how could I have missed that!) and combat (the planned system of armor/weapon interactions should have been implemented). But I agree with the others that SMAC's AI is as good as it gets for this type of game. Current AI just can't deal with strategy games. It has enough trouble just shooting back at you in a FPS. The fault lies not in our SMAC, but in our stars.

Inflation? Why? The fusion advance already allows you to build the Fusion Lab, which considerably increases your ability to buy stuff. I think a different economic system is neccessary for reasons of novelty and realism, but I don't think this is the worst problem in the game.

The Datalinks idea is very interesting. But, just to argue the other side, the mere fact that you have knowledge doesn't mean you can use it build complex machines. People in India know how computers work. But that doesn't mean they can build a processor better than Coppermine. (or Athlon @.18, if you prefer).

Announcement

SMAC--What Works, What Doesn't

SMAC--What Works, What Doesn't

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment