This game was released nearly 20 years ago, and is considered

The writing

Voicelines

>>387251591
People actually gave a shit while making it and put effort into every single aspect of it.

>>387251697
This.

Also the secret projects were kino as fuck. I love all of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmRpLLs7SNE

>>387251591
It was good, fucking great even, but Civ 4 surpassed it.

>>387251591
childhood is idolizing free drones
Adulthood is realizing human hive was right

>>387251591
A short list of things
>Intuitive gameplay for anyone familiar with Civ series, but yet still with enough unique elements
>GREAT writing - it's a 4X game with plot
>Relatable to not only then-recent politics, but also real world in general
>ENORMOUS effort put into it to make it as plausable as possible (no, seriously, just read through game files and the manual)
>Game's so well-done it gets an RPG offshot for GURPS
>Fantastic idea to use Baraka, an experimental documentry, as source of videos for the game
>Tightly written, fresh lore with a lot of philosophical elements thrown in
>Internal consistency

To put it simple - it's a well-made game that is smart, but not pretentious about it.

>>387252664
>but Civ 4 surpassed it
Only with C2C mod and only in gameplay terms. Lore-wise, SMAC is a fucking unicorn, an impossible to surprass golden standard.

Miriam did nothing wrong.

>>387253171
>Edgy teen years are thinking human hive was right
>Adulthood is going back to Drones and Lal.

>>387253490
Baraka is great, but I haven't played Alpha Centauri in probably 15 years. How were they linked?

>>387253490
>>Fantastic idea to use Baraka, an experimental documentry, as source of videos for the game
I remember my shock upon watching Baraka (solely because it was used in SMAC) and realising how many things they've had to cut or edit to get those footages, instead of just picking them from the movie in entire clips, that's how well the editing for SMAC was. The Ascetic Virtues and Weather Paradigm are probably the two most prominent cases of this, as they appear to be from single sequences, but are in fact cut from all over the movie.

>>387253685
Remember those secret project videos?

They are made using Baraka footage. At least not those in shitty CGI.

Writing.

As simple as that. The game has probably THE best writing in non-RPG genres, and I'm eager to say it has one of the best writing in all vidya, no hyperbole.
It's so good I still remember Gaian Acolyte Prayer by heart and I didn't have enough time to play the game since 2014.

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>got it in some bargain bin game bundle ages ago
>never played it

might just give it a go

>>387254118
Do it anon. The UI might be dated but the gameplay and writing won't at all disappoint you.

>>387254519
Not him, but the only thing dated in UI is the cluttered menu when searching for "tax" sliders. Other than that, it's perfectly playable for anyone having even slightest experience (as in - played it once) with ANY Civ game aside Civ 6. And only because 6 is is too different from the rest of the franchise to still count as "all-in" experience.

>>387253685
>>387253774
>>387253869
Is the HD mod finally done?

I'm not talking about gameplay, but the cinematics. HD release of Baraka is fucking gorgeous and the mod was announced the very day the HD release came out... anything about it?

>>387254857
There is also unit designer. It takes a while to get used to it, even if it's super-simple and intuitive. And trying to find it takes another while.

>>387253869
Ah that's badass, I forgot about those

>>387254118
You damn should. It's objectively THE best Civ game ever released. It tells something about the whole franchise if a 18 years old game is still the best one in an unironic way.

>>387251591
it is still considered the best game in not just its franchise, but the entire genre?
wrong, I consider it the best game ever released of all time
no 4x has ever compared to it's mechanics and no game at all has compared to it's story, writing, and narrative, in a fucking 4x game of all things

>>387254857
It's mostly just dated in that it lacks some modern conveniences and lack of information on some screens. For example, I can bring up a list of all my bases, but I can't sort them depending on mineral production, energy production etc. Granted, you can find the most productive base, but if you want the second- or thirdmost productive base there's no easy way to locate that. It's not a really big deal, it's just a small nitpick of mine.

Also scrolling through the unit workshop trying to upgrade twenty different designs for that new armor you just researched is absolute hell.

>>387255070
There is a small cinema in my city, which specialises in being "studio cinema": playing arthouse, classics, avangarde and so on. And once per year they have an open slot for marathon based on movie-goers demand.
It ended up with Qatsi trilogy, Baraka and Samsara marathon one year...

... and turned out ALMOST EVERYONE who voted for that idea and came for the marathon was a SMAC player. Three weeks later the cinema agreed to organised a meeting for the players to discuss the game and all the philosophic aspects for it, with panel involving students and professors from nearby university (the cinema is located 500 meters from the campus).

Literally the best experience in my life when it comes to cinematography and vidya.

>Forced to be chums with Planet
>(((Planet Buster)))

>>387254519
am i missing something my units dont want to move by numpad like in civ 3

>>387255832
Hit NumLock

>>387255362
Oh, so you mean that. Yeah, considering this it's few things that did age, but I always compare it with how utterly awful, say, Master of Orion 2 or just Civ 2 aged.

>Also scrolling through the unit workshop trying to upgrade twenty different designs for that new armor you just researched is absolute hell.
The best option with the workshop is to simply ban AI from designing you with new units and always to it manually. So instead of cluttered UI and unit roster I just have the handful of units designed and nothing else.

>>387255362
>>387255961
The real reason to make units manually is that the ones made automatically with new techs are simply shit-tier.

>>387255694
That sounds really cool anon. I've only seen Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka, but that would be an experience. I love Philip Glass' music too

>>387255745

>(((Nwabudike Morgan)))

>>387255961
>The best option with the workshop is to simply ban AI from designing you with new units and always to it manually.
I always manually design units, but even if you do it manually you still end up with quite a lot of them. In my current game my workshop consists of:
>Standard Garrison Infantry
>Standard Ground Combat Infantry
>Rover
>Sea Formers
>Sea Colony Pods
>Foil
>Foil Probe Team
>Cruiser
>Cruiser Transport
>Bomber Needlejet
>Air Superiority Needlejet
>Empath Gun Needlejet for all these FUCKING MIND WORMS
>Copter
>Empath Copter that is slowly replacing the above needlejets
This is in addition to all the standard units that are in there by default (Formers, Colony Pods, Transport Foils, Probe Teams etc). Granted, not all of these need to be updated every single time I research some new combat tech (and the sea formers/pods won't need to be updated at all), but even if just half of them need to have new designs added, and after that have to be upgraded once prototyping is done... well, that is a lot of scrolling that needs to be done by repeated manual clicking in a menu where you can only see ten designs at once.

>>387251591
>Alpha Centauri is legal age


Where the fuck did the time go?

Capitalist nigger > Christian fundamentalist roastie > Engineer hapa > retarded other factions.

>>387256886
Oh and I also forgot to mention that whenever an ally gifts you a unit, that unit's design is also added to your workshop cluttering it up further.

>>387256886
>>Foil Probe Team
But why?

>>387257050
Tomb Raider series can drink beer in States, so go figure.
And Lara herself is 49

>>387257221
*tips capitalist-anarchist fedora*

>>387257478
>*tips capitalist-anarchist fedora*
I bet you played as the tree huggers.

>>387256886
>not going clean
clean chaos copters with shock paratrooping infantry are a surefire way to fuck peoples family

>>387257478
>But why?
Double the movement speed of your standard ground-based probe team and can easily approach coastal bases without being spotted. They also allow you to explore the ocean while running a Free Market without causing unrest, and doesn't cost any upkeep to do so. Foil Probe Teams are pretty good man, you should try it.

Also I started on an island, but I still make frequent use of them even in games where I don't.

>>387257775
I don't have clean reactors yet because blind research is being uncooperative.

>>387256886
>Rover Former, later adding upgrades to forming
>Rover
>Rover with strongest weapon and armour
>After hoovertanks are a thing, replacing the above rover
>Colony Pod/Rover Pod/Paratrooper Pod (dropping colonies from orbit is glorious)
>Probe team
>Supply crawler

And that's it, unless I play as Pirates/there is lot of water/I need to upgrade Unity Foils to get rid of their debuff.

>>387257882
why in fuck are you doing blind research
I honestly can't stand that option, but hey whatever

>>387257882
>while running a Free Market
>running a Free Market
>Free Market
What the fuck for? Unless you are Morgan, small fry or retarded, that's the worst of economic options. Even fucking Survival (or whatever the starting option is called) is better.

Also
>blind research
Pointless option, just like having the map blackened. I'm playing SMAC ever since it came out and still don't see the appeal of those two, aside being "harded", but not really making the game more difficult, just needlessly annoying.
Also, if you play Map of The Planet, it doesn't really matter after a while if you have the map blackened or not, because you know it by heart anyway.

>>387258274
*harder

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This gave me a SMAC vibe when I played it. Too bad they didn't quite invest enough development in the writing/story to hit the same quality level.

>>387257882
>Not running Planned
>Not running Green
Wtf?! Even Simple is better than the god-awful downsides of Free Market.

>>387257882
You do know Free Market is utterly useless, right? It's Police State-tier bad, even if you play as a faction that can (theoretically) benefit from it. At least Yang is immune to the bad effects of Police State. Morgan meanwhile can end up with riots just because using crawlers.

>>387258274
>>387258724
>>387259701
>wanting to ruin Planet's economy by overzealous regulation
>not devoting 10% of your God-Economy to Psych to counteract any and all drone problems and still having far more science/income than you would under Green
>not having Trance garrisons and a few empath units around to deal with uppity natives
That's not very enterprenurial of you anons.

>>387258724
>planned
>morgan
pick one

>>387259923
>Needing garrisons
>Needing to invest into psych
>Enjoying fungus blooms right next to base, with stack of 5 demonic boils inside
That's shit-tier faction running, anon

>>387260018
Nobody said anything about Morgan.
And you can still run Green.

>>387258274
Bruh, Free Market is +1 energy per square. Research and credits out the ass even if you dedicate some to psych. Ironically Morgan is one of the factions that doesn't use it as well because he's already +1 econ (only needs wealth for +1e/sq) and has a 4 pop cap which hurts doubly so with blind research on.

>>387260190
>not building Tree Farms to deal with any potential eco-damage
>not just clearing all the fungus in a ten-mile radius so you never get fungal blooms to begin with

>>387260214
+1 per square that has SOMEONE TO USE IT.

If you think a +4 energy per base is woth it, while you also need to build garrisons and redistribute that profit into psych, while NOT getting efficiency, production or growth bonuses, then you fucked up big time.

Even my mother (and I'm not saying this as a figure of speech) knows how powerful is the combination of Planned Democracy, easily outweighting the minor energy bonus you can get.

Not to mention that +1 being affected by early game restrictions, so go fuck you, yourself, your faction and your profit with Free Market, while everyone makes real profit and gets other benefits, but that policy has zero redeeming factors. It's Planetary Exchange in every base at price of riots and ZERO other bonuses.

Not worth it early on, useless later on.

Only works with Morgan +1 Economy, so your base square produces a nice energy surplus, but that's it.

>>387260314
Apparently you must be REALLY new to this game, because fungus can bloom at any square on the map, one square away from biggest pollution source. Even if there is no fungus around.

So I guess the other anon is perfectly justified to roast you for picking Free Market if you don't even understand how Planet rating works, when you get blooms and how to run your economy for maximum profit.

It's in fact amaxzing, because while the game is a poster child of late 90s, it's VERY critical to neoliberal economic theory (which was at its peak when the game was made), pointing out how useless it is for general public and how other options are just plain better.

>>387260682
D-Does your mother play Alpha Centauri?

>>387261047
Yup. Not as much as I do, but she still does play it from time to time on her toaster PC. That and HoMM3. My father, who retired few months ago, now has three hobbies: gardening, bicycle rides and custom maps for Sierra's Emperor.

My parents used to hand-pick games for me until I started high school, so I ended up playing mostly 4X an city builders for a really long while. And those didn't require a fast PC, so I wasn't nagging them to upgrade our machine until I was having my own disposable cash for that.

>>387251591
it was the pinnacle of 4x development before firaxis decided micromanagement is bad for sales and turned the genre into a snoozefest of clicking next turn waiting for one of your resource buckets to fill up so you can actually make a meaningful decision

>>387262224
Civ 4 still worked out.

Mostly because how easy to mod it is, so it's one of the rare cases where mods took a bland and painfully average game to next level. But without C2C and few other mods, Civ series hit its peak with SMAC.

It still did in term of effort put into a game. Damn shame Reynolds and Meier had a fall-off. As long as they were working together, they were unstoppable.
Then Meier was turned into marketing meme (on own demand, since he wanted to distance from game development) and Reynolds went out of business along with Big Huge Games

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>>387261758
Exactly how old are you, anon? 40?

>>387262776
34.

And it's inaudible.

>>387262224
I fucking hate this with strategy games

4X was virtually monopolised by Microprose/Firaxis, so their decisions shaped the genre.
Grand strategy is virtually monopolised by Paradox, so their decisions shaped and still shape the genre, unless indie devs get involved.
In both cases the only thing that keeps their games playable is almost fanatical modding community that turns subpar games into something much ,much better, but there is only this much a mod can fix in a brain-dead game.

And the whole concept to use "life long fans" (with huge quotation marks) as your lead designer was a grave mistake while making Civ V. Unless of course the goal was to get a scape goat from the start.

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>>387265594
I plan to live forever, of course. But barring that I would settle for a couple thousand years even 500 would be pretty nice.

I love the secret project cinematics, they add a lot of flavour to the factions and how horrific it probably is.

>>387266070
Morgan would probably be the best society to actually live in, so long as you aren't a pleb drone.

>>387251591
We must dissent.

>>387251591
One interesting thing is that all the factions have varied gameplay and specific strategies. In Civ, they're all very similar and their differences usually are just a stronger unit at some point in the game and a bonus that helps in some aspect

>>387266265
Lal sounds better, if you're not asocial and don't mind having less private space

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>>387251591
The only game that comes close.
It has a metric fucktons of "remakes" and they all fail to capture what made the original game so great.

>Two was supposed to have 30 realms of magic and you could visit 6 planes, before it was canned
What could've been indeed.