BE vs SMAC discussion

[AriochIV]

CivBE developers, perhaps, miscalculated which kind of scifi would interest Civ players. CivBE scifi is very very esoteric. The Civilopedia actually does a very good job of explaining what the Wonders are. Each one is a complex concept and a scifi story in itself. I consider it a weakness of SMAC that its wonders are so simple in idea that they could be encapsulated in a none-too-imaginative quote.

This is not an issue of style or audience interest, it's a failure of storytelling and exposition. Exposition is a fine art that is critical to science fiction and fantasy storytelling; it's the art of informing the reader/viewer of all the new stuff he/she needs to know in the futuristic or fantastical setting (of which the reader knows nothing) without having to read up on the subject beforehand or sit through a lengthy expository monologue. It's especially hard in games that may present lore sequences out of order to the player. But proper exposition is always a challenge.

Saying that information about the wonders "is in the civilopedia" is not sufficient; this information should be accessible either in the research or production UI's in which I am expected to research or build these things. This is a bit like certain anime's and webcomics that can't be bothered to explain what's going on, and expect you to read a wiki or something. It's not my job as a reader or player to research the story of the book I'm reading or the game I'm playing... it's the job of the storyteller(s) to inform me as I go along. I don't accept homework assignments from something that's supposed to entertain me.

 

[Roxlimn]

That is... an extremely weird thing to ask of a Civ series game. The entire point of the game is partly to immerse yourself in learning things you didn't know before - history in the case of classic Civ, scifi in CivBE. I always spend a lot of time reading in the Civilopedia and such. It's kind of an essential part of the game. It's not just a 4X. I do not consider things in the Civilopedia as being hidden. It's not an index or something like that.

 

[Algeroth]

One could say that the point of every book is to be immersed in it, yet bad books and bad writers do exist.

 

[Ryika]

That is... an extremely weird thing to ask of a Civ series game. The entire point of the game is partly to immerse yourself in learning things you didn't know before - history in the case of classic Civ, scifi in CivBE. I always spend a lot of time reading in the Civilopedia and such. It's kind of an essential part of the game. It's not just a 4X. I do not consider things in the Civilopedia as being hidden. It's not an index or something like that.

The Civilopedia is completely seperated from the gameplay, you don't get information "while playing", you have to "stop playing" to get information.

While it's certainly not a problem to give additional information only when the user seeks them himself, it is a problem when the amount of information you get "while just playing through the game" is so little that the player doesn't really get immersed into the world. Ideally the game should be built in a way that it gives enough lore and immersion that the player WANTS to read the additional information given in the Civilopedia - if one has to read through a whole library to get even the most basic information about what the rather cryptic stuff is and does, then the game fails to narrate the experience for a lot of players and thus feels "empty".

Civ actually gets around that a lot because it uses stuff that pretty much everyone already knows. People may not know the history behind most of the wonders when they start playing, but they certainly know the wonders themselves and can build their stories around that. An "Ectogenesis Pod" on the other hand? I think it's a bit ironic that, without further narration, it would probably have worked better if they had used more "generic" stuff. But of course that's not the desired solution.

 

[Lord Tirian]

The Civilopedia is completely seperated from the gameplay, you don't get information "while playing", you have to "stop playing" to get information.

Not just that, there's also no "hook" to lure you into it, no "read more..." button or anything like that (yeah, I know, there's always a right-click, but without a prompt it's a very different operation, UI-wise).

I certainly appreciate the depth and verbosity of the pedia but there's nothing to naturally lead you into it, to whet your appetite, so to speak.

Even little one-sentence lines to outline the concept of a tech or unit or wonder would help a lot to make you curious about it and to, during play. Since we're in a BE vs SMAC thread, let's have a look how SMAC did it:

​

Short one-sentence descriptions, enough to let you know what it means, make you curious to learn more about it and reminds you what it is every time you play so you never "forget" what it's all about.

It's not like this takes anything away from the game, it doesn't get worse for anybody if you include more fiction cues.

 

[bite]

The Civilopedia is completely seperated from the gameplay, you don't get information "while playing", you have to "stop playing" to get information.

While it's certainly not a problem to give additional information only when the user seeks them himself, it is a problem when the amount of information you get "while just playing through the game" is so little that the player doesn't really get immersed into the world. Ideally the game should be built in a way that it gives enough lore and immersion that the player WANTS to read the additional information given in the Civilopedia - if one has to read through a whole library to get even the most basic information about what the rather cryptic stuff is and does, then the game fails to narrate the experience for a lot of players and thus feels "empty".

Civ actually gets around that a lot because it uses stuff that pretty much everyone already knows. People may not know the history behind most of the wonders when they start playing, but they certainly know the wonders themselves and can build their stories around that. An "Ectogenesis Pod" on the other hand? I think it's a bit ironic that, without further narration, it would probably have worked better if they had used more "generic" stuff. But of course that's not the desired solution.

I agree, I hope it is this kind of immersion that they work on for the expansion

 

[Roxlimn]

That's how an SMAC wonder looks like sans the video and voiceover. It's blander than a CivBE one.

 

[nimling]

SMAC is by far a better game than CivBE, but suffers from a really bad AI and some micromanagement stuff that should have been closed (easy popbooming, some projects being really OP). SMAC's weaknesses are largely in the details, while the game is fundamentally sound - the really major core change that would help the game would be if it used hexes instead of squares.

BE, for all of its faults, gets many details down good, and has a decent AI that shows signs of improving (at least until the AI has to play with 1UPT at war). Unfortunately the core suffers largely from the same problems as CivV - 1UPT, streamlined empire management that encourages players to only play one way, too many positive attributes rather than true choices in how an empire is managed, etc.
Again, my belief is that most of BE's flaws come from being based on CivV too much, and that would be a good place to start re-fitting the game to be more appealing.

 

[Gort]

SMAC is by far a better game than CivBE

I dunno, infinite city spam, poor balance (EG: Get a single probe team to an enemy city once during the game and you can see all of the information in all of their cities, forever) and the generally antiquated nature of the interface are pretty big turn offs.

I'm the first to criticise BE, but I do that in the context of modern games (EG: Civ 5, Endless Legend, Europa Universalis 4) which do things better.

Don't get me wrong, SMAC was an amazing game when it first came out, and does tons of things right in terms of characterful factions, leaders, technologies and wonders that BE falls completely flat on, I just don't think I could bring myself to slog through the ICS and the interface these days.

 

[Darsnan]

In a nutshell, I consider strategy games to be like engaging puzzles which need to be figured out in order to be mastered, and I am glad that BE is different from SMACX in some of its core elements (such as 1UPT), as it gives me a different environment (or puzzle) to figure out.

That being said, I have to say that after jotting down the below and thinking about it, that it comes down to immersion, engagement, and that need for "one more turn", and SMACX does a better job of grabbing me and not letting go than BE does. To expand upon that statement I've itemized some of the areas that I've personally compared the two games (and a third, Deadlock, where I think its applicable, as it is also a sci-fi planetary TBS which I consider excellent), and since it is relatively lengthy I've placed spoilers on it for those not inclined to read further.

Spoiler :

Aircraft: Doc: Airpower in SMACX was a pivotal beeline, as it was very overpowered. Once researched you could park your aircraft over your advancing columns and then attack with impunity, as the AI either didn't have Doc: AP yet, or else typically didn't do a good job of building interceptors or anti-aircraft units to deal with this strategy. I do think BE does a better job of limiting the effectiveness of aircraft by making them into more of a long range artillery unit.

Spies: nothing was more annoying than having the SMACX AIs walk their spies up to my city doorstep and then run out of movement points where they were then easily picked off on my next turn. And infiltrating AIs with your spies was so overpowered , as you could then see everything the AI was doing from that point on in the game. IMO spies in BE are better as they are more limited in their capabilities and benefits (such as only being able to "see" what is going on in the city the spy resides in), and once a spy is killed the benefits it was providing (specifically the city view it was providing) goes away.


Aliens (native life forms): after the early game in BE the native life dwindle and become inconsequential, which is by design, whereas in SMACX they are an incremental part of the game up until the end. From a "a game should be an interesting series of choices" perspective, I think SMACX is better as the aliens continually engage you throughout the game, and it is something you as a player continually need to take into account.

Easter Eggs: in SMACX you have the two hidden factions (Sid and Brian) as well as the Skybase icon, to name a few Easter Eggs. I don't see any in BE.

Unit variety: SMACX had a plethora of units, including infantry, speeders, hovertanks, submarines, aircraft carriers, jets, copters, missiles, nukes, and satellites.
Subs, copters, missiles are all missing from BE.

Theme: from the GUI, to the Facility quotes (such as for the Research hospital), to the Secret Project videos (such as the Dream Twister quote about the last transmission from the Spartan base Assassin's Redoubt), SMACX continually reinforced a dark theme. Deadlock had a campy, don't take us too seriously theme running thru it. I don't know if there is a theme per se for BE.

Graphics: SMACX in-game graphics (specifically the terrain) were awful. I remember looking at the box the game came in and not seeing a single picture of the ingame screens on it - the devs knew it was "not a selling point" for the game. In comparison BE's environments are top notch.
For Wonder Movies/ Secret Project movies, SMACX's Secret Project movies blow everything out of the water in comparison: they tell a story relevant to the SP which was just built, and was always a drawing point for me to play "one more turn" so I could see that next Secret Project movie. I don't even look at the screens that pop up in BE as they aren't engaging to me in the least (and I don't build a lot of Wonders in BE, as they just aren't that wonderful).
And then there are the intangibles such as the SMACX videos when capturing an enemy leader. Again, this was a "one more turn" event where I wanted to see Yang, or Miriam, or Zakharov in the Punishment Sphere.

Modability: SMACX used the pcx format for its art, which although a PIA to deal with still led to a lot of great faction and ingame artwork. And for creating new units, all I had to do was enter one line in the alpha(x).txt:

Seawolf Mk2, Cruiser, R-Bolt, 9-Res, 6, 4, 0, Metal, -1, 00100100110000000000001100000

And I created a new unit ingame. For BE it takes a graphics artist and someone editing how many files to create just one unit?

Writing: here are some examples from SMACX:

Not only does God play dice, but the dice are loaded!

Richard Baxton piloted his Recon Rover into a fungal vortex and held off four waves of mind worms, saving an entire colony. We immediately purchased his identity manifests and repackaged him into the Recon Rover Rick character with a multi-tiered media campaign: televids, touchbooks, holos, psi-tours-- the works. People need heroes. They don't need to know how he died clawing his eyes out, screaming for mercy. The real story would just hurt sales, and dampen the spirits of our customers.

The Academician's private residences shall remain off-limits to the Genetic Inspectors. We possess no retroviral capability, we are not researching retroviral engineering, and we shall not allow this Council to violate faction privileges in the name of this ridiculous witch hunt!"

What goes up, better doggone well stay up!

A handsome young cyborg named Ace, wooed women at every base, but once ladies glanced at his special enhancement, they vanished with nary a trace.

These are just a few of the gems from SMACX. There is nothing that can compare in BE to the level of artistry that SMACX writing presented.

Random events: SMACX had Stock Market crashes, Promethean Virus outbreaks, network crashes, volcanoes, meteor impacts, etc. These were a real PIA to deal with, and in PBEM were banned because they were unbalancing. I think BE is a step in the right direction by doing away with random events: while they did add to gameplay, they weren't part of the core game experience, and were typically more of a nuisance than an enhancement to the game.

Orbital layer/ warfare: SMACX version of orbital warfare came towards the endgame, and was in a completely separate screen, and really wasn't intuitive. BE's orbital layer comes early in the game, and has a direct link to the planetary units (such as being able to shoot down satellites). BE's implementation of the orbital layer is definitely more engaging and enjoyable IMO.

Unit Workshop: I am one of those who really enjoyed building units (either in the workshop, or via adding units to the alpha(x).txt file). And I always appreciated having the ability to build unique units to suit the environment (such as empath units for fungal worlds, or nerve gas units to deal with the Progenitors).

Stations: To me Stations are more of a nuisance than anything else, as they always seem to land right where I am planning to build another outpost (or to put it slightly differently they are like a negative random event, such as earthquakes, meteor strikes, etc.).

Intangibles (such as the Holobook, the videos for capturing enemy leaders, etc.): SMACX wins this hands down, and again this is a "one more turn" event where I want to keep playing to see that enemy leader put into the punishment sphere, or finish a game so I can see the holobook quotes, etc.

Computer system requirements: SMACX can be played on any system that's been built in the last 15 years. BE needs a high end graphics card, which if the devs aren't going to have Wonder movies, then why not back off on the other graphics in BE so that the game can play on older computer systems (i.e. which would create a larger pool of potential customers for the game)?

1UPT vs MUPT: everyone has their opinions on this. Mine is simply that both are limited (if I lose a single unit in either SMACX or BE, then I probably did something stupid, as neither AI is really that good IMO), however it is a variant to the puzzle that is the game that I have to figure out.

 

[nimling]

I dunno, infinite city spam, poor balance (EG: Get a single probe team to an enemy city once during the game and you can see all of the information in all of their cities, forever) and the generally antiquated nature of the interface are pretty big turn offs.

I'm the first to criticise BE, but I do that in the context of modern games (EG: Civ 5, Endless Legend, Europa Universalis 4) which do things better.

Don't get me wrong, SMAC was an amazing game when it first came out, and does tons of things right in terms of characterful factions, leaders, technologies and wonders that BE falls completely flat on, I just don't think I could bring myself to slog through the ICS and the interface these days.

I agree, there are a lot of broken details with probe teams and ICS. It's something that could be addressed, unlike 1UPT which is a bad design decision Firaxis is sticking to way too strongly.

Personally I don't mind ICS as much as the kludgy mechanics Civ5 and to a lesser extent BE used to limit expansion. (Even then, for vanilla Civ5 and G+K, something like ICS was the way to go for domination, once the human player figured out how to game happiness and build national wonders at the right time.) I'm more in favor of soft caps against ICS, like military defensibility and more benefit to vertical expansion. Part of SMAC's problem is that it has more mechanics which outright favor ICS, with a couple factions designed for ICS.

 

[iki]

I don't know I found EL the worst 4x game in recent years and I'm including the omg i am Dead in 50 turns Pandora.

Honestly you don't need air power just get any resonance weaponry and you chew through everything. It was exploitable.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

All the BE wonders need is a short description describing what the heck it is. The abstract quote is no help at all. What the hell is a "Daedalus Ladder?"

Wonder videos are, in my opinion, a colossal waste of resources. Canned videos are not appropriate in replayable content.

Your last sentence is a very interesting and very agreeable opinion.

Makes me wonder about relocating all that love and effort. Maybe on extreme graphics platforms of the Future , the construction video plays over-and-over to accompany the build progress of the wonder, each time you look at your city it shows a fragment of the whole sequence specific to that completion level (or just the first time you review it in a turn). When you're done you see it finish, get a notice icon and cool sound effect, but it all gets out of the way when you're 100 times through and 'tired' of it.

Or just a graphic still like Civ V.

Man, Civ V did something right? What happened to me - where is this crazy place?

 

[Doviello]

The wonder videos of Civ IV were great, and i often watched them. 2000 hours of gameplay later, they were still pretty cool. The wonder paintings of civ V were really good also, and i don't mind getting paintings instead of videos, if the developers then use those extra resources making other parts of the game good.

SMAC wonder videos, otoh, are top notch, super fun in a dark, twisted way.

But BE wonders are really uninspiring, and from the wonder blueprint, quote, and often wonder power, it's still really hard to tell what this wonder actually is, unless you read the civilopedia.

 

[Callonia]

I've yet to play SMAC but CIVBE left a horrible taste in my mouth which tasted like disappointment.

After completing a single map at least by constructing the purity gate and bringing colonizers to new world victory. I basically went to everyone I know and told them to not buy civ:be because it's so tedious and boring and a game can end very fast by turn 130-250 usually but it can be even earlier if you pull a contact victory off. Playing CIV:BE in current state feels like torture.

World maps is quite stale, and I can already predict what landmasses will look like despite not having explored the world yet it really bugs me. Firaxis need to work on their map scripts to generate worlds that look like real worlds. I have a modded map script that basically breathed new life into civ5 for me because I would have quit otherwise.

And prior to civbe release I was hearing reports that bugs in SMAC was dangerous, and to be reckoned with. And firaxis was bragging that Siege worm is holy terror.

What I discovered is that.

CIV:BE bugs is nothing. They is NOTHING!
Construct a bugzapper fence = every single bug is now defeated.

And if you have a siege worm passing through your borders, and they aren't hostile towards you? Create a half circle with your marines and it will eventually choose to leave than attack your marines. That is understandable.

And, Siege worm is not holy terror. They can be killed by a single ranger. I have done it, It took me alot of turns but I brought down a siege worm with a single ranger.

And finally, you can mass exterminate the bugs very easily once you gain modest advantage in tech and there is very good chance that they will never turn hostile despite you wiping the continent clean of them.

It disappointed me in how easily killed off the bugs of civbe is.

The size of CIVBE Maps, the huge map is not really huge. This is quite unacceptable to me. CIV5's Huge Map size is the bare acceptable minimum of size for me to play on which is big enough for me to not fully explore it in a single day of playing.

Finally, if i'm going to travel millions of miles to other world and settle in tundra? That's a instant restart right there. I didn't leave behind my comfortable and warm Earth to start a new life in frozen hellhole.

At very least, Pandora: First Contact got one thing right. Their bugs is entertaining to fight. They attempt to exterminate me for killing them. And if you set it to highest difficulty. Good Lord, you are in danger of being wiped out by the bugs. I have seen AI civs get destroyed by bugs and that was damn fun to see! Raging is raging there.

While CivBE Raging bugs is lethargic bugs that embraces the sweet sleep of death because it means they don't have to move anymore.

I do hope that Firaxis is at least continuing to improve AI's 1UPT Tactics and combat ability.

 

[Gorbles]

Your Siege Worms, are not my Siege Worms

 

[Gort]

Your Siege Worms, are not my Siege Worms

I think I lost an outpost to a siege worm once. They're not particularly terrifying.

 

[Galgus]

I think I lost an outpost to a siege worm once. They're not particularly terrifying.

The only time they've really given me trouble was in a heavily modded game where it was feasible for them to get hostile and cities were made far less powerful at defending themselves.

(And Ultrasonic Fences were, for all intents and purposes, axed.)

Two Siege Worms happened near my capital early and it didn't end well...add in me making a few more soldiers beforehand, and that's the dream game.
_________________________________

As a side note Siege Worms are really too vulnerable to ranged units.

I'd like to see them beeline to destroy some city when players try that cheese and/or gain a significant resistance to ranged attacks.

Perhaps they could even move at 2 tiles a turn when angered.

 

[Gorbles]

I think I lost an outpost to a siege worm once. They're not particularly terrifying.

I don't think I ever called them terrifying, to be honest.

I'm pretty sure, but obviously I could be wrong (I guess), that I was disagreeing with the non-aggressive nature of the aliens in the game (particularly Siege Worms). I've lost no Cities to them either, but I most certainly have lost a ton of units to them over the course of my games.

They're very fond of attacking anything in any tile next to them (presuming a lack of an Ultrasonic Fence). Not once have I been able to flank them with more than one unit (for a total of two) without a huge tech progression. And even then they still attack me anyhow.

Admittedly, I rarely play the game without Frenzied Aliens as a game setting. But even without that, they're still one of the more aggressive AI units, alongside the Sea Serpent Dudes and the Ankylosaurs of Doom.

 

[Roxlimn]

The bugs can't be that threatening because an entire Virtue tree is dedicated to hunting them down Starship Trooper style. Even farming them. If you amped up the bugs, you'd need to amp up that Virtue tree as well, and it throws the Virtue balance into question.

I do not think CivBE's portrayal of alien life as conquerable is a design error. The Xenodome, in fact, is a Wonder aimed at preserving and displaying local life in its natural habitat - a clear indication that humanity eventually gains near-total mastery of the alien ecosystem. The design reflects the planned narrative. It is a more logical and thought-out progression that SMAC's "suddenly we contact Planet and we become one!" which makes about as much sense as cave people suddenly gaining insight into how to make a bicycle.

Gaining understanding and more and more mastery over local ecosystems is what eventually leads to communion with Planet, not an unexplained sudden super-thing.