Favourite Faction

[Hendrik]

Hmm... I honestly don't think that any of the original SMAC-7 factions were presented in a condemnatory manner... Chairman Yang does have excellent quotes, and from his viewpoint, he is the only faction leader willing to try to overcome the problems caused by individualism in order to unite humanity towards a common goal.

Either way I continue to love this game, the breadth and depth of thought BR put into it amazes me. At this point I just wish it were either open sourced, or Firaxis decides for some unknown reason to actually patch the game and reprogram the AI so that it doesn't make the same easily exploitable mistakes again, and again, and again...

[Xian]

I think lal can also be considered a cooperationist.

The drones are also a fun faction to play, in fact i actually work better with them than i did with the hive (!). The data angels are probably the most "free" society, problem is that probe rating bug that make you choose illogical SE choices to balance

Yang is still the best philosopher in any game ever, except for his hatred of democracy (which really doesnt make sense if you think about it) - but you only see that in AI disscussions with him. Domai is almost as cool, but Yang came first.

REmember that one of the goals of the game is to show that philosophy is NOT linked with race. while cultural stuff DOES show up (for example in Zaks base names, and the mao-yang similarities) the idea expressed in the manual is that in space people are NOT brought together by birth, but by ideas.

[knowhow2]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia

brilliant!

from a second generation chinese in europe

[Alinestra Covelia]

Well, I'm a second generation semi-Chinese in America right now... working on a paper about the representation of China in the US press.

Makes for interesting reading. Especially interesting is how all the academicians look the same to the Americans, but are actually split between Taiwanese (who have a very unique view of China's press) and mainland Chinese (who have a very unique and diametrically opposite view of China's press).

The number of times I've heard an American say "But look! His name's Chiang Hsu-Ts'u! As a Chinese citizen, he's gotta be a neutral commenter!"

[Kirov]

So Alinestra, what exavtly do you think about Yang? And to what extent does he resemble the Chinese rulers?

[Alinestra Covelia]

There's a very old thread entitled "Chairman Sheng Ji Yang" somewhere in the musty bowels of the archives. I suggest you go there for the Alinestran stance on the good chairman.

I think it's about 2 and a half years old though so you may need to dig hard.

Alternatively if you can wait until I get this work crisis off my chest, I can try to restart the thread again

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
I think it's about 2 and a half years old though so you may need to dig hard.

It probably deleted. Too bad though.

[Clear Skies]

Nice to see a pretty even distribution amongst the factions....except for that damn University

[Jac de Molay]

Yeah, I don't get the Uni fixation either. The AI in SP play will almost never exploit the probe weakness, so it seems like that faction weakness is almost a "free pass" of sorts.

I like the morgans nowadays, though I still stay away from FM- too much a P.I.T.A., and run green/knowledge.

Peacekeepers seem like a nice faction, but rather dull. Think I'll try a game tonight with them, with some of the pointers from this thread.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

DDave,

Check out CivGaming SMAC Academy Section for some early game pointers on builders in general including Lal.

Og

[Kirov]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
There's a very old thread entitled "Chairman Sheng Ji Yang" somewhere in the musty bowels of the archives. I suggest you go there for the Alinestran stance on the good chairman.

I think it's about 2 and a half years old though so you may need to dig hard.

Alternatively if you can wait until I get this work crisis off my chest, I can try to restart the thread again

Well, if it is deleted like DinoDoc said, it would be very kind of you if you describe it once again. I consider it very interesting.

[Straybow]

Who cares?
The only good Commie is a dead Commie.

[knowhow2]

bumped^

[Arnelos]

nice bump

Peacekeepers.

I was on the Firaxis boards for around a year before SMAC came out as one of the few leading "peacekeeper" posters In fact, I think I came in second place for the voting on the Firaxis boards for "Peacekeeper of the Year" when we held voting on stuff like that just before the game came out (yeah, I had little better to do my first semester of college before getting an over-active social life ) Back when I first started posting there, the peacekeepers were still known as the Keepers of Wisdom... Firaxis changed their name and concept to the U.N. faction somewhere fairly early-on, but there were still about 2-3 of us peacekeepers around from the Keepers of Wisdom days

I created a custom faction based on the original Keepers of Wisdom concept, but I could never properly balance it. oh well.

[Method]

normally, i'd say we need a new thread, one with all the factions now that the poll choice limit has been increased. however, this thread is just such a classic....