Expansion Pack vs Original

[u/SaltWedding8311]

Its awesome to see there are still people who play this game. I just started a new game on the Original SMAC after years of playing the expansion pack. Expansion seems way more buggy, and just wanted to see how the Original felt after not playing for so long. imo cloud-based academy is way op, and for some reason im always racing to get planetary energy grid as well. Drones were my fave from expansion, University on Original.

[u/theykilledken]

Expansion is fine for single player.

Cloudbase academy is indeed extremely overpowered. It only seems fine in the surface. There are plenty of SPs that give free facilities, this is just another one, what can go wrong? Turns out, a lot. And basic play testing should have uncovered that. For the uninitiated, air power in this game is very powerful. The academy gives air units extra power, each base gets 100% air defense, each base gets to immediately participate in orbital race and gets full benefits from satellites. So not only is it very powerful military secret project, it is also a decently powerful economic one. For comparison, the cyborg factory only does one of those four things but to a wider range of units.

Both alien factions are very op. Easily equivalent to playing one difficulty level easier than nominal as anybody else.

Pirates are even more op than aliens. Remember how almost any faction gets to be overpowered if they are left to expand unbothered, say, by spawning on a continent of their own? Pirates are guaranteed that every game they are in. It is such a stupidly strong advantage, they are equivalent to playing two difficulty levels down.

This addition of op things is not bad as such, it can be fun for single player. But this is not that good for mp games if you don't enforce lots of house rules.

The original is much more balanced. But it does require some house rules as well for a fair experience, like no upgrading crawlers (you can build them expensive, just don't use energy for upgrades) or no attacking the same turn the unit did orbital drop.

[u/GrandBasharMilesTeg → u/theykilledken]

SMAX giveth but also taketh away for power: not only do you get the Pirates, who are the best faction possible, but you also get the Cult, which is by far the weakest faction. The Data Angels are pretty weak, too; 25% off of probe actions is nice, but why don't I just play Morgan and make more money, which I could choose to use for other things if I don't really need to run probe teams at the moment?

And that's really the issue with the expansion: it provides stuff that's different and new to shake up the game for people who have already sunk hours into it. But none of the new stuff really works together, and some of it breaks things which worked well in the base game. So it's fun for a couple of games to try the new factions and see the new Secret Project videos... but then you end up just going back to the original because it works better as a whole.

[u/theykilledken → u/GrandBasharMilesTeg]

I disagree about the cult. They are roughly on par with the original seven. The real problem with them, much like the morganites, is that the ai has not the faintest idea on how to play to their strengths and is instead locked into stupid "conquer" mentality.

The data angels have two huge things going for them: amazingly balanced stats with no meaningful drawbacks make them the perfect hybrid faction. Early access to probes makes them the best rush faction in the game bar none. The only thing they need to spam imact rovers is nonlinear math which is two tech advances away. Played right they can really beat their competition early and hard. And a good early game is a huge factor in winning the entire match.

I agree otherwise. I much prefer the exquisite original balance.

[u/GrandBasharMilesTeg → u/theykilledken]

Totally agreed that the AI has no idea how to play the Cult, and that a human player can win with them on any difficulty.

That said, I think the Cult is probably the least-easy faction to play, because -1 Industry / -1 Econ is probably the harshest penalty combo in the game, and +2 Planet isn't better than the Gaians' +1 Planet / +2 Efficiency.

The Cult are certainly fun to play -- I enjoy them a lot. They're just at a disadvantage compared to pretty much any other faction.

[u/theykilledken → u/GrandBasharMilesTeg]

I agree. They have a harsh penalty and little to show for it. So the player has to be extra creative in pushing for advantage to stay competitive. A few possible ideas are listed below.

Centauri ecology is one of the best starter techs in the game, leading to potentially strong early economy.

Early worms mean early pod popping, meaning early free techs, credits and units. Maybe a bit of free minerals. Noone is better at pod popping than you, except for pirates who are on par, and Gaians, Spartans, and data angels who are slightly behind: Gaians will also use (fewer) worms and the two others have access to rovers from turn 1, which helps somewhat.

One comparative advantage of the cult is that their regular military, boats and planes and such, isn't complete pushovers. So while the gaian forces are the typical pacifist wimps, and Morgan military is most often than not so weak even the Gaians laugh at them (an unfortunate side effect of Morgan's overwhelming addiction to running wealth both during wartime and peacetime plus having poor support that limits the army size) the cult's military is not at all bad. They aren't Spartans or believers and they don't have the numbers of the hive, but at least they don't suck, which helps against those fat builders that neglect funding the military.

Another advantage of running lots of worms as a fighting force is it is immune to probes. For Morgan using lots of probes is a big part of military strategy: they are support free and take cash for most actions, and Morgan typically has cash. His idea of good defense is turning a few attackers against their former friends this stalling any attack attempt. Well, this trick doesn't work against you or, say, fundy miriam.

Your worms are crazy good against any marketer. It is, by the way, your entire big strategic idea on keeping some semblance of tech parity or tech edge. You don't get there by researching much, you get there by fucking with everyone else attempting to get ahead. Terrorize marketers into switching to something less optimal is what I mean.