I know I'll never get a true SMAC remake but is Civ Beyond Earth + expansion decent?
It doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough.
Or I may just replay SMAC but I don't think it will work very well on Win10.
Is Beyond Eart a "good enough" SMAC?
I know I'll never get a true SMAC remake but is Civ Beyond Earth + expansion decent?
It doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough.
Or I may just replay SMAC but I don't think it will work very well on Win10.
before the expansion it was passable, not bad not good. They tried to rework diplomacy by the time of the expansion and let me tell you, it's a giant mess. EVERY SINGLE TURN the ai will try to do some random stupid agreement to get favors. Best part? There's no way to fix. Also, favors are useless, i was just hitting ok so they stop bothering me and let me do my turn.
>tfw you're a turbo autist rock monster with almost no common ground with squishy meat creatures infesting the galaxy and the only available diplomacy options to deal with you or other factions is declaring war, or not declaring war
I wish more games had silicoid-type homies.
you forgot the best part, the AI won't shut the frick up with the compliments every single fricking turn
its very shallow and you will probably get bored halfway through a run
SMAC works fine on Win10 if you're using the GoG release. If you're running the retail version, check PC gaming wiki for some patches first.
Literally all you need is switching color display and it runs out of the original box
No, it's a really bad game. It's like SMAC with it's vital energies drained by a succubus. The factions are totally boring and characterless, and none of the advancements are exciting to unlock. They tried to desperately breathe life into it with the expansion, but it made it worse than ever.
>is Civ Beyond Earth + expansion decent?
No, it's really not.
It's ultimately a fancy civ 5 mod.
If you want civ 5 on a weird alien world, it might keep you occupied for a few hours. If you want SMAC, this just isn't it.
some people that talk relatively "favorable" about the game agree that, despite being nothing more than a glorified paid Civ 5 mod, it had some potential. However Firaxis went full moron and didn't knew what the hell to do and just gave up on and went to work on Civ 6.
this... Game had lots of potential just like civ 5 that was literal trash on release and got progressively better with each new dlc. Civ 6 is so bland that eeerrrwww...
It really needed that "Brave New World" expansion but it never got it.
>firaxis markets game as a sort of "survival" thing where your actions against the native creatures have repurcussions
>one of the earliest techs just gives you a civ great wall wonder so you can ignore this entire mechanic.
I don't buy the alien (barbarians) actually being more aggressive if you act aggressively but after I realized how out of wack in relative power many techs and buildings/projects were I kind of lost interest. The game could have felt like something greater than civ had they played up the taming a wild planet angle, but from the earliest parts of the game they just give you things to ignore it and turn it into civ with a different coat of paint. I guess there are the giant not sandworms but being able to ignore everything else they're just kind of an annoyance.
smac is overrated, be is rightfully hated.
Let's put it this way:
There is a Civ4 SMAC mod that's better "modern SMAC" despite all the various limitations of both 4 and being a mod than BE, an actual "we are really not making the remake" official SMAC remake.
I mean just consider that Firaxis themselves keep reminding people that this is NOT SMAC remake or remaster, and shouldn't be compared, because they knew they've got a turd on their hands
SMAC is overrated on the whole "muh philisophical depth", especially by zoomers. But gameplay-wise, I don't think there is any other 4X I've played so much. Maybe Civ 2 comes close, but SMAC is something I boot up at least once per month for past 23 years
SMAX is the superior choice, don't even ask.
There are some mods that got released along Civ 4 that are better than Beyond Earth as well.
I remember buying Pandora: First Contact on the premise that it was going to be an updated SMAC. Same developer is trying for the SMAC magic again with Zephon.
The problem is no modern developer understands SMAC because they all have political brainworms. If anything, this ironically proves SMAC's ultimate point that ideology is the nationality of the future.
The setting is entirely different though. In SMAC you had one ship that suffered a catastrophic accident and in BE each group launched their own ship. In the former everyone is going to divide along ideological lines while in the latter the national (corporate) identity remains and the ideological difference comes in how you interact with the planet when you get there.
You could easily have a scenario that would result in the same situation:
>on Earth, various corporations and political non-state actors launch colony missions, partially subsidized but not controlled by host nations
>this results in the Mormons sending their colony ship, the UN guys sending their ship, the libertarian survivalists sending their ship, etc
or alternatively
>the colony ship lands, but there are immediate political disputes that lead to civil war
>political brainworms
>Nwabudike was based on the devs being optimistic about African capitalist development
>an idea that did not age well since 1999
He wasn't just that though. He was a parody of Bill Gates as well.
SMAC is certainly full of politics circa 1990, but nowadays you'd just have a parody of Elon Musk or Trump with no depth beyond that.
The "end of history" has passed. Western liberal smugness has been replaced with western liberal anxiety. Maybe a Russian or Chinese dev will make you a speculative future political sim strategy game. They understand politics, at least.
I've read Remembrance of Earth's Past. I don't think the Chinese speculative future is on the mark either.
Yeah, probably. The amount of hyperborea-tier fiction coming out of China is... fricking weird.
call me a hohol but moskals aren't going to be the #1 choice when their 2 week operation is nearing a 2 year one
go leave anon
Lose the battle win the war as usual for the Russians
>their 2 week operation
Did they say it was gonna take 2 weeks? Or is it just counter-propaganda by ~~*the west*~~?
>Russia understands politics
Haha, wut. They have the finesse of a sledgehammer. About all they are good for is lying.
Also the CCP doesn't allow thought in their glorious nation.
>Maybe a Russian or Chinese dev will make you a speculative future political sim strategy game. They understand politics, at least.
how? by starting an endless war in Ukraine after seeing how it worked out in Iraq/Afghan? or weaponising a bat virus in wuhan to help muric**t big pharmas earn vaccine bucks? commies are all fricking full-moronic when they not just addicted to drugs/alcohol all the time.
get the
out, brah.
Savage.
Another example is the Believers being weirdo space Prots. The David Koresh thing in Waco frightened people in those days.
It was a bit cowardly not to make them an Islamic faction, and we've had a quarter century of history after that with a lot of Muslim fundamentalism and not a lot of Branch Davidians.
So yes, they had brainworms then. That said, the developers actually took every faction and ideology seriously. All of them, even Miriam, make good, reasonable points. That is what we have lost.
Modern devs would make the U.N. and Gaians obviously correct, and everyone else a cartoon villain.
>Is Beyond Eart a "good enough" SMAC?
KEK no, just stay away this piece of garbage shouldn't even be uttered in the same sentence as SMAC
I love Beyond Earth. It has the most beautiful video game OST ever and I like the art direction. It's got nice balance with one of the best trade route mechanics and diverse combat options.
The primary problem with Beyond Earth is that it lacks replicability, and that in turn is largely due to uninteresting leaders. Leaders should not simply provide percent bonuses.
Stop. Seriously, stop. There is only this much one can bait
*replayability
I'm with you anon, I also enjoy BE. I don't think it deserves as much hate as it gets at this point. Yeah at release it was bad but after patches and the expansion it's a good game. Not bad, not great, but good. And agreed there really is no replayability sadly.
This. The game is a good game. The Problem is It's Just a Good Game, and it has to fill in SMAC BIG shoes, which it doesn't do. So a lot of the hate you see are SMAC fans hating how it isn't SMAC.
My favorite thing to do is Go IoM, Save the People of Earth, and exterminate all Cybor/alien freaks.
Purity seems like the canon ending, like you are Captain America saving Earth from The Snap; but I like the visual of sending huge Angel walkers to invade the subsistence farmers of Earth and cure them of their weak flesh.
It's absolutely comical and I love it. Like "Oh yeah I'm gonna get Emperor of Mankind on your asses because you're forcing us to into a Bug Hive Mind"
Man after man but millions of years earlier.
Last and First Men is better.
>It's a good game
That's huffing some strong contrarianism. It's not terrible or even bad. But I would take any mainline civ over BE. Only Revolutions and Civ 4 Col are worse products from Sid.
it's a ok game, if only they had made it's brave new world dlc.
Brave new world sucks though, the book
but also the dlc
If you’re even aware of SMAC then Beyond Earth will just disappoint you. The art direction is really all over the place. On the one hand the graphics and music hold up well but everything else is forgettable except for the really weird decisions. Like, every technology includes a quote from one of the leaders but they don’t have the leaders actually read them. I think this is one of the main drivers of the accusation that the characters have no personality.
The gameplay is also just really shallow and disjointed, to the point where the only fun to be had is really just trying to break it. I’ve seen sub-turn 100 victories because this game really is just that poorly designed. All this is with the understanding that they had Civ 5 to go off of. So the fact that the sci-fi ideologies, which are fundamemtally basic but could have provided a good exploration of sci if concepts, are done in such a boring way is disappointing. And unfortunately, ideologies are the most interesting part of this game since they shape your relationship with the planet with is genuinely one of the most beautiful parts of the game to look at.
Then they made a DLC and it’s… it’s a water world dlc. I dunno what else to say about it. Marginal improvements at best.
It’s incredibly disappointing whether you come from SMAC or Civ 5. It’s worth a play but only to imagine what could have been.
it's mid, I stuck with it only cause of the scifi setting, the victory wonders convinced me it was just a low effort sacrificial lamb testing ground for 6
the purity version of the middle eastern chick from the expansion did things to me when I did play though
I can't believe they havent milked us with a SMAC remaster or remake yet
It's because it's owned in part by EA.
It's a bad SMAC "spiritual successor" but it's a pretty good sci-fi civ game. It has a lot of good improvements from civ 5 and a few questionable ones, a lot of which should've been added to civ 6 but it seems this game has been forgotten by Firaxis. I still play it quite often along with civ 5.
Yes, the setting is pretty bland and soulless (like most sci-fi) but in terms of gameplay I like it a lot. If you want to play SMAC then just play SMAC, Beyond Earth can't really compare.
It's just a reskin of Civ V.
Speaking of SMAC for some reason EA dumb most of it's old games on steam including SMAC. WTF just happened?
They should have just turned this into a whole independent game instead when there are so many futuristic space-themed games out there.
A whole Steampunk RTS would have definitely stood out from the rest.
Was it ever explained who was Unity's captain or what was his character like?