posted 07-14-99 03:10 AM ET        

1. This is the same game. *Exactly* the same game. All changes from CivII that lead to SMAC were external.

* BR wrote a great setting for the new game and added some interesting characters.

* The graphics engine was upgraded from 2D to 3D. Not great, but personally I think it's the way to go.

* New ideas like the social engineering menu and the design workshop were added.

* The game engine got a better A.I.

None of which in ANY way alters the fundamental idea of pumping out units, researching techs and capturing cities. Exact same interface, exact same resource system, slightly inferior(!) combat system, same unit support system, same tactics (attack first, ICS, etc), and the same diplomacy goals (get tech, prevent wars until later). The gameplay is no different - a good Civ player can hit the ground running with SMAC and be a virtual master (or at least reach exactly the same level of skill as before) within a week of playing. Unlike other games (e.g Warcraft/Starcraft) for which you had to go back to the drawing board to master, SMAC is just CivII in space. Which means there's virtually nothing new to learn (one of the great things about CivII was endlessly debating the perfect tactics), and little to experience that you haven't before.

2. This game is dishonest. 'Nice' looking allies (who could honestly hurt Deirdre?), lots of infrastructure, a long tech tree, and a great deal of terraforming you can do. None of which has any real point, because the game's tactics are designed almost exclusively (much more so than CivII) for a conqueror rush strategy, for which building and making alliances are largely irrelevant. The friendly 'feel' of the game doesn't match the ideal tactics - being honest, there would be no endgame techs after the plasma shard prereq, little terraforming, and only a few base facilities (CC, perimeter defense, NN, energy bank and morale boosters). And the A.I opponents would be a motley, dangerous collection of evil oppotunists and warmongers.

This imbalance in playing style vs. game feeling makes it difficult to truly immerse yourself in SMAC, despite the work done on the setting and the story.

3. Graphics/sound. SMAC almost takes a step backward from CivII with this aspect. There are around 16 units in SMAC, the rest simply use a change of colour and change of gun type (having 1 weapon for 8 chassis types? Not a good idea). There is a single combat animation for all dozen or so weapons, and a single sound. Virtually the only attempts at impressive in game graphics in SMAC are the planet buster, which is okay, and the initial pod landing, which is crap.

This lack of sound and animation makes SMAC a fairly dreary experience taken turn to turn. Gone are the amusing charges and the awesome battleship engagement sounds of CivII (along with that wonderful, atmospheric music!), to be replaced with constantly fizzing lasers, regardless of weapon, and slow moving, chunky 3D voxhals. (Not that CivII was a feast of visuals either, but at least you could try to change the icon if it seriously irritated you - like the Alpine troops, who quickly became Rangers, or the bright yellow paratroops).

The visuals in SMAC are bland - planet has only a single mountain, no polar ice, and only one type of vegetation. If it wasn't for the fact it was 3D, and had wonderfully rendered oceans, it would be worse all round.

Soundwise, it ranks as inferior to virtually all other TBS games around.

4. Lack of attention to details. In part a continuation of complaint 1, but worth taking further. CivII had individual sounds for units, a respectable combat system, unique pictures for buildings (along with indepth commentary and history on all aspects); in short, the minor parts of the game were well addressed. SMAC has a great verbal commentary on all building and techs, but features little else by way of elucidation. If anything, the highbrow nature of SMAC makes this more of a priority than for CivII - most people have heard of roman legions, but few understand what a chaos gun is, or does (?? I have no idea myself...)

And finally, the way the cut scenes are tacked on to the end of the game, rather than being included as a central part of the game. Again, a step back from CivII, which had the greyed out screen and the box around the movie. SMAC just cuts to a black screen, plays the frikkin movie, and dumps you back in the game.

Detail in sound, detail in information, detail in pictures - if anything from CivII needs to be restored, it's the extra attention to detail that provide immersion in SMAC.

5. The combat system sucks. There's no other way to say it. A complete cut and paste from CivII that completely fails. CivII featured units that had an attack strength and a defense strength. SMAC units have weapons and armour. NOT THE SAME THING! Yet another point that shows the 'Aw, f**k it, who cares' attitude to detail in this game. There are any number of combat formulae that could have been used that would actually make sense for SMAC, instead, the simplistic CivII formula was retained, and then dumbed down slightly. Again making this game no different to the previous one, and a great deal more confusing for first time players, more than one of whom wondered why their heavily armed defenders were falling like flys to supposedly inferior troops.

The combat system is especially poor in light of the fact that SMAC puts such a great emphasis on building and deploying offensive units, and in great numbers. Similarly, the support model for units offers no changes, so you still end up with aircraft carriers and singularity tanks costing the same in support as a lonely scout patrol.

And - unit stacking. A lousy, tacked on attempt to impliment this. Score D-.

Combat in SMAC is grossly inferior to HOMM3 or any number of sophisticated RTS systems, and I feel upset that there was virtually no attention paid to this part of the game.

6. Interface. No improvement since CivII, despite the game getting bigger and more complex. More of more of the same.

posted 07-14-99 06:05 AM ET            

The sad thing is, SMAC is still the game I like best

posted 07-14-99 10:29 AM ET            

As for the new features which you did hit right on the money they make a huge difference in gameplay! Each faction leader is different and should be played in a different way, be your character. If you are playing the peacekeepers the same way you are playing the hive you are wrong.

posted 07-14-99 11:16 AM ET            

Dman37: What Shining is referring to is that the Conquer strategy in SMAC is superior to a build strategy regardless of what faction you play. Sure, you handle each Civ differently, but in the end, it is the conquering strat that rules. Yeah, I love conquering with Deirdre too, she's one of my favorites. Also, ultra expansion still rules - a problem that should have been taken more seriously after Civ 2.

The point of changing or at least improving some basic stuff is this: why should they make a new game when so many things are just Civ 2 with new interface and graphics? Why not keep playing Civ 2? After all, some of the things, as Shining says, are plain worse now. For me, all the terraforming options are pointless considering you have to do them all manually for them to be effective. The Auto-commands/Governors sux bad. Firaxis should just have skipped a few of them and concentrated on making the rest of them real useful.

posted 07-14-99 12:52 PM ET            

I feel your pain. Patch 4.0 was a serious disappointment for me and though I've tried starting a few different games with different factions under different conditions, I have to admit that I'm pretty much inherently bored by the game. Civ II, though not perfectly balanced (far from it) is at least more balanced and certainly a great deal more multiplayer capable than SMAC at this point. I have to say that playing other humans in multiplayer Civ II is much more rewarding than SMAC under any conditions.

So let's be clear: in the end, not only is this game essentially a rewrite of Civ II, but it's not as good in a lot of important ways (e.g. strategy balancing and multiplay capability).

Though I'm back at patch 3.0 because of the bug problems 4.0 created for me, I would have seriously considered reverting over the Manifold Nexus, anyway. Talk about a seriously imbalancing feature! This is the only terrain feature that confers a faction-wide bonus which affects both combat and productivity issues. This is a bonus more lasting, powerful and pervasive than even the already grossly imbalancing Monsoon Jungle.

posted 07-14-99 02:09 PM ET            

I agree with everything you've said, and would add that SMAC is actually easier to beat than CIV2... I can almost always win a Transcend game in SMAC, but in CIV2 I remember having problems sometimes at Deity level, depending on the initial placement of the civilisations (if they were close together, they killed each other off and helped the human player to win). Maybe this has something to do with the diplomacy? A peaceful start in SMAC sets you *way* ahead in tech and energy thanks to all the Pacts, and the fact that Pact Brothers seem more generous, and more reliable, than allies in CIV used to be... they're certainly more keen to join in Vendettas on the human player's side, and make over-generous gifts of units (good ones, too, not useless ones). Also, I still maintain that being Planetary Governor gives the human player a massive and unbeatable advantage over the AI. Infiltrators in every base?? No need to build more than a couple of copters to wipe out all of your enemy's troops in one go, because you know where they are (and doesn't the AI just love to stack ALL its airforce in one vulnerable base?). And sit there raking in extra energy while you do it... play as the PKs, walk the PG elections, and victory is yours, pretty much.

I think there is room in the market for a CIV-type game that favours the builder strategy over the conqueror strategy (or at least gives it equal weight), since SMAC is still more or less a question of combat and more combat, like CIV. SMAC has loads of potential for building, loads of imaginative new base facilities and new terraforming abilities, and so on, but because of the way the AI plays, it really comes down to who can get Air Power/MMI first and kick the hell out of everyone else. But adding more weight to the building aspect of the game would require a total rewrite of the game engine, which I suppose is out of the question. Oh well.

Analyst:

I agree about the Monsoon Jungle... in my list of Things That Will Win You The Game, it's No.2 : No.1 is being Planetary Governor, and No.3 is getting MMI, and therefore copters, significantly before anyone else. These three work every time (and it's easy enough without No.2, unless Miriam or Yang get the Monsoon Jungle - that can be tricky).

Having said all that, I prefer SMAC to CIV2 if only for the improved AI and the novelty value, and I do like the graphics and the voiceovers. OK, they're only icing on a very familiar cake, but welcome nonetheless... I remember that when the CIV2 expansion packs came out, even though they were essentially only extra graphics and re-named techs, they spiced up the game and I played it for another six months, having got fed up with it in the original form. Maybe SMACX will perform the same feat for SMAC?

And there's always PBEM, which adds a new dimension and prevents total frustration once you get familiar with the AI's predictable behaviour / irrational decisions / terrible combat strategy / stupid base placement / *fill in complaint here*

Anyway... Shining... how's the updated SNAC getting along??

posted 07-14-99 03:59 PM ET            

I'll give an example of this attention to detail, of the immense depth, that is present in the game. Last night a thought stuck me: drop probe teams! I could drop over and buy a heavily fortified enemy city before he even knew what was up. Well, I tried it, but it didn't work--after I dropped over, my team was killed. Why? Drop probe teams only have 1 move. I was delighted, and a little stunned. After 100's of hours of playing any game, I usually find ways to exploit things like this that the designers hadn't even dreamed of, much less made a move to correct. But this time they beat me to it.

I've spent more time than I want to admit playing this game, and I only have mastered one faction. I don't care how much you played CIV II, there is no possible way to master, or even fully appreciate, this game is two weeks.

posted 07-14-99 04:30 PM ET            

Glad that you like SMAC, which after all is my opinion as well... in spite of its faults, it remains a very good and replayable game. However, it really *is* just CIV2 with funky graphics, and yes, I can honestly say that, having played CIV2 to death over a 2-year period, it took me less than two weeks to be able to consistently beat SMAC's AI at Transcend level. The same old CIV tactics work just as well in SMAC. The mindworms are the barbarians. The pods are the villages. Your allies betray you when you get too powerful. The AI has no noticeable combat strategy and doesn't back up air attacks with ground assaults. Etc etc etc... very familiar.

As for the Drop Probe thing, well... by default, when you create a new Paradrop unit, the Design Workshop bases it on the Infantry (move 1) chassis. If you want a move 2 Drop Probe unit, create the Paradrop unit as normal and then give it a Speeder chassis (which is the default chassis for a normal Probe team, hence the 2 moves). I think the default name for this is a Drop Rover Probe Team. It costs more than the move 1 Drop Probe, though.

Speaking of changing chassis types in the Design Workshop, btw, there's a bug you can easily exploit if you capture enemy units that are superior in technology to your own. If you capture, say, an Impact Infantry unit, you'll see that unit newly available in the DW even though you don't have Non-Linear Maths. Now, select that unit and change the chassis, and voila... Impact Rovers, Impact Skimships, Impact anything you like, without having the right technology. Just one example of how the DW, innovative though it is, can be used to "cheat". Incidentally, all the PBEM games I know of forbid this kind of thing.

Nell... not tired of SMAC yet, not by a long shot...

posted 07-14-99 04:55 PM ET            

Hate to burst your bubble, Dowdc, but as a grizzled vet of CIV II, I had zero learning curve to beating SMAC on Transcend level. Did it on the first try--no modification of Civ II strategies required. I can also tell you for a fact that it is much easier to beat SMAC on Transcend (can do it realiably every time) than it is to beat CIV II on Deity level (requires sweating out a real seriously difficult first hundred turns or so before your Civ is on solid enough footing to know it's a winner). As for live multiplayer, thanks to SMAC's clunkier interface and additional layers of time-consuming micromanagement, not to mention the much greater reward for implementing rush strategy, the playability/replay factor is not even a close contest: Civ II wins hands down.

posted 07-14-99 06:48 PM ET            

Dowdc, I hate to burst your bubble, but SMAC is not that good OR original. It is BARELY evolutionary. If it was not for the fact that Sid and Brian had LEFT Microprose, they probably would have gone DIRECTLY to Civ3 and skipped SMAC.

SMAC *did* reuse a lot of old Civ2 code. How much got modified and thrown away over the entire development cycle is a matter of question, but there is still Civ2 code in it. One of the items they MENTION in their designer diaries and notes is tossing the old graphic engine for Jackal, the new one they came up with to show elevation. Nice addition to a flat rectangle map in my opinion...

We can debate how much like the Civs are to SMAC. That is a favorite topic around here, but if you stick around long enough, and play enough SMAC, you too will join the Dark side. Its just the way it is.

Now... my turn to take issue with a few things...

They wrote SMAC to make serious money and enjoy writing an empire building TBS Conquest game. It uses the basic UI and concepts that are so popular from the past for the reason that they came up with a LOT of that, and like it. So they had no reason to change it.

UI Steps forward... Visual Elevation, Context (Right Click) Menu, City Names and WHAT they are building being on Main Map screen, Custom Window Frames and non-Windows standard for their two main menus on Screen.

Steps backward... No Rotation of world map (flattenning does not meet all needs), World is still on a big cyclinder, ALWAYS Simple 7 at game start, no game play-balance, ICSing (Infinite City), Combat System (Simple Attacker Strength vs Defender Strength), Insane Diplomacy (Warring on Profitable/Helpful Trusty Allies due to Governmental (er, SE) Changes), Rushing from Turn 1 Enabled, Planet... (the barbarian leader)

The list is a long one, and I plan I doing other things today.

Shining had the Peace Now/Attack Later formula wrong. SMAC is one of the games where short distance warfare is a must, mid-range warfare is rewarded heavily, and long range raid warfare often yeilds whole continents. Unlike the Civs, which tries to model the military advances of history, which brings about the War(Mounted)-War (Catapult)-War(Cannons)-Build ERA/Switch to Rep/CRUSADE FOREVER cycle of wars and expansion spurts, SMAC offers little to the defender until a great many turns have passed. That enables the Crusade Forever from Turn 1. When done so, this allows the Player to control the entire flow of the game, leading to victory. There is no reason to wait (other than personal enjoyment), as the Computer will wage war (and has extra rules to do so on you) and will start building for it quickly. Most successful strategies of players revolve around beating the snot out of the other factions... then performing their favored victory action. Whether that's economic conquest or transcendance, most plan on warring until bored or the opposition is trimmed enough to win. THAT is what SMAC does.

It's Opponent Engine has been expanded, but its still got a lot of room to grow. Firaxis hopes to address some of that in the SMACX, where it learns to better use Naval, Marine, and Air units and some of their basic tactics. But don't expect even a 1/10th improved computer controlled opposition. This is due to the appraise at unit opportunity, set orders, style of command SMAC uses. We will reorder everything to suite our new objectives, while the computer does not. So just because they change the Op En to shoot its missiles first, send in the choppers, send in the bombers, send in the troops rather than in whatever order they come across the units (probably order of creation), won't make it significantly clever. Nor will having foils or cruisers escort transport craft... The logic deciding things will still be monofiliment thin compared to that great grey calculator sitting in your skull, and you'll stick kick its butt.

Civ2 Masters DID indeed master SMAC in but a few games at the most. Why? The underlieing design is the same. Its still a 4X war game. People seem to forget the war part TOO easily in that... The game design revolves around that, and so did its ancestory. Everything else is mere icing. And when treated like a war game, it performs just like that...

As an old time Mainframe Empire GOD PRIMUS, I can tell you that SMAC has removed all the extra bells and whistles and hoops that were put in to slow US, The Warlords and Conquestadors, down and BUILD for a few turns. It's nice to be able to unleash the Ants again. But I do miss how the programmers, mere college kids and system admins mostly, were able to make a computer opponent play well with the information that ITS troops could see, rather than this cheap cheat used in contemporary games. It played by the same rules as the You, and for a brain dead moron, it did pretty well in its world. If only SMAC could claim the same...

Now, if you will excuse me, its time I go and watch another 6 factions get crushed under the great Army Ants...

posted 07-15-99 12:43 AM ET            

Maybe that was what Brian Reynolds was after? Hummm...

posted 07-15-99 03:38 AM ET            

I disagree strongly with those who say SMAC is unbalanced or solely an "attacker's game." This is simply not true. I can't think of another game that is more balanced. This is really the defining feature of SMAC -- exquisite balance. All 7 factions have their unique strategy, each of which has an equal chance of success within the game. Once 'copters have been toned down, all units have their place but none are dominant. And even attack/defense ratios are balanced, despite what people say. Defense is much easier in SMAC than in Starcraft, say. Much has been given to the defender--AAA vs air, trance vs psi, intrinsic base defense, sensors, tacyon fields, etc... The really good attacking weapons (nerve gas, nukes...) have penalties associated with them that did not previously exist (i.e. economic sanctions). Pact money in general is a good keeper of the peace--if you go to war with someone, you lose their pact income!

The building strategy, too, has new advantages. Pact money, which I've already mentioned, but also the new terrain enhancements (mirrors, condensors, etc..), the wonderful buildings available (hybrid forest, fusion lab, research hospital, etc...), and the new diplomacy options (trading cities, borrowing money, money for tech, tech for money, etc...). All of this favors the build strategy.

When viewed as simply a wargame, SMAC also delivers. The design workshop is certainly a huge leap forward--one can now design units for particular purposes. Psi combat, artillery combat, probe team vs probe team, the disengage rule...all of this is new. Probe teams have more warlike options available. Aggressive use of council votes (raise/lower sea level), or terraforming (connecting/separating continents, hoarding moisture)...all this is new--have you forgotten? Fighter interception of bombers...it goes on...

posted 07-15-99 11:56 AM ET            

Dowdc, I've addressed this point elsewhere and a long time ago. I've already told you once in this thread where to look it up. I'm not going to do your homework for you. Further, the second sentence of the above quote is directly at odds with the statements of the game designers, themselves. Sid and Brian have clearly stated that their primary goal for SMAC was to make the premier single player TBS experience their dominant market niche. Your statement that this game was designed primarily for live multiplay is contradicted by no less authority than the people who made the game.

Further, I made comments about the structural difficulty of multiplay that *you* have now *twice* ignored. I'll repeat them and expand on them for clarity. First, the clunkiness of the interface is time consuming, making multiplay a longer and more tedious esperience than it's predecessor game. Second, micromanagement has been increased across the board--more structures, more units, more terraforming options, more diplomacy--making multiplay a longer and more tedious option than it's predecessor game. Third, some game features will require multiplay to simply grind to a halt for extended periods of time. Notably, the design workshop, but especially when it automatically "upgrades" all unit designs with new reactors. Every time that happens, I have to spend about 15 minutes in the design workshop cleaning up and rearranging. Every time I get a weapons upgrade, that's another five minutes in the workshop. Is a multiplay TBS supposed to grind to a halt every time a new player discovers a weapons tech? I hardly think so.

Further, this game is even buggier in multiplay mode than in single play mode. It is obvious to all the multiplay mode was not seriously beta tested, either in the original design or in any of the patches (especially 4.0, which has now introduced *new* multiplay bugs). Additionally, the game has always been riddled with cheats that sharp players will know how to take advantage of in multiplay mode. The facts are hardly the hallmark of a game that was designed primarily for multiplay.

As to the dominance of rush tactics, I will not even try to recover ground that's all been done so thoroughly. Dig up and read all of the "Transcend Iron Man" threads that were done 2-5 months ago, if you want to know how to *really* play this game effectively (in either single play or multiplayer mode). If you still believe either: (i) that the special defensive abilities of units are actually useful, or (ii) that each faction has any unique strategy of it's own that is superior to simply rushing the map, I submit that it is you who have not yet mastered the game. The personalities of the factions are a thin veneer. This veneer gets ripped away by a few simple rush points in game development.

posted 07-15-99 01:02 PM ET            

Analyst - On the money as always. I am disappointed to find you cannot enjoy patch/enhancement 4. Suppose you will be leaving us shortly for more exciting/challenging/newer games until SMAC X then?

Single player is the way it was designed to be played. Multiplayer was tacked on so that it would be seen as "Current Game Technology" and not a old fuddy-duddy design. Any TRUE Multiplayer design would have started with Hotseat, and upgraded to PBEM. Then the IP mechanism would have been folded in. The design team would then have added the necessary elements and modifications to complete the MP interface and apply lessons learned from the Hotseat throughout the code to better enable MP.

What's that? Why Hotseat first? Because in many ways, that's just a reinitialization/reloading of the game. Except you get to skip the elements of actually reloading. No coordination required with another machine about data. The new Player hits a button, the player map gets updated/swapped, and the game runs on as its normal event driven pace until that player is done, or saves and quits the current game. But they tacked Hotseat on in a PATCH... And its probably about how 20 to 30% of all SMACkers will ever play MP. Then Direct Head-to-Head via Modem against a friend, and finally IP across the Internet. Null modem MPing, LAN MPing, and PBEM will be minorities, although with the mix of SMACkers, PBEM will be the biggest of the three.

But that wasn't how it was done.

SMAC was meant to be on par or excel as compared with Civ2. To some, it does that. To others, its close. And to a vocal minority/majority (?) it fails. But aside from graphics, I wasn't THAT impressed with Civ2 after long exposure to it. It mixed up the play and balance of Civ that I had so enjoyed, and it wasn't on the fun side to me. It was on the hassle side. That reduces fun... the number one concern, after making a profit, for Sid and Brian's company.

Character? There is no CHARACTER to the game. If you want to ROLE PLAY, then go get an RPG game, and go down to the local college campus and find players. Role Play for real, and not in some timid way with a bunch of electrons being pushed around in your computer box. Or approach your significant other, and Role Play there. That should put some SERIOUS sizzle into things if done ok... and we shouldn't hear from you for a long time if done well. But Role Play in SMAC? First off, all of SMAC's leaders are raving psychopaths. Why would you want to RP with any of those? You might need therapy... or at least more human contact. Besides, they are all the same, except for the fact that Deidre likes SE Green, Yang will declare war because you are a Demo... yadda yadda yadda. Yep. ALL the same. They bully the same, raise their mood to you for bribing them the same, declare war for all the same reasons as others... except where the code makes exceptions for SE choices and a couple of behaviour wieghts due to the "Expanist/Perfectionist" parameters. Bah. Role play. It tis to laugh.

Dow, you like the SF setting. Fine. So do I. But I liked Outpost, so we now know my taste. Before you try and take on the "Mad Dark Conquerors/Builder" here, you had better go read those Transcend Ironmen (TI) threads. You will find all your arguements and comments made... and shot down. As I said before, SMAC is a simple War Game that allows some deluded fools into believing they are playing SimCentauri, rather than a simple War Game with a few nice bells and whistles. If that is what you enjoy, more power to you... but you wouldn't stand a chance of pursuing your high tech toys against a War Purist (I like that term better than "Mad Rusher" as not all War Purist "Rush". We just make pre-emptive counter-attacks ). If the AI can't survive past missile tech (with all its advantages) against a War Purist, what makes you believe that your build until Shard weapons/Tachy and Perim in my bases with Aero and Command and Naval and Bio and Hybrid Forests and Fusion Labs and Bio Labs and .... ???

The Builder is just plain screwed when the items he has built are non War related and someone is out to get him before the grow old and DIE of boredom... The only REAL early game defense against the War Purist is geography. A good start of distance MIGHT buy you those 80 or 100 or however many turns you need to start getting your empire ready for attack. But if you are only 10 to 40 tiles distant, those enemy troops will be coming to knock on your door to take over that lovely base you just built for them...

If you want the arguments, go read the TI threads. Think about it, and then come back, and we can debate it some. But it does take extremes to counter-balance the built-in favoritism of Conquer over Build in the game. This is a good thing from MP point of view, as it means shorter games...

And your statement that SMAC is the best game ever is an opinion. And certainly not shared by the majority HERE on the boards. Wow, how about that? But its better than Doom or Quake, which is why we are here, and not playing Doom or Quake.

posted 07-15-99 02:06 PM ET            

As someone who voiced these same concerns the week the game came out, I salute you for your ability to post without the nasty personal attacks I had to endure. You are all right on target.

Analyst: When you post, I feel that you have the authority of Charleton Heston when he played Moses. There's not much to add once you speak. However, I do wish to briefly step out of my place to challenge you on one small point. I can see that your rush strategy concepts could easily fall apart in the MP games for two reasons.

First, the necessity of small maps means that all players will be rapidly in contact with each other. Therefore, tech trading, credits and unit gifting can all be effectively used to corral a warmonger.

Second, factions will be controlled by people and not the ai. These people have emotions and preferences and these are much more effective in diplomacy than any ai. Case in point, there was a board TBS game around 15 years ago(like Axis & Allies)that was based in the Napoleonic period. As the Prussians, I cut the French line of supply at a critical juncture because the French player offered me 2nd place. It was ultimately worth it to me to surrender to the Russians in order to prove the point that I play to win and not for 2nd place.

Darstar: A correction on one point as well. I think it unfair to wargames to give any credit to any of the Civ games as being wargames. Squad Leader is a war game. So is OAW. SMAC doesn't even come close(IMHO). SMAC is an attritional doomfest that my dog is likely to out-general. That is why the rush strategies work so well. A real war game allows for a superior general to beat numerically and technologically superior opponents, not outlast them.

Shiny1: I almost fell off my chair when I saw how you now feel. You're almost a reincarnation of me from March/April. Don't tell me you're starting to get a taste for Toohey's as well

posted 07-15-99 02:36 PM ET            

On the point of Human players... Ah. And if they are working to contain a Mad Dog Conquestador, then they are not playing the Soft and Civil game of SimCentauri, are they? They are playing something more in lines of Diplomacy... scheming how to keep the aggressor in his or her place while improving theirs... and building a military. The worst thing about a military in a game is not using it, and many Builders do not believe in any Inefficency. Might as well make that unit worth the cost... and that leads to double crosses and wars... Not always, but enough...

How many people tech trade the big ones? I have seen WAY too many games drop in the pot as soon as Air units came around... everyone sharing-sharing-sharing so that they can do some building on the side and keep an reserve force to throw against any invasions by the Hounds of War on two legs... and then one of the Great Allies get Air Power... or MMI, and in a few turns... Chiron Wide War. Why? What changed? Nothing, other than they got there pet Techs that they feel safe and powerful enough... and then they discover that the sharing was bad, as their former buddies, who are TICKED about being betrayed and used and not getting the first punch, finish the research and get those same techs...

So what is the backlash of that? They are stopping sharing tech now a couple of steps away from those supposedly critical techs... Mind you, in any game with less than 7 humans in it, unless it is a designed scenario, there are those silly SMAC Opponent Engine Factions, who can trade, steal, sell, or manipulate as always. And most players do everything they can get away with... So those Hawks looking for a meal don't have many problems keeping up with the Jones (as it were).

Now, uncleroggy, would you prefer I only call it a Conquest game? That isn't the same as War game, and includes wars of numbers and attritions... You are very correct. There is no comparison to Squad leader... I do believe I said that a few times... a World Conquest game. Those tend to be grouped in the War game category, by most. But I do understand your point quite well.

posted 07-15-99 03:29 PM ET            

I'd say that you just hit a home run!

MP should and will play more like Diplomacy and every player will hit a point where they want to roll the dice and make the big move. However, I was specifically addressing the early rush game issue as everyone wants to "survive" long enough to reach the point you described.

I cannot offer any help in what to name the games in terms of genre. However, I will submit that if the diplomatic and economic aspects of these games are stressed rather than only the fighting, we will all wind up with a more challenging and enjoyable experience. Please refer to my "totally bloodless victory" thread from several months ago to see that I have espoused this philosophy for some time.

My fear is that we are seeing a blurring of the lines between RTS and TBS due to the immense success of games like AOE,HOMM and Starcraft. The result is that the uncertainty of "just one more turn" of old is being replaced by the "just one more battle" of RTS. That's why I call them doomfests.

Finally, I agree that everyone ultimately wants to sally forth with their army and vanquish the unwashed. The problem with SMAC and the others is that the results are too predictable as the A/I is no "smarter" on transcend than any other level. That's why Analyst, you, me and many others have not found this game to be a challenge since day 1.

uncleroggy out

posted 07-15-99 06:13 PM ET            

I just re-read your post as I didn't pick up on your aforementioned insults. I don't think you have much to apologizefor. Hate to tell you this, but whatever you referenced might not come close to the purgatory like flames that dominated the forum immediately following the release. Now those were the days when the forum dripped with venom!

Needless to say, I followed Analyst's advice back then that it's difficult to find nuggets of knowledge when you're wallowing in filth. I vowed from then on that I would only post in constructive threads like this and that I wouldn't allow myself to be baited into flame wars as I was prone to do in the past. Besides, maybe we can do something constructive and show Firaxis and others how to make a game that all can find challenging.

posted 07-16-99 02:29 AM ET            

As for battle of the day, I disagree with the notion that there is a difference between TBS and RTS games - virtually all TBS games also revolve around wiping out your opponent as quickly as possible. The difference is that SMAC promises much more, and doesn't deliver. You've heard of a game called SimCity? It sells because it offers, at least in the crude, virtual form, the chance to build a thriving 'empire'. Or fail at it. Granted, it gets dull eventually, but then that was the great point about Civ - between the desire to build a large, happy population, and the desire or necessity to fight wars for conquest or self defense (depending on your mood and general inclination), the game never got dull. But it was the building aspect, as much as or more than the warfare one, that made Civ a million seller instead of just another one dimensional wargame.

SMAC tries immitates Civ on this level - I mean, the leaders, though erratic under the A.I, are not meant to be a pack of raving psychopaths. Deirdre is gentle, Morgan is rich, Zak is smart, etc. Roleplaying, as such, isn't so much the issue as the obvious promise of being able to play using different, balanced styles. This is a lie, and the game suffers for it.

My basic point being that Civ and SMAC *should* be about a basic balance between conquest and building, instead of favouring one or the other. Personally, I like big empires, I like massive amounts of terraforming, I want every base to have a Nanohospital and Paradise Garden, and I want a horde of satellites providing power, food and minerals. (Incidentally, I don't particularly want to have to micromanage all this into existence for 60 bases, but then that's yet another issue to whinge about, isn't it.)

And I enjoy the odd battle, especially of the 'repel the mongol invaders' type, and most especially against a difficult opponent who puts all of this wonderous infrastructure at risk. This is the essence of the single player game - isolationist builder strategies are fairly anti-social when it comes down to it, and, as any hardcore RTS player knows, playing SimCity with the infrastructure indicates either a deathwish or unspeakable arrogance. This is why multiplayer SimCity isn't yet sweeping the world like Quake did.
(Incidentally, Dowdc, multiplayer SMAC rates a very, very distant third to Quake or Starcraft.)

In fact, maybe roleplaying is a reasonable description for it - better certainly than just setting out to repeated thrash a weak A.I .

Old Warrior: Yeah, I should have mentioned that. An enormous amount of time is being a little kind, but maybe an enormous number of changes would be accurate. My current change list is longer than the alpha.txt file, and there isn't much that hasn't been altered in some form or other...

The significant new changes:
* 5 new techs
* Cheaper early infrastructure and terraforming
* Better intrinsic base defense and sensor defense.
* Cheaper air/sea complexes, but with increased energy cost.
* More free abilities to defenders
* Delaying copters to Homo Superior (makes a HUGE difference to the mid game)
* Allowing human players to use near infinite range missiles, though at increased cost.
* Increased cost for the ultrapowerful late game secret projects.
* Earlier PB defenses available, and cheaper PB's to match (lots of fun...)
* Delayed arrival of weapon systems until *after* the respective armour type is available, and changed some of the weapon names to overcome FirX obsession with "'Insert-tech-word-here' lasers" (I mean for chrissake, what's the difference between fusion lasers and quantum lasers? What ARE fusion and quantum lasers?)

Nell:
Version 1.1 is nearly ready, I just had to tone down Morgan's ability to ruthless exploit the SE. And I got destracted in the help file writing explainations for the weapons. I had to stop at the Tachyon Bolts, however; while my own ability to write bullsh*t physics explinations meets and exceeds Brians, even I didn't buy my excuse for Tachyon interaction on second reading...
The rest is contained in the above list, or else you already know about it.

Incidentally, the real reason SMAC really irritates me now is HoMMIII. This game is a real conqueror TBS, and makes no apologies for this (if you want to build, then build a massive, well balanced army), and features a fair, and occasionally stunning A.I (like when it produced a attack 21 defense 20 hero and killed EVERYTHING I owned!!), an excellent combat system, good interface, and wonderful graphics. What sophistication it lacks compared to SMAC it makes up for in gameplay and personality. And 3DO really listens to its fans, going so far as to cancel part of a planned expansion due to a fan backlash. A great company, and not an SM'sXX in sight. Amazing.

posted 07-16-99 11:44 AM ET            

Maybe I missed something, but I don't think that it is evil to have logical, well thought out disagreements with this game. So, I don't think you're evil and there is nothing to be gained from feeling disappointed. Never.

Instead, I would characterise your early comments(March/April) of the game as youthful exuberance where you saw great potential and hoped that SMAC would be a dream come true(for the most part). Now I see you as someone who has expended tremedous personal effort to change, modify and correct this game and you see it now for what it really is. The net effect is that you have treated some of the symptoms to make the game more enjoyable, yet you now realize the underlying disease has no cure.

I would suggest that you feel let down and disappointed and that you will look at these things with a bit more skepticism from now on. This is certainly not evil either. Rather, it is the natural progression of the old adage "fool me once..., fool me twice..." I just happen to have been fooled more times than you so I hit this point a little quicker.

Regarding TBS/RTS. I have to disagree. RTS is by it's very nature a shoot-em-up. Nothing more, nothing less(well except for manual dexterity). TBS however, has provided the opportunity to grow, expand and dominate through economic, scientific and diplomatic means as well. If we use your model, then these other ideas simply become variables to be manipulated in order to facilitate military conquest. In short, that's one of the glaring problems with SMAC. You don't need to trade and the factions/social engineering are easily manipulated by even a novice. Therefore, you have proven my point as it is just one more battle as a competent player will manipulate these factors in order to fight under their own terms.

You are also right on target regarding your builder ideas. However, I hope you don't mind if I add one point. You can only have a balanced conqueror/builder game if the economic and diplomatic aspects are as sophisticated and powerful as the fighting. Only through the skillful exercise of these tools can a builder exert enough leverage to keep from being sucked in. Every one of these games suggests great promise, yet falls short in this area.

Finally, I would suggest one additional point. Another way to provide balance to the games is through the scarcity of the resources. The current models provide everything to everyone and that simply provides no leverage. Let's see, how much oil do you Kiwi's pump out? Not much I'd bet. Likewise, the US is equally deficient in oil and many "strategic metals". Why do you think we fought the Gulf War?

I want Toohey's, I want Toohey's!

posted 07-16-99 12:22 PM ET            

**Booming Voice** Uncleroggy, remove your shoes! For the ground you walk upon is hallowed!

Um, I don't mean to squelch replies, just poorly reasoned ones

Anyway, in response to your point on human multiplay behavior being different than AI, I have to chime in with Darkstar and say that he's got it right. Multiplay behavior in Civ, CivII and SMAC is all the same: everybody tries to research to a certain pet tech level, then stops, shifting everything to a war footing at a certain point. On small maps, the tech research basically stops once contact is made and the warring in earnest begins. The reason is that in multiplay, diplomats/probe teams rule the roost. No point in reseaching techs just so your enemy can steal them the turn after you aquire them. And unless you turn spoils of war off in SMAC (not an option in CIV) conquered bases are going to change hands with enough reliable frequency to make trying to guard against tech theft a moot point.

I agree with you that humans *should* employ the same kind of multilateral alliance tactics in SMAC as in Diplomacy, but the reality is that they don't. I tend to think that the reason is that, for all it's pretensions to the contrary, SMAC is more the "doomfest" than the strategy game that Diplomacy is. In Diplomacy, cooperation with others is a necessary prerequisite to success at multiple points in the game. In SMAC, everybody can build their own army without help. Consequently, SMAC players are much less inclined to see when it is appropriate to either send help or ask for it. They will regard their own strategy as parmount and typically will give too little heed to other events until far too late.

Also, Uncleroggy at the risk of breaking my arm, I'm going to reach around and pat myself on the back. I think that my own participation on these boards a few months ago did a lot to break the cycle of the ugly flame wars. You might not realize it, but my "Construtive Criticism for Brother Greg and Firaxis" was my very first post to this forum (and of course, you do know that it was inspired as a counterpoint to the flame wars you were embroiled in part of at the time). Quite a little self-introduction, eh? It was undoubtedly the most comprehensive indictment of the product posted to these boards to date. Yet, no one ever flamed me and no one dared call me "newbie" or dismiss my posts on that basis. You'll never in a million years be able to disabuse me of my self-satisfied notion that the sudden interest in civil discourse about the game's flaws that followed the success of that thread was an accident Go ahead. Just try. Won't work.

Alexnm, I'm happy for you. Sincerely. If you get pleasure out of approaching the game on a certain level and it meets all of your criteria there, SMAC-on! Many of us, however, feel that the game fell short of both our expectations and its potential. Hard to say whether we are the game-purchasing majority or not, but either way, we will let our own feelings be heard. Where Dowdc fried my bacon was in his baseless assertions regarding the level of game mastery of posters to this thread and the "SMAC is meant for multiplayer" stuff. I'll gladly listen to any opinon, as long as that opinion is based on correct facts in the first instance.

posted 07-16-99 01:17 PM ET            

Uncleroggy - Actually, we fought the Gulf War to keep Gas (Petro to you Brits) prices down to about $1 a gallon. The USoA has a lot of oil reserves, and we bring up and awful lot... but we use even more. After the Oil fields in the Middle East, and out in the North Seas, we have the Third, Fourth, Eighth largest... etc etc. We just are that wasteful and Morganite about it. The worst thing OPEC did, other than form, of course, was to cut the USA off. We are a content and isolationist people until you irritate us, and then we generally do something about it. Like Deep Sea Drilling, in that case, as well as to actually LOOK and advance searching technologies to find Oil and Natural Gas reserves.

Shining1... It's wild to be in a game that is so top heavy with "Infrastructure" and research, and realize that you will only regularly use maybe 6 structures, 25% of the weapons, 4 types of Armor, 4 to 6 special mods (clean, police, deep radar, Air Super [maybe Gas or Super Former if available] ), about 4 (to 6) Chassis types (Inf, Rov, Foil [and Cruiser if available], Jet [and Chopper if avail]). All those options, and what do you do? I have been tinkering with a mod to reduce the complexity of options for the Opponent Engine (OE or Opp Eng). If the complexity is reduced, maybe it will play a little better... Its a small hope. Or, maybe I will just end up with Empire on Chiron. Although that would be fun. My Empire Deluxe is awful dated...

It's not that your are Evil by being on the Darkside. Although your (former?) fellow Builders in SMAC might call you that now. It's that you just realize how many bells and whistles are in this World Conquest game called SMAC. I too would rather it had been more Civ like in its game play... Diplomacy with Civ elements would be even better, but I think Diplomacy is still beyond the Computer Game Designers capabilities in a 12 month (Long time that) commercial production capabilities, and probably a little past the current PC machine's number crunching capacity in a timely manner...

I would LOVE to see a game where one builds one's nation into a super-power through research and investment into the Great Infrastructure, of carving out from the landscape of vast forest, mountains, hills, swamps new places to build cities and colonies... of only having to fight wars to defend my borders from expanist powers who are fighting others to keep their unhappy people focused on an enemy and not themselves... and to occasionally have to band with my fellow neighbors to stop a would be emporer or a wantabe living god (Such as Hitler, Hannible, Alexander The Great, William The Conquerer, Julius Ceaser, Abraham Licoln ... [A little Johny Reb humor for our own MtG and JimmyTrick if they are around]). Afterwards, we continue with the alliance, due to growing trade, research, and mutual defense/military might until... A) a great scandal of a failed assassination/kidnapping of a fellow leader by a newly arisen Power Broker in a member nation causes the alliance to shatter, and border wars to break out, or B) We annex the heck out of each other, as our cultures and people have become so intermixed that a new mighty nation made up of the former allies is born... with you as the key Power Broker/Leader, of course. Now, THAT would be a true Builder victory... to have other nations join with yours, forming a new greater nation... that would help balance the Conqueror spoils of taking the land by force...

Of course, it will be a long time until we see such a game... maybe if we write it will be the only way...

posted 07-16-99 01:39 PM ET            

Re Oil:

If we fought the gulf war to pay a buck a gallon, then why am I paying $1.50 a gallon here in San Diego? Does that mean you're getting to pay 50 cents? If so, you owe me a rebate!

Seriously though, your argument is well taken. Gas at market prices yes. However, if SADDAM(pronounced SAD DAMN by George Bush) would have held Kuwait, he would have controlled 1/5th of the world's available oil. This only proves my point that he would have had a disproportionate amount of leverage for the size and strength of his country. I'm only saying that this type of stuff is sorely lacking in the current Civ games and needs to be included if we are ever going to have a balanced builder/conqueror game.

BTW, I like your analogy of "SIMCIV". I think it's right on target. Maybe we're all looking for a cross between SIMCIV and Diplomacy to make this all really work.

posted 07-17-99 04:00 AM ET            

Actually, it was your comment a couple of days ago about the weapons appearing before the armour that provided the missing piece to the puzzle. Now, all weapons occur later than the respective armour type needed to defend against them - which with the extra defense bonuses for base/sensors, at least makes early defense an option. You can of course tech rush toward the desired weapons, but this will leave your empire in a fairly anemic state. I'll post the full list of changes tomorrow, and you can shoot me down in flames then .

In addition, reducing the cost of the early Infrastructure makes it more of a requirement than a luxury. Ultimately, it's still a conqueror game - but you can force a conqueror to build, as well. For instance, a Network Node now costs 50, instead of 80. That's about the price of an Impact Rover, instead of two Impact Rovers.

As for "Eeville" (Mike Myers Accent), I was being ironic. I've been a member of the 'Darkside' for a while now. And there's nothing wrong with constructive critism, except that its going to take an awful lot of same to get SMAC back into the realms of the AAA. That's the challenge. ("Bring me the head of JKM on a plate. And a slab of Tooheys. And a...")

Uncleroggy: Actually I thought you fought the gulf war because congress was dissin' your stealth fighters and you needed to take the heat of the Japanese, before they became the new russia. Now you have Saddam and his Kardboard Koran thumping Towelheads as your racial enemy of the week, instead of the robotic, humourless, remorselessly efficient Japanese. Oil is a nice excuse, though, and the cynical amounst us certainly bought it . (I'm joking, of course. But it did work out that way...)

Tooheys will be widely available in the U.S in approximately 200 years, or at least whenever congress stops laughing behind their sleeves about free trade and actually does something about it, instead of establishing NEW tarriffs and so forth. No I will not shut up about this. You want my stuff, the least you can do is let me sell it to you fairly.

Analyst: Do I stand alone in taking your comments less than seriously? We both know that SMACX holds enough potential to fix this game, IF FiX listens to what the T.Is et al have been saying. Besides, with Darkstar being seduced by the real darkside, and Yin already far far away in the Galaxy of CivIII in his position as a servant to the evil emperor (and now me, too), there's at least temporary position open for you as chief critic .

OldWarrior: A very slow RTS? You mean like T.A:Kingdoms ? Well, yes, while I can change the game to require the player to focus on infrastructure and defense, I can't change the FOCUS of the game, which ultimately is more toward beat-em-up than build-em end of the spectrum.

posted 07-17-99 11:39 AM ET            

You made me LMAO

Also, I'm glad to see that you still hold a glimmer of hope that SMACX will hold some promise. I for one think it will be Dead on Arrival if it uses the same game concepts. I say this because Darkstar appears to be on track that the only way to put the balance/challenge into the game is by marrying the SIMCIV concept with Diplomacy. I just don't see this happening until CIV III, CIV IV, or maybe CIV XXIII as there is too much money to be made by releasing a SMACX. IE, a glorified modpack.

BTW, I have another idea. How about we package your SNAC 6.0 with a 12 packof Tooheys? I'd volunteer to be the local distributor.

Re: RTS

If you can show me an RTS that requires more brain than manual dexterity, I will buy it and play it. This will be quite a challenge for you since I only type 25 WPM BTW, AOK is on the local shelves. Haven't the oxcarts been able to get it to your local store? Seriously though. I'd be happy to pick up and mail a copy to you if you want. Just send me an email.

posted 07-17-99 06:15 PM ET            

I just emailed you back but I will post for all to see. I was at COMP USA last week and they had a note up that AOK would be out this week. I had the same info as you that fall would be the release so I asked a clerk to verify. They couldn't find any additional information and told me to come by this weekend. Since I have to drive by COMP USA anyway, I'll drop by and let all of you know if they made an error or if it's the real deal. In any event, I have no problem helping people with copies as one of you might return a similar favor for me one day.

posted 07-17-99 09:24 PM ET            

Some facts: There is a reported Trans vistory on 2263 on a large map. There are 3 reported Trans victories around 2240 on standard maps and there is a reported trans victory on 2229 on a small map. Two of these games are mine the others by other players (I have seen saves). All of these games were on TI level.

So I want to ask all of you conquerors, how fast do you conquer the world? Because to prove your point you have to be able to do it a lot earlier. After all, Transcendence victory is the highest goal. It is expected to take longer.

About the game favoring the one who hits first and the 2-1 ratio, it's true but is it bad? If the defender has prepared for an attack and has units with attacking capability who will attack first after all? The defender who will see the enemy rovers coming if he has built a sensor or the invader who will be in a completely unchartered territory?

I think the game only favors a clever conqueror playing against a stupid or naive builder, that's all. But I agree that you cannot hope to win this game in MP if you don't build an army. Also, for any kind of fast score against the AI, again an army is essential.

Some people ask for a game who will emphasize on building. Or one who will be only building and no war. I would really like a game like that. Only this game isn't there yet and certainly isn't SMAC.

posted 07-17-99 11:10 PM ET            

Just came back(actually a couple of hours ago because I have been reading the MOO manual) from COMP USA and I have to print a retraction.

They mixed up "Total Annihilation Kingdoms" TAK for AOK. The manager assurred me that it was an honest mistake. I surely felt sorry for him as he seemed to have been getting a lot of grief for this. Oh well, sorry for the wild goose chase. Remember our Brotherhood Pacts before you drop a PB on my sorry A##. BTW, the offer still stands for people who have difficulty in getting a copy. This store usually get stuff right on opening day and they always have plenty on hand.

However, my foray turned out to be a success afterall. I got my hands on a copy of MOO II for $15. I never played this game before and I hope some of you can send me some quick tips since so many of you seem to love it.

Alkis, all I can say is too things. First, I'm sure that Analyst(AKA "Moses" to me) will soon set you straight on the conqueror imbalance. I don't have time because I have to play MOOII. Second, many of us have restrained our desire to romp and stomp in order to squeeze a little life out of this unchallenging game. Therefore, our games run artificially long. I'm sure that Analyst or some of the others that are part of the gloom & doom squad have games that will amaze you. All I can say is that the game is over for me when I decide to fight.

Oh well, time to play MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

posted 07-18-99 02:07 AM ET            

However in your first part you say you have victories on large maps (I take it it's on TI level) in less than 100 years. So please send me a save.

All I know is this. Once Dilitiumdam challenged bragging conquerors to send him a save where they conquered everything on the huge map of the planet before 2250. You know something, nobody appeared.

So, if you people claim something, prove it. Otherwise you will just "believe what you prefer to be true".

I don't mean to say that a conquest victory isn't faster than a trans victory, but it is expected to be that way since transcending is the highest goal. Diplomatic is an even faster goal because you can just conquer a portion of the world and then get elected.

And about this game being too easy, wasn't Civ2 also too easy? I bet most of you who find SMAC easy could win on Deity level with raging hordes 100% of the times.

posted 07-18-99 05:26 AM ET            

Singularity has a Transcend Total Conquest Victory on Huge Map Of Planet before 2250. Dilithium Dad had to back down to "Only special HUGE engineered maps will guarantee enough geographical distance with enough fungus to prevent a Conqueror rush. Maybe." to BEGIN with, and it really is just a matter of starting position.

I myself managed one with Gaians at 2292. I haven't serious felt like trying since, as Huge maps are just BORING to me, especially premade ones I have played on a few times. It only takes one start where the computer has dropped everyone down close, and the "challenge" was over. And since your empire size is limited by Efficency, why bother wasting the time on a huge map? Other than a better chance for starting isolation, of course.

To date, my average game length on an Average map is in the range of 90 to 120 turns, depending on the particular options I play. If I add Unity pods (I don't normally leave these in), time drops. If I decide to run the tree rather than my normal Blind Tech On, Time drops. Its just a fact of life. The game IS a World Conquest game that allows builders to enjoy doing something else in between the wars. For the true pacifist, they added Transcendance (rather than build a spaceship to go back to earth). But they only tested the Conqueror "Rush". Both the In-House and in Beta except once or twice... just to make sure [From everything we have heard to date]. What does that tell you?

Oh... my best standard game is total conquest on turn 2156 or so. Shorter than any of my Tiny map victories. Why? Everyone was started near me. Every pod I popped pratically yeilded energy for an instant upgrade and Rovers. Ran right over the enemy. (The only faction not situated within 10 tiles of me and easy river travel was Morgan, and I had a 2-1-1 trooper gated to his capital. Trooper went knocking, new city gilded in gold paint for me.) The only DEFENSE to "early rush" is be the Hive, and HOPE for serious geographical seperation.

Shining, glad to hear you restacked the weapons versus armor order. Looking forward to the new SNAC.

I have NO hope for SMACX. It seems to be just more bells and whistles, if entertaining ones.

But after my recent experience with Dungeon Keeper II, I suppose I have to acknowledge that a very BASIC thing that COULD have gone wrong with SMAC, was tested and verified that it didn't. That is... I can ONLY play the game when installed. After that, I have to DEINSTALL the game, and reinstall it if I want to play another instance. Bullfrog's answer? Just keep deinstalling and reinstalling then. We got your money, and don't give two figs... we are working on DKIII now.

Wonder of wonders... that crappy corporate attitude is spreading. Pretty soon, I will go back to pirating (a practice I haven't done since a young teen with no money). No reason to give pissant companies my money if they aren't going to bother taking their product quality serious, or their customer complaints (seems they have a LOT of complaints from USoA folks over the same issue...) . Open Source/Free-ware games become more appealing every day...

posted 07-18-99 05:40 AM ET            

The reason being that reviews on the internet travel at the speed of light, so you can't take advantage of that first week sales hype unless you get the product out all at the same time. Hence the popularity of world wide releases, I'll bet.

As for SMACX, this will, unfortunately, be the real test for Firaxis. They know what we think, they''ve had six months of largely constructive criticism about SMAC and it's flaws, and they have a change to substatially improve it. Should this not happen, of course, and SMACX turns out to be seven new factions, a couple of chassis, and a new secret project tacked on to the original game, then my opinions of firaxis will fall dramatically.

As for RTS, most single player games can be won by boredly clicking the mouse slowly and repeatedly, once you know the ways to use the units. Multiplayer is of course won by the dexterious and the lucky as much as by the skilled, so you're correct so far with the current brand of RTS games, although learning the Attack/Move interface and carefully planning your groups will help a great deal in starcraft (though you do need a typist's knowledge of the keyboard to use the special abilities convincingly). The one exception to this rule seems to be AoE, which I found to be a great deal of fun when you play SIMCITY with the villages, instead of doing archer rushes or the like. While it doesn't quite have the enjoyment factor of Starcraft (I just LOVE running those Marines though a Zerg base with the volume up and the machine guns sounds ringing in my ears), it is very relaxing in it's own way. Make a huge map with one enemy and one ally and just enjoy the pace of 4000BC for a while.

Thanks for the games offer - I might take you up on that.

I've got Tooheys, I've got Tooheys!

Alkis: Did anyone finish CivII on Deity level in 150 turns with either a conquest or Space Ship victory? I'd love to see that. But you might be right, in the sense that one of the irritating things about the conqueror style is that, as well as being dull (lack of graphics, etc), it's also incredibly easy. The combination of offensive units and probe teams is devastating to the A.I, and the only reason to run out games to the full length is to get a higher score. And the aggressiveness of the A.I is the main reason that the conqueror approach becomes heavily favoured - eventually you just crack under the constant seething attitude of your enemies and launch needle jets in every direction.

posted 07-18-99 08:44 AM ET            

i can say one thing though. a rush in home world is nearly impossible to pull off. a quick victory is unlikely especially if your opponent is paying attention. right now the game plays a little bit on the slow side but it looks wonderful. if you have a new video card and a good processor you're in for a real visual treat. at time the battles look very cinematic, and there are all kinds of little touches to the game. it's a great game but i''m wondering why it's not as addictive as starcraft

posted 07-18-99 04:38 PM ET            

Now, I'll indulge the notion for a moment that the early transcend games you are talking about actually employed some genuine form of building strategy. The question is only slightly modified, though: what happens to the efficiency of that building strategy if that faction is located anywhere within reach of the map-rushing conquerer? Better start building military units or die. End of building strategy, isn't it?

Your attempt to compare the swiftness of a conquer victory and the swiftness of a transcend victory is entirely inapposite. The conquerer doesn't have to meet his victory condition faster than the builder to win. All he has to do is *find* the builder on the map, sometime before the builder completes the Voice. Once the conquerer makes *contact* with the builder, the building strategy is finished (and if it's the ICS strategy that was in play--that goes double). The contact date is the critical comparison date, not the transcend victory date.

posted 07-18-99 05:23 PM ET            

What I do when I play SMAC is conquer my own continent. I beat the other factions on my continent but I don't eliminate them. Then, for me, is a lot easier to transcend than load transports and invade the other continents. Even easier is a diplomatic victory. Therefore I wouldn't say that the game favors a conquest victory. But I would definately say that playing too peacefully is a mistake.

There is the possibility that all factions may be on the same continent and very near. Then you can conquer all in maybe 50-60 turns. But this will not happen all the times. What I mean to say is that you have to modify your strategy according to the map and the position. That is unless you make a lot of tries to get the position that suits you. But if you do that the game will become less interesting for you.

posted 07-18-99 05:27 PM ET            

Sorry, I can't resist the ox cart jibes every now and then. You see, the local Foster's commercials make those of you from down under look like Neanderthal's. They show room service as a guy being handed a live chicken and a cleaver! Just don't use that cleaver on me!

Re: RTS. Please don't misunderstand me. There's some great things in RTS and their popularity shows that I'm in the minority viewpoint. I simply don't like them because I lack the manual dexterity.

On the other hand, I am becoming concerned with some of the influences from RTS and shooter games being applied to TBS. I strongly feel that BR and other game designers emulate and immitate from their contemporaries. I take issue with them when they poorly implement those ideas or include them in a purely gratuitous fashion.

Take combat for example. The combat system is wholly imbalanced to favor the attacker. Not only does this prevent you from the effective use of a defensive posture, but it eventually forces you to rock-n-roll as your annoyance level goes through the roof. I have spent more time than is necessary making this point to BR and his patented response is that the combat occurs as it does as they feel this is the way that makes the game the most fun. I say hogwash. This is only "fun" for those who don't enjoy a challenge.

Consequently, we wind up with this ceaseless, mindless, attritional doomfest rather than a combat system that revolves around the idea that a player needs to use their forces wisely or face dire consequences.

Perhaps you can now better see why I have staked out this position. We are slowly moving away from the cerebral, strategic, diligent game of TBS and turning it into the "Just on more Battle" of RTS. As a result, SMACX, CIV III and everything else in the foreseeable future are going to be great disappointments to those of us who are discussing this now. Then again, I'll happily eat my words if Firaxis or their competition do something to prove me wrong.

uncleroggy out

posted 07-18-99 10:01 PM ET            

your reply to alkis was misunderstanding i transcended in 2229 and i did not use any ICS trickery. it was pure and simple conquer five factions as early as possible then co-ordinate everybody's research. what i have concluded is that the fastest way to transcend is to achieve a de facto conquest victory. i think that prove your original point that the computer is too easy to conquer and a butter faction doesn't have a chance against a guns faction.

posted 07-18-99 10:59 PM ET            

I propose to reread my posts and come again posting something on subject. Just to inform you I don't use the ICS and I never play on huge maps. There is no reference on my posts about trans victories on huge maps.

Also state whether you refer to single player or multiplayer. In single player I find it easier to win by transcendence or by diplomatic victory. However I do a little conquest.

You assume I (and other builders) have a certain style of play, that we just build structures and no army etc and you try to prove that this style of play is no good. Great, I agree. Only this style is not the way I play.

I' ve said it many times, a good builder has to take mesures for his defence. That doesn't mean defensive units. For example if I have airpower I can block your army with a couple of interceptors. Just move them there without attacking you. Unless your troops have poor defence. The game certainly favors the one who hits first but this can be exploited by the defender as well. By defender I mean the one who is being invaded.

posted 07-19-99 12:06 AM ET            

As you've noted, a side-effect of favoring defence over attack for much of the game is that diplomacy becomes much more important. I don't know whether the AI would adapt to the new weapon/armor figures, but it's worth a try.

Incidentally, I have considerable success with diplomacy; in my current game my Hive has even persuaded Lal to play ball. The trick is to change to Frontier government when negotiating.

With Deirdre, who's harder to please (being Green wasn't enough), I had to sweeten her with minor gifts. (Btw, she wasn't Green herself! She was Demo/FM/Power.)

AFAIR, Lal and Zak were Demo/FM/Knowledge, Morgan Demo/FM/Wealth, and Santiago may have been Demo/FM/Power like Deirdre. There's a real tech race here, but Miriam's still wiping the floor with the other AI factions, despite my best efforts to help them out.

I think the fullscreen movies are because modern technology can handle them, whereas in Civ2's day, the Quicktime window (or whatever it was) was as much as the low-end Civ2-capable machines could display.

Regarding the initial emphasis on copper-tones, you would think that a game with text references to Razorbeaks and Woods would have some on the map!

Monsoon Jungle, ok, Fungus, ok, Mindworms, ok, but where are the other native life? Planet has been developing for 100 million years since the last great die-out; where's the native plant and animal life that Planet (*so the text tells us*) needs to achieve its incipient self-awareness?

HOMM3? Yes, that's a fair comparison, it's battles being turn-based, entertaining, and a good mental challenge.

The way that Stacks move in HOMM3 should have been a model for SMAC. Each group travels in a stack at the speed of its slowest member, modified by terrain.

The complication in SMAC (as in Space Empires 3) is that injured units travel more slowly. A mechanism is needed to prevent this becoming a micro-management concern (aka a "drag").

Speaking of which, I spend a great part of my time in SMAC re-navigating the Base and Unit lists. Why on Chiron don't these lists remember where they were when you entered them?

Going down the list, Zooming to a base, or Retiring a unit design, then returning to the list, we find that it has zeroed to the top (for bases) or bottom (for units) of the list again! Wrong, wrong, wrong! And such a bore and a pointless chore.

GUI 101 Rule 1: Don't make the user sweat over nothing.

Corollary 1: Design the game to do the housekeeping.

Corollary 2: Make sure the accounting is correct. (Record Of Punishment Spheres' Effect On Research and Battle Odds For Jets Against Mindworms come to mind.)

GUI 101 Rule 2: Keep It Simple (aka Use Tried Technology). The painfully slow graphics is another time-waster. How it's possible in this day and age for the units to travel so slowly is beyond rational expectation. Even 3-year-old Adventure games have much faster and more complex 3D graphics with many events happening at once - yes, and rendered real-time in software! Remember too that SMAC only has one small unit moving at a time!

Brian Reynolds has publicly apologised for the inappropriate decision to use Caviar graphics. A pity it wasn't caught much earlier.

But why are the Battles so slow? With "Fast Battles" set, they still take ages. "Slow Battles" is of course unbearable and what does it add? There should be a setting for "Instant Battles" in which the result is immediate. Who really wants to watch the dice rolling, anyway?

In Strategy games, we don't want to spend most of our time watching the troops behaving like sluggards. As their comamders we require they act sharply - or face a year with a potato peeler, or a court martial.

We should be able to interrupt a unit that's moving where we don't want it. (Programs have responded to Interrupt keys for, oh, fifty years.)

Helicopters should NOT stop dead in a base just because it's en route to a nearby destination, whenever they feel like an imaginary coffee break. This is a firing squad offence - disobeying orders and going AWOL during war.

In the current game, I had a disconcerting event happen repeatably: I sent in two Hovertanks to occupy an enemy base, the tanks had four moves remaining, they moved one square, then stopped dead, having "Already Moved". WHAT?!

Turns out the Hovertanks had settled in at a Bunker. Is this behavior documented? Is this another example of the Coffee Break syndrome?

I can just imagine it: Soviet tanks ordered to occupy the V-2 launch pads decide to stop by at Hitler's bunker for tea. Excuse me?

Does the term "Labor Camp" mean nothing to those guys? Even kindly Uncle Sam would shoot them for less.

Yet another thing: Buildings. SMAC fell for the same trap as MOO2: far too many buildings for the same purpose, all of which you had to build yourself! (Dammit Brian, I'm a Faction Leader, not a brickies laborer!)

posted 07-19-99 01:31 AM ET            

We do make certain presumtions about each other's style. Without watching each other, that is the ONLY way we can envision such things. Most of the difference between "Builder" and "Conquestador" is the order the units/facilities are built in, the exaxt mix, and how many units stay home. For an extreme "Builder", all units stay home and bap the Opp Eng as it sends in its units... For an extreme "Conquestador", No unit except pods are allowed to stay on own land; All others are taking bases or warring on the Opp Eng forces.

The point that your are trying to dance around is that if you have to rely on geography as your defense, then you are acknowledging in action that the Militant victory is generally *quicker*, but can be slowed by travel time. If you slow it ENOUGH, you gain the time to get those hand foils out and watching your immediate seas, "forest reefs" and sensors deployed around your cities, yadda yadda yadda. But even then, you can't pursue Transcendance if they ARE after you. The Way Of War is a stop hit, and has be blocked, or you die/lose.

If you rely on knocking out the other factions and holding them under your thumb to transcend, you are playing Conquestador. You just like to disguise it by saying, "I only conquer everything in site so I can transcend in peace." End of Story. You take the Diplo victory when you don't want to pursue Transcend to the end right? I do the same about 1 out of 3 times that MMI has been discovered in my games. Why run down to the wire when I know who's won? It's all a matter of what the PLAYER wants. Whatever floats your boat...

But any way you stack it, SMAC is a Conquest Game. You could eliminate all techs above level 3, and it would play the same. You could elimnate all the techs about level *1* for that matter, and it would play the same... (Although you might have difficulty getting across water... the Opp Eng won't.)

posted 07-19-99 03:58 AM ET            

I don't know if it's documented anywhere, but whenever a bunker is inside of enemy territory you have to "capture" it before being able to move on, and this expends the remainder of the capturing unit's movement points.

posted 07-19-99 04:18 AM ET            

I think you're preaching to the enemy in this thread anyway, but you're comments about Analyst aren't welcome. Simply because he fails to see your point does not render him a git.

Personally, for the builder vs. conqueror stuff, just play any map with morgan located relatively close to the Hive. While a human Morgan can win against the A.I faction in this case, it isn't easy (compared to the reversal), and a well matched pair of opponents will see Yang win almost 100% of the time. Morgan's advantages favour building, Yang's favour conquering (he can build too, but he EXCELS at conquer).

Moreover, if Morgan decided to take time off from urgently pumping out recon rovers and impact infantry, to build things like network nodes or research hospitals, he'll be overrun very quickly. And any tech advantage he does get can be quickly destroyed using a couple of probe teams.

Starcraft seems to be Brian's inspiration for much of SMAC, and that game gets the balance vaguely correct - if you build early, you stand a chance of being rushed and eliminated - but you also get a much stronger infrastructure to work with, and have a better middle/end game. In SMAC, this never happens. The weapon/armour ratio is always in the favour of the attacker, and more to the point advancing your tech is a waste of time, since it will quickly be stolen* and used against you.

In short, this game is not builder friendly, certainly not like CivII. There is no strong end game as a reward for building in SMAC.

* (NOTE to SMACX designers: fix this issue! It should take an elite probe team to have any chance of stealing tech from and base twice. The chance should be around 40% at max, and that's being kind. Moreover, probes stationed at a base to stop this kind of activity need to be virtually invincible. Alternatively, give a defender unit a new special ability: Counter Intelligence. Meaning that this unit can defend against probe activity. Do something, at any rate!)

posted 07-19-99 04:54 AM ET            

I haven't tried changing the armour values, though that might also help a bit. In fact, yes. I'll see if that works. Plasma steel at 4, Silksteel at 6, Photon Wall at 9 and Prob sheath at 10 (both with significantly upgraded costs), and the remainder scaling up to around 16. High level will have to be expensive, of course, since a single defender will do quite well against superior odds - until they face blink displacers.

Such a method would also add value to using nerve gas.

posted 07-19-99 10:32 AM ET            

Alkis, I accept your representation that you are not using an ICS strategy, unconditionally. It was unnecessary for you to take umbrage at the suggestion. It was a reasonable supposition, absent other facts. Now, since you seem to think my prior post was unrelated to your own thoughts, I'll quote some of your thoughts for clarification.

"So I want to ask all of you conquerors, how fast do you conquer the world? Because to prove your point you have to be able to do it a lot earlier."--Alkis

This is the thought I was responding to when I said that a conquerer does not have to prove that he can meet his victory condition earlier than the transcender. This assertion is simply incorrect. The conquerer merely has to find the builder some reasonable amount of time before the builder completes the Voice and force him to divert his resources from building or die. This assumes a multiplayer game. This point has little relevance for a single player game (as I'll expand on below).

"All I know is this. Once Dilitiumdam challenged bragging conquerors to send him a save where they conquered everything on the huge map of the planet before 2250. You know something, nobody appeared."--Alkis

Do you see now that you did, indeed, bring huge maps into the discussion? Absent your own explanation for why making this point about huge maps was important, I speculated about the likely import, i.e. that the huge map gives the builder the advantage of being isolated, going light on military, or even adopting an ICS strategy (or some variant of it). If these are not the import of a huge map, then please do me the favor of explaining exactly *why* this huge map challenge was important?

"Also state whether you refer to single player or multiplayer. In single player I find it easier to win by transcendence or by diplomatic victory. However I do a little conquest."--Alkis

Personally, I only regard this discussion as primarily relevant to the extent it relates to the ebb and flow of multiplayer games, but secondarily relevant to the extent it relates the enjoyment of single player games. I don't see any defense for most of your assertions as applied to multiplayer. I'll get to single player a little later.

I find your comment that a diplomatic victory is easier than conquest virtually tautological. The whole point of diplomatic victory is it's a way for the AI to concede that conquest victory is inevitable and save you the tedium of execution. You only lose this option if you insist on committing atrocities. I concluded a long time ago that on a map of any size, the increased pace of conquest afforded by gassing cities wasn't worth the efficiency cost of losing the ability to wrap up a game dozens of turns early by diplomatic victory.

"You assume I (and other builders) have a certain style of play, that we just build structures and no army etc and you try to prove that this style of play is no good. Great, I agree. Only this style is not the way I play."--Alkis

Now, this is the heart of the matter, isn't it? That there is really only *one* way to play, with slight modifications. That's what we are all talking about in this thread.

Korn469's description of his "Transcendence" victory actually describes a conquest victory, for all practical purposes. He conquers five out of six enemy factions on his path to Transcendence, and his Transcendence is based on the fruits of that conquest. A diplomatic victory is also inevitably based on the fruits of conquest. That you use the fruits of a conquerer strategy to achieve one of the other victory conditions doesn't transform that strategy into something else--it's still conquerer strategy. What you and I are perilously close to agreeing on at this point is that *there is no such thing* as builder strategy--and that is the main lament of this thread.

Sounds to me like what you are saying is that basically you employ the same strategy, but use it to fulfill a different victory condition. At that point, to try to cite any difference between "builder" and "conquerer" is a matter of semantics.

Basically, in your rush to knock my ego down a peg, you've missed the entire point of my dissatisfaction with the game and the point of this thread. If anything, your arguments ultimately support the notion that SMAC is an unblanced, one-dimensional game of rush to conquest. You merely modify the notion of the ideal conquerer strategy: rush early, but recognize that there comes a point in the game that it is more efficient to shift your economic resources into the research race, rather than continuing to pursue conquest at greater costs of map efficiency. [I assume though, that the faction you are playing enters into this equation and Miriam likely does not fit this equation at all.] THe larger the map, the less you have to conquerer to reach that critical mass, but it hardly disproves the imbalance in the combat system to have a way to merely avoid it. The sum total of your observations regarding your own play so far do not disprove the notion that SMAC favors a rush to early conquest. They support it.

Which is the ultimate dissatisfaction with the game's single-player experience being expressed in this thread. It matters a lot less how you *ultimately* express your conquerer strategy victory, than that conquerer strategy is really the only flavor of play in this game. This goes double for muliplayer, which is inevitably conducted on small maps, owing to time constraints. Anyone in multiplay who doesn't rush to: (i) stake out their territory and (ii) produce the maximum number of impact rovers in the minimum amount of time, isn't going to live to tell the tale. If you conquerer enough of the map in such a scenario to make Transcending the nominally more efficient route to a victory condition, that's still a conquest victory, and any sane person you are playing against will concede that victory long before you build the Ascent.

posted 07-19-99 11:48 AM ET            

i agree completely with you. in single player there is no builder/conquerer balance. the conquer will always win. a player by not focusing on an early conquest in single player is needlessly prolonging the game. maybe on a huge map that is predominatly water in muliplayer a human builder might have enough time to errect adeuate defenses to transcend or achieve some other victory besides conquest. however in single player no matter what the size of the map, no matter how long the computer has it just isn't smart enough on a regular basis to build and defend a large empire while actively pursuing a nonconquest victory.

i have never seen the computer on its own accord pursue a transcendence victory until i build the voice of planet. i have never seen the computer try for an economic victory. i have seen the computer try to get voted supreme leader but that was more of a coincidance from yang conquering some of his neighbors than some popultion boom strategy he was following. maybe some of you have seen these other things but what i'm saying is the AI really isn't programmed to go for a win it's more programmed to try and stop your win. the AI at best follows a rudimentry conquest strategy.

if the game had a perfect builder/conquerer balance it would be just as effective from the start of the game to pursue a non-conquest victory as what it is to pursue a conquest victory. and that isn't so. if the game had a perfect builder/conquerer balance then it would be just as effective to build infrastructure as what it is to build military units which it isn't. all victories in this game are made easier by pursuing a conquest strategy then after you make enough factions surrender then attempting whatever you want. it's a RTS game without the best part of RTS...real time.

i look forward to see what SMACX will change about the game but i doubt it will make the game have a perfect builder/conquerer balance and i completly doubt that it will shift the balance of power to the builder.

other issues about this game:

there are only two battle sound in the whole game! and the shiwsh shiwsh sound doesn't sound like a laser at all! and the loud explosion sound is just annoying.

compare that to warcraftII or Civ2 which came out at about the same time. every unit in each of those games had a distinct sound. couldn't firaxis at least give each weapon it's own sound?

also in my spare time i came up with a combat system for a board game that me and my brother play at times. we have two versions of this game, one is a strategic version of the game, and the other is a tactical version of the game. useing castle risk cards and dice, we have an AI system that is almost as effective as SMAC's AI in playing against us. and the in the tactical warfare game we have a combat system that is way more intelligent and elligent than SMAC's combat engine which is quite sad.

another thing about the game. terraforming. there are lots of options. you can build farms, soil enrichers, condensors, solar collectors, echelon mirrors, mines, thermal boreholes, and forest. i find that usually planting forest everywhere is more effective than using other options. i might build a borehole along with my forest and farms to start out with but eventually i replace all the farms with forest. why have all those advanced options when they aren't as effective as a forest and forget strategy?

one of the most disappointing things about this game besides the bugs, is that multiplayer doesn't have all the options that single player has, and multiplayer has all the single player bugs plus some additional multiplayer bugs.

some of the feature in civ2 which tried to keep a player "honest" (for example the senate) are completely gone from SMAC. in most respects civ2 is vastly superior to SMAC. the only area where SMAC got better was in land combat tactics, and even there the AI is vastly inferior to a person. and by giving the person new ways to abuse the AI the game is easier now than what civ2 was. so eventhough you're facing a better AI it manages to lose even worse than before. at least in a madden football game if you pass all the time the computer will get into a nickle or a dime defense

many times sequals mess up tried and true formulas when i think about it this is one of those instances. SMAC failed as a sequal to civ2 because it didn't push the boundaries set by civ2. it extended the boundaries in some places but let them collaspse in others. borders and Social engineering are two areas where it expanded on the civ2 formula and it worked. AI and more diplomacy was two areas where it pushed the borders but came out with disappointing results (i love the new diplomcay but want more of it, and it's too easy to abuse) game balance and tactics however were areas where the game went backwards in comparison to civ2.

civ3 is on the horizon and what can we expect from it? what lessons did firaxis learn from SMAC that will make civ3 a much better game than civ2?

posted 07-19-99 01:41 PM ET            

That's the same when you subdue other factions on your continent. Having a submissive pact brother is a great benefit, trade, technologies and of course he leaves you alone. Now if you want to call this conquest, or that I am a conqueror in a builder's clothing, it's your freedom. I personally don't consider it conquest, I consider it tactical means to achieve builder ends.

In my best result in the fast trans challenge I played the UoP, not one of the aknowledged warrior races. I had only two submissive pact brothers and I transcended on 2239. I consider it a builder game. Let me give you some details, standard map, blind off, rare life forms, do or die, no survey and TI. In comparison to this game (and others) I asked:

"So I want to ask all of you conquerors, how fast do you conquer the world? Because to prove your point you have to be able to do it a lot earlier."

It's obvious that this refers to single player. It's an invitation if you like, to compare results. Your reply, Analyst that "all (the conqueror) has to do is *find* the builder on the map, sometime before the builder completes the Voice." refers to multiplayer.

It's also obvious that a player will not play MP the same way he plays against the AI. There are certain things that won't work.

Also about the Dilithiumdad challenge, what I did was to remind players of a challenge that nobody managed to beat. Not that a builder needs a huge map to protect him from a conqueror. The point is that while one going for a trans, victory is not handicaped by an increasingly bigger map, the one who goes for a full conquest does. Not only the game takes longer in terms of mission years, it takes longer in terms of human time (and it's boring too). Btw Singularity, who supposedly did it, was propably referring to a huge map not the huge map of the planet.

Shining in your example about Morgan and Yang I agree that Yang will win 100% of the times, but not because Morgan is a builder. Yang will win because Morgan is weak.

There is another thing I' d like to touch, that the game favors the attacker. It does. Let's suppose it was the opposite, that you could discover an armor of 8 at about the same time as attack 4. What would happen? Simple, Yang (or whoever) would build many 1-8-1 units and put them around your bases; and you would have that to handle. Same thing (and worse) as was the case in the old Civilization or Colonization.

With this I don't mean to say that the game can't be improved. Only that sometimes in our efford to make things better we make them worse. However I agree with what Shining says about probe teams.

My experience in SMAC MP is limited, however I played other games and the rush theme is very common. In Heroes2 all was about building your higher structure first week. In MoO2, building a worthwhile fleet. As someone put it: "In this game (MoO2) there are races who build/research for the future. And races who accept the reality that there is no future"

posted 07-19-99 04:13 PM ET            

The difficulty with this analogy is that you are saying SMAC and chess are both strategy games and, therefore, are similar in all respects. This is not so, or at least, *should* not be so. The vast majority of SMAC's strategy exists at a level non-existent in chess--the issue of developing and allocating an economic resource pyramid. This is what a friend and I refer to as the "guns or butter" issue in SMAC and similar TBS games (and, to a certain extent, RTS games as well). It's this "guns or butter" issue which is (or should be) the defining line between a "builder" and a "conquerer" strategy in a TBS like SMAC. There is no comparable "guns or butter" issue in chess, which is where I think the strategy v. tactics comparison with that game fails.

"That's the same when you subdue other factions on your continent. Having a submissive pact brother is a great benefit, trade, technologies and of course he leaves you alone. Now if you want to call this conquest, or that I am a conqueror in a builder's clothing, it's your freedom. I personally don't consider it conquest, I consider it tactical means to achieve builder ends."--Alkis

This is more than a semantics issue. It's the core issue of what makes this game one-dimensional. Even a self-described practitioner/defender of "builder" strategy such as yourself is admitting that the "guns or butter" issue must be resolved in favor of guns, until the entirety of the "home" continent is pacified. That's the point, of course, at which geography (in combination with the pathetic inability of the AI to attack across the barrier of the seas) provides the defense to the AI guns. Then--and only then--is it sensible to switch the economy from guns to butter; never before.

If the only thing that defines the difference between a "conquerer" strategy and a "builder" strategy in single player mode is whether to bother to continue kicking the AI around after the home continent is conquered, I say that's a distinction without a difference. In the absolutely critical, early development phases of the game, both strategies made the exact same guns v. butter decision (guns! guns!! more guns!!!). What happens after that on the path to victory hinges more on personal style than any need the game forces on you.

"In my best result in the fast trans challenge I played the UoP, not one of the aknowledged warrior races. I had only two submissive pact brothers and I transcended on 2239. I consider it a builder game."--Alkis

Therein lies one of the points of this line of thought. The UofP is not one of the aknowledged warrior factions. Yet, inside of about 30% of total game time, you were able to subdue two other factions by military conquest. This represents 1/3rd of your total opponents defeated by military means in less than 1/3 of total game time (and, I suspect, substantially before that) using a faction that is supposedly militarily weak. That's an extremely strong military component to this "builder" victory.

"In comparison to this game (and others) I asked: 'So I want to ask all of you conquerors, how fast do you conquer the world? Because to prove your point you have to be able to do it a lot earlier.' It's obvious that this refers to single player. It's an invitation if you like, to compare results."

Wasn't the least bit obvious to me that referred to single player before, but have it your way, if you like. I still don't see what this "comparison" proves. In particular, I don't see how it disproves the point that the game favors an early game conquest rush if you create your "builder" victories on the exact same principle.

"Also about the Dilithiumdad challenge, what I did was to remind players of a challenge that nobody managed to beat. Not that a builder needs a huge map to protect him from a conqueror. The point is that while one going for a trans, victory is not handicaped by an increasingly bigger map, the one who goes for a full conquest does. Not only the game takes longer in terms of mission years, it takes longer in terms of human time (and it's boring too). Btw Singularity, who supposedly did it, was propably referring to a huge map not the huge map of the planet."--Alkis

So, the rather less-than-astonishing point is that at some point one can stretch the map size large enough to make the emphasis on butter v. guns a reasonable decision at an earlier point in the game as a matter of the better economy of scale. Also, you can slice the question any way you like, but there is no hiding from the fact that you are using the geography of largeness as a proxy for devoting a greater part of the economy to military use, whether you are talking about single- or multi-player. At the extreme end, if you could make a map that was 100,000 by 100,000 tiles, the UofP would win every game, based on their research advantage and the fact that no one could find them and beat their techs out of them. That still wouldn't make SMAC a "builder" strategy game.

"Shining in your example about Morgan and Yang I agree that Yang will win 100% of the times, but not because Morgan is a builder. Yang will win because Morgan is weak."--Alkis

Ask yourself the next logical question, Alkis: Why is Morgan's builder-based strategy entirely inadequate to save himself from Yang, if this is a game with a viable "builder" strategy? The answer, of course, is that Morgan is doomed because there is no strategy available which let's one build an exit from the trap of conquer early or die.

posted 07-19-99 04:49 PM ET            

Time to get down and dirty.

If you conquer, you are conquering. What pretty face are you putting on it doesn't matter. The key to MOST builder strategies that have been discussed on these boards is the simple fact that you have to achieve Military Victory/Supremacy as a rule, before you can do any other victory path. The fact that the game strongly favors the attacker further emphasises this point. The fact that the Opp Eng insist on fighting is the key point as to WHY you have to have Military Victory/Supremacy in the first place... so that you can ignore it with impunity. That makes the Conqueror the ONLY strategy. If you choose to swap paths AFTER achieving Military Supremecy, that is your choice. Enjoy it. But any arguement in which you illustrat that you do more than defend your lands by elimaninating/probing aggressor units is another chalk mark for the Conqueror.

The Dilithium Dad challenge was issued in a talk between DD and me. He CLAIMED that NOONE couldn't conqueror a huge world in less than 150 turns without cheating. He was VERY wrong about that. After a little debating, he settled for: "No one would win a game of HUGE MAP OF CHIRON, under X conditions, in 150 turns." As far as I am concerned, he acknowledged and agreed that the ONLY defense against an aggressive opponent in the "Early" game in SMAC is geographical distance. DD has admitted that with enough starts, someone is going to beat the challenge. It only takes ONE random placement to meet it. His challenge was "never/can't be done", and that just isn't true. (He backed down to the Huge Map of Planet as I (and others) had several "quick" victories on random Huge map of 100 turns or so. It is just a matter of initial placement...)

Do you want to piddle over fastest wins? As I have said previously, I have some awful QUICK ones due to the way a particular game flowed. Let me know when you Transcend in 75 turns on a standard map, average settings, blind on, and we will talk. But to think that the heart and soul of SMAC is not a World Conquest game is to simply delude yourself. There is nothing WRONG with that fact... except that we wanted a game that was less Conquest and more Discover and Build.

Play it however you like, as long as you have fun. Just don't expect many to agree that SMAC is Builder oriented.

TBS World Conquest games have ALWAYS been doomfest and attrition wars. That is what they started as. RTS games are but a smaller slice of World Conqest... driven by a clock as its tick, not a turn. Now, in RTS, the "world" may only be a small river canyon, but its still the same game and the same concepts and issues have to be dealt with. If you can produce units, you have the resources vs payout. In some games, the resource is only time. In others, you may have to acquire material... but its still the same trade. How much resources to use versus gaining that unit... do you spend more resources and gain a more powerful unit? Or save your resources so you can build many small units? Yadda yadda yadda. Its the same trade, and the same uses for them, and that is why I think people feel that RTS is leaking into TBS. It's not... you are just becoming more aware of the common elements from RTS exposure.

posted 07-19-99 05:33 PM ET            

First of all, ANY builder-played faction will lose to ANY conquer-played faction if they start off next to each other. By this I mean the conquerer faction will produce laser/impact rovers and destroy the builder faction, who was producing network nodes. This was the death of a very stupid player, who died because he failed to switch his strategy when the harsh game conditions were known.

More likely, the builder will switch to a conquerer and wage necessary war. This war will come to an end sooner or later, and at that point our builder-turned-conquerer will either be dead, switch back to building, or continue conquering. If the situation was indeed as first presented (i.e. Morgan vs Hive), Morgan will probably lose due to his involvement in an arena (i.e. conquering) unsuited to his strengths. This cannot be a flaw in the game by itself, unless you disagree with the concept of factions. I think the factions (with their various strengths, some warlike, some peaceful in nature) add very much to the game. Yet, I don't think anyone disagrees with the concept of factions, so I will move on.

I also don't think anyone's arguement is really with the 2:1 offense:defense ratios, either. As Alkis points out, it would be just as bad the other way, and defense is not impossible in either case. What people seem to be saying is that building provides no advantages in SMAC. At least, it provides nothing over simply going to war as soon as possible. There is certainly something to this arguement, at least if one is playing against an inept computer opponent. However, when playing against a human, and especially multiple humans, there is indeed a strong advantage to building. It is diplomacy, pure and simple. While it may be easier to steal tech than to make it yourself, or to conquer cities than build them yourself, I'll be damned if it doesn't piss people off. Often, a friendship is worth more than all the techs you can steal or cities you can conquer, combined. You'll accumulate pact money (which is HUGE, btw), trade tech, share map data, and you just might get help against a conquering bully if one pops up (who will get none of the above, if you can help it). Oh yeah, and you'll have a lot of time to build your network nodes and research hospitals, an activity that does have some merit, or so I hear. Now isn't that worth a whole lot more than 20 recon rovers, who can't cross the sea anyway?

posted 07-19-99 07:37 PM ET            

What makes MM so tedious in SMAC and MOO2 is the logical AND: the long sequence of things that you MUST do each turn (if you're to make significant progress).

That, plus the tedious, totally unnecessary, and ill-conceived delays (wait, wait, wait) that the game imposes on you between those things.

Multiply that by the effective lack of group moves: who really wants to wait for each of 30 mindworms to slowly crawl along an unobstructed magtube? (As occurred in one game, after ordering a "group goto".) There are two things blatantly wrong with this design decision: (1) that the worms move individually, and (2) that they move so excruciatingly slowly. What should happen is that the whole stack or group should instantly (and I do mean instantly) appear at the destination.

It isn't as though Firaxis weren't told: they were repeatedly told what the prospective purchasers wanted. And after the game was out, they were told again, and again, and again, but they did nothing at all about it.

This is not, repeat not, a difficult programming exercise. So the players' exasperation is entirely justified.

I don't know how many times we have to say this before it sinks into Firaxis's collective understanding, but it bears saying as many times as necessary: we hoped for a great game, we still hope for a great game, we have played it for many hundred hours, and we would love this game to be what it should be: not micro-management hell, but strategy heaven.

So, what is strategy? Strategos = Greek for general. We're supposed to be making the decisions of generals, not the choices of captains or corporals.

Sid and Brian and company: you have a good name, please don't sully it on account of shoddy design decisions. Please design each strategy game as generals would, not as private soldiers might.

posted 07-19-99 09:13 PM ET            

At this point it would be dogpiling to try to add to what Analyst, Shining1 and Darkstar have pointed out as the overwhelming bias to the conqueror/rush strategies. Either you will ultimately get it or we will never change your mind.

However, I do want to pose one additional question to you both. What would be wrong with SMAC if a player could exert as much leverage economically, diplomatically and socially as they are able to do offensively? The fact is that these aspects of the game suggest great promise yet yield minimal results. They are merely variables to be manipulated by a skilled player and the predictability of the results is why we feel this to be a one dimensional game.

Ultimately, you would be the beneficiaries of an even better game and we wouldn't have anything to criticise as we'd be too busy trying out and comparing the new strategies.

Alkis: One additional point. I think that you owe Analyst an apology. If you think he lacks modesty because he reminded well intentioned, good natured people to avoid the flaming pools of filth, then you are the problem and not Analyst. BTW, I was one of those people who openly admits to benefitting from Analyst's wisdom. That's why I call him Moses now.

Dowdc: One correction for you as well. SMAC and any of the Civ games are not war games. They don't even come close. Squad Leader, The Longest Day and France 40 are war games. They apply the principles of war so that a player can out-general their opponent. Rather, Darkstar probably has it right when he calls SMAC a Conquest game. That's because they are ceaseless, mindless attritional doomfests that require less generalship than my dog is able to provide.

posted 07-19-99 10:11 PM ET            

1) Have a 'Baldur's Gate' type reputation system, for better management of your diplomatic game. Hence you know exactly how much your actions will impact on your reputation, since you get concrete figures (I mean, these guys have ethical calculus, right?)

2) Make killing another faction a PB type atrocity, UNLESS that faction has a very poor rating (around 1-3 on a scale of 20 - the sh*t of the earth, in effect). Also, make a refusal to accept surrender terms impossible under demo and likely to suffer a diplomatic penalty under the other govt forms. A faction MUST surrender if they reach a point at which their overall strength rating is less than 40% that of their enemy (which will also stop wimpy factions from declaring war when they have a grand total of two anemic little bases and 3 laser infantry). Exceptions to this can be allowed, but should be rare - I suggest something along the lines of using the support rating, with 10% variation each side for a +/- rating. Factions with 0 support must surrender at 50, those with +5 support need not surrender at all, and factions with high negative support must always be nearly equal to or larger than their adversaries. This makes a diplomatic victory much more sensible, since the factions will be less warlike, and can be beaten into submission more readily, but not so easily eliminated.

The terms of surrender, of course, should be similar to the current ones, i.e trading tech and energy for peace. But instead of permanently subduing a faction, they instead have to sign a submission pact for, say, 20 years. The terms are:
A) Their units cannot enter your territory at all during this time, but you can enter theirs, and cannot be attacked (founding bases and attacking their units, however, cannot be done without facing war council sanctions and some reputation loss - it's a bad look to be warlike), and the faction must support you on all diplomatic endeavours, free of charge.

B) The surrendering faction cannot build new prototypes during this time, and cannot build offensive units, i.e those with a weapon-armour ration greater than 1:1. They can still rebuild their military, but not a force composed of 8-1-1 or 12-1-2 units, for instance.

C) Once this time is up, any renewal of hostilities against the victor suffers double reputation penalties, often opening that faction up for PB and Nerve gas attacks with impunity (a rating of around 1-3...)

D) Reputation should be able to be recovered over time, and at an increased speed for factions with a low support rating (10% per point, etc), or decreased speed for those with a high support. (Note: This makes less sense for the current thought control govt, but that can easily be fixed - swap the support and police penalties for Cybernetic and Thought Control).

4) War council options:

Firstly, all factions are equal at the war council, and the governor gets no veto.

* Peacekeeping - all factions agree to declare war on a rogue faction. The default SE setting for this is democracy, meaning they must accept any offer of surrender. Rules for surrender apply - all factions may traverse or occupy this faction's terrain. This requires a bare majority to pass (4 of 6 votes).

* Revoke/reinstate U.N charter - moved from planetary council.

* Scorched earth - if the U.N is revoked, this option becomes available. The council can agree to eliminate a faction with very low reputation. This requires a unianimous decision (6 of 6 votes).

* Sanctions - the council can agree to impose sanctions on a faction. Santions cut all trade with that faction until their reputation reachs at least the median level (10). This should replace the auto santions in the game currently, instead, each use of Nerve gas or atrocity is given a reputation loss rating (e.g -1 for starting a war, -1 for Nerve gas, -3 for renewal of hostilities, -5 for destroying a captured base, -5 for violating surrender rules (either side), -15 for a PB attack on a faction with a reputation greater than 1-3). This requires a unianimous decision to be totally effective, but individual factions can choose to trade (or not) by themselves. Note: You cannot impose sanctions unilaterally, only through the council (even if you are the only one who agrees to your proposal to do so, you must still do this through the council).

Establish/Repeal Global Security Alliance: An agreement to 'ban' war, this doubles reputation penalties for starting wars. Akin to global trade pact.

5) The spirit of this is to make war a bad idea in the long term. You can still capture the odd base and fight massive land and sea engagements, but you can't really conquer the entire world by military means alone, unless you are good at both diplomacy, tech, and warfare all at once (knowing how easy it was to exploit the original diplomatic system, it won't be impossible to do the same to this one. But it should be harder.)

posted 07-19-99 10:21 PM ET            

SE for future soc:
Cybernetic: -2 Morale (citizens get soft with robots doing everything for them).

Euidamonic: -3 Support (citizens find the idea of war abhorrent)

posted 07-20-99 12:09 AM ET            

Since I only type 25WPM, I'll simply say that those are all worthy ideas. Diplomatic, social and economic models that force players to interract will provide unlimited playability and a challenge for every skill level.

BTW, my dog is a "Standard Schnauzer". These dogs are sometimes referred to as the dogs with a human brain. That makes them about as smart in real terms as a 6 year old kid. Now I also want you to know that I'm not totally joking about this. He likes to sit on my lap and smack the keyboard when I play late at night. So far, his "help" is smarter than both the automated terraformers and the base Governors.

Better yet, go to the local zoo and borrow a chimp or a favourite marsupial and try it for yourself!

posted 07-20-99 12:16 AM ET            

1) About past TI threads discussing conquerer/builder balance...I've read some of them, but haven't really gotten into the meat of the discussion. I can't find it, honestly. The search engine doesn't work, or something. So make some arguements, for me. Summarize, please. It seems to me that the 2:1 ratio is very balanced, considering special abilities (such as AAA) and buildings (such as aerospace complex). Let's have a test case: plasma steel AAA garrison vs missile needlejet (2:1 ratio).

Garrison: 3 armor
+25% sensor
+25% base
+100 AAA
+100 aerospace

That's +250% of 3, so a total of 10.5 defense strength.

Needlejet: 6 attack
+50 nerve gas

For a grand total of a 9 attack. So, even with nerve gas, the defense is on top. Add in some interceptors, and we have a pretty good defensive stronghold here.

2) As far as diplomatic/social/political aspects of power in SMAC, there have certainly been advances made over CivI/II.
The Planetary Council, for example. The diplomatic/economic paths to victory. These didn't exist in Civ2, so SMAC must be the better game of the two, by your logic. Admittedly, these aspects are still relatively minor, but they do exist. SMAC may well have been a better game if they had been included, but my point was never that SMAC is the best of all possible games that could be created, but that it is the best game that has been created to date.

posted 07-20-99 12:32 AM ET            

Wow. If that's the case, I'd like to see an Advanced Schnauzer . But yes, if the game took a random walk approach to both terraforming and the base governor, it would probably perform a lot better than it currently does. Running 20 squares east to build a single piece of road in the middle of a desert would still be a possibility, but such an unlikely one that it would be a miracle to see it occur.

Have you tried learning from a typing program? Just that you mention this often, and I'm not sure anyone's maximum speed could be around 25 WPM with practise.

And you mentioned a game earlier called diplomacy? I've never even heard of it - any good?

posted 07-20-99 12:57 AM ET            

If you'd like to peruse all the older messages, or pick up some files that may not be on the sff ftp area, then please peruse my ftp site:

ftp://ftp.ee.latrobe.edu.au/pub/gt/moo2

Incidentally, MOO2 has some truly outstanding game editors, especially COrion2 and MPot. COrion2 can edit just about anything (galaxy, ships, leaders), and MPot lets you design your own opponents by customising the other races.

--------------------------------------------
Shining1, you've got me thinking again. Not only cannot Morgan survive next to the Hive, he cannot survive whenever he encounters an aggressor.

Can the tech tree be modified in the following fashion? Separate the branches with the Conquest techs away from the Building techs, and place all the good Armor with the Building techs.

Also make Armor Cheap, and Weapons Expensive.

Or to counter Alkis's strategy, make both Armor and Weapons Expensive, so if Conquerors want to do any damage at all, it will cost them dearly.

Or make Rovers and Jets very expensive.

Or use psychology and energy to favor Builders. Can we vastly increase the energy gained from Treaties and Pacts? This way, a Builder would be easily able to afford to rush defences. Meanwhile, Conquerors would be struggling to raise a menacing army.

posted 07-20-99 01:09 AM ET            

Boy, this is almost like a chat room.

Yes, I've tried typing classes and a whole bunch of other nonsense. I just can't get the rhythm and feel for it because I like to "see" what I'm typing. BTW, this is actually a worthwhile habit when working with explosives!

Re: Terraformers and Governors. Sorry, I just have to give those things a kick now & then. Come to think of it, I haven't given Chris Pine a kick in a long time either. I actually have it straight from BR about 3 months ago that the TF's & Gov's were really only intended for the beginner. Obviously, this means little hope for the future.

Well, I'm not a 100% sure it's called Diplomacy. I think Darkstar or Oldwarrior told me that was the name. It was a great little board game that came out about 15-20 years ago. It was set in the Napoleonic period and the real charm came from the ability of the players to negotiate between turns face to face! Deal making, backstabbing and transitory alliances were the norm and it was a true shark fest. Needless to say, I imagine the game even caused a few fistfights. Now if we could only make an A/I that replicated this level of diplomacy.

Oh well, gotta go. I bought a copy of MOOII when I was checking for AOK and the dog wants to play.

Any tips for strategies?

posted 07-20-99 01:16 AM ET            

1) Instead of missiles, you're more likely to have Chaos Guns, or be facing Synthmetal, if you know what your doing.

2) Ground troops have no such luck against fellow ground troops, espeically infantry.
The formula:

Garrison: 3 armour
Perimeter Defense: +100% (no base strength added to this - check for yourself)
Sensor +25%

And nothing else. Against infantry:

Chaos Gun: 8
Attack vs. Base: +25%
Morale advantage: +12.5/+25% (since combat units are more likely to advance in morale than defenders, who sit around doing nothing)

Which gives a ratio of around 6.5 to 11/12. And this is in a fully defended base, so you still have to build the Perimeter, for which cost I can build a second offensive unit, so it's 2 vs. 1. In open territory, the garrision would lose 100% of the time, and against a wounded chaos or missile infantry.
Taking artillery into account, against the base, and, well, if I get a scratch on that Chaos Squad I'll be well and truly pissed. And Nerve Gas? A good counter to ECM defenders, if anyone builds them, or a way to make fast moving attackers even more effective against bases. But you should be using masses of infantry, really, because you can add armour to them - making any 1-1 odds counter attack difficult.

So your limited example of a fully upgraded air defense system (which, incidentally, will still fall to a fusion warhead on a conventional missile, and fall first, allowing proper air strikes), is totally misleading.

The main issue is 'building' vs. 'conquering', and the advantages of each. The builders tech advantage is usually negated by carefully use of probe teams. Builders also suffer whenever they build infrastructure, because they are falling behind in terms of unit numbers. So, in effect, not only did building that network node fail to get you any tech advantage, it cost you an impact rovers worth of minerals compared to the cost of the probe team that stole the tech.

And the same applies to growing big bases, because the size tends to stagnat quickly after reaching size 5. So spending time terraforming around a small number of bases is a wasteful tactic compared to having a single food square and forest around a mass of smaller bases. Forest grows by itself. Condensors (definitely) don't.

And the list goes on. But the important thing is that, if you play a builder strategy, and I play a conqueror one, then, everything else being equal, I will beat you. Easily. And that's the fundamental issue.

posted 07-20-99 01:30 AM ET            

I tried your suggestion of increasing armour values last night - to my surprise, the effects were very sucessful. If you want to make some very quick changes to SMAC that will have a major effect on the way the game plays, do this:

* Change the 'Probe teams can steal tech' number to 0.
* Change the believers fanatic attack bonus to 50% (balances probe team change)
* Change armour values to the following:
Plasma 4 3
Silk 6 4
Photon 8 5
Prob 9 8
Neutron 10 10
Anti-M 12 12
Stasis 15 15

Or similar. And make sure in the custom options for playing the game that you allow conquerors to steal tech when capturing a base. This is important.

posted 07-20-99 02:09 AM ET            

The only thing that ever came close was Illuminati and Nuclear War (the card game). Nuclear War because it was just fun dropping a 100 Meg MX missile on my friends and wiping them out... or busting the planet crust open with 100 Meg on a Saturn. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Those were the days...

Illuminati is another game that deals with LOTS of player interaction, wheeling, dealing, and double and triple crossing. Ah. The fun.

Needless to say, people often needed a good clean game of Nuclear War to release the last vestiges of the energy built up when someone managed to wheel, deal, and quadruple cross everyone in Illuminati... Bomb em! Bomb em again! NW was the FIRST game I ever saw where the norm was everyone lost. Killer killer killer...

Now, back to the dog pile...

Morgan vs. Yang isn't the BEST match for builder vs conqueror... try Morgan vs Spartans. That is better. (Yang is Industrious after all.) And I often have starts with several factions nearby. That is just the way it is.

Dowdc - Now, if you have to swap to conqueror, you agree with us. Stop there and give. That is the Conqueror versus Builder debate... The question isn't "Is one better?" What ever you enjoy playing the most is the "Better" style. But which is superior strategicly/tacticly in SMAC is War. That's the way it is.

Shining... the only problem with your suggestions is that Factions are too independant. Without the need for peaceful interaction, the Factions have no need to be nice. And if you don't FORCE the Human player, many won't.

Yes, I KNOW about that yummy pact trading bonus, but lets be honest... unless you start in close proximity to other Factions, its of no use before the first 75 turns to many of us. And that is past the 50% mark in MY typical games... And if you ARE close, they are going to demand and push and be nasty most of the time, and off you go to war.

With a need for the other factions, I wouldn't give a 2 figs if Deidre and Morgan wanted me to stop warring on Miriam or Zak. I have no need of them, and probably gain no strategic value from their good will. After all, they are only Opp Eng players... HUMAN players are a different story, but since so FEW of SMAC players are truly peaceful, I wouldn't expect anything to be more than the shortest of transitory alignment of interest. And Human players wouldn't need a council in the game... they would simply wheel and deal.

As far as things go, I think the UN Charter is already revoked... at least, by all but Lal. After all, everyone split from the crew, thus deserting their posts for crew members with the added charge of MUTINY. Not a good start...

Its getting late. I'll try to dig up the TI threads tomorrow for those missing them... I should have some time at work free.

posted 07-20-99 03:11 AM ET            

Shining1: my concern about your list of proposals is that as presented they are complex and rigid. Already SMAC is dragged down by micro-management.

The answer is to throw out the chores and go for a MOO 1 (not MOO2) model, in which you only have a few basic types of buildings, which (at your option) are built and improved automatically for you, once you discover the appropriate tech.

Basic types of Builder's buildings according to SMAC's categories are: (1) Energy, (2) Food, (3) Minerals.

Now let every base start with one of each. Voila! Building micro-management solved!

On the Military side, there are Defence and Training facilities. Again each base can start with one of each.

Each building has a Grade. Discovering a superior tech for that type of building will increase the Grade - perhaps over a period of turns, at an energy cost that you're willing to pay per turn.

Someone will object that this is colorless compared to having to build separate Research Hospitals, Genejack Factories, and Fusion Labs. To which I will counter-object that mixing Psych/Lab/Economy in an ill-explained mish-mash of ways does nothing to add color to the game, but adds everything to the burden of the player (especially the Builder), and makes the game painfully slow for little reward.

You can still have Genejack Factories, but why can't it be a technical modification of the existing factories, that you can pay to have added automatically for a fee? So when you click on the Factories icon in your city, it says: "Present: 23 factories, 15 with Genejacks, total production 148. Building: 12 Fusion Labs (2 turns to go), 7 Network Nodes (1 turn to go), at a construction fee of 21 energy per turn."

After all, how many cities do you know with only 1 factory of each type? A multitude of factory complexes is much more reasonable and flexible and favorable to the builder.

Furthermore, abstracting them works great in MOO 1, and I favor it, even though I'm a patient veteran micro-manager from MOO2 and Civ2.

Brian Reynolds appears to have an aversion to stacks and multiples of any kind, and also has a problem (in common with other former Microprose designers) comprehending zero. But let's face it, zero *is* a natural number.

Stacks: why can't we have a stack consisting of 15 super formers and 3 defence infantry, which move (in the same way as) as one unit?

Why can't combat cope with more than one unit on each side of a battle? Are armies in real life less thrilling because they have more than one sniper shooting at a time?

If twenty chaos rovers in formation shoot first at one plasma infantry in the open, surely we expect the infantry to die immediately from the combined fire, without inflicting any damage to the other side. Why would any rover team commander in his right mind tell everyone to hold their fire, while one rover has a duel with the infantryman?

(War isn't Captain Kirk showing off his personal prowess at the extinct art of chivalry, you know.)

posted 07-20-99 06:12 AM ET            

"The difficulty with this analogy is that you are saying SMAC and chess are both strategy games and, therefore, are similar in all respects. This is not so, or at least, *should* not be so. The vast majority of SMAC's strategy exists at a level non-existent in chess--the issue of developing and allocating an economic resource pyramid. This is what a friend and I refer to as the "guns or butter" issue in SMAC and similar TBS games (and, to a certain extent, RTS games as well). It's this "guns or butter" issue which is (or should be) the defining line between a "builder" and a "conquerer" strategy in a TBS like SMAC. There is no comparable "guns or butter" issue in chess, which is where I think the strategy v. tactics comparison with that game fails." --Analyst.

I sure know that in chess you don't build structures but if you play 1.g3 2.Bg2 3.Nf3 4.0-0 you are the equivalent of a SMAC builder to me. You are essentially doing the same thing as a SMAC builder, try to win by more subtle means than a direct attack.

In the game I played as the UoP, I started researching Biogenetics and went for Secrets first, then guns. I was building recycling tanks and recreation commons, in some cities, even during the conquest proccess.
Now if you want to nullify everything and call me a conqueror and if you deliberately want to miss my point and if you prefer to call a cat a small tiger then I have no more to say.

To repeat my point, if you can conquer the world in a certain number of M.Y and in a certain amount of human time and you can transcend in a little more M.Y (I' m talking about single player) but maybe less human time (with this I mean, turns will be much faster if you are going for a trans victory) then the game does not favor a conquest strategy. Someone would consider it boring maybe to climb the tree to Transcendence time after time. But for me it was very interesting because even though I was playing the game in my own room on my own computer, I was actually competing with all the other good players who were playing the fast challenge. That in the process of transcending you have to do some war, is not something I disagree. However I wouldn't say that you need Military Victory/Supremacy as Darkstar says. You just need some army, that's all.

To get an idea of what I mean as "some army" here's an extract from a fellow player's post who is participating in the fast challenge:
"Thus I could prosper in peace and though I lost the temple (he means a city at the ruins) to the PKs for a few turns, I could stick with my 1-1t-1 scouts and later some shardchoppers for the rest of the game." --ICE_DH
Now, if you stick with 1-1t-1 defenders for the whole game, this is something I wouldn't call Military Supremacy.

A word to Shining before I finish; I think your ideas are excellent and you should be selling them instead of offering them free. Do make your own game and it may well be a revolution in strategy gaming.

posted 07-20-99 10:19 AM ET            

Actually, SMAC's designers could learn a lot about how to properly balance the military/diplomatic features of SMAC from the game of Diplomacy. The key to Diplomacy is that, at the beginning of the game, it is simply impossible for one player to attack another and prosper if he has no help from a third (or fourth) party. You are forced to deal productively with at least some of your neighbors at every stage of the game. There is no conquerer rush strategy that allows you to wipe out neighbors with impunity. It's all about balance of power among seven powers that are never quite equal. At every single stage of the game--and even if you are the largest military power in the endgame--it will be your strategy, and not your tactics, that most likely affects your final result.

Dowdc: In your response on the Morgan/Yang question you admit that any builder faction will lose to any conquerer faction if they begin as neighbors and the builder doesn't go to war. You then say that this is how it must be unless we drop the factions idea. Pay close attention to Uncleroggy's reply after that, for it contains the key concept. Morgan should be able to weild economic influence in that situation which offsets Yang's military/industrial influence (in as close to perfect balance) until one or the other faction executes an efficient long term strategy, based on faction strengths, that allows for their faction to overwhelm the other *based on that superior execution of strategy*. That would give factions distinct personalities and make their inclusion truly worthwhile. As it stands, the tilt of the game towards early military conquest merely deals military factions an extra trump card in their beginning hand and deprives non-military factions of their personality for the whole portion of the game that is meaningful (meaning the first 75 years or so).

Dowdc: On the subject of offense/defense balance. It's too bad those TI threads became inaccessible. The key to upsetting the ephemeral "balance" brought to defense by special abilities is using a "bait and switch" strategy on the AI (also remarkably effective against humans in my experience). You begin with one dimensional attacks based on one unit class (let's say rovers for example) and watch the AI build ECM units in response to that attack. Then you simply switch to another unit class unaffected by the special ability (needlejets, say). After a while, the enemy is stuffed up with expensive AAA units and Aerospace complexes, so you switch to another unit class (native life units say). Wash, rinse, repeat. Special unit abilities are also defeated by attacks with combined arms, including a sufficient number of arty units (for bombing sensors and other tile improvements) and probe teams (for taking out structural defenses and other nastiness) that make a static-defense based strategy not worthwhile. As long as I stay one step ahead on unit types (not at all hard to do), I'll retain my advantage as attacker by rendering your expensive special defense units obsolete by my shifting strategies. The "advantage" gained by special defensive abilities and stuctures is illusory. It's also worth noting those are more expensive than building vanilla offensive units, so you are losing the war of attrition as a defender as well.

Zeotrope: Yep, that's what I've been struggling to say on the subject of SMAC's unweildy nature in multiplay. Thank-you for expanding and clarifying my point.

Shining1: As always, I like your thought-provoking ideas for game redesign. As others have noted, though, your redesign now entirely precludes the multiplayer capability of the game. The idea is worth consideration though, that giving up on multiplaying a robust TBS design is appropiate. Making the TBS multiplayer friendly involves a lot of important compromises on the depth of play. As much as anything, the need to appeal to the multiplay market is what drives the design tilt towards military conquest. Give that up, and maybe you are just as well off saying "to hell with multiplayer" altogether.

posted 07-20-99 11:22 AM ET            

Thanks for the MOO tips. I think I'll need them. I'm playing on normal difficulty and the Antarans just wiped out half of my colonies. OUCH!

Also, sorry to hear about Nessie. I know how much it hurts since I lost an 11 year old Schnauzer two weeks after you lost yours. The good thing is that even when they are gone, they give us a lifetime of wonderful memories.

RE: BR

I have to agree 100%. I think he is like any designer that I have known in that they tend to live in their own paradigm. This is both a strength and a weakness as it allows them to be creative, yet it seems to insulate them from understanding ideas that are not their own.

Case in point is stacked combat as you point out. I have said that SMAC is a contest of champions since day one. Since we know all the reasons why this favors the attacker, we also know the solution. STACKED COMBAT. It's still as overwhelming for the attacker, yet it gives a stack of defenders the chance to build a combined arms force.

This goes back to the two basic things about tactical combat that I learned as a Cavalry Officer.

1) Initiative(as Analyst has so eloquently described) goes to the attacker.

2) The job of the defender is to take the initiative away from the attacker. That is why defenders employ things like mine fields, counter battery fire, interdiction of supplies and localized counter attacks. Unfortunately, in SMAC, the only alternative to a defender is to bend over and say "Sir, May I have another!"

posted 07-20-99 01:40 PM ET            

I suspect your cat is indeed a tiger... even if its a pygmy (4 to 5') white tiger.

First off... I can win a Total Conquest victory in 90 minutes of straight play. Yes, 90 minutes, and have done so several times on average random maps. (Its called Speed SMAC, and is quite suitable for IP Multiplayer games.) How fast can you Transcend? You started this spitting contest, and unfortunately for you, there is no path I see that allows you to win one point doing it.

Second, *I* knew you would try to challenge about my Military Superiority statement, and I have been waiting (got to have a little fun now and then, you know). You are the HUMAN, and as long as you play like one, you will achieve Military Superiority with a small force over the Opp Eng. As I have stated many times, in what other game would a pacifistic people, such as Morgan or UoP, be able to send a small expeditinary force of just 4 units (2 High Attack Units, 2 High Defense Units) in the HEART of their enemy's homeland, an enemy who does nothing but plan for, and wage, war since they day their culture formed (Spartans), and expect total conquest victory over them within a mere 50 years? I do this ALL THE TIME. I know others do it as well. 4 units yield a continent? *That* is military superiority. When your military can not be contested and you always win, you have achieved military Superiority in a Conquest game, and everything past that point is gravy... At that point, no Opponent can threaten your Core/Homeland. In games like Empire, you simply finish grinding them down. In Civ2 or SMAC, you can continue grinding them into paste, or you can go for a peaceful win. Either way, the game revolved around you becoming the Dominant Military power. Who cares if Miriam has a stack of 24 Impact Rovers... they will die against your 4 Chaos/Shard Rovers or Hovers, won't they? Collateral damage will finish of the rest of the stack in SMAC (I've done this will a mix Impact and Missile weapons on two Rovers and 3 Infantry, and sure others done similar things as well.) You get Jets or Choppers first, and bother using them? That is military superiority for you...

Its not that you SHOULD be the total Military Power when you have 10 cities, 6 of them are being Core, as Morgan and facing Yang of the 30 cities, and Miriam of the 40... but you are the Human, and know how to think and remember, and therefore easily out general the Opponent Engine without trying much. Just a handful of units allows you to maintain your superiority. You might think its Pro-Active or Preventative Defense, but its the foundation in almost ALL the strategies as detailed by those that play SMAC. And its the point where the self-proclaimed "Transcendants" start to worry about truly climbing the Tech tree, where the self-titled "Capitalists" start to focus on gathering energy with impudence for that economic victory, and all the other SMAC-Elite branch to follow their favorite paths. More power to us all, so long as we enjoy it...

But some of us, including those who tend to take the shortest path to winning, tend to let inertia settle in and finish the Grind. With the added population, we can vote ourselves into Supreme Leader with the advance of MMI, or just over run the world in another 20 to 40 turns...

In any case, everything hinges, *everything hinges*, on securing Military Supremacy. Those few people who do not follow this path, do not consistantly win. When they do, its because they stumbled into Military Supremacy for that particular game, and then could do as they please. Military Supremacy has been the key to Sid's and Brian's World Empire games since they started making them. Its due to the heart of the game being a World Conquest game... until you achieve it, you can't win. The Opponent Engine will take advantage of its Military so as to take your lands and bases so that it can feed the Beast and make more Military. SMAC's Opp Eng does this poorly, but it still TRIES to do it.

When the World Empire games Opp Engine are built to out maneuver you diplomatically and out economy you, then, maybe then, we will see a game balanced where Morgan can take on the Spartans, and its even odds as to who wins (all other things being equal). This isn't the case now, and I don't believe it will be the case for a long while.

posted 07-20-99 01:52 PM ET            

1) Shining1 says that ground troops with superior weaponry will likely be the attackers, not air units. My air defenses are indeed useless in this case. However, if the builder/defender allows a conquerer to get a tech edge, that builder/defender doesn't know what he is doing. Techs could be equal (w/probe teams), but never an edge for the attacker in a fair game. So either those infantry should have attack 6, or the defender also has attack 8. Either equalizes the field considerably. Shining also says the resources devoted to a perim. def. (by the builder) would be devoted to another attacking unit (by the attacker). This is true if these units are 8-1-1's. But in this case they will be hard pressed to reach the city alive. They might be 8-3-1's, but this costs extra resources, possibly enough to make up for the perim. def. In this case, even, they would be slow getting to the city, and easy targets. Air units are really what the attacker wants to use.

2) I doubt Analysts' ploy would work against an intellegent human opponent. All that needs to be done to counter it is to have 2 defensive units (a good idea anyway), one with AAA/trance, one with AAA/ECM. In a turn or two, all cities could be defended against any threat. In this case, it would be a fight of superior numbers against a superior economy. Anyone's game.

I want to make one last point about builder-conquerer switches. My admission of this necessity (in times of crisis) does not validate your arguements that the conquer strategy is superior. It is only superior in this case. There are 3 possible scenarios here:

1) Conquerer meets a Builder (conquerer strategy superior)

2) Conquerer meets a Conquerer (equal odds, but it is the builders who really make strides)

3) Builder meets a Builder (builders make huge advances on the conquerers)

So, you have 2 choices when you meet an opponent. The best of all scenarios is when builder meet, make pacts, and trade tech. Tech progress more than doubles, money starts to flow, and once possible hostile boarder is now secure. This is in sharp contrast to the conquerer over the builder scenario, where the conquerer eliminates an enemy, but does really gain much. And the conquerer vs conquerer scenario is really pathetic. Nothing is achieved, to the delight of builders everywhere.

posted 07-20-99 02:14 PM ET            

Dowdc, go read the TI threads, then come back and restate things after chewing on what has gone on before. Its all been done to death.

But to get you started...
1) You are presuming that you have been in isolation from a conqueror long enough to get AAA and Trance, and to be able to build up a lot of defense. What size world masses are you envisioning? My experience with Average says that will generally NOT be the case. But each has their own play styles... and luck likes to tease us all from time to time.

2) Your buddy builder will probably cut your throat when they get Choppers... some will do it at Jets... a rare few will do a PB launch. VERY few SMAC players are pacifist in the game... some are just cowards that think they need a special chassis or weapon tech before war is viable. Too bad for them. I say that because the balance WILL slowly shift towards a builder somewhat, given enough TIME (being able to structure their defenses, build Aero complexes, etc). But its not enough of a shift to make more than 2 unit difference, when it really gets down to it. And the longer the game takes, the closer everyone gets to Clean... which allows a Conqueror to just make units with impunity and finishes converting SMAC into Empire on Chiron.

3) Conqueror vs. Builder - You forgot probe team action. A LOT of Conquestadors run heavy on probe teams... that allows them to target defensive structures they don't like, and steal your tech... not to mention infiltrate your data links so they know where to go a raiding. The only nice thing about them building probes is that is one non-combat unit you can easily kill... unless they armor it. Remember, the average Conqueror builds infrastucture and economy while the armies are travelling... so they are going to take your bases, and improve theirs as they do it. They can't just spit units out constantly due to the loss of production, after all. (Unless they have Clean...)

4) Conqueror versus Conqueror will at least reduce the opponents you are facing... unless they pact and split the world down the middle. At which point you are in serious dog doo... and Conquerors are more likely to share critical military techs, such as Air Power, MMI, and Orbital Flight. They want their ally just a touch behind them, not lagging by an age. Unlike most Builders, who go to War when pet techs are reached.

I'm repeating myself, so I'm going to stop for the moment and bubble up the rest of the TI threads...

posted 07-20-99 03:16 PM ET            

Dowdc, that advantage to the attacker that you so blithely dismiss as unlikely to work on an intelligent human is known in the military academies as "initiative". (Thank-you to Uncleroggy for reminding me of the proper name.) It's employment has defeated many a good general who was forced by circumstances to employ static defense. No good general ever *chooses* static defense if he has any other alternative. There are too many ways in this game to get around static defenses of the type you used to "demonstrate" the superiority of the defender that they are almost beyond counting. They include: (i) probe teams bribing your bases; (ii) probe teams destroying the defensive infrastructure; (iii) units ripping your carefully built up tiles down to the bare earth (chiron?), including the sensors; (iv) arty to weaken your defeneders and bomb the sensors my other units can't reach; (v) unit types and chasis that ignore your static/special defenses, etc.

A combined arms approach to combat can employ these tools in varied combinations, such that, if you aren't prepared for all of them, then you aren't prepared for any of them. In addition, the attacker knows when and where he will strike and the defender, lacking this knowledge, must spread out resources over an entire defense perimiter, while the attacker can concentrate superior force at a time and place of his choosing. Any reasonably intelligent human static defender cannot defeat this, because defending against the attacker with initiative means investing many times more resources in defense than he invests in attack. As Uncleroggy pointed out, this is basic military doctrine.

Also, as Darkstar has very ably pointed out, *none* of the static defenses and special defense abilities are going to be available to you when you start out a stone's throw from the conquerer and are staring down the barrel of his impact rovers. Just a handful of those units will be all he requires to ruin your whole day.

Darkstar, I'd forgotten about that "speed SMAC" example (I'm pretty sure you brought it up some time in the past). That takes the conquerer theory to extremes that even a rabid militarist such as myself have not explored. That is where I ended up with the original Civ game, though, i.e. could chariot rush the world into submission in less than two hours of total game time. Since SMAC returns the early unit balance of the game more to resembling CivI than CivII, I've not the slightest shred of doubt regarding that claim.

posted 07-20-99 03:49 PM ET            

Analyst has pretty much put things into perspective. All I can add is regarding your specific instance of a AAA/Trance and AAA/ECM combo.

In reality, this is no combo as each unit fights on it's own. as the defender you have to pick a unit as primary defender or the A/I will do it for you. If you pick the AAA/Trance unit, I'll attack with ground units and then follow up with worms to take out the AAA/ECM. If you pick AAA/ECM, then the worms go in first and the mop up is the same. Also, what about my arty?

BTW, I suggest you also look at the design cost for your units. You'll be paying a high price for armor plus two specials. My attackers will be cheaper and even if you lop off a unit or two, your losses are harder to replace than mine because I've just been handed one of your built up cities, plus a tech and some credits.

Analyst and the others:

Does anyone have a copy of diplomacy?

Anyone want to get a PBEM game going?

I've got dibbs on the Russkis
But I'll also consider the Prussians if the French will guarantee the Rhineland to me and the English will give me gold!

posted 07-20-99 06:25 PM ET            

IRL Conquest rules over builder (IMHO) the fortunate thing is that most human leaders do not behave like humans playing computer despots.

The U.S. Diplomatic and Economic might applied to Iraq and Serbia has done little, even when backed by the threat of force. Only with the use of limited force have limited results been achieved.

The side with the greatest amount of resources and the greatest willingness to apply them in battle will win.

SMAC cannot be one peacefully when even one able opponent is willing to engage in warfare.
The resource cost of building facilities and other items that increase the amount of resources/labs/psych generated does not produce enough of a benefit to oppose an equal amount of resources applied to mmilitary domination.

In SMAC and other games, we have the willingness to engage in combat that hopefully we would not have in real life.

One other point to remember, the people engaged in this argument are the cream of the crop of players. The perceived advantage of conquest mode vs. builder mode is greater than the real advatage because elite players are able to take every inch given and generate the largest possible return.

A player who is severely tested playing at Librarian will find there to be much more of a balance, I would suspect.

posted 07-21-99 12:50 AM ET            

Dowdc: Your comments about air units and defenders with two special abilities both have flaws. Firstly, applying two special abilities to a unit can't be done until the game is relatively well advanced - certainly well after I've rolled over your bases with impact infantry and Plasma Skirmishers, for which you will likely not have the required armour, abilities, numbers or defensive structures/forming to defend yourself with. Note also that assuming I land next to another faction, I will get a builder advantage from them as well, simply by capturing their bases and tech (either via probes or surrender). This puts me in a much more commanding position than a straight builder.

Secondly, you ignored my comment about artillery completely - probably because you'll have to admit that there is no defensive counter to it. You have to actively kill arty, and so ultimately, it again just turns into a contest between who can build the most quality offensive units quickest, and a conqueror faction will do this better than a builder. As for the perimeter defense - the point is that ANY building has this effect, and the armour values only reach parity with this, they don't exceed it (it also takes a non-weapons tech to use them, so while you research that, I'll be getting nonlinear mathematics).

In reality, attack is the only form of defense in SMAC - stationing active defenders in your bases is usually more effective than having straight laced high armour defensive units. But the concept of playing a defensive game is itself flawed. Once the enemy starts pounding on the walls of your bases, they have a chance of winning. And if you aren't doing likewise, you don't. (This is a fundamental Starcraft principle, incidentally, showing that people's suspicions about the RTS influence on this game aren't 100% wrong. Personally, I feel a better RTS to emulate would have been T.A - in that game, you can build your way to victory, in the form of big berthas or *gibber gibber gibber* rapid fire plasma guns.)

You CAN win the game by peaceful means. No one is denying that - and you can do it quickly, if you know how. But there is no balance between strategies in SMAC.

Alkis: The advantage here is that I can spout off any ideas I want, knowing that firaxis probably isn't listening and that none of them will ever be implimented. Designers are like that, and, more importantly, firaxis is a tiny design team with a firm hierarchy and, it seems, very few programmers.

Darkstar: Wanna start a games company? It's obvious we know sh*tloads more about these games than firaxis ...

Incidentally, the game I'm really looking forward to is the next Sid Meier work, whatever it's called. Something to remember for anyone who lays into firaxis - their shop floor may be sparce and inferior to other companies, but they still have Sid.

Uncleroggy: YES . There's no delete key on explosives, so I can see where your coming from. But look at it this way - the important thing is what turns up on the screen, not the keyboard. Like aiming and firing a rifle - if you stare at the trigger instead of the target, you'll miss things.

To avoid the urge to look at the keyboard, there are a few techniques to use, but the best is to cover the keyboard and your hands with some opaque cloth. Since you shouldn't move your hands much anyway (meaning that the fabric will hinder unnecessary movement), and you can't see the keys, the only way to know what you've typed is to look at the screen.

posted 07-21-99 01:23 AM ET            

There are three defenses against arty... an arty defender, killing the attacking arty, or ignore it. Much of the time Arty seems useless in SMAC. Sometimes, its extremely effective. All on the turn of the random algorithm Firaxis used.

Civ3 I am looking forward to, but not with the mouth watering anticipation of Sid's new game. Civ3 I hope will be a step forward in fun from Civ2, but we will have to wait and see. It will be a BR game, so its hard to say... but seeing as they will try to model history, we should get a few cold war or peaceful periods scattered in the game. And everyone likes to build an empire they can understand...

The key, Shining, to games and their discussion is its EASY to see what worked and what didn't in a game, after its made. Its quite a different story when designing and building it. Hindsight is cheap, and 20/20 after all.

posted 09-04-99 05:26 AM ET            

Although the various factions do differ in SE choices they seem almost identical in the way they build infrastructure, terrain improvements, and units. Every AI player is basically militaristic/expansionistic/aggressive. This is why certain factions are so much more successful under AI management. Since they are all using the same overall strategy, the factions that have the innate traits and SE choices that bolster that strategy will always do better in the hands of the AI.

In response to the builder/conqueror balance issue, let me add my two cents. I'm an almost pure builder at heart (never could play RTS against a human opponent because of that ) and I've won several games of SMAC as a 'pure' builder (i.e. no offensive campaigns, no probing, just strong defense) -but- only because the computer plays poorly. Never would have worked against a human player with even half a clue. It's not even as simple as the 2-to-1 offense vs. defense strength of weapons, there are just so many ways to conduct an offensive campaign in SMAC that a static defense is bound to be overwhelmed. I'm almost certain this is a quote, can't remember from who though: "He who defends everything, defends nothing", or something along that line. All too true in SMAC vs. a good opponent.

One of the most powerful 'builder' tools for a SMAC player is becoming planetary governor and manipulating the voting. But...the conqueror is much more likely to have the votes than the stay-at-home builder, so even the better builder tools still go to the conqueror over the builder. If being nice let you gather your pact buddies to help you with an aggressor that would be great, unfortunately pact diplomacy is incredibly fickle in SMAC. If you are too strong they hate you, if you are too weak they hate you, and if you have any number of SE choices they hate you. By the time (and effort) needed to get around all this goes by, you are...conquered by the conqueror (most reliable way to get a pact: submission).