 |
| |
|
|
Enigma
|
|
Midland, MI, USA
Feb 2000
time: 05:13
|
|
After playing SMACX I have decided that I enjoy it more, but not a whole lot. It is quite tedious to have to build aerospace complexes everywhere when I could just get a secret project. I do not like the new factions but the new techs, etc. are nice.
The drones do seem very overpowered, especially if played by a human player. Just swap tech with the AI.. you will not be so high on the power charts due to low tech. The drones are very powerful. Not to mention the one less drone can allow some serious ICSing even in FM without any drone problems.
The new storyline was more or less botched completely, writing a story with 7 factions is a LARGE strain, and writing a story with 14 factions is even worse.
Overall I think that SMACX is nice, but nothing I could not live without. As far as the price $20 is very little to pay for even 1 week's extra worth of amusement..
Also the 1/3 maintenence cost on Transcend and thinker seems to have been fixed in SMACX, this rewards pop booming even more since the facilities it affects are related to drone control.
I would far prefer a bug free v5. SMAC than a buggy v 2. SMACX.
But firaxis has been completely silent about this..
|
|
| |
|
|
|
kaz
|
|
San Jose, CA, USA
Mar 2000
time: 05:13
|
|
Roze can be played by anyone who plays the PK well. No real minuses, and a few pluses.
Add to this the early ability to go Planned, good early probes without Fundie(always a plus), and the ability to sit back and get tech for free(invaluable in MP), and it is a great faction in the hands of a human, but not quite that great for a AI.
The Pirates get the bonuses of being able to build virtually unopposed for 100 years, and if they terraform only the sea(and get the enhancement facilities), they can have a great support infrastructure(and bases in the deep sea that aren't worth it for anyone else to possess).
As for the Aliens, two words. Nerve Gas.
Drones? A Miriam clone. If you hate Miriam, you hate the Drones.
All in all, the SMAX factions are just jumped up versions of the first factions. More bonuses, more minuses. Great for single strategies and SP, but most MPers play old factions for their flexibility.
[This message has been edited by kaz (edited May 15, 2000).]
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Velociryx
|
 |
of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:13
|
|
I *truly* enjoy my games of SMAX, for three principle reasons:
First: I really love the extra productivity from sea squares, thanks to the new builds possible....getting 4/5 from each kelp/harness on the map is just too sweet, and the pirates, using trunklines, can out-produce their land-lubbing counterparts in the midgame (surrounding and boreholing islands to get the BH-Kick).
Second, I love the whole host of little bug fixes that were introduced....everything from true maintenance costs, to artillery that actually does something, to the "cut maint. costs in half" SP that really WORKS now....::evil grin::
And finally, even though the new factions pretty much screwed the storyline, I like 'em anyway....quite refershing to have some new playstyles based on new sets of strengths and weaknesses without having to spend three weeks in the faction editor.... 
SMAC is still a cool game, but options-wise, SMACX really opens up the field of possibilities, and, as somebody else mentioned earlier, it's worth it for the native life forms alone! (even though, as a diehard Marketeer, the tend to kick my....assets? LOL)
-=Vel=-
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Basil
|
 |
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Apr 2000
time: 21:13
|
|
Heheh, takes all kinds. I like both. In terms of story line, of course the SMACX story line basically doesn't exist, and isn't supported in the game anyway, except for the aliens. (It would be just so cool if a drone riot somewhere part way through the game led to a new faction, led by Domai, emerging.) But this is a game, not a novel, so that's a weakness but not the end of the world.
I really like about half the new facilities/secret projects/life forms/factions and actively dislike the other half, some of which are things that other people specifically like: I don't like spore launchers or aquafarms, for instance. I find many of these new features unbalanced - they are overpowered, too nice. Sea squares were good enough already, and why couldn't they have bothered to balance the new factions? (OK, I'll agree they balanced the Pirates. Now what about the other six?)
On the other hand, I really like the new engine, with its bug fixes. And hey - if I don't like a facility/SP/life form I can edit it out of alphax.txt, but I can't put one that I like into alpha.txt. So I'll probably end up playing a customized SMACX in the future, with the tech tree edited so that from a human faction's point of view you seem to be playing SMAC - until you run into a Progenitor faction and they have all this stuff from SMACX  .
But if I'd had my choice, I'd rather they'd made the AI understand air power than all the additional features in the expansion.
So that's 7:2:2 for SMAX, SMAC, both.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
MapleLeaf27
|
|
I would pick SMAC over SMACX, but it's close. Here's why:
I like the new alien life, and the random element of games using new and old factions. I especially like the Angels although I agree they're pretty weak unless they start far away from everyone else. I just like probing a lot.
The new buildings are mostly good (Covert Ops, Flechette Defense)
Battle Ogres are neat. So is Marine Detachment.
BUT
I find a lot of little things I don't like.
I don't like the alien factions, Drones (too strong), Cyborgs (too much like University).
Overall I don't think the new factions are well-balanced. The original 7 all fare about equal depending on how you set up your game (except Morgan, he just doesn't know how to build or defend himself, in my experience). With the new factions I find the Angels and Cult rarely get very far as AI players, while the Aliens can be unstoppable at times, especially when they eat another faction in the first twenty turns.
I play a lot of hotseat games, and I found
that once the newness wore off, everyone started picking the old guys again. We always play SMACX with random factions now, but the best game in my recent memory involved all the original 7 minus the Peacekeepers (replaced by Pirates).
The Cloudbase Academy was a bad idea. It's unbalancing because Aerospace Complexes are so important.
You can get Hybrid Forests before Tree Farms.
I hate being asked if I want to upgrade(downgrade) 3-res to plasma, and I hate how the game sometimes forces me to design a lot of missile units because it prefers R-Laser for no reason I can fathom. How often do you need R-Laser?
And on and on.
SMACX 8 - SMAC 3 - Undecided 2 ?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
joer
|
 |
Frankfurt, Germany
Apr 2000
time: 05:13
|
|
I give SMACX the vote, simply because it is an expansion and gives the game more options and allows more different combinations. Especially the different faction setup can give each game a totally different flair.
However, I think that SMACX it has a lot of flaws and they could have done better as expansion.
I like the background story of the aliens. I think it gives the plotline more depth and a totally different dimension. However, I think that the execution of the alien factions in gameplay is flawed.
They are stronger, all right. However, they come off as so unbalanced that you cannot play them as human. Giving them directed research is just sick when playing blind. Some people love to pick an alien faction in MP after the other players have chosen human factions -- that's just annoying. Playing the aliens is like admitting that you suck in this game...where is the challenge? In the end, the Progenitors come off as unplayable for the player.
As enemies, they are interesting, but their diplomatic behaviour seems too much like your standard momentum faction. Instead of being bent on destroying each other and either ignoring or using the human factions, they just tend to rally up against me, often pacting with other human factions or with each other. The latter is simply wrong.
It would be much more interesting if they stayed true to their theme, and diplomacy and tech exchange would be muchmuch harder with them, and the human factions would make some effort to work together in order to get rid of them, rather than just pounding on me.
The other new factions seem not so well designed as the original ones. Their ideologies are lacking badly. The Pirates have none, the Data Angels have a very limited agenda and the Cult and the Cyborgs are just spinoff factions.
The new techs usually tend to be annoying at the start. I never want to research them. I have not found the additional goodies very useful at the time I research them. R- and D-armor is too expensive, you only need R-lasers later, and the same is true for sea-facilities. I have yet to equip a ship with marine detachment.
Some of the new SPs seem overpowered: Energy Nexus is on the edge, Cloudchaser academy is sick (as if MMI wasn't good enough as it is) and Manifold Nexus is beyond sick.
I like the new midgame additions: fungus and tectonic missiles are cute, flechette defense and the probe algorithmic enhancements are very good ideas to balance out previous inbalances. However, for me, there are hardly novelties worth at the beginning of the game.
The new landscape additions are nice and seem well balanced.
So while all my complaining gives a pretty bleak picture of ACX, I still like the variation it brings. As an addict, playing around with more combinations and more factions and test out their strengths and weaknesses makes it definately worth the money. Even if I think that there was more room for improvement.
-joer.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Lord Maxwell
|
|
Uppsala - Sweden
Dec 1999
time: 05:13
|
|
I prefer smax due to a few major reasons. First and foremost is the fact that Alien Artifacts are a lot less common. They made the early and middle game to easy as a human in smac. (In smac I often had problems finding a free node for an AA, in smax I never use em for anything but building wonders unless I am really in need of tech. I used about 50/50 in smac.)
Well, the unbalancing factor on cloudbase academy isn't the military aspect, but the sattelite aspect. You basically get an early space ladder... I never was much of a fan for any of the free-fac wonders, they just don't make the game any more interesting, they just cut down on work... For a more challenging game let the ai have em all. (Mounting an attack to conquer with command nexus is ridiculously easy.)
The new techs mostly add more gunk, which is good, because by the late mid-game any faction played by a human is down to a tech every round, or 2 every 3 if you are a bit slow... Adding more filling between the gems was a good idea.
smax 10, smac 3, undecided 2
|
|
| |
|
|
|
joer
|
|
Frankfurt, Germany
Apr 2000
time: 05:13
|
|
The Cloudbase Academy is just...ARGH!
With an AI lagging in getting air defences up, air dominance is crucial to making fast, sweeping conquests anyways. So in the old ACT, you build a few, expensive aerospace complexes for your main industrial centers who could crank out excellent fighters and choppers, while hoping to get clean reactors soon, so support doesn't bog'em down.
Once those choppers return from their killing sprees, you have the choice to let them regenerate for quite some time at the front or fly them back to the aerospace base, losing effectively 2 turns in transit.
In ACX, you don't have to worry about designating aerospace cities -- every single one does it. You also don't take a few turns to build the complexes, delaying your fighter production. You just wait until you research MMI (usually 2 techs away from D:AP), dump a bunch of upgraded crawlers in one city and *flup*, every single city can produce air units who's discipline let even Santiago pale. Not only that, but you don't have to worry about flying them back to the core for regeneration once they're wounded. You can simply do it in that base you just captured from the enemy, then kill on the next turn -- that is in my view the biggest militairy advantage. And because you have beelined for MMI, you probably left the quest for militairy algorithms aside...who cares? Even if your enemies have got D:AP by now, all units in cities get defense rates doubled, making them as effective as AAA defenders.
And aren't there these rumors of the Academy giving fighters and choppers a higher movement?
But, yes, I agree, all those advantages are just minor in comparison to the fact that every single base gets full advantage of orbital improvements and can build them as well. Got no idea what to do with that sea-base out on the other side of your empire? Too lazy to micromanage...great, just pop up a few more satelites, without bothering to pay upkeep for any aerospace complexes.
But of course, such a project has its price. 300 minerals! With the same tech, you get the Cyborg fabric for 400 minerals. I still consider it a good SP, making the Academy a bargain, any way you look at it. One aerospace complex alone costs 80 minerals. So this project gives like 20 excellent facilities for the price of less than 4, and that's not mentioning the upkeep.
Didn't Firaxis want to try and balance certain aspects of the game with Alien Crossfire? Nice try.
-joer.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
SixArmedMan
|
|
Toronto, Canada.
Jan 1970
time: 00:13
|
|
The first version of SMACX was much to buggy for anyone's acceptance. The V.2 has given the AI some annoying behavioural pattern of building 100+ probe teams and sending them all after the same city, to the point where you quit the game in frustration. In original SMAC and buggy SMACX, I've always been able to get a piecemeal invasion off. Well, I do like some of the new Secret Projects and land marks... Ummm.... anything else? Well, it wasn't' worth the $45 Canadian that I got it for...
SMACx:9 SMAC:4 Both/undecided:2
|
|
| |
|
|
|
aquestion
|
|
Miami, FL, USA
May 2000
time: 05:13
|
|
I have just purchased SMACX and I love the game, it is definitely an improvement on the original. But what I am wondering is how you guys have mixed the classic factions with the new ones. It seems like my interface wont allow it and that is the one fundamental weakness I see in the new addition. If anyone could explain this dumb mistake to me it would be very enlightening.
Forget about storyline,
There is nothing I would rather do than have the Pirates going at it with Morgan and Deidre!
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Basil
|
|
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Apr 2000
time: 21:13
|
|
I have never analyzed the Cloudbase Academy to that extent, but I agree with every word Joer says. In my solo games the prerequisite for it is now Graviton theory - seems appropriate for a base floating in the sky.
I have a fix for the hybrid forests coming before tree farms quasi-bug:
Environmental Economics, EnvEcon, 0, 0, 4, 3, AdapEco, EcoEng, 000000100
Planetary Economics, PlaEcon, 0, 0, 4, 3, EnvEcon, Integ, 000000100
You still need the same techs to get both, but you get tree farms first.
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:13.
Apolyton Time is 00:13. |
top of page
|
| archivepost |
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
15-05-2000 18:49
|