What SMAC fans say about Civ IV?

[Senethro]

My short comments...

I like the terraforming. Best terraforming in a Civ (not SMAC ) game yet. Plains/hills etc add much variety, with windmills/lumbermills adding on top of that. Cottage are also a work of genius.

Combat is good, on the ground at least.

I've not had time to form an opinions re. Civ balance, civics balance. I'm reasonably sure that there will be a decent number of usable options in both.

Now for the bad.

Most wonders are not worth the minerals you pay for them.

Research is too fast. Far too many games go to space race.

Its impossible to project power and this exacerbates the number of Space Race wins.

In short, for competitive multiplay I believe that eventually most people will play on smallish maps with a penalty to research. (or maybe a bonus to production).

[Mart]

good things:
- nice music
- it's civ
- possible modding

bad things:
- Too many changes by limitting/cutting.
- no paratroopers so far.
- spy can be build only in one city
- no forest planting
- copters are air units that can't fly over water???
- annoying map view.
- map not spherical - still cylindrical
- no unit design workshop (promotions are more morale system, than design thing)

The game emphasizes graphics, tries to be RTS-like in look.

[Blake]

I have to say that I absolutely love promotions. It's a fantastic system and seems quite balanced too.

The potency of attacking is generally a bit low, both when it comes to attacking cities and counter-attacking from cities. Combatwise it's "Balanced low" (like Civ3) rather than "Balanced High" (like SMAC)

Terraforming is "Balanced low", very low compared to SMAC (think boreholes ). Probably higher than Civ3.

Facilities are "Balanced low". Many bonuses are only +25% and such.
Wonders are decent, they don't cost that much.

The changes to specialists are fine.

Great People are "Balanced high", they are rather fun too.

Overall difficulty, first game I played on Noble and I've basically been #1 throughout the entire game (I'm near the end of the tech tree now). Rome did take my 2nd best city and it took ages to take it back so my play wasn't quite flawless... but if you're a good player (and have read up on CIV a bit) you wont find CIV terribly hard.

[Minute Mirage]

Originally posted by Blake


Terraforming is "Balanced low", very low compared to SMAC (think boreholes ). Probably higher than Civ3.

There are some exceptions though, flood plains with a town combined with the right techs and civics and I'm currently producing 3 food, 1 hammer and 9 commerce (financial civ). That's like a borehole with +2 Econ.

[Blake]

But they are near the end game. In SMAC you can have boreholes right after finishing the WP. In end game you have enricher+condensor producing 6 food then the orbitals too effectively doubling all food values...

[Minute Mirage]

I wouldn't say they're that far in the end game, especially if you beeline for Democracy. But your point still stands of course, SMAC tiles had the potential of producing much more. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but I do know that the added improvements in Civ IV (cottages, windmills, watermills, lumbermills) make terrforming a lot more interesting than in Civ 3.

[Blake]

Yeah, it's balanced higher than Civ3.

The entire game flow is kinda different, SMAC involves a rapid escalation of strength (impact rovers, probe teams, choppers, fusion reactor, orbitals, nerve gas, planet busters) while Civ4 drags along.

Another example is in SMAC it's easy to build top of the line elite infantry in a single turn (and these infantry will effortlessly crack any base of comparable tech), while in Civ4 to get a (far less potent) attacker would take 3 to 5 turns, and it's not going to just waltz up to the city and knock it down.

Another difference is being a historical game Civ4 has ebbs and flows in attack/defense effectiveness, like with the Machinegunner, and certain attackers like Modern Armor. While SMAC just constantly escalates to ever greater levels of destruction.

And I believe for the C4:AC mod this escalation is a very important thing to capture.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Minute Mirage
- The games seem to be faster on normal speed which suits me fine.

Do you mean faster in play time or faster in # of turns required to win? It's the latter that matters for PBEM.

[Minute Mirage]

Originally posted by Maniac


Do you mean faster in play time or faster in # of turns required to win? It's the latter that matters for PBEM.

Both. The reduced micromanagement and smaller number of cities means faster play time but in normal speed the techs keep coming fast throughout the game which means a reduced number of turns. In fact the normal speed seems maybe a bit too hectic at times and I'm considering trying an epic game next.

By the way, from what I've heard you can change the research speeds by modding the game files to suit your own preferences.

[Chaos Theory]

Alpha Centauri games with experienced players rarely make it to 200 turns. Civ 4 has made it to 1000 AD or so after that many, so until we figure out game-breaking tricks, I would expect Civ 4 PBEMs to last more turns. Using the "Quick" game speed should help with this, though I don't know if the game could be squeezed down to SMAC speeds without changing strategies a lot.

[smacksim]

Tidbits....... how about a more full review by a SMAC fanatic?

What sound like pluses to me: Pretty, interesting upgrade/promotion system, pretty, less micromanagement, interesting Civics system, and its pretty.

Negatives:

1. Less micromanagement. That has been the death knell for many potentially great games (see Pax Imperia, MOO, Civ3 (IMO), etc.. Does CIV4 take away micromanagement but leave in the math, or is it simplified completely such that there is no potential micromanagement at all?

2. Crashing issues / memory intensive / a little buggy?

3. Civlopedia is a little weak and/or broken.

But what about the things that are really important to Smac fans: Replayability (random maps and the odd strategy by the AI make for interesting games indefinitely), atmosphere / feel, and full of strategic nuance? Does it look like there will be the potential for deep tactic / strategy digging or is it like R:TW in that if you do x,y,z its going to work but a,b,c are useless?

Anyways, thanks for the mini-reviews.

[Illuminatus]

Originally posted by smacksim
Tidbits....... how about a more full review by a SMAC fanatic?

I plan to write a detailed review from a "SMAC fanatic" viewpoint.

Many lines in the manual have concerned me. For example the manual states that cities cannot be renamed after founding. Although this doesn't have any effect on the gameplay itself, it is a strange decision to disable this.

[Petek]

Originally posted by Illuminatus
Many lines in the manual have concerned me. For exampe the manual states that cities cannot be renamed after founding. Although this doesn't have any effect on the gameplay itself, it is a strange decision to disable this.

Actually, the manual is wrong. You can rename cities. Just click on the city name while in city view.

Looking forward to your review.

[GeoModder]

Not such an analyzer as you lot, so I'll try to make the best of it.

Good things:
Terraforming: a player can go whatever way he wants and it isn't that hard to switch the output from a city-radius with sufficient workers around.
Sort of popbooming: with the proper terrain around a city, I had it that my last founded city became the third largest in virtually no time.
Info popup: A simple mouse-over of whatever object ingame gives you the all the stats you need to know.
Promotions: VERY promising, is in my opinion the best crossover one can get from abilities in SMAC and rewarding for merit of the unit (winning battles)
Graphics: dare I say it? Those worked tiles graphics can be quite mesmerizing to me. Just seeing your civilization in action so to speak. There might be things I don't know since my graphics card is low-end.
Competition: granted that I only played out 2 games sofar (on noble), and I probably have to learn to be more efficient but in both games at least half the AI-civs kept up with me on tech parity, and threaten to snag a spacerace victory from me (even when way smaller then me). It could prove quite difficult to have UN -or dominance victory as long as the Space option is open if you're not such an agressive player.
Limited spies: If not, those buggers would ran over the whole map peeking into bases. It makes them worthwhile and a player needs to decide what information/sabotage he really needs to know/do. I wouldn't have won in my last game if I didn't look where the AI was having an edge on me while spacebuilding in order to sabotage his production.
Diplomacy: A player knows why another leader feels about him the way it does.
Small is beautiful: I never liked ICS and all the MM that came with it. I can actually enjoy MM in Civ now due to the limited amount of it. And above all, if you play it smart, you continue to be a player even with little resources and small number of cities.

Negative things:
Diplomacy isn't that good yet. You can do alot, but there's something missing I can't quite put a finger on atm. Personality perhaps? Something that SMAC leaders do have. Tho at least the Japanese leader is quite your stubborn guy, no complaints on that one (yet).
Civilopedia: missing links/info, no (or little) hyperlinks, it's been said by others.
Wonder movies: I feel they were overcalled in the pre-release info. Some (of the later ones) are quite nice, but I'm spoiled by SMAC on that aspect.

That was that.
Can't really comment on balance and stuff. I'm used to go with the flow of what is available, and work with that. I count the civics in that category. I see quite alot of you have stability problems, but sofar I haven't had a CTD or so. Just slow game when playing from normal maps on later in time, and without interrupting (restarting the game).

O yes, Illuminatus. I am quite capable of renaming cities way after their founding. Just click the cityname in the cityscreen.

[frostking]

From (crash) what (crash) I've been (crash) able to (crash) play (crash), I'll (crash) call it...
...One crashing SOB!
(CRASH)