a lot of AC was so campy it was a bit disturbing - i.e. religious people in the far flung future, seriously?
Oh no! There's something disturbing in the dystopian future!
SMAC is a game. Sometimes you want to grab your opponents by the lapel and shout in their face, "You idiot, quit being difficult and let's just cooperate," but if they actually did that, it would be a boring game. Fortunately, people don't all get along. They're divided by economic ideals, ecological ideals, civic ideals, etc. Why not religion? Religion is a great divider. I don't want to know what kind of people Miriam or Dierdre would be like if they weren't bat-shit insane; I like them how they are.
For my money, I personally think that the best "Civ" game ever made was, by leaps and bounds, Alpha Centauri.
I concur.
Who ever played civilization craving more tactical combat?
I think there's another way to look at it. Some people like tactical games too; not an either-or kind of thing. But when you play a tactical game (my favored example is Kohan, simply because I'm mainly only familiar with games that have been ported to Linux), you often sort of want a strategic/empire_building element added to that. Maybe Civ5 could be in both markets.
The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true horror of this monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new era of genius, but
meanwhile unscrupulous power brokers use its forcible installation to violate the sanctity of unwilling human minds. They are
creating their own private army of demons.
Try SMAC/SMACX, which have been ported to Linux. You can play in a super-simple mode, with terraformers fully automated and "governors" deciding what your bases build. The AI makes poor decisions in this regard, but no stupider than your opponents' AIs. I keep meaning to try out a game where I play this way as a handicap, but micromanagement is irresistible.
Fossil fuels in the last century reached their extreme prices because of their inherent utility: they pack a great deal of potential energy into an extremely efficient package. If we can but sidestep the 100 million year production process, we can corner this market once again.
Companions the creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and believers. Fellow creators the creator seeks -- those who write new values on new tablets. Companions the creator seeks, and fellow harvesters; for everything about him is ripe for the harvest.
To map the very stuff of life; to look into the genetic mirror and watch a million generations march past. That, friends, is both our curse and our proudest achievement. For it is in reaching to our beginnings that we begin to learn who we truly are.
He held his arm too stiffly, and so was thrown back repeatedly, until at last I seized his forearm and snapped it back against itself. His training suffered while the arm healed, of course, but I felt this was a lesson he must learn early, and well.
The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true horror of this monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new era of genius, but meanwhile unscrupulous power brokers use its forcible installation to violate the sanctity of unwilling human minds. They are creating their own private army of demons.
Controlled Singularity
on
Caves on Mars?
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
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?
By creating a planetary network, mankind on Planet now has the ability to share information at light-speed. But by creating a single such network, each faction has brought themselves closer to discovery as well. At the speed of light, we will catch your information, tag it like an animal in the wild, and release it unharmed -- if such should serve our purposes.
Until quite recently, spider silk had been the highest tensile strength of any substance known to man, and the name Silksteel pays homage to the arachnid for good reason.
You are children of a dead planet, earthdiedre, and
this death we do not comprehend. We shall take you in, but
may we ask this question-- will we too catch the planetdeath
disease?
[It depends on whether or not you play with the "directed research" option enabled. Without it, I only know that my tech is going to advance somehow in 14 years -- maybe I'll get Fusion Power (D6), but maybe I'll get something else. With directed research, I can fairly accurately predict what will happen, when. (Of course, this ignores things like my terraforming increasing the energy production (and thus, labs output), or things like Miriam capturing the base where I built the Supercollider or Theory of Everything secret project(s).)]
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 dreams himself your master.
Already we have turned all of our critical industries, all of our material resources, over to these... things.. these lumps of silver and paste we call nanorobots. And now we propose to teach them intelligence?! What, pray tell, will we do when these little homunculi awaken one day and announce that they have no further need of us?
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.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh no! There's something disturbing in the dystopian future!
SMAC is a game. Sometimes you want to grab your opponents by the lapel and shout in their face, "You idiot, quit being difficult and let's just cooperate," but if they actually did that, it would be a boring game. Fortunately, people don't all get along. They're divided by economic ideals, ecological ideals, civic ideals, etc. Why not religion? Religion is a great divider. I don't want to know what kind of people Miriam or Dierdre would be like if they weren't bat-shit insane; I like them how they are.
I concur.
I think there's another way to look at it. Some people like tactical games too; not an either-or kind of thing. But when you play a tactical game (my favored example is Kohan, simply because I'm mainly only familiar with games that have been ported to Linux), you often sort of want a strategic/empire_building element added to that. Maybe Civ5 could be in both markets.
The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true horror of this monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new era of genius, but meanwhile unscrupulous power brokers use its forcible installation to violate the sanctity of unwilling human minds. They are creating their own private army of demons.
Try SMAC/SMACX, which have been ported to Linux. You can play in a super-simple mode, with terraformers fully automated and "governors" deciding what your bases build. The AI makes poor decisions in this regard, but no stupider than your opponents' AIs. I keep meaning to try out a game where I play this way as a handicap, but micromanagement is irresistible.
Arancaytar, your forces have been spotted in my territory. Remove them immediately.
Just seeing Miriam's face sends me scrambling to build more rovers (or aircraft, depending on my current tech).
Anonymous Coward, your forces have been spotted in my territory. I demand that you withdraw them immediately.
PinkyGigglebrain and PhxBlue, your forces have been spotted in my territory. Withdraw them immediately!
Man has killed man from the beginning of time, and each new frontier has brought new ways and new places to die. Why should the future be different?
[Seriously, this year, SMACX is the game in which I have spent almost all of my gaming time. That should surprise no one.]
Fossil fuels in the last century reached their extreme prices because of their inherent utility: they pack a great deal of potential energy into an extremely efficient package. If we can but sidestep the 100 million year production process, we can corner this market once again.
Companions the creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and believers. Fellow creators the creator seeks -- those who write new values on new tablets. Companions the creator seeks, and fellow harvesters; for everything about him is ripe for the harvest.
To map the very stuff of life; to look into the genetic mirror and watch a million generations march past. That, friends, is both our curse and our proudest achievement. For it is in reaching to our beginnings that we begin to learn who we truly are.
He held his arm too stiffly, and so was thrown back repeatedly, until at last I seized his forearm and snapped it back against itself. His training suffered while the arm healed, of course, but I felt this was a lesson he must learn early, and well.
The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.
The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true horror of this monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new era of genius, but meanwhile unscrupulous power brokers use its forcible installation to violate the sanctity of unwilling human minds. They are creating their own private army of demons.
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?
By creating a planetary network, mankind on Planet now has the ability to share information at light-speed. But by creating a single such network, each faction has brought themselves closer to discovery as well. At the speed of light, we will catch your information, tag it like an animal in the wild, and release it unharmed -- if such should serve our purposes.
Until quite recently, spider silk had been the highest tensile strength of any substance known to man, and the name Silksteel pays homage to the arachnid for good reason.
You are children of a dead planet, earthdiedre, and
this death we do not comprehend. We shall take you in, but
may we ask this question-- will we too catch the planetdeath
disease?
Our ancestors harnessed the power of a sun, and so again shall we.
[It depends on whether or not you play with the "directed research" option enabled. Without it, I only know that my tech is going to advance somehow in 14 years -- maybe I'll get Fusion Power (D6), but maybe I'll get something else. With directed research, I can fairly accurately predict what will happen, when. (Of course, this ignores things like my terraforming increasing the energy production (and thus, labs output), or things like Miriam capturing the base where I built the Supercollider or Theory of Everything secret project(s).)]
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 dreams himself your master.
Already we have turned all of our critical industries, all of our material resources, over to these ... things .. these lumps of silver and paste we call nanorobots. And now we propose to teach them intelligence?! What, pray tell, will we do when these little homunculi awaken one day and announce that they have no further need of us?
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.