Civ3 or SMAX?

[Darius]

Now that Civ3 is out, do you plan to keep playing SMAX?

I've never played any Civ games. I got interested in strategy games around the time SMAC came out. I still love SMAX, but I get the feeling I will have to switch to Civ3 to keep up with the times. What does everybody think?

[T-hawk]

Re: Civ3 or SMAX?

Originally posted by Darius
Now that Civ3 is out, do you plan to keep playing SMAX?

I've never played any Civ games. I got interested in strategy games around the time SMAC came out. I still love SMAX, but I get the feeling I will have to switch to Civ3 to keep up with the times. What does everybody think?

Me, I played Civ 1 and 2 quite a lot. I have no interest in Civ 3 at the moment, and will keep playing SMAC (which I only started a few months ago) for quite a while yet. I'll get Civ 3 once the price comes down and the patches come out, but not now.

[DavidByron]

I don't really understand what the difference is supposed to be in terms of game features (as opposed to changes in names and graphics and so on). They seem to have rejected the SMAC Socio-Economic model which is, I thought, one of the best add on features of SMAC.

I might be interested if there was a sophisticated 'governor' system for automating certain city functions and generally these games all need greatly improved methods for controlling large numbers of cities, search, grouping, multiple command issuing and so on... SMAC goes some way but not really far enough to be terribly useful. I highly doubt Civ3 is any better but I don't know.
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However I always thought I needed to investigate it in more depth -- I think a challenge whereby you have no control over your city production, or limited control only, and instead use governor and automation settings to do everything, would be worth a try.

At any rate it would certainly put you on a level playing ground with the AI, who obviously has to use governors all the time too.

[Sprayber]

Well, unless Civ3 is vastly superior than Smax I'll probably stick with AC. I just don't know how I could get into the game if they didn't come up with some way to make the differents civs different from each other. It makes a difference to me if I land near Yang or Lal. But will it mean something if I start off next to the Vikings as opposed to the Sioux?

If it isn't any better than I'm not going to waste my money..

[knowhow2]

I played SMAC before I any tried Civ-games. So the boring gray-mass of civ won't lore me to civ3 or 4 or whatever. SMAC 2 !!!!

[Waterbottle]

Just bought Civ3 last night and had a go at a few game openings.
It is an excellent game and I sense quite a bit of depth there.
I'll need to spend a lot more time with it in order to formulate a clear comparison between the two though.

My first impression however, is that it lacks some of the dynamism and tention that SMAC has. Althought the AI is Superb, the other leaders seem a bit wooden and one dimentional. Once again, take these initial observations with a grain of salt. As mentionned I have yet to get out of the ancient era...

I'll post a follow up comparison with a more detailed analysis when I've had the time to finish a couple of civ3 games.

Has anyone else had the chance to to begin forming an opinion?

[Blake]

I'm already a Civ3 addict, and I havn't even got my copy of Civ3 yet (should get it in a week).

SMAX will be retired to some dank dusty corner of my HDD. Not to say I wont ever play it again, I probably will. But Civ3 looks to have a lot of improvments...

I'm still hoping for a SMAC2, though

[Clear Skies]

We need an official SMAC 2 petition...

[Purple]

Double post, see below. Apologies.

[Purple]

Reading several reviews of Civ3 makes me eager to get my hands on it (I'm sitting on the front porch waiting for UPS), but I must say that despite some intriguing new features, I will miss some things that make SMAC/X special, like the terrain elevation effects and terraforming and the unit workshop.

As a Civ 1 & 2 veteran, I'm sure I'll be immersed in Civ3 for a long time, but when its novelty subsides a little, I'll probably still play an occasional SMAX game.

Where is that big brown delivery van, anyway?

[Blunderdog]

I'm definitely going to be playing a lot of Civ 3, but it won't take the place of SMAC. SMAC's got great factions and social engineering that Civ can't touch. And multiplayer.

I started my first game of Civ 3 last night, and already I like the diplomatic options better than SMAC. Great horse trading!

[Cybergod]

SMAC 2!
SMAC 2!
SMAC 2!!!

PS. NO MORE BUGS!

[Comstr]

As a recent re-convert tio SMAX, I say...


WE NEED SMAC 2...THE RETURN

(STILL waiting for the LD CIVIII to arrive from EB. But everything I've read says it's not as good as SMAX..I *like* to watch the movies!)

[Flubber]

Since I am now in 7 MP games I guess I will be playing Smax for a good long while.

I will buy and play CIV3 (if the reviews here are reasonably favorable) once the worst bugs are patched and the price comes down. I am hoping for there to be a patched later edition which includes MP .

Only after playing for a while will I make a choice and even then I might play both. heck I still play the occasional game of CIV2.

[WhiteElephants]

I'm afraid that the lack of multiplayer in Civ 3 will make it lose its luster.

We shall see.