Tweet
/rant
**Note: I hearby declare this thread to be a Civ2-free zone! I am sick of Civ2/Civ3 comparisons because I never played it! I am a SMAC-aholic! And I am not alone!**
/rant
Civ3 in many ways is an improvement on SMAC. The exploits with supply crawlers, juggernaut helicopters, grabbing multiple wonders, SE switching and oscillating SE settings are all gone. Gone is the absurd tech rush where you get two techs per turn and absolutely no chance to ever impliment any of that tech. Gone is the micromanagement where you have to visit every citizen in every city every turn and optimize production and psych. Gone are overpowered wonders that make you unstoppable.
That said, there are some simple things already programmed into SMAC that would have made Civ3 a much a better game. Here is my list:
1. Ability to transfer units to allies and to garrison units in allied bases. I hate seeing valuable trading partners and allies wiped out by hostile militaristic neighbors. In SMAC, you could transfer some units to your wimp pal Morgan or put some units in Morgan's base and counterattack the Spartans alongside him. You could also "discuss battle plans" and pick an enemy city to attack together. Why drop these features in Civ3?
2. Random events. Many SMAC players moaned about these, but they were important for several reasons. First, they provided unexpected challenges in the mid-game especially. Second, many were negative events that were triggered only for the top or the #2 player so as to level the playing field a little bit. By the same token, others were positive events that were triggered for the underdog factions. Third, random events favored builders over warmongers because many of them were negative if you lacked a base improvement and positive if you had the improvement. For example: if you have a Network Node, you get a freee tech. No Node? Then you lose all accumulated research points. If you have a biology lab, you discover a beneficial bacterium and get +1 nutrients per square for 10 turns. If you don't ahve a biology lab, you lose all terraforming around the base. This increases the incentive to build facilities. It would be a simple matter to add these to a Civ3 expansion. For example, if you have a Bank you get a "stock market boom" and 25 gold. Otherwise, you get a "financial panic" and lose half your treasury. Other random events might be small border towns reverting to barbarian encompments, midgame barbarian attacks, forest fires, plague of locusts, flooding to destroy irrigation etc. In Civ3, life is just too darn predictable from the early industrial age onwards!
3. Unit workshop. Well, OK, I can see why it doesn't work in a historial context. But at the very least and expansion could give us more units. (Maybe one from Steel tech?). An easy solution that would add to game balance would be to give each civ TWO unique units, each in a different age. Some examples:
American 2nd UU = field cannon. Extra move point, requires horses.
English = crossbow (5-1-1)
Indians = passive resister (0-0-1 but cannot be attacked and has ZOC)
Iriquois = bowed warrior (2-1-1 for 10 shields)
Zulu = guerilla fighter (4-1-2)
4. Diplomatic victory. SMAC had a real council and factions could surrender and be subservient. Why get rid of these advanced features in the next generation of the game?
**Note: I hearby declare this thread to be a Civ2-free zone! I am sick of Civ2/Civ3 comparisons because I never played it! I am a SMAC-aholic! And I am not alone!**
/rant
Civ3 in many ways is an improvement on SMAC. The exploits with supply crawlers, juggernaut helicopters, grabbing multiple wonders, SE switching and oscillating SE settings are all gone. Gone is the absurd tech rush where you get two techs per turn and absolutely no chance to ever impliment any of that tech. Gone is the micromanagement where you have to visit every citizen in every city every turn and optimize production and psych. Gone are overpowered wonders that make you unstoppable.
That said, there are some simple things already programmed into SMAC that would have made Civ3 a much a better game. Here is my list:
1. Ability to transfer units to allies and to garrison units in allied bases. I hate seeing valuable trading partners and allies wiped out by hostile militaristic neighbors. In SMAC, you could transfer some units to your wimp pal Morgan or put some units in Morgan's base and counterattack the Spartans alongside him. You could also "discuss battle plans" and pick an enemy city to attack together. Why drop these features in Civ3?
2. Random events. Many SMAC players moaned about these, but they were important for several reasons. First, they provided unexpected challenges in the mid-game especially. Second, many were negative events that were triggered only for the top or the #2 player so as to level the playing field a little bit. By the same token, others were positive events that were triggered for the underdog factions. Third, random events favored builders over warmongers because many of them were negative if you lacked a base improvement and positive if you had the improvement. For example: if you have a Network Node, you get a freee tech. No Node? Then you lose all accumulated research points. If you have a biology lab, you discover a beneficial bacterium and get +1 nutrients per square for 10 turns. If you don't ahve a biology lab, you lose all terraforming around the base. This increases the incentive to build facilities. It would be a simple matter to add these to a Civ3 expansion. For example, if you have a Bank you get a "stock market boom" and 25 gold. Otherwise, you get a "financial panic" and lose half your treasury. Other random events might be small border towns reverting to barbarian encompments, midgame barbarian attacks, forest fires, plague of locusts, flooding to destroy irrigation etc. In Civ3, life is just too darn predictable from the early industrial age onwards!
3. Unit workshop. Well, OK, I can see why it doesn't work in a historial context. But at the very least and expansion could give us more units. (Maybe one from Steel tech?). An easy solution that would add to game balance would be to give each civ TWO unique units, each in a different age. Some examples:
American 2nd UU = field cannon. Extra move point, requires horses.
English = crossbow (5-1-1)
Indians = passive resister (0-0-1 but cannot be attacked and has ZOC)
Iriquois = bowed warrior (2-1-1 for 10 shields)
Zulu = guerilla fighter (4-1-2)
4. Diplomatic victory. SMAC had a real council and factions could surrender and be subservient. Why get rid of these advanced features in the next generation of the game?
That thread has nothing in terms of positive suggestions for a patch or expansion. Some of us feel that if the code was made for SMAC, SMAX or CTP (which I also never played) it should be available for use in Civ3. It seems like it would be easier to add in features from other games in the series than to redesign basic principles from the top down. Regarding your thread, someone suggested that the AI could be given free automatic upgrades to the latest units they have tech for. Since Riflemen in a size 7 city or behind a wall stop cavalry cold, this would go a long way to blocking rush. Giving us back the ability to transfer units to AI factions and garrison their cities would create options for cooperative play, especially with the enhanced diplomacy model.
I like your idea of it being destroyable, but with large diplomatic penalty. You should also not be able to stack it with military units to provide them with diplomatic immunity, as it were.
). But how about this idea instead: Social Policies. After researching certain sociopolitical techs, you can adopt legislative programs or policies that have positive and negative effects (kept modest to avoid game imbalance):
Comment