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sevencubed
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I've been playing SMAC for the last 2 years. I never had the chance to get my hands on SMAX though, since it was never distributed in my country (at least I couldn't find it).
From the known additions that i read on this forums, there are some things that i didn't manage to clarify so here are the questions:
1) after installing the expansion, do u still have a choice to play only with the original factions, or the original settings anyway?
2) apart from the additions of new techs, projects, units are there other changes regarding the interface (screens, menus etc)?
3) changes on diplomacy, and AI-human interaction ?
4) other things i might be missing?
once, i read a review (can't remember where though) stating that SMAX was really a step back for AC, ruining much of the good things the original had. Has there been a relative thread discussing this?
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spartak
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SMAX is better fr SP but I have seen several dioscussions where dedicated MP players prefer to play SMAC.
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Mongoose
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Harrisburg,PA USA
Apr 1999
time: 00:21
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The maintence cost bug on Thinker and Transcend levels is fixed in SMAX.
The Hunter is no longer a game breaker.
Those two items, along with the Golden Age fix, make it worth getting, even if you never use the new factions.
Part of my preference for SMAX is because of the facilities that make sea (or port) bases potentially much stronger than they are in SMAC. There is a facility to increase the yield from sea squares for each of the three factors of production for sea or port bases.
In my opinion, where the original SMAC factions were rather well balanced, both within themselves and vis. each other, the SMAX factions are more extreme. Both the bonuses and the penalties are larger. Mixing new and old factions can result in unbalanced situations, particulalry in MP.
Having said that, I find some of the SMAX factions fun to play.
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The Bloody Baro
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Does anybody know where I could buy SMAX?
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MariOne
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Erewhon in Neverland
May 1999
time: 06:21
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I'd agree with last posts from Mongoose & RedFred.
With the precisation that I'm not at all a fan of SMAX.
True, there are several new items, in terms of
- native units
- unit components
- facilities
- projects
- techs
1. add some variety in interaction with wild units; not bad, a minor influence on the game
2. overrated
3. interesting the sea-enhancing trio, as said above. Interesting the Covert-ops center, but not that much after all. New buildings for missile defense, but hardly influential against a dumb AI, hardly get there in a PBEM
4. Interesting the new facilities-adding ones, as said above. When I play SMAC tho, I barely miss the use of CBA, the rest of new project are just some flavoring...
5. Interesting only as related to the new items they allow. They also screwed up some hierarchy, in the sense that now is possible to discover Hybrid Forests *before* Tree Farms, and of course you can't build the formers without the latters.
The main thing grounding my opposition to SMAX is this:
they added some bug-fixing code in the SMAX terrax.exe executable.
That should be a good thing.
As the fixed bugs were in the old code (of course SMAC bugs could not be in the sections added for SMAX new features...), the fix could have been equally applied to the old executable, terran.exe. After all, the fixing code had been written, they could have included it in a SMACv5 patch, with almost no additional effort.
But no, they decided to not do it. Why?
Because SMAX was sold at full price, and had they released just the fixing code for the old version, without all the new frills, they thought many customers would have contented to get the bug fixes for free without purchasing the expansion.
Thus, admitting that they considered a bug-fixing patch a decisive item when considering the purchase.
In practice, they counted on *selling* you the latest patch, instead that releasing for free that last piece of code to fix the *defective* items thay had already sold you in the first place.
So, IMHO the new items only add for a 10%-15% (at best) to the game experience.
I would NOT have paid a full-game price just for them.
When I play SMAX, I mainly do it because it has the Maintenance Bug and the Golden Age bug fixed. And I curse Firaxis everytime as I had to shell another 50$ to get those fixes (despite I waited almost a year before getting it!).
Now that SMAX hit the bargain bins, I'd say that as expansion it could be interesting to get, at NO MORE than 10$, and that could already be too much. That should have been the retail price for the expansion from its start. To be an actual "bargain", it should be really sold at 5$ rather than 10...
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Adalbertus
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Cologne, Germany
Feb 2001
time: 06:21
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As I've bought both SMAC and SMAX at bin prices (+shipping), I've not paid too much for the both of them. SMAX definitely isn't a totally new game, it feels a bit "strange" as there are two histories (planet+aliens) mixed in one, so far from a purely aesthetical point of view. The new factions all seem a bit overpowered (most so the aliens in human hands ...), perhaps with the exception of Fungboy. But they give really a difference to the game (i usually have random factions for the AI). I could well live without the resonance/pulse weapons. Of the special abilities, I like most the soporific gas (roughly, a weaker version of nerve gas, but no atrocity).
The new SPs are nice, though CBA a bit overpowered. Oh, and there are two new missile types: Tectonic payload to raise land (never really used it), and fungal payload which is too expensive to be really useful, but it can be quite a fun to ruin an empire only by planting fungus when the opponent has no means to counter this (no Green SE choice, -1 Planet)
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