Civ 3 vs. Alpha Centauri
Alex Bache
The short answer: Alpha Centauri has more long-term staying power,
although you'll have some fun with Civ 3 for a while.
Why?
Because Civ 3 has been made easier and quicker to play, losing something
in the process.
For instance:
1) There's no real way to institute a population boom, so everyone's
cities grow at roughly the same rate. You can't do any clever
management to change this
2) Air units are now little more than fast moving artillery, knocking
out a significant amount of strategy in airborn warfare
3) Probe Teams/Spies units are not present. Espionage doesn't come
until much later, at which point you're either so far ahead you don't
need it, or so far behind you're getting pounded by enemy armies and
can't afford it (yes, it costs cash to steal technologies)
4) The combat system isn't as sophisticated as Alpha's i.e. only 5 hit
points max for a unit and no attack/defense bonus for veteran/elite
units, meaning little incentive to build barracks.
5) No unit designer (but since it's a historical game, it's sort of
necessary to have fixed units)
6) Production queue messed up in Civ - doesn't work as well as the Alpha
Centauri system
7) No rush building of Wonders of the World/Secret Projects, unless you
get a great leader (created occasionally from winning a battle)
8) Massive penalties for having a large empire - far flung cities are
practially useless due to corruption. Makes world domination a chore.
9) The supplied manual only talks in vague terms about many important
things i.e. combat bonuses.
So once you've gotten past the newness of it, what you have is basically
Alpha Centauri with large amounts of the gameplay elements removed. In
Civ's favour, there are a few things which I'd like nicked and put into
SMAC 2:
a) Armies - basically a land-based transport unit containing other
troops. Each unit attacks until almost destroyed, then the next unit
takes over the attack. Can be created as a result of an elite unit
winning a battle.
b) Military advisor screen allows you to upgrade units individually and
see their locations
c) Diplomacy allows you to exchange sets of things in one go
Other than that, Alpha wins hands down.
To be fair, I've not had Civ 3 all that long and have only completed a
couple of games in it, so there may be some things I'm missing.
Dreifels
news:3C344E84...@ntlworld.GOAWAYSPAMMERScom...
> Just some thoughts on which is best.
>
> The short answer: Alpha Centauri has more long-term staying power,
> although you'll have some fun with Civ 3 for a while.
>
> Why?
>
> Because Civ 3 has been made easier and quicker to play, losing something
> in the process.
Can't agree this argument. A agree that SMAC is *a lot* better and gives
much more fun than Civ3, but for other reasons.
Civ3 is very bad balanced and brutal cheating, and all those (like me) who
expected the "great Sid Maier's game" have to learn that this is a small
enhacement to Civ2 only, and this isn't made good, while SMAC had been a
really good game and give for long time lot of fun. Civ3 is frustrating as
long as you don't make a lot of difficult changes as the file format is not
so easy to use like in CIV2 or SMAC.
After all: Today I would buy SMAC and SMACX again for the ful lprice, but I
would not buy again Civ3 for the full price (unfortunately I had done that).
--
http://alpha-centauri-stuff.cjb.net/ by Dreifels in English and German
TheKingsJustice
>in the process.
>
Well, some of those things were intended features.
>1) There's no real way to institute a population boom
Because it contains run-away victories.
>2) Air units are now little more than fast moving artillery
Isn't that what a lot of us asked for? Isn't that what they are? In SMAC
first to D:AP goes on a rampage, not very much a strategy challenge. On a
positive note there Arty is not actually worth having.
>7) No rush building of Wonders of the World/Secret Projects
I guess this is to counterbalance the way human players exploit the warning
system of wonders, and to make going all money less effective.
>8) Massive penalties for having a large empire
Also contains run aways? Agreed it is a chore, just makes one anihilate
conquered cities. Other than that, agree!
Andrew R. Gillett
> 4) The combat system isn't as sophisticated as Alpha's i.e. only 5 hit
> points max for a unit and no attack/defense bonus for veteran/elite
> units, meaning little incentive to build barracks.
The bonus for elite/veteran units is having more hit points, which means
the unit is more likely to win battles. Another incentive to build
barracks is that you can only upgrade units in a city with a barracks.
--
Andrew Gillett http://argnet.fatal-design.com/ ICQ: See homepage
US videogame release dates at:
http://www.release-dates.com/
zeph
<alex....@ntlworld.GOAWAYSPAMMERScom> wrote:
> 1) There's no real way to institute a population boom, so everyone's
> cities grow at roughly the same rate. You can't do any clever
> management to change this
As I recall, this is considered a bug in SMAC by some. There was a
message posted to the Acol forum noting that PC users shouldn't get
into mp games with Mac users, since the popboom bug wasn't fixed in the
Mac version, giving those users an advantage.
Or perhaps I've misinterpreted something.
z
Alex Bache
I'd say population boom is an intended feature - it comes about from
having a +6 growth rate in a city (i.e. +4 social engineering, plus a
children's creche).
In Civ 3 there doesn't seem to be any way to manipulate population
growth other than irrigation and granaries. Which means you grow at the
same speed or slower than the AI.
Add to that the complete lack of possibilties for early conquest gains
due to crappy attack vs. defense ratios and the fact the computer
players seem to get much better initial starting locations than you and
you've got a game where you're pretty much destined to lose. At least
in Alpha you can take cities early on with Impact Rovers and there's the
mindworm problem to slow everyone down.
Alex.
Jon F. Zeigler
>due to crappy attack vs. defense ratios and the fact the computer
>players seem to get much better initial starting locations than you and
>you've got a game where you're pretty much destined to lose. At least
>in Alpha you can take cities early on with Impact Rovers and there's
>the mindworm problem to slow everyone down.
<* shrug *>. I've been having no problem with early conquests - if
anything, I'd say they're easier than in Civ II. If I may speak off-
topic for a moment:
My usual strategy involves making a beeline for The Wheel and
Ironworking, in that order, while building cities anywhere I can
(but especially near hilly or mountainous areas). If I have access
to horses and iron, I start building Barracks in every city, then
pumping out Swordsmen with the occasional Horseman. The
Persians are good at this stage since they have the Immortals
with attack strength 4 - use those instead of Swordsmen if you
can.
The trick to winning a war in Civ III is not to start it until you have
overwhelming force ready to move in on two or three target cities
at once. Veteran Swordsmen can usually beat Regular Spearmen,
even if the latter are fortified in a city. Veteran Immortals do even
better. 7-8 Veteran Swordsmen are usually enough to take any city
(4-5 Immortals will do too). Move in, take the city, put down any
resistance, then rush production to put in a Spearman and a Library
(the latter to avoid having the city defect back to its owner so easily).
Rushing production as a Despotism is also good because it helps
to kill off citizens not of your nationality, thus further reducing the
chance of losing the city to defection. Move your Swordsman or
Immortal army on to the next target as soon as you can, and keep
producing more units back at home to reinforce the front.
With a little planning, I can usually end up one of the two or three
largest civilizations by the time it becomes more important to switch
to Democracy and start racing for the spaceship launch.
I win fairly frequently on Monarch level. Although I have yet to
come anywhere close to a world-conquest victory - it's been all
diplomatic or spaceship victories so far.
----------
Jon F. Zeigler: Mathematician, amateur historian, science fiction fan,
freelance writer, occasional scribbler of bad poetry
JFZe...@aol.com
"Never speak for others. You can get in enough trouble speaking for yourself."
Erik Mooney
<alex....@ntlworld.GOAWAYSPAMMERScom> wrote:
>> As I recall, this is considered a bug in SMAC by some. There was a
>> message posted to the Acol forum noting that PC users shouldn't get
>> into mp games with Mac users, since the popboom bug wasn't fixed in the
>> Mac version, giving those users an advantage.
>>
>> Or perhaps I've misinterpreted something.
>
>I'd say population boom is an intended feature - it comes about from
>having a +6 growth rate in a city (i.e. +4 social engineering, plus a
>children's creche).
The bug is this: If you have +2 growth in Social Engineering, and have a
city with a Creche (+2 growth) and is in a Golden Age (+2 growth). This
combination SHOULD put that city into a pop-boom, but for some reason in
Windows SMAC 4.0 does not. In *Macintosh* SMAC, it does. Note that it
only really matters for the factions that cannot use +4 Growth SE
settings, which are Yang and Morgan.
In SMAX for both Windows and Mac, Golden Age pop-booming works properly.