Thermal boreholes on nutrient bonus squares?

[magic9mushroom]

So if Cha-Cha had +1 nuts and +1 energy, he'd be overpowered?

[CEO Aaron]

So if Cha-Cha had +1 nuts and +1 energy, he'd be overpowered?

I didn't say that. It's possible that better fungus harvesting might be what Cha-dawn needs to get out of the basement, but I doubt it. It certainly wouldn't hurt them.

[Elok]

I've read a lot of people say Cult of Planet is kind of crap; is there something like an accepted hierarchy of factions?

[Guynemer]

They all have their uses; to be successful with the Cult, you pretty much have to go 100% native, and pray for the Dream Twister.

[magic9mushroom]

I didn't say that. It's possible that better fungus harvesting might be what Cha-dawn needs to get out of the basement, but I doubt it. It certainly wouldn't hurt them.

I think it would get too powerful if someone had better fungus harvesting than Deirdre.

Actually, you did. But I was half-joking.

[Elok]

So...how is CoP better for going native than Deirdre? Her Planet rating isn't quite as good, and she has the police and morale penalties, where he's actually better for policing (with worms)...but his penalties look like a biznatch. Bad economy and bad industry? Ick. If she runs green, the combined efficiency bonuses plus her lack of production penalties should let her simply hammer the little guy into the ground, no? The only thing he has that she doesn't will destroy his eco-advantage if he uses it, while his aversion will let her run ahead of him even further (in peacetime) by doubling her advantage over him.

Re: food production, I honestly don't have the patience to micro-manage that much. But mostly, I'm kind of spoiled by Civ4. The most disappointing aspect of SMAC, to me, is the dreariness of Planet. After zooming in on my pastures of pigs, silk plantations, copper mines, windmills and all that--the stuff that tends to make each city and region distinct and interesting--the generic nutrient/mineral/energy resources of SMAC seem kind of blah. There's the one alien "plant" form and three animal forms (six in SMAX), then the endless terran forests and a couple of landmarks scattered about. It doesn't really feel like a world in the same way. Even in Civ 2, there were the different resources and terrain types instead of elevation, humidity and ruggedness indicators. Now, if monsoon jungles were one of many ecosystems instead of just a fixed feature, and maybe there were different kinds of fungus, and there weren't such a strong incentive to say, "eh, screw it, forests and boreholes everywhere inside my borders, crawled farms/mines/high-altitude solar panels outside," it would feel more real to me. For such an ecologically-themed game, it seems odd that most of the terrain features are distinguished solely by your ability to exploit them.

[CEO Aaron]

So...how is CoP better for going native than Deirdre?

It isn't. Cha-dawn is generally held to lead the weakest faction in the game.

Re: food production, I honestly don't have the patience to micro-manage that much. But mostly, I'm kind of spoiled by Civ4. The most disappointing aspect of SMAC, to me, is the dreariness of Planet. After zooming in on my pastures of pigs, silk plantations, copper mines, windmills and all that--the stuff that tends to make each city and region distinct and interesting--the generic nutrient/mineral/energy resources of SMAC seem kind of blah.

Yeah, I'm not going to argue that one, SMAC definitely is not as pretty, what it has, however, is flexibility. The coolness is in the gameplay, not the graphics. You can raise/lower terrain, drill to aquifers to make new rivers, cut a hole in the crust of the planet, straight down into the core, and harvest the huge energy and minerals therein. Terraforming in SMAC is about starting with a barren wasteland and making it into your own manufactured paradise.

By comparison, in Civ4-5, you have varied special resources, but really only one way to exploit each one. The terraforming process offers no scope for creativity, you just plant the right structure down for the terrain in question, no thought required.

[magic9mushroom]

So...how is CoP better for going native than Deirdre?

Cha Dawn (there's no hyphen, apostrophe, or anything similar - it's his first and last name!) isn't. The only actually decent thing he gets is the free Brood Pits, and those are too late to do any good.

...Well, the 1 more PLANET will get you your worm harvesters slightly faster, but they're still capped anyway.

[Elok]

Yeah, I'm not going to argue that one, SMAC definitely is not as pretty, what it has, however, is flexibility. The coolness is in the gameplay, not the graphics. You can raise/lower terrain, drill to aquifers to make new rivers, cut a hole in the crust of the planet, straight down into the core, and harvest the huge energy and minerals therein. Terraforming in SMAC is about starting with a barren wasteland and making it into your own manufactured paradise.

By comparison, in Civ4-5, you have varied special resources, but really only one way to exploit each one. The terraforming process offers no scope for creativity, you just plant the right structure down for the terrain in question, no thought required.

I grant you that for the resource tiles, but consider river tiles in 4 (I haven't and won't play 5, it sounds terrible). Do you do a watermill for production, a farm to give you more specialists, a village as a long-term trade investment? Forests: cut 'em down, lumbermill with railroad to keep the health bonus plus production, forest preserve? Hills: okay, windmills are just about a no-brainer there IMO. Mines kinda suck, especially later in the game when electricity gooses the windmills. Anyway, in SMAC there's really a strong incentive to build mostly forests, with boreholes and a river or two. Outside of bases you crawl one thing per square. And the bases are pretty well interchangeable. If I lose New York in Civ4, oh, crap, there went my copper mine. In SMAC, if I lose U.N. Humanitarian whatsit...eh, I hadn't built any projects there or anything.

But there's room for improvement in both games.

[magic9mushroom]

Hybrid Forest vs. Condenser-Farm is a relatively complex issue. There's also rocky squares which you can mine OR flatten, sea which you can kelp/harness OR reclaim, etc.

[CEO Aaron]

But there's room for improvement in both games.

True, I just feel that the migration from SMAC to CIV4/5 was toward simplicity and prettiness over depth of gameplay. The gameplay was hamstrung so that the rather dimwitted AI did not have to be improved, instead just lowering the complexity of the gameplay and introducing see-saw mechanics like culture. AI pathing was terrible, so take away zones of control. The AI's unit management was terrible, so fund military with cash instead of city-based resources.

Later Civs also did away with the tremendously flexible unit creation system, something I was heartbroken to see leave. Yes, the SMAC system could certainly have been improved upon, but rather than improving upon it, they scrapped it outright. Back to static unit lists with a few 'unique' units for each civilization.

Of all the later changes to the Civ franchise, only the Civics system was an improvement on SMAC's social engineering choices, and the addition of Religion to Civ4 was an AFFRONT, which even the developers implicitly admitted by leaving it out of Civ5.

Do you do a watermill for production, a farm to give you more specialists, a village as a long-term trade investment?

Villages. 1000 times villages.

Anyway, in SMAC there's really a strong incentive to build mostly forests, with boreholes and a river or two.

Crawling condenser farms is far, far, FAR more powerful than Hybrid Forests late-game, and early-on, you'll still want to boost nutrient production over an 'all tree' terraforming strategy, or you'll be left behind. Without a nutrient special, an all forest base caps out at 3 population, with recycling tanks. If you have a nutrient special, you're better off farming it and crawling it, and working another forest tile.

If I lose New York in Civ4, oh, crap, there went my copper mine.

This is not a feature I would describe as a gameplay improvement. "I didn't get iron in my starting area. Oh well, game over".

[Elok]

True, I just feel that the migration from SMAC to CIV4/5 was toward simplicity and prettiness over depth of gameplay. The gameplay was hamstrung so that the rather dimwitted AI did not have to be improved, instead just lowering the complexity of the gameplay and introducing see-saw mechanics like culture. AI pathing was terrible, so take away zones of control. The AI's unit management was terrible, so fund military with cash instead of city-based resources.

Brian Reynolds said in his relatively recent SMAC interview that ZOC only existed as a way to keep foreign units from intruding in your territory, and that with the advent of "hard borders" they became irrelevant. If truth be told, it is an annoyance. As for unit support, the city-based model doesn't make much sense to begin with.

Later Civs also did away with the tremendously flexible unit creation system, something I was heartbroken to see leave. Yes, the SMAC system could certainly have been improved upon, but rather than improving upon it, they scrapped it outright. Back to static unit lists with a few 'unique' units for each civilization.

Unit creation wouldn't work that well for Civ, since it's such a history-based game. How do you implement it? And the unit workshop came with its own drawbacks. You wound up constantly redesigning units, and for the most part in predictable ways towards preset types. Impacters come along, you start making impact rovers. The game's set up to penalize armor and weapons together, along with a number of other odd combinations (air transport--whoops, one unit at a time) and you'd generally be a fool to use a suboptimal reactor, so the only real variety comes from special abilities. You wind up with little more variety, in most games, than you get from Civ4's preset units. But a truly open-ended design system would be an invitation to abuse.

Of all the later changes to the Civ franchise, only the Civics system was an improvement on SMAC's social engineering choices, and the addition of Religion to Civ4 was an AFFRONT, which even the developers implicitly admitted by leaving it out of Civ5.

An affront? It could have been implemented better, certainly, but it had promise and was fun to muck with in some respects. Especially the cash flow.

Villages. 1000 times villages.

Production's gotta come from somewhere. Cottage spam is great for financials, but even they need production and not every city is near hills (or forests, and they're a whole other story anyway). Money can't turn into production until universal suffrage. Until then, you want people to buy with, or food for specialists, or just plain old production. I admit I'm not the best player, but it's not that clear-cut--and if it ever is, that's a real sign of a broken game.

Crawling condenser farms is far, far, FAR more powerful than Hybrid Forests late-game, and early-on, you'll still want to boost nutrient production over an 'all tree' terraforming strategy, or you'll be left behind. Without a nutrient special, an all forest base caps out at 3 population, with recycling tanks. If you have a nutrient special, you're better off farming it and crawling it, and working another forest tile.

Yes, if you favor the intense-MM approach you've outlined. But aside from being too much hassle to qualify as "having fun," if there's one optimal way to play the game, however tedious, and that one optimal way involves ignoring a very large aspect of the game...that, too, is a sign that something's wrong with game design. Civ got it right by limiting the number of specialists you could have.

This is not a feature I would describe as a gameplay improvement. "I didn't get iron in my starting area. Oh well, game over".

The balanced resource distribution type is your friend.

[Lord Avalon]

Later Civs also did away with the tremendously flexible unit creation system, something I was heartbroken to see leave. Yes, the SMAC system could certainly have been improved upon, but rather than improving upon it, they scrapped it outright. Back to static unit lists with a few 'unique' units for each civilization.

I do like to customize units, such that there are times when I'd like more slots. (The builder in me likes to have various min-levels of supply units, which is constrained by the various military, probe & transport units I create.) For Civ 4, I suppose promotions serve a similar function, but of course they require experience.

Villages. 1000 times villages.

Unless you have a GP farm.

This is not a feature I would describe as a gameplay improvement. "I didn't get iron in my starting area. Oh well, game over".

Well, I would say it's interesting* to see if you can settle near the closest iron, which may require going further outside your sphere of influence, shall we say, than you might otherwise go, or settling in a different direction than you were going - especially if you have to make an arctic/tundra city.

Or if it's within another civ's territory, can you take it with the units provided by the resources you have?

Ultimately, if you can't get it, then yeah, game over. But if you don't want to play that far into a game, there's always balanced resources, as Elok says.


*Of course there is also the meaning in the ancient Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.