Is CivIV better than SMAC?

[paulhager]

SMAC/Alien Crossfire were an interesting progression. I had hoped that Firaxis would build on those games. It also played reasonably well and reasonably fast multiplayer - I played a number of games with my then 8 to 9 year old daughter. It was around the time that she started to become good at graphics and did some very nice skins for the game. Any game simple enough that a 9 year old can do mods but complex enough to challenge is a good game.

 

[Sisiutil]

SMAC had some good ideas but was unbearably ugly to look at. And having the final game-winning wonder built in only once city was disappointing.

Civ IV took some of SMAC's best ideas and made them better. Plus the game is a pleasure to look at.

No comparison.

 

[marioflag]

I think that a real comparison should take at least in account that the 2 games have 6-7 years of difference so it's clear that civ4 has a better graphic now but in 1999 i was really happy with the graphic of AC on a 640*480 monitor.When the 2 game should be compared graphic shouldn't be taken in account or it's clear that the judgement is biased.
About all other features like AI or whatever else the comparison should anyway take in account the 7 years of difference or it's too easy to say CIV4 is better.In 7 years there are a lot of progress in AI,gameplay,interface and so on.

 

[Darwin420]

SMAC will always have a fond place in my heart, but I enjoy cIV better. There were definitely some things that SMAC did better, but, hey, it's 7 years later, and where is SMAC? Not on my computer, that's for sure. It got old. Just as cIV will one day get old. It might still be fun to load it up, play a game, and remenisce, but it wouldn't last longer than that.

 

[KiOwA_25]

Some of the concepts in SMAC would be nigh impossible to port over to the Civ series, i.e. Mindworms, simply because of the incompatiability of storylines.

 

[eriadoc]

Some of the concepts in SMAC would be nigh impossible to port over to the Civ series, i.e. Mindworms, simply because of the incompatiability of storylines.

I'll agree with that, but some have been left off for no apparent reason. Supply convoys, for instance, were in prior games as colonies. Why did those go away? Terraforming - I can develop nuclear weapons, but I can't blast a tunnel through that mountain range blocking my passage? Broadening out the tech tree would require a bit more thought, but I believe there's room for improvement there and even more, it would complement what they seem to have been trying to accomplish with the AI. Certain AI would be more militaristic and would stagnate in techs such as Literature and Music, while others are more spiritual and would forego Gunpowder for a longer time, etc. As it stands now, every player and AI research techs roughly within the same era. Obviously, you can outpace the AI, but the overlying point remains.

I just think that SMAC had some great ideas and impolementations that have fallen by the wayside. Civ4 is a better game simply because it has a newer game engine, better graphics, and 15 years of experience following the same game design. If Firaxis were to develop a SMAC2 within the next few years and improved upon the ideas they introduced in the first one, I have no doubt it would be a better game than Civ4 would ever be.

 

[TyranusBonehead]

I played the SMAC demo enough to consider purchasing the full game, but got into Civ4 so I decided maybe to wait for SMAC2.

 

[Proteus]

If you only played the SMAC-Demo you miss a lot of the game.
Even if you mod it for more turns than normally are allowed in the demo, it doesn´t give you the techs you get with the full game.
Especially you miss funny things like the Planetbuster Missile

 

[eriadoc]

I don't know anyone who's set off a Planetbuster and failed to display pure glee. Planetbusters make people happy

Everytime I watch the Civanon video and the little old lady comes on, I envision her with Planetbusters.

 

[Pantastic]

Civ4 wins for sure. I do with that the UN worked more like SMAC's UN, the 'popup window' style just makes it feel like an afterthought, and I liked the way leaders' traits interacted with civics choices (aside from the oddity that Morgan was much better off with green+wealth than free market). SMAC got bogged down very quickly for me, not the game speed but just the amount of fiddly stuff you had to do even with building queues, and the combat system was too easily human-exploited for my taste.

Also, SMAC's graphics were ugly, and I don't mean 'ohh, they're old' - I mean atrocious color and texture choices (especially for the poor colorblind players); games like Civ2, Imperialism, and Warlords III were all from about the same time or earlier but lacked the just-plain-ugly look of Warlords. Honestly, I'd rather have graphics like Civ1 did than the mess of SMAC's graphics.

 

[JavalTigar]

OKAY!!! I want to know how you people are playing SMAC still.

I tried to load it up and downloaded the latest patch but it would bomb randomly. Would love to play that game again.

cIV needs the bribe for vote concept, real WMD, some type of unit workshop & better diplomacy. I also liked how the factions would really adhere to their particullar ideals and it truly influenced their decisions.

 

[eriadoc]

OKAY!!! I want to know how you people are playing SMAC still.

I tried to load it up and downloaded the latest patch but it would bomb randomly. Would love to play that game again.

cIV needs the bribe for vote concept, real WMD, some type of unit workshop & better diplomacy. I also liked how the factions would really adhere to their particullar ideals and it truly influenced their decisions.

http://www.sidmeier.com/games/game_detail.php?gameid=7

HTH.

 

[curtadams]

SMAC had a lot of great concepts but the execution was lacking. Balance was poor - there were several killer strategies that made it by far the easiest of the Civ family. Basically, the computer didn't know how to use ICS, love frenzies, crawler farms, planetbusters, terraforming, the design workshop, mobile war, or air war. Remember how the AI would attack if and only if it had an advantage in that one combat? Urgh, that was bad. I tried to mod the game so that the AI had a chance below Transcend and ICS wasn't such a killer strategy - which basically required taking all the cool stuff out. Even then I could never address that attack decision problem. Sigh.

That said, SMAC did try a lot of cool things which were fun to play with until you realized they ruined the game. Most of all, it was spectacularly atmospheric, with the graphics, the AI personalities, and most especially the way your empire started seeming creepily alien in the latter part of the game, full of strange telepathically altered people eating fungus and trees.

 

[dh_epic]

I don't normally just grab a post and quote it and give the thumbs up...

SMAC had a lot of great concepts but the execution was lacking. Balance was poor - there were several killer strategies that made it by far the easiest of the Civ family. Basically, the computer didn't know how to use ICS, love frenzies, crawler farms, planetbusters, terraforming, the design workshop, mobile war, or air war. Remember how the AI would attack if and only if it had an advantage in that one combat? Urgh, that was bad. I tried to mod the game so that the AI had a chance below Transcend and ICS wasn't such a killer strategy - which basically required taking all the cool stuff out. Even then I could never address that attack decision problem. Sigh.

But this is one of those posts that just nails it.