Planetfall

[arkham4269]

Another idea in regard to Planet is using the alignments from Fall from Heaven/Fall Further to show how a faction relates to planet. Instead of Good, Neutral and Evil, you'd have something like:

Planetphilia: The alignment for the Gaians and maybe the Peacekeepers. They feel that Planet should be respected and not just plowed under.

Planetphobic: Not that the Civ's fear Planet, but they don't care or have other agenda's. I see Morgan not caring about the environment and seeing the University more interested in terraforming. Also see the Lord's Believer's seeing it their duty to 'recreate' Planet as the new Garden of Eden so to make it more like old Earth.

Planetneutral: Pretty much for Civ's in the middle. By it's nature, I'd think the Hive would be a low impact on Planet due to it's underground living and the Spartans not having a big Civ footprint due to their focus on the military. While I don't see the Spartans as being very 'green' I can also see them having the whole 'Testing Oneself Against the World' and thus would like to keep Chiron wild and dangerous in the way the Mandalorians are in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Terraforming and making everything safe goes against their Survival of the Fittest ethos.

Plus, as your Civ does certain actions, your 'alignment' could go up or down as with the 'extended' alignment used in Fall Further so a Planetneutral Civ with a high Planet score would get along better with the Planetphillic Civ's. Plus, it gives another reason for certain Civ's not to like each other. Obviously if the Lord's Believers believe it's their duty to remake Chiron in Earth's image, then they are just not going to like the Gaians.

Which brings up one point. As I mentioned earlier, I think there is a place for a Terraforming Civ. In old AC, I used the Sid 'hidden' Civ to create a Terraformer's custom Civ to show a Civ that's whole idea was to recreate Earth on Chiron. In some respects, they are the 'real' Gaians since the one of the tenants of the Gaian Hypothesis is that sentient beings are a planet's sperm cells, fertilizing a new planet to make a 'daughter' planet of the old one. So Diedre's Gaians are 'Gaian' only in believing in the planet as a one organism. Yes, that's way over-thinking this game, but hey someone has to do it!

 

[arkham4269]

There seems to be some odd things going on with Civics.

1. As Gaians, I can't seem to switch to the Terraforming Civic although no where does it say Gaians can't use it.
2. As Gaians, I'm playing w/the Democratic Civic yet my citizens just threw me a "We Our Dictator" party.
3. I developed Knowledge, but I got a blurb saying it was the most primitive of the economic civics!

I really think the economic Civics need to be looked at. So much of which economic civic you have is going to really influence the impact on so many other things. So ideas

Open Socialism: What most European nations have. The government mandates that certain basic needs (power, water, datalinks, food, healthcare) are run by the government. The rest is left to a more capitalistic, owner operated system. (Basically Planned)

Closed Socialism: What the USSR and other Communist countries tried to have. Pretty much everyone works for some aspect of the State. While this didn't work too well on Earth, on Chiron starting from scratch, one could see this working (for awhile) and if coupled with Autocratic civic, one could see it being made to stick. Would have a bonus in health and happiness but would make as much gold as Free Market (Offshoot of Planned)

Free Market Capitalism: Unregulated free trade. Sort of like what we've mostly had in the US for the last 8 years. The goal is to maximize profits with as little interference from the government as possible. This is definitely Morgan's Industries Civic. In the original AC, this civic made it hard to go to war. I think what it should do is result in unhealthy cities (EPA? OSHA? Government sticking it's nose into OUR business!) as well probably having a hefty (-) in the Planet category. Plus, I'd think that if events are added into this mod, this Civic would tend to generate boom time events (gold increase) as well as Market crashes which zero out or severely apply a gold penalty. Besides as Halliburton shows, War is good for business. Obviously this would be the civic to rake in the gold/credits.

Regulated Capitalism: What the USA is supposed to have. This would be a civic that produces lot of wealth and would be more like the old AC 'Free Market' civic since war causes lots of wealth to be taken away from other important economic sectors. Probably the most 'balanced' economic civic.

Mercantilism/Autarky: While probably not the best economic system, I could see it on due to either philosophical or tactical reasons. I could see the Lord's Believers not want to 'trade w/the heathen' and perhaps the Spartans not wanting to give any potential enemy any resources. I would think that this would be one of the first economic civics available since it would reflect the initial mistrust among the Factions. Might give a cultural bonus simply because of the idea that one's Faction is so good it need not trade with other Factions.

Green: In many ways a 'Planned' economy except the focus is to leave as little footprint on Planet as possible. Again, not necessarily the best economic civic in terms of money coming in, but in keeping the Planet Counter down and improving your planet score, it could be worth it, especially later in the game.

Finally, in the form of government, I think it can be boiled down to:
Autocratic
Democratic
Theocratic
Corporatism (Which can be a form of Fascism as well as a form of oligarchy)

One could see Hereditary Monarchy in a sense in that for awhile the 'family' of the original Faction leader is running the show. Plus one could even say that there might be a Technocracy since so much of life on Chiron would be dictated by the scientists.

 

[Pfeffersack]

(...) 1: Cliff and mountain terrains need to be a lot more visible. To often it's hard to realize that you are boxed in by cliffs and the mountains look enough like hills to be hard to tell the difference.

Indeed, if that would be possible it would be a great help. I'm constantly using the auto-path function just to see where terrain will block me.

2. Speed: This mod seems to run very slowly for only having as many factions that it does. I'm running on a Large map and it still has a really long wait between turns.

Can't comment on large map, since I'm playing only Standard ones (it is easier for Maniac then to track bugs down, if you send him a save). Moreover, I found standard size huge enough for only 6 opponents. On Standard, I have no speed problems, though the turn delay increases from the midgame on (around 5 secs on turn 200). Of course, the CPU stats matter here as well....

3. Planetcritters: I've had Locusts (bears, oh my!) and other creatures attack my formers and aquaformers and I'm told they have been destroyed, but they never are.
4. Odd Monetary things: Every so often, there is like a massive drop in my gold intake for no apparent reason. In a few turns it seems to go away.

Those two issues are likely connected...the message is misleading here, because they only get disabled for 10 turns and for those 10 turns, you get a substantial amount of money charged every turn to fund the repair of your former. It makes the procedure more comfortable, but in the later stages I often have enough productive cities around, so I would perfer the classic rebuld method.

7. Planet +/-: How does this work? I'm playing the Gaians and have the VoP and building lots of Planet friendly buildings and still I'm at zero? What does Planet want from me, to due Her dishes and laundry too?

As far as I understand, Planet+/- stays in concurrence with health - living in the fungus gives you + planet, but yields unhealthiness, will cleaning fungus seems to do the opposite. The most negative factor to both is probably high population...

 

[Maniac]

1: Cliff and mountain terrains need to be a lot more visible. To often it's hard to realize that you are boxed in by cliffs and the mountains look enough like hills to be hard to tell the difference.

I'm kinda surprised to hear this. You can't tell the difference?

5. VoP Holy City: I can't build it and I think the reason is that in the Civlopedia it shows you need the "Islam" religion instead of the "Hindu" religion to build it. Since there is no "Islam" that's sort of hard especially since that doesn't make sense to begin with.

There's nothing wrong with the buildings themselves. You are confused by the buttons. These are changed in the next version.

6. Planet Counter: Do you get waves of attacks at each 10 increment, sort of like the Armageddon Counter? Around 42 I got this massive wave of creatures for no apparent reason.

Must be a coincidence. No special attacks coded.

7. Planet +/-: How does this work? I'm playing the Gaians and have the VoP and building lots of Planet friendly buildings and still I'm at zero? What does Planet want from me, to due Her dishes and laundry too?

I can't tell without more information. Have a look at the planet values of your bases to see the causes.

8: Religions. I have a problem with these as I really think in some respect AC did it better with their Civics showing a Civ's preference. Plus 'religion' is a poor term for what's going on.

Depending on which faction and which 'religion' we're talking about, each 'religion' can be something different. It can be a religion, a philosophy, a way of life, a political movement... Don't attach too much importance to the word 'religion'. Something has to be put on the top of the screen.

First off, the Hive would probably need the 'agnostic' trait

Ascetic Virtues.

and I can't see the Lord's Believers converting to anything but their own beliefs.

Manifest Destiny - renamed Edenism in the next version.
This is an example where a different religion can b interpreted differently depending on which faction is holding it. For the Believers Edenism is simply Christianity. For the University it would be a movement to terraform Chiron.

Planet Love: Pretty much the idea that Planet needs to be protected and not just bull-dozed over.

Voice of Planet.

Terraform It!: The idea that with Earth probably gone, Planet needs to be terraformed into Earth 2.

Edenism.

"Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken."

The Believers see Earth as the garden of Eden from which humanity has been expelled. Now they have to do the hard job of terraforming an inhospitable place.

Planetphilia - Planetphobic - Planetneutral

The Ecology civics category. And of course the player's Planet Attitude.

Which brings up one point. As I mentioned earlier, I think there is a place for a Terraforming Civ.

The Believers. As for all factions, they need some more fleshing out, but that's their intended role in any case.

1. As Gaians, I can't seem to switch to the Terraforming Civic although no where does it say Gaians can't use it.

When following the Voice of Planet religion, you can't switch to the Terraformed civic.

Those two issues are likely connected...the message is misleading here, because they only get disabled for 10 turns and for those 10 turns, you get a substantial amount of money charged every turn to fund the repair of your former. It makes the procedure more comfortable, but in the later stages I often have enough productive cities around, so I would perfer the classic rebuld method.

Nothing's stopping you from disbanding the damaged formers, in case you value 50 credits* more than 60 hammers. ( ?? )

* The 'repair' takes 5 turns on average. * 10 maintenance cost = 50

 

[Melhisedek]

For someone who never played SMAC would you recommend this mod or game itself? Been hearing so much great stuff about it but am afraid that streched graphics on my widescreen TFT will put me off

 

[GeoModder]

Well, the game is not for sale anymore. The mod is free so the only "cost" you have there is some of your time and download volume to try it out.

 

[Melhisedek]

What I wonder is if this is good representation of the original game? I would like to experience what made the original (and SMAX) so popular so long after they've been released

 

[Deon]

One of the coolest thing in SMAC for me was the terraforming and ability to melt polar caps . You could turn mountainous area to oceans; also bombardment changed terrain.

There were too many small tactical/gameplay-enriching/flavourful details (like rocky west hills/moisty east side of hills because of wind direction etc.) which made the game great.

Note that it appeared before civ 3 but already had civics (which civ 3 for some reason lacked) and also it had a race editor so you could tweak races at your liking! Too many things to mention.

 

[Melhisedek]

is this represented in the Planetfall as well?

 

[Boris Badinov]

One of the coolest thing in SMAC for me was the terraforming and ability to melt polar caps . You could turn mountainous area to oceans; also bombardment changed terrain.

There were too many small tactical/gameplay-enriching/flavourful details (like rocky west hills/moisty east side of hills because of wind direction etc.) which made the game great.

Note that it appeared before civ 3 but already had civics (which civ 3 for some reason lacked) and also it had a race editor so you could tweak races at your liking! Too many things to mention.

This is all true... My favorite part about SMAC was the unit workshop. That made everything else pale in comparison. OK, so I'm a gear head and liked units over civics. The terraforming was great too so you could build a land bridge to islands. But basically it was fun to play!

 

[Boris Badinov]

Sorry.... had to add an extra comment and didn't want to edit.
Besides all the previous comments about units, civics, terraforming and anything else. The most fun was watching the Peacekeepers getting their collective butts kicked by just about anyone! Even the Gians and University!

 

[GeoModder]

What I wonder is if this is good representation of the original game? I would like to experience what made the original (and SMAX) so popular so long after they've been released

Well, that can only be answered if you tell us what exactly makes the original game so popular in your opinion.

 

[Melhisedek]

Well, that can only be answered if you tell us what exactly makes the original game so popular in your opinion.

Hehe sadly I have no idea as I haven't played them just heard a lot of "best 4X game ever"

 

[arkham4269]

For someone who never played SMAC would you recommend this mod or game itself? Been hearing so much great stuff about it but am afraid that stretched graphics on my widescreen TFT will put me off

The problem is getting the game. I've been trying to get a friend a copy of Alien Crossfire for years but don't want to spend $126 for a eBay copy. Plus I'm worried if my original ever gets damaged that I'm hosed.

Personally while Planetfall is nice, AC & AC:AC is still a game that got the PC Gamer's first score of 98%. It has a lot of features that have yet to be imported into Civ that I think many would like to see. For example, you still can't in vanilla Civ ask during peace negotiations to have one Civ stop fighting with one of your allied Civs.

Plus, it also had the 'blind research' option which makes what tech your researching come at random which is a nice way to handicap the human player.

True, Planetfall has a lot of advantages in that there are more worker actions, a lot of the units are more balanced, but it is a very sad thing that we'll probably never see a update AC.

 

[Cmcastl]

I would be playing the SMAC now, rather than Planetfall, if it wasn't the case that the game can no longer play under more powerful CPUs. I know; I have tried!

My dream game would be the SMAC game mechanics with modern graphics!

 

[arkham4269]

I would be playing the SMAC now, rather than Planetfall, if it wasn't the case that the game can no longer play under more powerful CPUs. I know; I have tried!

My dream game would be the SMAC game mechanics with modern graphics!

Well my laptop is a bit 'old' in that I bought it for Xmas in 2005, but it's got some pretty good graphics and speed and it plays it just fine and it has one of those large laptop monitors (15" I think)

You need to get a patch for the game (which I don't have on this computer but it's out there) Even with it, I get an 'error' saying "This game may not play properly with your CPU" and I click through it and the game plays fine.

 

[Melhisedek]

Wow, just wow I had no idea game was so expensive. I checked a few shops that sell old games but none had it. Funny thing is I remember time when I saw like dussins of SMAC boxes at one shop for like 3-4 $

 

[arkham4269]

Wow, just wow I had no idea game was so expensive. I checked a few shops that sell old games but none had it. Funny thing is I remember time when I saw like dussins of SMAC boxes at one shop for like 3-4 $

Well you can still sometimes find older copies of SMAC. It's trying to find Alien Crossfire that's the problem. I really wish I had snapped up the 'bonus' pack they had for awhile that had both games for like $25 bucks.

 

[Melhisedek]

Found SMAC One of my dads friends has it. Never even suspected the guy for a gamer. He said he waster a few years with that one
Sadly no SMAX Is the expansion required for full experience?

 

[brun58]

Glad I still have my copy of the game and expansion, like some of the other people here, one of my favorite parts of the game has always been the workshop.