Best feature in SMAC

[The Person]

What do you think is/are the best feature(s) of SMAC? Feel free to mention whatever you want, this is not a politically correct forum.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

A cop-out could be to say that the best feature is the sheer number of cool features, another one to point out how much personality the game has due to the extensive data-links, cool quotes and believable factions.

To keep it simple, the best feature I'll go for is "altitude", by which I mean that the world map has hills. Nothing makes me happier than building my bases in a high mountain valley with a pretty river flowing through

 

[Albow]

i love the social engineering! I also love the way that your faction is forced to make real choices, war or peace are very different.

I was recently playing as Morgan, and boy is it a challenge, its almost a whole new game (I normally play Greenies or Yang) - I love that! Same game, totally dif experience!

 

[Paalikles]

I agree with both Kittenofchaos and Albow. For me it is the way Firaxis actually managed to capture the essence of sci fi, and making it interesting, challenging and fun at the same time. I dont play it as much as I used to, but that goes for all my games, as I havent enough time. Thing is with SMAC, that I get more enveloped in it than in Civ :eeK.

 

[Jack the Ripper]

Gotta love the unit workshop!!!!

 

[Horizon]

I just love the AI.

After playing extensively Civ3 then after launching SMAC , you can just love the SMAC AI , one of the finest for this category of games, way ahead from the disapointing Civ3 AI.

 

[AncientPlayer]

Can't pick just one! Right off the top these are really important to me:

-- unit workshop
-- surrender option for AI factions vice the suicidal AI in Civ
-- diplomacy option to request one faction cease a war with another

and only sort of a feature the "backstory" with SMAC/SMACX is just superb, best in any game I've played in any genre. That alone makes this one special for me.

 

[YNCS]

I like SMAC's diplomacy choices. Many times, playing Civ, I've wanted to tell somebody to stop their war with someone else.

 

[Alexnm]

best feature in SMAC? its mere existence.

 

[The Person]

I'm inclined to agree with everybody who has posted in this thread. Pointing out the best feature of SMAC is like pointing out a single drop of water in the Pacific.

I also like the storyline of it. You get the feel of participating in a story, not just playing a game. The storyline was what made me get SMACX.

 

[zurichuk]

diplomacy
multiple faction units being able to use the same space

above all
the atmosphere of the game

 

[Cataphract887]

I'm inclined to agree with everybody who has posted in this thread. Pointing out the best feature of SMAC is like pointing out a single drop of water in the Pacific.

I also like the storyline of it. You get the feel of participating in a story, not just playing a game. The storyline was what made me get SMACX.

i cant really say anything....everyone else already covered it

 

[Padmewan]

Definitely the game atmosphere. The mechanics aren't the best, but if you took the Civ3 engine and rules, and gave it the flavor and backstory of SMAC, you'd have a perfect game.

 

[blackheart]

What everything everyone has said so far!

SMAC was also revolution too, it introduce borders and the likes.

Of course my favorite feature was the massive planetbusters

 

[HyugaHinata]

I like the following about Alpha Centauri:

The game has a strong foothold in reality, and you could imagine most of the technologies coming about someday.

Great diplomacy and AI.

The uniqueness of the factions vs. carbon copies in Civ 1 and 2.

Planet Busters >>>>>>> Nukes.

 

[Yuri2356]

The fact that you can be locked in a bloody no-holds-barred fight for survival with a planet covered in fungus and worms.

 

[Heniu]

You have told the whole true, guys...

1 social engineering is a really perfect idea - we can construct our state anyway we want during the game. in civ there is only one factor [gobernment], in SMAC there are four factors, and because that the game is more complicated more playable and it cannot make you bored even after days of playing, because every game you can play in a random way...

2. great story [one of the best sci-fi stories I've heard, Star Wars, Star Trek etc. suxx in comparison to SMAC], great climate, great quotes [both said by game authors and philosophers]

3. one of the best AI in the game. I won't forger when I played Greens, and Lal was on the other island. i had much more ships than he so he raised terrain to reach to me and crushed me out... the AI is not only "just very good", but also more realistic than in civ

4. very well-thinked factions - every is different from the other one, playing Gaians is a completely other ecperience than playing eg. Hive...

5. PSI forces - second type of attack gives you more tacktics, more strategies and greatly improves the climate. i love the tick of mindworms spoiling the brains of enemies...

6. new strategy possibilities - fungus where the units can hide, formers which can raise terrain and let you go to enemy territory without ships, melting polar areas and flooding enemy bases and many many more...

6. great terraforming, much more complicated than in civ and far more interesting, giving you much more choices and possibilities

7. nice intro and wonders films...

ok , that's enough...

IMHO SMAC is the best game ever made, the game just rocks, I will play it forever, I'm sure of it...

 

[laisak]

My favourite feature is the possibility of a pact of brotherhood. Nothing more frustrating than your allies cutting your way off (like in Civ3) when fighting a common enemy. Granted that it's very irritating when the AI sneaks a single unit to capture an enemy city after you have softened it with massive force, but just didn't have that extra move on a unit to capture the city, but atleast you can enter that city aswell and don't have to go way around it to advance your forces for that next city.
With pacts you get a real feeling of an alliance and it's doesn't feel like the AI is just waiting for it's moment to stab you in the back. And the possibility of donating units to your allies is really nice.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Compared to other Civ-style games, I've got to go with Social Engineering as the best aspect of SMAC.

 

[Sukenis]

And the possibility of donating units to your allies is really nice.

As the Morgans, I was able to ge the Spartans surender very early in the game. From then on out, I built clean units and "gave" them to Sparta. This let me be a Free Market and have a military kill everyone (even if I did not control it). I so loved that feature.