[C4:AC][Writing] Defining mission statement

[Illuminatus]

[q=Illuminatus]Personally, I think we should strive for a pure SMAC clone, but attempting to make as customization friendly as possible. By building a pure SMAC clone, we would enable everyone to make their preferred adjustments to SMAC. Advantage of a SMAC made in cIV engine is that now possibilities for customization are near endless. We would be able to create new facilities and modify abilities of the old ones, enable 14+ factions per game session etc. That would be the real building ground for everyones vision of SMAC 2.[/q]

Darsnan and Senethro have already agreed with this, but this is only a concept. We should make a more definite and professional version.

[Fosse]

Suggestion:

Civ4:SMAC will recreate the gameplay, depth, and atmosphere of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri in a Sid Meier's Civilization 4 total conversion mod. Civ4:SMAC will serve as a long-needed update to, provide a base and team for an eventual sequel for, and maintain the legacy of this gaming classic.

[Gavin Berchler]

Originally posted by Fosse
Suggestion:

Civ4:SMAC will recreate the gameplay, depth, and atmosphere of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri in a Sid Meier's Civilization 4 total conversion mod. Civ4:SMAC will serve as a long-needed update to, provide a base and team for an eventual sequel for, and maintain the legacy of this gaming classic.

Close enough, just add fun and spirit after depth and we are done. Lets move on, whats next?

Its uses the word update. Just one thing we should note, when there are two conflcting areas eg religions. It may be harder to disable relifions than it is to bring it into the update. To this end we should derfer to what is the closest to the spirit of the original.

[Xian]

Originally posted by Gavin Berchler

Its uses the word update. Just one thing we should note, when there are two conflcting areas eg religions. It may be harder to disable relifions than it is to bring it into the update. To this end we should derfer to what is the closest to the spirit of the original.

I agree EXCACTLY, we should attempt to model the game as close as possible, except where updates in Civ come closer to what *our interpretation of the Original intent and spirit* of the original SMAX was.

That may seem like a huge gray area, but in real life I dont think it will turn out so bad at all. We all understand the backstory and genreal concepts in AC, it shouldnt be too difficult to see what new features can be worked into Civ4

for example, if we should not try to recreate errors and flaws in the diplomacy in AC, since Civ4 apparetnly will have an improved mood system that remembers allies and complex relations. I dont think even the most extreme purist of AC will complain that we didnt take out a more advanced system and replace it with the one-dimensional "Seething-Submissive" scale; diplomacy was a big part of AC, and i think most people would want flaws in that system fixed.

So for systems of simulation analogous to systems in AC we should defer to CIv4's systems where improvemnts are obvious and in line with the original spirit and intent of SMACX.

[Kataphraktoi]

Re: CIV4:SMAC Defining mission statement

Originally posted by Illuminatus
[q=Illuminatus]Personally, I think we should strive for a pure SMAC clone, but attempting to make as customization friendly as possible. By building a pure SMAC clone, we would enable everyone to make their preferred adjustments to SMAC. Advantage of a SMAC made in cIV engine is that now possibilities for customization are near endless. We would be able to create new facilities and modify abilities of the old ones, enable 14+ factions per game session etc. That would be the real building ground for everyones vision of SMAC 2.[/q]

Darsnan and Senethro have already agreed with this, but this is only a concept. We should make a more definite and professional version.

if possible,i would spend alot of modding effort chopping code and debuging to make sure it works right,before getting out the scissors again. getting a smax clone,but opened....would rox.

needs more professional touchup though

[Illuminatus]

Originally posted by Xian
for example, if we should not try to recreate errors and flaws in the diplomacy in AC, since Civ4 apparetnly will have an improved mood system that remembers allies and complex relations. I dont think even the most extreme purist of AC will complain that we didnt take out a more advanced system and replace it with the one-dimensional "Seething-Submissive" scale; diplomacy was a big part of AC, and i think most people would want flaws in that system fixed.

I wonder if Civ 4 will live up to expectations in that part. Should we attempt to take over bargaining table? It might be tricky, given that we would need to study how it works and revalue SMAC items. I wouldn't be surprised if AIs held Industrial Automation as important as any other same leveled technology.

I'll make a draft in Wednesday, seeing that we are all in agreement.

[binTravkin]

Should we attempt to take over bargaining table? It might be tricky, given that we would need to study how it works and revalue SMAC items. I wouldn't be surprised if AIs held Industrial Automation as important as any other same leveled technology.

I think I heard something that cIV diplomacy will be a SMAC diplo clone, I even recall seeing a screenshot with familiar 2 extreme end buttons as we're all used to..

[Blake]

Should probably start a thread to establish which behaivours we want recreated and which would be better of left as C4 default, or redesigned if we need to completely recreate. Off the top of my head are:
Raise/lower land costs. Upgrade costs (especially crawler upgrade+ cash in). Crawler Balance. Chopper Balance. SP/Tech balance. Ecodamage Calculations.

And some other things, like do we want the AI's to be "easy", like surrendering (and becoming good pets) and being generous to weak players (with tech gifts and such). If Firaxis follows the trend started by Civ3 then C4 AI's will "play the game" rather than "play the story". I know that the non winning-orientated AI behaivour helped immersion for me and made the game more enjoyable.

[Illuminatus]

I am not sure if we can speculate on what we can leave in or leave out based on predictions for Civ 4 defaults.

[Senethro]

I'm going to chip in here and say "NO!". We recreate SMAC exactly as is, using the same building costs and exploits. Even the Cloudbase Academy will remain. (However, I wouldn't cry if we didn't include the alien factions in the first version, or any version at all for that manner.)

When we know it works, then we create a C4:AC v1.1 with all the bugfixes AND a "Balanced ruleset". The need to create a balanced ruleset is also while we'll be taking pains to make our own work clear and moddable

[binTravkin]

Yes, our goals are:

1.SMAC clone working with bugs
2.Bugfix of a SMAC clone
3.
a)Additional features or features that were non-working (but should be working) in SMAC
b)Improved AI and other needed things.

The goals should be met in order I presented(discussable but not any '+' features before clone) and the first version of our mod should be right after we get most (some might be so hard to implement, we would need to delay them to next versions) existing SMAC features working satisfactionar, a.k.a. SMAC clone with fixed bugs.

[Lemmy]

Either make an exact clone, or a balanced version. Don't try both.
I don't think having 1.0 as an exact SMAC clone, and then in future version balance that version is very realisitc. It implies that you expect 1.0 to be bug-free (i mean real unintentional bugs here), which is impossible. The future versions will always be better than the exact clone. This means that all the time spent on adding features that you know will be different in the balanced version is wasted.
To keep both versions playable you'll end maintaining two different mods.

So i'd say go for the balanced version from the start, and if someone wants an exact clone later on, they can modify the balanced version...but don't do both untill one version is "done".
...or vice versa...
But personally i'd rather play a balanced AC-mod than a copy of the original, which i can already play any time i want.


Basically, what i'm trying to say is, don't waste time coding things that you know will be different later on. Placeholder things excluded of course, but don't go out of your way recreating bugs that you don't even want in the final version.

[Senethro]

Thanks for the input Lemmy, but this thread is really for members only. Would you be interested in joining? We've got serious shortages in the graphics department, not having anyone who even create placeholder graphics. Anyone with programming experience is desirable as well.
Alternatively, there are those of us acting in a feedback or organisational/administrative capacity such as creating and maintaining the wiki. Does any of that strike you as interesting?

Also, the whole point of the mod is that the final version WILL be moddable and no matter what our version is, I think we can expect someone to make their own changes to every section. Therefore, it is not wasting time "coding things that you know will be different later on".

[Illuminatus]

Thanks for the input Lemmy, but this thread is really for members only.

I don't think it should be for members only (yes I know this is about our mission statement). Anyone should be free to comment the statement, regardless if there are members or not. Outside criticism can be constructive.

[Senethro]

As we're the people doing the job, I think it should be us determining what we're doing and how we're going to go about it. I agree with you though in general that we need non-member participation and input, but it might we more useful in the design document rather than what we want to create.