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Avenoct
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NC, USA
Apr 2001
time: 00:14
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I for one am hopeful that a Smac 2 will come about eventually. I give Firaxis 12-18 months to announce it though. I'm working on a sequel right now as some of you may know. Aldebaran, tooting my own horn, plays quite differently than Smac. No, I've not changed the fundamental game-driver, but I think you'll be surprised just how much can be done with the engine we do have. With enough interest in this and other projects (Vel's 'Torture-Mod', SNAC, Tokamak's Smacdown, and others), I think we will fill the gap untill Smac 2. It's really up to you. If you made it as far as Apolyton, you already posess the initiative to make efforts toward better gaming.
Playing scenarios or MP games is different than pulling a bright shiny new CD out of a nifty box, and using a 'mod' requires that you at least know how to swap files and moreso, are willing to give it a try. The only thing that frustrates me as a designer is that so few people will be exposed to all the great work done on Apolyton and other forums. Even so, we all know that the Sci-Fi strategy game field is only just getting it's legs. There will be plenty of great games in the future, whether from Firaxis (I hope) or elsewhere. If you have any feelings of loyalty to Smac, I encourage you to write to Firaxis and let them know what a great job they did. In a week or so I'll be releasing the final 'Beta' for Aldebaran, which will be free for all to download either here or via a link to a webpage. You WILL love it (using mind-control probe here).
Since you commented on CIV 3, I'll say I feel similarly. I'd rather play a future-game than a past game. But it's really the mechanics of Smac that I enjoy over the CIV series. Speaking of which, maybe this thread could continue the long-standing discussion of what we would like to see in Smac 2 when it is released, or just fantastic if implausable ideas for the 'perfect game'.
I had an idea earlier today that it would be nifty to have 'seasons' of a sort in this kind of game. Many possible planetary orbits, rotations, moon-systems, etc. make for unusual seasons. Did anyone ever read 'Heleconia Spring'? That world went through hundreds of years of winter. It was so bad that civilization crumbled and had to be restarted every 'spring' all over again. With systems of binary stars and multiple moons, there could be many possibilities along these lines. What do you want to see in Smac 2?
-Smack
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Avenoct
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NC, USA
Apr 2001
time: 00:14
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Yes, I know there was just a thread about this...was trying to divert the topic.
Securion, those are inspired ideas....ever see the game 'Conquest of the New World'? I don't think it did very well, and deservedly as the overall strategy part was obviously not finished, but, the relevant part to your idea about city-sprawl was that you could zoom in 4 levels to your city and see little animations of your workers at the various facilities. Even better, each facility (mines for iron or gold, farms, trading posts, etc.) could be micromanaged even further....it was a map within the world map. My ultimate game would be like that...the user could choose just how detailed and MM to play, as they went along, or in the preferences. They could stick to an inter-galactic empire strategy game aspect, (like MOO II), or they could focus on managing one of the particular worlds in their dominion (like SMAC), or manage several worlds, but just not in quite as much detail (your idea). Further, you could go in and sub-manage any city--really make it effecient would be the overall reward I suppose-- (like Sim City, or Conquest, as above)...and you could also go into the scenes of important battles, if you wanted....in the battle odds screen it could say, the odds are 4 to 5 against us, should we proceed? cancel? Play the battle in detail? then you could play some variation of one of the 'Up close and personal' games, like Rainbow Six for probe actions, a flight sim for air combat, something else for ground warfare. Of course noone would play all the different levels of detail in any game, but they'd be there, inviting.
-Smack
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Black Sunrise
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Buffalo, New York, USA
Aug 2000
time: 05:14
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"Anyone remeber the war scenes from Terminator 2?
Between the humans and the machines?
THATS how a battlefield in the future will look like!
Large numbers of robots and hightech troops. "
Hmmmmm.
I read this article in last months Wired. It said that every generation of war plane we make is much more expensive, so that we can afford fewer of them.
There's even a joke about it.
"In defence-contracting circles the trend is referred to as Augustine's Law. Former Lockheed chair Norman Augustine, who retired in 1997, was only half-joking when he calculated that with the average cost of tactical fighters quadrupling ever 10 years, the Pentagon would be able to offord only a single airplane by 2054. The Navy and Air Force would ech share it 3.5 days a week, except for leap years, when the Marine Corps would fly the plane the extra day."
So my point is: In the future, units will be expensive resources, not to be squandered lightly. When you risk extinction daily from radiation, explosion, decompression, starvation, large rocks falling on your head, you are less likely to want to throw people away in a war. So most high-tech wars would involve threat, bluff, stalling, positioning, and so on. Only in very low tech situations would you have huge mobs of each side swarming each other.
Sorta like Gladiator.
Just my 2 cents.
Indra
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Avenoct
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NC, USA
Apr 2001
time: 00:14
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It IS interesting to speculate on future wars. There's just no telling. The quote in debate is:
quote:
Anyone remeber the war scenes from Terminator 2?
Between the humans and the machines?
THATS how a battlefield in the future will look like! |
But it's contradicted by the trend in 'modern' warfare, an oxymoron.
quote:
So my point is: In the future, units will be expensive resources, not to be squandered lightly. When you risk extinction daily from radiation, explosion, decompression, starvation, large rocks falling on your head, you are less likely to want to throw people away in a war. So most high-tech wars would involve threat, bluff, stalling, positioning, and so on. Only in very low tech situations would you have huge mobs of each side swarming each other. |
But really, wouldn't chance and fortune dictate these things? In a slow to develop and highly stable future society, I'd go with the latter, but if things, civilization, break down in any way, I'd have to say it just might look like a battlefield scene from Terminator.
The point of 'modern' warfare is to project power in such complete and irrefutable ways that violence doesn't erupt very much as the Loser is just going to go down hard. But yet we see in some recent wars that neither the threat (not actually a real one thank goodness, except for the very first time this was used, WWII) of nuclear war hasn't stopped some people from wars of aggression, and neither has convincing projection of power by 'Peacekeeping' third parties. In a way, I'm glad. The human spirit is indominable, and when push comes to shove, there will always be people willing to sacrifice their lives against vastly superior enemies in pursuit of freedom from opression (hopefully) or more often, for maniacal terrorist reasons (not so great). But as long as a relative few control the vast amount of military power, backed up by access to resources and a value system that justifies using that power to preserve freedom (and many horrible things have been done in that overused name), only global calamity would result in a Terminator-like war of the future, IMO.
Wars may be prevented, or rather, won non-violently by shows of superior technology and units, but unless that power is backed up by a willingness and ability to sacrifice those units on the field of battle, it remains a powerless show. Er, where was I going with that? Anyways, it is certainly going to be interesting to see what the future holds. One thing is for sure though. War and tyrrany will persist on some level, and that's too bad.
Happy Crawlering,
-Smack
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Alynzia
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Norwich City
Mar 2001
time: 05:14
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You will forgive the uneducated one for posting here, she just has an idea for a future Civ type game.
As for Alpha Centauri 2, would it be smart to make the analogy of what Civ2 was to the original Civ?
Oh, my idea. I see what you mean when you say all this futuristic technology is going to be really expensive. I actually think Martian colonies and orbital research stations etc. in the future will be paid for by multinational companies, assuming future politics lends itself to the current trend of global power being held by multinationals.
Along these lines, you could have a game where you had factions on Earth who colonised there before launching into space, as in our own solar system, and colonising there. These factions would also fight because they are competing multinationals.
You would have to play on seperate maps, like in some Test Of Time games, but I personally think it would be a plausible future.
The only problem is, could people really be citizens of a giant company that they work for? And I have yet to see rival supermarket chains go to nuclear war, but if you hear about it please tell me.
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Ken Hinds
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quote:
Originally posted by Alynzia
The only problem is, could people really be citizens of a giant company that they work for? And I have yet to see rival supermarket chains go to nuclear war, but if you hear about it please tell me. |
It's happened in the American Past. The various mining companies virtually owned their employees and the Fruit and Suger Cane companies came close to conducting their own military operations, usually Dole and the others conned the U.S. Government to supplying the troops at taxpayer expense.
Ken
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28-07-2001 07:03
or something... And what about Micro Management? MM would be gone...?
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