posted 04-05-99 03:24 AM ET     

Just for fun, I set up a 200 by 200 map to see if my 450Mhz machine can handle it. You know what? It can.

This size map REALLY changes the game. For one, both you and all other factions have a few hundred turns of virtually uninterupted infrastructure time. By the time anybody made contact with anybody, my cities were huge, all linked together, and ready for a great war that would finally last long enough--even demand--techs like orbital insertions. For once, I was totally immersed, truly feeling like I had landed on a huge planet, nearly forgot about any competition, and then looked with slight glee at the first Miriam gunship that dared sail across the sea and anger me.

I looked forward to days of playing out this scenario--Transcend Ironman on a 200 by 200 map. Lots at stake. Good stuff.

Then? Well then The Hive, WAY across the map--now don't give me any bull**** anybody about pact brothers and carriers and any other means that The Hive could have used to do this (the scenario option rules all these out)--hits me with 32 (thirty two) fu*king missles in ONE turn. Next turn--same thing.

Well, my once well-defended coastline is nothing more than a welcome mat for Santiago, who pulls up with a few units and seizes three cities in two turns.

This is bull****, Firaxis. You had version 2 AND 3 of the so-called "enhancements" to fix this, and still you haven't.

I nearly erased the game and swore you off as a company because this is simply unacceptable. Sure, the game runs great--I just really love seeing all my work come to nothing because you guys seemingly refuse to check this very major game issue.

Any comments, or should I just erase and defrag this headache now?

posted 04-05-99 03:29 AM ET         

Listen guys, the game is unplayable when enemy factions can do this to you. I never minded it much on a smaller map because I could almost always just star taking out The Hive or whoever.

But on a 200 by 200 map it can't be done. No way. Not unless, perhaps, you gear your entire strategy from turn one to finding out where The Hive is and trying to get to him.

But all that amounts to is working around a screw up that we should no longer tolerate.

posted 04-05-99 04:06 AM ET         

Firaxis. I have just deleted the game to keep me from getting 5 hours into another one for nothing.

If you honestly (this time) fix the missle range problem in "enhancement" 4, I'll play until my eyes bleed. It's truly one of the most addicting games ever made.

Which is why having it wasted like this is so truly wrong in every cosmic sense of the word.

[...those of you who are keen enough to know my secret identity, please do not disregard this post. The events as I have portrayed them actually happened. Not even the names of the guilty were changed. And I honestly have deleted the game and hope to be able to play it again sometime the right way...]

A very, very sad little man,

posted 04-05-99 06:47 AM ET            

if not, well .... what can i say. I tried.

posted 04-06-99 04:02 PM ET            

I had a PB and could not reach him with it (16 range), so he should not have been able to reach me either.

Not the end of the world, but I sure would like to see this fixed soon. Thinker level is too hard as it is to suffer from this bug too.

posted 04-10-99 09:00 PM ET            

Brian actually stooped so low as to post a message on this forum!

This is the first one I have EVER seen here, and I've been here every day since the first day SMAC was on the shelves (but before that stupid socialist teacher guy flames me here, too, I'll be the first to admit I haven't read EVERY thread here).

BTW, what is this "We're looking into it" crap?

Don't try to pretend that you haven't known for 5 (FIVE!) years that this has been a bug in the Civ2/SMAC code.

Everybody on this forum who has actually played SMAC up to the missile point on the tech tree, is not a complete dolt or Firaxis ass-kisser, and is not playing on 'Infant who couldn't escape a wet paper bag' level has run into this bug (in Civ2 AND in SMAC). Are you calling 60-70% of your customers liars or morons?

And where the heck have you been, for Christ's sake? I was so impressed with your excellent on-line support for Civ2 that I declared myself a 'Brian Reynolds fan for life'. You are sorely testing that status lately, with this 'Enhancement' crap (nothing much more than bug fixes), your and Sid's almost total lack of post-release support (and BTW, I can sort my newsgroup messages by 'author', and your appearance in the c.s.i.p.g.s. newsgroup like 6-7 times in the past 2 months is just terrible), and this "Gosh, we haven't received a save-game with this bug in it, so it must be your setup or power surges (thanks, yin26) or something else causing the problem".

This makes you guys look REAL bad, and if a dedicated strategy game nut like me has already uninstalled SMAC and given the CD and docs away, then that is a pretty bad sign (BTW, Gettysburg! is still on my hard drive and I play it 3-4 times a week, so I am definitely not a Firaxis-basher).

Please clean up your act, fix the stupid missile range bug, admit your mistakes, and for God's sake please spare us the 'Enhancement' crap and I think you will find that a whole bunch of us will be back as big fans and supporters (some of us may even grab the CD and docs back from our little brothers and re-install the thing).