Do we have any SMAC players?

[Stofsk]

Man, what a little gem of a game. Anybody else still play this? I'm tired of Civ sequeals, when are we gonna see a sequeal for SMAC?

[SirNitram]

Unlikely to ever such again. Sad Martin.

I loved the game, but lack a copy. So hard to find.

[frigidmagi]

SMAC?

[B4UTRUST]

Sid Meier's Alpha Centari

[Josh]

Ironic. I just dug out my copy and started playing it again last Saturday.

Fucking suck it down, Manifold Caretakers.

Oh, I do so love melting the polar icecaps over and over...

[Stofsk]

New question: Who are your favourite factions, what are your favourite tactics/strategies...

Unlikely to ever such again. Sad Martin.

I loved the game, but lack a copy. So hard to find.

I was lucky to find one in a 'Gametraders' store. The expansion pack, no luck there unfortunately.

I'm actually a bit annoyed with the expansion to be honest, they add 7 new factions (although I would have lost the two alien ones) but you can only have 7 factions play at any one time. This is frankly absurd, given the size of something like 'Huge Map of Planet' which can easily fit 12 factions.

[SirNitram]

New question: Who are your favourite factions, what are your favourite tactics/strategies...

Zak for the original. Only played the demo of the expansion, but I liked the pirates. PIRATES!

[Josh]

Favorite original faction was the University, because I love kicking the crap out of the primitive aborigines who oppose me. Followed up by the Morganites because ENERGY IS POWER. For the expansion, the Pirates are cool, the Drones give mucho productivity, and the Cyborgs are tech techy.

Least favorite- Oh, easy. The Believers. The Gaians. The motherfucking Hive. All of them royal pains in my free-marketing, wealth or knowledging democratizing ass.

Strategies are pretty much the same as I do most games- build massive infrastructure, push ahead technologically, then crush my foes with both superior numbers and superior weaponry. Or, if facing the Hive, just the superior weaponry.

In more specific form, I totally love the potential that formers and other ecology units bring to the game. Need to cross the sea and attack your foe? Build a land bridge. Need to cut off an invasion channel? Drop it into the ocean. If I start out on a smallish island, I'll often build pressure domes and simply start ramming votes through to melt the ice caps until the entire world is mostly ocean, then send out cruisers to rape the surviving enemy cities.

Late game, I love working a fungal missile/drop troop strategy. If you have the Xenoempathy Dome, send some cruisers armed with fungal warheads to plaster the ever-living shit out of enemy territory. Sit back for a turn or two to let the mind worm eruptions hammer enemy defenses, then drop troops in to take the battered and depleted cities, using the massive mobility advantage you get to isolate and destroy the forces they have mired in the fungus.

Yeah baby. Now I wanna play some more.

[Stofsk]

Favorite original faction was the University, because I love kicking the crap out of the primitive aborigines who oppose me. Followed up by the Morganites because ENERGY IS POWER. For the expansion, the Pirates are cool, the Drones give mucho productivity, and the Cyborgs are tech techy.

Both Morgan and Zak are termed 'builder' factions.

Least favorite- Oh, easy. The Believers. The Gaians. The motherfucking Hive. All of them royal pains in my free-marketing, wealth or knowledging democratizing ass.

Believers and Hivers are 'momentum' factions. They go around and conquer, building up their infrastructure is difficult. There is a clear emphasis on being belligerent.

Gaians are your least favourite? They can't have Free Market, this is true, but they can still take Democracy and Knowledge or Wealth. They're also somewhat more flexible than Zak or Morgan are, being 'hybrids' between builder and momentum style playing.

In more specific form, I totally love the potential that formers and other ecology units bring to the game. Need to cross the sea and attack your foe? Build a land bridge. Need to cut off an invasion channel? Drop it into the ocean. If I start out on a smallish island, I'll often build pressure domes and simply start ramming votes through to melt the ice caps until the entire world is mostly ocean, then send out cruisers to rape the surviving enemy cities.

Cheese!

I actually never really liked that whole 'raise/lower sea level' ability Formers have, although I can understand that this is sci-fi, so crazy shit is to be expected.

Late game, I love working a fungal missile/drop troop strategy. If you have the Xenoempathy Dome, send some cruisers armed with fungal warheads to plaster the ever-living shit out of enemy territory. Sit back for a turn or two to let the mind worm eruptions hammer enemy defenses, then drop troops in to take the battered and depleted cities, using the massive mobility advantage you get to isolate and destroy the forces they have mired in the fungus.

Interesting.

How much planning goes into a game? How much mircomanagement do you do?

Yeah baby. Now I wanna play some more.

Excellent. My work here is done.

[Josh]

Gaians are your least favourite? They can't have Free Market, this is true, but they can still take Democracy and Knowledge or Wealth. They're also somewhat more flexible than Zak or Morgan are, being 'hybrids' between builder and momentum style playing.

Believers are obnoxious, but they also tend to get knocked out early because they piss everyone off, like the Spartans tend to do as well. The Hive has more staying power, but they also tend to be floored by all the wars they start.

But the Gaians? I'll be cruising along happily, and then that bitch Deidre will come along and be all like 'You're hurting PWANET, you big meanie!' and then throw fucking waves of worms and lurks and isle at me. She's usually my big late-game foe.

Cheese!

I actually never really liked that whole 'raise/lower sea level' ability Formers have, although I can understand that this is sci-fi, so crazy shit is to be expected.

Raising is problematic, but lowering the ground is pretty easy with sufficient application of energy...

Interesting.

How much planning goes into a game? How much mircomanagement do you do?

I tend to micro my cities until I've got a vast late-game empire where the newly-conquered cities aren't going to be efficient for my war machine anyway. As for planning, I decide about fifty turns in based on geography and opposition on one victory type as my primary goal, with another as my secondary. I do a lot of planning around potential opposition, building strong garrisons to hold the line, but I generally maintain very little in the way of aggressor forces until a war comes along.

[Stofsk]

Gaians are your least favourite? They can't have Free Market, this is true, but they can still take Democracy and Knowledge or Wealth. They're also somewhat more flexible than Zak or Morgan are, being 'hybrids' between builder and momentum style playing.

Believers are obnoxious, but they also tend to get knocked out early because they piss everyone off, like the Spartans tend to do as well. The Hive has more staying power, but they also tend to be floored by all the wars they start.

But the Gaians? I'll be cruising along happily, and then that bitch Deidre will come along and be all like 'You're hurting PWANET, you big meanie!' and then throw fucking waves of worms and lurks and isle at me. She's usually my big late-game foe.

Have you ever played as Deidre?

Interesting.

How much planning goes into a game? How much mircomanagement do you do?

I tend to micro my cities until I've got a vast late-game empire where the newly-conquered cities aren't going to be efficient for my war machine anyway. As for planning, I decide about fifty turns in based on geography and opposition on one victory type as my primary goal, with another as my secondary. I do a lot of planning around potential opposition, building strong garrisons to hold the line, but I generally maintain very little in the way of aggressor forces until a war comes along.

From memory, aren't the victory conditions "Conquer everybody" or "Get elected SUPREME RULER OF THE WORLD"? I never do that ascend to godhood victory condition. Honestly, I find it to be insanely stupid and it's in GalCiv too. (Moo3 had the technological victory down right, in my opinion)

[Josh]

Oh yes. Playing as Deidre is wicked cool. Don't bother building an army beyond basic garrison, just capture capture capture until you have huge masses of worms and isles.

The victory options are Conquest, Ascend, Election, and Corner the Energy Market. Cornering the Energy Market is a bitch, and I've usually got better things to spend money on, like Genejack Factories and Punishment Spheres (Actually, I don't use those due to the nasty effect on research and public contentment, but you get my point.)

I like the tech victory in the game, because it's not just 'Hi, we suddenly turn into energy beings.' but rather a protracted process of working with Planet and saving the human race from being wiped out by the next growthdream.

[Stofsk]

I forgot about the economic victory. I don't know what 'corner the energy market' means, though.

EDIT: Rereading the manual and my strat guide, I learnt that Morgan can use Green economics. Funny, I thought that was the one he couldn't do, but then it occured to me to a ultra-capitalist, socialist-style 'planned' economics is worse than tree-hugging efficiency. There's no reason why you can't be rich AND be nice to the environment, or at least clean up after yourself vis a vis pollution.

[Josh]

Yup. I usually resort to greenie-ism when my boreholes start blowing up.

Oh, you want uber-cheese? If you take the entire big continent in the stock game, put supply crawlers on the sunny mesa thingy, all tied to one city. UBER fucking energy.

[Stofsk]

That's another question I wanted to ask: do you play on the Map of Planet or do you play random maps, and if the latter what criteria do you select?

I sometimes wonder what a game would be like if I selected 'arid, low oceans, abundant life forms'.

[Josh]

I often play with the map of Planet. When I do go random, though, I just hit huge map and don't mess with any of the other settings.