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Ashbri posted 03-16-99 05:25 PM ET
What computer games (stategy or otherwise) DO you find challenging and fun?
Thanks
yin26 posted 03-16-99 05:58 PM ET
Ashbri,
Thanks for the question. I'll try to tie it in to SMAC:
I started off an adventurer. My first REAL game was a text adventure (I think by Scott Adams or some name like that) for my Commodore Vic20. I think it was called Adventure Hunt--or something uninspired.
I still remember being stuck for weeks at one point. Almost gave up. Then one day I was re-reading one of the descriptions of the woods:
"There are trees blah blah ground blah. Hole."
I NEVER noticed the Hole part. Well, after that, I finished the game in two hours, feeling the thrill of my first win in what I felt at the time was an intelligent game.
I also read every Dragon Lance book I could find (stopped after about the 8th one, though). This led me to Ultima 1-6. I tell you though, the first Ultimas just had a certain, I don't know, innocence to them. They didn't pretend to be anything but push-the-arrow-key adventuring excitement.
Since then, it has been hard to recreate the immersion I felt as a kid. In part that's because I have to work now (Damn it all!). But I think a slew of other reasons, market instability, lost vision in the gaming world, has made that silver bullet of a game almost a thing of the past.
Anyway:
Twinsen (1 and 2): Really good stuff.
Rainbow Six: I actually jumped in
my chair a few times.
Gettysburg! Perhaps the best
strategy game ever.
Starcraft: Actually, I got bored.
Total Annihilation: Same thing.
Alone in the Dark: Revolutionary.
Many others, but you get the idea.
I guess I'd say that logic and intelligence in a game are my "Must Haves," which is where the A.I. in SMAC is just putting me off. But, since the A.I. can be patched, I'm just going to wait it out.
Sorry people!
By the way, what are your favorite games?
Imran Siddiqui posted 03-16-99 06:07 PM ET
I see that Yin has never played a true Turn-Based Strategy (TBS) game before. Maybe the gripes are with the style of play rather than the game.
My favorites:
Civ2
Baldur's Gate
SMAC
SMG! (for a while)
Diablo (kind of)
etc, etc
Imran Siddiqui
sandworm posted 03-16-99 06:20 PM ET
How about the old SSI game(I think) just called RUSSIA? Played it on the AppleIIC/E.
You had a pool of air and ground support you could dole out to your units in each turn to increase their effectiveness. Hex maps of Eastern Europe in World War II.

What was the other apple game... Lord of Conquest? You could generate maps with irregular shapes for units/cities. You built and "grew" horse herds, first to have six cities won? They were some of the first strategy games I remember for the computer.
No?
Oops, gotta go, time for my AARP meeting
Pique posted 03-16-99 06:30 PM ET
yin26: From the list you put up it looks like you were destined to dislike SMAC...
Mine:
Civ/Civ II
Stars!
MOO/MOO2
Space Empires 3 (heard of it??)
MoM
Honorable mention:
Celtic Tales
Caesar II
SimCity
The Civil War (by Empire Interactive)
As you can see, I'm pretty much a one-genre man...
Pique
yin26 posted 03-16-99 07:09 PM ET
Actually, I've played almost all those other games. Master of Orion was great stuff.
I just didn't mention them because I thought I'd be preaching to the choir.
My mistake. I have every reason to like SMAC, other than SMAC itself .
JaimeWolf posted 03-16-99 07:21 PM ET
All these youngsters!
What about
Adventure ("You stand in the woods, with a stream running to the south. A small hut is visible to the west")
Zork (not the Multimedia ones, but I liked them too)
The 7th Guest
and from my (misspent) youth - Wavy Navy on the Apple II
James
Seely posted 03-16-99 09:06 PM ET
You're all forgetting that unheralded SSI classic "Sword of Aragon"! And let's not forget great games like Microprose's (or Microplay-- some subsidiary of Microprose) "Command HQ", or "Red Storm Rising" (such a fun WWIII simulator, nuclear sub style!). I'd also be seriously negligent if I left out Interplay's "Dragon Wars", EA's "Sentinel Worlds I: Future Magic", "Starflight" and "Wasteland", or SSI's "No Greater Glory" (the best simulator of Civil War politics ever produced, in fact, the only one!)
All these are fond memories of a long-time gamer, and the hours of fun I've had playing them with my friends hark back to a true golden age of gaming for me... back before I had to have a damn job, that is!
Ashbri posted 03-17-99 08:15 AM ET
Ok, I will provide a answer to my own question.
I liked MOO/MOO2 although I found it tedious some times. I never have played CIV/CIV2 (gasp!) but I do enjoy SMAC.
Other games I have enjoyed include:
X-wing/Tie Fighter
Jedi Knight
Unreal
Freespace
etc.
There is a theme there. In case you don't see it, it is science fiction which might explain a big reason why I like SMAC.
As far as old games go... These were great for their time but I played them on a Commodore 64 Zork, Starcross, Starflight and the original strategy game (at least for me) M.U.L.E.
Yin, I am glad I asked the question. I understand more of what motivates some of your postings here. I don't always agree but it is interesting to hear your POV.
Ashbri posted 03-17-99 08:19 AM ET
PS.
I also have tried Starcraft, Warcraft, etc. and found them simply boring. They all seem to have a specific method to beat each level that you have to discover. An interesting variation to the standard RTS type of game that you might actually enjoy is Battlezone in which you get to drive and fight it anyone of the units while you conduct the tactical operations.
Alexis posted 03-17-99 08:26 AM ET
Anyone here play Magic:the Gathering, a Trading Card Game (either on PC or in RL).
Beat me in SMAC and I'll whup your a** with a railgun :|)
OhWell posted 03-17-99 09:26 AM ET
Seely - I am glad to see that someone else remembers "Command HQ". That was one game that (IMHO) successfully combined TBS and RTS. It acted like an RTS in that units acted on orders automatically in "real" time, but you could control the rate at which "real" time passed or even stop "time" altogether to issue orders examine city production or whatever. You could even have multiple units attacking a single enemy unit from different directions at the same time. The AI was not too smart, but you could switch sides, so it was fun to beat the AI to within an inch of its life, switch sides and then battle back.
MOO2 was good too but it needed some work on its tactical combat model. Late in the game, offensive weapon technology far outpaces defensive technology so that, in a battle, he who moves first moves last 'cause the other guy ain't there no more.
Oddly enough both Command HQ and MOO2 suffered from the same design flaw: Only a limited number of units could be built and the unit "pool" was global. For example the limit in MOO2 was around 500 units, so If other races had built a total of say 450 ships, you could only build 50. A later patch for MOO2 may have fixed that, but I do not know for sure.
The Origin Ultima series was good and I also enjoyed Underworld I and 2. I also play Steel Panthers a lot (mostly 2).
When Civ1 came out, it was addictive. I remember when I first got it, I set down to play at about 8:30 PM. When I looked at the clock "half an hour" later, it was 3:00 AM. As I had to get up at 6:00 to go to work, I immediately realized that I needed to rethink my priorities; Should I continue playing the game I was on or start a new one!
L8r
edromia posted 03-17-99 09:55 AM ET
It's funny: although I'm a rabid fan of MoM, MOO2 wore thin pretty quickly with me. I was unimpressed by the tech "tree", which was more of a tech "ladder", really, since there were no branches or prerequisites -- for any given race you just figure out the optimal path and follow it as fast as you can. And the AI's strategy typically involved building an armada far larger than its command rating and economy could have possibly afforded (50+ doomstars, 100+ dreadnoughts) and then just wiping up the map. The only way to win seemed to be either: 1) rush-expansion until you get elected emperor; or 2) rush-production until you get an armada bigger than the computer's, and then just start dunking planets one by one (sort of like getting that six-hero stack in MoM).
Anyone else have a similar experience? Maybe it works better in multiplayer?
-M.
Jojo posted 03-17-99 01:29 PM ET
In MOO2, I'm just too damned scared to be any kind of non-creative species.....
Now I've seen a fair amount of ragging on Yin, so I'm gonna team up with him a bit, although not as a Pact Brother. I begn gaming with Ultima 2, which was a pretty fine piece of work. The first TBS I recall playing was, of course, Civilization. I've run the gamut on Microprose's line-- I've done the Civ2, the MOM, both MOOs, Colonization (which appropriately begins with the word "Colon") and a few others.
Now, as for this SMAC, I must confess it's a real fun time to play, and I want to be on Tuesday morning at 3:30 a.m. and got to work five hours later. It's a pretty good time.
I avoided the RTS scene, because I'm a klutz. I just can click my mouse and tap on the keyboard quickly enough to get those soldiers to do what I want well enough. Although I did have some fun and still do playing WarCraft2 and StarCraft.
I hate all the Doom shoot 'em ups. We see a new one each month, I guess-- I keep asking, how many times can you play Doom? Boring.
I enjoy the Wing Commander series, and thought LucasArts did a fair job with Tie Fighters and X-Wings. I also think LucasArts seriously dropped the RTS ball with ther Rebellion game-- God that just sucked!
So, yes, I've wasted a fair amount of my life on these stupid games. Probably more than I should have.
But as for SMAC. It's a fine game, a lovely game-- if it weren't for Civ2, I'd sing its praises to the highest mountain, kill or die for it, etc. But it just didn't live up to the webstie hype. The most disappointing part of the game is-- and you already know it-- the diplomacy. SMAC came up so short in this area, that it really has no right to strut out and say it's a revolution over Civ2. A mild evolution, throwing in unit designs and terrain, but not much else. Faction leaders are still as hostile/inconsistent as any of the guys in Civ2.
Would that they had focused less on terrain and 3-D mapping, and really gotten to having factions react more realistically.
Jojo posted 03-17-99 01:29 PM ET
In MOO2, I'm just too damned scared to be any kind of non-creative species.....
Now I've seen a fair amount of ragging on Yin, so I'm gonna team up with him a bit, although not as a Pact Brother. I begn gaming with Ultima 2, which was a pretty fine piece of work. The first TBS I recall playing was, of course, Civilization. I've run the gamut on Microprose's line-- I've done the Civ2, the MOM, both MOOs, Colonization (which appropriately begins with the word "Colon") and a few others.
Now, as for this SMAC, I must confess it's a real fun time to play, and I want to be on Tuesday morning at 3:30 a.m. and got to work five hours later. It's a pretty good time.
I avoided the RTS scene, because I'm a klutz. I just can click my mouse and tap on the keyboard quickly enough to get those soldiers to do what I want well enough. Although I did have some fun and still do playing WarCraft2 and StarCraft.
I hate all the Doom shoot 'em ups. We see a new one each month, I guess-- I keep asking, how many times can you play Doom? Boring.
I enjoy the Wing Commander series, and thought LucasArts did a fair job with Tie Fighters and X-Wings. I also think LucasArts seriously dropped the RTS ball with ther Rebellion game-- God that just sucked!
So, yes, I've wasted a fair amount of my life on these stupid games. Probably more than I should have.
But as for SMAC. It's a fine game, a lovely game-- if it weren't for Civ2, I'd sing its praises to the highest mountain, kill or die for it, etc. But it just didn't live up to the webstie hype. The most disappointing part of the game is-- and you already know it-- the diplomacy. SMAC came up so short in this area, that it really has no right to strut out and say it's a revolution over Civ2. A mild evolution, throwing in unit designs and terrain, but not much else. Faction leaders are still as hostile/inconsistent as any of the guys in Civ2.
Would that they had focused less on terrain and 3-D mapping, and really gotten to having factions react more realistically.
Zorak Zoran posted 03-17-99 01:46 PM ET
Weird, after a while I had to play only custom races in MOO2. Custom races with no abilities that is.
The computer was quite predictible when it came to fleet movement, but the diplomatic interplay, especially with espionage, was fun to watch.
Edromia: You really liked MoM? I found the AI disgustingly dumb, and the whole nation ground to a halt when you took their capital.
I too remember Zork, though I spent more time playing Combat and River Raider on my Atari 2600.
edromia posted 03-17-99 02:08 PM ET
ZZ: Well, yeah, MoM's AI *was* pretty stupid -- it didn't bother me at the time because I wasn't particularly good at TBS games. I mostly enjoyed researching the cool spells and buffing up the inevitable Unstoppable Hero Party. I usually played a Green magic defensive game until I got Wrath of Gaia, and then just sat back and laughed while the Red & Black computer players slapped themselves with earthquake after earthquake.
By the time I got around to MOO2, though, I'd gotten a little bit better at strategy and was looking for more sophistication. Again, I think it's the tech tree that finally killed that game for me. Once you figure out the optimal techs at each level, each game becomes precisely like every other -- *especially* if you're a creative race, in which case you don't even have to make any choices. Furthermore, in MOO2 one tech=one weapon or one building; just build it and move on to the next one (*yawn*). As opposed to CIV or SMAC, wherein a tech opens up numerous new avenues of research, buildins, units, special abilities, etc.
Another interesting thing is that I never played CIV or CIV II. Call me an escapist, but I never could get into it without some element of sci-fi/fantasy.
Zork and the other text adventure are still at the top of my list for some of the best games ever. I like to keep tabs on the growing number of "amateur" text adventures (some of which far outstrip the old commercial games in terms of complexity and good writing) written by the fine folks at rec.arts.int-fiction.
-M.
Kalanis posted 03-17-99 04:00 PM ET
Where have all the adventure games gone?!?!
There hasn't been a really COOL series in the style of Ultima in a LONG time. (Yes, I love Baldur's gate, but something about that just can't live up to the sheer EUPHORIA I felt while playing Ultima VII) I think the Computer Gaming Industry (CGI?) needs to hire some more WRITERS, as opposed to whatever they're hiring now for creative batteries. Look at Marc Laidlaw, a great guy (I E-mailed him and got a very helpful response) and his writing ability almost single-handedly brought Half-Life into computer game heaven.
Don't think that I don't like Strat games either (except RTS games which got boring REAL fast with the exception of Warcraft 2) but why don't games have PLOTS anymore. Not just a string of jokes, but that epic feel that Wing Commander and Ultima could give.
Oh well...
kjchen posted 03-17-99 04:59 PM ET
Kalanis: Curiously, I haven't really enjoyed an Ultima game since Ultima V (to be fair, I played Ultima VI, and only glanced at Ultima VII for a short time), since the shifts in the game took away too much of what I enjoyed in the earlier Ultima games, and replaced them with new features which threatened tedium and annoyance (free-form vs. grid-based movement, realtime combat, space vs. item slot-based inventory). Ultima V also had *the* plotline. Lord British lost! A usurper with twisted notions of virtue claiming the throne of Britannia! The whole setup gave me visions of the second chronicles of Thomas Covenant.
Maybe I've just burned out on the genre. I used to be master of Wizardry/Ultima/Bard's Tale/whatever. I did play Baldur's Gate and Diablo quite a bit, but I've pretty much passed on most of the Wizardry/Might and Magic/Ultima titles to hit the shelves in the last half-decade or so.
It's curious that you mention plot in games, because SMAC surprised me by attempting to have one. Granted, it's nothing which impacts gameplay in any way, and as some reviewers have pointed out, once the cat's out of the bag, the effectiveness of the story is somewhat diminished, but I have to applaud the designers for sticking it in to provide some atmosphere. I nearly did a double take when one of my liberated Gaian cities was renamed for one of the fallen Talents alluded to by the story interlude.
Seely posted 03-17-99 10:43 PM ET
The cool thing about SMAC is that you can write yourself into that story interlude... so my city ended up being named after me, because I'd made myself a character in the Hive's backstory!
Corvus Corax posted 03-18-99 09:35 AM ET
Yee-haw,
this is the most sensible thread I've seen in AGES around here (i.e. the last two days), so here are my 0.0178 EUR:
Fond memories of my youth (C64):
Ultima III
Pirates
Paradroid (can anyone else rember this one?)
Archon (the coolest intro music EVER...)
Zork I-III
All-time faves:
Ultima VI (still the best RPG, IMO)
Civ II
MOO II (****ty AI, cool in MP)
Steel Panthers II and III
Diablo (can't wait for Diablo II)
MoM (now would anyone kindly produce a REALLY good sequel to this one - LordsOM sucks!)
Mechwarrior II (the only 3d shooter I really like)
Most of the above are quite dated - at least technically - by today's standards, but I take a good concept over nice graphics any time.
Kalanis posted 03-18-99 10:04 AM ET
kjchen, I had the benifit of playing Ultima VII FIRST. So I becamed enamored with the whole Britannia thing before I played the older games. Ultima IV/V become alot more fun once you really understand the world.
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Author	Topic: So Yin...
Ashbri	posted 03-16-99 05:25 PM ET What computer games (stategy or otherwise) DO you find challenging and fun? Thanks
yin26	posted 03-16-99 05:58 PM ET Ashbri, Thanks for the question. I'll try to tie it in to SMAC: I started off an adventurer. My first REAL game was a text adventure (I think by Scott Adams or some name like that) for my Commodore Vic20. I think it was called Adventure Hunt--or something uninspired. I still remember being stuck for weeks at one point. Almost gave up. Then one day I was re-reading one of the descriptions of the woods: "There are trees blah blah ground blah. Hole." I NEVER noticed the Hole part. Well, after that, I finished the game in two hours, feeling the thrill of my first win in what I felt at the time was an intelligent game. I also read every Dragon Lance book I could find (stopped after about the 8th one, though). This led me to Ultima 1-6. I tell you though, the first Ultimas just had a certain, I don't know, innocence to them. They didn't pretend to be anything but push-the-arrow-key adventuring excitement. Since then, it has been hard to recreate the immersion I felt as a kid. In part that's because I have to work now (Damn it all!). But I think a slew of other reasons, market instability, lost vision in the gaming world, has made that silver bullet of a game almost a thing of the past. Anyway: Twinsen (1 and 2): Really good stuff. Rainbow Six: I actually jumped in my chair a few times. Gettysburg! Perhaps the best strategy game ever. Starcraft: Actually, I got bored. Total Annihilation: Same thing. Alone in the Dark: Revolutionary. Many others, but you get the idea. I guess I'd say that logic and intelligence in a game are my "Must Haves," which is where the A.I. in SMAC is just putting me off. But, since the A.I. can be patched, I'm just going to wait it out. Sorry people! By the way, what are your favorite games?
Imran Siddiqui	posted 03-16-99 06:07 PM ET I see that Yin has never played a true Turn-Based Strategy (TBS) game before. Maybe the gripes are with the style of play rather than the game. My favorites: Civ2 Baldur's Gate SMAC SMG! (for a while) Diablo (kind of) etc, etc Imran Siddiqui
sandworm	posted 03-16-99 06:20 PM ET How about the old SSI game(I think) just called RUSSIA? Played it on the AppleIIC/E. You had a pool of air and ground support you could dole out to your units in each turn to increase their effectiveness. Hex maps of Eastern Europe in World War II. What was the other apple game... Lord of Conquest? You could generate maps with irregular shapes for units/cities. You built and "grew" horse herds, first to have six cities won? They were some of the first strategy games I remember for the computer. No? Oops, gotta go, time for my AARP meeting
Pique	posted 03-16-99 06:30 PM ET yin26: From the list you put up it looks like you were destined to dislike SMAC... Mine: Civ/Civ II Stars! MOO/MOO2 Space Empires 3 (heard of it??) MoM Honorable mention: Celtic Tales Caesar II SimCity The Civil War (by Empire Interactive) As you can see, I'm pretty much a one-genre man... Pique
yin26	posted 03-16-99 07:09 PM ET Actually, I've played almost all those other games. Master of Orion was great stuff. I just didn't mention them because I thought I'd be preaching to the choir. My mistake. I have every reason to like SMAC, other than SMAC itself .
JaimeWolf	posted 03-16-99 07:21 PM ET All these youngsters! What about Adventure ("You stand in the woods, with a stream running to the south. A small hut is visible to the west") Zork (not the Multimedia ones, but I liked them too) The 7th Guest and from my (misspent) youth - Wavy Navy on the Apple II James
Seely	posted 03-16-99 09:06 PM ET You're all forgetting that unheralded SSI classic "Sword of Aragon"! And let's not forget great games like Microprose's (or Microplay-- some subsidiary of Microprose) "Command HQ", or "Red Storm Rising" (such a fun WWIII simulator, nuclear sub style!). I'd also be seriously negligent if I left out Interplay's "Dragon Wars", EA's "Sentinel Worlds I: Future Magic", "Starflight" and "Wasteland", or SSI's "No Greater Glory" (the best simulator of Civil War politics ever produced, in fact, the only one!) All these are fond memories of a long-time gamer, and the hours of fun I've had playing them with my friends hark back to a true golden age of gaming for me... back before I had to have a damn job, that is!
Ashbri	posted 03-17-99 08:15 AM ET Ok, I will provide a answer to my own question. I liked MOO/MOO2 although I found it tedious some times. I never have played CIV/CIV2 (gasp!) but I do enjoy SMAC. Other games I have enjoyed include: X-wing/Tie Fighter Jedi Knight Unreal Freespace etc. There is a theme there. In case you don't see it, it is science fiction which might explain a big reason why I like SMAC. As far as old games go... These were great for their time but I played them on a Commodore 64 Zork, Starcross, Starflight and the original strategy game (at least for me) M.U.L.E. Yin, I am glad I asked the question. I understand more of what motivates some of your postings here. I don't always agree but it is interesting to hear your POV.
Ashbri	posted 03-17-99 08:19 AM ET PS. I also have tried Starcraft, Warcraft, etc. and found them simply boring. They all seem to have a specific method to beat each level that you have to discover. An interesting variation to the standard RTS type of game that you might actually enjoy is Battlezone in which you get to drive and fight it anyone of the units while you conduct the tactical operations.
Alexis	posted 03-17-99 08:26 AM ET Anyone here play Magic:the Gathering, a Trading Card Game (either on PC or in RL). Beat me in SMAC and I'll whup your a** with a railgun :\|)
OhWell	posted 03-17-99 09:26 AM ET Seely - I am glad to see that someone else remembers "Command HQ". That was one game that (IMHO) successfully combined TBS and RTS. It acted like an RTS in that units acted on orders automatically in "real" time, but you could control the rate at which "real" time passed or even stop "time" altogether to issue orders examine city production or whatever. You could even have multiple units attacking a single enemy unit from different directions at the same time. The AI was not too smart, but you could switch sides, so it was fun to beat the AI to within an inch of its life, switch sides and then battle back. MOO2 was good too but it needed some work on its tactical combat model. Late in the game, offensive weapon technology far outpaces defensive technology so that, in a battle, he who moves first moves last 'cause the other guy ain't there no more. Oddly enough both Command HQ and MOO2 suffered from the same design flaw: Only a limited number of units could be built and the unit "pool" was global. For example the limit in MOO2 was around 500 units, so If other races had built a total of say 450 ships, you could only build 50. A later patch for MOO2 may have fixed that, but I do not know for sure. The Origin Ultima series was good and I also enjoyed Underworld I and 2. I also play Steel Panthers a lot (mostly 2). When Civ1 came out, it was addictive. I remember when I first got it, I set down to play at about 8:30 PM. When I looked at the clock "half an hour" later, it was 3:00 AM. As I had to get up at 6:00 to go to work, I immediately realized that I needed to rethink my priorities; Should I continue playing the game I was on or start a new one! L8r
edromia	posted 03-17-99 09:55 AM ET It's funny: although I'm a rabid fan of MoM, MOO2 wore thin pretty quickly with me. I was unimpressed by the tech "tree", which was more of a tech "ladder", really, since there were no branches or prerequisites -- for any given race you just figure out the optimal path and follow it as fast as you can. And the AI's strategy typically involved building an armada far larger than its command rating and economy could have possibly afforded (50+ doomstars, 100+ dreadnoughts) and then just wiping up the map. The only way to win seemed to be either: 1) rush-expansion until you get elected emperor; or 2) rush-production until you get an armada bigger than the computer's, and then just start dunking planets one by one (sort of like getting that six-hero stack in MoM). Anyone else have a similar experience? Maybe it works better in multiplayer? -M.
Jojo	posted 03-17-99 01:29 PM ET In MOO2, I'm just too damned scared to be any kind of non-creative species..... Now I've seen a fair amount of ragging on Yin, so I'm gonna team up with him a bit, although not as a Pact Brother. I begn gaming with Ultima 2, which was a pretty fine piece of work. The first TBS I recall playing was, of course, Civilization. I've run the gamut on Microprose's line-- I've done the Civ2, the MOM, both MOOs, Colonization (which appropriately begins with the word "Colon") and a few others. Now, as for this SMAC, I must confess it's a real fun time to play, and I want to be on Tuesday morning at 3:30 a.m. and got to work five hours later. It's a pretty good time. I avoided the RTS scene, because I'm a klutz. I just can click my mouse and tap on the keyboard quickly enough to get those soldiers to do what I want well enough. Although I did have some fun and still do playing WarCraft2 and StarCraft. I hate all the Doom shoot 'em ups. We see a new one each month, I guess-- I keep asking, how many times can you play Doom? Boring. I enjoy the Wing Commander series, and thought LucasArts did a fair job with Tie Fighters and X-Wings. I also think LucasArts seriously dropped the RTS ball with ther Rebellion game-- God that just sucked! So, yes, I've wasted a fair amount of my life on these stupid games. Probably more than I should have. But as for SMAC. It's a fine game, a lovely game-- if it weren't for Civ2, I'd sing its praises to the highest mountain, kill or die for it, etc. But it just didn't live up to the webstie hype. The most disappointing part of the game is-- and you already know it-- the diplomacy. SMAC came up so short in this area, that it really has no right to strut out and say it's a revolution over Civ2. A mild evolution, throwing in unit designs and terrain, but not much else. Faction leaders are still as hostile/inconsistent as any of the guys in Civ2. Would that they had focused less on terrain and 3-D mapping, and really gotten to having factions react more realistically.
Jojo	posted 03-17-99 01:29 PM ET In MOO2, I'm just too damned scared to be any kind of non-creative species..... Now I've seen a fair amount of ragging on Yin, so I'm gonna team up with him a bit, although not as a Pact Brother. I begn gaming with Ultima 2, which was a pretty fine piece of work. The first TBS I recall playing was, of course, Civilization. I've run the gamut on Microprose's line-- I've done the Civ2, the MOM, both MOOs, Colonization (which appropriately begins with the word "Colon") and a few others. Now, as for this SMAC, I must confess it's a real fun time to play, and I want to be on Tuesday morning at 3:30 a.m. and got to work five hours later. It's a pretty good time. I avoided the RTS scene, because I'm a klutz. I just can click my mouse and tap on the keyboard quickly enough to get those soldiers to do what I want well enough. Although I did have some fun and still do playing WarCraft2 and StarCraft. I hate all the Doom shoot 'em ups. We see a new one each month, I guess-- I keep asking, how many times can you play Doom? Boring. I enjoy the Wing Commander series, and thought LucasArts did a fair job with Tie Fighters and X-Wings. I also think LucasArts seriously dropped the RTS ball with ther Rebellion game-- God that just sucked! So, yes, I've wasted a fair amount of my life on these stupid games. Probably more than I should have. But as for SMAC. It's a fine game, a lovely game-- if it weren't for Civ2, I'd sing its praises to the highest mountain, kill or die for it, etc. But it just didn't live up to the webstie hype. The most disappointing part of the game is-- and you already know it-- the diplomacy. SMAC came up so short in this area, that it really has no right to strut out and say it's a revolution over Civ2. A mild evolution, throwing in unit designs and terrain, but not much else. Faction leaders are still as hostile/inconsistent as any of the guys in Civ2. Would that they had focused less on terrain and 3-D mapping, and really gotten to having factions react more realistically.
Zorak Zoran	posted 03-17-99 01:46 PM ET Weird, after a while I had to play only custom races in MOO2. Custom races with no abilities that is. The computer was quite predictible when it came to fleet movement, but the diplomatic interplay, especially with espionage, was fun to watch. Edromia: You really liked MoM? I found the AI disgustingly dumb, and the whole nation ground to a halt when you took their capital. I too remember Zork, though I spent more time playing Combat and River Raider on my Atari 2600.
edromia	posted 03-17-99 02:08 PM ET ZZ: Well, yeah, MoM's AI was pretty stupid -- it didn't bother me at the time because I wasn't particularly good at TBS games. I mostly enjoyed researching the cool spells and buffing up the inevitable Unstoppable Hero Party. I usually played a Green magic defensive game until I got Wrath of Gaia, and then just sat back and laughed while the Red & Black computer players slapped themselves with earthquake after earthquake. By the time I got around to MOO2, though, I'd gotten a little bit better at strategy and was looking for more sophistication. Again, I think it's the tech tree that finally killed that game for me. Once you figure out the optimal techs at each level, each game becomes precisely like every other -- especially if you're a creative race, in which case you don't even have to make any choices. Furthermore, in MOO2 one tech=one weapon or one building; just build it and move on to the next one (yawn). As opposed to CIV or SMAC, wherein a tech opens up numerous new avenues of research, buildins, units, special abilities, etc. Another interesting thing is that I never played CIV or CIV II. Call me an escapist, but I never could get into it without some element of sci-fi/fantasy. Zork and the other text adventure are still at the top of my list for some of the best games ever. I like to keep tabs on the growing number of "amateur" text adventures (some of which far outstrip the old commercial games in terms of complexity and good writing) written by the fine folks at rec.arts.int-fiction. -M.
Kalanis	posted 03-17-99 04:00 PM ET Where have all the adventure games gone?!?! There hasn't been a really COOL series in the style of Ultima in a LONG time. (Yes, I love Baldur's gate, but something about that just can't live up to the sheer EUPHORIA I felt while playing Ultima VII) I think the Computer Gaming Industry (CGI?) needs to hire some more WRITERS, as opposed to whatever they're hiring now for creative batteries. Look at Marc Laidlaw, a great guy (I E-mailed him and got a very helpful response) and his writing ability almost single-handedly brought Half-Life into computer game heaven. Don't think that I don't like Strat games either (except RTS games which got boring REAL fast with the exception of Warcraft 2) but why don't games have PLOTS anymore. Not just a string of jokes, but that epic feel that Wing Commander and Ultima could give. Oh well...
kjchen	posted 03-17-99 04:59 PM ET Kalanis: Curiously, I haven't really enjoyed an Ultima game since Ultima V (to be fair, I played Ultima VI, and only glanced at Ultima VII for a short time), since the shifts in the game took away too much of what I enjoyed in the earlier Ultima games, and replaced them with new features which threatened tedium and annoyance (free-form vs. grid-based movement, realtime combat, space vs. item slot-based inventory). Ultima V also had the plotline. Lord British lost! A usurper with twisted notions of virtue claiming the throne of Britannia! The whole setup gave me visions of the second chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Maybe I've just burned out on the genre. I used to be master of Wizardry/Ultima/Bard's Tale/whatever. I did play Baldur's Gate and Diablo quite a bit, but I've pretty much passed on most of the Wizardry/Might and Magic/Ultima titles to hit the shelves in the last half-decade or so. It's curious that you mention plot in games, because SMAC surprised me by attempting to have one. Granted, it's nothing which impacts gameplay in any way, and as some reviewers have pointed out, once the cat's out of the bag, the effectiveness of the story is somewhat diminished, but I have to applaud the designers for sticking it in to provide some atmosphere. I nearly did a double take when one of my liberated Gaian cities was renamed for one of the fallen Talents alluded to by the story interlude.
Seely	posted 03-17-99 10:43 PM ET The cool thing about SMAC is that you can write yourself into that story interlude... so my city ended up being named after me, because I'd made myself a character in the Hive's backstory!
Corvus Corax	posted 03-18-99 09:35 AM ET Yee-haw, this is the most sensible thread I've seen in AGES around here (i.e. the last two days), so here are my 0.0178 EUR: Fond memories of my youth (C64): Ultima III Pirates Paradroid (can anyone else rember this one?) Archon (the coolest intro music EVER...) Zork I-III All-time faves: Ultima VI (still the best RPG, IMO) Civ II MOO II (****ty AI, cool in MP) Steel Panthers II and III Diablo (can't wait for Diablo II) MoM (now would anyone kindly produce a REALLY good sequel to this one - LordsOM sucks!) Mechwarrior II (the only 3d shooter I really like) Most of the above are quite dated - at least technically - by today's standards, but I take a good concept over nice graphics any time.
Kalanis	posted 03-18-99 10:04 AM ET kjchen, I had the benifit of playing Ultima VII FIRST. So I becamed enamored with the whole Britannia thing before I played the older games. Ultima IV/V become alot more fun once you really understand the world.