Has Firaxis ever said anything about the possibility af a SMAC 2?

[Commy]

I have a different idea...

Okay, so humanity is screwed, the U.N. sucks, Western civilization goes screwy, and the Unity ship still needs to be made, okay...

Now, instead of adding on to the story line, we make a new one...different names of faction leaders, maybe slightly different idealogies, maybe a different number of factions...and then they land on planet...except this time, the native life is different, resources are different, what ever...perhaps the terrain will be more comparable to civ, instead of having rainfall, each square would be plains, hills, canyons, etc...

Perhaps for idealogies, we end up with 12 factions, one that fits each of the 12 social engineering settings...or maybe 10, one for each social engineering advantage or one for each combination of interests (explore, discover, build, etc.)

Or maybe we use nations from earth, and make government more comparable to civ...

An even more interesting idea...any of you ever played Sim City? Remember all of the ordinances you could enact? Well, instead of social engineering, you have ordinances that have unique advantages and disadvantages...so instead of doing a green economy and having +2 planet, you ban the use of fossil fuels and half all eco-damage, or something like that...

Or, you know all of the sliders, like economy, tech, pysch? Well, perhaps you make those for other categories...say like, you can move the slider towards military, but then get decrease in industry...so for every +1 morale, you get -1 industry...or maybe for every +1 economy, you get -1 planet, +1 research, -1 probe, and so on...

Just some ideas...

[Brent]

Maybe each game should start with an even number of factions: one or more pairs of archenemies.

I played the first two SimCity games long ago and only recently started with 3000.

[fender]

I love that Sim City idea, I think it could work. I've been playing Sim City 4 Deluxe and enjoying it very much although it can get a bit boring. Now if you had a SMAC with it, that would not be the case and you'd have an amazing game.

Something else to consider along the same lines is what about having one big city like in the Sim City series instead of the tons in SMAC. Various different industries would be making your units and the facilities would be actual buildings. Not to mention that the roads would be roads. Industry would create pollution and increase unrest (drones) There are a lot of way to go with the Sim City idea.

[Commy]

It would be interesting, because then when you bombed a "city" you might actually be bombing the rec commons or the recycling tanks, and not just units...

[WolfEyes]

Personally I would prefer if they just updated the game and fix a few things like the AI. Along with everything else that needs to be fixed with the AI, I think the AI should take economics into account when going to war, especially when trade is the only thing keeping their economy afloat. Oh, and make it mod-friendly like Civ4 will be.

[doctorfrog]

I'll just chime in with my noob thoughts.

The idea for SMAC is a pretty good contrivance. It allows disparate factions, spread over an entire planet, and gives them a reason to fear each other and spread. It even gives believable reasons why old tech has to be rediscovered. I see no problem with a sequel that utilizes a parallel timeline. Each successive Civ isn't a continuance of the plot of the next, is it? Nope, you start over with your 'faction' in same olden days, starting with the rudest techs of mankind. Although, I don't think Civ really has a central plot, the way SMAC does. In SMAC, you're playing a very open-ended game wrapped loosely around the central core of a story.

That model should continue, since it grounds gameplay, but the story could change. In fact, it could be dynamic, based on user gameplay. From my current experience with SMAC, it seems already a bit dynamic.

I'd also like a peek into the lives of the people I manage. I have such a high-level view of things, I didn't realize that I was controlling a "harsh collectivist/authoritarian" state until I read about it in the manual (Yang). Maybe it is part of the design of the game, but I am really detatched from the reality of life on Alpha Centauri. Changes I make to society are distant plusses and minuses in arcane formulae. I do like using my imagination to picture the effects of a Children's Creche on a community, but I'm not even given a text description of what it is, or what it really does. I'm just given a numerical modifier, and a vague idea of its effect.

Finally, an open-source AI would be huge boost to the longevity of the game. C-evo (http://c-evo.org/) is a Civ clone that is closed-source... but you can design your own AI. A lot of the play extension efforts I've seen around here make every adjustment that can be thought of to the AI's environment, build menu, etc., but it is really all just dancing around a limited AI. There's no way a QA team can do as much work in testing the limits of an AI as a fanatic legion of gamers, and no one, I suspect, is more disappointed in an AI that has to 'cheat' to compete. An open-source AI, or one that can at least have additional 'rules' added to it that force it to react properly to exploits, would make a game with as much longevity as SMAC extend yet further.

Of course, everything else about this game that is already 'open' should stay open.

By no means am I slamming this game. It is a marvel. I'm just suggesting a few things that would make a sequel more involving of a simulation.

[Commy]

I would have to agree with that...the descriptions of improvements, technologies, and units are a lot better in Civ...however, describing things that don't even exist yet or that we don't even understand...well, I have to give SMAC credit, explaining things in detail that haven't even happened yet? Pretty hard to do...but it would be very nice...

[doctorfrog]

I absolutely agree with you, Commy. It's clear that a lot of work went into just thinking up names and effects for future tech, and Firaxis did a fantastic job creating realistic, non-silly future tech. So much work and research is evident in the tech tree and societal effects, I'm sure they didn't have the time, money, or personnel to make such things more material. However, any future efforts in this direction can at least rely upon the sturdy foundation laid down by SMAC, hopefully allowing these elements to be made more tangible.

[waab]

mayby do a CTPII relise the source, and then do the work by ourselves.