posted 03-10-99 11:25 AM ET        

It would be great, for instance, to have units desiged the way Master of Orion 2 managed it. My impression after having played SMAC for a bit is that to have units with the same (not entirely, granted) stats despite different chasis yelds a lot of inballance in the game.

An example - recently, while coexisting peacefully with the planet, my Gaian fraction of over 60 cities was attacked by both UoP and the Hive, with some squirmishes with Spartans once in a while. Well, I did lose three frontier cities (as undeveloped as they were), but then...
Two 4 def units in the border cities were good enough. Since they were defense-only units, they were cheap enough to build right away (or hurry the production). (I think you should rather go play the game than read some sorry whining) At first I wanted to round up the garrizon with an infantry artilery or attack unit, but about then my scientists discovered the 'copter chasis.

Understandable, an air unit dominates over ground targets not suited to AA function, not to such extent.

Consider having a unit equally powerful in defence to your garrizon infantry units, but also capable of attacks with your best weapon awailable AND able to attack several times each turn. In reality it comes to two or three attacks against military units (damage does make a difference), with two or so turns spent onrepairs, but that's still a major kick.

My 'copter had attaack 8 and def 3 (it was preety early in the game) - I could build it in about 6 turns in the developed cities of my teritory. (How about employing the idea right now - start a new game?) Two squads, each consisting of two inexperienced (at first) 'copters assisted by a defense rover, conquered the whole Hive territory of about 18 or so cities. Granted, the Hive did not have the Air Superiority or AAA choice - majority of their units were attack 4 defense 3 infantry squads. They did not last long - after my 'copters reached the Elite level they took virtually no damage from such units.

I guess I should make the point right about now to spare any possible reader further frustrated scrolling down:

Why not make weight limit or size restrictions for the designs? MOO2 did quite well using the construction points limits - (if you are still reading this, you should be ashamed of yourself - don't you have a faction to lead?) one could never pack a small gunboat full of state of the art weapons. Which seems to be the case with forementioned 'copter design.

I think MOO2's unit design method would balance SMAC quite nicely - at least in this particular area.
Besides, it was almost as much fun tinkering with them ships as with constructively employing them designs *grin*

Just to prevent any... unpleasantries possibly caused by the above allow me to mention that I enjoy SMAC immersely. I have not had a chance to encunter the problems I can read about in the forum (i.e. the Cloning Vats SP), since my opponents were either erradicated or bounded by a vow to me before I could research any high-level technology.Still, SMAC is the best game around for the buck right now (I marvel at the price of 34.99. That surely beats the usual 49.99 *l*)