The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
What's odd is that Civ4 borrowed some SMAC stuff that wasn't in CivIII.
Did Civ4 borow too much?
- Thread starter N3pomuk
- Start date
player1 fanatic
Fanatic
Crighton said:
Actually that CTP borrowed from Alpha Centauri.
Eh, I don't know about that.
SMAC was like Civ2 rehashed. The unit design capability was good in theory, but tedious in implementation. Some of the "projects" were driectly lifted from Civ2 wonders. Don't get me wrong, it was a fun game, but it was fun because it was almost exactly the same game as Civ2 in its core dynamic.
SMAC was like Civ2 rehashed. The unit design capability was good in theory, but tedious in implementation. Some of the "projects" were driectly lifted from Civ2 wonders. Don't get me wrong, it was a fun game, but it was fun because it was almost exactly the same game as Civ2 in its core dynamic.
Helmling said:
You can`t be serious.
SMAC had almost everything a Civ player could want, and more.
+ national borders
+ excellent diplomacy, treaties, ability to trade everything including cities, communications, units
+ custom units, with special abilities including everything you would want a unit to have
+ excellent wonder movies
+ incredibly thought out, fantastic story and setting (planetary ecosystem, psycho-virus, the "twin sun" effect)
+ excellent "civilopedia" and information screens
+ the "achievements obelisk" was a nice feature
+ united nations and voting on global issues
+ planetbombs (and WHAT planetbombs, making huge craters on planet surface)
+ the whole satellite building thing
+ water bases
+ quasi introduced social engineering and made it great
+ interactive "3D" terrain
+ climate effects (like humidity, rising sealevel on global warming)
+ lots of terrain improvements
+ lots of spy possibilities and ability to see into all the enemy info
+ "enslaving" the AI by making them surrender and become submissive to you
+ special, unique terrain
+ can put "labels" on locations on planet
+ excellent, easy to use in-game terrain and scenario editors
+ artillery
+ special images for events like conquering base, spy caught, civ destroyed, etc.
SMAC introduced so much incredibly good stuff and was so good at making it all work together, I couldnt help wondering where all of that went in Civ3 and 4. Had the graphics been a little better and had the AI been more challenging, it would have been the perfect civ-game.
Sirian
Designer, Mohawk Games
Crighton said:
I did play BOTF. Didn't play a lot of it, though. That abstract space combat was rather unwieldy -- MOO3 ground combat was in the same vein. (Man, you do NOT want to be mentioned in the same breath as MOO3!)
BOTF did seem to have some promising elements, but those don't stick out in my mind. I played this game very little. Maybe three games? I actually played more MOO3. (Again, that's not a good thing to be compared with!)
As for SMAC, I may look at it some day, but I already know it wouldn't hold my attention for long, due to the sheer number of features that the AI is not capable of handling. At the time it was out, I was still in my long decade of Civ1 burnout and was still skipping ALL Civ games. Skipped Colonization, Civ2, and SMAC. That burnout was all about the AI, so when I asked friends to describe the AI to me and I didn't like what I was hearing, I skipped it.
Besides, that year (1999) was the same year that Railroad Tycoon II came out, and I loved that game, then moved from it to Descent 3. Descent was my passion for a good six years with D3 to end the run in summer 2000 (when Diablo 2 came out).
I'm sure SMAC was a great experience for many, with a lot of things done right, but "it needed a better AI" is a death knell to me. Sorry.
- Sirian
morchuflex
Emperor
Hello.
A few posts above, I mentioned that Civ4 had borrowed its unhappiness system from Master of Magic.
But of course, I should have added: "...and its memory leak". Anyone having played MoM on a 486 will probably know what I'm talking about.
A few posts above, I mentioned that Civ4 had borrowed its unhappiness system from Master of Magic.
But of course, I should have added: "...and its memory leak". Anyone having played MoM on a 486 will probably know what I'm talking about.
Patricius
Dominus de Bellum
Hi,
I feel ignorant asking this, but SMAC has been mentioned a few times, and I am not sure what it stands for. Could someone please enlighten me?
Patricius
I feel ignorant asking this, but SMAC has been mentioned a few times, and I am not sure what it stands for. Could someone please enlighten me?
Patricius
A Silly Goose
Goose of Silliness
If Civ IV deliberately borrows from the CTP games, it's certainly nothing big; the things that really make CTP unique are the public works system for tile improvements, the "stack vs stack" battle system, undersea and space colonies, "real" future tech, piracy of mapped trade routes, the trading system, and the tons of "special" units and attacks (planting nukes, filing injunctions, soothesaying, biological warfare...).
It was also always fun to do things like eradicating disease, ending world hunger, or hooking everyone's brains up to a big machine that suddenly goes nuts and starts its own empire using half your cities.
...Err, maybe not that last part.
At any rate, the only other thing I'll say here is that if you think the sea colonies were horribly expensive, you obviously didn't play the first CTP--the space colonies not only required rediculously expensive "settler" units, but they were mostly useless without an additional investment of several thousand PWs for food module and assembley bay tile improvements... And there aren't even any tradeable goods to found in space.
It was also always fun to do things like eradicating disease, ending world hunger, or hooking everyone's brains up to a big machine that suddenly goes nuts and starts its own empire using half your cities.
...Err, maybe not that last part.
At any rate, the only other thing I'll say here is that if you think the sea colonies were horribly expensive, you obviously didn't play the first CTP--the space colonies not only required rediculously expensive "settler" units, but they were mostly useless without an additional investment of several thousand PWs for food module and assembley bay tile improvements... And there aren't even any tradeable goods to found in space.
Patricius
Dominus de Bellum
Thanks MattJek
Ahh...Iam now the enlightened one
Patricius
Ahh...Iam now the enlightened one
Patricius
N3pomuk
Warlord
Ah finaly someone in support of My point be it a silly goose 
so nobody here is tired of this moving around of workers? just imagine If you could plan ahead to interconnect all your cities with railroads in one turn! And on higher levels the computer woulld do the same, now that my freinds can instill fear! What I so fondly remember was that your bombers could be loaded with tactical nukes, so instead of this whole icbm thing, which only became a viable threat in the 70ies 30 years after the first development of nuclear weapons, for a long time you neaded a sizable bomber force to deliver those payloads..
but it was cool, and you could go on playing and there was always some unit you could upgrade to best your enemies!
Patricius SMAC is a very good game, balanced and a nice story line with lots of victory oportunities... tons of fun, you should be able to pick it up for 10 bucks somewhere.
so nobody here is tired of this moving around of workers? just imagine If you could plan ahead to interconnect all your cities with railroads in one turn! And on higher levels the computer woulld do the same, now that my freinds can instill fear! What I so fondly remember was that your bombers could be loaded with tactical nukes, so instead of this whole icbm thing, which only became a viable threat in the 70ies 30 years after the first development of nuclear weapons, for a long time you neaded a sizable bomber force to deliver those payloads..
but it was cool, and you could go on playing and there was always some unit you could upgrade to best your enemies!
Patricius SMAC is a very good game, balanced and a nice story line with lots of victory oportunities... tons of fun, you should be able to pick it up for 10 bucks somewhere.
Hans Lemurson
Prince
One of the things that I liked in CTP 1 was the boxes that would appear in a stack on the left-side of the screen telling you about all the events that had happened that turn. I think that would have worked well in Civ4, better than the disappearing text at least...
I don't see Civ4 having borrowed all that much from CTP, it seemed more like a fusion of Civ3, Civ1 and SMAC.
I don't see Civ4 having borrowed all that much from CTP, it seemed more like a fusion of Civ3, Civ1 and SMAC.
N3pomuk
Warlord
uhm, there is a log in civ4 that you can check for that Hans... click the box in the upper left hand corner of your screen...
FolcoTook
Chieftain
As someone who's Civ play went straight from CtP1 to Civ IV, I don't really see a lot of 'borrowing' from CtP1. In fact, I wish they had borrowed (and improved upon) the combined forces combat concept of CtP.
And there was nothing like dumping an entire rail system down in a couple turns. If only I could set a Civ IV city to 'build' infrastructure...
Don't get me wrong, though, I think Civ IV is definitely the superior game to CtP1.
-FT
And there was nothing like dumping an entire rail system down in a couple turns. If only I could set a Civ IV city to 'build' infrastructure...
Don't get me wrong, though, I think Civ IV is definitely the superior game to CtP1.
-FT
JavalTigar
Overlord of the West
Count my vote in for wanting the public works system from CTP.
Wonder if that could be modded after the release of the sdk?
Wonder if that could be modded after the release of the sdk?
player1 fanatic
Fanatic
On the countary, I think some parts of CtP1 interface (not all) were very ahead of its time.
What you would call F1 screen in Civ4 was masterfully done in CtP1 (and worse in CtP2).
Civ4 copied it a bit.
Even Ctp1 part of having no "city screen" has influenced Civ4.
So now in Civ4, you don't need to go to city screen to chose production, nor to check unhappinss or production (which was true in CtP1 since it didn't had city screen).
What you would call F1 screen in Civ4 was masterfully done in CtP1 (and worse in CtP2).
Civ4 copied it a bit.
Even Ctp1 part of having no "city screen" has influenced Civ4.
So now in Civ4, you don't need to go to city screen to chose production, nor to check unhappinss or production (which was true in CtP1 since it didn't had city screen).
Guerra
Warlord
Its funny when they say "borrowed"
It makes it sound like it'll be returned!
It makes it sound like it'll be returned!
Similar threads
