what changes would you like to have in SMAC?

[Hydro]

"...bitter old guy..."?

Hey, I resemble that remark!

But I completely agree with you. It is a rare game indeed that has both excellent gameplay with graphics. SMAC was exceptional to good at both in its day, especially when you consider its excellent execution.

It is so easy to become distracted by a polyglot of good ideas run amok with no real order (MOO3), unplayable buggy games (too many to count), or eye candy (all first person shooters and many RT games). Of course, some customers want eye candy and twitchy games, and sadly they are rising to dominance. TB games are a dedicated but declining minority.

Hydro

[CEO Aaron]

Yeah, the enduring popularity of SMAX is in its gameplay, not its graphics, and I think the big issue is that delivering solid gameplay is not only overlooked but completely off the radar of many game creators, but ironically, the game developers that do deliver it are the ones that dominate the industry.

The FPS point is troublesome to me, however. There's definitely a right way and a wrong way to produce a shooter, and the main reason shooters don't enjoy a long half-life is that all their replayability comes from PvP. And yet Counterstrike is as solid a fixture as Civilization in its market, and there are loads of later generation shooters that have amounted to little more than a flash in the pan. The same is true of Starcraft in the RTS market.

So what can explain the enduring popularity of these games, other than gameplay?

[Marid Audran]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
So what can explain the enduring popularity of these games, other than gameplay?

Exactly. Yesteryear's masturbatory 3D fests will fade and be eclipsed by today's shinier models, and no one will mourn their passing. The addictive and enduring gameplay is why the early Thief & System Shock games (by the defunct Looking Glass Studios) retain an immense cult following. And Starcraft, the RTS counterpoint to SMAC/X and about as old, an almost unfathomable proposition for a multiplayer game. And of course Fallout 1/2, just as old and graphically weren't very advanced even when they were released in 1997/1998. Now they look even more graphically rough but are no less loved by their devoted cult-following of fans (and desperately hoping Bethesda won't F it up). You could go back even further to the Ultima series. This is the power of deep gameplay.

All of the games I regularly play are 5-10 years old. No joke. I do buy the occassional new game but am almost always invariably disappointed and end up shelving/selling it. The gaming industry is in a real creative and innovative slump these days. It's far too conservative; too few companies with all the money, resources, and stock-holders who have consolidated all the options, and don't want to invest in anything that doesn't have a name brand loyalty, movie/franchise tie-in, sequel-itis, or in the case of RPGs, is online, storyline and characters be damned. In other words, a guarenteed profit, or closest to it possible.

It doesn't help computer gaming when all the console competition is enchroaching majorly in the gaming market and PC gaming is no longer a safe niche. I think when Troika games bellied-up was pretty much the Swan Song for me. Big Huge Games isn't going to do anything SMAC-esque or turn-based.

There's always hope for a Renaissance, like what was going on at the turn of the century. But it looks doubtful these days.

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Marid Audran
All of the games I regularly play are 5-10 years old. No joke. I do buy the occassional new game but am almost always invariably disappointed and end up shelving/selling it.

Did you try Civ IV before shelving it?

[Marid Audran]

Yes I did, and in fact wrote a review on it, slanted to the biases of a SMAC/X player, here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=145994&highlight=Civ+IV+reviewed

In retrospect, none of my feelings have changed. The only addendum is that after awhile it simply became tedious and there was little incentive to plod through history. It was more than the "mid-game slump"; in Civ IV's case it simply wasn't fun. After the initial novelty I was playing more out of a half-assed obligatory "this is Civ's biggest chapter yet and therefore I must play" allegiance than a genuine love for it. Everything is too plasticine & gaudy & coy and there's no real story to speak of (irony in a history-sim). Its graphics, certainly, blow SMAC/X out of the water (as they should, the goddamn resource hog it is) and that means precisely squat to me; 20 CivIVs couldn't hold a candle to SMAC. Give me SMAC's art-house SP movies and actual drawn ART, not just 3D renderers and models, anyday.

[CEO Aaron]

Yeah, I detected the dumbing down of the game in CivIII, so as to make their feeble AI better able to tackle the game, and that was the moment that Firaxis lost my dollar. I didn't even feel remotely interested in trying Civ4, since nothing I heard about it led me to believe that they had been afflicted with regret over their scuttling of their gameplay.

It's really kind of sad, when I think about it. Instead of trying to make a computer AI that can really play the game, they lobotomized the game so that even a tiny algorithm can play it.

[Hercules]

Originally posted by Marid Audran
Yes I did, and in fact wrote a review on it, slanted to the biases of a SMAC/X player, here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=145994&highlight=Civ+IV+reviewed

In retrospect, none of my feelings have changed. The only addendum is that after awhile it simply became tedious and there was little incentive to plod through history. It was more than the "mid-game slump"; in Civ IV's case it simply wasn't fun. After the initial novelty I was playing more out of a half-assed obligatory "this is Civ's biggest chapter yet and therefore I must play" allegiance than a genuine love for it. Everything is too plasticine & gaudy & coy and there's no real story to speak of (irony in a history-sim). Its graphics, certainly, blow SMAC/X out of the water (as they should, the goddamn resource hog it is) and that means precisely squat to me; 20 CivIVs couldn't hold a candle to SMAC. Give me SMAC's art-house SP movies and actual drawn ART, not just 3D renderers and models, anyday.

Sums it up well

[Hydro]

The only recent TB game that gets honorable mention for me is GalCiv2. It has great support and is a very solid game – so it passes the first test of playability and depth, and options that matter (e.g. – it is not linear to keep its AI semi competent like the recent CIV incarnations). What is lacking is personality, or why I should care. Civ is even worse in the regard since all its empires seem to be more or less interchangeable from a personality point of view.

In SMAC the backstory, execution, and game play is such that the characters are believable. Or, perhaps, they have crafted a game where I want to believe. And that makes all the difference.

Hydro

[Sarxis]

Yes, that is a good point Hydro - SMAC really allowed you to get into each civ.. the Morganites play out so much differently than the Hive, etc. Each faction is interesting, believable, and gets the imagination boiling.

The one thing I would change about SMAC (and I actually did change it at one point) was the tech tree. Some of it was unbalanced and odd, and you never quite needed certain later techs (hovertanks, etc.) because the game was already won by 'copters. So a bit of rebalancing and pacing is needed IMO.

[Hydro]

If you want a different tech tree then try the SManiAC Mod. Maniac spent a lot of time to rebalance the tech tree to make units more useful, improve AI terraforming, make B-lines with real choices, and give other strategies (such as Green) a true shot. I have to admit that's the only SMAC I play regularly now.

Hydro

[Straybow]

More on roads and rails:
This was a suggestion made for Civ3 long ago.

1. Trails: tiles not adjacent to base must be connected to base by trails (or better). Without connection get only ½ reseources. Movement costs unchanged, except improved probability of entering tile by units with less than required mp.
2. Roads: move cost ¼ with terrain cost included, so forest, rocky, fungus would cost ½ mp.
3. Graded roads: move cost flat ¼.
4. Rail: move cost 1/12th, with terrain cost included.
5. Maglev: unlimited move.

The connection rule for tile resources would apply to crawlers as well. So putting a crawler on a distant tile will only have ½ effect unless connected to your transport network.

Rail and Maglev would be built connection by connection. To connect one tile to eight surrounding tiles would take 8 times as long (can be automated). For Maglev keep construction time the same, but add an energy fee.

Note: the same mechanism to make rails connect tiles individually would work for rivers.

[Commy]

I there was only one thing I could change...one thing...I would ELIMINATE crawlers...

Sure, they make the game good and easy for the human player, but honestly, what civilization is going to have every city in a grid pattern and the entire planet covered in vehicles draining every inch of the soil?

I feel crawlers are what break the game, and more importantly, are what make it seem repetitive...even with the crappy AI, single player can atleast by moderately interesting when you don't have a crutch like crawlers to rely on. Even if the AI used crawlers to the full extent, I feel it really destroys SMAC.

Other than that, I don't see the need for any changes other than optimizing the interface. Making the AI just smarter would clean up most of the problems...if you think about it, most mods and changes people make are solely to make the AI more competitive...balancing SE choices, changing the tech tree, adding new units...none of that would be a big deal if the AI was improved...

[Hydro]

I'd generally say an improved AI is the key feature. Then most of the other problems go away.

What I think we need to be careful about is eliminating features because the AI can't use them or doesn't use them effectively. When you eliminate them all what you get is a linear game like Civ3 or perhaps Civ4. No thank you.

Of course, a smart AI is always the hard part. It is a rare game that has a truly competative AI (such as GalCiv2) without boatloads of cheats build in.

Hydro

[Xian]

Originally posted by Hydro
If you want a different tech tree then try the SManiAC Mod. Maniac spent a lot of time to rebalance the tech tree to make units more useful, improve AI terraforming, make B-lines with real choices, and give other strategies (such as Green) a true shot. I have to admit that's the only SMAC I play regularly now.

Hydro

I second this statement, I too pretty much only play SMAX now.

[Commy]

Originally posted by Hydro

What I think we need to be careful about is eliminating features because the AI can't use them or doesn't use them effectively. When you eliminate them all what you get is a linear game like Civ3 or perhaps Civ4. No thank you.

Hydro

I wouldn't eliminate crawlers because the AI can't use them...I'd eliminate crawlers because of how they can be used by human and AI players alike...