Will 2013 bring a Civ 5 - SMAC conversion ?

[SerapisIV]

Firaxis is building a brand new engine in Civ5 and appears to be incorporating into it a pretty robust social engineering system.

Given Firaxis' recent track record in of creating a stand-alone total-game conversion of Civ 4 into Colonization, add to it Jon Shafer's background in the mod community, can we expect a Civ 5 - SMAC conversion in 2013 after the pre-requisite Civ 5 expansion packs are released?

The two hard parts I see are modifying the engine for 3D elevation and immediate moisture effects on the map and the user-defined combat system.

The customizable combat system would probably be the easier of the two given the game is already built to absorb new units that people design, letting gamers design the new units in the game itself seems like a shorter putt.

 

[ruskyandrei]

No idea, but i would love that so much

 

[mjs0]

I'm pretty sure the rights to SMAC are owned by EA, not Take2/2K/Firaxis.
That makes this extremely unlikely. (Unfortunately )

 

[pi-r8]

I will bet you$5000 USD that this doesn't happen.

 

[Lord Tirian]

I'm pretty sure the rights to SMAC are owned by EA, not Take2/2K/Firaxis.
That makes this extremely unlikely. (Unfortunately )

Yeah - unless something happens in that regard, we'll have to do without SMAC. Best thing we can hope for is probably a SMAC-to-CivV mod made by fans, akin to Planetfall; if CivV opens up more of its source code than CivIV, that could go a long way. One of the main hurdles in CivIV is that you cannot define more than three terrain types (flat/hill/mountain). With more terrain types, one could emulate elevation and rockiness pretty well.

Or, perhaps, they'll make a not-SMAC-in-name-only game that also deals with the colonisation of a new planet, but without the original story, style and characters, it would lose quite a bit of its charm, I'm afraid.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Maniac]

Do you feel Planetfall loses something by only having Lowland-Highland-Ridges? Personally I always found elevation terraforming in SMAC a feature that sounds nice on paper, but doesn't find much actual use while playing.

 

[r_rolo1]

I'm not seeing a company that feels the need to explain why it chose 7 and just 7 religions in a game manual having the guts to do anything remotely close of SMAC sometimes corrosive nature nowadays. So much for half of appeal of the game :/

Well, just to add a trivia, EA already said that it would be interested in doing a SMAC sequel maybe 2 or 3 years ago ... the only condition was Sid leaving Firaxis and going to work for them . No, thank you

 

[Tatran]

Personally I always found elevation terraforming in SMAC a feature that sounds nice on paper, but doesn't find much actual use while playing.

Then you've missed a whole lot of energy.

 

[r_rolo1]

And of rain as well

 

[Psyringe]

Yep. EA sits firmly on the rights to SMAC, and as long as that's the case, there won't be a sequel.

What we could see someday is a sequel in spirit - similar setting, similar gameplay, but different name and characters. Hard to do, but possible - though unlikely. SMAC simply didn't sell well enough (despite the huge success in reviews) to make the idea appealing to any publisher who wants triple-A games.

The only halfway decent chance I see is that an independent publisher with a decent established fanbase makes a SMAC clone. Stardock might be a candidate, depending on how well "Elemental" fares. Perhaps we should bug Brad Wardell with the suggestion.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Do you feel Planetfall loses something by only having Lowland-Highland-Ridges? Personally I always found elevation terraforming in SMAC a feature that sounds nice on paper, but doesn't find much actual use while playing.

Well, not really (SMAC lumped elevations together as well, effects on improvements were dependent on 100m steps anyway, no?) - SMAC, though, went up a bit higher, so with new plot types, I'd probably add a "peak" type above ridges.

The main change I'd do, however, would be adding new unterwater plot types. Having shelf-ocean floor-trench as plot types would actually be an improvement over SMAC, since SMAC's underwater cities always felt a bit tacked on compared to the variety on land. Another bit that new plot types would help with would be the graphical representation of rockiness (then you can add it as actual bump map instead of texture only).

Of course, I've gotten used to Planetfall quite a bit, so it's not bothering me as much as before, though I'd like to see map scripts that incorporate things like rainshadows.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Tatran]

And of rain as well

Condensers did solve that problem.

 

[CleverFool]

I would totally mark out if a new SMAC game came out. Unlike a lot of old games, SMAC still plays fairly well to this day, and stands as one of the best games I've ever played.

 

[Robo-Star]

Firaxis is building a brand new engine in Civ5 and appears to be incorporating into it a pretty robust social engineering system.

Civ 4's Civics is a lot closer to SMAC's Social Engineering than Civ 5's Social Policies.

In any case, I'd love to see it, but I doubt it'll happen, due to the licensing issues already mentioned.
-

 

[Schuesseled]

i recall sid recentley talking about how he wanted to do a Alpha Centauri 2, anything is possible.

 

[r_rolo1]

Condensers did solve that problem.

True , but condensers had some nasty side effects regarding global climate ... and they couldn't dry out the other guys land out

 

[Lyoncet]

True , but condensers had some nasty side effects regarding global climate ... and they couldn't dry out the other guys land out

Thank you so much for reminding me of just one of the many, many ways in which SMAC was awesome.

 

[Helmling]

Let me remind you of another: Unit Workshop.

 

[Thormodr]

SMAC was an awesome game and truly ahead of its time.

Hopefully something will get worked out with EA so that they can produce SMAC II. It's very likely that EA will never make SMAC II so if Firaxis waved enough $$$$ in front of them they might be persuaded to let them make it.

 

[Psyringe]

Hopefully something will get worked out with EA so that they can produce SMAC II. It's very likely that EA will never make SMAC II so if Firaxis waved enough $$$$ in front of them they might be persuaded to let them make it.

Yes, but Firaxis is owned by 2K, who in turn are owned by Take2. Either 2K or Take2 will have to spend the money that EA wants. And from a business perspective, spending that additional money to start the production of a sequel to a game with a concept that didn't sell very well in the first place ... might not look too attractive.

I sure wish I'm wrong though.