Sherlock
Just one more turn...
Just watched the youtube vids. Looks better than anything I've seen for BE.
Why do the franchise's veterans love Alpha Centauri ?
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Martin Alvito
Real men play SMAC
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Gameplay wise, SMAC is a lot like Master of Magic. Everything is broken given the human's superior ability to exploit the mechanics (Supply Crawlers, boreholes and orbital techs are probably the worst offenders on the economic side, and early air units just wreck the AI), so with sufficient skill pasting the AI is more or less guaranteed.
The interesting question in both games is how that happens. Each faction's gameplay is radically different, and the journey is in figuring out how to optimize for all of them.
The factions are also surprisingly well balanced; Santiago and Miriam are the only sides that are highly unidimensional and pretty much force the player onto the offensive. You can play Morgan for a midgame tech advantage, then go for blood, even though that's not really what he's designed for. Similarly, you can bury the AI in tech using Yang without ever firing a shot if you know what you're doing; the production advantages can be turned into quite the snowball.
Add in a fantastic atmosphere with sound that was as good as any game in the 1990's, and you begin to see why so many of us old-timers logged more time on SMAC than anything else in the series before or since.
The interesting question in both games is how that happens. Each faction's gameplay is radically different, and the journey is in figuring out how to optimize for all of them.
The factions are also surprisingly well balanced; Santiago and Miriam are the only sides that are highly unidimensional and pretty much force the player onto the offensive. You can play Morgan for a midgame tech advantage, then go for blood, even though that's not really what he's designed for. Similarly, you can bury the AI in tech using Yang without ever firing a shot if you know what you're doing; the production advantages can be turned into quite the snowball.
Add in a fantastic atmosphere with sound that was as good as any game in the 1990's, and you begin to see why so many of us old-timers logged more time on SMAC than anything else in the series before or since.
MountainTiger
Chieftain
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- Aug 14, 2010
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Heh. I never tried that. I do remember a game where I used cruise missiles and drop infantry to conquer everyone without leaving Free Market. Turns out you can buy a lot of cruise missiles with Morgan's economy.
Kakhovsky
Chieftain
The best thing that I can name in the game is its atmosphere, mood that it creates. It is generally stated that TBS games are based on planning and decision making, which is true, but the narration, the plot are of no significant importance and are completely optional. SMAC shows that the plot relevant information can be integrated into a standart random map game (throug the quotes of technologies and secret projects, leader personalities, distinctive political agendas and social engeneering). Then the more or less "decentrilized story-telling" becomes possible leading to an outstanding game experience.
It is confirmed than in BE
Each discovered technology comes complete with a special quote voiced by one of the game’s leaders and drawn from each leader’s personal book of philosophy
So at least we have this piece of awesomeness
Also it seems there are quests and some kind of narrative similar to SMAC.
Each discovered technology comes complete with a special quote voiced by one of the game’s leaders and drawn from each leader’s personal book of philosophy
So at least we have this piece of awesomeness
Also it seems there are quests and some kind of narrative similar to SMAC.
does that mean my chosen leader will sometimes stumble upon a tech accompanied a quote where he laudly prises a tech totally contrary to his chosen affinity (researchhed tech to deny enemy a wonder or stumbled upon an old forgotten drop pod in the arctic?)
Also this could mean that the supposedly affinity agnostic leaders are not that affinity agnostic after all. Strange.
Where does this bit of trivia come from?
speculation, as usual.
On one hand we speculated that virgin leaders would not lean in any direction at all, so to not press the user to select a specific path, like going green with Deidre. It seemed like a sensible design decision that we thought was being visible in the 4 already released factions and leaders.
Then we learned of the techquotes spoken by the leaders. This is a great feature and will add immensly to storytelling and immersion. But lets say you have Fielding as a neighbor. She has quite unnervingly selected purity as her path and insults you, playing supremacy every chance she gets, from her fortresses behind her Lev Tanks. You research collaborative thought (which gives a supremacy pointand a base facility, ie. grouplink node) and hear her, the fanatical purist deliver an enthusiastic speech on how upgrading singular minds and fitting them with neural links enabling them to think together synergetically in a type of groupmind enhances efficiency thoughout the field.
In Alpha Centauri this problem was somemwhat mitigated by giving the quotes critical of a possible deveolpment to Miriam as it would be quite expected that she would not reach that tech herself, or only steal it from a competitor else people would have asked: if you think matter teleportation is an unholy abomination, why did you research it in the first place?
No, i did not see her that way, she way more nuanced. Still a religious nut with a Joan d'Arc complex, but not that stupid by far. Only some developments went too far for her, i.e. matter teleportation and how it would impact an immortable soul. Might be a coping process too, how to rationalize that this immoral sacrilegious Zakharow would leave her devout followers so far in the dust, while they where Gods chosen? So her bitterness against science might have increased during the hundreds of years on planet.
haha, i never noticed that...
it would make more sense if the quotes would be exchanged, since the one only transmitts bulk matter (no structure) for industrial use and the other would be used on real humans (suppposedly with a soul to loose). Maybe she figured it would be time to start a suicide cult or the tech was too practical not to use. And she invokes her Gods help in reassembling all (!) parts on the other end. So divine intervention could make it usable for the lords children (as well as the lord makes it rain and supposedly does a huge other quite mundane things to keep the world going).
GeoModder
Deity
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Yeah.
But I guess Miri was only weary at the start (with reason when seeing Zak's quote on the tech), and once the bugs were worked out and the benefits became clear, she (and her faction) embraced this technology.
Not bad thinking on exchanging the quotes. Usually I simply rename this Secret Project to something that implies it is a completely different thing, more similar to the Living Refinery.
One preview from yesterday (Polycast) said this thing about tech quotes.
I said it is confirmed.
that i took as confirmed. I refered to the leaders being affinity agnostic as being more our speculation than confirmed developerial intent. At least thats how i interpreted beetles question. I did not want to pass something speculative as WoG (word of god aka developers).
I kind of hope this correct. 8 leaders x 3 affinities not too large a number a for starter play through. Although with SMAC, I never felt obligated to try each leader every which way. I guess the target victory condition determined how one played. I remember getting transcendence with each leader, but I think I only pulled off the economic victory with Morgan (which makes sense). I only played one game exploiting supply crawlers. That would open a lot of options.
Are the CivBE leaders paired with initial crew compliment options? It is not clear to me what they bring to the game exactly.
Don't forget the pre-game set-up: The uber leader holding all these strong but incompatible personalities together is assassinated.
So while I agree that Miram seems terribly mal-adapted as a faction leader, I could see how she was an essential component of a team.
One thing that always seemed missing was no hints even at the end to who killed the captain. Prolly it is better that way. I see not hint that CivBE has similar intrigue. (Which is fine, because that was a bit hackneyed IMHO anyway.)
*cough* Well, one could say that the difference is tha one is Psi gate while the other is Bulk Matter Transmitter, one having something to do with the mind-wrapping abiliti of the psionics, the other making Miriam nervous because it transports only bulk matter?
GeoModder
Deity
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Practically, there's no ingame difference between the two on what they're supposed to do, which was of course what I refered to.
The fluff doesn't matter.
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