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SMAC or SMAX?

SMAy, where...

  • y = C

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • y = X

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • y = RTASS (kingcomrade)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0

1eyedking

Erudite
Joined
Dec 10, 2007
Messages
3,591
Location
Argentina
Which is better and why?

Discuss!!
 

Heechee

Liturgist
Joined
May 4, 2009
Messages
225
Although overally mediocre to bad, the expansion does provide bit of variety to the game, especially for a seasoned player. I tend to mix one or two new factions in the original setup. Of course, aliens and some other wildly overpowered factions are to be avoided, but there's nothing bad in exchanging underdog Morganites for at least somewhat interesting Nautilus Pirates, or in replacing somewhat overpowered University with Aki Zeta's guys (forgot the name).
 

JoKa

Cipher
Joined
Nov 22, 2006
Messages
689
Location
Nordland
SMAX with the original factions (and the unofficial fixes) all the way...
 

mahdi

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 29, 2007
Messages
494
Location
USA, suck it Polska!
My brother gave me SMAX as a Christmas present way back when. I took it behind the house and burned it in an empty clay pot. No aliens allowed in my science fiction as I felt it would ruin the Dune feel I had going on.

KC option is pretty clever though.
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 14, 2009
Messages
10,266
Location
Poland
Aliens at least made some sense as factions (some). But space hackers and space pirates and space syndicalists... Not so much.
 

PennyAnte

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2004
Messages
769
Location
Here instead of playing an RPG.
JoKa said:
SMAX with the original factions (and the unofficial fixes)
This, definitely. You don't have to actually put the new factions in your game session.

heechee1 said:
underdog Morganites
Not this. They are the game's most powerful faction, thanks to supply crawlers and 'formered plateau solar collector energy farms.

Energy gives you research, fuels your probe teams and the like, and Morgan can rush buy like no other faction. Vel's guide is the gold standard.
 

MetalCraze

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2007
Messages
21,104
Location
Urkanistan
SMAC > SMAX

I absolutely hate moronic aliens, new character-less and imbalanced factions and butchered lore (SMAC had some mystery to its Planet - like in a good sci-fi, here it's just explained and in a retarded way) plus gimmicks like psi-armour (really what's the point in it? If you'll use it it will only help you against worms but will make your units completely vulnerable to conventional attacks - saying that original moral system is way better). It also wasn't made by Reynolds so it shows.

So I pretend that SMAX never existed.

The only feature that I really like is the ability to have a better customization of skirmishes - like the ability to select factions to play with or create a custom one (with some kind of character too) - but it isn't enough to outweigh all the shortcomings.
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

Kamelåså!
Patron
Joined
Jun 18, 2010
Messages
20,317
Location
DiNMRK
SMAX with original factions. If nothing else because you get a counterproject to the hunter-seeker algorithm to prevent University from going full-cyber without penalties.
 

PennyAnte

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2004
Messages
769
Location
Here instead of playing an RPG.
MetalCraze said:
gimmicks like psi-armour (really what's the point in it? If you'll use it it will only help you against worms but will make your units completely vulnerable to conventional attacks.
If you have a game that goes to end game you can stack some units with it on in cities and go nuts with orbitals and other mineral producing maneuvers and just let the land blow red and the worms come in piles. IIRC kitting out that way can help you worm farm too. Works great especially if you have gravships and don't need roads anymore. If you've really got it going on you can stack tons of formers in every city and clear and borehole back squares that get worm fungus, enough to harvest regular resources from them next turn.

But with good supply crawler infrastructure and off-site resource production you shouldn't need that.

Plus, reverting your territory can make you fairly hard to invade, though fungus and worms are way less problematic for everyone in end game, so I mostly did it for lulz.

Anyway, SMAC/X is the best Civ game, hands down.
 

Tails

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
1,674
JoKa said:
SMAX with the original factions (and the unofficial fixes) all the way...
For extra bugs as well. Granted, there is unofficial patch but still it's just the same, silly expansion with Aliens that broke the whole atmosphere in million pieces.
 

Heechee

Liturgist
Joined
May 4, 2009
Messages
225
Aliens at least made some sense as factions (some). But space hackers and space pirates and space syndicalists... Not so much.

I don't see what's wrong with a maritime-centered faction. The name might be retarded, but I did miss that sort of faction in the original. Cybernetic Conciousness and Cult of Planet are alternatives to University and Gaians (in terms of "lore" I consider them ok, on par with or better than the two original factions they replace). Data Angels and Drones are really bad though.

Not this. They are the game's most powerful faction, thanks to supply crawlers and 'formered plateau solar collector energy farms.

Energy gives you research, fuels your probe teams and the like, and Morgan can rush buy like no other faction. Vel's guide is the gold standard.

I can't be bothered less. I played the game mostly in singe player mode (couldn't find people to play with back then), and AI Morganites were always underdogs in my games.
 

MetalCraze

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2007
Messages
21,104
Location
Urkanistan
PennyAnte said:
MetalCraze said:
gimmicks like psi-armour (really what's the point in it? If you'll use it it will only help you against worms but will make your units completely vulnerable to conventional attacks.
If you have a game that goes to end game you can stack some units with it on in cities and go nuts with orbitals and other mineral producing maneuvers and just let the land blow red and the worms come in piles. IIRC kitting out that way can help you worm farm too. Works great especially if you have gravships and don't need roads anymore. If you've really got it going on you can stack tons of formers in every city and clear and borehole back squares that get worm fungus, enough to harvest regular resources from them next turn.
Sounds fun but I always keep a high unit morale and a strong military force (as I mostly play either as The Hive or Spartans) and thus my units don't have much problem killing whatever mother nature throws at them.


Anyway, SMAC/X is the best Civ game, hands down.
That's very true.

heechee1 said:
AI Morganites were always underdogs in my games.

Hoho in one of my games Morganites were the most powerful faction due to how the game went and let me tell you - with their rush-the-unit economics they gave me as Spartans quite a chunk of problems. In the end I destroyed them though.

Of course The Hive are the biggest assholes in the game usually.
 

LazyD

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
700
Is it possible to get SMAC working on Windows 7..

I wanted to give it a go last week but couldn't figure out a fix.

It just crashes when i try to install. Shit sucks. Codex fix it!

Never played SMAX and barely any SMAC.. So KC it is.
 

Tails

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
1,674
LazyD said:
Is it possible to get SMAC working on Windows 7..

I wanted to give it a go last week but couldn't figure out a fix.

It just crashes when i try to install. Shit sucks. Codex fix it!

Never played SMAX and barely any SMAC.. So KC it is.
Get alternative CD/ISO, there could be something wrong with your copy. Then try this guide. If it won't work, there is no hope. From what I've read in the comments, SMAC works under Win7.
 

1eyedking

Erudite
Joined
Dec 10, 2007
Messages
3,591
Location
Argentina
The bad thing about SMAC is that it takes the fun out of re-imagining history, and the irony of watching a people grow from huts into office cubicles.
 

PennyAnte

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2004
Messages
769
Location
Here instead of playing an RPG.
heechee1 said:
AI Morganites were always underdogs in my games.
I think that's because the AI doesn't rush build or use supply crawlers and formers nearly as intelligently as humans do. Morgan's energy advantage, when marshaled properly, gives such a huge build time boost via rush building that it blows past any other faction with an industry advantage. AIs just aren't up to that sort of thing. I rarely played other people online, just mostly against the computer, and constantly trashed the AI with Morgan. Ultimately the game just got too easy.

That and I get really annoyed with the computer building cities with overlapping production tiles. There are very good reasons to do so, sometimes, strategically, but personally I like my civs cleaner and really wanted an option to turn the ability to overlap production tiles on or off. You can mod minimum build distances, but I tried that and it's not an adequate solution with a square tile map.
 

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