"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
– Comissioner Pravin Lal, "U.N. Declaration of Rights"
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Like 3 factions with "muh information flow" as their guiding principle, shitty game except the Hive which is actually based because its a spiritual faction, they live as bugmen because they know its not the real life.
Lal's shtick is larping as an old earth faction, and pretending that UN matters still. He isn't about information flow, he's about muh human rights an sheet.
>"muh democracy"
>chink dude's faction population numbers grow at the speed of light
It is called the human hive for a reason.
Yang embraces his bugman nature
>Get in the fricking tank
Because he clones them in vats.
I will never get over lal nerve gassing my people in the first game I ever played.
That's why you gotta build planet busters. To teach them a fricking lesson.
The new Ass Creed protagonist looks rad
inb4 jannie'd
"Man's unfailing capacity to believe what he prefers to be true rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible has always astounded me. We long for a caring Universe which will save us from our childish mistakes, and in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary we will pin all our hopes on the slimmest of doubts. God has not been proven not to exist, therefore he must exist."
-Academician Prokhor Zakharov
Zakharov literally did nothing wrong.
>fricking SHITstians, God. Not. Real. Get over it.
>now let me do some unethical experiments on the general populace and if anyone complains I'll nerve-staple him lmao
That sounds a lot like "please throw throw my body into the singularity inductor to power the nation with my soul" talk anon.
"Imagine the entire contents of the planetary datalinks, the sum total of human knowledge, blasted into the Planetmind's fragile neural network with the full force of every reactor on the planet. That is our last-ditch attempt to win humanity a reprieve from extinction at the hands of an awakened alien god."
- Academician Prokhor Zakharov, "Planet Speaks"
Why would you inject the sum of all human knowledge into Planet? Why knowledge? Why not porn or wojaks or schizo ramblings?
The sum of all knowledge is also the sum of all knowledge on Basedjaks.
The entire contents of the planetary datalinks were pumped into the virginal mind of the planet, that included porn, wojaks, and schizo ramblings as well.
i think that is the point yes, he is supposed to be an extremist
>starts losing his shit when he wakes up an alien god with his autism
>guy who is most outspoken about not believing in God is morally dubious at best, and outright evil at worst
Lol?
Prokhor Zakharov? More like Pro prostitute Suck him off, amirite? I am talking about Deirdre of course.
Shitposters love this quote because they can pretend to talk about the game when in reality it's just an excuse to talk shit about America (again)
Imagine being so moronic you think it's not a correct take on all governments.
All of them have classified shit which is something you are the one with the most right to know because you are their bosses and decide what they do, not the other way around.
If you can't know it they shouldn't be doing it.
Whoms't? Sorry I don't pay attention to ecelebs. Also how is this vidya?
“As the writhing, teeming mass of Mind Worms swarmed over the outer perimeter, we saw the defenders recoil in horror. ‘Stay calm! Use your flame guns!’ shouted the commander, but to no avail. It is well known that the Mind Worm Boil uses psychic terror to paralyze its prey, and then carefully implants ravenous larvae in the brains of its still-conscious victims. Even with the best weapons, only the most disciplined troops can resist this horrific attack.”
— Lady Deirdre Skye, “Our Secret War”
"We are no longer particularly in the business of writing software to perform specific tasks. We now teach the software how to learn, and in the primary bonding process it molds itself around the task to be completed. The feedback loop never really ends, so a tenth-year polysentience can be either a priceless israeliteel or a psychotic wreck, but it is in the primary bonding. the 'chiildhood' if you will, that has the most far-reaching repurcussions."
-Bad'l Ron, Wakener
Morgan Polysoft
Why were the secret project videos so creepy?
"You ivory tower intellectuals must not lose touch with the world of industrial growth and hard currency. It is all very well and good to pursue these high-minded scientific theories, but research grants are expensive and you must justify your existence by providing not only knowledge, but concrete and profitable applications as well."
-CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Ethics of Greed"
Some would ask, how could a perfect God create a universe filled with so much that is evil. They have missed a greater conundrum: why would a perfect God create a universe at all?
For fun.
Why would God even need to exist for the universe to exist?
Because it is impossible for the universe to exist without a creator
>b-b-but muh Bingo Bango
Says who and by what authority?
greetings
“Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden. He drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”
-The Conclave Bible, Datalinks
>bureacrat
God I have Lal, he's easily on the shit list
>you WILL give me your research for free! UN said so!
>you WILL have democracy! UN said so!
>if you don't do any of these things, I will declare war on you, shit benchod frick!
It is fortunate that he disappears quickly, even before anyone gets Fusion Power.
"As the Amerimutts learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of third world imigrants is the only safeguard against communism. The once-chained corporations whose clients at last lose their grip on iq above 90 will soon burst with money, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into Covid-19 pandemic. Beware of he who would deny you access to Black folk, for in his heart he deems himself a fricking europoor."
– Comissioner bill gates, "U.N. Declaration of fema"
Ahmed has screamed about Americans from the beginning of time, and each new website has brought new ways and new imageboards to shitpost in. Why should the future be different?
~ Imam Mahmulla Yusuf
"Europistan: An immigrant's guide"
Alpha Centauri is a perfect example of how just good voice acting and writing can elevate a game far more than mere aesthetics might.
Even after I've been crippled by early-onset dementia from my dopamine overloaded zoomie brain, I can and WILL recite these lines from memory down to the intonation.
Guess it's time for my yearly reread of all the quotes from this game
What does a sequel need?
Better user interface.
Ability to have more than just 7 players in a match.
Those are absolute must haves for a sequel/remaster imo.
Other than that, you could have further elaboration on the social engineering stuff, unit design stuff and maybe even have the ability to engineer biology of the planet as well after some tech unlocks.
Oh yeah, kind of makes me want open Alpha Centauri, 7 factions really is too little, especialyl with how big the maps can get.
>higher turn limit
That's another one.
Yeah, bigger maps, and longer turn limits would also be necessary additions.
It's funny because that would be all fixable with just open Alpha Centauri, shame nobody ever made it. OpenCiv sucks ass.
https://github.com/afwbkbc/glsmac/wiki/Screenshots
Spoke too soon, someone already did something, but it's nowhere near finished, still quite a dream, going to rip off the source code and make the sequel it deserves if this ever gets finished.
Also the plan for this which I don't think will ever get a full release basically fixes the stuff talked about in this thread.
>512 x 512 world map without chugging
>can have every faction from base and crossfire in the same game
>remove the time limit so you can have them stretching across thousands of years
More unique text based on what faction you are.
Lal should not be talking to Morgan the same way they'd talk to Yang. Santiago asking for peace should not sound the same as Deidre asking for peace.
Better multiplayer support. Holy shit the forced auto-"upgrade" of units was a pain in the ass.
do people really play turn based 4x games in multiplayer? how?
>My name is Jebuiz Y'har.
Childhood is mocking Miriam.
Adulthood is realizing she's one of the most sane leaders.
>The righteous need not cower before the drumbeat of human progress. Though the song of yesterday fades into the challenge of tomorrow, God still watches and judges us. Evil lurks in the datalinks as it lurked in the streets of yesteryear. But it was never the streets that were evil.
She can still absolutely go frick herself in gameplay, though.
She's a deranged lunatic that stays that way but everyone else becomes so deranged that she starts sounding more and more sane in comparison.
All of the leaders in smac have their reasonable side, besides maybe Yang. Yang is just fricking deranged bugman imo.
Nah, she's your average christcuck bible thumper.
Yes, they're the most sane people in an insane world this one
>NO SHELLFISH AND SHOES ARE FORBIDDEN TOO
No, they're just as insane, they just like to pretend their shit doesn't stink.
"You are orphans, earthDeirdre, your homeworld already buried, so young among the aeons. Yet, now you fill the skies where we watched a million sunsets with flame and contrails, paying no heed to the hard lessons the universe has tried to teach you. Are you a breath of life to invigorate a complacent world, you earthHumans, or an insidious cancer which must be excised?"
- Lady Deirdre Skye, "Conversations with Planet"
"Those who join us need give up only half of their humanity--the illogical, ill-tempered, and disordered half, commonly thought of as 'right-brain' functioning. In exchange, the 'left-brain' capacities are increased to undreamed potential. The tendency of Biologicals to cling instead to their individual personalities can only be attributed to archaic evolutionary tendencies."
~ Prime Function Aki Zeta-5 on Convergence
>expansion factions
nope lol
If I were to remaster the game or make a sequel for it, one change I'd make for it is enabling the expansion factions to emerge from the original factions trough drone riots that go on for too far or something. Essentially making it so that colonies can rebel against their founder faction and defect, creating a splinter faction in the process.
I really liked the Free Drones. They fill out a niche that isn't taken by anyone else, in gameplay or setting. There's only one other faction that gets a bonus to industry, +1 for Hive, and Drones gets +2, making them more focused on that. And no other faction deals with workers and production, other than Hive, but I think Drones manage to be different enough in gameplay and fluff to stand on their own.
Aliens are crap.
Cult of Planet is just Gaia version 2.
Cybernetic Consciousness is just University version 2.
Pirates are dumb.
The Date Angels could work fine as some AI controlled smaller faction with one city. It's just a weird idea for an entire faction. It doesn't fit them to wage war and build an empire.
I think that the idea with the aliens is pretty interesting, the implementation of them was however kinda off. They should have been way more different from the human factions gameplay wise.
The cult of the planet, pirates, data angels, free drones and pirates all work better as sort of rebel/splinter factions of the original starting factions. You could even come up with more splinter/rebel factions that don't necessarily have as strong or cohesive ideological niche, but are more clearly just rebels/cast offs from the big 7 og factions. I really feel that a sort of colony loyalty system would be a welcome addition to any would be sequel of the game.
The expansion factions definitely work better as NPC factions, like city states.
Maybe by working with them or subjugating them you could gain access to resources and secret technologies you couldn't otherwise get on your own.
>Disadvantages: Odious Personal Habit (Poor grooming) [-5].
Imagine the smell
Probe teams are fricking bullshit op after you get a few upgrades on them trough secret projects.
>lmao let me pirate this colony for few hundred energy credits
Hunter-Seeker Algorithm, homie
One of the upgrades you have to get is hunter seeker algorythm yourself. That way your enemies can't get it and you can go ham with the probes
Is this the most dull faction?
I get that a combat-oriented faction is an obvious choice but she just feels like she's lacking much personality and interesting traits. The other factions have their own views on how to build a society but the spartans don't really comment much on that - it's mostly about warfare.
How could the faction have been done better? Throw some eugenics into the faction to mirror the old spartans? Make them focused on improving the human body with whatever means is available? They need something interesting to say when discussing their place on Planet, other than "rrragh, might makes right!"
There is some eugenics stuff in her quotes but yeah, it could have been more pronounced overall in that faction.
>“Body am I, and soul” – thus speaks the child. And why should one not speak like children? But the awakened and knowing say: body am I entirely, and nothing else; and soul is only a word for something about the body. The body is a great reason, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a herd and a shepherd. An instrument of your body is also your little reason, my brother, which you call “spirit”- a little instrument and toy of your great reason. “I,” you say, and are proud of the word. But greater is that in which you do not wish to have faith-your body and its great reason: that does not say “I,” but does “I.” (Nietzsche, 1982, p.146)
There's plenty of irl philosophy they could've drawn on in that direction 2bh
They are about self-sufficiency, discipline and martial pride. If it was intentional to make them dull, it kind of worked.
They get a bit more fleshed out in the novel (actual eugenics, as in weak children get euthanized because Spartans can't afford to support anyone who doesn't carry their weight, but they also send combat instructors to allied factions).
>children get euthanized
Considering Santiago's on the flavor text for the Children's Creche, that's kind of weird.
It kind of fits since (Spartan) children's creches are all about the state taking away your children under their care.
IIRC, Santiago has a weakling son and tries desperately to call off his execution, with her followers pointing out the irony.
Is it even possible to play the game against the AI where diplomacy is a thing and everyone doesn't instantly just start murdering each other? All the games I've played have ended up most of the starting factions being gobbled up by two or three factions that then just ravenously expand across the planet and end up decimating each other in a global war.
In my last game I landed on my own on one of the continents (the one with the ruins at the top of it) as university, and had basically no war until the end game. The other factions tho, were eaten up by Spartans (who offed Miriam and Deidre) and fricking Lal of all people (who gobbled up Morgan and Yang), and the only way I kept those two blood thirsty Black folk off my hide for a while was agreeing to lend them money and tech.
Eventually Spartans just declared vendetta on me anyways, which was a fricking mistake on their part because I was able to ramp up the production of far, far superior military forces very quickly and launched a successful invasion of their continent.
When Lal eventually launched a surprise attack on me I just fricking nuked half of his continent with planet busters because lmao frick it at that point, who's gonna care, I'm at war with everyone left anyways.
I find when playing as Yang, I inevitably end up at war with everyone due to my faction's preferred Social Engineering. I suppose that's the point of the game, that everyone's taken their idealized society to such an extreme that the conflicts with their peers quickly become irreconcilable.
Yeah, I guess the conflict is kinda the point, I just find it rather annoying that war seems to be the only way the game ends up resolving those conflicts.
That is something a remake/sequel could also address, as in more elaborate diplomatic system, that could perhaps offer another means of solving the conflicts besides just wars of total conquest.
How did they miss the point so bad? Everyone has always said that one of the best things about SMAC was the leaders, their personalities and their uniqueness.
And then they make this fricking game and fill it with leaders that are all incredibly bland and factions that fail to stand out. How many leaders can you remember from this game right now? What was their faction good at?
I get that good writing isn't easy to do, but just something as simple as having each leader say their own quotes was dropped.
And yes, the devs might need a different approach since the player can choose the path of the faction during play. But that could easily work with the leaders if they just thought about it. Like, let's say it was Morgan from SMAC who was in the game. If he followed purity, he could talk about how humans are great as they are and it's all about making a new market on this planet. Supremacy = we can improve our customers and leave them hungry for new upgrades. New tech has always been an important part of making money. Harmony = new places require new thinking. We need to adapt to the market and see the new opportunities presented to us instead of clinging to the old way of doing business. Let's not fight the planet and hurt sales, let's coexist and make money from gene enhancements.
... ok, they weren't great examples, but it's possible to make a faction with an identity and still have it pick one of the paths in the game. It was such a disappointment.
Beyond Earth simply wasn't ambitious enough. Alpha Centauri set out from the oneset to make the game about ideological shit like ecology, transhumanism, and how societies might be ordered in the future, whereas BE is just surface level about all of that.
Even the whole "path" shit in Beyond Earth boiled down to what skin you liked for your units, the "unit designer" in it was a shitty perk choice system lifted straight from the later Civ games. In general the game felt like a total conversion Civ mod, rather than something with it's own identity.
That whole game is an enigma of bad, I don't think theres a single thing it does better than Alpha Centauri.
>I don't think theres a single thing it does better than Alpha Centauri.
political correctness and softness
>it's possible in todays crazy world that they could conceptually make a game worse than beyond earth
I want to see it, just to see how bad things can get.
>I don't think theres a single thing it does better than Alpha Centauri.
I liked the mini-quests that popped up. SMAC did have some story bits pop up from time to time whenever you did a certain something and it would have been cool to get more of those from quests.
The expansion also added some extra stuff for the explorers to do, which was nice.
Both were good ways of examining the planet and setting. It's just a shame they didn't do much with it. But I would have liked to see both in SMAC.
The mini quests in BE could have been interesting had the biosphere of the planet been actually intriguing and worth flavor text and lore. As it is, the alien planet in BE is extremely generic and soulless.
Defiantly. The entire game is just one missed opportunity after another.
Yeah. I do wonder if there is ever going to be a true sequel to Alpha Centauri.
>Oh man a wonder called the Human Hive? The quote for this one should be go-
"The goal of the Chief should be to align the personal with the larger political, economic, and organizational goals. What's good for the organization's always what's best for the individual." - Suzanne Marjorie Fielding, Transplanetary Management, Methods, and Resources
>How many leaders can you remember from this game right now?
The BR. Well, his general appearance.
>What was their faction good at?
Uh.
The Beyond Earth devs simply didn't have the guts to go the dark places that Alpha Centauri does.
Yeah. The implications of tech like genejacks or fricking nerve staplers, let alone the more fricked up late game tech are politically too incorrect for modern day devs
I appreciate that even nearly 30 years later, people on a basket weaving forum still regularly get together to talk about this game. Truly SMAC is something special.
It easily is the best written strategy game ever made
>I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice.
GET OF MY LAND YOU PEACE KEEPING SON OF A-
BARAKA is as kino as it gets.
pretty ironic hes from U.N and game makes fun of that entire time
he has by far the worst leader voice in the game, guy doesnt sound anything like the guy on this picture.
So what happened to Believers after they crossed psi gate?
They met their maker.
Where is this stuff about believers killing themselves trough psi gates from?
>Go through, my children! The time of miracles is upon us. Let us cast off sin and walk together to the Garden of the Lord. With God's mercy we shall meet again on the other side.
>Sister Miriam Godwinson,
>"Last Testament"
This pops up when you first construct it
I somehow missed that. Or maybe another faction built psi gates before me.
Would you rather fight against worms or Yang psi bullshit?
Worms.
Maybe, just maybe, I can get myself a pet worm.
Being an ESL. The dialogue in this game is really confusing
>It is not uncommon to see patients undergo permanent psychological trauma in the presence of the Sphere, before the nerve stapler has even been strapped into position. Its effect on the general consciousness of the culture is profound: husbands have seen wives go inside, and mothers their children. Dr. Xynan left the surface of the sphere semitranslucent for a reason. You can hear them in there; you can see them. It is a thing of terrible beauty.
>Baron Klim, "The Music of the Spheres"
If my calculations are correct, you should be receiving this transmission in the year 2023 AD. It amuses me that you used to calculate your dates in relation to the life of an ancient man. You see, we have a slightly different timescale. But to make things simple, I am writing from the year 49,170 AD.
Why is SMAC getting regular threads recently? What happenef? Remake or something?
Probably some homosexual e-celeb made a video on it so it's the new FotM for a bunch of zoomers.
I've been posting in threads for so long on how good it is and how quotable it is.. And all it tooknwas some homosexual yutuber....
A thread few days ago here prompted me to play it again after over a decade of not touching it, which in turn made me make a thread on it on my own today.
Which faction would you prefer to live with?
Let's see what the GURPS RPG has to say...
The formatting of these is atrocious
Please don't go.
The drones need you.
They look up to you.
TURN COMPLETE
PRODUCTION COMPLETE
RESOURCE SHORTFALL
DRONE RIOTS
I N D I G E N O U S L I F E F O R M S
>Hurr mind rape
Why not just make mr combat robotos n rely on them?
Will we next create false gods to rule over us? How proud we have become, and how blind.
I loved how the gay ass
>le war is….le good, conflict is what makes us human we will always fight
Faction gets utterly annihilated mentally and physically, in an excruciating way by hippies and their pet worms.
>NO NOT LIKE THAT
So how clunky is this ancient game? This all sounds kino, but is does playing it inflicts physical pain on anyone born after 2000?
The biggest hurdle in playing SMAC is learning the user interface and hotkeys. Also you move units by dragging your cursor across the map while holding it down, instead of pointing and clicking. It is kinda weird but you get used to it.
You can also move units with the numpad (and it's probably easier to do so than click-dragging)
I won't lie - I absolutely love atmosphere (and to some aspect - gameplay as well but I'm more into Civ IV style) but cannot play this game for too long as I'm genuinely scared by it. I would call it "4x sci-fi horror game". Nothing compares to the overall feeling this game is overloaded with. Beyond Earth was kinda fun but cannot compare even slightest.
Unlike most other 4x-games, where the map ultimately always ends up conquered and "tamed" eventually, that never really happens in Alpha Centauri. The planet keeps evolving and changing trough the course of the game, and the fungus keeps growing and blowing up your shit, while mindworm boils just grow in size and continue to threaten your shit even at the end game. It keeps the early game oppressive atmosphere all the way to the end.
Even by the late game, when you have strong units and shit, the introduction of planet busters makes war a harrowing prospect because you know that you might be in the receiving end of those weapons if you frick up.
"I don't know but I've been told
(I don't know but I been told)
Deirdre's got a Network Node
(Deirdre's got a Network Node)
Likes to press the on-off switch
(Likes to press the on-off switch)
Dig that crazy Gaian witch!
(Dig that crazy Gaian witch!)"
– Spartan! Barracks! March!, "Yes sir!"
What's your favorite quote?
I love this one.
>Richard Baxton piloted his Recon Rover into a fungal vortex and held off four waves of mind worms, saving an entire colony. We immediately purchased his identity manifests and repackaged him into the Recon Rover Rick character with a multi-tiered media campaign: televids, touchbooks, holos, psi-tours-- the works. People need heroes. They don't need to know how he died clawing his eyes out, screaming for mercy. The real story would just hurt sales, and dampen the spirits of our customers.
>Morgan Stellartots Keynote Speech, "Mythology for Profit"
Just the fact that it's not from his diary or similar but from a keynote speech is hilarious and dark.
That's what's so great about this game - it's all gritty and so fricking real. Would you really be surprised if some real world corpo pulled same shit on actual modern soldiers? I even saw "Ghost of Kiev" plastic model on sale lately. Its happening even now - selling real people life in "accessible" form for profit.
>Would you really be surprised if some real world corpo pulled same shit on actual modern soldiers?
They don't?
Anyway, it's the black hyper-capitalism man faction that doesn that? I feel like I'm gonna get baited into playing this game by all the cool sci-fi shit, and then persih trying to get used to old ass controls
The old control scheme isn't unavigable, it is just kinda clunky, with commands typically being just hidden under sub menus.
For example, if you want to make a terraformer to dig a mine, you must click it to activate it, then drag the mouse where you want the former to go, then left click on it to open a menu, and then open the terraform menu under that menu, where you will then find the build a mine command.
Or, you can skip the menu rumble by just pressing M.
Most commands like that can be just shorthanded to keybinds. For example building a road to a place is cntrl+r command.
The way the mindworm attacks is described by one of the secret projects is harrowing as frick. The whole "our secret war" entry series really makes me hate the Gaians.
Would you?
>reposting the same thread
frick off
SMAC deserve daily threads, you uncultured swine.