posted 03-18-99 06:35 AM ET        

Like many others here, I have been a long time Civ addict. I bought Civ I together with my first PC way back in 1990 and have been playing it and its successor Civ II rather continously. Always when a new TBS game came out I asked myself: "Will this be the Civ killer?", and always the answer was no. Now that I had Sid Meier's latest oeuvre in my hands I hoped that the chances to meet the expectations were significantly higher. But a tiny voice in the back of my head also said: "Beware of sequels".

After my first experiences with SMAC I share the same impression that already some others have expressed here. Viewed on its own it's a great game that can provide days of playing fun, but compared to Civ it seems strangely lackluster. I know many people are crying out now: "Why do you have to compare everything to Civ, why not judge it without prejudice?" Well, there's so much Civ in SMAC that obviously the development team wanted to create something like the "Ultimate Civ", so the comparision to the original is unavoidable. And this comparison leaves me mildly disappointed.

My disappointment is not caused by the AI flaws or the "have to get used to" graphics that have been discussed here at length. It is more of a philosophical question. And sadly the flaws can not be corrected by updates because they touch the concept of the game itelf. The two reasons why SMAC falls behind Civ are density and immersion. Let me explain what I mean by this.

Density: I call a game dense when simple rules can cause great complexity. Good examples for very dense games are chess and Go. Civ has a very good balance between simplicity of rules and complexity of the game, resulting in endless replayability. In SMAC, the addition of lots of new stuff has lead to rules so complex that you hardly can call them simple. And sometimes they don't affect gameplay very much or can even make it less complex. Two examples for this are the enhanced terraforming options and the design workshop. If you can terraform at will, you dilute the terrain effects that were such an integral part of Civ. Engineers with their extended capabilities come only late in a Civ game, so their use is somewhat limited. Also the design workshop in SMAC dilutes the game. When you can produce any unit you want, you lose the challenge of having to use what is offered. I understand that these and other features are just what gamers have always wanted to be in there, but I cannot help the feeling that the game is overloaded.

Immersion: A strong point of Civ is the immediate idenitfication of the player with the subject of the game, "building an empire to stand the test of time" as it said on the box of Civ I. You always have a feeling of recapitulating history when playing Civ because it covers all the way from hunter/gatherer to space age. SMAC starts in the space age, so you lose the historic timeline. That makes it very difficult to create an incentive to identify with the subject. At first, you need a background story, a thing that was not needed in Civ because it was its own background story. But the SMAC story is too artificial to provide real identification. It seems more like "How can we justify seven different civilizations on the planet?" By that I mean you get the feeling that the game is not a result of the story, but the story is a result of the game. This feeling of "artificialness" also permeates the tech tree. In Civ we researched "Gunpowder" and "Bridge building", in SMAC our wise men strive for things like "Social psychology" or "Doctrine: mobility". This is MUCH to abstract to provide any identification. It might satisfy fans of hardcore sci-fi literature, but for us regular folks it's just Future Tech 1 or Future Tech 4.

Another point about tech: Why the heck do I have to do research to use democracy in or fundamentalism??? I know that gameplay demands it, but this is just ridiculous in the year 2100.

The essence of all this is that SMAC just can not reach the standard that Civ has set. By trying to improve a perfect game the developers have added complexity but in the same time they destroyed the fragile balance of all the different factors that made Civ the best computer game ever. In way they did not obey the First Law of Computer Programming: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Don't get me wrong. SMAC is still a VERY good game, but it just ain't the real thing.

The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that there can be NO Civ killer. Civ has defined a whole new genre of games, all of which have failed to beat the original. And as even Sid Meier's own attempts failed (remember Colonization?), a game that is better than Civ has to be of another category.

posted 03-18-99 08:39 AM ET            

I strongmindedly avoided to put the matter in terms of Civ-comparison (after the first glance 'sameoldstory' impression), but maybe I'm keeping doing it uncosciously.

As a matter of principle I would firmly disagree on your 'Immersion' issue: it is nice, but a good game would do w/out. I love space-based tbs/adventures, 'identification' can work toward sci-fi fantasies and dreams.
But then actually in the end..., maybe you're right again.
That too could be one overlooked reason for me not finding complete bliss in this game as I could have expected. (sometimes I realize I go on with a SMAC game like some work to do).

Little diversion:
my only real-times were settlersII and dungeon keeper.
When AoE came by on my colleague's office desk, I borrowed it driven curious by all the endless threads debating that futile counterposition.

Well, could have been the novelty, or the crisp enjoyable graphics, or the feeling of familiarity, but guess what I spent the last three sleepless nights playing with? And transcribing complete Units/Buildings/Techs tables.xls? Of course, seems a much simpler game, and maybe I'll give it back next week, but...

After some auto-analisys (sp?) I'll start the n-th topic about that, this time out of experience.

Saluti
Marione

posted 03-18-99 10:45 AM ET            

Quite intelligent post and I agree to most of it. As I feel constructive in this era of peace, I will discuss your points.

The names of the techs doesn't bother me that much, but we can all agree they still unnecessarily (maybe a tough word, 'cause I'm sure Firaxis knew this and still went for it as a least of evils) add to complexity. Firaxis could have tried to achieve a few more telling names at the cost of correct(?) scientific terms. This goes for buildings too.

I agree also about terraforming, maybe Firaxis should have had one or two forming abilities less, in part so we hadn't needed to learn so many, in part since automated formers are terrible at doing a good job. This is something that ultimately effect the computer opponents skill-level in a big way too. Lesser abilities to master, better AI.

As for unit design, I doubt many have missed I dislike it. It is an idea that sound great on paper, but fails in gameplay.

The design of the Design Workshop is very poorly executed, and take a lot of unnecessary time of actual play(I won't get into that as I've tried to explain this pretty simple idea and failed miserably , lets just say that prototypes makes things thrice as complex and time consuming when all things are considered). And yes, I do believe that to play a good/smart game, you have to build prototypes "constantly" to be prepared for war(I play at transcend though). Not fun.

Also it shows that the design workshop was too complex for the AI; it fails utterly in suggesting any good units when you have Auto-designing on(I never have) and the AI fails miserably too when it comes to using the designs to the fullest and best extent against you and therefore again doesn't deliver what we were promised before the release; it just follows your strategies and never surprise with its on die hard Needlejet strat, then to shift to speeders if that fails, maybe try to unload a lot of troops behind your lines, for once surprise and make use of its amphibious units effectively instead of building a couple in every city etc. It's always the same, a lot of infantry of different types, a few speeders and at most, one or two planes(who are too cheap btw, not to mention the severely overpowered copters, ugh).

Ultimately, I'm not much for critisising graphics in a game like this, but again here the design workshop adds to complexity. Units are not easily recognizible for what they are. You constantly have to click on them to see what they are, see what abilities they have, even your own sometimes Not much fantasy and fun have been invested in the special abilities to make them truly boost gameplay either. In the end, it just seems like a bunch of numbers that has to be created in order to counter each other, and that does not add intelligence to the game, just hard work. Not that one have to counter any die hard strats from the computer though.

All things considered these things definetely add unnecessarily to complexity, even if unconsciously, to the most die hard fan of the game, and is as you say a distraction to what was really fun and interesting to the civilzation genre.

The only point I would like to make about the factions, is that I see a great opportunity missed out by Firaxis. They could have made both factions and the social engineering have greater impact on relations, gameplay and even graphics. I for one would have waited a whole year for these things to be better. Again it feels a bit too much like numbers... Here are examples of improvements: polluting could have gone over borders making Gaians angry as they try to build a fantastic landscape (reflected in graphics), making them naturally more often enemies with Morgans, social enigeering choices could actually make your people unhappy if you begin pacts and make friends of opposing philosophies etc, things that would make even human players enemies. Things like that would ring more true and add a lot to the feel of the game. Btw governments should be harder to change, and be more costly for the more cities you have.

As for your comment about democracy and fundamentalism, I guess it is neccesary to gameplay. I have no complaints there.

Fortunately, most of these things can be improved for a sequel.

The utterly misunderstood, Ottawa Senators fan,

posted 03-18-99 11:22 AM ET            

I definately agree that there is unlikely ever to be a game that could equal Civ. Civ was the game that defined (and still defines) TBS. As such, nothing will ever be able to equal it. I have to say though I really liked Colonization - I even still have it on my hard disk (it only takes up 4.5MB).

Personally I do not have a problem with the tech names. given the fat that Firaxis had to create a tech tree as opposed to copy roughtly what historically happened I think its quite good. I do agree that the unit workshop is a good idea that has proved unworkable in practise. However, I do like being able to design my own units. In some ways this is more 'realistic' whatever that word really means in a sci-fi setting. Same with the protype idea. Good on paper, bad in operation, but 'realistic'.

posted 03-18-99 04:26 PM ET            

As a reviewer said of another space game, Pax Imperia by THQ. for all its faults the look of the game drew you in.