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T-hawk
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Hoboken NJ
Oct 2001
time: 00:15
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quote:
Originally posted by Darius
Now that Civ3 is out, do you plan to keep playing SMAX?
I've never played any Civ games. I got interested in strategy games around the time SMAC came out. I still love SMAX, but I get the feeling I will have to switch to Civ3 to keep up with the times. What does everybody think? |
Me, I played Civ 1 and 2 quite a lot. I have no interest in Civ 3 at the moment, and will keep playing SMAC (which I only started a few months ago) for quite a while yet. I'll get Civ 3 once the price comes down and the patches come out, but not now.
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DavidByron
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I don't really understand what the difference is supposed to be in terms of game features (as opposed to changes in names and graphics and so on). They seem to have rejected the SMAC Socio-Economic model which is, I thought, one of the best add on features of SMAC.
I might be interested if there was a sophisticated 'governor' system for automating certain city functions and generally these games all need greatly improved methods for controlling large numbers of cities, search, grouping, multiple command issuing and so on... SMAC goes some way but not really far enough to be terribly useful. I highly doubt Civ3 is any better but I don't know.
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However I always thought I needed to investigate it in more depth -- I think a challenge whereby you have no control over your city production, or limited control only, and instead use governor and automation settings to do everything, would be worth a try.
At any rate it would certainly put you on a level playing ground with the AI, who obviously has to use governors all the time too.
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Waterbottle
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Montreal, Canada
Sep 2000
time: 05:15
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Just bought Civ3 last night and had a go at a few game openings.
It is an excellent game and I sense quite a bit of depth there.
I'll need to spend a lot more time with it in order to formulate a clear comparison between the two though.
My first impression however, is that it lacks some of the dynamism and tention that SMAC has. Althought the AI is Superb, the other leaders seem a bit wooden and one dimentional. Once again, take these initial observations with a grain of salt. As mentionned I have yet to get out of the ancient era...
I'll post a follow up comparison with a more detailed analysis when I've had the time to finish a couple of civ3 games.
Has anyone else had the chance to to begin forming an opinion?
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Purple
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Austin, TX, US
Apr 1999
time: 23:15
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Double post, see below. Apologies.
Last edited by Purple on 02-11-2001 at 04:13
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JZ Temple
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I've been playing C3 for a couple of days, and while the AI is tougher, that doesn't necessarily make it better. The game overall is more of a "Civ Lite" than a development of the Civ tradition. And it really suffers compared to SMAC/SMAX. There are no Wonder videos, no backstory, boring units... the AI opponents really don't feel different from one another... and the emphasis on strategic resources makes having a successful empire very much of a hit or miss proposition.
Also, on a chat on 10/30 the Firaxis folks noted that they are already working on a patch to fix the bugs the game shipped with, including ones they introduced at the last minute due to being in a rush. They expect to have a patch out by the end of November, so maybe I'll re-install the game by then, if I haven't returned it.
Oh, and I miss the Xenofungus!
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Googlie
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Commanding Officer, CRYPTEIA
Apr 1999
time: 21:15
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I got addicted to CivII maybe four years ago, and even after the edvent of smac and smax, I still play the odd game of civ.
So needless to say I got Civ III yesterday, and played the first 100 turns or so before retiring well after midnight.
Diplomacy is much improved even over smac, which is light years ahead of the old civs. Specialist resources are neat. Small wonders (every civ can build them) make sense. I don't miss the movies. And the AI rocks. Knows how to ICS. Knows how to wage war reasonably sensibly.
And (although I didn't get close to the end game) I am looking forward to the one major difference between the civ games and the smac/x variety. That's how you have to involve your whole empire in the rush to space. Every city musyt be building something to contribute to the spaceship (and now there are ten components - five of them multi - instead of just 3 from before)
My biggest gripe about smac/x was how you could just buy victory - either in SP or even MP games by cashing the crawlers and spending the credits , to give:
Discover Threshold, build Voice that turn
Build Ascent next turn
Game over
What a lame enjoyment-destroying ending
No way can one do that now in Civ III (and it was virtually impossible to do in CivII (unless one had 46 cities, with 35 capable of building a structural, 8 a component and 3 a module all in the same turn, rush built - never happened to me)
But will I drop smac/x?
I'll certainly see through the fifteen or so PBEMs I'm in, but I don't see myself starting any more, or playing any smac/x SP games now that civIII is here.
And I anticipate a few all-nighters - something I never felt I wanted - or needed - ever to do with smac/x
That's my opinion
Googlie
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Hydro
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Winfield, IL, USA
Jun 1999
time: 05:15
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As much as I loved Civ 2, I find myself strangely ambivalent about Civ 3. I’ve read many of the reviews for Civ 3 and it sounds much the same as Civ 2 in its basics, and many of its new features (culture points, for instance) are interesting but I am curious if they really affect game play. Other features, like minor wonders, sound an awful lot like major city improvements that happen to affect and entire civ. As to animation, that is eye candy, and I can take it or leave it.
The improved interface and enhanced AI (maybe - the jury is still out) very likely make Civ 3 more technically challenging, and that is well and good. However, if Firaxis hasn’t improved the flavor of the game then I am not really interested. Cookie cutter leaders plagued Civ 2, and the AI played them all the same. Yawn. By comparison SMAC is engaging, and it evokes a visceral reaction from me even after over two years. Did Civ 2 do that? Nope. For me Civ 2 was a technical exercise. That is why it is gathering dust in my attic.
I expect that I’ll buy Civ 3, but only after the inevitable patches come out and after it has gone down in price a bit (and maybe into the bargain bin). I’ll continue to watch the reviews, which to this point have been mostly positive (but hardly overwhelming), and I’ll see if that piques my interest. In the meantime it’s SMAC for me, flaws and all.
Hydro
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mark13
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Northampton, England
Sep 2000
time: 05:15
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Civ3 seems like it's going to be a revolutionary SP experience. I'm not really a sci-fi fan, so that wasn't the main reason I bought SMAX - and I think Civ3 is going to be a vastly more engrossing SP experience, simply due to the quality of the AI.
What I won't do though, is stop playing SMAC MP. I stopped playing SP a long time ago....the AI is dreadful, and it simply doesn't interest me any more. But SMAC as a game is brilliant - still engrossing. I've had a vast amount of enjoyment playing MP the last year or so...and as long as there are people to play with, I'll play.
But Civ3's a whole new civ game, I suppose. Had it been Civ 2.1, I probably wouldn't have bothered - but it seems that due to the corruption issues, culture et al, we're going to need to come up with some new strategies. From what I've heard, Civ3 also has a vastly improved AI....and when MP comes out, that promises to be pretty special. If you want an indication of just how good the AI is, Vel hasn't beaten King level yet. 
SMAC is a great game, no question. And while it suffers from a truly awful AI, and innumerate bugs, it is still well worth the money. However, Civ3 promises to be that and more - even if we're going to have to wait a while for MP.
And I concur with Googlie - I never really got the hankering to play 'one more turn' of SMAC in SP....well, ever. I can't explain why, but I never found SMAC SP that engrossing.
Anyway, I'm busy counting the days 'til Nov 16th
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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:15
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I've spent the better part of my gaming hours in the last week playing Civ 3. I find myself really missing SMAC while playing. I guess the reason is that it's still the same game underneath. It's about as different from Civ 2 as Civ 2 was from Civ 1. It's incremental improvement in a game that I have already played too much.
In so many ways it is inferior to SMAC, graphically (well the units in SMAC mostly suck, but everything else I liked), it is inferior most definitely in it's interface (which really adds up over a few hours of play), the music is only slightly better, though I haven't had time to get sick of it yet. The AI seems better, and certainly plays better tactically. Diplomacy is better in Civ 3 I think than in SMAC, but part of that is better AI. Where Civ 3 really gets it's ass kicked is the game design. It doesn't seem to have any new concepts that are actually interesting in game terms. Sure the cultural border thing is perhaps more realistic, but it really holds none of the tension that an interesting choice would. It's not a choice, if you aren't ICSing (and there are more reasons than ever not to) you can't afford not to push your cultural border.
There are a hundred things about Civ 3 that just don't have any juice left after all the Civ 1 and the little Civ 2 I played. SMAC on the other hand is interesting because the game concepts are so dynamic. This was possible in part because it didn't have to kowtow to history being a sci-fi game, which Civ 3 doesn't have the luxury of. But Civ 3 is so familiar that I just loaded it and started playing. I spend as much time trying to learn the interface as the rules, it's that much unchanged from Civ 2.
One difference is the tech tree, which pretty much has the same techs, but they don't always follow all of the same lines, or have the exact same effects. I built the Great Library in an early game, and then beelined to Education (doh!), which made it obsolete. Unless Civ 3 improves a lot as I play a bit more it is going to get the same treatment as Civ 2, which is the closet treatment. If a friend wants to get into one of the games I will certainly recommend the latest one, they are improvements over one another, but they just aren't different enough to justify playing more than one of them, and for me it was Civ 1.
I am still very hopeful for MOO3, and my fingers are permanently crossed for MOM2 and of course SMAC2. Hell, even an upgrade for Colonization would be welcome.
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Googlie
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Commanding Officer, CRYPTEIA
Apr 1999
time: 21:15
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quote:
Originally posted by Googlie
And I anticipate a few all-nighters - something I never felt I wanted - or needed - ever to do with smac/x
Googlie |
Well, one is entitled to change one's opinion.
I never did finish that game, or any of the three or four others I started, and I never felt the need to stay up to play "just one more turn"
Why?
Boring, in a word.
Clunky interface that rivals CtP for inanety (?). Click on a city to open it and you wake the sleeping sentry instead. Double click again, and finally it opens. Do your stuff and exit and, oh yes, you have to set the awakened sentry to Fortify again.
Stupid white halo beneath the feet of the active unit - and if he's in desert you can't see it. What kind of stupidity is that?
Choice buttons that you have to hilite with a click and then hit enter (be a contortionist) or double click again - how's that for redundancy?
And slow. (I run a PII 700 with 128MB ram). Play with the max # civs on a huge map and you can go brew a coffee between turns by 1000 ad.
I did finish one game - an attempt at an OCC, but got hammered by the AI. I might try that again (only 1 city to get frustrated over) - but I think it'll go the way of CtP, CtP II, ToT and all the other sinks I've thrown my $50 in.
Never was a game more eagerly anticipated and so bitterly disappointing
G.
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31-10-2001 22:00
But everything I've read says it's not as good as SMAX..I *like* to watch the movies!)
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Well, seeing as I'd pretty much have to buy a new computer to play Civ III, I can safely say that I'm going to be sticking with SMAX. 
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