I doubt ithttp://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/shakehead_ron.gif There should be though. I can just think of all the ideas...ah

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Somewhere between war and diplomacy is the realm of the spy.- <FONT face="Script MT Bold">SpyCatcher34</FONT f>

There are no plans at this time for one.

Does anyone knows if there will be a sequel to this game? Is there any articles written about it? If so, can you send the link to me? Thank you.

After Civ3? I doubt it. I think Civ4 has more possibilities of being made(and that would be on 2010...)

One of the downsides of having a strong story, as AC does, is that it discourages sequel making without it being post or before ( a different story in the same universe.) It's hard to come up with a sequel, and a sequel with the same story would be seen as a rehash and not original enough.
Besides, it's perfect already! http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

You could have a band of malcontent colonists leaving Chiron for another planet after advanced space flight is discovered there. Maybe fo to Tau Ceti into the chaos left there after the maniold flowering.

Civ 2 was just a remake of Civ 1. I think that if AC 2 was just a remake of AC 1 that that would be fine.

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Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.

Civ 2 was just a remake of Civ 1. I think that if AC 2 was just a remake of AC 1 that that would be fine.
--SvenSlayer


Well, the point of my previous post was that you can make remakes of games like Civ, which don't have a story, which are based on an idea which can be greatly improved. Alpha Centauri you'd have to bring a new story. An interesting idea would be the re-colonization of Earth, after the apocolypse: Instead of Xenofungus you could have radioactive wasteland...
But I really don't see this happening.

If they did do a sequal, would the new game have to say who won the orginal game? From the plot I guessed the the gians or the peacekeepers won. I know that Sparta was destroyed by Gian mind worms. Anyone else want to speculate on what the creators would say happened?

Would the Alien Crossfire storyline fit into our little plot?

They could do a game, pehaps multi planet, about the progenitor civil wars.

"From the plot I guessed the the gians or the peacekeepers won. I know that Sparta was destroyed by Gian mind worms" - Sukenis


Actually it doesn't say precisely that. The story message you had in mind says "Quantum Tank" and nothing more, nothing less. Whether or not Mind worms actually had anything to do with the Gaian capturing of Sparta Command or not it does not tell.

But if I am to throw a thought into the "true end" of AC I will agree that the Spartans draw the shorter straw. Not only are we told that their headquarter is invaded by the happy-go hippie Gaians but also that they loose a base ( Assassin's Redoubt ) to Mind worms or other Psi-related attackers.

Other than that it's open to speculation as far as I am concerned, we really aren't told very much of the "outcome", and I think that is as it should be. Though I suspect Zakharov and Deirdre got into an argument, considering this message :

"Let the Gaians preach their silly religion, but one way or the other I shall see this compound burned, seared, and sterilized until every hiding place is found and until every last Mind Worm egg, every last slimy one, has been cooked to a smoking husk. That species shall be exterminated, I tell you! Exterminated!"
-- Academician Prokhor Zakharov , Lab Three aftermath


Well, that's it from me for now.

I'd buy Alpha Centauri II. The backstory is fantastic and I'd enjoy it more if it came with a better faction customising system -- something that would make it easier to create new factions and to type in different responses from opponents. Also, interchange between PCs and Macs would be great. For instance, the porting company, Westlake Interactive, are making it possible for Mac users to access all of the previous maps and scenarios when Age of Empires II Gold Edition comes out.

Notice that Firaxis have made quite a few design changes in Civ3 which make gameplay better and use software/hardware developments more efficiently (e.g. the reduction in pop-up screens and the diplomacy system). Just tweaking the SMAC system and updating the graphics + some new professionally designed scenarios would be worth a few bucks and keep me playing SMAC/AX more often.

The faction editor is no problem for me. What I want Firaxis to address is that useless, sukky, map editor. They should design it like the map editor in Civ2.

Well, there is a trilogy of books which I assume will have the "true" ending...I've only read the first, in which spartans beat up on peacekeepers and the rest squabble, except the Hive which got its own continent and grew into the perfect little utopia it is...

SMAC allowed the developers to field-test some improvements to the Civ model without posing a risk to the flagship Civ brand itself. Innovations like national borders, unit experience levels, more robust diplomacy and so on generally worked pretty well in SMAC and will appear in a further-evolved form in Civ3. Other ideas (sea cities maybe?) didn't pan out so well and won't make the cut.

With a new Civ hitting the shelves there's little reason to update SMAC anytime soon. I'd expect a SMAC2 in a couple of years, to further test proposed changes to the Civ model as research for Civ4. I don't think there's much reason to maintain the SMAC franchise for its own sake (apart from the make-a-few-bucks motive, which, while cynical, is certainly not without merit).

The innovations in SMAX made it a better game, in many ways, than was Civ2...just as I am sure that Civ3 will outshine SMAX.

A few million quid donated by somebody could do the trick.

1 I've heard of an attempt to go beyond Alpha Centauri that failed because of lack of manpower called Stella Poloaris. If they wanted to, they coold use that for some ideas.

2 Why not show how many people are wanting an Alpha Centauri 2, thus proving the merit, through a petition?

Holy Crap! It's like Gamecatcher at CFC!!!

I'd love to see a SMAC 2 ... and while we are having this dream, why not a MoM2? (of course, keeping those MoO3 people away from it! ;)

SMAC/X: my all time greatest game fave. I'd settle for some late-game tweaking of the AI. However, I find it difficult to imagine a sequel without Brian Reynold's input. Even so, I'd take any game that involves planetary exploration/domination in a sci-fi setting. I'll buy Star Wars: Empires At War, but I'm not expecting anything as good as SMA/X.

They used to let guests post? How would that work?

It was the olden days, people could do anything back then.

Funny to see a 4-5 year old thread be bumped like this.

OT (On-Topic):
I don't think there will be a SMAC2 for a while. At least not as long as Firaxis is working on Civ4. But it would be great to see a SMAC2. Hopefully it won't turn out like Civ3 did...

I don't think there will ever be a SMAC2. Most all of the people who were involved with the original have left Firaxis (who owns the rights) and are not particularly interested in doing TBS games anymore in any case.

Well fraxis doesnt own the rights, EA does as we all know now, but an AC2 would pwn

Right now you'd have to rely on a total conversion of a Civ Game for SMAC2.

But considering the way CIV4 works currently, that could be pretty darn awesome. You'd just need to find a way to code in Sea Bases and you'd be set.

It also would breathe new life into some of the factions - Cha Dawn and Miriam are easy choices for cultural flagships, for instance.

There is the planetfall (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=278) mod at the moment (and perhaps someone with coding skill might come up with something else.)

Whats Brian Reynolds up to lately?

According to his Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Reynolds), he now works for Zynga, the company that produces Facebook-style games.

Here is this:

Question: I'm a huge fan of Alpha Centauri and I still find myself playing the game 10 years now after it was first released. Is there any chance of a new Alpha Centauri game or a re-release of this addictive and masterful gem?

Sid: We’re all big Alpha Centauri fans as well. The series is owned by Electronic Arts (we were developing games for them back then), so the ball is in their court on whether or not to make a new version.

From this:

http://firaxis.com/community/asksid_archive.php?n_id=9

Here's a question... Why does EA own the rights to the game? Isn't EA just the publisher? The rights should have remained in the hands of the development house. But I suppose they were offered a deal they couldn't refuse.

SMAC is a Brian Reynolds game, since he's not at Firaxis any more and seems to be going a different direction, I say the chance of a SMAC2 is extremely remote.

And I'm sure he'd sue the pants off any one who tries to infringe on his property.

So what ? Do they have to call it Alpha Centauri 2 ? Let them call it Proxima Centauri. Or Canis Majoris. Who cares ? If it's a space colonization game by Firaxis and it's good, it will sell better than any Alpha Centauri 2 from EA.

Here's a question... Why does EA own the rights to the game? Isn't EA just the publisher? The rights should have remained in the hands of the development house. But I suppose they were offered a deal they couldn't refuse.

I don't have any inside info, but I think Firaxis wasn't in a very comfortable position. Microprose had tanked, strategy gaming was supposed to be declining anyway, and Firaxis was a fresh company with the need to finance its first big project, which then actually didn't sell all that well. I don't know when exactly EA came into possession of the rights, but I can see several scenarios in which it would have looked like a good deal for Firaxis to sell them (and for EA to buy them).

Also, it's actually quite common that the rights to a franchise are in the hands of the publisher, not the developer. That's why Jowood could simply switch developers in the Gothic series, that's why Bethesda could buy the fallout franchise off Interplay even though the original developers had always felt that it was "just a technicality" that "their baby" was owned by Interplay, that's why Ubisoft could choose a Russian developer for Heroes of Might and Magic V (okay, in this case the original developer didn't even exist anymore, but the point is, Ubisoft could have switched developers if even the original development studio still existed), etc. Sometimes developers just don't realize all implications of not owning the franchises (as in the Fallout example), and sometimes it's an economic necessity that you just can't do anything about.

Who cares ?Me. Because it's not just about the name, it's about the IP (Intellectual Property). A large part of SMAC's charm wasn't just the game mechanics, but the atmosphere, the background story, the setting - in short the storytelling.

Without the EA rights, there won't be Xenofungus, no Deirdre Skye, no Morgan Industries, no Monoliths, no Mindworms. And without these things, it's "just" another Civilization spin-off. While something like that might become a decent spiritual successor (like BioShock to SystemShock 2)... most original design team members aren't with Firaxis anymore, so I'd be doubtful whether they can recapture the original charm without access to the IP itself.

Cheers, LT.

I see what you're saying, I guess. But couldn't it all be thinly disguised? As Call To Power II got around such a rights issue and made what was essentially Civ 2 1/2 without a license to use the Civilization trademark by naming itself as a sequel to an expansion (Call to Power was actually an expansion to Civ II) so Alien Crossfire II could be made by Firaxis without getting in hot water with EA, right?

It could have different characters and stuff because its set later, or maybe be called Proxima Centauri and be set on a planet near the siter star, where a completely different ship from Earth landed (but the lifeforms and such were similar). Or perhaps the ship is from Alpha Centauri, fleeing catastrophe. Or it could be the same basic tech tree type thing and stuff, but be set on some planet in the Solar System, where the escape from Earth was less ambitious. A halfway terraformed Venus or Mars, or even Earth being reclaimed from somewhere (Alpha Centauri, Venus, Cryopods in orbit).

I see what you're saying, I guess. But couldn't it all be thinly disguised? As Call To Power II got around such a rights issue

Well, CtP had the advantage that the course of human history isn't part of any intellectual property and thus can be used freely. ;)

But yes, it's certainly possible to create a planet-based sci-fi TBS game which doesn't infringe on the SMAC IP. The question is whether that's we/others want, and whether it seems economically viable to the producer (otherwise it won't be done). And here, the problem is that the IP (the characters developed, the setting, the story) is a strong point for SMAC, and foregoing it increases the risk of failure.

Join my Facebook crusade and we might just drum up enough support to make them think about a SMAC II. You can join here (http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=101695789896094).

oh, you already have more members than the previous two attempts:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=116296008391569
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=362967585503

you can advertise also on the wall of my group if you want: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=131175990236847

good luck!

So what ? Do they have to call it Alpha Centauri 2 ? Let them call it Proxima Centauri. Or Canis Majoris. Who cares ? If it's a space colonization game by Firaxis and it's good, it will sell better than any Alpha Centauri 2 from EA.

This. Why not just have Sid or one of it's proteges design a new game around the idea of colonizing a new planet? Create new factions, new techs, and the other stuff for it. It shouldn't be that difficult.

I agree. Maybe not SMAC2 if they don't have the rights to it.. but no one owns the rights to Alpha Centauri, it's an astrological term, and more then that, it was used in Civ1/2 as the target of your space ship.

So, just make a new game altogether. AlphaCentauri-2099 or something.

Just create a whole new mythos if you can't use what's in SMAC. Create a whole new "story based" Civ game on another planet. Problem solved.

I agree. Maybe not SMAC2 if they don't have the rights to it.. but no one owns the rights to Alpha Centauri, it's an astrological term, and more then that, it was used in Civ1/2 as the target of your space ship.

This is a common misunderstanding. Yes, Alpha Centauri is an astronomical (I reckon the "astrological" was misspoken) term. However, in the context of computer games, it is also a trademark owned by EA. Any attempts to create a commercial strategy game with this name (and the slightest similarity to SMAC, although that isn't even necessary) will certainly alert EA's lawyers.

Saturn is an astronomical term too. It's also the name of a chain of European electronics stores. Try to open an electronics store called "Saturn" in Europe, claiming that it's just an astronomical term and therefore can't be owned, and see how far that gets you. I suggest preparing a good financial buffer for the inevitable lawsuits (which you will lose). ;)

A "civ in space" game woudlnt have to have anything to do with AC. I thought it was always too bad that they only designed one kind of planet. What about an ice world or a desert world or something? With minimal changes you could leave the storyline in too (replace some of the scientific mumbo-jumbo if it doesn't fit, shuffle around names, et la.)