Is Alpha Centauri better than Civ 3?

[thinkingamer]

I've played SMAC for about 2 years (my best game is diplomatic in 180 turns), and i've played civ3 only 2 times(warlord and regent), and i'll give a simple comparison:

Civ3's ai is much better than SMAC's AI?
not really, the only improvent is that ai has improved in expansion, and knows how to attack in mass and thats about it. Oh, and i FELT like the ai had about 20% production, tech, growth, advantage in regent (SMAC had that much advantage in the 2nd hardest level) level.
And finally in Civ3's AI r uselessly ruthless. In SMAC even Hive would give an reasonable answer (if im as powerful as him) when i refuse his offer, but in Civ3 the ai gets mad without any reason (in SMAC at least u know why ur enemy faction got mad : u did not choose their social ruling preference) because i did not accept their unfair deal. Afterward they join together (i NEVER start a war) to gang up against me.

There was much more ways to win in SMAC and hardly no single methods was better way to win than the other. In Civ3 u have to start aggresive in the beggining in order to survive. If u dont follow what i just stated above u will be likely to lose. Strangely in Civ3 the units have 3-5 hits: the result is a unit with 2 defence has a good chance to win against a attacker with 4 attack......something which was fixed back at Civ2.......

In Smac there was stuff that were very original (unit design, social engi, using psi units, artillery units [i hoped archer was like that ]).
Yes, there was flaws in SMAC (such as redesigning all units every 3 techs) but compared to Civ 3 its nothing: culture, while an interesting concept, it can be quite weird sometimes: my units conquered a city, but after only 1 turn they becomes cityzens of the conquered nation because of its advanced culture........what a joke........(note that is so unrealistic), with luck some of ur elite units can be promoted to a GL......u just got a free wonder!
Believe me folks, Aok has more strategy than this...

[Guest]

Good post, thinkingamer!

[Garth Vader]

I think SMAC is WAY better than CIV3. I only played 3 games of Civ3, I have already played 2 SMAC games since stopping playing Civ3.

Civ3 has better AI and a cool trading system. But that's it from what I liked about it.

SMAC is a faster game. My first game of Civ took 8 days of heavy playing. I can finish a game of SMAC on a large map in 2 days of heavy playing. The mid-late game tedium of Civ3 was unbearable.

SMAC is more replayable. Social Engineering. Radically different factions. A wider tech tree at the bottom, plus the design workshop makes early game interaction between the factions interesting. Civ3 tried to address this, but didn't go far enough. Plus making you start next to the same races all the time killed much of the improvement.

Multiplayer. Once you got bored of SP, MP opened up a new world of SMAC.

Overall design. Civ3 introduced new features like resources and culture borders, but they seemed unbalanced and weak, same with the combat. SMAC had a LOT of bugs that are really annoying especially in MP. But SMAC came across, at least to me, as having more flavor. I felt if the bugs were fixed SMAC would be an almost ideal game, especially with MP. A big part of this was because SMAC was new. Civ3 is basically the same as Civ and Civ2. I got bored of building the Colossus and the Pyramids a long time ago, but have not yet gotten bored of building the Weather Paradigm.

[Zoid]

SMAC is waaay better than Civ3, it almost like they´re made by different people...

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
making you start next to the same races all the time killed much of the improvement.

'Culturally linked starting positions' is an option you can turn off.

[Solver]

Not willing to write long essays here, but my opinion is that Civ 3 is by far the best of all the Civ games.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by MonsterMan
SMAC was a stupid game with ugly graphics that didn't deserve to exist. Sometimes I think people like it because they've convinced themselves Sid Meier is a genius.

Oh, please And Civ3 is...what exactly? A smart game with top notch graphics...

And your Spieces comparison says what? That you prefer Civ I over Civ II & III?

[Zoid]

Another thing, isn´t this the enirely wrong forum for this discussion? Has Ming fallen asleep?