The State of SMAC 2

[Earthmichael]

Whoa, you must produce a lot of clean formers if that's a bigger boost than being able to use boreholes.

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.

How do you use those forests?  Crawl them or work them?  Because pre-Environmental Economics, they only produce 1 nutrient.

I almost always work them.  With a normal base (not on a Nut special or jungle) with recycling center, I can work 3 forests.  The rest of the work land has to be 2 or more food.  (I often get rid of the Nut limit early with Gene Splicing.)  When I really need to boost food, I will occasionally farm; each farm means one more forest worked.  Rather than crawl a forest and get 2 M, I will sometimes insteasd crawl a square for 2-3 N, which allows me to fully work 2-3 more forests.

I should also explain that I build a LOT of road; I almost always build a road before any improvement on a square.  I think roads are cheaper to build if you don't already have a forest there.  So I create a network of roads.  Then I can send a pack of 4 formers down the road, and they can build a new forest EVERY TURN, as long as I do not move them more than 2 squares down the road from the last forest.

[Dale]

So here are the way (in my opinion) SMAC 2 could happen. - Likelihood

EA 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 game

EA 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.

[sisko]

There is another way.

please elaborate.

[Dale]

There 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).

[Green1]

There 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.

There is a market for a non FTL science fiction game. You have to bill it as THE spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri. If you build it, they will come.

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....

[Yitzi]

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.

But if you can only use 3 forests per base (less if you want the base to grow more), that does limit it quite a bit.  Once you have as many forests as you can use (which needs maybe 1 former per several bases max before tree farms), you might as well get started on boreholes.

Plus, forests don't trigger ecodamage like a borehole does.  I generally try for a very close to zero ecodamage game.

Borehole ecodamage really isn't that bad; it's about as much as 1 extra mineral.  And of course without mods ecodamage is easy to control anyway, via the magic facilities.

[Yitzi]

I've thought about it more, and I realized that the real issue is the "doubling time".  With a low doubling time, you need a huge number of formers to keep up with it even when using fairly easy terraforming like forests, and stuff like boreholes and condensers is generally not going to happen.  With a larger "doubling time" (or even more, when you've reached maximum size), formers become less important, and more advanced terraforming becomes used more; crawlers are therefore more powerful with a larger "doubling time" since advanced terraforming (except for boreholes) is more likely to favor single-resource stuff, whereas forests are very crawler-unfriendly.  (In between is the standard farm/solar, which actually usually comes out weaker than just a farm, crawling it, and having the citizen be a specialist instead.)

Thus, my questions for you are:
-What's your doubling time in your games?
-Do you ever use farm/solar?

Because I'd like to see a game with fairly large "doubling time" after the very beginning (30-40 turns seems good for once you have several bases), and where farm/solar does see substantial use for much of the game.

[Yitzi]

However, even so, crawlers become overpowered as the game progresses.  Consider, for example, someone who's reached the following tech level:
-He has engineers available.
-He has hybrid forests.
-He can get 4 nutrients from a square, whether by farm/enricher (and condensers don't further increase it for whatever reason), or farm/condenser (and he hasn't learned AEE yet.)
-He either has hab domes, or has raised his city density to the point where it doesn't matter.
-He has expanded all he can; any more would run into either efficiency-related problems or the territory of other factions.
-He does not have satellites; either he lacks the tech, or just never got around to it, or is afraid they'll be shot down.

Now, consider two ways he can use his territory:
1. Forests.   These are worth 3/2/2 each, so for each 2 forests he has enough surplus nutrients to use a specialist, say an engineer.  Thus, each square is worth 2 minerals, 2 energy, 1.5 economy, and 1 labs.
2. Crawl nutrients.  He can then support 2 specialists per square, so each square is worth 6 economy and 4 labs.  He doesn't get any minerals, but at 4.5 economy per square more than option 1 (which is then multiplied by facilities into 13.5 more economy, or 16.75 more if he has a quantum lab), he can easily afford to make up the difference by rush buying.
Thus, option 2 is vastly superior to option 1.
With satellites, it's even worse:
1. With forests, he can support 3 citizens per square, so each square is worth 5 minerals, 5 energy, and 2 specialists, for a total of 5 minerals, 5 energy, 6 economy, and 4 labs.
2. With crawling nutrients, he can support 4 citizens per square, worth 4 minerals, 4 energy, 12 economy, and 8 labs.

Again, option 2 is vastly superior.
If anything other than "crawl nutrients" is to be effective into the late game, crawlers would have to be depowered.  (Not "made cheaper", but actually "made less effective".)

Conversely, consider an early-game (recently got tree farms) base with 1 farm/solar square (let's say it's rainy and rolling but less than 1000 elevation) and 1 citizen.  It can use the citizen to work the square, producing 3 nutrients, 1 minerals, and 1 energy, or build a crawler to crawl one square for 3 nutrients and turn the citizen into a specialist for 3 energy.  So a crawler lets you give up 1 mineral for 2 energy, which seems to me it'll usually be a very good deal.
But let's say that crawlers have been made less effective, at the crawler will only produce 2 nutrients.  Then you're giving up 1 mineral and 1 nutrient for 2 energy, which seems a lot more balanced.  Even so, that means that a crawler is worth as much as a worker.
But in that case, let's say you have a rainy/rolling square and are trying to decide how to terraform it for your worker.
If you terraform it with farm/solar, then you get 3/1/1, which feeds the worker and keeps him happy, produces 1 mineral for building facilities, and will get you another worker in 50 turns (for, say, a size 4 base.  At this stage, size 9 is probably more realistic for your core bases).  Or you can terraform it with a forest for 2/2/1, which feeds the worker and keeps him happy, and produces 2 minerals; if we devote 1 mineral to facilities as before, then the other one can be used to produce a crawler in 30 turns, giving you the same value for cheaper.
Thus, we get the result that unless crawlers are made more expensive and depowered, it's still not worth working farm/solar unless you really don't care about energy (or are running Market, but in a balanced game that'll only be roughly 1/3 of the time.)  I call that a problem.

[Dale]

There 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.

No, I do not expect Halo, don't be stupid.  But any game would have to be profitable.  Also, another thing I would have to consider is that I can only have one game being developed at a time, and ROI per project is different.  Would I make more money developing this, or a different project?  Business decisions are important, and potential market is important.  Break even points are important too.  For instance, EWOM needed to sell 600K copies to break even.  I doubt a SMAC game could hit that number.  It's a super niche product, like Colonisation is.

In a quick nutshell, I'd be expecting 100,000 sales.  That's around $2.5 million in revenue.  You basically only get 10% of the revenue to cover the costs of development (the other 90% goes in taxes, business costs, production costs, distribution costs, etc etc).  That means, you will be looking at a maximum of $250K to develop the game.  Any more, and risk is too high.

You won't get getting Civ5 quality graphics, "awesome AI programmer", and lots of other corner cutting.  Sales numbers are VERY important.

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.

I am just an Indie.  That's not a bad thing you know.  And I find it funny you imply redoing CtP/Civ/TW is bad, yet are pushing to get SMAC redone.  It's the same thing.   

Be different! You know you want to...

Oh yeah... and we get free betas....

I am different.  I'm not afraid to make hard games.  Not like these crap "social" games that dominate the markets these days.

[BFG]

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.

[Dale]

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.

I would most definitely NOT be seeking to retribute EA with a single cent to keep their legal dogs off me either.  They killed SimCity.  EA deserve nothing.

[Yitzi]

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.

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.

[Dale]

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.

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.

Your only hope is something almost but not quite SMAC.

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.

[Yitzi]

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.

I'm sure it's possible to sell your rights to something without knowing exactly what they are.  The cost of buying it is another issue, but my guess is that they'd rather sell the rights and make some money from it than get no money at all from it (Reynolds and Firaxis also might want an actual say in what goes on, but probably no more than their involvement would be desirable anyway.)

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.

[BFG]

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.

Agreed wholeheartedly.  Furthermore, as a fan, I'm not interested in a game that's "sort of like" SMAC; instead, I want a fullblown SMAC2 or expanded original SMAC on a modern-day engine.  Such a game would instantly get name recognition (both on its own, and due to association with Sid Meier, Brian Reynolds, Firaxis, and the Civilization series) that I would think could more than offset any SMAC purchasing rights/royalty costs.

In some ways, having an independent company such as Dale's purchase the rights is the perfect solution to the conundrum that is SMAC licensing.  All the rights owners stand to gain something (financially), and none of them stand to lose much if it happens to bomb.  And if it's a success, Dale's company could make a fortune from just this one game.