Yet Another SMAX Game

[ExCx]

Hey there! I recently bought my old favourite TBS game SMAX. Played a couple of single player games, just to remember stuff. Then I found about this little community here. I always wanted to play this game MP (only played a few 1v1 games with friends) and now's the time I guess. Let's see how competitive I am against some real players here.

Firstly, I prefer a small map. Because, I believe it would be hard to get a multiplayer game going for a long time. Also, this will be my first PBEM experience. So I want this game to be a brief and fulfilling experience for all. I'll probably be the first player to lose, anyway 

Yitzi's Unofficial SMAX patch 3.5d should be installed.

All victory conditions should be on, except cooperative. There should be one person victorious in the end.

Blind research should be on. (duh)

Tech stagnation setting should be on. I always liked it that way. Because it gives room to builder players like me, to plan things better. Also it adds value to the early techs, and pretty much everything else (units, buildings) in the game.

From the latest threads I browsed, I see some house rules should be agreed first. So, for a better experience, I'm copying these rules from other PBEM threads:
-No Empath Guild
-No Cloudbase Academy
-No Planetary Transit System
-No Choppers over attack power 4
-5 bases max. Though, you can conquer and have more. (I'm open to suggestions on this one)
-No self-destructing units
-All game-relevant information that only displays for the first player should be provided to the rest of the players
-No messing with other players council votes while represented by AI (Can anyone enlighten me on this?)

Other than those, rules pointed in here should be sufficient.

Everyone could pick their own faction. I'd like to play with the Gaians please. 

4 players including me would be enough. I will wait for one whole week (until next Sunday) for people to draft in. Though, if we can gather more than 4, then the map should be in standard size.

I'll play as quick as I can. For everyone else, 1 turns per day would be an okay speed. If the next player fails to play within 4 days, we drop him out.

I see, someone outside the game should set the map and starting locations. So, I'd be happy if somebody here could give a hand on setting the game for us. Also, the map doesn't need to be random, if the setter knows a fun map for us to play, it would be much better (of course he/she shouldn't tell us which).

So, let's play SMAX. I'm waiting for you guys to join in. I'm totally open for all the suggestions you could give for a better experience.

[funbot]

awh man, this is killing me bit inside but I have to pass on this, even though i'm a big sucker for the enthuaism of the fresh players in forum  . Atm rl is sucking the life out of me, so that i can barely have time for my currents pbem-gaimz 

But ye man, welcome to the forums and hopefully you find your players to join in ^_^

[ExCx]

awh man, this is killing me bit inside but I have to pass on this, even though i'm a big sucker for the enthuaism of the fresh players in forum  . Atm rl is sucking the life out of me, so that i can barely have time for my currents pbem-gaimz 

But ye man, welcome to the forums and hopefully you find your players to join in ^_^

Thanks for the sincere answer funbot. Yeah, RL should be a big issue for all, as the average age of this forum would probably be around 30s. I guess I'm a bit naive to believe that I can find enough players in one week.

Maybe there is something else repelling the potential players, though (the view count of the thread is 50+ already). Maybe they're bored to play under same rules over and over again. Maybe they don't like the base limit rule. Maybe they are all too occupied to play another game, like you. Or maybe they just wait for that one person to join first

Like I said, I'm totally open to all kind of suggestions guys. I really love this game, and I promise, for myself, that I will eagerly carry on this PBEM until my last man.

Anyway, thanks for your warm welcome funbot. Let's wait and see if I can find anybody to play. I'll be waiting.

[Kirov]

I can join funbot in cordial welcome, but unfortunately I have to join him too in his hating-to-pass-at-this-moment-because-of-RL-commitments. If your enthusiasm doesn't fade too soon, we'll be in touch.

I'm always open to suggestions (in fact, I still wait for other players who'd agree to a 'no crawlers&choppers' game), but I have two questions about your ideas:

1) Why the no self-destruct? I have yet to see it being a game breaker. In fact, I consider it a good, game balancing feature for softening up stacks of doom before artillery.

2) the base limit - you must bear in mind that this affects factions in a very different way and with several factions I would strongly object. Lal would thrive while folks like Hive and Morgan rely heavily on sheer numbers of bases. I applaud your idea of nerfing ICS, however you hit various leaders unevenly.

Do stay around, maybe there'll be an opening, someone drops out, etc. I'm currently somewhat off-ish with SMAX, but this is bound to be over sooner or later. The player base is indeed dwindling so I'll be happy to have you on the list! 

How would you describe your SMAX experience? Both in single and multiplayer?

[ExCx]

Thanks for your reply Kirov. Yeah, I'll always be waiting for people replying in this thread and no, I don't think my enthusiasm will ever fade, not in the near future at least. I understood it will be hard to find people still playing this game, so I'll keep patient as long as I can.

I'd be totally okay for a "no crawlers&choppers" game. Ha, how happy would I be if I found about this forum earlier and join one of your active games. I'm kinda forced to open a new thread here. So, yeah I'm not sure which house-rules should be applied really. I just picked them from other PBEMs using a little personal initiative.

About the self-destruct rule, the original sentence was "Self-destructing units with Fusion reactor or better is not allowed". So should I change it that way, or just trash that one out? You got a point there about big stacks. And who uses artillery anyway?   

Base limit being a balance-breaker is something I wouldn't have realized. You're probably right about that too. I just hated that long single player sessions where I try to find and destroy each one of fifty bases  and  built all around the map. Maybe, choosing a compact map size would prevent that. That rule shouldn't be necessary then.

My SMAX experience? Well, I'm loving it since the day SMAC came to the shelves. I was already a fan of Sci-fi movies and Civ series so I was truely fascinated to see that the same 4x concept had been applied upon a futuristic space setting. The best thing I love about this game (besides the deep strategy and gameplay elements) is the logical and realistic tech-tree it presented. I often read that long texts about techs and amazed by the reasonable explanations they gave for everything.

Another thing I love is the authentic political and social stances of the factions, the leaders and their mind expanding quotes in each tech and building. Every faction and leader has a just cause, even bible-bashing  has some profound things to say. Also, while making diplomacy, AI leaders talk like living humans. Their reactions are so well written, I always felt I was playing with real people. I played many similar games after it (Master of Orion series, GalCiv series, Sins of a Solar Empire, Stellaris, etc.), but no, none of them gave me that feel. Especially, Civ: Beyond Earth is a great dissapointment for me, because it lacks this genuineness and warmth. And I'm pretty sure I'm not romanticising anything here. I felt so alone and bored in that game really. Though, I understand strategy game designers doesn't care much about single player experience anymore.

Like I said I really don't have any notable multiplayer experience with this game, that's why I'm here. I will probably trembled by experienced players here, but I'm sure I'll enjoy the process.

Cheers. I'll be around and waiting.

[Brongue]

Hello there! Another newbie here. I'd like to join your game if it gets going. I've never played PBEM before, but I've played the game sporadically since it came out.

I think I'd prefer a game with crawlers and no base limits, but I'm not too picky.

Here's hoping a few more people show up. 

[ExCx]

Cool! So we have our second player at last

Thanks for joining Brongue. No base limits is okay for me too, I understood it would pose a imbalance threat between factions. Crawlers are indeed some serious game mechanic, though, I kinda feel it should be limited somehow.

Let's just wait for others to show up, I'll initiate the game when it hits 4 people. It'll probably take a while but I'm sure people will find about this thread eventually.

[Brongue]

Thank you!

I kind of like that crawlers are so powerful. They create so many interesting game play options in my opinion. I think they also make it easier for factions like Hive and Morgan to pop boom.

[Kurvivor]

If you would cope with slow turns, i will gladly join

[ExCx]

Hey Kurvivor. By slow you mean 1 per day or per week? It's okay as long as you keep on playing, I guess.

Now, we already started a 1v1 game with Brongue and I will ask you guys this. Would you like to play a 3 player game now? Or should we wait for the 4th player?

[Kurvivor]

Slow turns as in 2 turns a week max

[Armageddon]

Hi,

I am newbie player as well, although I started some PBEm games some years ago. I would like to join in after having a time-out for the last two years or so. I can play reliable at 4-5 turns per week,  not all of the weekends. But I will not drop out, and never without notificiation. So if you need one more player, count me in.

Regards,
Arma