What makes us play SMAC nowadays?

[Mead]

Originally posted by Hydro
In MP games I build artillery primarily for defense. They?re cheap, and they are key to defend against sea attacks or random spoor launchers. Nothing is worse than having a single artillery whack your defensive probes and then have the base probed out from under you. One or two enemy artillery barrages do a real number on defenders, too.

Plus, any foil that wanders into range is in for a shock if my artillery are at a higher elevation. Then they?ll get pounded since, as I recall, land artillery gets a bonus against sea (artillery) weapons. Probe foils are, of course, dead meat and will be very little threat to my probe defenders after they are pounded?

Hydro

Yep, my bad.

In MP the rules change somewhat.

No matter what, elevation deltas have an effect on the artillery effects. Plus artillery can do some nasty things to probes, as well as the native life forms.


Occasionally, I may keep an artillery unit in a defensive stronghold to prevent damage to my other units (especially if some are high (#, 1, stike units). the artilllery takes the beating while the others are protected so they can later launch and destroy the annoying offensive enemy artillery.


Mead


PS

I have noticed that Miriam tends to place an exceesive fondness (faith?) in missle infantry artillery (6,1,1).

[CEO Aaron]

I'm a HUGE fan of having 3-6 artillery pieces in a force that's going to knock over a well defended point. Wreck the perimeter defences, then pound all the defenders to half health, and you can capture the base with virtually no casualties. The best part about artillery is if you put it on an unarmored infantry chassis, the artillery mod is free. Admittedly, this can slow down your offensive, but for opponents that use lots of support, you'll find arty very effective at suppressing their numerical advantages.

Also bear in mind I'm talking about Spartan military tactics. You've got very expensive troops, it's worth taking extra precautions to ensure that your battles are not phyrric victories of attrition, as your enemies can more easily afford to replace their troops.

[Hydro]

Artillery is also critical for low morale troops, like Gaians. Just swing in an artillery (or spoor launcher!), pound the base, have a few frisky MWs munch a few damaged defenders, and then your green impact troopers and rovers can march into the base in their typical unorganized fashion.

Hydro

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Hydro
spoor launcher

For my Gaian military rushes I take the Unity Rovers I pod and aggressively attack NLs as I encounter them, which over time gives the Rovers pretty good morale (or else free MWs). Once I locate an enemy/ victim I upgrade the Unity Rovers to Best Weapon and combine them with my MWs for a relatively potent attack!

D

[fed1943]

What makes me still play SMAC:

This game has what I call "the idea". Factions that are truly different

among themselves; a very rich government; and a very rich

consequences of government (grow, and...the others); the same 3

basic builder blocks already known from civ (or five,if you want);

infinity of units; a fine balance; almost infinity of replay.

Door open to hundreds of tactics and strategies. And to each of

them, always a counter.

Really, a GAME.

Best regards,

[Verrucosus]

A number of posts here are excellent illustrations of forum postings triggering a return to SMAC. I'm quite impressed by the challenges that the recent Civ version provides for me, but every once in a while I stop by here, read a well-told game story like Marid Audran's or Hydro's and next thing I know I'm playing SMAC again. There are probably a few games now that have the complexity and the epic setting to allow such experiences, but none of them has as rich an atmosphere. It's strange to think that when SMAC came out, a number of people (myself included) thought it was a great game, but a bit inaccessible because of the science fiction setting.
(edited for grammar)

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Verrucosus
It's strange to think that when SMAC came out, a number of people (myself included) thought it was a great game, but a bit inaccessible because of the science fiction setting.

There are games that take part in the future that aren't inaccessible (e.g. Spaceward Ho!) The inaccessibility comes from the complexity. Civ 2 was a complex game. Alpha Centauri adapted every element of Civ 2 and added:

- expanding morale from green/veteran to six stages
- special abilities
- the unit workshop that allows plenty of tradeoffs between capabilities (only two special abilities) and costs
- supply crawlers
- more terraforming options
- sea bases
- psi combat in addition to normal combat
- additional victory conditions
- ideologies which affected diplomacy
- faction advantages and disadvantages
- factions which had "personality"

[Straybow]

The only real improvement over Civ2 among it's many heirs, competitors, and pretenders. I like the feel of raw survival on a hostile planet.