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Whoa, you must produce a lot of clean formers if that's a bigger boost than being able to use boreholes.
How do you use those forests? Crawl them or work them? Because pre-Environmental Economics, they only produce 1 nutrient.
So here are the way (in my opinion) SMAC 2 could happen. - LikelihoodEA produces SMAC without Sid Meier. (i.e. Alpha Centauri 2) - 60% EA has the register trademark, and could be looking for a good 4x strategy game or some Facebook piece of...... Well you get the idea.EA buys out Take Two and subsidiaries for its considerable game library - 10 %This has been tired and failed.Take Two/Firaxis buy the rights back from EA - 10 %Not unlikely, Sid Meier does like his sequels.EA sells the rights to another buyer - 5 %Unlikely anyone other than Firaxis would be interested in the gameEA pigeonholes the game - 10%I hope not, but it has been over 10 years since the original game came out. Most companies like to capitalize on an audience that actually remembers playing the game.Miracles Happen: When Brian Reynolds get fired from Zygna, Sid Meier buys the rights from EA. - 5%
There is another way.
Quote from: Dale on January 30, 2013, 08:55:06 amThere is another way.please elaborate.
Quote from: sisko on January 30, 2013, 09:10:14 amQuote from: Dale on January 30, 2013, 08:55:06 amThere is another way.please elaborate.My company is currently creating a turn based historical strategy game (colonisation/imperialism eras) based on an engine designed to cater for any era........ or planet. I intend on using the engine for other time periods...... or planets.After the engine has paid for itself via this game, there will be a low cost to translate the engine to another era....... or planet. But of course, there still needs to be commercial viability in such a project. Which is what I fear has stopped other developers from addressing the lack of SMAC-style games. It's a very niche product, maybe 250,000 sales max (about the same as Civ 4: Col I'd estimate).
I do make a lot of clean formers! It is really a chicken and the egg problem. If I don't have a lot of formers, it takes forever to terraform things, especially boreholes. So rather than prioritize mineral limits to take advantage of boreholes, I prioritize clean to be able to build more formers. By the time the I have enough formers and other terraforming done to consider making boreholes, I usually have gotten MMI and am ready for the EE and EE.Forest are much more of a priority, because I can make 5 forests for the time formers take for 1 borehole. And I get the benefit of self-growth of forests, which can save a lot of terraforming time if you get your forests started early, particularly since spreading forest squashes fungus.
Plus, forests don't trigger ecodamage like a borehole does. I generally try for a very close to zero ecodamage game.
Quote from: Dale on January 30, 2013, 10:03:47 amQuote from: sisko on January 30, 2013, 09:10:14 amQuote from: Dale on January 30, 2013, 08:55:06 amThere is another way.please elaborate.My company is currently creating a turn based historical strategy game (colonisation/imperialism eras) based on an engine designed to cater for any era........ or planet. I intend on using the engine for other time periods...... or planets.After the engine has paid for itself via this game, there will be a low cost to translate the engine to another era....... or planet. But of course, there still needs to be commercial viability in such a project. Which is what I fear has stopped other developers from addressing the lack of SMAC-style games. It's a very niche product, maybe 250,000 sales max (about the same as Civ 4: Col I'd estimate)..... and Age of Wonders and Master of Magic are niche games, too. Yet, Stardock sold that amount as well even after having to give away thousands because of the War of Magic debacle. Triumph sold quadruple that amount! What do you expect? Halo 2? lol.
If you do, Hope you guys have a VERY good world building engine capable of handling orbital/inter moon-planet/ and extreme terraforming options and a damn good AI programmer. Otherwise, you become an indy also ran to other historical sims if you just try to redo Call to Power/ Civ/ Total War.
Be different! You know you want to...Oh yeah... and we get free betas....
Guys, I hate to rain on your parade, but I honestly would advise against trying to recreate SMAC or a SMAC/X clone/sequel on any platform. I've seen MANY ambitious fan projects come close to fruition, only to have the copyright holder carry out a Cease and Desist order.On the other hand, if you could get a legal contract with EA Games (or the correct current parties) to develop the game for, say, 10% of the profits, then I'd say go for it.
I definitely would not be out to recreate SMAC in a modern engine. Like you say, dangerous ground. But there is nothing EA, Firaxis or Brian (the three license holders of SMAC) can do if I make a game similar to SMAC, to different enough to not be SMAC. All companies do this, including EA and Firaxis.I would also be treating this as a commercial project. It must make money. Fan projects usually fall down because they have no money, so use the existing graphics and directly copy the concepts of the game (even the name). So many issues with that.
Quote from: Dale on January 30, 2013, 07:28:11 pmI definitely would not be out to recreate SMAC in a modern engine. Like you say, dangerous ground. But there is nothing EA, Firaxis or Brian (the three license holders of SMAC) can do if I make a game similar to SMAC, to different enough to not be SMAC. All companies do this, including EA and Firaxis.I would also be treating this as a commercial project. It must make money. Fan projects usually fall down because they have no money, so use the existing graphics and directly copy the concepts of the game (even the name). So many issues with that.If it's different enough to avoid legal problems, then it won't really be SMAC 2 (a lot of the appeal of SMAC comes from the story, which would definitely need permission to replicate.) It might still be worthwhile in its own right, though.
Look I'm sorry but you guys need to be realistic here. A remake of SMAC is not going to happen. I discussed this with Firaxis/2K years ago for scient and the license is too split to consider it. EA owns the publication rights, Firaxis the development rights and Brian Reynolds the creative rights. Even if Firaxis made SMAC2 they can't distribute it. Buying all the rights would cost way too much and at the end of the day I don't think even the three parties themselves really know what exact rights they own.
The creation of a TBS game based on the colonisation of another planet with a hostile environment is the easy part. Names must change but the concepts aren't unique. The story is what MUST go. You are dead in the water if you rip the story. But there is nothing to say the story can't be different but still lead to a similar situation.
The story is a large part of why it's so good. TBS about colonization of another planet with a hostile environment is easy, but the idea of the Planetmind is really what makes the whole thing work and be better than all the other TBS'es.