Alien Crossfire

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Commy

If you like seabases, you'll like SMAX...three new facilities have been added, among others...but these three really help seabases...one adds an additional nutrient to all kelp farms, another an additional mineral to all mining platforms, same for tidal harnesses...

I really like these facilities as it makes crawling sea square much more worthwhile

I also like algorithmic enhancement so that the HSA doesn't make people invulnerable to probes. I always though it was a too powerful project and that it reduced the fun factor by eliminating a fun part of the game. Having the HSA usually means that you can wage war and not have to spend literally hundreds of minerals on adequate defensive probes PLUS it frees up all your old defensive probes for offensive actions

[spartak]

Go for the expansion. I had SMAC before I had SMAX and I never play smac anymore.

[Dis]

I never play SMAC either. Expansion all the way. Though sometimes I will play SMAX with all the original factions. Best of both worlds.

[Commy]

I think playing SMAX with the SMAC factions is the best way to go...

[WotanAnubis]

Originally posted by Commy
I think playing SMAX with the SMAC factions is the best way to go...

Personally, I think throwing all the (relatively) pacifist factions together is the best way to go.

Yeah, I'm a horribly unskilled builder with an intense hatred for war because it messes up my production plans.

[Dis]

Originally posted by WotanAnubis

Personally, I think throwing all the (relatively) pacifist factions together is the best way to go.

Yeah, I'm a horribly unskilled builder with an intense hatred for war because it messes up my production plans.

yep, I do that alot. I figured I was the only one. I tend to run out of peaceful factions. I put the Drones in, but they aren't very peaceful. They end up taking over half the world.

[joncnunn]

Try picking one of the terriable trio yourself, that removes one agressive AI. Then pick the others to be as pacifist as possible.

But note that your still going to have wars based on agendas.

The SMAC AI is programmed to hate any human daring to pick a non default SC that's different than the agenda.

(e.g. : Whichever govt you pick will make one AI very happy and two AIs mad if all of Lal, Yang, Mirriam are in the game)

Then your economy is similarly going to make up to one ally and up to two AIs mad.

And yet again when you choose your values, that's up to one ally and up to two AIs mad.

Ignoring Future Socitiy simply because of how late that appears. (And in the original, there weren't any factions listing these)

But there's still one more piece of important info that seems to step in around MY 2200. The AI in #1 position is trained to hate the person in #2 weather human or AI and regardless of prefered SC.

The AI in #2 positiion is trained to hate the person in #1 weather human or AI and regardless of perfered SC.

Originally posted by WotanAnubis

Personally, I think throwing all the (relatively) pacifist factions together is the best way to go.

Yeah, I'm a horribly unskilled builder with an intense hatred for war because it messes up my production plans.

[WotanAnubis]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Try picking one of the terriable trio yourself, that removes one agressive AI. Then pick the others to be as pacifist as possible.

But note that your still going to have wars based on agendas.

The SMAC AI is programmed to hate any human daring to pick a non default SC that's different than the agenda.

Yeah, I know. But I prefer to postpone all wars for as long as possible.

However, there are only three factions listed as "pacifist": Morganites, Gaians and Cybernetics. That means you're screwed in the Economy department. However, for Politics, you can choose both Data Angels and Peacekeepers, because they both have the Democracy preference and then round the group of with the University for its Knowledge.
And then you just have to pick a faction that isn't Hive or the Believers.

[fender]

I agree with Commy. I have SMAX, but rarely play it, although at one time that's all I did. Most of the time I play SMAC. When I do play SMAX I only use the original factions.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by fender
I have SMAX, but rarely play it, although at one time that's all I did. Most of the time I play SMAC. When I do play SMAX I only use the original factions.

I'm the exact opposite: I play SMAX almost exclusively, and almost always have the Aliens in my SP games - just something about all those extra bells and whistles SMAX brings to the game. Oh yeah, and all that Nerve Gas!

D

[Frankychan]

I'd agree with the majority here, play SMAC first, then get 'X' if you can so long as you get it for a cheap price (less than 20 should do...but I don't know your home country).

From my experiences, the expansion factions are pretty overpowered...and only Yang or Miriam has a chance of standing toe-to-toe with them.

Again, as said before, the SMAC factions are extremely well put together. The history, ideology, even the faction leaders, are believable. You can just imagine Lal manipulating his way to planet governor....his various quotes in the game are fascinating (I hate his a**)

Basically, I'd say that you're pretty much set with just SMAC...but if you become curious about X, pick it up only if you can find it cheap.

[Dis]

not all expansion factions are overpowerd. The data angels are useless. And planet cult isn't much better. The cyborgs aren't so hot in ai hands either.

[Dis]

actually I've decided to play a game with all the warmonger factions. This should be different.

I'll play one of the weaker ones.

let me think. who should I go up against?

Hive of course, Believers, Spartans (though the always suck), Aliens, Drones (not warlike in theory, but they always kick major ass in my games). who else am I missing?

[GeoModder]

Cult?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by uberloz
For those of you that think the expansion is worth the money, would you recommend playing through the original first?

Or just plug in the expansion and play using it?

Oh, alternate. It's what I did.


You'll be playing both games long enough not to have to play them in the order they were released anyway.

I suppose if you're new to the game, the Alien factions can seem a little overpowered at first, but given that they can't ally you shouldn't experience too many problems.


And it's just fun reading through the manual, Poly's A.C. section and the game's files anyway, so you're better off diving in headfirst and having fun, no matter how frustrating it might seem at first.