Civ III to SMAC II

[Alex]

This was posted by FrantzX on the Civ3-General Forum, but I thought it would be interesting enough to be posted here. I apologize to FrantzX if it was not his intent to post this here, but anyway...

Civ III to SMAC II

I been playing Civ III for a while and something has been bugging me about the game. It's not tedium and the fact that the AI can still waste me is only a small factor. I finally figured it out:

Screw history! I want the future!

The SMAC universe was great! The last survivors of Earth try to colonize a new planet under a single leader. And it all gets shot to hell just because of a reactor malfunction. The way the Progenitors communicated was unique: not by sound, but the alteration of sound waves. Cool.

The leaders all has their different personalities and "played" the game in different ways. The Hive was a pain and a half to conquer because of their free walls and the Yang model of placing cities. The Believers 25% combat bonus and Miriam's "If-you-are-not-using-fundamentalism-then-you-die" personality made her dangerous to start next to.

So I've been thinking: What aspects of Civ III should be put into SMAC II?

Culture wouldn't work that well: Just think about a Gaian city flipping to Morgan Industries, or a UN base to the Hive. And I really don't think a Caretaker base would go to the Ursupers. I guess in some ways it might make sense, but not in most.

I also really, really miss the building and tech quotes. Hell, I can recite some of them right now. Each building/tech could be linked to multiple quotes, and it randomly selected which one to play.

Secret Projects movies. I think this can be summed up withquote:

Get off my land, you Peacekeeping son-of-a-...

I loved them also and still watch them for the 100th time while playing.

The terrain engine SMAC had had potential, but, sadly, it was used. Firaxis forgot a very important part: slope. You could have mountains, but they took up to much space. Both wide and narrower mountains exist, and both should be reprensented. Also, this has a tacital element: Some units would be able of navigate certain grades. Rovers wouldn't be able to travel the steeper slopes while infantry would have the fewest restrictions. It would be cool to have a base of a cliffside that couldn't be attacked from the other side of the cliff, even if the tiles were adjacent.


Last edited by FrantzX on 22-01-2002 at 17:49

So, what features from Civ3 do you think could be used in SMAC II?

[Kassiopeia]

The trading system is brilliant. Not that it was lousy in AC but it's better in Civ3.
With the "trading system" I of course mean the trading table innovation where you can bundle technologies, resources and others into a nice package.
Btw, the resource/luxury system is nice, but I'ts difficult to find a feasible way to implement it.

Oil? Coal? But there are Synthetic Fossil Fuels!

Uranium? Fusion Power, fueled by hydrogen!

[Yxklyx]

I don't have any problems with the sloping SMAC terrain - I just figure that Planet is very different than Earth. I see the soil as being very soft like sand and so no large concentrations of hard material (like mountains) would exist. This also explains why planet busters affect the land as they do and how water seeps up from below when global warming starts up. I see Planet as being basically a layer of sand lying on top of a global ocean of water. The sand is extensive enough that it can form continents that float above the oceans.

[Hydro]

Ooooh. Can’t resist this one. Planet is designed to have ‘hard’ rocks. The designers specifically mention their objective of having realistic continents and terrain, and the Map of Planet has rift and mountainous zones like you would find on Earth due to plate tectonics. The main difference from Earth to Planet (aside from Planet’s greater mass and denser atmosphere) is its ecosystem. I have to disagree with your sand theory – it doesn’t work on a planet-wide basis.

Now to my pet peeves. I have always had a problem with some of the terraforming options in SMAC. If you raise land, where does all this mass come from? Likewise if you lower land, where does that mass go? Considering the areas affected we have a serious mass balance problem here. From a personal point of view (as a hydrogeologist) ‘drilling to aquifer’ to make a river simply will not work. While there is certainly a lot of groundwater in the subsurface, creating a river from groundwater resources is no easy matter. For instance, a large river system like the Mississippi (which would be an equivalent of the rivers created for SMAC) drains the entire central US. Imagine trying to recreate that with a terraformer? And getting all that water from an aquifer?

So, in SMAC2 I’d like these features made a little more realistic. Granted we are talking about far flung technology, some of which could literally alter the face of the earth, er…, Planet, but raising/lowering land and drilling to aquifer as they are just doesn’t make sense. I don’t really have a problem with drilling a borehole (although keeping that bad boy stable would be quite a job), although I’d bet that if you think about that one there are lots of reasons it doesn’t make sense, either. As an example, creating farmland in my mind involves drilling many small-scale wells for irrigation, in addition to making the land amenable for cultivation. I can see a way to re-route rivers in a major way. Large scale earth moving would be possible, but it would require you to get the earth from somewhere and/or put it somewhere. AND there should be major ecological consequences for doing all of these things – the more serious the disturbance, the greater the chance of nasty consequences.

Overall SMAC is a fine game, but it can be made a greater game. I’ll hope for SMAC2 in the future.

Hydro

[Alex]

Come on, I know you can think about more interesting things from Civ3 that could be implemented in -- hopefully -- SMAC II...

bump

[fluffy]

Originally posted by Alexnm
Come on, I know you can think about more interesting things from Civ3 that could be implemented in -- hopefully -- SMAC II...

I'm sorry to have to say it, but Brian Reynolds is just a much better games designer than Sid Meier (whatever his reputation), and without him, SMAC could not be improved.

Even now, SMAC is still a more playable game than CIV III currently is.

As has been said here several times before: just fix the current bugs (as I think was planned, at least until Reynolds left) - don't let the CIV III team ruin it!

[Alex]

I'm sorry to have to say it, but Brian Reynolds is just a much better games designer than Sid Meier (whatever his reputation), and without him, SMAC could not be improved.

Hmmm... I think I would have to agree with you about this one... Reynolds was the main responsible for all the cool concepts that made SMAC a wonderful game. But maybe he could make a deal with Firaxis and develop SMAC II through his own company, Big Huge Games. It would be interesting to see what Brian could do with the game... unless he thinks that the concept is already exhausted. Who knows?

[Mampfred]

What I like about Civ is that the cities you build really differ greatly: If you build a city near a river with its flood plains it will have a hell of a lot of nuts; if you want to have a lot of mins you need to build your city near hills or mountains. And a city which has no access to a river or a freshwater sea will have serious nut problems because in the early and middle game you can't build any irrigation there. The additional resources like coal, iron, uranium etc. of course also contribute to make the cities different from each other.
If I'm looking at my cities on Alpha Centauri they all look the same: I forest everything since it is most effective concerning the short time it needs, and every city gets 1-3 boreholes so every city has enough nuts and mins.

Another thing I would appreciate is a better description of some of the SPs: Until now I never understood what the **ck that "Integrated Colony" (is that the English name? It's the SP with the "We must dissent" movie) thing is supposed to be.

The aspect of culture could also be used in AC2; of course no UN base would convert to the hive (in fact I cannot imagine anyone converting to the hive voluntarily) but Morgan with his luxurious lifestyle or Miriam with her religion could very well attract followers from other factions. The ability to convert others could be made one of the advantages of the faction (Domai's abilitly to take over revolting bases already goes slightly in this direction) or could depend on the SE settings.

[Googlie]

Some of the diplomacy ideas could be imported into a smac2

Rights of passage, for instance

Maybe not so much trade embargoes, but an embargoe of onward trading of a tech for a period of years

And implement a modified trade system as regards the commerce income - if not connected by roads to a tretaymate or pactmate, or if doc flex not discovered, then no commerce income between paired bases

And incorporate the new Wonder rush build rules into smac/x to avoid the instant SPs - which don't make sense in the story concept anyway ("Oh, we've just dicovered MMI - next year we'll have the Cloudbase Academy and the Cyborg factory to play with")

Make the Ascent something worth competing for, not a slam dunk the turn after Voice

(Some of the old OWEO threads lamented that particular pet peeve of mine - CivII had it just right - the whole civilization working together to churn out the various components of the space ship - and the other civ launched a partly built one before you - could you overtake them?

Now if you've planned it right the game being won is a foregone conclusion before you've even built the Voice)

G.

[Yxklyx]

I agree about the cities looking the same to an extent. Forests are just too good to not use. Perhaps something along the lines of only allowing the Gaians to build Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests. Similarly, give Planet Cult something similar except related to Fungus.

[GeneralTacticus]

Originally posted by Mampfred
Another thing I would appreciate is a better description of some of the SPs: Until now I never understood what the **ck that "Integrated Colony" (is that the English name? It's the SP with the "We must dissent" movie) thing is supposed to be.

It's the 'Self-Aware Colony'. I think of it as basically a pre-sentient computer system that administers all of your faction's bases. This would extend to using those bases systems against people who are troublsome (hence the extra police) - as is illustrated in the movie.

I agree about the cities looking the same to an extent. Forests are just too good to not use. Perhaps something along the lines of only allowing the Gaians to build Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests. Similarly, give Planet Cult something similar except related to Fungus.

I have to disagree here. Doing this would just unbalance the Gaians. They should probably instead have Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests cheaper, but the others should be able to build them too.

With regards to fossil fuels, I reckon there should be a facility to produce oil, coal, etc, that comes with Synth Fossil Fuels, and you can trade them to other people. Could be similar stuff for Fusion Power - you build some reactors, giving you stacks of cheap energy, and you can give others use of some reactors for a price.

[MattyBoy]

What I like about Civ is that the cities you build really differ greatly: If you build a city near a river with its flood
plains it will have a hell of a lot of nuts;

Exactly! In Civ I, II (havent played III) this is a more significant joy in the game than in SMAC and it is part of what keeps it fascinating. Somehow in SMAC I pursue much the same approach almost regardless of terrain.

That is one of the few things that eventually makes me tire of playing SMAC.

[Mampfred]

Maybe giving only the Gaians all the resources out of forests would be a solution; other factions might only get 1 nut 2 mins and no energy or something like that. The Gaians could get a penalty concerning the building of mines and boreholes, things that 'hurt' Planet, to make up for this.

Of course this could also be done for the other factions: The fungboy as well as Deidre might be able to make *real* use of fungus (before building the Manifold Harmony, that is); Yang's underground people might be able to work harder in mines etc.

Another thing that just came to my mind that I liked in Civ3 is the difference between Great Wonders and small wonders; even leaving aside the fact that it is of course not realistic that only one faction can build a Weather Paradigm (or any other SP) it might be a good idea to make some wonders/SPs available for every faction.

[Yxklyx]

I noticed that the fungus resources can be modified easily in alphax.txt. I might try a mod with Dawn getting fungus bonuses and removing some of the tech advance bonuses for fungus. Regarding Tree Farms and Gaians, of course it would make them much more powerful, so give them some other disadvantages or just leave them as a powerful faction (like the aliens) for SP.

[gwillybj]

How to avoid that "cloned bases" look:

Preamble:

First, stop planting Forests everywhere. Then:

• Cultivate Farms and Kelp Farms. Add Soil Enrichers when available.
• Construct Mines and Mining Platforms.
• Construct Solar Collectors and Tidal Harnesses.
• Construct Condensers, Echelon Mirrors, and Thermal Boreholes sparingly, if at all.
• Don't forget to Drill to Aquifer, Raise Land, Lower Land, and Level Terrain when things just don't look right, or even just for the hell of it.

In short, don't do everything "just so" !
Get out of those self-imposed handcuffs !
Have more fun !

Footnote: