After a some weeks of Civ3, I'm longing for a game of SMAC.

YefeiPi · November 24, 2001, 15:22

Well, after I led Chinese to the number one civ in 1980s, I lost my interest because the game slowed down to a crawl, a game turn averages about 10 minutes (especially with my 60 units movement and over 50 cities constantly finishing city improvements).

I uninstalled Civ3 but kept my saved file because I might return to it sometime later. However, I have a sudden urge to play Alpha Centauri, it's a much faster loading game, even in late game, in my opinion with several major features that even surpasses Civ3. Oh how I love the green nutrient icons, so fresh looking! Oh and terraforming and unit workshop.

Ludwig · November 24, 2001, 17:56

Initially I thought leaving out the unit workshop was a bad idea, but as I thought more about it I realize that the current mix of units and historical setting kind of precludes it.

"OK, I'd like to use the infantry chassis, and arm the guys with muskets!" OK, great, you just built musketmen.

"I'd like to use the motorized chassis, add some armor to it, and mount a rifled cannon barrel!" Great, you just built tanks.

The technologies available in CivIII permute out to the units we already have. Maybe we could do more with the air units, but the use of air units has been dramatically changed and they aren't direct combat units anymore anyway.

The diplomacy system in SMAC definitely could have contributed here, though. Military coordination, defeating a nation and making it a subordinate ally, the superior SMAC UN election system - I can't believe they weren't migrated here.

The social engineering system would have been a great plus, too.

Just making a version of SMAC that played on an Earth-like world [no hokey fungus or mind worms please], using a historical tech tree and units, with ordinary terrain and civilization names [no Sister Miriam please] would have been a great game. Adding the CivIII resource system, culture system and [yes! gasp!] combat system would have made for a REALLY great game.

Oh well. Maybe in the mods.

Robert Plomp · November 24, 2001, 18:44

yeah, it's really not good that the game slows down that much in the late game. Try playing on a smaller map, it might (will) work !

Ludwig · November 24, 2001, 20:03

On the turn slowdown issue - this is another area where being a CtP graduate helps. If you START OUT playing CtP on modified post-gigantic maps, you will find the turns in CivIII fairly speedy.

KoalaBear33 · November 24, 2001, 22:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Ludwig
On the turn slowdown issue - this is another area where being a CtP graduate helps. If you START OUT playing CtP on modified post-gigantic maps, you will find the turns in CivIII fairly speedy.

lol hehe

nice philosophy for enjoying games or life for that matter

KoalaBear33

fanatic civver · November 24, 2001, 23:47

I agree with Ludwig - the diplomacy OPTIONS in this game are absolutely pathetic compared to SMAC. Firaxis made SMAC and then they bloody well go and downgrade the excellent system they created in SMAC. Insane...

In civ I like how you can retain long lasting relations with other civs, unlike in SMAC where you were forced to change social systems so that they aligned with a faction, otherwise it was war.

I'm playing on a normal map and am just entering the modern age and am having no problems with the speed of the game (other civ's turn takes about 30 secs). You might be affected by that graphics slowdown bug.