Civ3 or SMAX?

[Blake]

By SMAC2 I dont nessecarly mean a sequel to Alpha Centurai, but rather another Civ game out of the confines of Earth & history...

There really is plenty of room for within the SMAC story, like returning to earth (not bad) but also moving on to other planets. In particular I think it would be ultra nifty to be able to play on different types of planets, each having unqiue attributes (Earth type, Chiron type, Barren, Airless, Desert, Water world, Venusian, martian, etc) Terraforming options could be expanded dramatically, to include more stuff which effects the entire planet. So you could start with a completely barren world and terraform it into an earthlike paradise.
That'd be cool.

A potential storyline could be a land grab on a new planet, between different, competing mega-corporations... then things devolve and the fighting starts happening.

Really, there is no shortage of ideas for gameplay and plot ... the only thing which may be missing is a motive for firaxis to make the game...

[Basilisk]

Well. i didn't think of the 'return to earth' scenario, that could actually work quite well. And I also forgot to consider SMACx, which I don't have. I suppose there really is a lot to be done. I would like to see more use of the Planetary Council - more proposals mainly. But yes, if SMAC2 was just a complete rehash I would still buy it, as long as
a) The graphics were improved
b) Micromanagement was toned down slightly
c) Th council was improved
d) New features added
e) The Factions were diversified more - that is more severe bonuses and weakneses (I know that people can do this themselves, but I would rather play the game how Firaxis wants us to)
f) AI improved
g) Air Power toned down
h) More and better diplomacy
i) The tweaking that is neeeded to take it from 'Great Game' TO 'PERFECT GAME'

When I think about it , there really is a lot that could be done for SMAC2... and I hope that it will be done. Also one more requirement - Brian Reynolds is lead designer!

[VitalyB]

Civ3 is a rushed failure.

You all know what is good about SMAC, so here is my opinion about what is bad about Civ3:

* Too squizzed - For how long are we expected to re-write the human history on our boring planet?

* Too rushed - Re-write history? Fine, but why can't I play in the world map on fixed places? Why do I have to start in north america as Indians? And where are the scenearious? Multiplayer? Or at least a decent tutorial?? (Don't need it personally, but it just shows their rush).

* Too wooden AI - The AI is maybe tough, but it is hard in Red Alert style - The computer can do smart moves, fine, but during our communication it feels like talking to a calculator, seriously. He actually calculates every proposal in a certain way so eventually everything has a price, I can ask a city for nothing and he won't agree, so I add a few golds and try again and do it till he agrees. What's the fun??? Where are the "You piss me off", "I don't have time for you.", "That does it, WAR" styles messages like in Alpha Centauri?? If there IS a fixed price for anything, they can just write the price of everything.

* Too copying - For a civ2 player Civ3 many new features in it, however, for the SMAC player the changes are fairly minor and mostly negative. We had queues in SMAC, we had almost as flexible diplomacy in SMAC (and much more interesting one). On the other hand, we had flexible units, we had the council of Six, we had whola a lot of interesting and exciting stuff and that are shamelessly lacking in Civ3.

* Too limited diplomacy - It seems that the team that designed Civ3 was so excited with "Tading map" feature (yes, the one we had for ages in SMAC) that it made the computer player HUNGRY for exchanging maps. That causes super-silly moments when a country that I was terrorising for like 100 years keeps coming to me every few turns and say (in furious tone): "Would you like to exchange maps?" and so do the other countries in the same rate of every few turns. Why??? Maps don't change THAT often you know. The agreements are weak and don't worth the virtual paper they were written on. While in SMAC in the tactical aliance you did know that you can trust the other fraction that it will stand for your side for at least 10 next turns and the cooling in your relations could be felt before any aggresive action is taken (take aside v.extreme cases). In Civ3 you can trash everything you knew about "peaces", while they're easily written they are even more easily broken and frankly, no civ in Civ3 cares about breaking regular peace agreements. Why? Because.

[Tony]

I was a big Civ 1 and 2 fan. I loved the historical setting and sweeping scope of the game as well as the gameplay. I'm not really into Sci Fi but I played SMAC anyway just because it looked similar to my favourite game (Civ 2). I quickly discovered how great SMAC was and it became my new favourite game. But even though SMAC was a better game, I preferred the historical setting of Civ. I always said that if a new version of Civ was released with the innovations of SMAC I would probably never play SMAC again.

Well I've been playing Civ 3 since its been released, and I find myself wishing I was playing SMAC. I think Civ 3 is a great game, the Strategic and Luxury resources are a great addition to the game, as is the more aggressively expanding AI. But Civ 3 just doesn't have the magic gameplay of SMAC.

I think SMACs Social Engineering is excellent. It opens all sorts of strategic possibilities, and makes playing each faction a really different experience. I can see why they might have left social engineering out of Civ 3, its probably too complicated for mainstream gamers to be bothered with. The other thing SMAC has that Civ 3 is missing is AI faction/civ leaders with real personality. All the Civ leaders seem the same just with different pictures. SMAC leaders have great personality both story wise and in the way the AI plays them.

I'll keep playing Civ 3. I think its a great game and an improvement on Civ 2. But its not as good as SMAC.