Yes, I am arguing that SMAC is a superior gaming system to TOT.  There's simply more to do in SMAC.  Other things are equal: community is the same size.  I'm surprised it's the same size, it says to me that we could be doing more somehow.  Or else there's some phenomenon of long term popularity, like Civ II got more exposure back in the day.  Or that many people actually like a simpler, cut down game as they get older.  Or a fair number of people really care about faceplates and don't really care about gameplay.

I never saw the point in Dungeons & Dragons, but I get that a lot of people enjoy rolling dice around and doing math to figure out if their sword hit the orc or not.

For the present discussion, that's apples and oranges.  AD&D is about having a Dungeon Master, a person who can adjudicate the game with arbitrary creativity and content.  AD&D is a rules heavy system as RPGs go.  If you wanted to compare AD&D to GURPS to "no rules" freeform PBEM RPG, to be honest I don't think it sheds any light on SMAC vs. Civ II.

I think comparing either to the Civ IV modding community would be instructive.  I've never studied it up, simply because I like SMAC better than Civ IV.  But I have no doubt that Civ IV modding likely dwarfs my effort, or this TOT effort.

Well have fun as usual then.  I can't talk to y'all about anything I actually think.  Unsubscribing, and I'll remember to stay away from anything on this site that isn't SMAC proper.  Even then...

For Pete's sake if I can't make a direct comparison to Civ II, the game that SMAC is based on...

So I never played ToT. 

In fact, I barely played Civ II. 

We had a used Macintosh to get hEt through college, and didn't get a PC until 2000 or so.  While I BOUGHT Civ II, (and in fact seeing it at a friends' played a part in me wanting a PC at all) I didn't really jump into the series deeply until III. 

My issue with II (only played vanilla), and really with SMACX as well, is the support system for units.  I really, really loathe the support system.

Does this modify that at all? 

What an interesting project! I wonder if multiplayer works with any of these mods...