posted 03-03-99 04:09 PM ET            

Anyway, I've been saying "Just one more turn, honey!" to my wife for 10 1/2 years now. And she still loves me - I must be a great guy.

Bottom line, I would give SMAC a 9.5 on the SUAN (Stay Up All Night) Meter. I've had serveral nights of playing until 3:00 am since it came out - and I have to be at work at 7:00! Don't try this at home, kids! I've had years to acclimate my body to this type of torture. Leave this to the unpaid professional game players, like me.

MOM was my all time sleep deprivation winner. I had numerous all-night MOM sessions followed by a shower and drive to work. Of course, both I and the genre were a lot younger back then.

Hey Firaxis, how bout a MOM remake? I'll do the initial design myself! Send me a copy of your design template, or the SMAC design order, and I'll follow your format. I'm not kidding!

posted 03-03-99 07:26 PM ET            

I've been rating games by the "Lost Sleep Index" for years. The index is somewhat uneven, as it varies with other things in my life, but I rate a game by how many hours past my intended bedtime, I end up playing it the *first* night I play it. On the whole and speaking statistically, the longevity of a game on my hard drive is pretty related to the LSI.

So far the all-time record was 12, for MoO2, but most of the games you mention (and I consider Armada 2525 to be one of the classics, myself) got ratings of 8 or higher. For really bad games, you need to stoop to Outpost, Destiny, and others I've blissfully forgotten. For that matter (de gustibus non disputandem [sp?]), some of the ones you list as classics are on my "ugh" list, like LotR and LOM.

posted 03-03-99 08:12 PM ET            

This might be a terrible breach of etiquette even talking about it, but I wonder if people are looking forward to Microprose's latest bit of Vaporware, Birth of the Federation? Sounds like MOO meets Star Trek. I'm hoping that 1999 is the year for we die-hard, turn based strategy gamers. I don't mind real time simulations, but there's something about tweaking the minute details over the course of 6 hours that just fascinates me.

posted 03-03-99 08:52 PM ET            

Seriously though, I have yet to play a good, fun Star Trek game on the computer. We'll see if BOTF can get it right and cause me some sleepless nights. Looking at the previews and such though, I don't have a lot of hope for it...

weregamer: The Lost Sleep Index is born! The LSI on SMAC probably ranks pretty high for me. Right up there with Civ I (not Civ II -- I never saw what the fuss was about...)

posted 03-04-99 01:06 AM ET            

I lost the disks some years back and had to tide myself over with the inferior sequals. One day CompUSA had a "Greatest hits o' strategy" collection featuring X-Com for like $20. I went out and bought it, only to find that X-Com now ran impossibly fast on my P200. The only time EVER in my life that I wished for my 486 back. sigh......

posted 03-04-99 03:12 AM ET            

MOO2 and Caesar II also cost me many hours of
slumber. I work a 4:00 pm to 12:30 am shift
which makes it all to easy to indulge in this
addiction. I've seen way too many sunrises.

For the sheer time consumption I am amazed,
but SMAC is so far the hands down winner.
Not just the game itself (bad enough) but all
the time spent at the forums, first trying to
get the damn game to work and then just enjoying the stimulating discusstions here.

Again Scrubby, I agree CIV II was just ok.
After playing thru once I gave it to a friend
But SMAC is in a different league for me.
But now I must get back.....Deidre is waiting.

(My girlfriend even likes this game. Plays
the Spartans!?!)

posted 03-04-99 03:57 AM ET            

Part of the appeal of the Spartans must be Corazon Santiago. At last here's a game where Rambo isn't a man, and women aren't there for their figures.

One could do that in Civ2 as well, but there's more role playing in SMAC; as Deirdre, Corazon or Miriam, one has a distinct motive and personality.

It would be even better if the technologies and social choices that were beneficial to each faction were even more distinct. I find it hard to justify using Free Market when it becomes available because the worms are already leaping and the drones squealing. This is a pity, because the fastest research combination is Democracy/Free Market/Wealth.

Civ2 I loved, and kept it on my HD from 1996 to this February; but then I needed the space for SMAC.

posted 03-04-99 12:17 PM ET            

Everyone: I remember my first JOMTS game. And, yes, it was a Sid Meier game. It was the PC port of Crusade In Europe. If I remember correctly this game was actually non turnbased, way before realtime (although i wouldn't call it realtime, either). You went through hours at a time and could pause to give new orders. Soon there after I got Conflict in Vietnam and Decision in the Desert (both of which I believe are weaker than Crusade in Europe). Crusade in Europe made my trip to Normandy a very interesting experience.

Another non-Sid classic that hasn't been mentioned too much is the original Warlords. Talk about a riotous hotseat playing game. And last but not least (non turnbased but one of the best early modem strategy games) Command H.Q. Wish someone would remake that one.

MrSparkle: There is a slowdown program called Mo Slo which might help you. There is a shareware version that sucks, but you can get purchase the full version for a few bucks. You can also get full lisecnesed version with the Forgotten Realms Archives (not published anymore, but maybe still available) from Interplay. it doesn't work perfectly, but it makes it playable. I play it and TFTD, MOM, and MOO using it (all part of that same package). It's really criminal that they did not inlcude that program with that boxed set.

posted 03-04-99 01:17 PM ET            

I would end up playing CIV and CIV2 for hours on end after parties and whenever the excuse came up - starting at 2-3 AM and playing 'till the sun came up and everyone else started waking up.... 10, 11, noon or later...

Now I have my own PC, my own house.... When I got SMAC (Thurs Eve, 8 PM) I managed to play 25 hours of it by the time I went to sleep - interrupted by an 8 hour workday. Fortunately, I had the rest of the weekend to recover... by playing a bit more....

posted 03-04-99 03:10 PM ET            

Also remember us playing Adventure Construction Set those days, that was fun. What was great, the game would display something like, "The Action Moves To The Fertile Crescent" or "The Action Moves To Giza," so we could each travel the RPG independently, for a short time each. Fastload cartrige helped matters. I can't actually think of a RPG that has been based on real history rather than fantasy since then. Jeez, to play a game taking place in Mesopotamia, ancient Rome, Egypt, Japan or Celtic Europe. That old game really captured the flavor of history (in it's main scenario).

Hehe, that's what Firaxis should do next: go back to their specialty, History, but do a RPG.

posted 03-04-99 03:46 PM ET            

I enjoyed IG for a single campaign. It was RTS, not TBS, but still pretty strategic in nature.

posted 03-04-99 04:15 PM ET            

I loved the ability to design ships, and the AI's strategy was surprising good, for its time. The AI did not cheat, but would rather try to out-micromanage the human. The AI would control hundreds of fleets, pain in the arse in that game for a human to try.

posted 03-04-99 04:36 PM ET            

Yes, the old IG was pretty good. It was MOO before there was MOO.

For you space conquest nostalgia buffs, let me throw out some other titles: Spaceward Ho! (sucked), Pax Imperium (REALLY sucked), BattleCruiser 3000 (REALLY REALLY sucked), Star Control 3 (lame, but funny).

And for those who like your feet on the ground: Birthright (kind of interesting), Imperialism (fun but limited), Conquest of the New World (pretty bad), Rise and Rule of Ancient Empires (off the suckmeter).

posted 03-04-99 05:14 PM ET            

MULE was one of Electronic Arts original titles. There were a few others that are kinda forgetable, mystery game, a few arcade clones. MULE made EA. It was the only one that SOLD.

You can find it easy on the internet for Commodore simulators.

But it's the best, you start on this planet, see, with a few friends. (What makes MULE great are having friends hotseat). Anyway, then everybody picks territory. Everybody gets one chance. then you build your MULES, and it becomes ECONOMIC warfare.

It's great, I just played it single player recently, great fun still even with old graphics.

EA really SHOULD update MULE, don't know why they haven't. Some magazines still call it the best game EVER. Hmm.

posted 03-04-99 10:08 PM ET            

KJ/Taterbill: minor correction: Imperium GalactUM was the old SSI classic.

Pax Imperia was a GREAT game that suffered from bugs and unskilled coding, but only available on the Mac. Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain was the piece of RTS excrementa that an action-game company finally produced after buying the license from the company that failed to produce Pax Imperia II. They had too much conscience to actually call it Pax Imperia II.

M.U.L.E. is one of the several truly classic games by the late Dan Bunten/Danielle Berry. He (later she) also produced Command HQ, which has been mentioned here, Modem Wars, Cytron Masters, and other groundbreaking multiplayer games. She always worked to make games that brought people together socially, instead of isolating them solitaire.

When I recount the landmarks in the history of 4X space games, I usually start with the classic Empire games (not space games, but the prototypical 4X games beginning the entire genre. I'm refering to the original Empire on the Plato system in the 60's, more than its linear descendants such as the comp.sources.games version from the 80's or the PC versions from QQP.), perhaps a nod to the ancient Broderbund trilogy (don't remember the exact names any more), and then the main stream: Cosmic Balance II, Imperium Galactum, Pax Imperia, MOO, MOO2. I'd give Imperium Galactic*a* honorable mention for being better than most realtime attempts at 4X, but it was not replayable and the real 4X game only started after 80+ hours of wading through scripted stuff.

posted 03-04-99 11:13 PM ET            

How I loved that game. Cursing Ariel for her brutality on my settlers, getting my butt whipped by Lo-Pan.. and then my eye-popping delight when I discovered the other plane. This game goes down as my all-time favorite game of well, err, all-time. A close second would have to be Phantasy Star for the orignal Sega Master system.

Did anyone else use the itemmake utility to customize ALL of the magic items in the game.. I remember spending over 5 hours one time intricately customizing each of the 120+ items available in the game. Those were the days.

I would probably crap DIRECTLY in my pants (and that's a good thing) if Microprose did a remake. They did for MOO (Hey, when is MOO3 due, by the way? Haven't heard much since that press release back in October...) why not for MoM?

Long live MoM!
Go Paladins!
Go slingers!
go phantom warriors!

posted 03-05-99 01:20 AM ET            

Congradulation, you've started a very nice topic. You know i was just sick and tired of reading all the bad things about SMAC.

I was reading the reply of everyone in this topic and smiling. Old good days. I was mainly a civ II maniac and like someone said, I must be a good guy cause my wife is still with me after all those hours(nites) playing games.

So, I hope many many people will read this topic and start to be ++++positive+++++.

Thanks

posted 03-05-99 09:43 AM ET            

Too short-breathed to parse the rest of the thread now! (that comes when you're getting old, 36/7 but I like to say 40).

You can say you're gettin' old when a shower doesn't do for recovery after a TBS night, AND you can afford getting to work a couple of hours late (where I plounge right away in the forums).

LSI? what about Lost Sleep Directory?
I vaguely recall a sci-fi short story, where the ones that did undergo immortality treatment were called Elsi, that stood for LC, Living Corpses, strictly related and consequent to LS, Lost Sleep.

I'd rather rate it on a bigger scale: it's not how many hours the first night, it's not JOMT, is NASN, not another sleepless night (helplessly), how many straight sleepless nights when you get the game.

The most wicked is spending sleepless night in Lotus 1-2-3 (was it 2.1?) first and Excel then, building x-reference tables for every aspect in the game!! I had lovely ones for MoM spells, races, units....

To take a break (?) I enjoyed sometimes 'Machiavelli: the Prince'.

Does anyone remeber something called like Elite(?), lone galactic trader, think 5"1/4 got corrupted and could never find it again (that was like >12 y ago).

Oh, BTW:
"De gustibus non est disputandum"

seems that here we all agree on the basics anyway.

Cheers! (as long as we're here...)

posted 03-05-99 09:46 AM ET            

It's amazing how a lot of games like these would not easily fit into one of the pigeon holed genres of today. I mean, what the hell is Starflight? Even M.U.L.E. broke convention.

posted 03-05-99 02:20 PM ET            

taterbill: for us Canadians in post-high school education, reading week is a week off from school to prep for exams (yeah right!)

everyone who mentioned Wasteland: damn, I must be getting old to forget that game! Just absolutely addictive yeah.

people who mentioned not having enough time to play: did you catch my earlier post called an "embarrassment of riches?" I talked about playing SMAC, intertwined with Grim Fandango, multiplayer Half-Life & StarCraft, Thief (which I haven't played in a while but it is soooo good) etc. Too many good games right now -- it's embarrassing. (that's why I wasn't on yesterday Heroes III!)

Being only 25, my earliest computer gaming memories was Wizardry on the old Apples (II's?). Who remembers the Blade Cuisinarts wielded by Lords, who fought side by side with Ninjas and Bishops? Passwords for characters? Was that nuts or what? Being SLEPT? LOL

What about Bard's Tale? This was mind blowing at the time... remember animated 3d perspective? Archmages? 397 barbarians? Spectre Snares? Intraparty conflicts? Whoa I'm getting freaky.

One day young gamers of today are going to look back on games like SMAC and say the same things and we retiree gamers are going to sound really old then... "why when I was yer age we didn't have 4 terabytes RAM, and we liked it!" "Grandpa, whats RAM?"

posted 03-05-99 02:58 PM ET         

Its not our fault that the 'just one more turn' addiction causes us to lose sleep, I know myself i'm always waiting for the perfect 'time' to save and there is just always one more thing to do, ohh then once thats done I need just this thing, ohh now after this it'll be perfect............we all know what is next don't we.......(although possibly different in your houses).........BZZZZZZ holy crapola my wife's alarm is going off, she already thinks i'm looney I gotta sneak in and jump in bed and 'wake' up quickly or hop in the shower and act like I just got up!' hahaha almost like the gettingcaught with hand in candy jar feeling there... .... But she already knows and just smiles..

Creeping coins, wooohooo those were awesome, but damn Werdna was a tough B..... 'Tiltowait' DOH can anyone even believe I wasted brain cells to save this information?? If only I could use my powers for good....

Empire, ahhh an oldie but a cheezie, but multiplayer and high on my LSI way back when.

posted 03-05-99 04:04 PM ET         

Freudianslip: SimTex was working on MOM2 before the division was disbanded by Microprose. The project went into limbo at that point, Microprose still owns the rights but apparently no one is working on it at the moment. No idea whether someone will develop an �unlicensed� sequel without the MOM name, as Firaxis did with SMAC. At least you don�t have to change your pants.

posted 03-05-99 04:06 PM ET         

Scrubby, I can barely remember Bard's Tale III. Wandering around outside was almost certain death until you advanced a little. That was when turn-based combat was looking at a picture while text scrolled, telling you how badly you were getting your @ss kicked.

posted 03-05-99 04:24 PM ET         

Bards tale III wow, where is my graph paper and pen again, although bards tale was one of the first to actually 'map' for you if I remember.

posted 03-05-99 04:59 PM ET         

I remember MoM, and if any Firaxians are out there I would recommend, liberally, an unlicensed sequel. "Master of Sorcery" sounds good enough for me,

Oh, and for you MoM fanatics out there, there is a hotseat hack made by an amateur. There are shortfalls (namely in combat and diplomacy) but it is designed for the pure MoMnut with nothing better to do, anyway.

posted 03-05-99 06:55 PM ET         

10 years ago I used to go over to a friend's house to play this multiplayer game on his Mac, and I forget the title. Basically, there was this huge virtual universe and everytime you log on you take your turn. There's a lottery where you win x credits at the start, then a little news bulletin (Eg. Usher7 has declared war on Hal8!). The point is to try to get as many planets as possible. You build up fleets, buy planets etc.....ooohhhh I can't remeber the title, it was a completely text based game but who cares?! It's like an old version of Stars! or something.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Other fun games of lore: SimCity (the original BW mac version), Gauntlet, and Ultima.

posted 03-05-99 11:20 PM ET            

"Back in those days we didn't have automapping and annotation and we liked it!"

Ha! Good one Gildon, I still have some of those maps I made in the boxes for the game. In my Might and Magic I box I even have the letter John Van Canegham sent me after I sent him my final score (something like 2 billion if yer interested).

If anyone is interested Interplay has the "Ultimate RPG Archives" with all the Bard's Tales, the Ultima Underworlds, Dragon Wars, WASTELAND!!, Might and Magic IV and V, Wizardry Gold and Stonecrap I mean, Stonekeep. Its got the MoSlo utility to slow down your hyper fast Pentiums... hehe.

posted 03-07-99 12:08 AM ET            

But thinking of not so classical games (PC-Age, Amiga): What about the atmosphere and thrill one could feel playing "Doom" ...? This is one of the chilliest games i've ever encountered, those games following couldn't create this feeling of being alone against "them" again. It's quite like Civ and Civ II - once you've seen the original, it's hard to like the follow-up.

posted 03-08-99 06:28 PM ET            

It has taken me like 7 hours to completely read this thread!! All the memories, I once broke into a school and played Ultima III on a computer with my friend!!(We didn't steal anything, just wanted to play(I didn't own a computer then :-( )).

But enough of that, I remember EA made a game were you built a space station, with diffrent type of modules (pharmacuticals (sp?), medical, ore, ect, ect), and tried to make money. Can't remeber the name, but it was awesome!!

We also used to play a game like risk but you had Armies and Navies and you tried to colonize the world. That game truly rocked, until we bent the 5'25 floppy!!! We mournstill even today!!

But I still belive the best game ever is Wastland, when we found you could copy disks and go back to other places over and over, my whole party had POWER AXES! That rocked!! Not to mention we were unable to finish because we never found the secret base in that radioactive town. We always tried to take on the cyborg base without the best weapons! Remember the Nun's with gun's???

And how could you say CIV2 was not better than CIV? Hands down it was better, but maybe some of us just like making our own units and maps more than others.

posted 03-10-99 02:13 PM ET            

Strategy games I really enjoyed came pretty late. I think the first was Dune 2. It's still one of the best around, I think.

posted 03-10-99 02:27 PM ET         

I also remember playing some version of Colossal Cave (pre-Zork) on a minicomputer terminal at Northeastern Community College in Massachusetts (I was in grade school, at the time).

Did anybody ever play the Eamon text adventures for the Apple II series? They were shareware adventures that you could buy at computer shows and such, similar to Zork.

posted 03-10-99 03:43 PM ET            

Back in my younger (and dumber) days I would basically get a 12-pack of budweiser and play Speedball on my A500 with some booster 2600 joysticks until I passed out. That a Shadow of the Beast, though for my money almost any Cinemaware game was the thing to play. Interactive movies on 3.5 disks, how cool was that?

jkm

posted 03-10-99 03:47 PM ET         

Lots of great games mentioned (Ultima, Wizardry, and yes, I was a Reach for the Stars addict, too...and many others already mentioned).

This will go back a long time, but my true addictions started with access to the PLATO system back when I was a kid. Unless you went to school at Illinois-Champagne/Urbana or was a kid of a Control Data employee, you probably never heard of it, but for those of us who were there, it was our internet of the early 80s.

Avatar... Moria (not the shareware)... Trek... and Drygulch. Ahhh...now there were the good ol' days....

Any PLATO alum out there?

posted 03-10-99 04:03 PM ET         

1: The Ultimate RPG Archive from interplay:
Wasteland, dragon wars, bards tale 1-3, a few other things. Check it out at www.interplay.com

posted 03-10-99 04:08 PM ET            

I swear I played Wasteland like 1000 hours at least (talk about replayability)! The otehr thing about wasteland is that it can still be played because processor speed is adjustable in the game. I played it on my 486 until I got my p2 last year. The only other game I played as much or more was Civ I.

posted 03-10-99 07:14 PM ET            

And what about the real classic Empire on the Amiga?! Quite a few hours of my life spent on that one.