How Many Factions Should There Be?

[Mensonge]

As many as possible as long as they're coherent and meaningful.

[The Odor]

in most is 7. In freeciv is 14 or 15.

[MysticWind]

In all of the Civ games and variants, what's the most number of players per game? Either single-player or multiplayer.

[gwillybj]

the map is way too small

You can set custom dimensions in the scenario editor and in alpha.txt under #WORLDSIZE. I make 360x180 maps that play nicely.

As for number of factions, I would like more slots, and the option to leave some empty.

[The Odor]

multiple of 7, or power of 2?

i think that :

• multiple of 7 (7, 14, 21, 28, 35 and so on) is not the right choice ,
• but a power of 2 minus 1 (7=2³-1, 15=2⁴-1, 31=2⁵-1, 63=2⁶-1 and so on) ,
• with the native units (mindworm isle of the deep, locust of Chiron) being the last one ”civilization”, similar to CIVs barbarians.

[Commy]

More is not better...seven factions, seven idealogies...it works, its simple, you can get attached to seven people...you can understand, remember, and really play seven factions...adding more just ruins the point...

Furthermore, having factions that are "communists, fascists, socialists, libertarians, democratists..." would destroy one very good aspect of SMAC...having factions based on idealogy, while maybe not the most realistic, makes the game what it is...you can't get attached to some Russian dude and some American guy and some Chinese fro...but you can get attached to someone like Yang and Morgan...maybe you don't like them, but you really know them, you understand them, they are what makes the game really deep...SMAC is made to get us away from reality, to look into the future that we can shape and control...bringing in factions from our lifetime and our experiences just depresses the game and ruins all hopes of the game really being successful...

If you want real nations from earth, make a mod for it, but I don't think the game should be made that way...

[Brent]

SMAC -1 would not be about humans on Earth, it would be about the alien progenitors introduced in SMACX.

[waab]

@thread
Actuly I don't want any new big factions, I just want better diplomatics and even more politics. To remove the ideology based factions as Brent suggested make me shiver. The fundation of SMAC is the ideology based factions, and therefore I prefere a better political arena and a better trading bord.

This is the reason why I am suggesting that there only should be seven big factions. Then let the "great leaders" influense other to spring there own factions.

Subleaders could be good no more then 2 per faction is needed, IMHO they should only appear when a subfactions does.

@MRT144
let people dream

[H.Humpel]

Originally posted by MRT144
more factions, more revolts, more units, more _____?
you guys fail to realize that more is not neccesarily better for a game

That's so true. It's never like more = better.
OK, I think there are two ways to talk about "more":

1. more faction etc. (as you "proposed" it)
well, I think there are some thing that would be nice to see in ACAX, like more KINDs of factions (like the ALIEN in ACAX, a new one might be AI) and some other of these "mores". But of course, you can easily go over the top with this and the game would lose its "magic". Balancing things like these are very hard to do!

2. more as a finer way of adjustments
with this "more" I mean a finer way to set things up, e.g.: PLANET just ranges from +3 to -3 and I think (for all the Social factors) a scale from -100 to 100 (or -255 to 256 for the computer freaks ) might be better. Sometimes the steps are too hard/high or easy/low.
Same for the things like "interested in power" etc. in the faction files. Just a yes/no isn't enough (IMHO).
Especially in term of diplomacy a finer structure would be nice, too!
This way, you get more choices and a more complex system without using more categories.

Just a quick thought which is hard to put in the right words for a non-native English speaker...

[H.Humpel]

Originally posted by Brent Or you could have SMAC -1, a prequel about the progenitors.

which is basically Civ 1... isn't it???
It is long ago that I played Civ 1 (or 2), but isn't the main goal to send a new colony to Alpha Centauri ???
There we are in SMAC... I always thought it was meant to be some kind of sequel to Civ.

[MRT144]

jesus, this is why sequels almost always suck. youre like the people that asked for episode 1

[Brent]

A sequel should almost always have more of everything. A Civ sequel in particular should have more civs. What should be the focus of a SMAC sequel if not new Factions and still have it be a sequel to the original game? My best answer to that is expand to elsewhere in the Alpha Centauri system and maybe into interstellar space. Space stations you can play on may be required. Or maybe Earth got itself together, and sends a new colony ship after SMAC1 ends? Or you could have SMAC -1, a prequel about the progenitors.

[MRT144]

then it will have to be a whole new game. redesigning a game to accomidate more factions would be silly, and a minor technical point. I think the most id like to see is 14 because each of the 14 is different enough to exsist within the same game. i doubt that youd be able to create 20 more factions with different personalities.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by MRT144
more factions, more revolts, more units, more _____?

you guys fail to realize that more is not neccesarily better for a game

I agree with your statement that more is not necessarily better. However, from my experience in the PBEM world why I have witnessed the same Factions being played a myriad of ways, the only difference being the players who played the same Faction. So if you then expand the base number of Factions, you then increase exponentially the ways to play the game, which then increases again the ways/ methods to play the game! Therefore, if the Factional expansion is done correctly, the game benefits significantly. Its worth the effort/ risk, IMO.


D

[MRT144]

more factions, more revolts, more units, more _____?

you guys fail to realize that more is not neccesarily better for a game