Alpha Centauri / Call to Power: My opinion

[UndertakerAPB]

After playing SMAC since the first day it hit NYC store sleeves.

I have to say I hate this game,and sorry to have lossed my 50 bucks....But I did get a $10.00 rebate.So it wasn't a total mistake..


DEVIL'S ADVOCATE,
Undertaker

[EdCase]

As BR said..I waited and I tried..and...well...much as i hate to say this..SMAC just leaves me cold..it gets flat,boring and uninteresting too fast..I can't relate to the game.Trust me I have tried ,really tried.Well now(in the words of B5s' intro) CTP is my last best hope.Sorry all you ardent SMACers but CIV it ain't.It has not the special something needed to ignite my gaming soul

[bilious]

This is probably not the right place to post this comment but here goes anyway.
Both my wife & I love CivII so we went out and spent our £40 on Alpha Centuri. She is into sci fi and I'm not. She gave up on it halfway through the first game, I was keen to complete the game (which I did easilly on the first attempt - admittedly as the Gaians who seem to have a massive advantage) but have had absolutely no inclination to play it since.
My question to Brian is how is this possible?
What is missing from AC given that there are significant improvements over Civ II in virtually all areas ?

I personally feel that my lack of interest in Sci-Fi may have something to do with it. I don't like any of the units, they look like they were made of Stiklebricks and Duplo by some three year old, hey but thats 3D for you. Worst however are the opposition. They are all charactures and utterly predictable. Maybe this is also true of CivII but not so obviously.

I'm sure AC is a great game. Technically its definitely an improvement on CivII. Gameplay, well I think not.Its only my opinion but I'm prepared to give Call to Power a fair trial, because the same great team does not always produce the winning formula.

PS. George Lucas is an excellent producer, he is not a storywriter or source of quality screenplays. In George's original script the Emperor was chief baddie and the cutsie little family von Skywalker went round beating them up. Neither Darth Vader nor Boba Fett were invented by Lucas.

[AustralianJeremy]

Wow, so many things to respond to here; please forgive this post being a bit chaotic.

First: anyone noticed the incredible sheep-like capacity of posters on forums like this to make either enter a sort of flame war between supporters of game 1 or game 2, or to post the incredibly boring "they're both good games, isn't it great that the gods of gaming have been kind to us - can't we all just get along?" etc etc.

Second: It's a SMAC vs CTP forum, so of course BR can post his opinion. And I think it's a pretty revealing one; it must be tough watching your baby taken over by a corporation like that. On the other hand, it really is SM's baby....

The pity is, what I really want to see is Civ III, an improvement like CivII was on Civ1; I want slightly better graphics, but not that can't run smoothly on a P233MMX with 32MB RAM (both SMAC and CTP run at a crawl; it's very frustrating) and which have to completely hog the hard drive (300-500MB for CTP; that's a damn lot). I find it hard to get addicted to SMAC because I think part of the appeal of the Civ series is taking command of civilizations in the real world; discovering thought control doesn't have the impact of the original CivII wonders like the Hoover Dam or Pyramids. But then CTP has thrown these out too.

The pity of this whole legal wrangle is we're getting two games neither of which is Civ III. No more Hoover Dams or Pyramids; no more races to get the Great Library... Both games are very greedy of resources, too. SMAC is slightly nicer, at least coming with a laptop install, and at least being slightly less buggy (CTP's cursor problem is really annoying). But then, the constant purple-pink and blue colours are pretty offputting (just call me shallow). SMAC uses more sensible keyboard shortcuts, though (why 'N' for end of turn in CTP? If you're going to be hitting it all the time, surely Enter or spacebar would have been a better choice).

The legal wrangling really leaves both games feeling less than whole, and leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Neither will mention CivII (no friendly "this is what's new in CivIII" sections) - SMAC because it legally can't, and CTP I guess because they feel a bit guilty about it.

Of the two, I am more disposed to like the real-world CTP, but SMAC is slightly friendlier, probably due to the experience of the designers. However, I have a strong feeling that, at least until I get an incredibly zippy computer, I'll be continuing to play Civ2.

-Jeremy

[AustralianJeremy]

Oh - one final thing. One reason this may be a particularly acrimonious battle between the two games is that Civ games are *very* time-consuming. Most people will not have time for both games, so they want to know which one to devote their time to... At the moment I'd have to say if you've got anything less than a gun computer (PII300+ with 64MB+ of RAM and a huge hard disk - you'd need a about a GB to install both games), then stick to Civ2.

Weighing SMAC and CTP up after that - it'll take people a while to get into both enough to judge that on a long-term basis; at the moment I think SMAC has more depth of gameplay, but I prefer the look of CTP. The compromise solution - Civ2.

[TCO]

Right on Jeremy!!! Can't come up with anything to add, but agree with your points.

[Gerardo81]

Alright, I think it's pretty cool talkin' to Brian Reynolds the other dude who wrote Civ, but SMAC sucks on my computer. Not to say the actual game sucks, it rocks but it always crashes. I have emailed several people in Firaxis for help and gotton no reply, also I have vrs 3.0 and it does ****.
However, I havve not played CIV:Call to power yet but I ordered it. It looks awesome. While all the games are cool I still think I will be playing Civ2. Email at Geardo81@hotmail.com.

[Kyle]

Just a note, don't bother e-mailing, just put it up on the Support forum. You'll get a response there.

[Mog the Orc]

Ok, Inexpirenced team = Doom
Expirenced team = Dai Katana

'nuff said

[crisp]

re.
// Ok, Inexpirenced team = Doom
// Expirenced team = Dai Katana
// 'nuff said

umm you've got that the wrong way round;

Doom = Experienced team (check out the games written by JC & JR before Doom)

Dai Katana = Inexperienced team (most haven't produced a single game)

'nuff said

[Metamorph]

You've got to be kidding me.

Alpha Centauri is not the latest and greatest in the Civ series. Alpha Centauri *IS* Civ 2. In and out. Every single feature. Every unit, every tech, every economic aspect, every government, every single individual detail of the game is a complete and utter rip-off of Civ 2.

How DARE you claim that you and your 'team' have somehow come up with some glorious new creation. I'm not an idiot. A blind monkey can see that every basic unit in Alpha is just a unit from Civ 2 with a new name, that every tech in Alpha is just a tech from Civ 2 with a new name. There's a scenario for Civ 2 which does a better job of 'space-ifying' Civ 2 than your pathetic excuse for the next level of strategy gaming.

And of course, right along with every single game feature of Civ 2, you also incorporated every glaring game flaw. Disgustingly broken Wonders. Disgustingly broken huts. And a horrifically flawed economic structure which drops game challenge down the toilet via the standard ICS approach.

So don't patronize me, Brian. I have nothing but contempt now for you and your 'group'. Go make a REAL game, and get back to me.

- Metamorph

[AustralianJeremy]

Actually, SMAC's beginning to grow on me. It's not the Civ2 clone I originally thought: the factions are much more like characters than the nations in Civ2, the storyline is actually suitably inspiring, the unit modification idea is actually useful etc. Oh yes, and the terrain is actually real, 3D terrain, unlike both Civ2 and CTP.

SMAC's the sort of game that grows on you (I was annoyed at first because what I really wanted was civ3...) SMAC won't replace Civ2 on my hard drive; I'll be playing both.

[Pythagoras]

Yeah! Another saved soul! I thought the SMAC demo was horible at first, but then as I played it more it really grew on me, especially the graphics. I used to hate those weird colors, but now I cant imagine being without them.

[Graeme LeSaux]

Honestly, SMAC sucks. So does CTP. Long live our noble Civ2, God save Civ2!!!

[fred]

this thread takes me back

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i am the great one
and leader of the cow cult