Public opinion on SMAC-like design workshop

[Dom Pedro II]

I've heard a lot of opinions on SMAC's unit workshop... not much good opinions either.

For those of you who have played SMAC, what did you not like about the system? What DID you like about it? Could the basic concept of semi-customizable units work for you if done differently/better in your opinion?

Just curious... I'm trying to filter out potentially fun elements from potentially unfun elements.

 

[Maniac]

The SMAC unit workshop is perfect.

Well of course it still used the old idea of different attack (weapon) and defense (armour) strengths which doesn't make much sense. Fortunately Civ4 improved on that with a single strength.

If Civ4 had a unit workshop, it could have the following categories:

means of transportation: infantry, horseback (+1 move, 20% withdrawal chance, no defense bonuses), chariot...
weapon: obvious, each with different strength ratings and bonuses/penalties versus other weapons
armour/shield: the better, the bigger a bonus to unit strength, but also the costlier and it reduces the chance for withdrawal.
Etcetera.

It would be great.

 

[Gerikes]

I think the idea of making a prototype is cool, but I don't like the idea that I had to make one for EVERY new comination. How about one prototype for each new weapon system, one for each armor, etc. Or, maybe you don't need to prototype, but you can prototype an "advanced weapon system" when you get the next weapon system. (Without the prototype it's weaker, but it costs a lot for the prototype phase).

Who knows, perhaps you can trade/capture prototypes!

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

Actualy that is how it worked in SMAC, you only have to Prototype each Weapon or Armor and Prototyping a high power weapon gives prototyping on everything thats lower.

 

[Padmewan]

The main problem for me with the workshop (and you can tell by my current project that I'm a SMAC fan) is that there were too many weapons/armors throughout the game, necessitating fairly constant upgrading that became tedious. The UI of the workshop was also poor, forcing the player to scroll through many dozens of mostly-useless units. In fact, I would say the UI was the killer factor.

Overall, I approve of Civ4's move towards simplicity in the attack/defend combination and shifting that burden to the promotions system, which mimics the workshop's 2 "upgrades."

The main things I liked about the workshop was (1) putting non-combat "weapons" on the platform (the first moment of discovering sea colonies was so cool!) and (2) changing how the unit looked based on the upgrades.

 

[RogerBacon]

Doesn't the Unit Sandbox mod do something like SMAC's design workshop already?

Roger Bacon

 

[Gerikes]

Actualy that is how it worked in SMAC, you only have to Prototype each Weapon or Armor and Prototyping a high power weapon gives prototyping on everything thats lower.

You know, even as I was typing, I was thinking, "Actually, maybe I'm just thinking this because that's how it worked and I just don't remember."

But I don't think so. In what I was saying, getting a prototype for a (just making up terminology here) 4th level weapon doesn't give you the prototype for the weapons level 1-3. It just gives you the ability to build a stronger level four. It's an optional thing on every level, and building one leve has no effect on another. But anyway...

I think one problem that the UI certainly didn't help is that you had to pick from over a hundred units at a time (manually pruning obselete units was a hassle, and the auto-prune feature was worthless because the programmers probably didn't want it to go high enough on the tech tree to remove something a person might want anyway). Not only was this a hassle when using the workshop, but picking units too. I just wanted a way to say that I wanted to pick an infantry, foil, terraformer, whatever. Then, optionally, I could select something like "Customize Unit", and a new window would show up with all the different versions of the customized unit I'd built of that type (Not automatically created, just the one's I've built, perhaps 9-10 of them after a few unit abilities had come available). In that window, I could click a workshop icon to add a new customized unit of that type to that window.

In this way, the entire creating and choosing units is more hierarchical.