Vote for SMAC2 at firaxis.com

[Gnool]

...or if Civ 4 is the most wonderful game Firaxis have ever made, we could make the SMAC world deeper and more interesting in Civ 4 that the original game ever was

[Hydro]

Gnool – Civ IV may be the best thing since sliced bread, but that does not necessarily mean it will work as a base for SMAX Mod. A mod changes elements such as images and animation, and perhaps tweaks settings for units and factions. Adding the primary elements of SMAX – such as xenofungus, worms, etc – is likely a tad beyond changing elements in a reference file.

That is not to say that if the Civ IV engine was used for a SMAX-specific game that it wouldn’t exceed SMAX. That, however, is not a mod but a completely different game.

Doing a sequel is always dangerous. Folks like me will be very critical of changes that affect the flavor of the game, or especially if it becomes a twitchy SMAX-lite arcade game directed at those with a short attention span. The genius of SMAX is that, in the end, I care. That says a lot for Brian Reynolds and his team.

Hydro

[Jetmech]

I'm not getting my hopes up on Civ4...I got the new and Improved Pirates! from Sid Meyer and am quite adamant when I say IT SUCKED!!!!

I'm thinking that ol Sid is just whoring out his name for these new titles, cause I havent seen one in awhile thats worth a damn. imho

[Gnool]

Hydro - I was just trying to lighten this thread up a bit Everyone was complaining and being pessimistic so I thought I'd be positive and optimistic. Of course we'll have to wait and see what Civ 4 is like, but wouldn't it be cool if we could make an awesome SMAC/X mod out of it?

[Lord Nword]

So do we wanna ballot stuff? I know I have access to at least a dozen comps at school plus the three at home

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Hydro
Civ III was hyped to death, and then turned out to be…less than satisfying. The AI was linear (not that the much older SMAX’s isn’t), and the game one-dimensional (in my opinion). This hardly left me breathless, or gave me the irritation the original Civ games and SMAX did of keeping me up all night.

I’ll wait on the sidelines before jumping at Civ IV.

Hydro

Sage words from a SMAC(X) Elder (and btw good to see you dropping by again, Hydro! ) . I am currently also planning on taking a wait and see attitude towards Civ4. I've never bought any of the Civ-series games before, and am definately not going to buy one now unless I know for sure that it can be (relatively) easily modded into a sci-fi world such as SMAC(X), to include the level of gameplay that I have come to expect because of SMAC(X)!

Originally posted by Hydro
I would be very surprised if a Civ IV mod could emulate xenofungus, special terrain features, a Planet rating, mindworms and other denizens of Planet.

I'm going to disagree with you there. I've prodded and played around enough with the available SMAC(X) parameters that I can change to know that Planet is not impossible to emulate. Heck, in my SMAX Beta Lyrae mod I relatively easily changed the denizens of Planet into a warlike species invading from another dimension, complete with "cities", subs, marine detachments, and rover artillery. I also believe it was girlfightclub who said something to the effect that the denizens of Planet are simply the barbarians from the Civ series, which reinforces my opinion about the ability to re-create Planet and its minions.....

Originally posted by Hydro
After all, this is an alien world and is modeled as such. Sure, it might be red or have faction cities, or perhaps even some SE that is kind of like Planet, but it would likely be only wallpaper – and about as deep.

I think that within our community that there are some extremely talented people who can really come up with some good ideas - not only to expand upon the existing story/ capabilities of Planetmind, but to come up with different, parallel views/ storylines as to the evolution of Planet and its future going forward. You might even of heard of some of these creative writer types in our SMAC(X) Community, yes?

Originally posted by Gnool
...or if Civ 4 is the most wonderful game Firaxis have ever made, we could make the SMAC world deeper and more interesting in Civ 4 that the original game ever was

There is always that hope. We will see.....


D

[binTravkin]

I'm going to disagree with you there. I've prodded and played around enough with the available SMAC(X) parameters that I can change to know that Planet is not impossible to emulate. Heck, in my SMAX Beta Lyrae mod I relatively easily changed the denizens of Planet into a warlike species invading from another dimension, complete with "cities", subs, marine detachments, and rover artillery. I also believe it was girlfightclub who said something to the effect that the denizens of Planet are simply the barbarians from the Civ series, which reinforces my opinion about the ability to re-create Planet and its minions.....

Yeah, barbarians should be moddable as well if the code is released.
And if the code is really released (or maybe even without that) making something 100% like fungus or even better (have some ideas ) would be not a big deal.

I think that within our community that there are some extremely talented people who can really come up with some good ideas - not only to expand upon the existing story/ capabilities of Planetmind, but to come up with different, parallel views/ storylines as to the evolution of Planet and its future going forward. You might even of heard of some of these creative writer types in our SMAC(X) Community, yes?

Yeah, I see at least two of them already posting in this thread..

[#endgame]

Ooh, imagine planetfall with 100% fungus and infantry as well as formers can remove fungus. That'd be interesting.

[Alex]

Originally posted by Lord Nword
So do we wanna ballot stuff? I know I have access to at least a dozen comps at school plus the three at home

we need any possible help. imagine if they decide to remake Colonization just because of this poll.

[Kataphraktoi]

So do we wanna ballot stuff? I know I have access to at least a dozen comps at school plus the three at home

you only need one comp ,delete the sites cookies and vote again.not that i would ever ever have done that,mind you *whistles*

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Darsnan
So then, to approach the concerns binTravkin posted above about Crawlers from a slightly different tangent, why if the ability to build crawlers is not inherent in the base code, why we can then edit the code such that we can then create via newly generated lines of code the ability to build crawlers?
Also, in SMAC(X) we have Orbital Warfare via Orbital Defense Pods, as well as Orbital Drop Pods for our troops. We can create these via editing the code as well?
On a different tangent, since Civ4 unit animations are now 3D, what is the process for us to generate 3D SMAC(X) unit animations? And can we re-create the SMAC(X) Unit Design Workshop?
Finally, for aspects of Civ4 that the SMAC(X) Community might not want, we can then edit them out of a SMAC(X) mod, or is the coding of a form that is so convoluted that this is probably not possible?

Assuming one is fluent enough in C++ to be capable of writing (or removing) code to accomplish these things - then the answer is yes.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Trip

Assuming one is fluent enough in C++ to be capable of writing (or removing) code to accomplish these things - then the answer is yes.

:shrug: C++ is yet another language - If there is full acces to the source, mods are certainly possible.

[Mart]

Voted for SMAX2

Presently Colonization has the lead 39%. SMAX2 only 29%, but this is really a lot compared to other games having 0%, there are so many of them like that.

[Gnool]

D'oh! We were up around 60% at one stage.

[Dis]

holy cow, last time I looked at the results, smac 2 was way ahead. oh well .

I actually think it's too soon for smac 2 anyways. I'd like to see it in 5 or 10 years actually. Well maybe closer to 5, I don't think I can wait for 10 years.