SMAC2 Wish List

[Xian]

The time problem, i know its turn based but the game has to have the WORST sense of time in any strategy game EVER ONE YEAR TO MOVE ONE SQUARE???? Since it takes place on another planet they should take advantage and use altered months as teh time unit

CAshless societites without ANY form of currency have existed for 50,00 years and have been perfectly succesful

[Securion]

Why not make SMAC2 a game that works? Like a game that you can play for a very long time without freezing? Wouldnt that be cool?!?

By the way, have anyone been able to see what the game is like after Air power? Anyone have screenshots? All my games keeps freezing shortly after Air power. And NO, it dosnt matter what kinda computer i play on and NO it dosnt matter if i reinstall the game 50 times.

I have been told by alot of ppl that they have "no problems" at all with SMAC/X/Whatever freezing. Ofcourse they are liars and/or getting money from firaxis. My question is: is it my moral duty to find these ppl and kill them?

[Blake]

Originally posted by Xian
The time problem, i know its turn based but the game has to have the WORST sense of time in any strategy game EVER ONE YEAR TO MOVE ONE SQUARE????

The worst sense of time of any strategy games except Civ1, Civ2, Civ3, CTP1, CTP2, all these games take up to 20 or even 40 years to move one tile

Unfortunately tis a sad truth there is no easy way around it. You see, if you made it a turn a month, it would take about 50-80 turns for your first city to grow by one pop point. Around 60-100 turns to get your first tech (well, you could make tech research faster but can do nothing about the pop growth - the growth rate at times is already 10%, which is darn high for humans, a more reasonable growth rate is around 2%-4%).

You see, SMAC is a game primarly about building. Using a year a month you would utterly sacrifice the builder aspect and leave only a war game

Note that I did this analysis as part of FreeAC, however we will be doubling or quadrupling movement factors. This will work, because we are using simulatenous turn execution, meaning one player can't conquer another player before he can react.

[gwillybj]

no problems

Originally posted by Securion
I have been told by alot of ppl that they have "no problems" at all with SMAC/X/Whatever freezing. Ofcourse they are liars and/or getting money from firaxis. My question is: is it my moral duty to find these ppl and kill them?

Playing SMAC 4.0 (don't have AX) on a three-year-old system with no whiz-bang parts :
AMD K6-266, 64MB, S3 ViRGE/DX video (2MB), DX7, OPTi sound system, Kensiko PS/2 dual-scrolling 3-button mouse - drivers fully enabled, no interceptor crashes .
I never lie .
If I was getting money from Firaxis, I wouldn't have a three-year-old system .

[Xian]

Originally posted by Blake

Unfortunately tis a sad truth there is no easy way around it. You see, if you made it a turn a month, it would take about 50-80 turns for your first city to grow by one pop point. Around 60-100 turns to get your first tech (well, you could make tech research faster but can do nothing about the pop growth - the growth rate at times is already 10%, which is darn high for humans, a more reasonable growth rate is around 2%-4%).
.

A solution would be to make the exploration parts of the game interesting and complex, not just chess with guns.. Also, in the future things would be built a lot faster and technologies would arrive MUCH faster. Remember that 100 turns can still only take five minutes if all your doing is moving one scout.

It could work

[Xian]

oh and like i said, Firaxis could abuse the "month" and make it only 7 or 6 per year and easily get around the problem.

[Chowlett]

Originally posted by Chowlett
If you want to see some of your ideas possibly included in a game framework (albeit a different environment - fantasy rather than SF), check the Courts of Candle Bre forum, and drop by the live chat tomorrow. We're always open to sensible ideas.

Or alternatively - check the date for yourselves, 'cos I'm incompetent. The chat is this coming Saturday, as mentioned in the announcement.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Xian
Also, in the future things would be built a lot faster and technologies would arrive MUCH faster.

Remember, factions start with only 20000 people, and all of them are rather busy staying alive (and breeding like horny bunnies).

Remember that 100 turns can still only take five minutes if all your doing is moving one scout.

Not in multiplayer. Then it could be a hundred days.

It could work

Afraid not.

[Straybow]

You must play MP with idiots.

MoO uses "month" long game-turns, 10 per year. But growth rates are absurd. Bottom line is that it is hard to make a game realistic.

If you want realistic play you have to redefine many things: unit composition, movement, production, resource types, resource extraction, resource utilization…

That is more work than designers are willing to go into.

If you want realistic play you have to be prepared, as the player, for a certain amount of boredom. That's life, especially on a survival level.

[Blake]

"This post not entirely serious"

Originally posted by Straybow
You must play MP with idiots.

A turn a day is fairly standard for PBEM, especially with more than 2 or 3 players. (whether or not they are idiots is an entirely different matter )

MoO uses "month" long game-turns, 10 per year. But growth rates are absurd. Bottom line is that it is hard to make a game realistic.

I've seen some scary growth rates in SMAC. Like bases can grow from size 1 to size 2 in 6 turns. That means theres around ten thousand new 1-6 year olds. And then they go and put all these children to work on a tile.
Pop-booming can be even scarier. Growing from size 1 to size 14 in as many turns. Thats means there is 130,000 children in the base and only 10,000 adults. That many adults could only create about 8000 children per year, yet 10000 sustained are being created. You reach the horrifying conclusion that children (many under 5) must be breeding.
Then realise that with those 14 tile workers, only 1 in 13 workers is actually an adult. All the rest are young children. Picture a couple of adults and two dozen children out toiling in the field. Thats what it's like.
Scary isn't it.

[Impaler[WrG]]

You are killing the Pop boom in FreeAC right, I could maybe see poupation growing if you have cloning vats (and also the clones would all be adults too I imagin). But that would be realy unbalanced in my opinion and would be rediculous to supose that any society would so redaly except that +90% of its population is going to be clones (well maybe Yang would)

[Phil_de_geezer]

When making a game a balance has to be struck between realism, game mechanics and gameplay. Personally, i prefer gameplay over realism and so things like population growth really don't bother me.

[Fosse]

No forced diplomacy

Near the top of my wish list for an AC sequal would be for the removal of "forced" diplomacy. Here I am mostly refering to the sanctions and atrocities componant.

If I am playing the Hive and at war with the Peacekeepers, and a third party (Lets say Santiago) is allied with me and captures a UN base. Great. Now she nerve staples that base, and I have to stop trade with her for ten turns.

I understand that nerve stapling is an atrocity unless we have repealed the UN charter, but I don't care! I should be given the option to follow the laws or just keep right on trading like I darn well please.

And when Lal starts pummeling my ally and I decide to nuke UN Headquarters? Now every faction is at war with me, my best allies (who I helped by this action), subversives, and even the faction with only one city left ona tiny island somewhere.

It's crazy. We should be given an option. If someone commits an atrocity we should be told about it, have the laws explained, and then asked for our action. We could impose full sanctions like we are legally entitled to, we could simply "denounce" the actions... saying we don't like it and scolding the offending party, but not really doing anything, or we can just ignore it.
To ignore it would come with a reputation hit on its own, and denouncing would come with a lesser one (except from the faction in question, of course!) Heck, I'd even like to see a "Congratulate them for nuking the jerks right off of Planet" option.

Similarly, when the human player commits an atrocity the AI factions should consider what they have to gain and loose by what I've done and thier potential responses to it. In an ideal world, this would mean that they would consider how my action directly effects them, the impact sanctions would have on my faction and their own, and the risk of either pissing me off, or the other factions off if the do or do not impose sanctions.

Also... why not repeal atrocity prohibitions individually or as a package? Maybe a planet where nerve gas is acceptable as long as we don't use Planet Busters is ideal for one game, while a planet where nerve stapling is considered okay might serve another time.

[Xian]

Re: "This post not entirely serious"

Originally posted by Blake

A turn a day is fairly standard for PBEM, especially with more than 2 or 3 players. (whether or not they are idiots is an entirely different matter )

Thats only if your forced to play by e-mail, i suppose IP play would be added

[Xian]

MORE THAN SEVEN FACTIONS IN PLAY AT A TIME!!!!!!!!!