SMAC vs. SMACX Poll

[Khan Singh]

Okay, maybe calling the Angels 'unplayable' was a little unfair. It is only in a game with the Drones or University, where they build the HSA early, that I find the Angels to be totally useless.

But they aren't very strong. A +2 probe bonus doesn't help very much except defensively. -25% cost of operations is a very good modifier, but it doesn't change the fact that the Morganites are still the champion probe users. Having 100% more money is much better than paying 25% less to use mind control.

The real problem with the Angels is that they don't have any strengths except for probes, which are fairly easy to shut down.

[MapleLeaf27]

I would pick SMAC over SMACX, but it's close. Here's why:

I like the new alien life, and the random element of games using new and old factions. I especially like the Angels although I agree they're pretty weak unless they start far away from everyone else. I just like probing a lot.
The new buildings are mostly good (Covert Ops, Flechette Defense)
Battle Ogres are neat. So is Marine Detachment.

BUT

I find a lot of little things I don't like.
I don't like the alien factions, Drones (too strong), Cyborgs (too much like University).
Overall I don't think the new factions are well-balanced. The original 7 all fare about equal depending on how you set up your game (except Morgan, he just doesn't know how to build or defend himself, in my experience). With the new factions I find the Angels and Cult rarely get very far as AI players, while the Aliens can be unstoppable at times, especially when they eat another faction in the first twenty turns.
I play a lot of hotseat games, and I found
that once the newness wore off, everyone started picking the old guys again. We always play SMACX with random factions now, but the best game in my recent memory involved all the original 7 minus the Peacekeepers (replaced by Pirates).
The Cloudbase Academy was a bad idea. It's unbalancing because Aerospace Complexes are so important.
You can get Hybrid Forests before Tree Farms.
I hate being asked if I want to upgrade(downgrade) 3-res to plasma, and I hate how the game sometimes forces me to design a lot of missile units because it prefers R-Laser for no reason I can fathom. How often do you need R-Laser?
And on and on.

SMACX 8 - SMAC 3 - Undecided 2 ?

[joer]

I give SMACX the vote, simply because it is an expansion and gives the game more options and allows more different combinations. Especially the different faction setup can give each game a totally different flair.

However, I think that SMACX it has a lot of flaws and they could have done better as expansion.

I like the background story of the aliens. I think it gives the plotline more depth and a totally different dimension. However, I think that the execution of the alien factions in gameplay is flawed.

They are stronger, all right. However, they come off as so unbalanced that you cannot play them as human. Giving them directed research is just sick when playing blind. Some people love to pick an alien faction in MP after the other players have chosen human factions -- that's just annoying. Playing the aliens is like admitting that you suck in this game...where is the challenge? In the end, the Progenitors come off as unplayable for the player.

As enemies, they are interesting, but their diplomatic behaviour seems too much like your standard momentum faction. Instead of being bent on destroying each other and either ignoring or using the human factions, they just tend to rally up against me, often pacting with other human factions or with each other. The latter is simply wrong.
It would be much more interesting if they stayed true to their theme, and diplomacy and tech exchange would be muchmuch harder with them, and the human factions would make some effort to work together in order to get rid of them, rather than just pounding on me.

The other new factions seem not so well designed as the original ones. Their ideologies are lacking badly. The Pirates have none, the Data Angels have a very limited agenda and the Cult and the Cyborgs are just spinoff factions.

The new techs usually tend to be annoying at the start. I never want to research them. I have not found the additional goodies very useful at the time I research them. R- and D-armor is too expensive, you only need R-lasers later, and the same is true for sea-facilities. I have yet to equip a ship with marine detachment.
Some of the new SPs seem overpowered: Energy Nexus is on the edge, Cloudchaser academy is sick (as if MMI wasn't good enough as it is) and Manifold Nexus is beyond sick.

I like the new midgame additions: fungus and tectonic missiles are cute, flechette defense and the probe algorithmic enhancements are very good ideas to balance out previous inbalances. However, for me, there are hardly novelties worth at the beginning of the game.

The new landscape additions are nice and seem well balanced.

So while all my complaining gives a pretty bleak picture of ACX, I still like the variation it brings. As an addict, playing around with more combinations and more factions and test out their strengths and weaknesses makes it definately worth the money. Even if I think that there was more room for improvement.
-joer.

[Lord Maxwell]

I prefer smax due to a few major reasons. First and foremost is the fact that Alien Artifacts are a lot less common. They made the early and middle game to easy as a human in smac. (In smac I often had problems finding a free node for an AA, in smax I never use em for anything but building wonders unless I am really in need of tech. I used about 50/50 in smac.)

Well, the unbalancing factor on cloudbase academy isn't the military aspect, but the sattelite aspect. You basically get an early space ladder... I never was much of a fan for any of the free-fac wonders, they just don't make the game any more interesting, they just cut down on work... For a more challenging game let the ai have em all. (Mounting an attack to conquer with command nexus is ridiculously easy.)

The new techs mostly add more gunk, which is good, because by the late mid-game any faction played by a human is down to a tech every round, or 2 every 3 if you are a bit slow... Adding more filling between the gems was a good idea.

smax 10, smac 3, undecided 2

[joer]

The Cloudbase Academy is just...ARGH!

With an AI lagging in getting air defences up, air dominance is crucial to making fast, sweeping conquests anyways. So in the old ACT, you build a few, expensive aerospace complexes for your main industrial centers who could crank out excellent fighters and choppers, while hoping to get clean reactors soon, so support doesn't bog'em down.
Once those choppers return from their killing sprees, you have the choice to let them regenerate for quite some time at the front or fly them back to the aerospace base, losing effectively 2 turns in transit.

In ACX, you don't have to worry about designating aerospace cities -- every single one does it. You also don't take a few turns to build the complexes, delaying your fighter production. You just wait until you research MMI (usually 2 techs away from D:AP), dump a bunch of upgraded crawlers in one city and *flup*, every single city can produce air units who's discipline let even Santiago pale. Not only that, but you don't have to worry about flying them back to the core for regeneration once they're wounded. You can simply do it in that base you just captured from the enemy, then kill on the next turn -- that is in my view the biggest militairy advantage. And because you have beelined for MMI, you probably left the quest for militairy algorithms aside...who cares? Even if your enemies have got D:AP by now, all units in cities get defense rates doubled, making them as effective as AAA defenders.
And aren't there these rumors of the Academy giving fighters and choppers a higher movement?

But, yes, I agree, all those advantages are just minor in comparison to the fact that every single base gets full advantage of orbital improvements and can build them as well. Got no idea what to do with that sea-base out on the other side of your empire? Too lazy to micromanage...great, just pop up a few more satelites, without bothering to pay upkeep for any aerospace complexes.

But of course, such a project has its price. 300 minerals! With the same tech, you get the Cyborg fabric for 400 minerals. I still consider it a good SP, making the Academy a bargain, any way you look at it. One aerospace complex alone costs 80 minerals. So this project gives like 20 excellent facilities for the price of less than 4, and that's not mentioning the upkeep.

Didn't Firaxis want to try and balance certain aspects of the game with Alien Crossfire? Nice try.
-joer.

[SixArmedMan]

The first version of SMACX was much to buggy for anyone's acceptance. The V.2 has given the AI some annoying behavioural pattern of building 100+ probe teams and sending them all after the same city, to the point where you quit the game in frustration. In original SMAC and buggy SMACX, I've always been able to get a piecemeal invasion off. Well, I do like some of the new Secret Projects and land marks... Ummm.... anything else? Well, it wasn't' worth the $45 Canadian that I got it for...

SMACx:9 SMAC:4 Both/undecided:2

[aquestion]

I have just purchased SMACX and I love the game, it is definitely an improvement on the original. But what I am wondering is how you guys have mixed the classic factions with the new ones. It seems like my interface wont allow it and that is the one fundamental weakness I see in the new addition. If anyone could explain this dumb mistake to me it would be very enlightening.

Forget about storyline,
There is nothing I would rather do than have the Pirates going at it with Morgan and Deidre!

[Zaxxon]

I find it interesting how so many people will say that the new factions are bland and any decent player knows that you should stick with the original 7.

Personally, I've always liked the flavor that the new factions bring to the game. It's like having 14 different types of ice cream instead of 7.

[Sikander]

aquestion,

When you are starting a game, click on the arrow on at the end of the row containing a faction. You can then change this faction to any one you wish, including one which is already in the game, or a random faction.

[korn469]

well here is my thoughts on SMAC/SMACX

the one thing that i really like about SMACX is the new types of native life...i think the the fungal tower is a great idea...i like some of the new things in SMACX but...

...i despise the aliens! what are the chances that every space faring race that flies to alpha centauri ends up a ship wreck victim? to me the SMACX story was rushed and not nearly as cohesive or as good as the SMAC story...i also think that the play balance was better in SMAC

i like SMAC better but SMACX has some good points (the new indigenious life forms being one of them)

korn469

[Alinestra Covelia]

SMAX for me, without a shadow of a doubt. I loved the new techs and facilities. Right now I'm playing a game as Hive vs all new factions (except the Pirates, whom I have displaced) and doing well. Also, the ability to sidestep the HSAlgorithm is a great step for the game, and the new factions make wonderful new foes.

And I also agree that the revamped Star Wars films were unnecessary and very showy. I mean, what force can possibly account for the TIE Fighters' lasers changing colors? Red shift? Doppler effect? I think not.

Perhaps this was an early warning to us all that Lucas was over the hill and far away... if only I'd decoded it before spending good money on Episode I...

[Basil]

I have never analyzed the Cloudbase Academy to that extent, but I agree with every word Joer says. In my solo games the prerequisite for it is now Graviton theory - seems appropriate for a base floating in the sky.

I have a fix for the hybrid forests coming before tree farms quasi-bug:

Environmental Economics, EnvEcon, 0, 0, 4, 3, AdapEco, EcoEng, 000000100

Planetary Economics, PlaEcon, 0, 0, 4, 3, EnvEcon, Integ, 000000100

You still need the same techs to get both, but you get tree farms first.

[joer]

Alinestra: It must be The Force! You remember those weird thingies that are in your blood and make you have the force (or not)? Well, they are in laser beams as well.

But, then again, who cares about scientific explanations in Star Wars when things look cool.
-joer.

[ChrisShaffer]

SMAC - primarily because I'm not going to pay for a buggy product from a company that is no longer supporting the game. I haven't played SMAX and don't expect to do so. I have no interest in single-player, and can find plenty of SMAC multi-player games, so why bother?

Chris - who is just waiting for Civ3 or some other turn based game so he can forget this bugfest of SMAC ever existed

[Alinestra Covelia]

Joer - for an indepth dissection of Star Wars Episode I and its inherent weaknesses, look at my obsessive housemate's website:
http://www.enixine.dabsol.co.uk/episode1ispants.html

Midichlorians, my arse. >:

------------------
"In all creation, there can be no task more onerous or tedious than that of playing God." - Stephen Fry, 'The Liar'.

Homepage http://www.enixine.dabsol.co.uk (Shared)
[This message has been edited by Alinestra Covelia (edited May 19, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Alinestra Covelia (edited May 19, 2000).]