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Hydro
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Winfield, IL, USA
Jun 1999
time: 05:15
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I'm not sure if I'm disappointed or satisfied (vindicated?) at the reviews Civ III has gotten. Now I know I won't be rushing out to get it. Maybe there is more mileage in ol' SMAX yet…
Hydro
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bondetamp
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Oslo, Norway
Nov 1999
time: 06:15
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I figured that Civ3 was a rather simplistic game after I had played my first full game of it, but after my second I'm not so sure.
The biggest difference in game play, IMO, is that there is a lot less options to beat the AI. If an enemy city has started a Wonder that you are building as well, and he has the better production, then there aren't all that many things you can do about it. You can't cash in crawlers, you can't rush buy, you can convert a few grassland-tiles to forests, but it takes time and isn't all that effective.
And culture and special resources do play a major part i the game. In my last game I found out that I lacked oil, uranium and aluminum in the late game, so I couldn't build anything mothorized (like tanks, modern warships or planes), I couldn't build nukes and I couldn't build the space ship unless I traded those resources.The AI seemed very aware of the value of those resources and I had to bend over backwards to get aluminum, and start a major war to get uranium. It was the first time in several years that I didn't know whether or not I was going to win three turns before I did it.
But, as I said, the game does lack many of the option that SMAX had. This makes for a better AI, but I still miss them. 
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SerapisIV
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Hartford, CT, USA
Feb 2001
time: 00:15
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quote:
Originally posted by bondetamp
The biggest difference in game play, IMO, is that there is a lot less options to beat the AI. If an enemy city has started a Wonder that you are building as well, and he has the better production, then there aren't all that many things you can do about it. You can't cash in crawlers, you can't rush buy, you can convert a few grassland-tiles to forests, but it takes time and isn't all that effective. |
Espionage... have the spy's blow up his production, the earlier, the better. The more shields accumulated, the more expensive it is to blow him up, so knock him out early and often.
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civcop
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I'd all but decided to not get Civ 3 due to Christmas coming soon (didn't want to spend $50 at this time) and some minor concerns that it might stink. So I was in a store and saw SMAC for $9.99 and thought I'd get it in place of Civ 3. I'd read so many good comments in forums at Apolyton about SMAC and was excited to try it out. It is far and away better than Civ 2, which I haven't touched since my purchase of SMAC.
Now, if a SMAC/X 2 were announced, would you all want Firaxis to make it? I'm going to guess most would answer "No", even if El Sid slapped his name on it again.
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T-hawk
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Hoboken NJ
Oct 2001
time: 00:15
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SMAC is nearly perfect. Take out population-booming, balance crawlers, and add the Civ 3 AI, and I'd never play another game again.
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:15
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I took another crack at civ3 last night for a couple of hours and I remain unimpressed. Its an ok game I guess and I will give it a fair trial BUT it just seems to lack the depth of gameplay that SMAC/X has. I was totally disappointed that it does not have SE choices or a design workshop.
I like the idea of culture and growing sphers of influence but other than that it seems to be a dumbed down game, made less complex so the AI can compete-- I also find the interface to be attractive but for the most part, not very functional
Some of the game concepts are frustrating-- I don't mind corruptions so much since that was likely an attempt to combat ICS but this great leader thing-- I have tried and tried to get one and failed. It strikes me that if this concept is unchanged in a MP edition, the whole game could hinge on the luck of getting these-- you know CIV A gets lucky and gets 2 or 3 GLs and Civ C fights as many battles with as many elite troops and gets none-- so based on luck one guy gets 3 instant wonders --hmmmmmm-- why not just have a chance to pop a wonder from a hut ???
and the manual-- don't get me started . . . page after page of generalities with the few specifics tucked away in a few tables--
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civcop
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quote:
Originally posted by Googlie
civcop:
Make sure you download and instal the four smac bug-fix patches - you can get them here at 'Poly or from the Firaxis site itself.
G. |
What bugs do they fix Googlie? I have the latest version of SMAC...do I still need the patches?
Also, how was that in the picture avatar under your name? It's too small for me to make out (looks like a man on a stage in his underwear) and it bothered me to not be able to figure it out.
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Turnipshooter
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Hello,
I thought CIV 3 would be an upgrade of SMAC....its not
At first i thought CIV 3 had very formidable AI...by my second game i dominateded difficulty lev 3 (1-6 6 is hardest)
So i shot right up to difficulty 6.....start my game manage to build one other city...then i notice 3 AI civs just boxed in my 2 citys....i find out they each have 4 citys already while i have 2 and could not have posibly had anymore than 2.....so im like "WTF am i suposed to do"......"screw it" I build up archers and rush the chinese capital and take horse resources.....start pumping out horseman witch i use to genocide all the civs on my continent by 600 AD...(germans,french,chinese,indians,english and russians)...i bought all my techs from other civs untill i could produce a new tech every 4 turns witch put me about 10 techs ahead of the other 6 civs on another continent.
Basicly the AI is realy poor...while he may expand fast he has no concept of defense...i just blitzed him and everytime it worked......the AI can apear good if you let him out tech you and build more military units but he realy sucks....if you wage war from day one you will dominate all civs easyly.....
Trust me Yang is way more chalenging than anything this game throws at you....If your good at SMAC it should take you about a week to figure out how to mold this AI and dominate everytime...this AI will not ever suprise you....it will never want to be the real dominant factor in the game....
I still learn stuff when i play SMAC....in CIV3 all the civs act the same to a tee and i have figured out how to realy kick them in the nuts...there is no point in going on with this game now that i have masterd it...maybe if there was MP but i doubt this game could stay together online if that was even an option.
I do not recoment CIV3 if you love SMAC...you will be disapointed
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:15
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Hey Drago-- long time no see--
My civs to date have not been militaristic and I know that that reduces the chance of a GL but it does not change my point. GLs are huge for wonder building and if they remain as they are for MP, I can see whole games turning on the luck of how and when they are created. Even if you get one or two, you might lose out on some important wonders simply because the random number generator gave a GL to an opponent a couple of turns earlier
Is the difference with a militaristic civ that large?? because if it is then perhaps I might switch my approach and go militaristic. Even the ability to rush that forbidden Palace would be nice.
It just strikes me that Great Leaders are one of the most powerful game-changing elements in the game and they are determined by luck. If it was more stable, say a GL appears after an elite unit wins its 15th battle as an elite (say 12th for militaristic civs) against non-barbarians-- then it is something to accomplish and work for-- creating GLs would be a goal not dependent so much on luck
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Spectrex
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Arlington, VA, USA
Nov 2000
time: 05:15
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I really have mixed feelings about civ3... but after a few games I'm learning more away from it. While it has some fresh content, I think it is definately a step back from SMAC. It looks and feels like CivII with some fancy graphics, which is pretty much what it is.
The AI in SMAC was much better, while it didn't handle well under certain conditions at least it was still relatively potent, and didn't always use the same strategies. The factions were actually DIFFERENT, too... the tension of encountering Yang or Miriam just isn't there when you run into the British, and it doesn't feel as "personal". It may seem strange, but I really miss the "Interludes" and wonder vids, it added yet another element of personality and life to the game.
The CivIII AI really isn't that great... it tries to expand everywhere to create the illusion of aggresiveness, and as someone else in this thread said it's easy to beat once you know how it thinks. If you block the AI's reckless expansion or just attack it early on while they're still frantically founding cities, you're sure to win.
Back to SMAC I go....
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mark13
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Northampton, England
Sep 2000
time: 05:15
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I guess it all comes down to why you play Civ3. If you play it primarily because of the 'replaying history' of it all, you're not much going to like SMAC, because that aspect is taken out completely. However, if you're coming at it from a gaming perspective, there's absolutely no doubt that SMAC is superior to Civ2....it simply has so much more depth to it.
It seems that with Civ3 Firaxis have tried to cater for the former market. A lot of the excellent ideas from SMAC (social engineering, advanced terraforming etc.) have gone out of the window, and the game seems to be a lot shallower as a result. If you're looking for an upgrade to Civ2, it looks as though you've got it - a couple of new units, better graphics, better AI etc. However, for those of us used to SMAC, and the overall depth of it, it seems to be disappointing.
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Bruce205
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Could not agree more with you more Mark!!
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:15
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Mark, I also wholeheartedly agree with you. But, even so, I am dumbfounded by some of the "improvements" added to CIV 3 that take a lot out of the basic Civ I and Civ II game. One of these is caravans to set up trade routes and rush build Wonders. I really felt that that this was one of the most fun part of the game; and now they are gone.
In SMACx, one still has crawlers to help rush an SP. At least part of the fun was retained (- btw, I never use the crawler ugrade trick). These SP races that involve whole portions of your civilization building caravans or crawlers to beat another civ to a critical SP is fun!
I simply do not like Civ III.
Let is hope that if they ever build another follow on in Civ genre, it is based on the SMAC engine. While this topic has been dicussed before exhaustively, what they really need to do in SMAC 2 is fix the crawler upgrade trick, and perhaps restore caravans and trade routes. (Also, fix the automatic land terraforming to something more controllable, e.g., build forests on moist or arid squares and roads interconnecting bases until I tell you to stop.)
Ned
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SirSebastian
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SMAC is a great game.. but I have to say that Civ III wins out in my mind. First of all... CTRL+SHIFT+G does pull up a goto-city screen =P Anyway... it's very true that some people prefer historical and others sci-fi slants to their games... *gasps* maybe that's why they have both covered... and each player group thinks theirs is better? =)
Seriously though, culture is awesome, the AI is superb, the gameplay is unbelievable, the bugs are to be expected. The biggest SMAC-player complaints on the Civ boards are that you can't transform terrain and the social engineering screen is gone... hey.. I liked that too... =P
Oh... and a feature Civ's "atrocious" interface? How about changing/rushing production and controlling governors from the MAIN map. That's right.. you can play without entering the city screen.
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Yxklyx
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I sold my copy of Civ 3. Call me crazy but I really didn't like what they did with irrigation and mining and how roads continue to generate trade etc... These are the basic building blocks of the game and if they couldn't get that right I had no hope for the rest. I was looking for a game that would better simulate history and this one took a step backwards in that department - perhaps it's a better game but it wasn't what I was looking forward to. I've gone back to SMAX.
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:15
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Henry, I haven't been playing computer games as long as you have, but I do share your opinion that SMACx is the best computer game I have every played. I buy and play a number of other games every year - choosing them according to word of mouth as to what the hot game are. I particularly enjoyed Deus Ex, for example, because one could vary one's style of play each time.
My reaction to CIV III is that it a combination of Age of Empires graphics with the CIV II engine. It adds a few new concepts, but subtracts others. Whether these net to a positive or a negative vis-a-vis CIV II is highly debatable by itself. However, there is no debate in my mind that the new CIV III is not in SMACx's class.
Those of us who have played SMACx on the whole, I predict, will not long play CIV III. They will play a few games, get bored and them move on or back to SMACx. However, if I am wrong here and the game does become "addictive" for reasons I cannot now appreciate, then I will give it another shot.
So, Henry, play on and report back if your opinion changes.
Ned
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Enigma
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Midland, MI, USA
Feb 2000
time: 05:15
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Hey guys!
I just beat my 3rd Civ3 game...
2 wins on Monarch, I tried a hybrid approach here... grabbed land when I needed to, teched when I could. I knew that I would win after a certain point, but I never had anywhere near as large of a lead as I would have had in SMAC (IE less infrastructure/micromanagement means AI has less of a chance of getting behind.)
Today I beat a game in about 3 hours on Diety... it was a JOKE! The game is totally broken, the AI is pathetic, it can't defend itself at all. One of my cities building archers was able to defeat an enemy empire of 4 cities- with big production/tech bonuses. Thats just sad.
I do think that there are some pluses- namely
-the way roads are implemented means guerilla tactics can be an effectie way of hurting the enemy without destroying any units.
-eliminating road bonuses when you are moving in enemy squares is also positive
-TRADE! This can ocaisionally be really cool
-Culture, again cool
None of this stuff would work very well in a sci fi environment...
I was pretty intimidated by the civ3 AI at first too- until I realized how it worked. When the SMAC AI builds a base and you have the same tech level that they do it is a damn tough nut to crack... when the Civ3 AI builds a base it is basically giving it to you. I haven't seen a single AI base garrisonned with more than 3 units, even at their borders, this when I have 30 3-1-2 Mounted Warriors.
The AI does better because the game is *drastically* dumbed down. Terraforming is more or less zero sum, a simple grid pattern is about as effective as anything. Combat is attrition based, tech has upper and lower caps set, rush buying is castrated, SP hurrying eliminated etc.
I have never played civ2... but this game seems like a drastically dumbed down version of SMAC with a few new concepts to spruce it up.
The main problems with the SMAC AI is that it wasn't very good at expanding as quickly as humans, it didn't invest enough in infrastructure, and of course it doesn't understand rush buying/supply crawlers. These core problems have been superficially changed- rather than give the AI an understanding of the costs and benefits of building a city rather than a military unit it just always builds cities, it ignores military units in favor of infrastructure, and rush buying is made worthless. Pretty much all aspects of skill in the game are removed.
What are the skill elements replaced with? RANDOM LUCK!
Random luck like getting a great leader, or having your elite 4 offense unit lose in a battle against a regular warrior out in the open. The only way to win a war is to have more units... it is pretty simple.
Henry-
Actually this is a misconception about Sid Meiers- his *name* is on both games, but he designed *neither*. He was not involved in the design process. Sid made CivI. CivII was mostly Brian Reynolds- so was SMAC. Sid's name is on both games because it sells. But the genius behind SMAC wasn't involved in CivIII at all, and all of the gameplay that serious gamers enjoy was removed in favor of having a wider market share.
Trust me that if you think the AI is tough now just wait a week... things will get worse and worse for the AI when the current bugs (insta-culture subversion for conquered cities, ultra corruption, air interception etc.) are fixed...
As far as BALANCE? Sure anyone will admit that the factions in SMAC are probably not 100% balanced- compare fungusboy to Domai, Zack, or (my fave) Morgan. But the thing is that the factions are *speciallized*... Miriam can conquer, Zack techs etc.
All of this is totally removed in civ3. All the factions play the same, feel the same, and are controlled by the AI in the same way. Bonuses are very minor. The civs are more or less balanced because they are all identical. I much prefer having specialized factions- it is so fun running around with my fanatic recon rovers as Miriam, or building up my lead with Supply Crawlers as Morgan.
My IDEAL game?
SMAC- with some tweaks. Slow down tech a lot- especially in the late game. Make pop booming tougher or eliminate it. Tone down supply crawlers a bit, or make the AI use them a lot more. Make airpower a bit less effective, and naval power a LOT more effective (double movement rates, make planes less effective vs ships, improve ship artillery). Modify the AI in many ways, give it more "situational AI" like Civ3 has (it is good at this) so that Miriam knows her 1200000 Synthemetal garrisons are worthless against my choppers, make the AI much better at naval assaults, harassment attacks, and improve its SE usage.
Remove the bugs- SMAC still has many more bugs than anyone would like.
Slow down tech a lot... a LOT in the late game, no more 2 tech per turn stuff... make tech costs start increasing exponentially in the late game, make the Ascent a lot harder to build (or done Civ3 style), improve diplomacy.
That would be great!
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Enigma
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Midland, MI, USA
Feb 2000
time: 05:15
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Good idea, I am just getting back into SMAC... I recently formatted my HD and before that I lost my AC CD. Now I am borrowing a friend's CD, I will try this. Should make the game more difficult.
But I should be playing some online games with a friend who is just getting into SMAC, these are always fun despite the mediocre AI.
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Blake
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Brainfallocatione
Oct 2000
time: 17:15
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SMAC definitely comes much closer to being the perfect game than Civ3. Certaintely, I can list a range of changes to 'perfect' SMAC, but couldn't for Civ3, which is just not fun enough to be anywhere near the perfect game.
What really stands out in SMAC is the range of options, like the depth of terraforming choices, unit workshop, social engineering, tech tree. Besides the fact it is really more realistic than Civ3, atleast in some senses... (For me, SMAC seems a lot more like colonising a new planet than Civ3 feels like building an earthly empire....). Agreed that the SMAC factions beat the Civ3 Civilizations hands down, theres just something special about the good Chairman Yang, fanatical Miriam, backstabbing Lal and the rest of the crew. Playing each faction is more or less unique and special, although basic strategies apply accross all factions each faction does have slightly different styles.... optimising a strategy for the Hive is different from optmising strategies for the Peacekeepers, more depth of strategy lost in Civ3...
For the interested here is what I would do to make SMAC closer to perfect:
Eliminate all inconcentsies & bugs (minor things, like menu controls working different to keys, aquaducts being drillable next to other in-progress aquaducts, but not rivers, etc etc)
Eliminate the pop-boom, except maybe in very limited late game circumstances (but better as very high growth...). Also consider changing the population model to something more linear than the population points system...
Add *advanced* automation, which can be modified by the user to a certain extent. For example it would be nice to be able to have a bunch of automation scripts that can be bound to certain keys, so you could configure a formers automation to "only plant forests & drill boreholes @ density no greater than 1 every 8 tiles" and bind it to say ctrl-f. Basically you would choose all the things you want a former to do, add them into a priority list then bind. This would save the programmers from having to implement every single possible automation users could possibly want.... while making individual unit automation easy.
Add other scripting... something like SLIC prehaps.
Modernise the combat model to something like CTP2, with CTP2 style armies. This is for the sake of MM reduction and realism. Both noble causes. Another idea I have is 'tile orders', so every unit in a tile can be given an order, so if you have 8 formers in a tile, and order them all to 'plant forest', 4 would plant (complete), the remaining 4 would ignore. Then you could order all to "move north" and the 4 with movement remaining would move (the ones which have planted would ignore). This would make mass unit control very quick...
In the same vien, it needs to be possible to have units 'goto' without it being updated, so the course is traced, found safe, and the unit appears at the destination, or where it runs out of movement, or runs into an enemy unit, in exactly one screen update. This is especially important for Monopole networks. This situation was largely fixed in Civ3, but I would like the option for on roads and even open ground too. How I would do it is something like 'shift-click-drag' would be insta move, as well as an option "always move ultra quick" in menu.
Clip the airforces wings, also change in line with the new combat model...
Replace ZOC with 'passing fire'. ZOC should work in treaty/truce times like it always has. ("move past this point, and we shoot!")
Revamp the border system to eliminate "tile poaching", basically, larger, well established bases never lose tiles to some size 1 base plonked down by some punk faction. The particulars dont really matter... basically just give bigger bases more weight when choosing who owns the tile.
Modify crawlers to give diminshing returns, for example, more crawlers per base = more upkeep, or prehaps every citizen can only 'process' a certain number of raw nuts, minerals and energy, so if each citizen can process 3 minerals, then a size 3 base couldn't be crawlered above 9 minerals. Also, train the AI in the usage of crawlers. Crawlers are too fun to eliminate.
Reduce the ICSability by eliminating 'free tile worked' at each base, and give production bonus for larger bases (the ideal way, I feel, is for an energy bank to give +1 EC per pop-point, a genejack +1 mineral per pop-point etc, making larger, well developed bases much more productive than a bunch of smaller bases... also the hab limits should be made softer, and the growthrate should be more steady.
Note no direct action should be taken to eliminate the ability to do ICS, it should simply be made unprofitable, a venture for the plain stupid... direct preventitive measures just annoy and impede true strategy.
Enrich the diplomacy, so the leaders say a greater variety of stuff (thats just candy  , but netherless makes the diplo more enjoyable), also add the Civ3 style diplomacy system (very practical)
Put more information 'on screen', reduce the depth of menus and screens that need to be traversed, make common operations speedy. Just common sense user interface design stuff. Basically like what has been done in Civ3.
SMAC empires look better than Civ3 hands down. SMAC graphics are more or less acceptable to me, higher res and more variety would be nice. Also the ability to turn off all the 'information' leaving an ascetic view of your empire (this could be the first 'show terrain' key press)
Anyway... thats just off the top of my head.
I really hope SMAC2 is made one day. The emphasis should be on fixing what is broken, rather than breaking what isn't.
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Basilisk
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New Zealand
Nov 2001
time: 17:15
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SMAC2 in my opinion isn't really doable. Sure there are lots of bugs in the game that could be eradicated, a lot of features that need tweaking, but from a storyline what is there to do, if Firaxis were to try to continue the story? I see no way (maybe this is just my limited imagination) to have SMAC2 based on post-Transcendence, so how would the story continue?
Perhaps moving to new worlds? That has been done, and I feel it would be distasteful for Firaxis to do that again, and a whole heap of work. Imagine designing a whole new planet *again*. New aliens, new problems...
I feel that the only feasible SMAC2 would be a complete rehash, just as CIV2 was of Civ, and Civ3 of Civ2. But that wouldn't really fulfill the gamers expectations, and there would be a lot of disgruntled SMACers out there.
Of course this is just my opinion and in the eyes of otehrs could be totally wrong. Feel free to comment. Oh, and sorry about going so foar off-topic from the thread subject 
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14-11-2001 04:01
oh well, from what I am hearing, it wont be worth upgrading to 
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