First time caller

[Kerth Gerson]

Thank you to the mod developers for all of your hard work. I installed the mod and it looks terrific.

My question is how does the Planetfall mod compare to the original SMAC (and xfire) in terms of depth, units, story, etc? I'm not asking which is better, but am curious if the content is divergent. I happened to buy the original SMAC/xfire bundle the other day. Will I get the essentially original experience by simply playing the civ iv mod, or are there sufficient differences to warrant exploring both?

Thanks again.

 

[Kerth Gerson]

Aghh! Now I see the beginner guide which probably renders this a dumb newb thread. Sorry.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Thank you to the mod developers for all of your hard work. I installed the mod and it looks terrific.

My question is how does the Planetfall mod compare to the original SMAC (and xfire) in terms of depth, units, story, etc? I'm not asking which is better, but am curious if the content is divergent. I happened to buy the original SMAC/xfire bundle the other day. Will I get the essentially original experience by simply playing the civ iv mod, or are there sufficient differences to warrant exploring both?

Thanks again.

In short: It is worth to explore both the original SMAC/X and Planetfall, because there are significant differences. Here is what I have wrote as an answer to a similar question some time ago:

Spoiler :

This is probably stupid question, but playing this mod, how close do you get to playing original SMAC? I know Planetfall is not straight up port but how close to SMAC is it?

Thank you for your time!

Not a stupid one, but one hard to answer in general. You can for example expect to meet the same factions/leaders, behaving similar. You will meet many well known buildings, units and techs - but often they work slightly different. You will find features like native life and PSI-combat and many more things.

Then there are new features - the ones Civ4 added to the series, like unit promotions, great people, religions, corporations, combat mechanics...of course modified to fit in the SMAC theme. Not to forget a much better AI (which is still in progress to become better)!

Sadly, some things from are SMAc are just impossible to convert in the scope of amod; e.g. there is no unit workshop (a very detailed special ability and promotion catalogue makes up for this to a large extend, though), no real global warming with rising seas, less automation for units and no extensive terraforming options. Others have been ommitted for some reason or just haven't been added yet (but might return in future, if it shows that an implementation is possible)

I would just try out

 

[Kerth Gerson]

Pfeffersack:

Thank you very much. Looks like I have reasons to explore both.