Civ3 or SMAX?

[Spectrex]

hmm....

I really have mixed feelings about civ3... but after a few games I'm learning more away from it. While it has some fresh content, I think it is definately a step back from SMAC. It looks and feels like CivII with some fancy graphics, which is pretty much what it is.

The AI in SMAC was much better, while it didn't handle well under certain conditions at least it was still relatively potent, and didn't always use the same strategies. The factions were actually DIFFERENT, too... the tension of encountering Yang or Miriam just isn't there when you run into the British, and it doesn't feel as "personal". It may seem strange, but I really miss the "Interludes" and wonder vids, it added yet another element of personality and life to the game.

The CivIII AI really isn't that great... it tries to expand everywhere to create the illusion of aggresiveness, and as someone else in this thread said it's easy to beat once you know how it thinks. If you block the AI's reckless expansion or just attack it early on while they're still frantically founding cities, you're sure to win.

Back to SMAC I go....

[DarkCloud]

Hmmm... I really didn't like SMAX too much- but then again I suppose I never really got the hand of it- it was much too dark and moody- I still play Civ II, and every now an then will try SMAX, but it seems to move slower.

I don't have Civ III yet. oh well, from what I am hearing, it wont be worth upgrading to

oh well

[mark13]

I guess it all comes down to why you play Civ3. If you play it primarily because of the 'replaying history' of it all, you're not much going to like SMAC, because that aspect is taken out completely. However, if you're coming at it from a gaming perspective, there's absolutely no doubt that SMAC is superior to Civ2....it simply has so much more depth to it.

It seems that with Civ3 Firaxis have tried to cater for the former market. A lot of the excellent ideas from SMAC (social engineering, advanced terraforming etc.) have gone out of the window, and the game seems to be a lot shallower as a result. If you're looking for an upgrade to Civ2, it looks as though you've got it - a couple of new units, better graphics, better AI etc. However, for those of us used to SMAC, and the overall depth of it, it seems to be disappointing.

[Bruce205]

Could not agree more with you more Mark!!

[Ned]

Mark, I also wholeheartedly agree with you. But, even so, I am dumbfounded by some of the "improvements" added to CIV 3 that take a lot out of the basic Civ I and Civ II game. One of these is caravans to set up trade routes and rush build Wonders. I really felt that that this was one of the most fun part of the game; and now they are gone.

In SMACx, one still has crawlers to help rush an SP. At least part of the fun was retained (- btw, I never use the crawler ugrade trick). These SP races that involve whole portions of your civilization building caravans or crawlers to beat another civ to a critical SP is fun!

I simply do not like Civ III.

Let is hope that if they ever build another follow on in Civ genre, it is based on the SMAC engine. While this topic has been dicussed before exhaustively, what they really need to do in SMAC 2 is fix the crawler upgrade trick, and perhaps restore caravans and trade routes. (Also, fix the automatic land terraforming to something more controllable, e.g., build forests on moist or arid squares and roads interconnecting bases until I tell you to stop.)

Ned

[SirSebastian]

SMAC is a great game.. but I have to say that Civ III wins out in my mind. First of all... CTRL+SHIFT+G does pull up a goto-city screen =P Anyway... it's very true that some people prefer historical and others sci-fi slants to their games... *gasps* maybe that's why they have both covered... and each player group thinks theirs is better? =)

Seriously though, culture is awesome, the AI is superb, the gameplay is unbelievable, the bugs are to be expected. The biggest SMAC-player complaints on the Civ boards are that you can't transform terrain and the social engineering screen is gone... hey.. I liked that too... =P

Oh... and a feature Civ's "atrocious" interface? How about changing/rushing production and controlling governors from the MAIN map. That's right.. you can play without entering the city screen.

[Yxklyx]

I sold my copy of Civ 3. Call me crazy but I really didn't like what they did with irrigation and mining and how roads continue to generate trade etc... These are the basic building blocks of the game and if they couldn't get that right I had no hope for the rest. I was looking for a game that would better simulate history and this one took a step backwards in that department - perhaps it's a better game but it wasn't what I was looking forward to. I've gone back to SMAX.

[HenryMad]

Three years ago I've started playing CIV-like games from SMAC, in other words SMAC gave me the "imprinting" for this kind of games.
Now I've bought CIV3 mainly for one reason/syllogism:
"Smac/x has been conceived by a genius (SID and co.), smac/x is a truly masterpiece, CIV3 has been conceived by the same genius THEN CIV3 MUST be a masterpiece"
Well, now I'm forcing myself to comply with this dogma since from my very first impression is like to compare a paper boat with the Enterprise.
Do you guys remember that nice option that many of us used during the first game/trials with SMAC "SWITCH TO SIMPLER MENUS": that's the point that made me think "I won't ever be able to play this game: it's too complex for me or I am too stupid".
Now that three years have been passed I could say that I am a decent SMAC/X player (thanks also to VEL's guide) but I will keep on playing SMAC/X for a long long time: every day I discover something new and I think that, well, this is a masterpiece, the breed of a superior brain an the best game ever created (I'm 39 and started playing with computer games with commodore 64 when I was 20).
But I will keep on trying CIV3 mainly because:
1 - it's too early for final verdict even if the first impression is different
2 - SID MEIER is behind both CIV3 and SMAX
3 - GOTO 2

P.S.

Anyway I will miss the Unit Workshop for sure: it was like a game in the game

[Ned]

Henry, I haven't been playing computer games as long as you have, but I do share your opinion that SMACx is the best computer game I have every played. I buy and play a number of other games every year - choosing them according to word of mouth as to what the hot game are. I particularly enjoyed Deus Ex, for example, because one could vary one's style of play each time.

My reaction to CIV III is that it a combination of Age of Empires graphics with the CIV II engine. It adds a few new concepts, but subtracts others. Whether these net to a positive or a negative vis-a-vis CIV II is highly debatable by itself. However, there is no debate in my mind that the new CIV III is not in SMACx's class.

Those of us who have played SMACx on the whole, I predict, will not long play CIV III. They will play a few games, get bored and them move on or back to SMACx. However, if I am wrong here and the game does become "addictive" for reasons I cannot now appreciate, then I will give it another shot.

So, Henry, play on and report back if your opinion changes.

Ned

[Enigma]

Hey guys!

I just beat my 3rd Civ3 game...
2 wins on Monarch, I tried a hybrid approach here... grabbed land when I needed to, teched when I could. I knew that I would win after a certain point, but I never had anywhere near as large of a lead as I would have had in SMAC (IE less infrastructure/micromanagement means AI has less of a chance of getting behind.)

Today I beat a game in about 3 hours on Diety... it was a JOKE! The game is totally broken, the AI is pathetic, it can't defend itself at all. One of my cities building archers was able to defeat an enemy empire of 4 cities- with big production/tech bonuses. Thats just sad.

I do think that there are some pluses- namely
-the way roads are implemented means guerilla tactics can be an effectie way of hurting the enemy without destroying any units.
-eliminating road bonuses when you are moving in enemy squares is also positive
-TRADE! This can ocaisionally be really cool
-Culture, again cool

None of this stuff would work very well in a sci fi environment...

I was pretty intimidated by the civ3 AI at first too- until I realized how it worked. When the SMAC AI builds a base and you have the same tech level that they do it is a damn tough nut to crack... when the Civ3 AI builds a base it is basically giving it to you. I haven't seen a single AI base garrisonned with more than 3 units, even at their borders, this when I have 30 3-1-2 Mounted Warriors.

The AI does better because the game is *drastically* dumbed down. Terraforming is more or less zero sum, a simple grid pattern is about as effective as anything. Combat is attrition based, tech has upper and lower caps set, rush buying is castrated, SP hurrying eliminated etc.

I have never played civ2... but this game seems like a drastically dumbed down version of SMAC with a few new concepts to spruce it up.

The main problems with the SMAC AI is that it wasn't very good at expanding as quickly as humans, it didn't invest enough in infrastructure, and of course it doesn't understand rush buying/supply crawlers. These core problems have been superficially changed- rather than give the AI an understanding of the costs and benefits of building a city rather than a military unit it just always builds cities, it ignores military units in favor of infrastructure, and rush buying is made worthless. Pretty much all aspects of skill in the game are removed.

What are the skill elements replaced with? RANDOM LUCK!

Random luck like getting a great leader, or having your elite 4 offense unit lose in a battle against a regular warrior out in the open. The only way to win a war is to have more units... it is pretty simple.

Henry-
Actually this is a misconception about Sid Meiers- his *name* is on both games, but he designed *neither*. He was not involved in the design process. Sid made CivI. CivII was mostly Brian Reynolds- so was SMAC. Sid's name is on both games because it sells. But the genius behind SMAC wasn't involved in CivIII at all, and all of the gameplay that serious gamers enjoy was removed in favor of having a wider market share.

Trust me that if you think the AI is tough now just wait a week... things will get worse and worse for the AI when the current bugs (insta-culture subversion for conquered cities, ultra corruption, air interception etc.) are fixed...

As far as BALANCE? Sure anyone will admit that the factions in SMAC are probably not 100% balanced- compare fungusboy to Domai, Zack, or (my fave) Morgan. But the thing is that the factions are *speciallized*... Miriam can conquer, Zack techs etc.

All of this is totally removed in civ3. All the factions play the same, feel the same, and are controlled by the AI in the same way. Bonuses are very minor. The civs are more or less balanced because they are all identical. I much prefer having specialized factions- it is so fun running around with my fanatic recon rovers as Miriam, or building up my lead with Supply Crawlers as Morgan.
My IDEAL game?

SMAC- with some tweaks. Slow down tech a lot- especially in the late game. Make pop booming tougher or eliminate it. Tone down supply crawlers a bit, or make the AI use them a lot more. Make airpower a bit less effective, and naval power a LOT more effective (double movement rates, make planes less effective vs ships, improve ship artillery). Modify the AI in many ways, give it more "situational AI" like Civ3 has (it is good at this) so that Miriam knows her 1200000 Synthemetal garrisons are worthless against my choppers, make the AI much better at naval assaults, harassment attacks, and improve its SE usage.

Remove the bugs- SMAC still has many more bugs than anyone would like.

Slow down tech a lot... a LOT in the late game, no more 2 tech per turn stuff... make tech costs start increasing exponentially in the late game, make the Ascent a lot harder to build (or done Civ3 style), improve diplomacy.

That would be great!

[Ned]

Enigma, If you set the AI factions to "passive" and give them the interest to "build," they in fact will expand and build with the best humans. They still suffer from overuse of FM, which really kills their growth. So, try adding +1 police to both Fundy and Power. Start everyone with a free former. Finally, preforest your world.

Also try moving Genejacks to Optical Computers. The AI will get its mineral production up once it builds these to a point that it will experience a pop before it gets the tech for Free Farms. This will allow the AI to build up its "clean minerals."

Do the above and you will have the ride of your life.

Ned

[Enigma]

Good idea, I am just getting back into SMAC... I recently formatted my HD and before that I lost my AC CD. Now I am borrowing a friend's CD, I will try this. Should make the game more difficult.

But I should be playing some online games with a friend who is just getting into SMAC, these are always fun despite the mediocre AI.

[Blake]

Disapointed by Civ3... a bit

SMAC definitely comes much closer to being the perfect game than Civ3. Certaintely, I can list a range of changes to 'perfect' SMAC, but couldn't for Civ3, which is just not fun enough to be anywhere near the perfect game.

What really stands out in SMAC is the range of options, like the depth of terraforming choices, unit workshop, social engineering, tech tree. Besides the fact it is really more realistic than Civ3, atleast in some senses... (For me, SMAC seems a lot more like colonising a new planet than Civ3 feels like building an earthly empire....). Agreed that the SMAC factions beat the Civ3 Civilizations hands down, theres just something special about the good Chairman Yang, fanatical Miriam, backstabbing Lal and the rest of the crew. Playing each faction is more or less unique and special, although basic strategies apply accross all factions each faction does have slightly different styles.... optimising a strategy for the Hive is different from optmising strategies for the Peacekeepers, more depth of strategy lost in Civ3...

For the interested here is what I would do to make SMAC closer to perfect:

Eliminate all inconcentsies & bugs (minor things, like menu controls working different to keys, aquaducts being drillable next to other in-progress aquaducts, but not rivers, etc etc)

Eliminate the pop-boom, except maybe in very limited late game circumstances (but better as very high growth...). Also consider changing the population model to something more linear than the population points system...

Add *advanced* automation, which can be modified by the user to a certain extent. For example it would be nice to be able to have a bunch of automation scripts that can be bound to certain keys, so you could configure a formers automation to "only plant forests & drill boreholes @ density no greater than 1 every 8 tiles" and bind it to say ctrl-f. Basically you would choose all the things you want a former to do, add them into a priority list then bind. This would save the programmers from having to implement every single possible automation users could possibly want.... while making individual unit automation easy.
Add other scripting... something like SLIC prehaps.

Modernise the combat model to something like CTP2, with CTP2 style armies. This is for the sake of MM reduction and realism. Both noble causes. Another idea I have is 'tile orders', so every unit in a tile can be given an order, so if you have 8 formers in a tile, and order them all to 'plant forest', 4 would plant (complete), the remaining 4 would ignore. Then you could order all to "move north" and the 4 with movement remaining would move (the ones which have planted would ignore). This would make mass unit control very quick...

In the same vien, it needs to be possible to have units 'goto' without it being updated, so the course is traced, found safe, and the unit appears at the destination, or where it runs out of movement, or runs into an enemy unit, in exactly one screen update. This is especially important for Monopole networks. This situation was largely fixed in Civ3, but I would like the option for on roads and even open ground too. How I would do it is something like 'shift-click-drag' would be insta move, as well as an option "always move ultra quick" in menu.

Clip the airforces wings, also change in line with the new combat model...

Replace ZOC with 'passing fire'. ZOC should work in treaty/truce times like it always has. ("move past this point, and we shoot!")

Revamp the border system to eliminate "tile poaching", basically, larger, well established bases never lose tiles to some size 1 base plonked down by some punk faction. The particulars dont really matter... basically just give bigger bases more weight when choosing who owns the tile.

Modify crawlers to give diminshing returns, for example, more crawlers per base = more upkeep, or prehaps every citizen can only 'process' a certain number of raw nuts, minerals and energy, so if each citizen can process 3 minerals, then a size 3 base couldn't be crawlered above 9 minerals. Also, train the AI in the usage of crawlers. Crawlers are too fun to eliminate.

Reduce the ICSability by eliminating 'free tile worked' at each base, and give production bonus for larger bases (the ideal way, I feel, is for an energy bank to give +1 EC per pop-point, a genejack +1 mineral per pop-point etc, making larger, well developed bases much more productive than a bunch of smaller bases... also the hab limits should be made softer, and the growthrate should be more steady.
Note no direct action should be taken to eliminate the ability to do ICS, it should simply be made unprofitable, a venture for the plain stupid... direct preventitive measures just annoy and impede true strategy.

Enrich the diplomacy, so the leaders say a greater variety of stuff (thats just candy , but netherless makes the diplo more enjoyable), also add the Civ3 style diplomacy system (very practical)

Put more information 'on screen', reduce the depth of menus and screens that need to be traversed, make common operations speedy. Just common sense user interface design stuff. Basically like what has been done in Civ3.

SMAC empires look better than Civ3 hands down. SMAC graphics are more or less acceptable to me, higher res and more variety would be nice. Also the ability to turn off all the 'information' leaving an ascetic view of your empire (this could be the first 'show terrain' key press)


Anyway... thats just off the top of my head.
I really hope SMAC2 is made one day. The emphasis should be on fixing what is broken, rather than breaking what isn't.

[Basilisk]

SMAC2 in my opinion isn't really doable. Sure there are lots of bugs in the game that could be eradicated, a lot of features that need tweaking, but from a storyline what is there to do, if Firaxis were to try to continue the story? I see no way (maybe this is just my limited imagination) to have SMAC2 based on post-Transcendence, so how would the story continue?
Perhaps moving to new worlds? That has been done, and I feel it would be distasteful for Firaxis to do that again, and a whole heap of work. Imagine designing a whole new planet *again*. New aliens, new problems...
I feel that the only feasible SMAC2 would be a complete rehash, just as CIV2 was of Civ, and Civ3 of Civ2. But that wouldn't really fulfill the gamers expectations, and there would be a lot of disgruntled SMACers out there.
Of course this is just my opinion and in the eyes of otehrs could be totally wrong. Feel free to comment. Oh, and sorry about going so foar off-topic from the thread subject

[Ned]

SMAC2: The Aliens have won, but the humans escape Alpha Centauri and head back to Earth. Years later, the humans land on Earth, but it is ruined. The Aliens have won hear too, but there are "mutant" humanoids on the planet who are permanently hostile to the Aliens, and fulfill the role of "native" life in SMAC2. The human goal of the game is to retake earth from the Aliens before the Aliens can call in reinforcements. A secondary goal is to rescue and rehabilitate the "natives" before the Aliens can destroy them. The Aliens goal is to bring in reinforcemnts, wipe out the "humanoids" or conquer the humans.

Just a thought.

Ned