/vr/ - Retro Games

>>6031327
I only play this game now because of the crunchy 90s retro-futuristic look. Early Internet futurism is absolutely adorable and hasn't been replicated or replaced since.

>>6031342
>I am retarded
Thanks for sharing

>>6031327
Sunny Mesa is probably the worst of all the landmarks, solely due to how useless it is. It's too low to use the solars and doesn't provide anything on its own to make it useful. It also makes it a pain to navigate potential rivers when drilling to aquifer

>>6031327
SMAC is one of the most bleak and depressing strategy games I've known. Perimeter would be top 1, but it's an RTS and not retro.

>>6031443
and yet Miriam's social engineering and fascism holding back whatever little progress and evolution there is to be had is the evil which is actually most likely to exist in real life, and even here masonic cults and slave traders are mostly organized around the abrahamic religions

there's also the fact that her philosophy amounts to worm suicide when considering the actual circumstances

>>6031472
>amounts to worm suicide when considering the actual circumstances
Meaning disturbing the Chiron's ecology?
Isn't this the case with basically every other faction except the Stepdaughters?

>>6031494
what i mean is that the planet is literally on a death clock that's directly measured against your ability to advance technology and transhumanize as quickly as possible, regardless of any other factors if you do not reach the end game technology level and trigger the ending then someone else will or every sentient being on the planet is eaten by worms. Miriam would be right if not for the exact circumstances which make her beliefs a denial of the reality staring her in the face. Deirdre might be a crazy cult leader with worms in her puss but she's also completely correct about the actual circumstances and the correct response, and every other faction will eventually be deadlocked into either following the same course or being utterly obliterated.

This game had a really neat voxel rendering algorithm

>>6031327
>>6028958

>>6031443
rare example of a game having based anarcho-primitivism

>Please don't go. the drones need you; they look up to you.

>>6031327
what's inside anon. open it. open it open it i wanna seeeeeeeeeee

>>6032153
i thought he was saying girls

any good mods that crank up the AI difficulty?

>>6031443
Perimeter's story is pretty horrific, yeah. I need to finish it one day so I can see the rest of it.

>>6031443
>Le Miriam is the real saint maymay

>>6032441
Just change AI priorities to Builder using faction editor. AI competence quadruples

>>6031443
Daily reminder Miriam exists to ruin your early game and piss off everyone and their dog in the process of simply existing.
Nothing more, nothing less. People who try to put her as anything else than early game obstacle and the pinnacle of basket of crab mentality (which is, again, intentional) are just fucking retarded

>>6033082
>>6033094
Chill, gosh.

>>6033082
hey! it's you! that retard from the HoMM threads who only posts this picture and the "missing the point" jaypeg whenever they're retarded and wrong!

get the fuck out!

>>6033234
>validating him with a response
anon when are you going to catch up and start taking responsibility for our circumstances

>>6031327
>having supply pods anywhere but the start site

>>6033234
... what?

>>6033508
>Not giving AI a fighting chance by providing it with extra resources

>>6032454
I only played original Russian version, I always wondered if exported version has the same 4th wall break in the end.

>>6033508
>Playing other rules than defaults

>>6033581
>Playing video games

aesthetically SMAC is atrocious and it's AI is incompetent to keep pace with a human player. literal downgrade from civ2

>indigenous lifeforms

>>6033552
I fucking love it when games play the whole 'This is a sim we're sending back' or 'You've really been controlling things all this time' stuff.

>>6033581
>blind research

test

>>6033551
>Not giving AI a fighting chance by providing it with extra resources
The human player can take better advantage of pods everywhere
Having them only at the start site means that worldbuilder only puts them around factions with shitty starts. The factions that are surrounded get a early boost this way
>>6033581
>being a purist
no sense discussing anything then, it's like talking to a religious person

>>6034818
Not him but to be fair I think Blind Research Off encourages beelining Supply Crawlers and other core techs that ultimately make the game much easier for the player.

>>6034179
Yes? I'm sorry, can't you set the objectives for your researchers without directly clicking a specific tech? 20 years in?

>>6034818
>Game balanced around blind research
>N-no, let's turn that off
>Game balanced around complete FoW
>N-no, let's turn that off
>Game balanced around random drops from pods
>N-no, let's turn that off
Different anon, but people who disable those three are painfully plebian and literally can't play the game

>>6034818
I also bet you play with flexible starts, because God forbid if your base was a randomly selected site, need to min-max that, rather than working with RNG. But let's disable pods, that's too much RNG that's outside your personal control, right?

>>6033965
>t. never played Civ2
And you dare talking about an incompetent AI that can't keep up?

>>6031508
From reading all the lore snippets scattered through the research project screens (and some of the secret projects) it seems Zakharov discovered that as well, independently, and eventually joined Deirdre's planetary consciousness project. One of the videos has him talk about uploading a civilization's worth of knowledge "into the mind of a waking alien god".

>>6034849
>>6034885
I never mentioned blind research in the post you are referring to.
Nor did I mention fog of war
>>6034887
or flexible starts
All I said was that drop pods only at start sites helps factions that have shitty starts because they are the only ones to get pods
Why are you all so sensitive?

I'm a fan of Civ since 90s and saw SMAC in game magazine.
Looks good, but hadn't had a chance to play until early this year.
Played as Deirdre but somehow the gameplay didn't excite me.
I thought the gameplay is Civ-like but I feel it's more like Orion where you can design your own units.
Maybe I should give it another try someday.
Who should I pick as the leader?
I usually prefer building, researching, not militaristic.

>>6034891
u wut? civ 2 multi gold on king was able to keep pace up to turn 200. by turn 50 in SMAC on similar level AI is already demolished. my best civ2 game was on king level as zulus. i trounced first 2 ai opponents but really had a prob with the coalition vs. me.

>>6034939
research is where its at in 4x. easy mode is always gonna be the russian

>>6036004
The University is probably the hardest faction to play on anything but the easiest difficulty levels. Those extra drones are not fun.

>>6036002
Civ2 Multi Gold is a hardcore version of Civ2 where the diplomacy is deliberately broken to the point where you can't count on it to do anything, and the game becomes a borderline Always War simulator as your allies, friends and the like immediately reset their attitude towards you from day 1. This is something that vanilla Civ2 only does from turn 1750, in order to gang up on the player, who is most likely launching a spaceship. Even then, in Civ2 MGE, it's not too hard to dominate and humiliate even the Deity AI, considering how little it expands and how weak it is at teching. Not really different from SMAC, except SMAC doesn't have a mode where everyone acts like Miriam towards you no matter what you do.

>>6036272
>turn 1750
Year 1750 (AD, to be even more precise), of course.

Any decent AI mods that make SMAC savagely challenging?

>>6034918
But you opposed the concept of playing default rules, thus you are a faggot

>>6034939
>I thought the gameplay is Civ-like but I feel it's more like Orion where you can design your own units.
Anon, are you all-right? One of the main selling points of SMAC is ability to design your units.
For research game, following order: Aki (SMAX) > Zak (SMAC) > Morgan (SMAC) = Lal (SMAC) = Deirdre (SMAC) > Domai (SMAX) And that despite -20% penalty to research speed > everyone else

>>6036272
>where the diplomacy is deliberately broken
It's a bug, you dim-wit
>as your allies, friends and the like immediately reset their attitude towards
Build the right wonders and they can't, you fucking imbecile
>except SMAC doesn't have a mode where everyone acts like Miriam towards you no matter what you do
Swap AI to aggressive, wow, so hard

I'm pretty much convinced you only read about all of those three games, but never actually played any of them. Not even fucking once.

>>6034939

>>6038887
>canonically smelly
>canonically awkward when it comes to interpersonal relationships

literally /ourfaction/

>>6040862
>Neckbearder trying to project this hard

>>6040873
>/r9k/er in denial

>>6031327
>God tier
Spartans
Gaia's Stepdaughters
>top tier
Lord's believers
>Mid tier
University of Planet
Human hive
>Low tier
Peacekeeping forces
>Satanic insect tier and ought to be annihilated on sight
Morgan Industries

>>6036270
Those extra drones barely make a difference before you can get the Virtual World, and after that University becomes the easiest faction to play.

>>6040980
>Satanic insect tier and ought to be annihilated on sight

>>6041112
It's true. Morganites are the most abhorrent faction. Everyone else tries to do something noble and good. The Spartans decide to try and instill in their people martial virtue based on the classical virtue of Sparta (duh) and Rome. Gaia's Stepdaughters look at the mistakes of the past and think that being more aligned with nature will help them avoid the catastrophes of old earth and create a more long-lasting and harmonious society. The Lord's believers do their best to walk with God and cultivate piety and goodness in their people. The University of Planet dedicate themselves to knowledge and whatnot. The Human Hive think that transcending individuality is the key to survival. Whether it's good or bad is up for debate and my tier list reflects my person preferences but I can absolutely understand someone preferring, say, University of Planet over my Spartans or Gaia's Stepdaughters.

On the other hand, you have the Peacekeeping dweebs who cling to the impotent liberal internationalism that let old Earth be destroyed. The morganites are by far the worst because they just don't give a shit anymore. They just want society to be their playground so they could dick around with their money, ruin this planet like they did with the last one, and move on to the next one. Bunch of vile, worthless, plutocrats. Bunch of nihilistic fucks who can't conceive of anything more noble than playing their psychotic game of wealth acquisition until they die.

>>6040980
What about the expansion set leaders?

>>6041239
Never got around to trying them out, but Free Drones > everyone else

>>6041112
>>6041148
Maximizing profit is noble and good.

>>6040980
>God tier
Morgan Industries
Peacekeeping
>Top tier
Lord's Believers
>Mid Tier
University of Planet
>Low Tier
Spartans
Gaia's Stepdaughters
>Satanic insect tier and ought to be annihilated on sight
Human Hive

>>6041394
I can understand someone loving Morgan's dystopia for the memes but why the fuck would anyone love the peacekeepers?

>>6041148
Careful anon, you'll get the temporarily-embarrassed millionaire /pol/tards riled up

>>6041479
They don't have a reason to. While I do despise capitalism for various reasons that are off-topic, what I think most people can agree on is how repulsive it is to build a society around market values. None of the other factions are vehemently against capitalism except the Hive (which I placed near the bottom by the way) but they all base their society on an attempt to do something good, even if you personally think that it's abhorrent.

The Morganites are just a megacorp-led society where they all live to make money with not even a pretense to greatness. How could you want to live in a society that conceives of itself as merely a setting for individuals competing for scarce resources and bow down to a shameless megalomaniacal plutocrat?

>>6031508
Canonically, the extinction event only occurs when the planets' growth reaches a critical mass for it to happen and consume all other life on the planet, which causes planet to regress and become retarded again. It's in a sad state where its intellect is tied to the amount of fungus growing on the planet, but when it becomes impossible to sustain it all, it has to regress back to a simple, animalistic intelligence.

This has happened multiple times throughout history, but what's different this time is that humanity has the potential to merge with it and survive the extinction and direct planet's growth the next cycle. I believe the aliens can also do the same (Usurpers) or pacify it somehow to prevent the event (Caretakers). Theoretically, you could stop the event by systematically destroying all the fungus throughout planet, but by game mechanics, this isn't possible, perhaps because the fungus is interwebbed deep through the planet's crust to the point where the only way to do so would be to dredge up a massive amount of dirt to eradicate it all.

Also speaking canon though, the Believers lost, and chose to commit mass suicide by walking through a psi gate with no exit. Interestingly, it's also the last tech you hear Miriam narrate. The only other canon death I know is the Survivalists, who were wiped out by rampaging mindworms, implied to be in a war against Diedre.

>>6041148
agreed. there's no greater good or ideal with them, just single minded greed and decadent consumerism. it's completely rotten, on par with Yang's society where a human life is just a number.

>>6041542
>on par with Yang's society where a human life is just a number
I think Yang is better. For the Hive, humans are just components of humanity at large, which is a great and transcendent existence to which individual humans ought to dedicate their existence. It's bizarre to modern eyes but that's what makes it interesting in my opinion, especially when you imagine what they can do with it with the help of advanced technology. For the Morganites on the other hand, there's really no end goal. Just pure consumption and decadence. Work yourself to the bone (or just be born rich) for that fancy suite and the harem of underage sex-slaves and just fuck them till you die.

I’ve only ever played this game like once, but I come in these threads all the time. I just want to say that for whatever reason the things you guys write about the morality in this game are somehow the funniest fucking things on this entire website. I have no idea why this is. I think it’s because it’s played so straight.

>>6041559
but what's the endgame of Yang's society? ruthless efficiency, but for what? running a tight ship is one thing, but utilitarianism run amok will just create a world where everything is reduced to its function., an ugly world. in a videogame you do things like this to reach the win state, but imagine a real life nation that functioned like Yang's society. giant concrete cities of brutalist architecture, the human life that dwells within it given no consideration beyond what it offers to the machine. that's why I find Yang's vision every bit abhorrent as Morgan's.

>>6041574
>but for what
For Humanity as an entity, from what I understand. From what I remember, he believes that the goal of life is life itself. What matters is a phenomenon that is just pure, simple, human will to life. His experience with extreme strife and scarcity on the journey to the new planet taught him that if human life is to prevail, then drastic measures must be taken. I think the idea is that individuals are just instances of that that phenomenon and of little importance compared to the overall thing, so it's fine iron out the little differences and focus on the big pictures.

Seems like all the factions are based on a reaction to what happened in the past. The Spartans, Stepdaughters and Lord's Believers look at the past and decide that humanity fucked itself because we lacked virtue, whether it's of the Roman variety, the hippie variety, or the Jewish variety. The University of Planet decided that the best way to move forward is to put our trust in technology. The Hive is a result of nihilism and sheer terror that our entire species will die if we don't rethink our entire existence. The peacekeepers are babies who cling to the safety blanket of Liberal internationalism and will scream "IT WAS NOT REAL LIBERALISM IT WASN'T IT WASN'T!!!" if you try to take it away while The Morganites all agree that thinking is for poor people and go back to bullying their assistants or whatever it is that they do.

>>6041573
Is it really that strange that people on this website overanalyse things? We talk about it because it's fun. The point of this type of sci-fy is to imagine how different (or similar) life can be like depending on how technology and politics evolve.

>>6041407
It was the faction I used most of the time when I first played the game. That's the main reason. Though I also like that they're the least extreme faction.

>>6041607
The least extreme faction would be the peacekeepers. They're just run of the mill libs. You can take any normal politician from the West and he'd talk the same talk as the leader of the peacekeepers.

>>6041616
Yeah, I was referring to the peacekeepers

>>6041618

>shitting on based Peacekeepers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY57ErBkFFE

>>6041606
No, I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s actually fascinating. What I said is more or less a compliment? But the flavor of the chatter also has something extra that is really comical. It’s probably because the game seems to do a better job of painting a plausible sci-fi future, so the conversations are more “real” and serious while also talking about brain slugs.

I mean, I own the game. I really should boot it up.

>>6041636
It's no problem

>>6041479
I wonder if millionaire will ever get replaced in those sorts of phrases. With inflation, a million isn't what it used to be, and becoming a millionaire through saving and low risk investments is a plausible goal for most people over their lifetimes. Billionaire is too high though, and decamillionaire or centimillionaire don't sound as good in casual conversations.

Morgan is bad mechanically too.

>dos486.com/alpha/
One of those inaccuracies is that Morgan is a good faction in the first place. He's not. Morgan's economy rating does not make him productive or rich. Free Market does that, but it does so for every faction who can usefully run it. To review the Economy SE function (correctly; the datalinks in-game incorrectly describes +3 and +4):

+0 Economy: Normal energy production
+1 Economy: +1 energy every base
+2 Economy: +1 energy per square (most factions with Free Market)
+3 Economy: +2 energy every base (Morgan with Free Market, most factions with FM + Wealth)
+4 Economy: +2 energy every base (Morgan with FM + Wealth)
Morgan takes no particular advantage of Free Market. There is no SE combination where Morgan gets more out of Free Market than does anyone else. The important threshold of Economy rating is +2, which Free Market alone reaches for any faction besides the Hive. Morgan's faction rating on top of FM, either with or without Wealth, yields 2 energy per base.

That 2 energy buys 1 mineral... which is exactly what Morgan loses to his support penalty. Except for his starting cash, Morgan really has no advantage over a blank faction. That support penalty looks minor but virtually erases his advantage entirely. Morgan should indeed still run Free Market, but that is because FM itself is so good and Morgan is barred from the alternative of Planned, not because Morgan is any particularly good at running Free Market.

>>6041864
Morgan is good because they can get the +2 Economy level with just Wealth.

As much as I'd like to use Free Market, the downsides are really bad. Not even AI Morgan dares to use it.

>>6041676
The word you're looking for is 'multimillionaire'.

>>6041407
What's not to like about Lal? Peacekeepers are really strong in gameplay terms, they can pop-boom like no other with their extra cap and free talents. They also stand the best chance of uniting Planet peacefully under one banner, forcing all others to co-exist. End result being that you get to keep all the competing ideologies around, so they probably end up learning from each other.

>>6041928
Morgan can get to a rocking start if you research Free Market first thing in the game and switch to it right away. Not only do you get up to +2 energy in each tile more quickly, but the center tile in each of your bases is actually unlimited, and provides a huge boost to your total. Even better if you build your bases on rivers.

Later you can switch to Wealth if you want, but I've found that the penalties from Free Market are often more manageable than the Morale penalty from Wealth if you're fighting a lot.

>>6040994
even before then their research bonus offsets any resource losses needed for luxuries. university is definitely easiest as is any tech faction in 4x like psilons. everything revolves around having better weapons and infrastructure that technology affords.

>>6041864
>Morgan
>Weak
>Bad
>Proceeds to list why he's one of the top factions
Anon, are you alright?

>>6040994
>>6042125
Factors University players tend to miss:
>Tech supremacy relies on economy power, not raw price of technology
>University has crippling drone issues, forcing to keep things wide, which is not always possible
>Economy is energy based, that in turn means setting solars/forests/hoping for river or bonus energy - forcing to either start with Centauri Ecology
>If bee-lining for Planetary Networks, University stunts its growth and especially energy production any further
Ultimately, early on University can be out-teched by Gaians and Morganites with ease and then just keep the ball rolling. And if we add SMAX factions to the equation, then Aki and motherfucking Domai outtech University with ease. That's right, a faction with penalty to research researches faster than faction made for tech domination - because Drones have infrastructure, numbers and flexibility (and far less drones) than Uni.
In similar vein, the best prober isn't Miriam, but Morgan - it's about resources you can burn. Drone rating is important for defense against probes, only being half as important in offensive.

>>6042159
* Centauri Ecology or get stunted growth

>>6042108
Free Market is extremely situational by itself. It's definitely not something you want to run non-stop, even with Morgan. If anything, eventually running Green is more profitable thanks to increased efficiency - and as Morgan, you are going to go wide due to size limit AND your bonus from base square. Green sacrificing Growth is meaningless for Morgan all the way until mid-game (which might not even happen at all) due to his smaller base size

>>6031327
This game is very boring. I tried getting into the lore, but its just sophistry

>>6042186
0/10. You are overdoing it, too blatant.

>>6042159
1) University gets a discount to the price of new research, yes, but the free Network Node also feeds more raw energy into research
2) the drone issues are at most a speed bump at the very beginning. Police units at the start, (shortly) later Free Market with psych, rec commons, Virtual World, Human Genome Project all make the drone issues moot compared to the massive faction bonuses.
3) You don't beeline Planetary Networks before you have the infrastructure to actually build the secret project, you obviously get Formers first. You still start with Information Networks and you get a free tech at the start so you'll be the first to Planetary Networks anyway

>Deirdre out-teching anyone in Free Market, let alone University
This does not happen. Domai also starts with a huge penalty at the start by not getting any research for the first 10 turns. Unless you can find someone to blackmail tech from or get lucky with supply pods, other factions will complete secret projects before Domai gets a chance to start researching the techs needed to build them.
You're right about one thing though, Morgan is very solid.

>>6042192
the game's backstory is stupid as shit. not even trolling. "le niggers are peaceful and the only white slav man is a dork"

>>6042240
at the very beginning as university there's no reason to have 4 population cities besides capitol. by turn 50 there's no way any faction can be ahead of university and there's no hindrance to drone striking if the player doesn't fuck up. nonsense that +50% or whatever research isn't a huge OP element

>>6042171
I mean last time I played on Transcend, I switched to Free Market ASAP and never found a point where switching to Green would've actually been more profitable or reduced research times. If anything, I'd say switching out of Free Market is what's situational, if you need to send a lot of units abroad to conquer someone on another continent and you can't get there in one turn without causing drones.

It certainly depends on what kind of neighbors you get. If I start next to Yang or Miriam I'll probably go Free Market, only to get to Impact Rovers fast, then maybe switch out while I push them off my continent. If you're isolated as Morgan you can go for Hab Complexes very fast so the size limit becomes a non-issue long before "mid-game".

>>6042257
>the game's backstory is stupid as shit. not even trolling. "le niggers are peaceful and the only white slav man is a dork"
You're playing Beyond Earth which is just a futuristic Civ5 reskin and have nothing to do with AC.

>>6042290
the fuck? feminism, nigger intelligence and acumen, white russian dork, only thing they might have right is the hive.
would have made more sense to give each 'character' a geographic region of earth and their own ship rather than factions of some UN bullshit escape mission. better still and more realistic would be a seed ship and game development along the lines of outpost where rebellion breaks out during a terraforming mission on AC
everything to do with the game's story is lame and waste of video/audio

>>6042257
>>6042338
>"not even trolling"
>is trolling

>>6042346
bares repeating that SMAC is liberal cuck shit. all they needed were homosexuals and transsexuals and the game would have gotten a film contract

>>6038254
>it's a bug
It's developer intent
>build the right wonders
Yeah, fucking Eiffel Tower, which only works ONCE and then instantly resets it back. It's also how it works past 1750 AD. United Nations also doesn't work, enemies still seethe and go down for your throat but UN only prevents them from using tribute refusal as casus belli.
>Swap AI to aggressive, wow, so hard
Doesn't work the same way
>I'm pretty much convinced you only read about all of those three games, but never actually played any of them. Not even fucking once.
This fucking shit has to stop, you've been just proven wrong and completely BTFO'd on every single count of being wrong but your opinion is so fucking important to you that you just keep parroting the "hurr durr never played the game, must have only read about it" over the slightest disagreement. And now you look like a retard because no "right wonders" do anything permanent about the Civ2 omnicidal maniacs. And idiots like you are commonplace on /vr/, constantly fucking accusing everyone else of not playing the games based on minutiae detail that was gotten wrong. Except in this case YOU are the one that's wrong, so fuck off. I delivered Civ2 spaceships, on Deity, to the Alpha Centauri in the 1700s - that's not the biggest accomplishment in this game, but it sure beats baselessly accusing others of not knowing jack shit when it's you who has to re-educate yourself about your "favourite" game. Stop spreading this fucking "hurr durr you never played the game" cancer if you can't even back it up or double check your claims, asshole.

>>6042436
that's only if the human player is king of the hill. AIs are also hardcoded to aggress on a computer opponent who is winning. AI diplomacy is always going to be shit until someone comes up with a neural network. SMAC diplomacy is worse than Civ2 if anything because it is more cowardly. Just destroy a bunch of it's suicide charges and it will leave you alone at least Civ2's diplomacy is linear.

>>6042436
also i deny that you sent spaceships in 1700s on deity. it's mathematical unpossible

>>6042508
try again, CIV2's best players have had spaceships land on Alpha Centauri in 16 AD (as the ship can't launch in the BCs, so the earliest launch date is 1 AD, and the year count only starts going +1 year after the spaceship launches)
compared to these guys I'm small fry
1700 AD launch is very casually doable if you spam Caravans / Freights and run a power democracy knocking out techs in 1-2 turns.
Also depends on map size, larger games are slower.

>>6031327
I want to ____ Corazon Santiago!

>>6042623
I also want to serve Corazon Santiago.

>>6042623
be cloned by

>>6042159
>Anon, are you alright?
In the time since I read that webpage, I had boiled down the whole thing in my mind to "doesnt actually get anything special from his faction bonus" and the line "Morgan really has no advantage over a blank faction" is all that really stuck with me.

>>6043263
I mean that guy is correct, Morgan is the weakest "economic" faction due to limited popboom access. Having economy bonuses is still great as in every 4X, but Morgan's come at a price and rather restrict his playstyle (of all the factions, he lives and breathes ICS - Free Market early on gives you bonus energy per central colony square and you don't have the incentive to grow tall because your popboom is delayed and you have hab limitations)

Morgan is fun to run DemoGreen with but it's kinda telling that Free Market is something you're better off adapting out of after a while simply. And lack of Planned hurts.

>>6042257
fool

Anyone ever played SMAC multiplayer?

>>6042623
M-MOMMY

>>6042240
>[...] Virtual World, Human Genome Project all make the drone issues moot compared to the massive faction bonuses.

I don't know about you but I have trouble getting more than one of those early secret projects. My bases are just too busy building basic stuff such as colony pods and formers and recycling tanks.

There's a lot of soul in this game but I found the actual gameplay far more tedious than in any civ game.

The alien worm gimmick is an interesting take on the "barbarians" but after a certain point becomes really annoying.
The unit customization/upgrading seems good on paper but is also very tedious plus the units tend to look samey and uninspired.
The lore is the best part of the game and makes it worthwhile but the gameplay just always felt off to me.

I might look into some rehaul mod to maybe spice it up.

>>6042359
>>6042338
>>6042257
Good posts and totally contributes to the discussion of the gameplay and the implied plot that emerges from said gameplay.

>>6044284
One or two is usually what I end up getting, depends on the resources. Either a mineral or nutrient resource really helps; with a nutrient resource you can use it to make a base grow while getting production from forests. With multiple resources within one base radius you're pretty much guaranteed success.

I'll usually only make 2-3 pods from my HQ base if it looks like a good base for building projects. Or if there are resources outside of its reach, I'll make a new base there dedicated for projects. Just make formers up to free supply limit, rec tanks, rec commons, and then the project; rush-buy it when you hear that an AI is about to complete theirs.

I've had a few games where I've been 100 or so credits short of rushing out a vital project, where I managed to get it anyway by disbanding my garrison for production and selling tanks and commons in other bases for cash.

>>6042508
While he's wrong about trivia of Civ 2 and the related bugs, not to mentionclearly homosexual, launching the ship by 1700s is pretty easy, by doing exactly what he described. Caravan spam was such broken mechanics and SMAC further proved the point with supply crawlers (at least working as Caravan stand-in, rather than crawling resouces for a base), they just decided to remove it forever from the series.
Cue Civ 5 getting caravans back and they are just as broken as they have been in 2. But hey, this is what you get when handling your prime franchise to a fanboy.

>>6044325
>The alien worm gimmick is an interesting take on the "barbarians" but after a certain point becomes really annoying.
t. can't handle ecology

Also, you sound like ADD sperg, with attention span of 5 seconds.

>>6044325
>tedious

you can automate most everything

Explain economic victory to me.

You click a button, lose your money, and then 20 turns later you win. Is that it?

>>6046303

Yeah, basically.

You gotta have fuckloads of cash though, so it's a pain in the ass to pull off.

>>6031472
Excellent analysis my fellow redditor

>>6031472
>progress and evolution

"My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?"

>>6047686
Do the other players get a notification for it?

All I know is that the AI doesn't react at all to it. I'd expect them to at least declare war or something.

this game sucks lmao

>>6048329
>Anon, the most likely outcome of rolling two dice in craps is 7
>Ha! I rolled 6! Go fuck yourself!
Here is what you are doing right now.

>>6046303
It makes sense on lore level, thou. While the game barely represents it with game mechanics, the idea is that every faction on the planet interacts like a normal nation with each other, having interstate corporations and similar. In fact, Morgan Industries is basically a mega-corp that just happens to also run a specific country. But predominately, it is a company.
So the economic victory is about companies from your country gaining such fuck-huge edge on global market, they outcompete everyone else and dictate how the world's economy is run, by proxy dictating what to do next.
Also, why would you declare war on someone for 20 years of doing extremely efficient business and slow, but gradual buy-outs? By your logic, everyone should declare war on China by mid-90s, based solely on Chinese economic strategy. Instead, everyone was giving Chinese money, because there was profit to be made on it. 20 years later, turns out they are 2nd largest economy and now have enough cash to do whatever the fuck they please over half of the globe, because they already bought and paid for it.
And the game predates that end result, but economic victory is pretty much identical situation.

tl;dr it's poorly explaine on mechanical level total economic domination of the Planet's assets - a single nation owning the critical 51%

>>6048876
None of that seems to take into account that energy credits in AC aren't just currency, they're literal energy that can be used to power various systems. Such as the mind control device on Probe teams. In fact that final price of triggering economic victory is the total sum cost of mind controlling every base currently on Planet.

IMO it's more about overwhelming all the information networks on Planet simultaneously and taking direct control of all the bases forcefully. I can't imagine Morganic representatives visiting Gaian or Hive bases and convincing everyone to join them by doing honest business, especially if neither of those allow free market in their society.