Getting Started with SMAC & SMAX

[dino]

I always thought of blind research as a feature to ease the load of decision making on a player new to the genre, not the only proper way to play as game designer intended.
Vanilla blind research just screw the player in my opinion. You've left and argumented your opposite opinion. I suggest we both leave this thread with that.

BitGamerX came to conclusion that he wants to experience vanilla smac first and I am under impression, it's not his first 4x game, so he will knew the best way for him, to go about it.

[bvanevery]

I always thought of blind research as a feature to ease the load of decision making on a player new to the genre, not the only proper way to play as game designer intended.

No, it's not training wheels.  It's core gameplay, derived from a simulationist position that you are not supposed to teleologically know what kind of research your civilization is going to develop.  "I want to split the atom and get nukes.  Hey presto I've split the atom and gotten nukes!"  Science and technology don't work like that.  It's research.  Partially blinding it, is a halfway house to the difficulty of doing totally original research.  Where as a player, you could conceivably invest tons of resources into a research project and get nothing for your trouble, the way real science actually works.

Explore, Discover, Build, Conquer, is an adaptation of the 4X imperatives eXplore eXpand eXploit and eXterminate.  3 of them are explicit and obvious.  eXpand and Discover are not synonymous.  eXpand is referring to expansion on a map, but tech trees are typical of 4X games.  SMAC rolled eXplore and eXpand into 1 category, Explore, and that's a pretty reasonable decision.  If you look under the *.txt files, Explore actually means "colonization and growth" to the AI.

Vanilla blind research just screw the player in my opinion

Many things about vanilla SMAC are warted in their implementation.  Doesn't mean they should be discarded entirely.  It means they need refinement.

My biggest pet peeve about the whole game, was overpowered probe teams just taking entire cities over.  Even if stuffed with military units, the AI has often bought all of those for a song.  Now somehow in the course of my modding, perhaps by taking PROBE buffs away, the AI has calmed down an awful lot about spewing out probe teams.  Only this makes the game playable for me.  I've rage quit the game so many times in the past about probe team abuse, that at one point I was either like, these settings have to be changed / go away or I just can't stand to play SMAC any more.  And there's no *.txt mod way to change probe team settings, it would require binary hacking.  I'm not sure why my mod is calmer about probe teams, but I'll take it!

You've left

I think you mean "I presented" my opinion, not that I've left the thread or the forum.  I'm right here, answering back.

BitGamerX came to conclusion that he wants to experience vanilla smac first

Wise choice.  For instance it's not going to be entirely easy to see why my mod is better than vanilla, if you haven't actually experienced vanilla.  Not entirely impossible but not entirely easy either.

[BitGamerX]

Ha, I've already run into my first battle and I haven't even installed the game yet. A classic 4X experience. I've been playing 4X games since Civ 2. However I've cooled to the recent 4X entries because of a lack of time and feeling the modern games feel bloated with numerous micromanaging elements that obstruct the underlining strategic elements.

[Vidsek]

   Ok, I guess when I said "chime"  I should have mentioned gongs and kettledrums too  .

  Getting to listen to what friends think and discover is most of what brings me back to this site.  Lively discussions can be very productive.

  The micromanaging bloat is all too real.  A little might be unavoidable but most seems like unneeded frills and developers too lazy to automate features.

  I do think the recent games can be much prettier to stare at.  I wouldn't complain about SMAC(X) with a purely graphic makeover.  The limited color palate would really have to be enlarged first, and I'm not sure that is possible.

  I'm also a fan of hex grid tiles (I say this in part to see just how long we can make this thread get  ), but again, I doubt that is possible with SMAC(X)'s code.  Or at least would be a huge job (all new tile textures and on and on....).

[bvanevery]

Anyone remember The Gong Show?

Kettledrums me think of Bugs Bunny.  Specifically Elmer Fudd operatically chasing after him in various ways.

Automation has this problem of, where does player agency begin and end?  For instance, at the scale that Thinker mod spews cities, I very much find myself wanting a game where colonization and settlement happen automatically, where it's out of the player's hands.

This isn't alien to the sentiment of the old Avalon Hill board game Civilization.  You didn't have all these different unit types, or all these city improvements.  You had "population" pieces, I forget what the term was although I may have it correct.  And you had "cities".  You'd put 1 city on a territory, after accumulating a certain number of population pieces there.  Movement was by adjacency, and the map was at a much coarser scale.  So there wasn't this "where exactly do I put the city?" play mechanic.  The resources available in a territory were important, basically how large your population could get, that was it.

As various sub-game mechanics are tossed out though, there comes a point at which, one wonders what's left of the game?  Is it going to get boring?  When is less more?  When is less less?

[Vidsek]

   Yes, that's exactly the issue.  Too much micromanagement is bad, too little control and involvement in the game is also bad.
  My first thought is to set the default game to some reasonable middle ground and give the players control of settings to adjust the automation up or down to their personal happy balance.

                          "Kill the WAAAAABIT!!!  Kill the WAAAAAAAABIT!!"

[bvanevery]

Letting players adjust the level of automation is bad.  Way too many players obsess that they're not getting "optimal" results if they have an AI doing things for them.  So then they torture themselves with doing everything by hand.  It's like dungeon crawling, gotta get EVERY.. SINGLE.. COIN!!  Even if you have to go 5000 yards through all kinds of twisty turny boring difficult stuff to get that last coin.  'Cuz, muh optimulz.  Now, having thoroughly worn themselves out with all this rote manual work, who do they blame?  You, the game designer.  They're not gonna blame themselves!  Don't give players that choice, you will never be loved for it.

A game is probably like film in some ways.  There's no right answer about how much or how little, to offer the player to do.  But, there's a limit to how much you can give the player to do, somewhere.  If you stack too much crap, too many tasks on top of the player's poor little head, it's gonna get boring.  Just like you can put a film audience to sleep by having actors run their mouths too much, not getting to the point.

To this day, I still don't know how to solve the problems of SMAC.  I have been trying for roughly 20 years.  I would have written and sold the game already if I knew the solution.  But I do know, from all this modding work I did in the past year, that the SMAC tech tree is at least twice as long as it needs to be.  There's piles of boring pointless fat in it.  I hope that if I just undertake the effort of putting it on a diet, I'll come up with a new game that's better.

I've adjusted so many game weights, this setting, that setting, this number up or down.  I can rebalance things like that in my sleep.  This isn't the 1st game I've done that for either, there was this big Wesnoth campaign a number of years ago.  Whether 100 or 120 or 150 gold was the right amount to start with, that sort of thing.

The solution to SMAC may be adjusting, up or down, the number of tasks the player is to perform.  Like the game, as it is today, is clearly overloaded.  Don't wanna gut it, but it definitely must be pruned.

[Vidsek]

    I see your point on player control of the extent of automation.
 And agree with it.  In the back of my mind when I wrote about player control, was the thought that it should be limited, but I neglected to say that.

 My ideas are that the designers should set the default balance point but allow the player some say in whether she/he wants a few specific things to be under their or the AI's management.  One example could be where SMAC(X) allows you to automate one or more bases but keep the rest under your control.  Or where you can allow formers to remove fungus or build roads at will, but not plant forest.
 The goal is to allow the player the non-required option to fine tune the degree of automation/micromanagement not to totally reset how the game plays.

  Clearly, a factor in all this is the quality of the AI.  If it accomplishes tasks as well or better than you can, most folks will probably be relieved to have some of the burden unloaded to their 'subordinates'.  If it's crappy, they won't, and that is the designer's fault.

  To add to the breadth of this discussion (because I value your and other's opinions and insights, not because I enjoy "arguments" - I don't), perhaps one could only unlock the controls after the player has run through X number of games at the default settings?

  I also agree with limiting some players' OCD "Every Last Coin" disfunction.  I've indulged in it from time to time, and while it might be satisfying, it can seriously degrade the overall experience by obscuring the real goal, which is playing the game!!.  There are masses of smart phone and pad games that are nothing but completionist busywork.  Play one of those if you need to feed the compulsion.

  I'm also in agreement that since people differ greatly in their personalities, there cannot be one perfect movie or game or one perfect version of each type of either.  I guess that's partly why we have so damn many movies and games.  If you arn't happy with one, you have others to try which might appeal to you more.

  Finally, your point about the number of tasks (as separate from, tho related to, the work involved in each task) is well taken.
  Just how big or long do you want the game to be?  Probably a different subject and one that also could be discussed for days. For instance, increasing the meaningful content could be good, increasing the mindless repetitious grinding is seriously not.  Talk among yourselves  .

[bvanevery]

Managed tasks always have this problem of scale.  9 cities, fine.  20 cities, weeeeelll, it's starting to get painful.  30..45 cities, gagh!!  And yet, this is the scale that Thinker mod plays at routinely.  It doesn't get tired, I do.  How can I possibly compete with that?  It means the AI can always handle double the amount of resources that I can.

One could do a game mechanic that for any given task, you get 5 units of it that you can do manually.  After that, you have to do automated stuff.  A big question is whether the automated stuff will actively work against what you're trying to do manually.  That would be really frustrating.