20-02-2001 07:08									#1
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It seems that a lot of people still prefer to play regular ol' SMAC, or just never purchased the expansion. Me myself, I prefer to play SMAX with the original factions, but not always with the original seven. I am just curious what you people prefer playing.


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	20-02-2001 10:17									#2
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Yeah, I like playing SMAX, I just don't like the new factions that much.

You gotta love the Cloudbase Academy, flechette defense, having units cloned, wreckage site, etc.

I just think the new factions are pretty lame. No denying the Pirates were a really cool idea, and the Cyborgs are a slight change of pace for all the University lovers, but there isn't the same balance with the new factions.

In the original seven, every faction had a distinct social ideology/andi-ideology, and had their own emphasis. They were all fairly balanced, with everybody having a single level 1 free tech.

The two strongest builders and two strongest military factions were directly opposed. i.e. Yang hates Democracy and loves Police State, Lal hates Police State and loves Democracy, while Zak loves Knowledge and hates Fundy, Miriam loves Fundy and hates Knowledge. The Gaians hated Wealth, so they were against Morgan, but the Gaians wern't a force/power faction like Yang/Miriam, and Morgan didn't directly hate the Gaians back, just "planned" (Green is the Gaians main ideology), so things wern't as tense between them, so it balanced things out that the Spartans dislike "wealth," indirectly putting them against Morgan (whose main ideology is Free Market). The Spartans also had a lower "use of force" setting than Yang/Miriam, so it all kind of balanced out to have the Gaians/Morganites/Spartans opposed to each other while the Hive/Peacekeepers and University/Believers hated each other.

Sure, the Spartans are suited for a rush and the Peacekeepers are suited for a long game, but every one of the original seven is actually a really well-balanced faction. Most people hate the Believers because of their persona and the freaky picture, but everybody knows +2 support +1 probe +25% attack is the best way to make short work of people in the early game.

But what's going on with the new factions? I don't know. The Pirates and Caretakers both have no social anti-ideology. The whole alien faction thing throws everything out of balance. There are three factions whose emphasis is "planet," and the Cyborgs/Drones both have social ideologies that aren't even available until the late game (Cybernetic/Eudaimonic). The "-1 growth" just doesn't do nearly enough to balance the Cyborgs/Pirates with the other three human factions, but that's OK as far as I'm concerned, because the Angels/Cult have portraits so freakish that I really never wanted to play them to begin with. The Drones could be fun to play for a challenge, but they certainly do get the short end of the tech stick, being the only SMAX faction with just one tech. They have a chance of getting cities in revolt, which is by far the most worthless ability ever... I'd honestly rather start with an extra 5 energy credits. +2 industry and -1 drones are both very "nice" abilities, but certainly nothing stellar. -2 research is brutal for a faction that doesn't have the strong early game advantage of the Believers/Spartans, not to mention the fact that they get no free units or facilities.

So SMAX has two Godly factions (Cyborgs/Pirates), two mediocre and creepy factions (Cult/Angels), and the Drones, which are weak even compared to the original seven. I would liken playing the Drones to playing Dan in Street Fighter ... the only possible reason would be the sheer embarrassment if someone actually lost to you. If only they would acknowledge that by giving the Drones a 200% score modifier, I would probably love playing them.

As far as the two alien factions, I don't know what to think of them. The Caretakers can't transcend... Well, that's a shame, but making six subspace generators isn't that much tougher, and the Usurpers can Transcend OR phone home. I guess that's supposed to be a major disadvantage (although it doesn't even apply to the Usurpers), because the benefits these guys get are absurd. Free ogre, free extra colony pod, THREE TECHS, +25% attack or defense, energy grid, free deep radar on all units, and always get the planet map and directed research... What were the designers thinking? I guess the Usurpers can't be Democratic, so that balances things out, eh?

Anyway, that's enough of my silly rant. But I do like SMAX, I just wish it was a patch that added the techs/landmarks/etc, instead of an expansion that gave you dumb factions and screwed up the art and sound effects.

[This message has been edited by Dimension (edited February 20, 2001).]

	21-02-2001 10:55									#3
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Dimension et.al.,

I'll bite. I agree withyour assessment of balance with the original 7 factions. All reasonably balanced (although some say Morgan or Miriam are too off balance to play effectively, I OTOH feel they are well balanced tho if you know how to play them well.)

On the SMAX factions my view is this,

Pirates - Slow expanders but relatively uncontested growth opportunities. Efficiency penalty reels them in before they completely own the seas through ICS. Late game once energy restrictiosn are lifted allow them an exponential power increase. OTOH b/c they grow slowly and have relatively poor industrial might and expensive units more often then not they miss out on early SP's. But they are well along the way towards an early capture of D:AP which suits them very well. Overall on par with the orignal 7.

Cyborgs - Interestingly enough I find them not so much an excellent builder but more an excellent hybrid. They can easily get impact rovers and rover rush very quickly or they can sit back and attempt to build. But b/c of growth their early expansion will not be as good as the standard 7. B/c of this I think they are best suited for the early conquest allowing others to do the expansion work for them. They can be a scary opponent and as such I would agree could be considered more potent than any of the orignal 7. After conquest they can siwtch roles into builder mode and then watchout 'sepcially if they have a submissive or two.

Drones - In this case I differ from your opinion. I truly think Drones might be the strongest of the factions 'cept for the aliens. The phenomenal growth phase pumping out pods allows the first round of ICS to completed in fractions of the time vs. other factions. The +2 industry allows for rush builds at 80% of the cost. True they are hindered initially but that is overcome either through playing meek and trading/buying techs, probing, AA's or running FM. The one tech they do have is one in the beeline to IA so it helps significantly. To my mind despite the tech disadvantage these fellows are a monster. If spoils are enabled and/or directed research I'ld be hard pressed to find a better faction to play 'cept maybe UoP. My vote - far outstrips the orignal 7. 'Specially if they have 70-100 years of peace then watch out.

Angels - Another of my favs. Overall very vanilla but free techs of Planetary networks and free probe team mean either your halfway to IA or your but two techs away from impact weapons. (And if you don't subscribe to the cheat theory can take the speeder frame from the probe team and apply impact weapons). The choice thenis early conquest or growth and builder style all the while sending random probes to infiltrate/subvert. I think this faction is on par if not slightly overpowered vs. original 7.

Cult - I have to say I'm not a fan and probably never will be. The capricious nature of capturing worms just doesn't sit well with me. As such I'll refrainfrom judgement.

Aliens - I firmly beleive these were not meant to be played by humans but moreso by the AI. That being said evenin the AI 'hands' the stupid seeding routine makes them a game buster as far as I am concerned. They expand too quickly vs other factions have too many beneifts and are ultra agressive meaning they will overrun you early. If you survive teh intial overruns then they can be enetertaining but as a rule more often than not, the seeding is such that they normally are close to you ruining the game.

My preference is play SMAX with original 7 and if I want to play a SMAX faction substitute in place of Santi or Lal normally.

Og

	21-02-2001 02:37									#5
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What do you change to restrict the aliens' knowledge of Planet's surface? And would that restriction help balance them a bit?

	21-02-2001 03:01									#6
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Hello to the boards! I'm fairly known to CGN...

I have both SMAC and SMAX. I play the latter most often but I select 1 faction (myself) and put everything else random.

I think that you can't change the alien advantage of being able to see the Planetsurface and other 'built-in' stuff. It all comes from the form: ALIEN, 0, in their faction file. And yeah, they are overbalanced but that is to fit with the storyline of them being slightly more superior that humans.

I definetly agree about the Cyborgs and them being hybrid. Their -GROWTH doesn't seem to level their powers out too much.

Who says Data Angels are freaky?! I absolutely LOVE playing as them and taking the -25% probe costs advantage. I choose Democratic/Free Market/Knowledge/Cybernetic (later in the game) to give me enouth energy to steal other faction's bases and units . I like the faction grafics (except for the bases, they are kinda, non-fitting) and basenames too.

I also think that the original SMAC had its TOUCH that SMAX will never get, because we can all (even slightly) relate to the seven original factions and they are much closer to our homeworld - Earth. Also the storyline and the intro movie of it gets to me...

	21-02-2001 05:31									#7
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Hmmm....where might I have seen you before? Welcome to 'Poly, anyway!

SMAC or SMACX....since installing the no CD crack, I have only played SMACX. I quite like the new factions - the aliens are, of course, overpowered - it is how they were designed. They are meant to be pitted against the human, for those who find the game too easy. Unfortunately, they forgot to make them immune to nerve gas....

	21-02-2001 06:31									#8
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My preference is decidedly for SMAX, although I prefer to play one of the original 7 factions.

The SMAX environment is a definite improvement.

Pop boom as a result of Golden Age works.

The balance between land and sea is exquisite ... minerals plus a bit of the other from land - nutrients/energy from the ocean, both enhanceable.

Excellent.

I like the new tech tree, despite its faults. I like the Flechette in particular - missiles were overpowered in original SMAC and at least Flechettes give the chance of defence against Busters prior to ODPs. SMAX is well worth the money.

	21-02-2001 21:28									#9
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I agree SMACX is worth the money and it has kept single-player alive for me. I like the faction editor ability and tinkering with the premade factions. My favorite to play against is the "Morganoids" --they have Wealth instead of FM as their agenda and get +25% defense bonus and an extra starting commlink. They are much less likely to be eradicated by Santiago!

I also like the new native lifeforms (towers and spore laucnhers especially) and the fact that native life is more aggressive. Definitely adds to the challenge.

The worst thing about SMACX is the Mysery Drone Bug, which makes base management extremely tedious. I am halfway tempted to turn on the governors!

But what about multiplayer? SMAC is slow enough, but the extra tech in the SMACX tree slows things even more. I think SMACX is too slow and complex for multiplayer, and SMAC 4.0 works better.

	22-02-2001 05:13									#10
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I always play SMAX now. I usually pick whatever faction I want to play and then the strongest enemy factions I can come up with.

	22-02-2001 05:36									#11
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Got SMAX since a few months only.
Barely played it, just to give a try at each factions.
Some of the new items are nice.
But I'm so used to SMAC, that even when I open a SMAX pbem turn, I spontaneously tend to start SMAC.
If a SMACv5 patch would come out (forget it), I won't bother about SMAX at all.

	22-02-2001 05:55									#12
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SMAX, with the orig. seven. Maybe toss in the aliens, to spice things up a bit, from time to time.

	22-02-2001 06:00									#13
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SMAX any day, it is more balanced, (if you dont include the new factions.)

	22-02-2001 20:07									#14
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I always play Smax -- and play completely random factions on a random world.

	23-02-2001 16:47									#15
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Add me to the list that prefers SMAX as a game, but usually plays with the original 7. I don't like the Aliens at all. The other factions are ok either to play yourself, or as opponents (with the exception of Cheese Dong). Aki plays well for human control, but she is always getting killed by the AI when she is under AI control. The Pirates are fun to play, and are a good opponent overall, though under AI control they tend to fade as the game goes along for some reason.

I find that the continuity of the storyline breaks down with the new factions though. (It was never very believable to begin with). For (just one) instance, there are now two 'Thief' factions (Data Angels and the Pirates) who nonetheless are bent on conquest just like everyone else. Who are they going to steal from then? This makes about as much sense as Santiago's faction of survivalists with a high police rating bent on taking over the world. These guys (the Spartans) are much more likely to evolve along the lines of the Swiss, and hire themselves as mercenaries than to support a huge sprawling empire. (That's what they want to fight against!)

I think the game would have been bettered served by having more rationalist / economically oriented factions. Who besides Morgan and Lal purport values which appeal to more than a small minority? Perhaps Deirdre would appeal to some Westerners. The Drones could appeal to those educated in Cuba or North Korea. What's left? A University without grant money, a couple of religious cults, a statist cult, and whatever the Consciousness is. At least the Aliens make some sense.

	26-02-2001 07:42									#17
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Senatus,

Are you a real Ottawa Senator?

My beef with the Spartans is that they are associated with the Militia / Survivalist movement in the U.S. to some extent ("The right to keep and bear arms..") which is the epitome of the philosophy of decentralization. While such a group could band together for mutual defense (especially against a Yang type of state), it is unlikely that they would seek to subvert their own individual interests to a statist goal like conquest. Thus I see them more along the lines of the Swiss, who defended themselves vigorously, but did not centralize themselves to the degree that they wielded military power far and wide for their own purposes (except as mercenaries). If the Spartans are in fact based upon a highly centralized militaristic culture (like for instance the historical Sparta), then of course they make sense more or less. These types of cultures seem to be on the wane however as warfare has become the province of the common man much more than a social military elite since at least the time of Napolean if not the end of the middle ages in the West.

To my mind the Drones are also a bit strange, as their one remaining goal (they already have their independence) seems to be industrialization. They remind me less of the fairly rural and decentralized communal groups we learned about in anthropology class, and a good deal more like Stalinist Russia and China whose goals seemed to have been:

1) Take control (emancipate the workers) of the state and protect the revolution at all costs.

2) Industrialize what had been primarily agrarian societies.

My problem with this is in general my problem with many of the factions. Who are the workers of the University, and who are the researchers of the Drones? How often has social friction within a society between classes and professions created seperate states as a result? It is a difficult maneuver to pull apart the various groups which make up a state without causing a lot of destruction. It seems likely a suicidal task to do so immediately upon landing on an alien landscape.

Obviously these groups in SMAC may have sprung from more or less homogenous roots (probably to their great disadvantage), but within a generation these idealogical concerns are quite likely to be buried beneath the requirements for survival, and the very different attitudes and needs of a new generation which knows nothing firsthand of the social conflicts of their parents. A very similar thing happened here in America as the more or less fanatical religious types were free to worship as they pleased after they arrived. Their children grew up to be a lot more concerned with survival and material issues, and a lot less concerned with the religious quarrels of a world they had never known.

All that being said, I do realize that the goal was to make an interesting game, and here Fireaxis has succeeded magnificantly. The factions seem to be a hodgepodge of types (ie internal enemies like the University and the Believers as well as external enemies like the Hive and the Peacekeepers), but most of them are properly creepy and amusing. I have found that my problems with the factions and SE ratings are more than overcome by my enjoyment of the game systems.

	26-02-2001 07:49									#18
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Personally, I prefer to play SMAX, the new technologies give you a number of different options (As if we don't have enough, lol) as far as building go. I defintely love the new SP's.

I enjoy using a mixture of the old and new... but just HATE the Planet Cult (their ideology.... is bizarre...). Among some of the things that are missing are two factions having hatred for each other because of the spawning of that faction by another.. for example, the 'Borgs supposedly came from the Uni... then why aren't they duking it out automatically? Ditto with The Drones... I've played all of the new factions and I enjoy playing the Drones (crank 'em out, Fred!) , the 'Borgs (once they get going...unstoppable, not to mention their techsteal ability makes up for some things).

The Aliens are another thing. You can undo most of their advantages in specific ways... Their ability to "directed research" can be undone by turning off the Blind Research option, and seeing the map can be undone by making sure "Unity Map survey" (or whatever it's called) is on... and then trading or tech-stealing your way to ahead of them. Yeah, right in the beginning, you can't exactly slug it out with them, but by mid-game, you are nearly even... For some reason, every time I've played them, seems like a human faction winds up out teching me in a hurry. *shrug*.

As for the Chem Warfare, they can sling it around with the humans and each other.. works both ways. The Aliens Ideology is OK, but the story just isn't complete.. like... what happened on Tau Centuari? (or whatever the heck it's called), with the "Flowering" being visited on other star systems, etc. Their storyline could have been better done, as well as most of the new factions. But that doesn't mean they are not fun to play. . They are.

Just my two creds.
NS.

	27-02-2001 00:48									#20
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Well... yeah. Her portrait picture isn't as good as I might have put it :lol. I mean that hairstyle IS kinda freaky and the bases graphics don't seem to match the faction's style. I downloaded a alternative pics of bases from an unknown fan site and the file is called alien1 and they REALLY suit them.