SMAC General

Starting a brand new game of SMAC After not having played it for at least a year. Whats a good leader whos easy to learn with? Also, this has always bugged me, does Tile Elevation in the game actually matter? I remember there was a feature where I could raise or lower them but is that anything that I typically need to worry about? Also SMAC General.

Maybe you could try a board about videogames

Tile elevation does two things. (Three if some fuckwit is ecodamaging the world into the seas)
First, higher elevations mean more energy from solar collectors.
Second, rainfall patterns are dictated by the rain shadows the terrain casts. The west side of any hill is lush, the east is barren. You can actually starve enemy bases by setting up mountains to block their rain.

First one I considered but never had to deal with, Second one is interesting, but how big is the difference and is it game altering, and the third one sounds mean but also sounds like a long term plan.

The difference is up to two nutrient per tile, and if you set up the rain shadow right it can hit dozens of tiles.

SMAC has always been considered part of Veeky Forums Troll harder elsewhere, also
, Yang is a great leader to learn the game with. He has pretty potent buffs and can run Police State and Planned Economy without getting wrecked.

Just don't play Miriam.

One thing I tried to do once is get the UN to approve the use of the climate change satellite to raise the sea level while playing Nautilus Pirates. The thought process was that id sink unprepared cities and pray upon the ones that were spared from total destruction with my superior fleet, Team Aqua style. Don't remember how it ended though.

Anyone play past the end and fend off endless swarms of 30-unit stacks of demon boils?

>not being Green
>not capturing boil after boil and putting them against each other
>and especially against the fucking Morganites

It's too bad the fungus is hard coded in.

Be lovely to eradicate every last tile of fungus, foiling those Gaians and anyone else going for the meld with fungus victory.

You can use former foils to lower land into the sea and drown enemy bases too.

It takes so much time, credits and military power (defending the former for several turns) that if you can do it you can probably just conquer the base though.

Having a capitol that is fed by crawlers on boreholes all across Planet is fun. Since psi damage is collateral it's pretty easy to deal with the giant planetgrowths so long as you attack first.

I usually make some jet with the psi attack bonuses to patrol the fungus fields. Sensors are vital too, especially early game.

What are the generally easier factions to play and learn with in the game?

Morgan is better with Energy
Yang is better with unhappiness.
Zakharov is better at the best thing in 4x-games, techning up.

Lal has no real "downside" and makes a great baby's first faction.
Zakharov, Diedre, Yang, and Morgan are also fairly easy to play. Just crank that economic progress and tech up to victory. Miriam and Santiago require aggression, so you're best off getting a few wars under your belt before playing them.

Any faction doing ICS.

You want true EZ mode, play the Pirates. Their isolation and mobility make them godly.

So what's the opinion on the alien factions?

Overpowered but also sorta bland and pointless.

But at least you can practice your genocide by killing helpless fleeing colony pods after every successful base capture.

Deeply satisfying, but also rather annoying if one of the pesky pods manages to escape. Battle Ogres were pretty nice, too.

the Gaians get indigenous alien wildlife right. Are those any good?

PSI combat has a substantive bonus on offense.
Veterancy has another bonus.

It is, essentially a parallel combat tree to the more traditional weapons.

Why?

I've hardly ever lost playing as the Believers.

They are very good when you take the social policies that negate their deficiencies.

Post SMAC memes.

I found SMAC accidentaly last year and have fallen in love instantly. Any other game's with similiar depth, either gameplay and philosophical?

There's a civ 4 mod called Planetfall which pretty much a remake.
There's also a game called Pandora: First Contact. I haven't played it but it got a very varied reaction. It's more interested in emulating ACs mechanics than its themeing.

Given the end game tech with it's functional immortality and rejuvenating treatments everybody would be in their prime indefinitely. That being said would you Santiago or Miriam?

I'd Miriam because fiery passion and red hair

Santiago. I bet her body would be amazing