Soren on C4:AC

[Illuminatus]

Here are SMAC and C4:AC related highlights from the chat (Timestamps are CET-Central European Time):

[23:50] [Arsonide] Hrm, is the new moddability powerful enough to do a SMAC Total Conversion?

[23:50] [FIRAXIS_Trip] you can do a fair bit of a SMAC conversion even without the SDK


[23:51] [ACS_MarkG] Your Thoughts on C4: Alpha Centauri?

[23:51] [FIRAXIS_Trip] have to get creative with some things

[23:51] [FIRAXIS_ACS]_Locutus yes, a fair bit, but not an exact clone, which is what people seem to be after

[23:52] [sm] FIRAXIS_ACS_Locutus, just looking to see what kind of upper limits the SDK has

[23:52] [FIRAXIS_Trip] it will be one of the best games for modding and players who enjoy mods

[23:52] [FIRAXIS_ACS_Locutus] unit workshop would need the SDK, don't really see a way of converting it fully with just python

[23:52] [sm] wow, we could add a unit workshop?



[23:52] [FIRAXIS_Trip] Locutus: you could get creative and mimic the Unit Workshop in Python

[23:53] [gramphos] The SDK is great, but many things can be done without it.

[23:53] [gramphos] Python is really powerful too.



[00:20] [Sirian] Lots of people hungering for SMAC! Firaxis CEO Jeff Briggs said on the Podcast that it's just a twinkle in peoples' eyes at this point. That's the answer to go with, for now.



[00:46] [VetLegion] Soren, will SMAC modifications and Colonization modifications work? Do you see any obstacles?

[00:46] [Soren] at any rate, you should be able to see that the modding power of Civ is unmatched



[00:48] [Soren] btw, I was expecting to see a SMAC mod eventually... lokks like you guys can't wait to get started.

[00:49] [Soren] There's nothing that should hold it back... it's a significant amount of work though...



[00:50] [Soren] yeah, the C4-AC people might want to take a long hard look at the promotion system. It may be easier to use it than write a unit workshop.

[00:51] [blake] yeah the promotion system looks promising for C4:AC

[00:51] [Soren] well, if you want a real unit workshop, you'll probably have to wait for the SDK...



[00:53] [FIRAXIS_Trip] Unit Workshop can also be done with promotions

[00:53] [FIRAXIS_Trip] you bring up a screen to select unit 'components'

[00:53] [FIRAXIS_Trip] which are actually promotions

[00:53] [FIRAXIS_Trip] no XML necessary




[01:05] [Senethro] To anyone on Firaxis: I'm one of the guys workign on the SMAC-mod for Civ4. We were hoping to use some materials such as sound files from the original SMAC. Would you advise emailing someone legal at Firaxis for whether this is permissable?

[01:06] [Soren] senethro: sorry, I'm just a developer. I assume it's legal if everyone own's a copy of the game (but that's not the same thing as fereely distributing those files...)

[01:06] [Soren] senethro: in other words, I don't know.

[01:06] [Solver] Soren: he meant the email of some legal guy at Firaxis

[01:06] [ACS_MarkG] Soren vs Legal Issues 0-1

[01:07] [Senethro] Soren: Thanks, we'll play it safe and email the right people then


[02:09] [Yin] Soren: What non-Civ games gave you the most useful inspiration for Civ 4?

[02:11] [Soren] yin: AoK? Kind of a stretch, but it shows up in the interface. SMAC, obviously. CtP for modding. Advance Wars for some combat stuff. HoMM, perhaps.



[02:11] [Senethro] I have to say I'm surprised by how much SMAC has made it to Civ4

[02:12] [Soren] it's ironic considering Civ3 was built off of SMAC and Civ4 was built from scratch.

[02:12] [Senethro] Very much so!

[02:12] [Guynemer] Anything in particular you wanted to bring back from SMAC, apart from what we already know about (civics, quotes)?

[02:12] [Soren] The biggest inspiration from SMAC was the diplomacy - that was that game's biggest strength

[02:12] [Solver] And is Civ4's biggest strength, too



[02:14] [Senethro] Soren: Would I be correct in saying that you've tried to balance Civ4 "high" as opposed to "low"? To me Civ3 was balanced low, nothing was allowed to be too powerful or too extreme. In comparison, SMAC was balanced high, with free markets and supply crawlers in 30 turns giving you an industrial/research output resembling the mid/late game of Civ.

[02:17] [Soren] senethro: excellent question! I was very conservative with Civ3, it was indeed balanced "low". SMAC in many ways is a RPG, not really a strategy game since the AI is not really capable of using all its options. I was determined that the AI in Civ3 should be able to make use of everything, but that led me down some bad roads (like no airlifting for workers! sorry, my bad!) With Civ4, I pushed myself hard to design it for humans, not for the AI. There were times

[02:18] [Soren] MP testing really helped with this... we could implement an idea and try it out immediately, without worrying about the AI. MP vs. SP is really the wrong way to think of development. They should actually help each other!



[03:17] [blake] In SMAC some SE combinations would be particullary interesting for some factions, like Morgan running Wealth or Hive running Police+Planned, is this also true of Civ4 civics?

[03:17] [ChsThry] Even though SMAC SE settings had simple numeric effects, results like having -5 Police were much different than 5 times the effect of -1 Police

[03:21] [Soren] yeah, the AC SE added up to have big effects, but the effect of the Civics is more direct in Civ4. There wasn't a secondary step.




[03:22] [ChsThry] Do Civ 4 Civics exhibit synergy, such as the effects of Demo and Planned together in SMAC?

[03:23] [Soren] yes, there is a lot of Civics synergy. Rep and Caste System. UniSuff and Free Speech. Police State and Vassalage. Just a couple examples...



[03:34] [Soren] Civ3 was a little different for the series because SMAC had been moving in the direction of very high complexity with a limited ability for the AI to use it. Civ3 went the other way, probably too much. Civ4 is somewhere in the middle.

[Mart]

It is possible to get the "magic" back. If the complexity of the game is retained and there are new additions.

Something that comes to my mind right away is "Dune" novel series by Frank Herbet. The story is not that elaborate, but somewhere there I read that much of the success was based on ecological problems the United States faced at that time. And combination of a desert planet with society of people living in harsh environment fighting for their survival against the Human Empire made "the trick". Dune worked on me too. But for long time I was not able to say what was it. Even now, I do not know or I am not sure. Definitely I would never say that it was ecology.

Many people like SMACX for various things. For a success of SMAC 2 I would include even more elements than the original had. Things like better graphics and better AI will not be sufficient. There must be something new. And I would add also much more developed concepts already present in the original. Example: weather patters. We all read in manual, that boreholes make average temperatures in the region higher. Noone probably ever saw a temperature overlay on SMAC map. Wind patterns. Sea currents - they would definitely help a player to better predict how kelp farms might spread. Just some ideas, how elements already present in SMAC might be further developed.
Game workshop. A lot of room for improvements. And not only new chassis types. The whole stuff could use an overhaul. New structure of designing units. More detailed, with more "slots" than present now 6 (chassis, weapon, armor, reactor, 2 x ability)

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And just edit here.
I would sacrifice things like graphics for the gameplay. Sprites requiring DirectX 7 still look nice if done with precision and graphically excellent. After all, 3D or 2D, we end up with a two dimentional screen anyway.

[self biased]

one of my things with the graphical engine was that the map wasn't really 3-D. sea level was the lowest, and there was a certain ceiling that was the highest point. the game would calculate between these two, even though you could concievably have a varaiation of a few thousand meters.

[Penta]

When pondering a SMAC 2, what I think of as useful improvements:

1. Weather patterns. There's just so much more computer power available now, a limited full-scale weather module should be possible. Hurricanes, weather patterns...

2. An alarm clock. See MOO3. (Y'know, one more turn is great, but I tend to focus too hard to look around, and I do have classes to go to.:-))

3. I'm not sure I liked the one-year-turns. Perhaps a shorter timescale would be better.

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by mart7x5
It is possible to get the "magic" back. If the complexity of the game is retained and there are new additions.
...
Many people like SMACX for various things. For a success of SMAC 2 I would include even more elements than the original had. Things like better graphics and better AI will not be sufficient. There must be something new. And I would add also much more developed concepts already present in the original. Example: weather patters. We all read in manual, that boreholes make average temperatures in the region higher.

I agree that the SMACX magic can be recreated, though SMACX was both greatly enhanced and greatly limited by its story: the story is great, but it's always the same. You're always playing the same story, but on different terrain.

My suggestion for a sequel is "Beyond Alpha Centauri": the colonization and terraforming of planets beyond AC, with different aliens with different agendas and characteristics. But to take a page from SMACX's unit design, these agendas and characteristics should be like the unit design screen, a Chinese menu where you get random choices from column A, B, etc. Take a little inspiration from Starcraft and maybe Rise of Legends. For instance, a long range attack could be artillery, missiles, stealth bombing, infiltration, tunneling, and so forth. A random alien race would use a random set of technologies. It should also have a set of motivations. Like the AX aliens, the player could get dumped into a factional war, or a Gaia situation like SMAC, and so forth. The aliens might have ecology as their priority, economics, technology.... The interaction of all these possibilities would provide a large number of possible games.

A random color scheme, too, please. Photosynthetic plants might be any dark color (dark since you have to absorb sunlight). The SMACX coloring was cool the first few games, but got a little boring after a while.

The real problem is both a random story and good presentation of the story. The amount of art in SMACX is huge (and expensive, doubtless). We (the players) may have to settle for less art to get more story flexibility.

PS: Borehole heat could cause thermal clouds or the rippling distortion seen on hot pavement or desert.