Alpha Centauri - the darkest, most disturbing game ever?

[Heresiarch]

What makes SMAC doomstacks worse than others?

Because they were comprised of weak and ineffective units. If in CivIV doomstack was a threatening and dangerous thing, SMAC doomstacks were just inadequate. AI threw wave after wave on you and you had to deal with stacks of impact rovers, each without any armor and useless addons and swarms of weakest aircraft. They managed to defeat player only by the weight of their numbers. And all that useless shit hogged precious supply. Should AI spend even a fracture of their resources on upgraded armies then it'll be a much more potent threat.

I thought it has more to do with SMAC's customizable unit design system. It looks good on paper but is horrible in execution. Even now after all these years I still don't quite get the UI and prototyping system, you can imagine how the AI can handle that. Also, SMAC's tech speed is very fast compared to Civ4/5, which means weapons/armor can get obsoleted very very fast, making the customization system even more bothersome to handle (at least for me). Finally, human players are always so much better at exploiting possibly overpowered unit combination (Formers of doom?) while the AI IIRC would bother only with the default designs, leading to very bad game balance.

SMAC isn't the only game to blame though, almost any game that has the capability to customize unit layouts have similar problem. Endless Space for example has an awesome unit design system but a clusterfuck UI and the AI and your design advisor absolutely stinks in unit design compared to yourself.

 

[Space Satan]

Agree with most points. Workshop and customizable units were a "thing" back then and a lot of games tried to exploi it. Tratitional Civ approach with fixed unit types are much more easier to balance. Research progress were really so fast it was better to wait for certain overpowered techs like Plasma and then upgrade all your units. And with university research speed became even more ridiculous. That 's why I always played with "tech stagnation" option.

 

[Johannes]

What makes SMAC doomstacks worse than others?

Because they were comprised of weak and ineffective units. If in CivIV doomstack was a threatening and dangerous thing, SMAC doomstacks were just inadequate. AI threw wave after wave on you and you had to deal with stacks of impact rovers, each without any armor and useless addons and swarms of weakest aircraft. They managed to defeat player only by the weight of their numbers. And all that useless shit hogged precious supply. Should AI spend even a fracture of their resources on upgraded armies then it'll be a much more potent threat.

I don't exactly remember what the AI builds but your analysis seems way off. Impact Rovers without armor are one of the staple units everyone should build tons of. You don't put armor and weapons both on the same rover, that's an awful design. The proper way to form armies is to have some units with light armor and heavy weapons (like the impact rover), and others with light weapons but heavy armor. Forming effective armies this way is much cheaper than having uber units with everything stacked onto them. And artillery is perfectly fine in the game contrary to what you say.

The AI for the most part makes perfectly fine units. It can't use them very efficiently, though, but that's another issue altogether. The unit design paradigm is overall pretty well balanced as far as I see. The main issue I have with it is that the UI isn't too friendly for it, and keeping track of too many different unit types you have gets taxing.

 

[laclongquan]

More than that. To make effective use of custom designs require either a very good AI (impossible thing) or a good selection of fixed strategy/tactics that are designed by devs. The latter to exploits of different sort, as fixed strategy is easy to recognize/counter

 

[Space Satan]

swarms of sentinel garrisons, infantry with lolwhat addons is a common sight. Impact rovers could be effective on plain ground, but SMAC is famous for sparse plain ground so mostly they die vs infantry or bases in droves. Artillery could be effective only as a healblocker. Should unit have armor of approx tier with artillery eapon then it'll mostly deal minimum damage, if deal at all. So again swarms of artillery.
I tried once gifting several units to Spartans who served as a buffer state between me(University) and Miriam, who obviously hated me outright. I gifted several old units with some obsolete(for me) armor and weapons but on level with Spartans and Believers. Where both factions fought to a stalemate, each turn masacring rovers and infantry Spartans absolutely crushed Miriam just thanks to adding armor to the rover and several infantry units. Should they start doing so from the beginning then AI surely would be victorious.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Jets and helicopters are for fags. A true bro crushes his enemis with gravships that don't need to refuel.

 

[Johannes]

swarms of sentinel garrisons, infantry with lolwhat addons is a common sight. Impact rovers could be effective on plain ground, but SMAC is famous for sparse plain ground so mostly they die vs infantry or bases in droves. Artillery could be effective only as a healblocker. Should unit have armor of approx tier with artillery eapon then it'll mostly deal minimum damage, if deal at all. So again swarms of artillery.
I tried once gifting several units to Spartans who served as a buffer state between me(University) and Miriam, who obviously hated me outright. I gifted several old units with some obsolete(for me) armor and weapons but on level with Spartans and Believers. Where both factions fought to a stalemate, each turn masacring rovers and infantry Spartans absolutely crushed Miriam just thanks to adding armor to the rover and several infantry units. Should they start doing so from the beginning then AI surely would be victorious.

Regardless of terrain Impact Rovers are the mainstay offensive unit for a huge part of the game. They get to decide when and where to attack vs infantry, and don't have to take ages to walk to the frontline. Protect them with armored units, be it armored rovers or infantry, against the enemy units (enemy impact rovers).

And artillery is not terribly effective against armored units, sure. But that's not the point, they still do good damage against the unarmored units which are often a majority. And discourages enemy from putting all their units in big single stacks. And destroying enemy improvements, roads and sensor towers most importantly. And so on.

And yeah, once the flyers enter the game shit gets crazy. But that's part of the game too.


SMAC combat is much better than what other Civs have as far as I'm concerned. Since you've got all these different, viable options available - mindworms, useful artillery, fast units, more decisively attack- or defense oriented units, probes, and all of this available relatively early... It's much more diverse and tactical.

 

[Irenaeus]

I think only Civ IV has combat better than SMAC, but only a bit better.

 

[KoolNoodles]

None of these games do combat particularly well. Saying Civ4 has better combat isn't really saying much, because Civ4 combat is annoying and repetitive. It works, and that's all that is needed. Combat should be a side-show of these types of games. If you do everything else right, winning at combat(tactically and strategically) just falls into place. That is one of the reasons the complaints about combat in vanilla Civ5 really irked me. Who cares? If I want a good combat game I'll play a good warfare focused strategy game.

 

[Ashery]

Actually, armored rovers can be useful as "mobile defense" units, or if you're attacking somewhere where getting infantry near it sure death.

And that's exactly why the AI will always be a weak point in the game: Unit customization allows for an obscene level of variance among units, a large portion of which are viable in some particular situation. Armored rovers should never be a mainstay in an army, but they definitely have their uses.

SMAC's issues mostly relate to various bits of late game balance (Sky Hydroponics Labs, Transcends being modified by +% buildings, etc.)

 

[Space Satan]

And that's exactly why the AI will always be a weak point in the game: Unit customization allows for an obscene level of variance among units, a large portion of which are viable in some particular situation. Armored rovers should never be a mainstay in an army, but they definitely have their uses.
SMAC's issues mostly relate to various bits of late game balance (Sky Hydroponics Labs, Transcends being modified by +% buildings, etc.)

It's mostly broken eco damage mechanics. After several essential industrial buildings your eco-damage skyrocket and you'll be enjoying stack of mindworms every turn. The problem is that eco-buildings subtract set value of eco damage, instead of %. SO after you got genejack and Nessus mining you have to turn off governors and be engulfed in micromanagement hell or see how govs build uberfactories that turn your cities in a hell pit with 600 eco damage. At this point planet go nut and start spawning two or three mindworm doomstacks every turn near every of your cities.

 

[Johannes]

You said you're used to playing on the slow research setting, that changes the pacing in that direction certainly. But the point of the endgame really is to ramp up everything up to 11, new teches unlocking near constantly and secret projects completing super fast too, you're not concerned about building your economy up so much anymore, or otherwise worrying about longterm concerns though since the end is so nigh, be it by transcendence or planet busters or whatever. Endgame turns take a long time but it's all meaningful shit, and then the game ends.

Never used the governors myself, gotta handle shit optimally all the way through, otherwise where's the fun in playing.

 

[Irenaeus]

And that's exactly why the AI will always be a weak point in the game: Unit customization allows for an obscene level of variance among units, a large portion of which are viable in some particular situation. Armored rovers should never be a mainstay in an army, but they definitely have their uses.
SMAC's issues mostly relate to various bits of late game balance (Sky Hydroponics Labs, Transcends being modified by +% buildings, etc.)

It's mostly broken eco damage mechanics. After several essential industrial buildings your eco-damage skyrocket and you'll be enjoying stack of mindworms every turn. The problem is that eco-buildings subtract set value of eco damage, instead of %. SO after you got genejack and Nessus mining you have to turn off governors and be engulfed in micromanagement hell or see how govs build uberfactories that turn your cities in a hell pit with 600 eco damage. At this point planet go nut and start spawning two or three mindworm doomstacks every turn near every of your cities.

I always saw this as an apocalyptic doomsday countdown that made things interesting and also made me hurry up and finish the game or blow the entire planet to bits with planetbusters.

 

[Space Satan]

Yeah, as soon as first massive mindworm doomstacks begin to appear I turn all resources on scientific victory, because otherwise you'll be overwhelmed.
But I still miss lategame against the AI a lot. I would like to play lategame diplomacy, with superpowers that span continents, sattelite warfare and recon actions. Instead of that - race against time vs midworms.

 

[kyrub]

swarms of sentinel garrisons, infantry with lolwhat addons is a common sight. Impact rovers could be effective on plain ground, but SMAC is famous for sparse plain ground so mostly they die vs infantry or bases in droves. Artillery could be effective only as a healblocker. Should unit have armor of approx tier with artillery eapon then it'll mostly deal minimum damage, if deal at all. So again swarms of artillery.
I tried once gifting several units to Spartans who served as a buffer state between me(University) and Miriam, who obviously hated me outright. I gifted several old units with some obsolete(for me) armor and weapons but on level with Spartans and Believers. Where both factions fought to a stalemate, each turn masacring rovers and infantry Spartans absolutely crushed Miriam just thanks to adding armor to the rover and several infantry units. Should they start doing so from the beginning then AI surely would be victorious.

Hmm. That's arguable, no? I never heard this opinion in SMAC circles. Armored rovers are pretty costly. If I remember correctly, you can have 2 impact rovers for a price of an armored one. I can see the value for the AI, but it's not a simple YES to armored version. Nore that the in-game AI is programmed so that a few races prefer armored rovers (Miriam and Hive), while Spartans and others keep them light. I don't see Miriam being particulary better because of this feature. Hive... is just Hive, simply the best AI in SMAC.

My notes on AI desing failings in SMACX:
- a LOT of artillery (twice so on HP continent, which is folly)
- no SAM copters
- overall, the AI does not use nowhere near enough of speeders and copters
- large transports could improve surprise AI naval invasion a lot
- no AI naval probes designs (they can use it though)
- no police units
- no submarines (what a pity!)
- not enough ECM and AAA defenders, which could make the game a lot more difficult for HP
- AI gets crazy about PSI attack, so it often designs absolutely illogical empath rovers, even if there is 0 threat
- AI dislikes usage of combined abilities
- not enough drop pod units

Notes on AI movement defficiency
- no hurried attacks from AI
- AI air units sit in their bases without attack
- AI probes move too close
- AI is unable to counterattack from their bases
- AI can perform air_hit and drop tactics, only it does it twice in a lifetime

 

[Johannes]

Yeah, as soon as first massive mindworm doomstacks begin to appear I turn all resources on scientific victory, because otherwise you'll be overwhelmed.
But I still miss lategame against the AI a lot. I would like to play lategame diplomacy, with superpowers that span continents, sattelite warfare and recon actions. Instead of that - race against time vs midworms.

It's not simply a race against mindworms if the opposing players are still in the game at all. And mindworm spam amount is totally up to your economic practices too, it's not an inevitability.

 

[Ashery]

And that's exactly why the AI will always be a weak point in the game: Unit customization allows for an obscene level of variance among units, a large portion of which are viable in some particular situation. Armored rovers should never be a mainstay in an army, but they definitely have their uses.
SMAC's issues mostly relate to various bits of late game balance (Sky Hydroponics Labs, Transcends being modified by +% buildings, etc.)

It's mostly broken eco damage mechanics. After several essential industrial buildings your eco-damage skyrocket and you'll be enjoying stack of mindworms every turn. The problem is that eco-buildings subtract set value of eco damage, instead of %. SO after you got genejack and Nessus mining you have to turn off governors and be engulfed in micromanagement hell or see how govs build uberfactories that turn your cities in a hell pit with 600 eco damage. At this point planet go nut and start spawning two or three mindworm doomstacks every turn near every of your cities.

Eco-damage?

What eco-damage?

 

[Jaedar]

I really don't get this about eco-damage, I never really had much issue with it. Maybe I just like to build lots of gardens?

 

[Ashery]

I really don't get this about eco-damage, I never really had much issue with it. Maybe I just like to build lots of gardens?

The point that was made earlier by someone else is quite accurate: Eco-damage reduction buildings don't decrease damage by a certain percentage, but, rather, by a fixed amount (If I'm recalling correctly). That does not, however, mean that it's impossible to avoid eco-damage. You just can't spam resource structures that do eco-damage once you transition to the late game (And should start transitioning even as you approach the mid-game).

 

[Monkeyfinger]

And that's exactly why the AI will always be a weak point in the game: Unit customization allows for an obscene level of variance among units, a large portion of which are viable in some particular situation. Armored rovers should never be a mainstay in an army, but they definitely have their uses.
SMAC's issues mostly relate to various bits of late game balance (Sky Hydroponics Labs, Transcends being modified by +% buildings, etc.)

It's mostly broken eco damage mechanics. After several essential industrial buildings your eco-damage skyrocket and you'll be enjoying stack of mindworms every turn. The problem is that eco-buildings subtract set value of eco damage, instead of %. SO after you got genejack and Nessus mining you have to turn off governors and be engulfed in micromanagement hell or see how govs build uberfactories that turn your cities in a hell pit with 600 eco damage. At this point planet go nut and start spawning two or three mindworm doomstacks every turn near every of your cities.

Use the building queue when you shut the governors off. this shaves off roughly 7/8ths of the micromanagement , making it quite manageable.

 

[isma]

Absolute shame I was born into the wrong generation and missed awesome games like this one... but with the wonderful invention of the interwebs these gems can always be found!

 

[80s Stallone]

Boy, where is the OpenSource clone of this?

I reinstalled it weeks ago but that interface was very... I am just not used to something like that anymore. Doesn't feel right. I'd rather play a DOS game than those Windows GUIs.

 

[Spectacle]

It's really about time that EA reboots Alpha Centauri as a pay2win mobile game!

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

DON'T EVEN JOKE ABOUT IT!
please, don't.

 

[KoolNoodles]

Interface isn't even that bad, just get used to it after an hour or less. Hotkeys are your friend, grab a pdf of the shortcuts, print it out(like we used to print tons of game resources in the old days), and you're good to go.