What SMAC fans say about Civ IV?

[smacksim]

Originally posted by yellowyellow
I actually started playing SMAC because of being disappointed by the poor performance of CIV4.

That makes two people coming to SMAC because of Civ4. Strange but good. Mebbe we'll have the best of both worlds when the project gets finished (to make Smac on the C4 engine).

Welcome to 'Poly.

[Illuminatus]

Please, try to use this thread before opening another one.

Thank you.

[Kataphraktoi]

got my lazy rear in gear and played cIV finally. interesting antipirating setup i was quite disapointed. some of the graphics looked very impressive, but it was basicly civ3,a little more interesting,sad diplomacy,etc and linear gameplay. ill try it longer later,and i might be modding it for our LAN group. have some plans for that...

my statement right now on it? is this =

[Chaunk]

Originally posted by Kataphraktoi
... linear gameplay.

Could you explain that for me (I don't have Civ4 yet.)?

[Kataphraktoi]

in smac,you would agree that besides choppers and crawlers and popbooming,which are universal,there are no 'best' strat for every faction,and there are different ways of playing and there is room for playing differently without losing.

whereas,'best' ways of playing cIV started coming up in just the hour i played it,culminating in the human just being a supersmart AI playing like a script,as in civ3. although it has more depth,admitedly, it lacks a host of things smac has,crawlers and popbooming and the various ways to get ahead. unit promotion is very weak compared to the workshop.

but what game can measure up to smac anyway,anyway.

[Senethro]

Cata: Play it a bit more and then read over Vel's strategy threads. You're dismissing it too soon.

[Kataphraktoi]

That all you can say? because i havnt posted there,you assume i havnt read vel's posts. he is one of the few people ill read,just because it is vel.

i never said the game was shallow however,i said it was boring,enough so that i wasnt interested in continuing playing. i never had a one more turn feeling, that i get with smac to see what happans next. there was never a ''WOW'' that rocks feeling,on anything. the game is more a compiliation of existing features into a quite solid game. ill admit,i was a little impressed it was as good as it was. but as good as smac? thats like comparing quake to UT. HEADSHOT

[Senethro]

Which quake and which UT? You could be comparing UT2k3 to QuakeWorld or UTclassic to Quake2 and get different results.

I didn't want to say too much because I'm not the person to explain it. Hence, I suggested Vel. But if you've read Vel and co already and still think that the game is... like Civ3 in the variety of playstyles then I'm going to have to disagree.

[Kataphraktoi]

Which quake and which UT? You could be comparing UT2k3 to QuakeWorld or UTclassic to Quake2 and get different results.

good point

I didn't want to say too much because I'm not the person to explain it. Hence, I suggested Vel. But if you've read Vel and co already and still think that the game is... like Civ3 in the variety of playstyles then I'm going to have to disagree.

civ3,also had a very nice strategy disccusion forum based on it,both at civfanatics and poly. i have not passed judgement yet,and i prefer waiting for the smoke to clear. however,my initial impressions are not that great on the depth.time will tell all...

edit: what i expect from a civ game is the same magic i got from playing civ2\smac first time,back in 2000\1999. the latest titles have all the stats and $$$...but they never really bring the magic,for me. :/

[NanoDingo]

Originally posted by Kataphraktoi edit: what i expect from a civ game is the same magic i got from playing civ2\smac first time,back in 2000\1999. the latest titles have all the stats and $$$...but they never really bring the magic,for me. :/

Familiarity breeds contempt.

[mr Rura]

Originally posted by BlackCat




Cant' wait to get it an see how it performs on my Nvidia Vanta 16 Mb VC

well, I have a over-4-year-old computer with GF2MX400 64MB. I played Civ IV both unpatched and patched to o.09. I played only several hours, bud didn't experience any crashes at all. The only problem was the performance, nothin else... Quite strange...

I know these several hours aren't enough to review Civ IV and compare it to SMAC. Though I 'll say that I'm neither satisfied nor unsatisfied with C4. It has some good ideas [no stupid riots, which were always making me made - the health and unhappiness are far better; new terraforming options; a new and quite good combat system and so on], but it just isn't such a beatiful game as the SMAC is. IMHO AC is the most complicated, the deepest and the best-balanced strategic game ever made. Moreover it also has a great storyline and phantastic climate.

When I renew my computer I'll test C4 better, but I'm sure I won't love it as much as I love SMAC.

[PJayTycy]

When playing civ4 now, I don't really am that involved as in smac either, but I think that's because I understand more of the smac rules than the civ rules. For example, in all games I played, I never cared about changing civics or taking advantage of some leader's traits. Compare it to playing smac with automated formers, no crawlers, blind research and without changing civics. I'm sure there's a lot more depth and strategy in the game than I'm currently using, but I just have to figure out how the basics work. For me, it's a complete change to get customized to :
-> Fixed unit designs. No more easily seeing on the tech tree which tech do go for for better defense.
-> Units you can't build because you lack a strategic resource. This point especially has annoyed me a lot.

The tech tree GUI is a lot better than smac's though:
-> You are sure you'll be able to choose all techs you can research. Not the pseudo-random (technum mod 3) system smac uses.
-> When asked to choose a tech, you can actually go to the tech tree and see all info about the tech and its place in the tree.
-> You can easily set a "distant" tech as a goal, and the game automaticly researches the prerequisite techs.


I do think however, the terraforming is limited. There is a lot of difference between the un-improved tiles (mostly due to "special" resources), but the improvements don't add that much. You can build a farm for +1 food or a mine for +2 hammers, but there's nothing with the same amount of benefits like a borehole or farm+condensor+soil .

While civ has to, to be realistic, I find it kind of boring to have to wait so long for naval and air power (=also drop pods). These things come pretty early in smac, so this speeds up the game a lot, because your units can move a lot faster.

It was also a shock to notice I couldn't use all my money to hurry buildings/units (I know I can do it if I use 1 specific civic). So far, I haven't really found a way to spend money wisely in civ4, so I just set the sliders for research and culture as high as possible, trying to keep around 100 gold in treasure.

[NanoDingo]

Originally posted by PJayTycy

While civ has to, to be realistic, I find it kind of boring to have to wait so long for naval and air power (=also drop pods). These things come pretty early in smac, so this speeds up the game a lot, because your units can move a lot faster.

Making games a lot shorter and rendering Techs higher than Quantum Power virtually useless.

[Dis]

I'm still playing it. Great game. Though some things annoy me. I still feel the conquerer style is too neutured. Though not as bad as I first suspected. They nerfed things that didn't need to be nerfed. bombers/fighters and nukes specifically.

The builder game is pretty fun. not too many complaints in that department.

[Kataphraktoi]

Making games a lot shorter and rendering Techs higher than Quantum Power virtually useless.

which would be useless anyway,as cumulative turn advantage as there really is no 'modern' era in civ: its the 'clean up' era.