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Author Topic:   SMAC is a serious dissapointment
Stormkindler posted 03-02-99 03:03 PM ET   Click Here to See the Profile for Stormkindler   Click Here to Email Stormkindler  
For those of you who love SMAC and like to blast those of us that critisize it, just remember one thing.

I bought this game HOPING that I would love it. I didn't pay $50 just to have the right to hate it.

The problem with SMAC is that it was seriously misrepresented by Sir Sid and the rest of Firaxis.

This is a sequel to CivII. It should have a label that reads "If you didn't play CIVII or Didn't like it, then DON'T BUY THIS GAME"

Personally I didn't play CivII. Now some of you might think this makes me illeligable to comment, but I think it makes my point exactly!!!

The graphics are substandard by any comparison. The sound? (nuf said) And the game is seriously laggy. I'm playing this on a PII233 with 128 meg of ram and a 8 meg video card. Why is this game slow? It sure isn't processing video. It sure isn't scrambling to redraw polygons. And I can't imagine an AI that takes 5 or 6 seconds between moves.

The movies are nice as individual units but they are Very poorly integrated into the game. You are sitting thier playing, when all of a sudden with no warning, your screen goes blank. your monitor clicks as the game swaps you into video mode, and suddenly some unrelated video shows on your screen about a secret project that you forgot you were working on.

Of course if some other faction learns something first, I guess you've just wasted all your time. I guess this is just like real life. Germany discovered the rocket first, so we in the US had to say. "darn" now we can never use rockets. I wish we could tell the rest of the world that we discovered nuclear weapons first, so that they would have to stop.

How about the movement of the pieces. If you move each piece one square at a time, the turn takes forever. If you assign movement to a piece you run the risk of not being able to stop the piece in time to react to something that has just happened. Any game that MAKES you take the long arduous route and penalizes you for using short cuts is in my book poorly thought out.

I would like to remind people that I WANTED to like this game. I tried to like this game. I kept playing and playing, HOPING I would like this game.

I am a hardcore gamer that has been playing serious tactical games since the heyday of Avalon Hill. "tactics II" "diplomacy" by mail. 6 month chess games. I am not some FPS fanatic that can't handle the idea of an involved, complicated, long, tactical game, but SMAC is a poor example of what makes a good game.

I am happy for those of you who like it. Unfortunately, (and I do regret it) I can't be one of you.

Firewall posted 03-02-99 03:12 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Firewall    
If SMAC is slow on your PII233\128MB RAM then their is something wrong with your machine's configuration. Make sure you don't have anything running in the background.
Lazarus posted 03-02-99 03:53 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Lazarus  Click Here to Email Lazarus     
I'm running SMAC on NT4 with a P166/128 RAM/4MB video card. Runs just fine. You must have something wrong with your system, or you're running background apps. You could try turning off certain features (like the sound that you dislike, for example) and loading the faster images from the CD.

Of course, if you don't like the game, you don't like the game.

Freudianslip posted 03-02-99 04:05 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Freudianslip  Click Here to Email Freudianslip     
Did you play the original civilization? I thought that was extremely well executed graphically, it's only slightly better than SMAC =).. I am also one of those who wasn't too impressed by Civ2. However, I find myself liking SMAC more and more... stayed up until 3 last night (had to teach at 9) attempting to drive those crap-house Believers into the ground. Try it a little longer, and just enjoy the movies. I was about ready to throw the game and its 6-year old graphics engine in the trash, but then I gave it a little more time, and began to appreciate the attention to detail, and some of the subtler nuances. Gaia forever!

Slowly becoming a SMAC fan,
FS

Rubikahn posted 03-02-99 04:09 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Rubikahn    
adding insult to injury - Honest to god running a P90,16meg ram, 1mb video card..Just get the inevitable terran.exe once in a while and of course the turn turn complete complete...
Freudianslip posted 03-02-99 04:16 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Freudianslip  Click Here to Email Freudianslip     
Well, I think that it's important to remember that "slow" is a relative term. What might be slow to a person with a PII-400 might seem blazingly fast to someone with a P90. For me, I didn't even know there WAS a pause between turns until about 40 turns into the game (running truePII @464mhz). However, my net connection is so slow that at times I wonder if I'm even connecting at 14.4, let along 33.6. For example, it usually takes me 25 minutes to download a 1 meg file. Anything over 10 megs, I just leave the computer on over night downloading.

What was the point of this post? I'm not really sure. Perspective, that was it. Perspective.

December Man posted 03-02-99 04:24 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for December Man    
Hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you think SMAC is a disappointment that's fine. I myself thought Half Life was garbage. But few agreed.
Stormkindler posted 03-02-99 04:26 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Stormkindler  Click Here to Email Stormkindler     
First of All, as a systems analyst, I'm a little past the "apps running in the background" advice, though I do appreciate the help. Perhaps there is something incompatible with my system, but I don't think so.

As for the good parts of the game, Of course there are some good parts. Frogger had good parts to it. Of course using that logic, I guess you could compare SMAC to Tic-Tac-Toe. They are both turn-based strategy games, and more people have played Tic-Tac-Toe than will ever play SMAC. Of course knowing Sid, he would assure us that SMAC is not just a sequal to TTT, it's a whole new concept. Brand New!!!!

(oh, and yes. I know I'm rambling

I've shelved SMAC and am back playing AOE-Rise of Rome. This game just never seems to get old.

P.S. While I'm rambling, why did SMAC have a patch out before it even appeared in some stores? Did anyone else think that was ridiculous????

Freudianslip posted 03-02-99 04:31 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Freudianslip  Click Here to Email Freudianslip     
Didn't like Half-life? Ah, the blasphemy!! =) I loved it, but again, it is a matter of taste. One of my favorite games was actually on Computer Gaming World's list of "150 worst games of all time" .. the game was a neat little role playing game in the style of Pool of radiance, but with a lot more detail. I also thought Command & Conquer blew huge chunks.. the only reason I played it was to get to watch the videos. On the other hand, I thought warcraft and warcraft2 was incredible. I think war2 is far superior to starcraft.. the graphics are so much cleaner and easier to see. I didn't even notice the zergling the first time I tried being the zerg. Then, when I saw movement, I thought "please, by all that's holy in heaven and hell, don't let that little amorphous blob of pink goo be a unit I'm supposed to control..." Alas, it was.
Anyway, there I go, rambling again. I think it's time for a little carmageddon2, followed by a few turns of SMAC.


Borodino posted 03-02-99 04:41 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Borodino  Click Here to Email Borodino     
Very appropiate handle, Stormkindler.

Any as to your "ps":

SMAC had a patch out before it was in many stores because between the time went it went gold and the time it was released [two months, due to an EA marketing decision], the demo came out and there were many suggestions for improvement, many of which were carried out:

Hotseat play
Play By EMail
Un-"flagged" Probe teams
Non-city limited contruct road to command
And a variety of others.

I, for one, had the patch downloaded before I bought the game. [Kinda strange, but...]

Brother Greg posted 03-02-99 05:22 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Brother Greg  Click Here to Email Brother Greg     
By the way, just a few things. When movies come up, you first have to click on an "ok" button, telling you that the city built the wonder, so they don't just "pop-up" so to speak. And when units are on auto-move, they do stop when they come into contact with other units (enemy units that is). All of this stuff can be toggled in the options though. B.T.W, not making those points as arguments, just to point them out to you.

As for runnung slow - I have no idea at all. It does seriously sound like something is wrong though, either that or it is just slow in comparrison to other games, I don't know. Holding down the [shift] key during enemy moves will speed them up though (the actual graphical movement that is).

Um, if another faction learns something first, you can still learn and use that tech, so I don't know what that point is about. Really, the only bonus to learning something first is that you can utilize it first.

Anyway, all that besides, if you don't like it, you don't like it. Fair enough. Still, I would suggest persevering for a while (if for no other reason than you don't want to waste $50), cos it has some surprising depth that isn't readily apparent (like CIV II, but that of course means little to you).

Spoe posted 03-02-99 05:32 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Spoe  Click Here to Email Spoe     
SK-
"Personally I didn't play CivII."
Then you missed out on a great game. _I_ don't think it disqualifies you from commenting on this game. From some of the comments from people that don't like SMAC(the people that were complaining that SMAC is too _different_ from Civ2), this might actually help you.

With it being slow, SMAC does seem a bit config sensitive at times.

"Of course if some other faction learns something first, I guess you've just wasted all your time. I guess this is just like real life. Germany discovered the rocket first, so we in the US had to say, 'darn' now we can never use rockets. I wish we could tell the rest of the world that we discovered nuclear weapons first, so that they would have to stop."
I understand your point here. But perhaps a better analogy would be the USSR having to say, "Oh darn it all to heck, the American Imperialists beat us to the bomb. Now we can't be first and enjoy the advantages of being the only ones with the bomb for a while.".
Now, I understand that this not fit all the Secret Projects equally well, but this is what(IMO) is going on.

"How about the movement of the pieces. If you move each piece one square at a time, the turn takes forever. If you assign movement to a piece you run the risk of not being able to stop the piece in time to react to something that has just happened. Any game that MAKES you take the long arduous route and penalizes you for using short cuts is in my book poorly thought out."
This is a bit of a pet peeve for me as well. It should be easy to fix. Just add a pause at the _start_ of a turn, to let you review the situation before any automatic moves take place.

Bordino:
Agreed on the patch bit. It is more like a patch that came out a month or month and a half after the game was out(or ready, in this case).

Freudianslip posted 03-02-99 05:32 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Freudianslip  Click Here to Email Freudianslip     
Brother Greg... I believe SK is talking about the "secret projects".. it is rather ludicrous to believe that all of the other factions would give up developing a special weapon or ability just because one faction made it first. But again, that does put a nice "urgency" on the building of such projects, at the sacrifice of realism...
iratheous posted 03-02-99 05:58 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for iratheous  Click Here to Email iratheous     
Hmm Wy doesn't america build a great wall of china? Why doesn't Iraq build thier own internet since they don't have acces to ours? Why doesn't Mexico build thier opwn Statue of Liberty? Why doesn't Japan build another Air Force? Why Doesn't Montana Build Submaries?? Why doesn't Cuba build stealth bombers?

I think that by the time a country woudl build a second version of the same wonder the wonder woudl be outdated (justduing from Civ II at least) or it woudl have the same effect since there was already an existing wonder (look at the bennifets of a s o liberty in civii, why would another country bennifet teh same way? they woudl be loked like at dorks) PLUS This is what helps set certain factions apart. i hear all the time in these forums (Why doesn't Firaxis give us another way to let our faction be DIFFERENT than the other factions? Well guess what a small trade off in 'absolute reality' gives us added game play. i woudl rather have these Wonders help personalize my faction than just have 7 factions exactly the same at the end of the game. it alows you to use different strategies once you get these wonders because you know you are unique in some way and you know thatyou can't get all wonders, so you try for key wonders, and in another game you try for OTHER key wonders.. Otherwise the wonders might as well be tech's. Why bother building them if you are going to research them anyways?

Rasputin posted 03-02-99 08:00 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Rasputin    
I don't know, I might be in the minority, but I think the graphics AND sound in SMAC is better than Civ2. Now, I never played Civ2 personally, but I watched (and listened) my roommate play (a lot). The graphics seemed only average, however the sound about drove me crazy! It seemed like the same darn song over and over. SMAC may be the same, but the music isn't irritating. I'm running SMAC on my 200mhz Pentium w/64 megs of RAM and it runs just about flawlessly. And I know that there are quite a few bugs in the game, but hey, they'll get worked out eventually. IMHO, I think Civ2 fans are buying the game thinking it's going to be the same as Civ2, "but better", and are disappointed in changes to the status quo.
Imran Siddiqui posted 03-02-99 10:56 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Imran Siddiqui  Click Here to Email Imran Siddiqui     
Yeah, anyone realize that Civ2 was almost exactly the same as Civ1? Why did it sell so much? Cause it was an enhancement of a game that some gamers liked. Same as for SMAC.

I mean tastes are different. Back in 1996, Civ2 was welcomed by all, now in 1999, with our super 3d graphics and all, some people don't like SMAC (My offer still stands, btw: Find me a game magazine review that said it was bad!). I'll tell you that I HATED AoE or Red Alert (or any RTS), while others loved them! I play first-person shooters for a week, and then never again. However, games like SMAC? I'll play them for years on end!

Imran Siddiqui

gib01 posted 03-03-99 02:06 AM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for gib01  Click Here to Email gib01     
Read this months PC gamer. nuff said
Ender4000 posted 03-03-99 07:43 AM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Ender4000  Click Here to Email Ender4000     
on a completely unrelated topic... sort of. I personally like the grahpics for SMAC as well, I constantly here people say its no Starcraft but its TBS so it doesn't need to be. Well Starcrafts graphics are aweful, they aren't even as good as warcraft II's. I guess people are looking for different things in graphics or something.
MoSe posted 03-03-99 07:50 AM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for MoSe  Click Here to Email MoSe     
Speaking about language (meta- =) ).

It's the n^nth time that I happen to read in this forum dissapointment instead of disappointment. Too many occurrences to be just a coincidence.
Now, I don't have a Webster at hand to check, but what I can figure is:

- just some cool slang I didn't catch up with
- some kind of freudian collective inconscious typo (???)
- simply foreigners (as I am) doing their best
- a serious flaw in US (UK,aussie,NZ,CDN) educational (ok, just grammar-teaching) system
- a rarely used but somewhere accepted form
- a semantic variation (dis-sap-ointment?)

Anything else?

Jason Beaudoin posted 03-03-99 08:31 AM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Jason Beaudoin  Click Here to Email Jason Beaudoin     
SK: If it makes you feel any better, I have a system comparable to yours and I had the same problem. The game was very slow, but it was due to the 16 bit graphics. As soon as I changed the graphic set to 256 colours my speed problem was instantly solved. Amazingly, I saw no difference in the graphics.


Krushala posted 09-06-99 08:09 PM ET     Click Here to See the Profile for Krushala  Click Here to Email Krushala     
no way dude

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