Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Catastrophic lolcats]

I've always deemed the whole SMAX thing non-canon myself, I just try and pretend that it takes place with a different series of faction leaders when the captain was assassinated. It isn't exactly my favourite expansion ever released.

[Sharp]

http://www.firaxis.com/smac/assets/journey.rtf

Found it in RTF format!

[postal83]

Pseudo Necro - so I finally got around to playing this.  I can't believe I never played this before - where have you been all my life?

So I got it on GOG, and they just recently provided the expansion for free with the main game.

I really suck at strategy games.  I've restarted like 5 times now but I have fun each time doing it.  Any tips for early on (I've only played as the Gaians so far..)

[Twiggie]

supply crawlers are the most op mechanic in the game. rush for industrial automat(i)on to get them, and make a mine and a road on every rocky tile. then use a supply crawler on each mine to get 4 minerals/turn for no pop cost.

in the midgame remember to make foil and cruiser probe teams, they're awesome. and remember if you prototype an armoured former it will allow you to quickly make a decent defense force for those times you're caught off guard - a former with the best armour you can get with a sensor and on rocky ground can take an enemy several attacks to get through.

in the late(r) game you can repeat the supply crawler trick with energy and food, creating specialised food areas and specialised energy areas (foil crawlers on kelp is an easy way to do food, and use formers to raise an area to 3000ft+ and cover it with echelon mirrors and solar collectors for energy)

[IronyOwl]

supply crawlers are the most op mechanic in the game.

Mainly this, but also remember that you usually want to expand as early as you can afford without getting wormed (and in some cases, even if you do get wormed just not fatally). Inefficiency begins wearing you down later in the game, but until then, more bases means more of everything.

Also, once you get the techs for it, seaside bases can be incredibly useful. A coast tile with kelp and a tidal generator gives 3 food and 3 energy; the only downside being that only coastal tiles can be improved, so until you get raise/lower terrain techs you're stuck with a tile or two wide strip in most cases.

[beorn080]

Rush Weather Paradigm and industrial automation. Enjoy 6-7 minerals a turn per crawler. Just make sure every base has a pressure dome. Also, Weather Paradigm is BEST early/initial project, hands down. Early access to all terraforming at far faster speeds means that the second you get through the various limits on resource harvesting, all your base output skyrockets. I forget the math, but basically, if all terraforming takes 10 turns, and yours only takes 5 turns, you FAR more then double comparable output compared to the others.

[Felius]

Do try to get the Hunter Seeker Algorithm with all your strength. It's positively bloody awesome. A little less so with the Expansion, but even then, you'll be making a mockery out of your enemies' probe teams.

[Twiggie]

So for all you SMAC/X lovers, I'm going to be hosting a game.

Would be nice to get 7 people and maybe one or two backups to play for people who don't turn up.

[Soadreqm]

I just bought this a few days ago. Six bucks on gog.com, with Alien Crossfire included. I like how all the faction leaders feel like people.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Since when did gog start selling Alien Crossfire? Better late than never, I guess. The thing I dislike about Crossfire is that the new factions get too insane bonuses. Still, the few extra techs are neat and I usually replaced Miriam/Believers with one of the alien races. She's a tech challenged warmonger, so I might as well replace her with a more tech inclined alien conqueror.

The tech quotes really fleshed out the leader characters.

[aristabulus]

Since when did gog start selling Alien Crossfire? Better late than never, I guess.

They added it plus minus December, iirc.

CDP Red has to machete-swing through some crazy legal jungles to get some of the games available again...  That is often is trickier than it seems.

[Twiggie]

Hey guys, we have a pbem smac game going in PWYB, we need a sub for 2 weeks or so (University, currently 2115).

Drop a note in the thread if you're interested.

[Twiggie]

nobody wants to? :< its only less than a dozen turns you need to play, over two weeks...

i'd do it myself but i don't want to meta too much

[Sharp]

I thought the whole advantage of PBEM was you don't need subs...

can't you make the AI take over or something?

[Karlito]

That would be a nice feature, but no, we can't.