Alpha Centauri 2?

[Securion]

Is there any info about Alpha Centauri 2?
Civilization 3 gives me the creeps... Musketeers? Horseback Riding? I dont think so.
I want a dark, futuristic atmospher where the factions, nations, whatever, have to both compete and cooperate to survive.

I hope that Alpha Centauri 2 will be played in a much darker future with more robots and more "starship troopers" over it.
We dont need Graviton Singularium Exosuperium Glatiatius ****ing Huge Bomb weapons, we need battalions, brigades and divisions of marines with pulse-rifles dying for their leader!
Whaaam! War!
Not clowns in miniskirts walking the landscape dying of tiny worms...

Anyone remeber the war scenes from Terminator 2?
Between the humans and the machines?
THATS how a battlefield in the future will look like!
Large numbers of robots and hightech troops.
I wanna picture that when I play Alpha Centauri 2.
Ill rather have boxes with X in them than animations of one single nerd warrior with a red dress.

God im tired... zzzZZZzzz

Plz kill me

[Wiglaf]

Nope, no info on a sequel. Odds are there won't be one anytime soon, either. SMAC got a lukewarm response from customers as far as sales are concerned. To make another game with the franchise would take manpower that Firaxis doesn't have at the moment, as well.

We'll see, but the future doesn't look good for sci fi sid games.

[Avenoct]

I for one am hopeful that a Smac 2 will come about eventually. I give Firaxis 12-18 months to announce it though. I'm working on a sequel right now as some of you may know. Aldebaran, tooting my own horn, plays quite differently than Smac. No, I've not changed the fundamental game-driver, but I think you'll be surprised just how much can be done with the engine we do have. With enough interest in this and other projects (Vel's 'Torture-Mod', SNAC, Tokamak's Smacdown, and others), I think we will fill the gap untill Smac 2. It's really up to you. If you made it as far as Apolyton, you already posess the initiative to make efforts toward better gaming.

Playing scenarios or MP games is different than pulling a bright shiny new CD out of a nifty box, and using a 'mod' requires that you at least know how to swap files and moreso, are willing to give it a try. The only thing that frustrates me as a designer is that so few people will be exposed to all the great work done on Apolyton and other forums. Even so, we all know that the Sci-Fi strategy game field is only just getting it's legs. There will be plenty of great games in the future, whether from Firaxis (I hope) or elsewhere. If you have any feelings of loyalty to Smac, I encourage you to write to Firaxis and let them know what a great job they did. In a week or so I'll be releasing the final 'Beta' for Aldebaran, which will be free for all to download either here or via a link to a webpage. You WILL love it (using mind-control probe here).

Since you commented on CIV 3, I'll say I feel similarly. I'd rather play a future-game than a past game. But it's really the mechanics of Smac that I enjoy over the CIV series. Speaking of which, maybe this thread could continue the long-standing discussion of what we would like to see in Smac 2 when it is released, or just fantastic if implausable ideas for the 'perfect game'.

I had an idea earlier today that it would be nifty to have 'seasons' of a sort in this kind of game. Many possible planetary orbits, rotations, moon-systems, etc. make for unusual seasons. Did anyone ever read 'Heleconia Spring'? That world went through hundreds of years of winter. It was so bad that civilization crumbled and had to be restarted every 'spring' all over again. With systems of binary stars and multiple moons, there could be many possibilities along these lines. What do you want to see in Smac 2?

-Smack

[Wiglaf]

What do you want to see in Smac 2?

Search for a thread called exactly that, started IIRC by Cybergod, and check out some of the respones.

How long have you been working on a sequel, smack? Good luck btw

[Securion]

What about the game Outpost and Outpost 2?
Does those games have any resemblance with Alpha Centauri?
Any other turn-based game thats good, if you want sci-fi?

Seasons sounds GREAT!

I also think there should be a complete solarsystem with more than one planet and alot of moons and asteroids.
The only problem is the processor power needed to move all those extra units... Lets say 1 planet full of units takes 2 min to move for the AI... add another planet and we have 4 min... add more planets with moons and asteroids and we will soon have 1-2 hour long turns... or something... And what about Micro Management? MM would be gone...?
The memory requirements should stay almost the same though.
I think ppl will have 2 ghz and 256 mb at the time this game arrives...

Another thing I would have liked to see in Alpha Centauri was underwater maps with underwater units.
I would like to build a underwater empire for a change.
In AC it just feels stupid. No supercavitational subs or anything... just boring old boats...

Also, I think too much is based around the cities. I would like to see the whole map used for building stuff. Maybe like expanding cities? At first, when you found the city, its one square big and after awhile small factories can be seen outside the city and later the city expands into other squares. That way, everytime a city grows your borders would be re-calculated to show the extra influence a larger city has on the surroundings. And a larger city will LOOK larger also, spreading out across the landscape.
Alot of different military tactics and strategies could develope from this also. Defending your surrounding industry areas or concentrate on your more residental areas?

Ill be back later with more syupid ideas in terrible english, have to go on patrol now.

[DarkCloud]

SMACK- if you have a sequel for AC, then you might want to visit the alternate civs section and talk to Ron Hiller, he might be able to promote it for you.

[Avenoct]

Yes, I know there was just a thread about this...was trying to divert the topic.

Securion, those are inspired ideas....ever see the game 'Conquest of the New World'? I don't think it did very well, and deservedly as the overall strategy part was obviously not finished, but, the relevant part to your idea about city-sprawl was that you could zoom in 4 levels to your city and see little animations of your workers at the various facilities. Even better, each facility (mines for iron or gold, farms, trading posts, etc.) could be micromanaged even further....it was a map within the world map. My ultimate game would be like that...the user could choose just how detailed and MM to play, as they went along, or in the preferences. They could stick to an inter-galactic empire strategy game aspect, (like MOO II), or they could focus on managing one of the particular worlds in their dominion (like SMAC), or manage several worlds, but just not in quite as much detail (your idea). Further, you could go in and sub-manage any city--really make it effecient would be the overall reward I suppose-- (like Sim City, or Conquest, as above)...and you could also go into the scenes of important battles, if you wanted....in the battle odds screen it could say, the odds are 4 to 5 against us, should we proceed? cancel? Play the battle in detail? then you could play some variation of one of the 'Up close and personal' games, like Rainbow Six for probe actions, a flight sim for air combat, something else for ground warfare. Of course noone would play all the different levels of detail in any game, but they'd be there, inviting.

-Smack

[Securion]

Yea, and the system resources needed would be huge, atleast HD space. But I agree with you! It would be cool!
And I really think "games" like this will come in the future. I just dont think it will be one game. Im waiting for the Game Language Standard to be invented. So that games can be put together like if they were one game.
Even further down the road I think "games" will dissapear.
I belive there will be "Economic Engine", "Space Graphics" and such "packs" to buy so you can build your game yourself.
Install a "Space Economics" pack and a "Space Simulator" pack and woops, Elite.
But hey, were talking 50 years down the road now...

The system you describes sounds great.
That kinda system would be optimal.
Lets see when it arrives.

Already made units and stuff really makes me puke...
The key to success is letting users customize what the found important in the game. Like units and city graphics...
Thats why Civ 3 will sell 19 copies...

Firaxis! You better give me Alpha Centauri 2 NOW exactly like I want it or im gonna be pissed!

Well well... back to work.

[Kassiopeia]

BTW the plot and background story of Aldebaran will be thorough and higly addictive *Kass hypeing his own achievements*
Smack, you really are an educated person. I always thought what kind of people would read books like "Helliconia Spring". I think the whole series is the masterpiece of Aldiss. He has invested much in it, in both thought and in time. All has been designed perfect, like in SMAC

[Black Sunrise]

"Anyone remeber the war scenes from Terminator 2?
Between the humans and the machines?
THATS how a battlefield in the future will look like!
Large numbers of robots and hightech troops. "

Hmmmmm.

I read this article in last months Wired. It said that every generation of war plane we make is much more expensive, so that we can afford fewer of them.

There's even a joke about it.

"In defence-contracting circles the trend is referred to as Augustine's Law. Former Lockheed chair Norman Augustine, who retired in 1997, was only half-joking when he calculated that with the average cost of tactical fighters quadrupling ever 10 years, the Pentagon would be able to offord only a single airplane by 2054. The Navy and Air Force would ech share it 3.5 days a week, except for leap years, when the Marine Corps would fly the plane the extra day."

So my point is: In the future, units will be expensive resources, not to be squandered lightly. When you risk extinction daily from radiation, explosion, decompression, starvation, large rocks falling on your head, you are less likely to want to throw people away in a war. So most high-tech wars would involve threat, bluff, stalling, positioning, and so on. Only in very low tech situations would you have huge mobs of each side swarming each other.
Sorta like Gladiator.

Just my 2 cents.
Indra

[Securion]

Ofcource I dont agree becouse I think a future society with nanotech can build anything, almost for free.
Even weapons.

And trying to kill soldiers with nanites wont be effective cos the other side will ofcource have defensive nanites. 1-1=0

Even if nanites are not there, everything will be almost free to build becouse of "selfmaking" machines. I can build one almost with LEGO.
Build one that buils one and you have two that builds two more that build four and so on. Until a specific number and then the robots starts produce whatever resource they were sent for.

Pretty "easy" to do even with todays technology.
It would cost every american a pack of ciggs every month in tax money but it could be done.

The only question that can break my argument is, will a future society that can create and endless supply of robots and self aware colonies and so on, send out their own kind to fight the wars? Humans have been replaced with better solutions all the time. When will they be replaced in war?

Future space wars will not be like in Star Wars, they will for sure be 100 000 times bigger!



"BACK TO WORK AGAIN!"
"Yes boss!"

[Avenoct]

It IS interesting to speculate on future wars. There's just no telling. The quote in debate is:

Anyone remeber the war scenes from Terminator 2?
Between the humans and the machines?
THATS how a battlefield in the future will look like!

But it's contradicted by the trend in 'modern' warfare, an oxymoron.

So my point is: In the future, units will be expensive resources, not to be squandered lightly. When you risk extinction daily from radiation, explosion, decompression, starvation, large rocks falling on your head, you are less likely to want to throw people away in a war. So most high-tech wars would involve threat, bluff, stalling, positioning, and so on. Only in very low tech situations would you have huge mobs of each side swarming each other.

But really, wouldn't chance and fortune dictate these things? In a slow to develop and highly stable future society, I'd go with the latter, but if things, civilization, break down in any way, I'd have to say it just might look like a battlefield scene from Terminator.

The point of 'modern' warfare is to project power in such complete and irrefutable ways that violence doesn't erupt very much as the Loser is just going to go down hard. But yet we see in some recent wars that neither the threat (not actually a real one thank goodness, except for the very first time this was used, WWII) of nuclear war hasn't stopped some people from wars of aggression, and neither has convincing projection of power by 'Peacekeeping' third parties. In a way, I'm glad. The human spirit is indominable, and when push comes to shove, there will always be people willing to sacrifice their lives against vastly superior enemies in pursuit of freedom from opression (hopefully) or more often, for maniacal terrorist reasons (not so great). But as long as a relative few control the vast amount of military power, backed up by access to resources and a value system that justifies using that power to preserve freedom (and many horrible things have been done in that overused name), only global calamity would result in a Terminator-like war of the future, IMO.

Wars may be prevented, or rather, won non-violently by shows of superior technology and units, but unless that power is backed up by a willingness and ability to sacrifice those units on the field of battle, it remains a powerless show. Er, where was I going with that? Anyways, it is certainly going to be interesting to see what the future holds. One thing is for sure though. War and tyrrany will persist on some level, and that's too bad.

Happy Crawlering,

-Smack

[Alynzia]

You will forgive the uneducated one for posting here, she just has an idea for a future Civ type game.

As for Alpha Centauri 2, would it be smart to make the analogy of what Civ2 was to the original Civ?

Oh, my idea. I see what you mean when you say all this futuristic technology is going to be really expensive. I actually think Martian colonies and orbital research stations etc. in the future will be paid for by multinational companies, assuming future politics lends itself to the current trend of global power being held by multinationals.

Along these lines, you could have a game where you had factions on Earth who colonised there before launching into space, as in our own solar system, and colonising there. These factions would also fight because they are competing multinationals.

You would have to play on seperate maps, like in some Test Of Time games, but I personally think it would be a plausible future.

The only problem is, could people really be citizens of a giant company that they work for? And I have yet to see rival supermarket chains go to nuclear war, but if you hear about it please tell me.

[Ken Hinds]

Originally posted by Alynzia
The only problem is, could people really be citizens of a giant company that they work for? And I have yet to see rival supermarket chains go to nuclear war, but if you hear about it please tell me.

It's happened in the American Past. The various mining companies virtually owned their employees and the Fruit and Suger Cane companies came close to conducting their own military operations, usually Dole and the others conned the U.S. Government to supplying the troops at taxpayer expense.

Ken