Wow....plus SMAC mod reborn!

[AlazkanAssassin]

Private mod development forum.

 

[Anon Zytose]

Well, so much for even viewing the development, then. o.o

 

[woodelf]

Once we have a release I think we'll move some threads to a Public area for feedback. Don't fret.

 

[Maniac]

And we're still in early phases. releasing something != ready

 

[t3476]

Hey folks. I've lurked here for a bit, but never really felt the need to post until now. It has always struck me that a SMAC mod was destined for Civ4 so I'm glad to see an effort here, even though there is little to see. I would love to help in anyway possible, but if the team is 'full' I'll just give my moral support and as seems to be the practice in this thread, throw out some ideas to chew on.

That said, most of my thoughts on this mod revolve around what gameplay elements should be included from both games. This also seems to be what you guys are still hashing out at this point right? If it doesn't offend, allow me to add my 2 cents.

Some of the gameplay features or mechanics I think are notable from each game but was absent in the other are as follows...

Civilization 4:
-Culture
-Religion
-Happiness model
-Healthiness model
-Great People
-Unit Promotions

SMAC:
-Unit Customization
-Terrain Elevation and Climate
-Seabases
-Landmarks
-Zones of Control
-Social Factors

Let me touch on the SMAC stuff first.

Spoiler :

Unit customization is obviously a big one, both in terms of the character of SMAC and how difficult it will be to implement. This is something that should be applied in a way that is truer to the 'spirit' of SMAC rather than literal gameplay. The Unit Workshop was a user unfriendly mess, and the most of the weapon and armor steps were probably useless, so I think something that takes advantage of the Promotions mechanic is in order. The way the Final Frontier's mod does it was actually the way I envisioned it. You have a predetermined set of units like: Infantry, Rover, Hover Tank, etc. and advancing down the tech tree unlocks more powerful versions of them. They would also have inherent bonuses as is the case in all of these games. The thing is these later tech versions of the units wouldn't just have a higher strength, but would come stock with more experience giving them free promotions. The first tier units could have like two promotions, then the second tier could have maybe four, third could get eight, and so on and so forth. This would allow players to substantially differentiate their units without needing a Unit Workshop or some other interface. And apparently BtS allows units to change appearance with promotions, so giving your Rover Anti-Air I would give it a Gatling Laser, Anti-Air II a Missile Launcher, AA III Shard Missiles or whatever makes sense. The number of promotions could be increased by Base Facilities, Social Engineering (Civics) choices, and combat experience as always. This seems like it would be fairly easy to implement, would give the player a lot of options, and not be an overwhelming mess to micromanage.

Moving on to Terrain Elevation and Climate... It would be super cool if this could be done just like it is in AC but I imagine it would be a nightmare to put together. Perhaps you could just cheat by creating taller hills/mountains that simulate having lots of elevations, but still sounds really hard to do right. Probably best the team just side steps it and tries to translate what they have in Civ to rough analogs in SMAC. Plains could be Rocky, grassland could be Rainy, Desert could be Arid or whatever. This relates to Landmarks as well, since that seemed to break up the monotonous terrain in SMAC. Won't be necessary if you just use the terrain model from Civ4

Seabases should be easy enough yeah? I don't see why they shouldn't be more or less identical to those in SMAC. If it is possible to code without too much pain I think ZoC's should be in too. I feel they added some more tactical depth to the combat in SMAC.

Now finally Social Factors. While Civ4's civics are roughly analogous to the Social Engineering table in SMAC, the key difference here is that the Civics were a just a set of specific bonuses you could choose from (for the most part), whereas the SE Table modified Social Factors like PROBE, SUPPORT, or GROWTH. Modifying the Social Factors even by one point had far reaching consequences on your entire faction. So to me the Social Factors are a big deal, but they don't exist in Civ4 in any capacity, so modding them in seems like too much work. My point here is, instead just make the Civics have a bigger impact than they do in Civ by making the rewards more substantial, and the penalties stiffer. OH NO! NO FOREIGN TRADE ROUTES WHAT AM I TO DO??! Pfft. Now that -5 Police and -3 Planet will put hair on your chest!

Here are my thoughts on how the listed Civ4 features and mechanics should be applied...

Spoiler :

First off, Religion. A great idea in Civilization 4. Ditch it in SMAC. Why? Cause now you have to invent a bunch of religions and validate their existence in the fiction of SMAC. Which is at odds with the idea that the ongoing struggle is ideological; not about race or creed. Why would the University ever found a religion? Or even the Believers! Additionally diplomacy should be driven by your SE choices just as it was in SMAC. Yang should hate your guts for running a democracy, not for being Neo-Hindu or something. The Factions themselves are like religions or dogmas. Finally that is a bunch of assets you don't have to worry about making, making the modding process easier.

Now culture on the other hand should absolutely be in. Though it should probably get another name that makes more sense within the context of SMAC. Instead of being how influential your people are it could just represent how much soap boxing your doing on behalf of your faction's ideology. You could call it Psych so the three sliders from the SE Table all have counterparts in Civ4 (Econ is Taxes you collect after maintenance [inefficiency], Psych would be Culture, and Labs would be Science). The rational could be since your people are happier, your faction seems more appealing to others and as such the influential radius of your bases grows. To compensate for the happiness bonuses usually due to religion you could tie the effectiveness of facilities that grant happiness to psych spending. Sort of like Theaters and Colosseums.

Which brings me to the Happiness/Healthiness models in Civ4. They should function just as normal but again with new names and a few extra tricks to mimic SMAC gameplay. Happiness should be the least modified, with weighed against (drones). Excess result in Drones that refuse to work. If the number of Drones not working exceeds the number of specialists at that base then the entire base shuts down as it it gripped by drone riots. The option to nerve staple should be there of course. On the other hand if there are excess , those could be talents which could be free specialists with small bonuses. When the number of talents is 50% or more of the base population, the Base benefits from a Golden Age which would be just like a Civ4 Golden Age just localized on one Base. could be translated as your Planet rating, being eco damage. Excess would result in bonus resources from fungus and better odds for capturing mind worms. Whereas excess would slow growth (just as in Civ) but would also carry with it greater probably of mindworm attacks and events that cause Fungal blooms and such. None of this sounds too hard to implement, except for the events which I imagine might require a chunk of work.

As for great people... I don't have any ideas. They don't really clash with the SMAC setting. But they don't really have any counter parts either. Maybe Richard Baxton, Recon-Rover Pilot, could be a Great General . For the sake of eventually getting the mod done they might be best left out.

And I already pretty much covered how unit promotions should work.

Well! That was a hell of a first post, quite a bit more than 2 cents. Maybe 2.50! And I apologize for making it so long winded. I'm sure I didn't convey some of my ideas very clearly either.

Also, do you guys have any new pictures to share ?

 

[beetle]

I will feel free borrow from your detailed post to flush out 101 ways SMAC/X is better than Civ4, but would prefer that you post there yourself!

Some of the gameplay features or mechanics I think are notable from each game but was absent in the other are as follows…
Civilization 4:
- Culture
- Religion
- Happiness model
- Healthiness model
- Great People
- Unit Promotions

I will grant you culture (and the associated dynamic borders) but the rest I am ambivalent about. I have read your whole post, but I have a few nits to pick…

• Religion – Interesting effect, but as you and others observe, hard to incorporate into a SciFi setting, especially when we already have culture. In Civ4 game terms, it is mostly some income and intelligence. If the latter were not so borked, Religion would not be missed at all IMHO. Replacing religion with state-sponsored organized crime might be interesting!
• Happiness model – I did not grok your argument here. How is the Civ4 happy/citizen/angry mechanics much different than SMAC with talents/workers/drones? (Aside from happiness boosting resources of course. Those would be difficult to come up with sensible analogies.)
• Healthiness model – SMAC has the Eco-Damage of course. One real trick to capturing this game play effect is coming up to a parallel to flood plains. I was glad you didn’t list “corruption model” as a feature!
• Great People – This is a feature, but it does loose some appeal without being able to name famous historical people of various nationalities.
• Unit Promotions – Eh. The special abilities (from the workshop), morale range (-33% to +50%), and field promotions more than makes up for any perceived lack of “role playing” with units IMHO. I do like how some building cannot be created without battle experience.

 

[t3476]

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say. Do you think that none of those things listed from Civ4 have any merit? Because I'm not saying they should exsist exactly as they are now in a SMAC mod, but instead how they could be warped or manipulated to evoke SMACs gameplay.

 

[Anon Zytose]

I've personally thought of Civ4's experience points leading to promotions as similar to a customizeable version of SMAC's morale modifiers. I imagine several of them in this game may increase combat strength against Psi units.

At the same time, I'd think that most of SMAC's special abilities would just show themselves in certain units. Like paratroopers would have drop pods, submarines would have deep pressure hulls, SAM Infantry would have Air Superiority, and bombard units would have Heavy Artillery. ...the High Morale special ability might be more realistic as a promotion, though.

Of course, that's just what I'd do. I have no idea what the official contributors to this project are doing.

 

[beetle]

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say. Do you think that none of those things listed from Civ4 have any merit? Because I'm not saying they should exist exactly as they are now in a SMAC mod, but instead how they could be warped or manipulated to evoke SMACs gameplay.

Mostly I am busting on Civ4, which has had ten years to improve game play over SMAC but has not done so. I am asserting that (aside from culture) the Civ4 features do not offer much. If that is is correct, it suggest that the approach should be to (1) identify key aspects of SMAC, and then, (2) figure out how to implement those aspects within the Civ4 mechanics.

So if promotions is the only way to provide special abilities, and Health substitute for Eco-Damage so be it. Is a borehole then analogous to flood plain? (Because it is a mixed blessing.)

So while things like trade routes, resources and luxuries, and great people are interesting (have merit), they are minor features that are irrelevant if not distracting if not handled correctly. Brainstorming about how to best integrate into the Planet storyline is probably productive.

Can religion be re-branded as probe networks?

What names make sense for luxuries? How about animal and plants? What about resources?

What units (or other actions) would have resource prerequisites? Is a certain element necessary for breeding mind worm? Natural crystals for empaths?

Each faction has a named individual that is invoked when the first Mindworms are bread. Are the novels sufficient sources for other names for Great People?

 

[Andrew_Jay]

First off, Religion. A great idea in Civilization 4. Ditch it in SMAC. Why? Cause now you have to invent a bunch of religions and validate their existence in the fiction of SMAC. Which is at odds with the idea that the ongoing struggle is ideological; not about race or creed.

I say just replace religion with ideology.

I earlier tried to make the case for each faction having its own religion that perpetuated its unique attributes. In hindsight, that's not that great an idea. Instead, how about four religions analogous to the four "principles" of the game, the four choices that guide your research: Explore, Discover, Build, Conquer?

Hive and Morgan - Build?
UN and Deidre - Explore?
Sparta and Mariam - Conquer?
University - Discover?

Ideology (religion) could also be used to offset the deficiencies of the Social Engineering menu.

 

[Anon Zytose]

I personally wonder if the religion feature of Civ4 will still exist in this project at all. The closest thing to such seems like it could be expressed through the different faction ideologies, and influenced on opponents' bases through culture flips and probe teams conducting mind control. It kinda makes me think of how it takes 50 turns in SMAC/X for a forcefully conquered base to fully integrate to its new faction.

 

[beetle]

It kinda makes me think of how it takes 50 turns in SMAC/X for a forcefully conquered base to fully integrate to its new faction.

What do you mean? The graphics change (to that of the conquering faction) as soon as the population exceeds the original size. The drones are caused more by the loss of happiness-inducing facilities than Civ4-like resistance.

 

[beetle]

How about four religions analogous to the four “principles” of the game, the four choices that guide your research: Explore, Discover, Build, Conquer?

That fits the story line, and is even close enough to the principle game effects (modest income and information). Plus, it makes sense how religion influence relations with leaders (much more so than affiliated probe networks).

 

[Maniac]

My impression is those four Explore, Discover, Build, Conquer principles are more like temporary policy strategies than full-fledged ideologies. Eg Green/Knowledge/Wealth/Power social engineering values rather than religions.

 

[Anon Zytose]

What do you mean? The graphics change (to that of the conquering faction) as soon as the population exceeds the original size. The drones are caused more by the loss of happiness-inducing facilities than Civ4-like resistance.

That never happened for me, especially if I'm conquering bases while owning the Cloning Vats. Instead I'm pretty sure I get this:

#ADVCONCEPT12
Several factors contribute to the number of drones found at a base
before police, facilities, psych, and secret projects are taken into
account:

...

(3) Disloyal Citizenry: for approximately 50 turns after you capture
an enemy base, you will receive extra drones while you assimilate the
enemy citizens. The basic rate is 5 drones minus one for each 10
turns elapsed, but the number may never exceed:
^^(BaseSize + Difficulty - 2)/4

In any case, I can see why it'd take this long for a base to fully assimilate to the new faction. The conquered base is being pressured into a new and radically different ideology, for which many of the base's people are never fully ready. Those fifty years signifies the time it takes for those people to either move out or die out, and be replaced be people more willing to embrace the philosophies of the conquering faction.

 

[beetle]

My impression is those four Explore, Discover, Build, Conquer principles are more like temporary policy strategies than full-fledged ideologies. Eg Green/Knowledge/Wealth/Power social engineering values rather than religions.

As a human player, you can recognize the research priorities as strategy (and therefore you change as needed) where the AI factions treat them as stronger values and stick with them throughout the game.

Going out on a limb, I openly ponder if this is similar to U.S. history: the early refugees brought values like the protestant work ethic, but the SE choice we will go to war over is Free Market Democracy.

Even though the AI personalities and role play is a huge strength of SMAC (as compared to Civ3/4), players do not get good or bad karma from having compatible (or contrary) research agendas as compared to an AI faction.

The Civ4 religion mechanics might fill in for this minor defect. Obviously, this expression of ideology would have to take a significant back seat to SE choices. This also fits the Civ4 mechanics since civics effects game play much more than religion.

 

[gnome]

This may limit the SE choices some, but perhaps use religions in place of, say the "value" slider (survival, knowledge, wealth, power), giving the player a little less direct control.

Values would spread, even to other factions... giving them common ground to ally, or differences to fight over.

Maybe a couple of new sliders can be conceived for SE in replacement.

 

[Watiggi]

I'd say just make a new component that the religion mechanic fills or remove the religion mechanic altogether.

Just have it cross between the religion mechanic and the corporation mechanic that just spreads and gives small bonuses in the cities, like extra hammers, etc. They could be "The Workers Union" (increased productivity) or "The Right to Bear Arms Movement" (extra xp for units built) or "The Planet Preservation Movement" (improved ecology) or "The Pro Trade Movement", etc. Just small things that don't have a big impact on the game and isn't actually tied to any one leader's agenda or anything, but will add flavour to the game.

I think keeping it seperate from the normal SMAC mechanics like SE and the leaders values (ie, Build/Conquer) and what not would be better personally because there is nothing in SMAC that really fits in with the religion mechanic. So, I say create an entirely new mechanic that doesn't have a large impact on SMAC's mechanics.

 

[beetle]

I'd say just make a new component that the religion mechanic fills or remove the religion mechanic altogether.

I disagree in that the religion mechanics should be removed, and I do not think it needs significant change, just different branding. This feature is new and interesting, and the actual Civ4 improvements over SMAC are so rare, it seems a shame to throw anything away.

Calling it “ideology” (or maybe meme) and leaving the default Civ4 mechanics alone would not distract or interfere with game play, and just adds (or keeps) one more minor dimension.

The only real trick is jiggering the tech trees so that the right fractions inherit their archetypical Research Priorities as memes. If the influence changes as the game processes (as religion spreads), that effect is okay. This merely represents a leader loosing some influence over the citizenry, but not direct loss of governance power nor broader national (Culture) borders. The Civ4 religion mechanics are secondary to Civics which are secondary to Culture. It is not unbalancing to keep the religion mechanics, although it would antithetical to the SciFi setting to label it as religion.

The current game value of religion (very minor influence on income, happiness, intelligence, and negotiations) seems less than the alternatives (hammers, unit experience, health bonus) that Watiggi suggests. It is also convenient that all the religions convey the same benefits, so one need not think too much about them. It certainly seems obvious that creating a new game mechanism would be more work than merely rebranding religion. Hmm, maybe religion could just be implemented as totally arbitrary political parties?

Moreover, I cannot imagine that it is really feasible for Civ4 religion mechanics to serve as a replacement for faction ideology. Obviously, a key feature to SMAC is the AI alignment with certain Social Engineering choices. It is equally obvious that strengthened Civics is the best Civ4 game mechanism to provide this.

 

[Andrew_Jay]

This may limit the SE choices some, but perhaps use religions in place of, say the "value" slider (survival, knowledge, wealth, power), giving the player a little less direct control.

Values would spread, even to other factions... giving them common ground to ally, or differences to fight over.

Maybe a couple of new sliders can be conceived for SE in replacement.

That's the category I was thinking of, "Value".

Like you said, taking away some of the player's control over that category makes sense, because it shouldn't be something you can change on a whim. Plus, like Watiggi said, you could still assign Survival, Knowledge, Wealth and Power similar bonuses as if they were Civics, but do so through the Corporation mechanic.