[C4:AC] Keeping Civ4 changes?

[Blake]

It seems that Civ4 will have new population growth models (including health and stuff) and happiness models, for example as I understand it unhappy citizens simply don't do any work, rather than shutting down the whole base.

These changes seem to be orientated at reducing tedium while still keeping a somewhat interesting system.

My question simply is, do we really want to re-impliment tedium-inducing features if they've been replaced by equally functional less tedius features? In general: Do we want C4:AC to be less tedius to play than SMAC?

I would presume that reducing tedium would be one of our primary goals, otherwise we may as well just play SMAC.

[Illuminatus]

Just a FYI: this thread had nothing after [C4:AC] in it's title. I added it from the thread subject.

[Senethro]

As I see it, the only reason to keep a "innovation" of Civ4 is because we are unable to implement a SMAC system.

Like I keep saying to you, lets not debate endlessly when we all have a different opinion. We can form our own little groups later and release further mods. This discussion is possibly not going to be able to be resoved until the SDK is released in January, so I'm not sure rattling our bone boxes over it just now will serve any purpose.

[Kataphraktoi]

Originally posted by Senethro
As I see it, the only reason to keep a "innovation" of Civ4 is because we are unable to implement a SMAC system.

Like I keep saying to you, lets not debate endlessly when we all have a different opinion. We can form our own little groups later and release further mods. This discussion is possibly not going to be able to be resoved until the SDK is released in January, so I'm not sure rattling our bone boxes over it just now will serve any purpose.

QFT

these disccusions are getting very tedious and repetetive

[Blake]

Well it didn't need to be bumped it could have just been left to die.

But actually now there's a lot more concrete information with MarkG's and Solver's gameplay reports, and a lot of Civ4 stuff looks really good. I'd seriously cry going back to the old combat system.

The system of hammers+food = settler production sounds really good too. Saves tedious MM of making doctors before cities grow and stuff... less tedium is good.

[Kataphraktoi]

yeah right. ive read solvers report on the 1 combat strength and a\d\h\f sounds much much better for balance still. so a chariot and archer both have a 2,but the chariot gets 50%+ on level and archer gets 50%+ on defense.that sounds so (those numbers are made up for example)

i would much rather the archer and chariot both be the same,but one have an extra MP

[Blake]

I'd be all for tuning it as appropriate.

edit. And remember this would be in the context of the design workshop. The idea is to have the weapon as the primary strength value, armor should basically subtract from the other units attack value and reduce collatoral damage, making armor mostly a luxury but quite useful in some situations (we could also prehaps bring back the never-implemented weapon and armor types).
Chassis would provide certain bonuses or penalties, like the rovers +25% in open and infantry +25% vs bases.
Abilities would also provide bonuses, like AAA 2x when defending against air.
The (Civ4) promotion system wouldn't actually be used, rather the mechanisms would be converted to provide the chassis/ability bonuses. There could be some scope for Civ4 style promotions but the smac abilities model fits a high-tech world better.
An alternative way would be to not build special abilities onto unit designs (with the exception of SAM aircraft and Heavy Artillery) and instead be able to upgrade single units with abilities (1 ability, 2 after Neural Grafting), paying EC for this rather than "experience points" or whatever, as it makes no sense that units need combat experience before they can be fitted with purely technological upgrades.
However it'd be nessecary to play with the Civ4 combat system and the underlying code to fully assess how best to adapt it to SMAC, some designs will probably be 10x harder to code than others...

[#endgame]

I think Blake's idea of not replicating everything to the absolute extreme makes sense. Especially ecodamage.

[Chaos Theory]

Small things like having population growth and production go off simultaneously, or alerting the player to imminent drone riots as a result of growth, are fine and would improve the game. Larger changes are a bad idea when the goal is to re-implement SMAC on Civ4. Trying to overhaul combat seems like a bad idea for this project.

[Blake]

The reality of the matter is a combat system in between Civ4 and SMAC would probably be quite a lot easier to implement than the full SMAC system. The idea is to get the "Flavor" of SMAC with a minimum of work (no I'm not lazy, there's just so much darn stuff to do). Remember we are working from a CIV4 BASE. Not a blank slate, it's not like we actually have to implement a Civ4 system - it's already there for the modifying.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Blake
The reality of the matter is a combat system in between Civ4 and SMAC would probably be quite a lot easier to implement than the full SMAC system. The idea is to get the "Flavor" of SMAC with a minimum of work (no I'm not lazy, there's just so much darn stuff to do).

What with you being a veteran of the Stella Polaris project I respect your comment: you tried to make a SMAC2 from scratch. Although this endevour ultimately failed, why in my book the second most noble thing is to have tried, but failed.
Regardless, currently none of us knows exactly how much work will be involved in the C4:AC Mod, and so therefore at this stage our goal should be that we aim for making as close an approximation of SMACX as possible. Anyone that persistently tries to stake inroads contrary to this approach then paints themselves as having their own hidden agenda on this project, and will thus be considered as such.


D

[Blake]

I don't have a hidden agenda. My agenda is to take the middle path - giving Civ4 the SMAC flavor while taking the best (least tedious) gameplay features from each.

For example the settler production from hammers+food is a bloody good idea. There's no way I'd support modding that out.

See, no hidden agenda.

[drekmonger]

Originally posted by Darsnan
Regardless, currently none of us knows exactly how much work will be involved in the C4:AC Mod, and so therefore at this stage our goal should be that we aim for making as close an approximation of SMACX as possible. Anyone that persistently tries to stake inroads contrary to this approach then paints themselves as having their own hidden agenda on this project, and will thus be considered as such.

Meh. Anyone with a little common sense knows that it'll be easier (ie, less programming) to make a SMaC skin over Civ4 than to clone SMaC using Civ4 as a platform.

For example, SMaC's units have variable attacks, defense, hitpoints, and chinese-menu style parts whereas Civ4's units have just a single power number plus RPG-ish upgrades. While it's probably possible to recreate SMaC's units and combat, it'll be far easier just to keep Civ4's combat and unit model.

EDIT: not to mention, you'd have to drastically update the Civ4 AI scripts for them to use the Smac unit and combat models. That's harder work than implementing the systems themselves.

It's obvious that to me that the people advocating the clone approach have an agenda....they want a modern version of SMaC with better graphics and easier multiplayer but the same gameplay. Sounds good to me. But I fear if this approach is followed, the project won't move forward in a timely fashion--I've seen too many other community efforts just fall apart.

Instead a few sacred cows should be chosen, by the people with the actual skills and time to complete the project.

For example, Civ4's polluation model isn't adequate to model Planet's Fungal or Forest squares. (but that begs the question of wether you'd want the Fungal squares to act like old Civ pollution squares, or to advance and regress automatically.) There probably isn't a Civ4 equivilant to Monolithes, or the SeaBases, or the special terrian (like the crashed Unity ship). Getting Smac's satelites in the game would also require some additional interface.

Pick your battles wisely. Imho, that means keeping what works in Civ4 and just add enough coding to grant the *feeling* of SMaC.

[Darsnan]

Our Mission Statement, taken from this topped thread


Mission statement


We, the project members agree to use all our talents and resources in order to create a modification of the Firaxis game Sid Meier's Civilization 4 which will attempt to emulate as accurately as possible all the aspects, the gameplay, the appearance and the atmosphere, of a previous Firaxis game, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. We shall not infringe on the Firaxis copyright while doing so and we will consult with Firaxis with the assistance of the Apolyton Civilization Site regarding the legal matters. We intend to call this project Civilization 4: Alpha Centauri.

Our goal is make an clone of the original game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and its expansion, Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire without changing or adding any gameplay elements. Our second goal is to correct the most obvious bugs in the original game and the expansion like social engineering rollover bugs.

We do not intend to make a SMAC 2 or make major changes to game mechanics of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. When completed, Civilization 4: Alpha Centauri will be the starting ground for user made SMAC sequels and remakes. When the project is completed, we intend to devote our time towards balancing and tuning of game mechanics.

As we believe this is the first total conversion for Sid Meier's Civilization 4, our progress will be documented to help any other Civilization 4 modders to follow our footsteps.

We will gladly accept help from the Civilization 4 modding community and we hope to coordinate our efforts with discoveries made by other modders in the Civilization 4 modding community.

Our project will be public, and we shall gladly receive input from others, although the developers reserve the right not to be bound by popular opinion.


This is how I replied the last time you brought this subject up:

Ideally speaking, we should attempt a complete clone of the game.
Practically speaking (that there will be some cIV aspects in the game) this is what we are going to end up with.

I don't consider the "clone" statement nonsense. Essentially if I scroll up thru the responses in this thread I see all sorts of ideas for items that aren't in the original version but people are stating they'd like to see in the mod. If we open this Pandora's Box only once, we risk all sorts of repurcussions as people start to diplomacize and stump/ harrangue/ argue for all of their own little pet peeves to be included into the game: we absolutely do not want to go there!
My approach has been, and always will be, that ideally speaking we will strive for a complete SMAC(X) clone. Will we actually end up with a complete clone? Absolutely not! However by making this an underlieing theme of how this project evolves we can avoid a lot of the pitfalls that I have seen bog down projects in RL.


A very good example of what the team is trying to avoid at this stage is individuals taking non-compromising stances on ideas in the project, as stated below:

Originally posted by Blake
the settler production from hammers+food is a bloody good idea. There's no way I'd support modding that out.

And if the team decides not to keep one of your desired cIV aspects, what are you going to do then?

Also, do you not support
our mission statement, or do you not consider yourself included in our group?


D

[Chaos Theory]

If all you want is Civ with SMAC flavor, you could just do it on Civ 3.