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The "magic" of SMAC(X) is that there is ALWAYS something you can build that makes you more money.
There is never a time when military spending is "gravy", like in Civ 1, where a huge army was merely a by-product of having built everything else.
Building a huge army in SMAC(X) means making sacrifices, paying a real opportunity cost, which good players always try to recoup by having some kind of plan for their troops (conquest, pod-popping, etc.) Its cost makes the "huge army" itself is a malleable concept: the player who can do more with less gains a clear advantage.
Conversely, the availability of profit-enhancing items might lead one astray; the building of troops cannot be an afterthought. Fungus trawling, pod-popping, self-defense, and good old-fashioned conquering don't happen by themselves, no matter how many bases have Tree Farms.
The constant competition from all quarters for scarce resources, all the way up to the A to T, and the number of ways to build (Demo / Planned / Wealth vs. Demo / FM / Knowledge vs. Demo / Green / Wealth + psych, for instance) is what makes this game so hard to put down.
There is never a time when military spending is "gravy", like in Civ 1, where a huge army was merely a by-product of having built everything else.
Building a huge army in SMAC(X) means making sacrifices, paying a real opportunity cost, which good players always try to recoup by having some kind of plan for their troops (conquest, pod-popping, etc.) Its cost makes the "huge army" itself is a malleable concept: the player who can do more with less gains a clear advantage.
Conversely, the availability of profit-enhancing items might lead one astray; the building of troops cannot be an afterthought. Fungus trawling, pod-popping, self-defense, and good old-fashioned conquering don't happen by themselves, no matter how many bases have Tree Farms.
The constant competition from all quarters for scarce resources, all the way up to the A to T, and the number of ways to build (Demo / Planned / Wealth vs. Demo / FM / Knowledge vs. Demo / Green / Wealth + psych, for instance) is what makes this game so hard to put down.
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