didnt you all really want SMAC on earth?

[Verto]

Originally posted by Tassadar5000


I am simply the bringer of truth to the ignorant masses

And a modest one at that.

[RGBVideo]

Units could be created. For example take a basic foot soldier, and add an arrow or a longbow, a spear or a sword, later a musket or a rifle or an assault gun, no armor/chain mail/kevlar

tanks too: gun size: 37mm/75mm/90mm/120mm things like that. It would be great!

True , great ideas.

[The Templar]

Granted, the UN being more like SMAC's planetary council and social engineering would have been nice (assuming the AI could handle it - too many options and the AI doesn't know what to do you know ...), Civ3 is by far the superior game.

Civ3 air combat is conceptually better.

A unit workshop would be a waste - unless your just dying to build a steam-powered tank (and there is probably a good reason we never saw many of these in real history ). Face it, knights, spearment, etc. would be the "sweet spots" for design and we'd all just build them anyway.

And most importantly - the AI in Civ3 actually works. I could beat SMAC's brain dead AI with no problem. Hell, the only reason the AI lasted so long was because it built tons of worthless ocean cities. (I eventually turned this off by screwing with Alpha.txt - which greatly improved the game). Gee, evey game comes down to me and the Hive.

SMAC had lots of bells and whistles (a Brian Reynolds trademark) and a brain-dead AI (another Brian Reynolds trademark).

And yes, Civ3 beats Civ2 as well - so suck it!

[Verto]

Originally posted by The Templar
And yes, Civ3 beats Civ2 as well - so suck it!

Blasphemy!

[CivPatriot]

I agree that Civ3's air combat system is better, i just think that as technology advances(radio, advanced flight, precision weapons, etc.) that the damage infilcted would be greater, plus it should be able to sink ships!!

I think that the combination of the "bells and whistles" of SMAC(keeping only those elements that fit into an earth history game) with the history, fun, and modability of Civ2 and the AI of Civ3 whould have been awesome. alas, it was not to be.

[Louis XXIV]

Originally posted by CivPatriot
I agree that Civ3's air combat system is better, i just think that as technology advances(radio, advanced flight, precision weapons, etc.) that the damage infilcted would be greater, plus it should be able to sink ships!!

Can be modded?

I think the Koreans have something like this

[Master Zen]

You can mod units to have "Lethal bombardment" against land or sea units. No unit has this by default (although the cruise missile's properties allow it by itself)

The Korean UU as well as the US UU in theory have no way of getting you a GA unless you mod this.

But, be careful, giving units lethal bombardments can make the game very unstable since the AI is really pathetic in using artillery units. Think twice before you do it.

[Master Zen]

I'm beginning to think that SMAC-haters are macro-managers, which is alright with me.

The ideal way would be to optionally incorporate SMAC's details in to Civ3. For example, you could have generic units or make your own.

Also, what's the problem with making civ not-civ-like?? Civ3 was so much different than Civ2 yet they still got away with it...

[WarpStorm]

But Civ3 is closer to Civ1 than Civ2. When I was talking with Soren the other day, he told me that they can't go too far from Civ1 and still be call it Civ. It has to stay similar to the original. More fans would be disappointed than happy if it changed a lot.

[pedrojedi]

Well, I think that keeping a good change between the games is a healthy choice. Anyone can point without much thought at least 10 different major features between civ 1 and 2 and civ 2 and 3. The problem is statistics: generally, one can only add/remove/change a certain feature if there is a significant number of people who would like to see that changed, usually to a same concordant term. Getting this number can be pretty tough, and most changes we would "love to see and simply does not understand why they don't do it!" have too few people that actually support that. And there's even the other side, the "no, hell, no!" to such changes. I think that's one reason to why so many different points about how nice would be SMACCiv4.5 weren't incorporated in Civ3, and will not likely be in Civ4.

Of course there are some exceptions, like the fundamentalism issue (that was good I liked people believing in my holy words).

Master Zen's idea of optional incorporation is pretty good, but I think it has the "danger" of consuming too much of programming just to put "generic" or "optional". Or even worse, a second "patch" like PTW. (One can have the generic game, and, for optional rules and systems, buy the Rule the World CD).

Civilization Series have wonderful features that got better with the passing of years, not just because programming got better but because the time elapsed between each game was pretty big, enabling people to "grow" and "maturate" new ideas to the game that could only be properly thought with time and experience. That's why I think a eventual Civ4 can only be released after much discussion about Civ3.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Verto


Blasphemy!

Alright, maybe "suck it" was going a bit far, but ...

Remember how in Civ2 if you left a hole in the middle of your territory someone inevitably dropped a settler there?

Borders alone make Civ3 superior. Add in the new air combat, the AI that has a strategy other than ICSing the whole damn map (remember picking out the last remanants of the mongols in the desert?), and everyone's favorite: hording caravans in order to beat the AI to every wonder.

Even the animated leaderheads (the real key to killing customization in Civ3) can't offset the new stuff.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
When I was talking with Soren the other day

Name-dropping!

[Verto]

Originally posted by The Templar

Remember how in Civ2 if you left a hole in the middle of your territory someone inevitably dropped a settler there?

Yes. You would've thought they'd eventually learn not to.

[Ubergeek]

I played the heck out of Civ2 and SMAC, and I have to admit that Civ3 is a better game for a whole slew of reasons -- better trade, better AI, an editor so simple even a buffoon like me can use it, civs with actual differences, UUs, etc.

On the other hand, Civ3 isn't as fun as the other games, primarily because of the long section in the late Industrial period where there is NOTHING to build. For a builder like me, that's a searingly boring time in the game, when there's nothing to do but crank out a buttload of units I don't intend to use because I almost never declare war on anybody. If they could add two or three city improvements into that spot, I would have no problem adoring Civ 3.

[WarpStorm]

In PTW they did add some stuff there.