News article I read:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/133685-Civilization-Beyond-Earth-Screenshots-Leaked-Update

Official Trailer:


Wow. Really looking forward to this. According the interview, they're trying to stay away from any comparisons to Alpha Centauri, trying to make this its own game. I spent quite a lot of time playing SMAC back in the day.

I’m a big fan of the Civ franchise. The fact that my old machine was incapable of running Civ 5 was one of the driving reasons to get me to upgrade my hardware.

I look forward to seeing what comes of this.

looking forward to this too, been a really avid fan of the franchise since the first one.


Since no one has update master of orion lately, or re released alpha centauri, this is going to have to be my space fix!

Will be very interesting to see what comes out of this one, as civilization has always been one of those games with a huge amount of replayability, its one of the few games that I actually try to beat on all difficulties.

its also one of the few games that I cannot ALWAYS beat on highest difficulty.

Yes, please.

My money; take it!

Looks good, finally the successor to Alpha Centauri.

Excited about it, but it won't be an auto-purchase thanks to finding Civ 5 a bit of a disappointment upon its initial release.

 Pacific wrote:
Looks good, finally the successor to Alpha Centauri.

There already is a successor to Alpha Centauri http://www.slitherine.co.uk/games/PandoraPC. Its not by Firaxis but that doesn't mean that much anymore.

 Pacific wrote:
Looks good, finally the successor to Alpha Centauri.

They were trying to make it distinct to AC, so it wouldn't be a successor.

 easysauce wrote:
Since no one has update master of orion lately, or re released alpha centauri, this is going to have to be my space fix!

*cough, cough*

I still play MOO2 and SMAC, thanks to GOG.

I let out a girlish squee on seeing this. The one thing that I dislike about civ is how it's confined to history. Anything that lets me play civ in a setting that hasn't been done over 5 times is a nice one.

That trailer is simply beautiful.

Yep, looks more like a brand new game (with some traces of the old Colonization) than an Alpha Centauri reimagining. I'm terribly excited about this, but I'll my days as space Kim Jong-Il on SMAC. Nerve staple them all!

 Palindrome wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Looks good, finally the successor to Alpha Centauri.

There already is a successor to Alpha Centauri http://www.slitherine.co.uk/games/PandoraPC. Its not by Firaxis but that doesn't mean that much anymore.

It's not really that much of a successor, it was kinda bland and not really that good, it didn't feature much for base building and most of it was pretty much just the combat.

Oooh, this sounds interesting. I was immediately thinking of Alpha Centauri, too, but several users have beaten me to that comparison. I'm intrigued by the idea of settling multiple planets - perhaps this will work like the planes in Warlock 2? It could certainly make for longer games, depending on how the situation develops and how quickly each faction manages to grab land on other planar bodies.

Pacific wrote:Excited about it, but it won't be an auto-purchase thanks to finding Civ 5 a bit of a disappointment upon its initial release.

Have you tried again with the expansions? The add-ons really, really did a lot for the game.

nomotog wrote:The one thing that I dislike about civ is how it's confined to history. Anything that lets me play civ in a setting that hasn't been done over 5 times is a nice one.

You've got a point. It makes me ponder about the possibilities of a Civ game set on an alien planet (with alien species, ofc), or an Earth-setting with altered tech-trees, where civilisations and unit profiles are randomly created (or customised via perk-purchase a la MoO2), as if you'd be playing a "what if" scenario.

That being said, there's a ton of mods for Civ V that might deliver what you're looking for?

Tannhauser42 wrote:*cough, cough*
I still play MOO2 and SMAC, thanks to GOG.

This man has taste.

I took a quick look but is it basically an add-on to Civ 5 or a completely separate game that just happens to use the Civ 5 engine?

I know it's not going to happen but I would love it if I could play 'regular' Civ, launch a rocket to Alpha Centauri and then continue playing when my rocket reaches AC. Sort of a way to bridge the two games but with some continuity.

It looks like its own game using a modified Civ5 engine, to me. Not an expansion-- if it was an expansion it'd be Civilization 5: Beyond Earth.

SMAC was one of the greatest games ever made, so - big shoes to fill.

Pacific wrote:Excited about it, but it won't be an auto-purchase thanks to finding Civ 5 a bit of a disappointment upon its initial release.

With both expansions I think this is the best Civ game released - definitely the first one where religion makes sense to me.

Interesting.

Most interesting.

Now, what I still want a game that let's me boldly go where no one has gone before. If it's based off of Civ 5, I'm not sure how far the engine can support that kind of game.

Failing that, just skip the virtual stuff and send me an FTL capable ship.

 Bromsy wrote:
SMAC was one of the greatest games ever made, so - big shoes to fill.

Pacific wrote:Excited about it, but it won't be an auto-purchase thanks to finding Civ 5 a bit of a disappointment upon its initial release.

With both expansions I think this is the best Civ game released - definitely the first one where religion makes sense to me.

Yeah, 4 had the most homogeneous and worst religion mechanic I've seen, it was definitely a case where they didn't want to offend anyone or put stats to them...Which made the earlier religions the best because they quickly spread more.

Course every Civ to me looks good, cept 3.

Looks interesting; a new Alpha Centauri.

I might crack that open and play it again actually.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Bromsy wrote:

Pacific wrote:Excited about it, but it won't be an auto-purchase thanks to finding Civ 5 a bit of a disappointment upon its initial release.

With both expansions I think this is the best Civ game released - definitely the first one where religion makes sense to me.

Yeah, 4 had the most homogeneous and worst religion mechanic I've seen, it was definitely a case where they didn't want to offend anyone or put stats to them...Which made the earlier religions the best because they quickly spread more.

Course every Civ to me looks good, cept 3.

Civ2 is still the best civ. But I rather like Civ5 with expansions, as well. I actually disliked four more than three, if I remember correctly... but the gold edition of 2 is just great in its moddability; latter games just don't have that easily moddable factor any more.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
it was kinda bland and not really that good

Much like Civ 5 then.

 Palindrome wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
it was kinda bland and not really that good

Much like Civ 5 then.

I thought civ 5 was good. It also sounds like Beyond Earth won't be deviating too much form civ 5. They are still keeping the one unit per tile combat for example. (I wonder if they will figure out a way to make it less labor intensive.)

 Palindrome wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
it was kinda bland and not really that good

Much like Civ 5 then.

HAd more fun with Civ5 than I did with any other one but Civ2, myself. Civ5 also has a great modding community in spite of its flaws.

Pretty much the only thing I don't love about Civ V is its horrible, horrible, horrible netcode that keeps dropping people.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Course every Civ to me looks good, cept 3.

Civ 3 was my entry in to the series as a kid. Who knows how many days I've spent on that instead of learning valuable skills (worth it). Who can hate all these features?

 Lynata wrote:

Pacific wrote:Excited about it, but it won't be an auto-purchase thanks to finding Civ 5 a bit of a disappointment upon its initial release.

Have you tried again with the expansions? The add-ons really, really did a lot for the game.

Yes that's very true actually - the expansions did bring a lot back to Civ 5, although I think I still preferred 3 and 4 in terms of the game mechanics.

Some screenshots have been released:

IS that a playable alien race?

Well struck, Sid Meier- right in my wallet.

I think that's this game's version of barbarians, but it might be a playable race with mods.

First Gal Civ 3 is announced and now this?

I approve.

 Melissia wrote:
I think that's this game's version of barbarians, but it might be a playable race with mods.

Yes almost certainly the same as Barbarians. I wonder if it will use a similar mechanic to AC, where aggressive expansion in the game brings on a strong response from the natives..

Wonder if that vehicle turns into a settlement?

Excited for this. Especially if it also gives us a space navy too

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
News article I read:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/133685-Civilization-Beyond-Earth-Screenshots-Leaked-Update

Official Trailer:

Spoiler:

Wow. Really looking forward to this. According the interview, they're trying to stay away from any comparisons to Alpha Centauri, trying to make this its own game. I spent quite a lot of time playing SMAC back in the day.

Well then, seems my wallet just lost a few Jeffersons.

A new update for the game, featured on CVG.com
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/464283/previews/civilization-beyond-earth-shoots-for-the-stars/

The Oxford English dictionary's definition of the word 'Civilisation' is: "The stage of human social development and organization which is considered most advanced."

Sid Meier's Civilization series has always taken a more misanthropic view of its moniker. Invariably the aim of Civilization has always been to make the race of humans the player controls into the ubermensch. Whether that involves reducing the cities and lands of other races to nuclear-bombed toxic slag or heading off-world to Alpha Centauri and leaving those unevolved losers in the dust is immaterial. The name of the game here is advancement at the cost of any other race.

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth doesn't really change that basic template. But it does toss a boatload of new mechanics, themes and tools for advancement into the player's lap. The basic mechanics will be pretty similar to Civ players. The lion's share of their time is taken up by building units, researching, placing wonders and structures and generally spreading slowly across the map like a virus. Resource management and combat. Rinse repeat.

However, the new main conceit here is that, rather than battle it out for supremacy on the third rock from the sun - even if that rock bears no relation topographically to the earth we live on now - the action takes place in a rather hostile alien world. Here, humans are as risk as much from alien creatures - such as foundation-destroying Siege Worms - and pockets of lethal gas as they are from each other.

Prosaically enough, though, humans are easily the biggest obstacle to their own advancement, although in this game, the societies aren't driven so much by political structures as they are by a new aspect called Affinity.

Affinity dictates the philosophical, political and visual aesthetics of each society and there are three types that players can opt for: Harmony, Purity and Supremacy.


Players who pick Harmony will see their society and its structures take on a more organic, otherworldy quality. The reason being as the driving philosophy of this Affinity dictates that man should develop a symbiotic relationship with its environment. To that end, players who plump for the Harmony Affinity are able to adapt and recruit alien creatures. At high levels they can unleash an attack of Siege Worms on enemy cities, razing them to the ground.

Supremacy stands at the opposite end of this spectrum. A good reference point for this Affinity would be to imagine The Borg from Star Trek, except without the hive mind rubbish. A Supremacy society believes they should live separately not just from the environment they inhabit, but also from their human flesh. To that end, cybernetic enhancements are the order of the day and the structures this civilisation constructs are all hard metal and sharp edges.

Purity sits at the centre of the spectrum. A Purity civilisation rejects the ideas of corrupting the human form with either cybernetics or organic alien enhancements. Instead, the people of this Affinity are your bog-standard meat sacks. Their structures look more traditional and their answer to all weapons enhancements is simply to build bigger craft and stick as many guns on it as possible. At high levels, players controlling a Purity civilisation can produce giant floating towers bristling with high-powered cannons.

"BEYOND EARTH DOESN'T REALLY CHANGE THE BASIC TEMPLATE. BUT IT DOES TOSS A BOATLOAD OF NEW MECHANICS, THEMES AND TOOLS FOR ADVANCEMENT INTO THE PLAYER'S LAP"
The Orbital Layer is another big factor in the game, not just because it offers players the chance provide coverage to those units on the ground, but also because it's a factor that can lead to conflict in the campaign. Players can only launch satellites where they have orbital coverage, and this is dictated by the size of each city. As the cities grow, the coverage starts to overlap with that of the conurbations of other races and this can cause the AI to issue threats and attack, mainly because the player is encroaching on its orbital turf.

Once they have the capability to launch satellites, players can start slinging military hubs, research facilities and economic platforms skyward. While these all have a bearing on what takes place on the ground, satellites can't shoot each other down. Rather, they change hands as one civilisation overruns another.

There's more than one way to take down enemy cities than simply brute force, however. Players can deploy spies to enemy cities where they start building up that sprawl's 'Intrigue' rating. Once it's high enough, they can start to destabalise the local population by setting up smuggling rings, black market enterprises and even set up seismic thumpers to attract Siege Worms, that'll pretty much wreck any structure they bore through.

Tech Webs replace Tech Trees although players assign research as normal. Research also earns Affinity points, which players can use to open up new abilities for their people and troops. For our money, it's worth pouring money into areas that'll bolster your civilisations defence and attack capabilities early on, as there's a bit of a brutal learning curve in play here.


More game videos from CVG:
In the hour-long hands-on I had with the game, it was revealed that the alien surroundings of the planet are brutally hostile to begin with. I began the game with one unit of soldiers, and an explorer. The areas surrounding my city had dozens of pockets of Miasma gas - which deals damage to any unit that ends their turn in it - and an alien hive, which pumped vicious enemy troops out towards my city until I managed to destroy it. By the time I'd done this I'd poured pretty much every ounce of research towards military concerns.

It's a harsh and nasty world in Sid Meier's Civlisation: Beyond Earth, but it probably mirrors the game's philosophical aesthetics better than any of its predecessors. The harder one's environment is, the more Darwinian they're likely to be in their outlook and approach towards others. Treaties, trading and alliances are all still part of the package, but the political niceties in the game feel far more fleeting than ever before.

Civilization: Beyond Earth has been confirmed for a Autumn/Fall 2014 release, or Spring in Australia, for PC and Mac.

Wow, that article started off insane and stupid.

The Orbital Layer seems fun, though.

I read another article that said one 'game winning' event was to return to earth at the head of an army of robots!

The more I read about this game, the more I want it.

So apparently you can play as Fremen and Adeptus Mechanicus, too. And they even have thumpers for the worms.

Melissia wrote:Wow, that article started off insane and stupid.

Agreed. Sheesh.

.. I think it's pretty much correct though?

Even Ghandi resorts to armies of elephants to crush his enemies after all..

 Pacific wrote:
.. I think it's pretty much correct though?

Even Ghandi resorts to armies of elephants to crush his enemies after all..

What sort of peaceful Ghandi are you playing? He is the lord of Nuclear Attacks in Civ.

Eh, personally I was just confused by the quote - a weird and somewhat uninspired way to begin an article about video games - and, the thing that really gave me pause, using the term "races" instead of "nations". It just sounds ... a bit silly?

Either way, the 2nd part was good and I want to know more. Specifically in regards to other planets - personally I'd be fine with just having one world and its orbit, but I certainly wouldn't be opposed to the idea of multiple worlds to settle and fight over, depending on how they pull it off.
Multiple planets the size of the main world sound almost a bit too big (I'd rather have the action focus on a single huge world), but I'd be all over the idea of smaller moons and stuff in the same star system that could be used as outposts or fallback positions.


In regards to Gandhi ...

@Lynata: I love how the time period is plenty screwed up too considering gandi was around during the times of hitler.

'Dorkly' also has some pretty good comics but i'll save that for another day.

I've heard plenty about Civ 5 but have yet to play it myself.

Another game with funny leaders for factions is Galactic Civilizations II. I've seen mods where people had Snoop Dog as their leader.

-----------

Harmony sounds like a pretty cool choice. You don't see enough organic structure societies in sci-fi. It's usually standard robots or high tech cities. They had some on the Cobra side in the old G.I. Joe movie if I recall.

I'll wait for a gameplay trailer before getting too excited but just conceptually this is checking a lot of the right boxes for me. I haven't disliked a game in the Civ series yet though, so that boosts my confidence at least a little.

I've always seen CIV as being highly recommended and it's totally up my street but I've never checked it out.

If this title is as awesome as I hope then i'll need to get it.

Got this one pre-ordered now with the release date just a couple of weeks away.

Does anyone know of any other updates/reviews that might have started to appear yet?

Haven't seen any yet, but we'll probably see them in the coming weeks before release.

Pre-load is available for anyone who's preordered. It's just a small 5783mb game, amazingly small considering the nature of most modern games.

I'm going to when I get home from work, and it does seem small but just wait for all the DLC and mods we'll all eventually download

After the 31 gig preload for Evil Within, 2.7 gig download is well... novel.

Got a physical copy coming to me. Hopefully it gets here for release day!

 MrDwhitey wrote:
After the 31 gig preload for Evil Within, 2.7 gig download is well... novel.

I know, right!

oh damn... is release that close?

I best prepare to dissapear for a bit!


played every civ game since the first way back when it came out, love the games

I really hope they still find ways to flesh out the little tidbits of history and stuff even though its a space game for this one.

I still hear leonard nemoys voice whenever I discover a tech lol.


It will be interesting to see how the addition of aliens as a threat works out, as well as all the new tech and epochs.


has there been anymention of playing the aliens?

The aliens aren't really the same as barbarians, more like dangerous animals. You can even co-exist with them. And any negative action taken against them will hurt all players relationships with them.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
The aliens aren't really the same as barbarians, more like dangerous animals. You can even co-exist with them. And any negative action taken against them will hurt all players relationships with them.

Excellent, as I hate aliens.

 easysauce wrote:
It will be interesting to see how the addition of aliens as a threat works out, as well as all the new tech and epochs.


has there been anymention of playing the aliens?

Preview videos reveal that the tech tree (really, it's more of a "web", with the players starting in the middle) have three possible directions of emphasis. One of these directions will encourage genetic modifications to the colonists that allow greater coexistence with the planetary ecosystem, including the ability to work directly with the native life forms.

Similar results were possible in Alpha Centauri if you pursued pro-environment policies, though in that game the explanation was different. It was revealed over the course of the game that the planet had a consciousness of its own that was connected in some fashion to every bit of life on the planet.

Another interesting thing, cities don't start as cites, they start as outposts and only become cities when they reach a certain size.

Eumerin wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
It will be interesting to see how the addition of aliens as a threat works out, as well as all the new tech and epochs.


has there been anymention of playing the aliens?

Preview videos reveal that the tech tree (really, it's more of a "web", with the players starting in the middle) have three possible directions of emphasis. One of these directions will encourage genetic modifications to the colonists that allow greater coexistence with the planetary ecosystem, including the ability to work directly with the native life forms.

Similar results were possible in Alpha Centauri if you pursued pro-environment policies, though in that game the explanation was different. It was revealed over the course of the game that the planet had a consciousness of its own that was connected in some fashion to every bit of life on the planet.

Spoiler tags, man!

Eh...

Alpha Centauri is old enough that I don't think spoiler tags are needed. And the Beyond Earth info is presumably "spoiled" the moment someone takes a look at the tech tree (which appears to be completely uncovered right from the start).

It's like that for Civ V too. Tech trees are hardly spoilers.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It's like that for Civ V too. Tech trees are hardly spoilers.

Pretty sure if your spoiled by a Civilizations Tech Tree you need to go back to history class.

Though this is not a historical civ game so that might be a valid complaint here.

You can gene-hance a monkey with 6 anuses.

Whoops sorry, should have put that in spoiler tags!

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Another interesting thing, cities don't start as cites, they start as outposts and only become cities when they reach a certain size.

Yes I saw this, looks like an interesting idea.

What I have seen of the graphics so far certainly look lovely, hopefully the gameplay will be nice and deep also.

 Melissia wrote:
Though this is not a historical civ game so that might be a valid complaint here.

The whole thing is revealed from the get-go, so not so much.

Only for those that looked at the additional trailers, rather than just the cinematic one.

By get-go, I mean beginning of the game, just like in Civ V.

Yup. Start game, open tech tree, get spoiled.

And I'm sure that everyone who's played Alpha Centauri suspected as much.

Isn't it like that with all Civs?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:


What sort of peaceful Ghandi are you playing? He is the lord of Nuclear Attacks in Civ.

Maybe knowing this is why, anytime I meet Ghandi in a Civ game, he's usually the first to go

Also, in my experience with Civ V, Queen Elizabeth is the queen of denouncements, but generally all bark and no bite.

I must say, the most innoying part of civ is always looking for it under C instead of S in steam.

My game library is so huge I just search for "civ" or add it to my favorites list instead.

That's a good idea, I'll try that.

 Melissia wrote:
My game library is so huge I just search for "civ" or add it to my favorites list instead.

This is why I stay away from Steam sales.

It has less to do with that and more to do with the fact that I don't buy console games and have been on steam since almost the very beginning.

My problem is humble bundle. I can often get games I want for cheaper, but end up with 12 other games at the same time.

Just preordered the gamespy pack, with Ace patrol and the Exoplanet module.

Wait what?

 Melissia wrote:
It has less to do with that and more to do with the fact that I don't buy console games and have been on steam since almost the very beginning.

Might not be the "very beginning" but my first Steam game was Half Life 2, back in 04-05 time frame

My gaming store (Gamestop Australia basically) preorders for Beyond Earth includes Ace Patrol and the exoplanets pack. Its pretty cool.

EBgames right?

EB games yes. Its a division of Gamestop.

 Doctadeth wrote:
My gaming store (Gamestop Australia basically) preorders for Beyond Earth includes Ace Patrol and the exoplanets pack. Its pretty cool.

What exactly is "ace patrol" and "the exoplanets pack"?

I see no DLC for the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay, found the "exoplanet map pack", nothing exceptional there (just some pre-generated maps, I prefer random anyway so meh). What is "ace patrol"?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Aaaand found it. It's nothing to do with Civ:BE at all, so I'm not losing out on anything lol.

The exoplanets pack is basically the designs of a couple of the actual irl alien planets found in the astronomical surveys. Stuff I like lol.

Yeah, no worries. I was just worried I missed something I'd want hehe.

If you've preordered it on Steam, you're going to get it anyways.

Pre-purchase Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth and receive the Exoplanets Map Pack for free.

The Exoplanets Map Pack includes six custom maps inspired by real-world exoplanets. Specialized scripts produce randomized geographic layouts each time a new game begins, allowing for even more replayability on new alien worlds.

• Kepler 186f: This lush forest planet is one of the oldest known Earth-like planets.
• Rigil Khantoris Bb: Orbiting the closest star to the solar system, the historical records of this arid continental planet’s settlement are well-preserved.
• Tau Ceti d: This planet of seas and archipelagos features a booming biodiversity and a wealth of resources.
• Mu Arae f: Tidally locked in orbit around a weak star, the southern hemisphere of this planet is a blistering desert where the sun never sets, while the northern hemisphere is perpetually in frozen darkness.
• 82 Eridani e: An alien world of scarce water and wracked by tectonic forces.
• Eta Vulpeculae b: A mysterious new discovery with unknown terrain.

Already scheduled my first multiplayer game, btw, right after launch. I'm going to pick the PAC as a sponsor, with additional scientists, a retrograde thruster colony ship, and raw materials.
Here's hoping for a smooth release and a stable netcode!

Ah, I didn't see that. Steam's changed its UI so sometimes it hides things behind a "see more" button heh.

Is Beyond Earth not unlocking for anyone else in the UK? It's past midnight but everytime I try and launch the game it won't update as the data is still encrypted

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
Is Beyond Earth not unlocking for anyone else in the UK? It's past midnight but everytime I try and launch the game it won't update as the data is still encrypted

Apparently the unlocks are by time zones. See the link here to determine when the game will unlock for you -

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13512728#post13512728


Of course, given what you're stating, the game should have already unlocked for you. I know the Zone 1 unlocks took place, because someone on the official forums mentioned roughly three hours ago that 3500 people were online and playing (according to a friend of the poster).


Edit - Based on a comment or two on the forums, it looks like Zone 2 isn't live yet for some reason.

Asia region: 23rd Oct, 5 PM
UK/EU region: 23rd Oct, 11 PM
NA/SA region: 24th Oct, 4 AM.
Times are in UTC.


And yeah, it's bugging for some people in the UK.

Got notice my physical copy shipped. Looks like I'll probably be waiting until next week to play.

Eumerin wrote:

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
Is Beyond Earth not unlocking for anyone else in the UK? It's past midnight but everytime I try and launch the game it won't update as the data is still encrypted

Apparently the unlocks are by time zones. See the link here to determine when the game will unlock for you -

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13512728#post13512728


Of course, given what you're stating, the game should have already unlocked for you. I know the Zone 1 unlocks took place, because someone on the official forums mentioned roughly three hours ago that 3500 people were online and playing (according to a friend of the poster).


Edit - Based on a comment or two on the forums, it looks like Zone 2 isn't live yet for some reason.

I just gave up after a bit to go watch the hockey, there's always tomorrow

Going to pick up my copy naow, always good to get a box.

Me too, I always get my stuff in through a local independent gaming store (even PC games! )

Looking forward to reading about people's first impressions of the game are like though as I won't get a chance to play until next week some time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
First reviews are starting to filter through. C&VG gave the game an 8, although I question how an accurate score can be given to a game that has traditionally been about the long haul - I thought V was excellent for instance when I was initially dazzled by the graphical improvements, only to realise later that there were quite a few features and elements from the previous games missing.

Sheesh, the hours just keep flying by with that game. But I have to say, I really like the new Tech and Culture trees.

The only thing I'm really missing from Civ V is more options for unit promotions, because in CivBE they've nailed it down to two (one-time immediate health regen or permanent efficiency bonus), which I suppose could be seen as "dumbing it down", given how it removes some customisation options that were pretty cool in Civ V. Granted, there are empire-wide Affinity-based unit upgrades, but they are fairly limited as well (2 options per level, for a total of 6 bonuses you can pick 3 of) and do not allow specialist units like having some ships of the same class reserved for naval combat and others for coastal bombardment in Civ V.
I've heard that Alpha Centauri had a pretty cool editor to build your own units, but sadly none of that is in CivBE either.

Other than that, Beyond Earth looks really nice. Espionage in particular feels a lot better, simply by giving you different things to focus your security apparatus on and providing operational bonuses for agents staying at your HQ. For example, my PAC Security has specialised on Operational Support, which means that each agent in the HQ lowers the risk for operatives in the field.

Aliens are also cool. They look scary at first due to their numbers, but my troopers just gunned them down like the bugs they are. I think I'm in a sort of "cold war" with them right now as the ecosystem doesn't seem to be actively fighting me anymore as long as I don't venture out of my currently claimed territory. There was some fierce fighting where several waves of alien creatures hurled themselves against a forward outpost, but gun batteries and missile crawlers held them back with little effort. I didn't pursue them, just held my ground, and it seems they have now lost interest in attacking me, even when standing in a hex right next to my army (which has occupied a strategic hotspot just outside the settlement's perimeter fence). They still attack me further away from the border, though.
I'm not sure if this is because it's another nest/continent, or perhaps because the aliens react to how many of my units they are facing ...

The only problems with aliens is how they kept crushing the neutral outposts behind my border. I haven't managed to establish a single trade route yet. :(

The quest system is also a cool addition in that it allows you to refine your shaping of the colony, almost like a bit of roleplaying. That being said, It almost feels as if quest decisions are popping up a little too often, becoming a little too prominent for traditional Civ gameplay. If they would have scaled it back a bit and you don't see every single quest on your first playthrough, this aspect of the game would probably offer more replay value than it does now. Still, it's a nice touch.

The game also seems to have a few bugs (one of my units just disappeared during a free upgrade, I currently cannot build any roads anymore but only the more expensive magrails, and I've seen a few typos), but nothing too serious that would really detract from the fun.

http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/1407

 Lynata wrote:
Aliens are also cool. They look scary at first due to their numbers, but my troopers just gunned them down like the bugs they are. I think I'm in a sort of "cold war" with them right now as the ecosystem doesn't seem to be actively fighting me anymore as long as I don't venture out of my currently claimed territory. There was some fierce fighting where several waves of alien creatures hurled themselves against a forward outpost, but gun batteries and missile crawlers held them back with little effort. I didn't pursue them, just held my ground, and it seems they have now lost interest in attacking me, even when standing in a hex right next to my army (which has occupied a strategic hotspot just outside the settlement's perimeter fence). They still attack me further away from the border, though.
I'm not sure if this is because it's another nest/continent, or perhaps because the aliens react to how many of my units they are facing ...

Yeah, your early troops are fully capable of taking the aliens one on one. The problem, of course, is the fact that the aliens like to show up in large numbers. So you've either got to have enough troops to overrun them quickly, or engage in hit and run attacks as you wipe out one unit and then pull your own units back to heal up. There is an exception, however. I had a Siege Worm turn up early on, and the combat preview showed that if I attacked, my Combat Rover would have been wiped out in one hit while doing negligible damage in exchange. Fortunately, the worm mysteriously disappeared without my having to deal with it (it might have been dealt with by the new nearby Pan-Asian outpost).

Also, the comments above don't apply to the marine (as in water creatures, not soldiers on ships) life forms.

The quest system is also a cool addition in that it allows you to refine your shaping of the colony, almost like a bit of roleplaying. That being said, It almost feels as if quest decisions are popping up a little too often, becoming a little too prominent for traditional Civ gameplay. If they would have scaled it back a bit and you don't see every single quest on your first playthrough, this aspect of the game would probably offer more replay value than it does now. Still, it's a nice touch.

New A/B choice quests seem to get triggered whenever you build a building for the first time. The more elaborate quests are interesting, though potentially problematic. I started one quest, and after completing the first couple of steps, I was told that I needed to build a Petrochemical Plant in my capitol city. The problem is, Petrochemical Plants require a Petrochemical resource within the city limits, and there aren't any. So I can't continue the quest line.

http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/1407

The North American sponser is ARC. According to the fluff, ARC is a massive corporation that demonstrated its competence by performing an incredible feat of reconstruction engineering in the Central US.

ARC's Sponsor Bonus is a boost to your espionage.

Er... what?

my laptop really isn't good at rendering the new graphics

That sucks. Have you updated your graphics card drivers?

Eumerin wrote:The North American sponser is ARC. According to the fluff, ARC is a massive corporation that demonstrated its competence by performing an incredible feat of reconstruction engineering in the Central US.
ARC's Sponsor Bonus is a boost to your espionage.
Er... what?

It could also be a question of who you compare them to. Maybe they're impressive compared to all the other competitors for the US side of the project, but not so much when compared to the other nations' best. And who knows, maybe it was corporate espionage that enabled them to perform this "incredible feat" in the first place by bribing the right people, influencing the media, and appropriating support and technology via backdoor channels and covert ops?

> Our readers are curious - ARC is doing well now, no doubt, but there was obviously a rough period not so long ago. Are you able to elaborate on your role in the FBI’s "Operation Riverboat"?
I’ve never withheld anything about my involvement with the FBI’s investigations, but you’re focusing on the actions of a few bad apples over a decade ago. A few staff in one regional office were found accountable and were punished, and I don’t need to point out to you that neither ARC’s directorial team nor its board were ever found to be involved or even liable for what occurred there. The system worked in this case, and ARC’s cooperation with the FBI was praised by the Attorney General’s office.
I’ll also remind you that any discussion into the exact nature of what happened touches on proprietary information and practices of the ARC and you would be found liable for discussing them without our explicit permission.
-- interview with Suzanne Marjorie Fielding, ARC CEO/CFO

... nooo, not fishy at all ...

Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:my laptop really isn't good at rendering the new graphics

Spoiler:

You gotta admit, it looks very alien!

 Lynata wrote:

Eumerin wrote:The North American sponser is ARC. According to the fluff, ARC is a massive corporation that demonstrated its competence by performing an incredible feat of reconstruction engineering in the Central US.
ARC's Sponsor Bonus is a boost to your espionage.
Er... what?

It could also be a question of who you compare them to. Maybe they're impressive compared to all the other competitors for the US side of the project, but not so much when compared to the other nations' best. And who knows, maybe it was corporate espionage that enabled them to perform this "incredible feat" in the first place by bribing the right people, influencing the media, and appropriating support and technology via backdoor channels and covert ops?

Then they should have put more into the fluff about it. There is not one hint in the fluff that ARC has been involved in espionage of any sort. Wrongdoing, possibly, depending on how much you think the company might have been involved with Riverboat. But the hints about Riverboat don't seem to suggest that it was a corporate espionage thing.

Also, my recollection is that the ARC entry in the Civpedia doesn't mention Riverboat. It only comes up in Fielding's bio, where - as I recall - it appears that her cooperation with the FBI helped boost her popularity with the shareholders.

And finally...

If they're behind other nations when it comes to engineering and industry, then there should be something in the ARC entry *other* than talking about how impressive the company's big engineering and industry accomplishment was. The Civpedia entries aren't corporate recruitment pamphlets. If there's something going on at the company that would justify the espionage bonus, then there should *AT LEAST* be mention of rumors regarding stolen research, etc... from other companies.

Eumerin wrote:Then they should have put more into the fluff about it. There is not one hint in the fluff that ARC has been involved in espionage of any sort. Wrongdoing, possibly, depending on how much you think the company might have been involved with Riverboat. But the hints about Riverboat don't seem to suggest that it was a corporate espionage thing.

Well, look at it this way - why would they mention shady dealings in faction fluff if it's not supposed to be a hint? Of note, however, is that you shouldn't look so closely at Operation Riverboat - but rather Fielding's reaction to coverage about it. She's attempting to control the flow of information.
And then there's the fact that the ARC is the only entirely private colony in the Seeding project, to which this corporation has somehow (*wink wink*) managed to gain a waiver from the government.

ARC is a corporation, one that is quite huge and supposedly active in just about anything "from crop sciences to tidal power generation to security contracting" (sounds familiar?). Given both the shadowrun'esque megacorp cliche as well as real life industry events, I consider a bonus to espionage to be suitable. The other leaders are in it for ideological reasons, looking for an utopia to save the future of their people, and have specialised their colonies accordingly. Fielding, on the other hand? She's in it for the money, and where other colonies may see neighbours and potential allies, she sees competition. Her colony is a well-oiled capitalist machine designed to adapt, improve and absorb, so perhaps it incorporates a broader "slice" of her company's employees and specialised divisions than the other more focused bases?

Eumerin wrote:If they're behind other nations when it comes to engineering and industry, then there should be something in the ARC entry *other* than talking about how impressive the company's big engineering and industry accomplishment was. The Civpedia entries aren't corporate recruitment pamphlets. If there's something going on at the company that would justify the espionage bonus, then there should *AT LEAST* be mention of rumors regarding stolen research, etc... from other companies.

I agree it could be made more obvious. There's a lot of "wasted space" in the menu where you select the faction; it would have been easy to insert a short description.

I wouldn't say they're behind the other nations, though. Not anymore, at least.

Thing is, iirc there's no hint within the game that Fielding has any reason to avoid conversations about Riverboat. It only gets mentioned because her cooperation with the authorities made her more popular with the shareholders, who then made her CEO. The interview you linked isn't found within the game itself. Remember, as I mentioned, the fluff descriptions aren't recruitment tracts being published by the sponsors. They're supposed to be objective statements by the developers about each company. Based on the fluff provided for ARC and its CEO, ARC is a completely above board company that has gained a lot of respect both due to its success with the Mississippi Valley(? I think that's what it's called) project, and because its CEO cooperated fully with the FBI in investigation that the FBI codenamed "Operation Riverboat". It only really works as a "read between the lines" thing if you're meant to believe that ARC's PR department wrote it. But I don't recall anything in the entries (for ARC or Fielding) to suggest that.

Well, I just finished playing a few hours of it, and I like it.
However, as yet, none of the faction leaders have really stood out for me. Maybe I just got so accustomed to the leaders in Alpha Centauri and all their quotes that helped define their characters?

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

However, as yet, none of the faction leaders have really stood out for me.

Are the faction leaders much the same as in previous Civ games? Or are they entirely fictionalized?

It's sci-fi, the factions and leaders are all fictional, though they're based off of relatively modern political powers.

American Reclamation Corporation, for example, is the North American faction (and its leader is, amusingly enough, a female African American / Latina mix whom is the CEO of the corporation).

 Melissia wrote:
It's sci-fi, the factions and leaders are all fictional, though they're based off of relatively modern political powers.

Maybe that's the problem I have: they're just based off of modern political powers. In SMAC, they were mostly based off of ideologies.

Or maybe I just miss Prokhor Zakharov.

I think the reason they did it this way was so that they could justify all the nations being able to go through each affinity.

 Melissia wrote:
That sucks. Have you updated your graphics card drivers?

I've never touched them, in all honesty I don't know enough about computer's internal workings. I am attempting to save money to eventually be able to buy a proper PC, but it's a bit far off for now

Go in to Steam, open the main menu (it'll say Steam, View, Friends, Game, Help at the top, click Steam), click Check For Video Driver Updates. Follow the instructions given there.

Cheers Mel, I'll do that when I get home

I downloaded the pirate copy and really liked it, so went and bought it right away, game reviews are so packed full of lies these days I always "try before I buy" and this game for me is worth the cost, oddly enough I didn't like civ 5, but love this?

 Formosa wrote:
I downloaded the pirate copy and really liked it, so went and bought it right away, game reviews are so packed full of lies these days I always "try before I buy" and this game for me is worth the cost, oddly enough I didn't like civ 5, but love this?

That is odd seeing at it is basically Civ5 with a new skin and a new tech tree.

That does call for clarification- did you play just the base Civ 5, or with all the expansions- because they improved the game by orders of magnitude.

 Melissia wrote:
I think the reason they did it this way was so that they could justify all the nations being able to go through each affinity.

Played a lot more of it yesterday, and I think that is the problem I have with the factions not feeling very characterful to me. They're set up to be generic so that they can go with any affinity in the game. And, when you get the little audio quotes from researched techs and wonders, even if the quote is from one of the faction leaders, it isn't the faction leader speaking it, so there's even less reinforcement of their characters and less to connect to.

Even in normal Civ, the faction leaders are historical characters, so there is still some connection to make with them. Maybe as I play it more that aspect will get better.

Anyway, so far, I've been going the Supremacy route. I think next game I will try Harmony, but I find level 3 Supremacy to be so damn great (roads and magrails have no upkeep).

You do get logs from each of the faction leaders on loading screens. That's about all the characterization I noticed though.

So I have been playing it most of the weekend, loving purity. Their ideology and victory are the ones I probably relate to most. Their units look the business, all blocky and covered in guns and armour. Just about to build their ultimate unit: LEV destroyer, basically a floating fortress/battle station. Time to crush the xeno loving harmony!

The affinities remind me of Supreme Commander factions so much:
Purity: UEF (Also my fav faction - detecting a pattern lol)
Supremacy: Cybran
Harmony: Aeon

 Gitzbitah wrote:
That does call for clarification- did you play just the base Civ 5, or with all the expansions- because they improved the game by orders of magnitude.

Yeah, the expansions moved it from second/third best in the series to best.

Not counting SMAC which is why I am waiting for a sale to pick up this one, since I will inevitably make comparisons that I doubt will be favorable.

So many hours were sunk into Civ 5 and its expansions which made it a much better game than when it was released. I wonder how the new Civ will go in comparison but so far from what I've watched it seems to have some great potential, if a bit of an overwhelming option-fest for my senses
Here's to hoping for more variance in map appearance or even the possibility to play as an alien race if possible...

no I haven't tried the expansions in civ 5, didn't think they would be worth it as I didn't like the game, will take a look

That makes a lot of sense, formosa. I was horrified to find myself losing interest in Civ V about a month after buying it. Then Gods and Kings came out- and now I am drawn back about once a month or so to try to build another civilization. It really improves the experience dramatically.

I don't have Brave New World, so I can't give you any advice on that.

I played it some this weekend. It's OK. It's very, very much like Civ 5, which is good (if you liked it) and bad (if you wanted something new, or didn't).

I agree that none of the faction leaders seemed as... I dunno, interesting, as the previous ones.

Eumerin wrote:They're supposed to be objective statements by the developers about each company. Based on the fluff provided for ARC and its CEO, ARC is a completely above board company that has gained a lot of respect both due to its success with the Mississippi Valley(? I think that's what it's called) project, and because its CEO cooperated fully with the FBI in investigation that the FBI codenamed "Operation Riverboat".

Well, I can only say that personally, I didn't have that problem. The ARC is a private megacorp (and one which deals in "everything" as well as having monopolised the media at that), and I guess this alone was enough for me to not be surprised about a bonus for shady dealings. Blame it on my cynicism in regards to the real world.

Of course, you could also say the US faction getting a bonus for espionage was just a bit of contemporary social commentary by Firaxis.

Melissia wrote:(and its leader is, amusingly enough, a female African American / Latina mix whom is the CEO of the corporation).

Well, it has been 400 years by the time the game starts!

Melissia wrote:You do get logs from each of the faction leaders on loading screens. That's about all the characterization I noticed though.

Yeah, their ideologies having been intentionally kept somewhat open so that a player could direct them as they wish is probably a good point.
The civilopedia also has some cool entries about the leaders' backgrounds, though, and I really enjoyed the interview series on the website:

American Reclamation Corporation: Suzanne Fielding
Brasilia: Commander Bolivar
Franco-Iberia: Élodie
Kavithan Protectorate: Kavitha Thakur
Pan-Asian Cooperative: Daoming Sochau
People's African Union: Samatar Jama Barre
Polystralia: Minister Hutama
Slavic Federation: Vadim Kozlov

You can definitely gauge some very different personalities from those, they're just not as present in the game due to a lack of dialogue (same as in Civ V though). Combined with the loading screens, they also provide some interesting information on just how Earth looks by that time. An article in the Washington Post summed it up here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/24/the-wacky-geopolitics-of-civilization-beyond-earth/

Interestingly, this ties in to Eumerin's criticism: "McDonough and his partner in geostrategic crime, Will Miller, say this narrative is deliberately based on "who people presently are and what they're presently doing" as a way to connect players to a future world that might otherwise appear completely foreign or random."
If you look at the different factions and their civ bonuses as well as their civilopedia history, you can definitely draw some links to several current real world issues.


Pulled in a "Great Promise" victory this weekend, by the way:

My capital. Arriving colonists immigrate via the Warpgate on the mountains, check in at the city, then take the magrail tram through the terraformed jungles and past the university complex ... then passing through a desert filled with solar farms and into the territory of the former Kavithian Protectorate where they can work on the farms of the annexed cities.

Image link is broken, Lynata.


Completed quick games as both purity and harmony, liked both of their specific endings. They're both really optimistic and they make sense within the scope of the affinity.

One thing that I have always had problems with in every Civ game - always - is that despite many options for victory, I always have to go the military route. As someone who on a personal level deeply believes that most people are generally OK and want the same basic things, that diplomacy (usually) does work, and I'd prefer a solution in which we all get along towards a common goal - especially one as important as a place our entire doomed race can live.

But, like every other Civ game, evewntually despite my friendliness - pursuing co-operation agreements, refusing to be drawn into conflicts, giving resources when asked, respecting borders - inevitably someone starts some gak for either a lousy reason, or no reason at all. I'm minding my business, playing the game, even benevolently letting it slide when I discover a French spy in my capital - when the spokesman from the Franco contingent declares that she will tell the world of my sins, and everyone has their own stupid reasons all of a sudden, and long story short, the only thing I have ever been able to make work is taking what is mine with fire and blood, as the lady said.

I feel like I must be doing it wrong somehow.

Also, I played for hours on Sunday, and suddenly on turn 318, I lost - no reason given. That really pissed me off - not that I lost, but that I don't know who won, and why. It just showed the you-lose cinematic and gave me the one more turn\end game options.

That's gakky. It should tell you who won and why...

And give warnings when someone has completed a game-ending wonder...



I also noticed that the AI is really condemn-happy. Franco-Iberia especially...

The computer players really seem to get mad at me for killing aliens. Tell the aliens to stop sending endless waves of fury after my workers and colonists, and I'll stop attacking them, people.

The only one who likes me is Polystralia, and that doesn't mean anything.

I have to say, in my first game of BE there was considerably less warfare than in any of my Civ V games. I only had two major conflicts, and one of those was a campaign for taming the local wildlife, where four squads of PAC Marines purged alien nests from the vicinity of my border, supported by a modded buggy with an improvised missile launcher my colonists hastily cobbled together from various spare parts. The second war was much later, and one of my own choosing, subjugating my Khavitian neighbours in order to prevent them from completing their Emancipation victory. I could have gone on without waging war against a single human faction (especially as my relationship with the KP was amicable), but of course I didn't want to lose when there was a military option to prevent it. And so I entered into an alliance with Franco-Iberia and sent a regiment of laser-armed PAC troopers as well as a trio of LEV-tanks, brand new off the assembly lines, across the border on a mission to secure both the enemy capital as well as to seize and destroy the Emancipation Gate. It's a bit sad that I had to turn on a neighbour who, for so long, had been a good trade partner, but lately they've been criticising my Purity affinity anyways, as the KP went for Supremacy.

Anyways, if you disliked the martial conflict in previous incarnations of Civ, then I think BE should work for you.
What exactly did you do to piss the Franco-Iberians off? Surely they can't condemn you "just like that", for nothing? Did you have no allies?

And yeah, the game should definitely give you a reason for losing. Possibly a bug? I can't believe they just skipped on that part ...

Melissia wrote:Image link is broken, Lynata.

Dammit. Can you open the image in a separate tab and refresh your cache?
It should work, but I noticed that perhaps the host isn't very reliable ... for some inexplicable reason, some people need to reload an image from time to time to have it show up. :(

toasteroven wrote:The computer players really seem to get mad at me for killing aliens. Tell the aliens to stop sending endless waves of fury after my workers and colonists, and I'll stop attacking them, people.

Heh - have you tried letting them "cool down" a bit instead of killing them? I've found that just sending troops with my workers helps a lot - if the aliens are not too stirred up.

 Lynata wrote:

What exactly did you do to piss the Franco-Iberians off? Surely they can't condemn you "just like that", for nothing? Did you have no allies?

If this Civ game is like previous ones, there should be a diplomatic overview window you can click on, that will give the numerous reasons why a specific faction is denouncing you. Ive found with Civ V, once a faction, like England denounces me once, they will continue to denounce as often as possible until I crush them like vermin and wipe them from the map.

 Lynata wrote:
Anyways, if you disliked the martial conflict in previous incarnations of Civ, then I think BE should work for you.
What exactly did you do to piss the Franco-Iberians off? Surely they can't condemn you "just like that", for nothing? Did you have no allies?

And yeah, the game should definitely give you a reason for losing. Possibly a bug? I can't believe they just skipped on that part ...

I not wholly averse to a military solution, but I know there are a lot more options in the game I never seen to be able to explore.

No idea - I will look to see if there is a reason, as you posted, next time I play and it happens.

I assume that was a bug, yes. I've run into a few minor ones so far - sometimes it will have several windows open at the same time and none are responsive, but hitting escape a few times fixes that.

 toasteroven wrote:
The computer players really seem to get mad at me for killing aliens. Tell the aliens to stop sending endless waves of fury after my workers and colonists, and I'll stop attacking them, people.

The only one who likes me is Polystralia, and that doesn't mean anything.

I had one of my neighbors complain because I was removing Miasma.

Supposedly the aliens tend to lash out at all nearby colonists when they get riled up. Or at least that's what I read before the game was released. I'm not sure how that interacts with the "aliens get unangry at you faster" ability on the Harmony Affinity track. But if true, it might explain why nearby CPU players get annoyed when you clean up the local wildlife. It doesn't explain why CPU players on the other side of the planet get touchy about it, though.

Eumerin wrote:

 toasteroven wrote:
The computer players really seem to get mad at me for killing aliens. Tell the aliens to stop sending endless waves of fury after my workers and colonists, and I'll stop attacking them, people.

The only one who likes me is Polystralia, and that doesn't mean anything.

I had one of my neighbors complain because I was removing Miasma.

Supposedly the aliens tend to lash out at all nearby colonists when they get riled up. Or at least that's what I read before the game was released. I'm not sure how that interacts with the "aliens get unangry at you faster" ability on the Harmony Affinity track. But if true, it might explain why nearby CPU players get annoyed when you clean up the local wildlife. It doesn't explain why CPU players on the other side of the planet get touchy about it, though.

To be fair, it's an issue I think Civ games have almost always had... In a game of Civ V, i wiped out Caesar of Rome before everyone had met him, and someone was pissed/denounced me later for warmongering (even though, aside from the disagreement with Rome, I hadn't attacked anyone)

I think mine also happened because I set the aliens to "raging horde", or whatever it's called in this game. So I was under attack from pretty much the very start. Had to carve my way through swarms of aliens just to be able to found a second city. Which was all a hell of lot of fun, mind you. But I did have to wonder if the computer players weren't facing similar conditions.

Eumerin wrote:I had one of my neighbors complain because I was removing Miasma.
Supposedly the aliens tend to lash out at all nearby colonists when they get riled up. Or at least that's what I read before the game was released. I'm not sure how that interacts with the "aliens get unangry at you faster" ability on the Harmony Affinity track. But if true, it might explain why nearby CPU players get annoyed when you clean up the local wildlife. It doesn't explain why CPU players on the other side of the planet get touchy about it, though.

Harmony affinity perhaps? I think that one pretty much turns entire factions into Greenpeace.

"That colony is destroying the indigenous life and messing with the environment! Don't they realise they are doing the same thing that led to the destruction of Earth?!"

I could see how leaders who are fixated on coexistence with the planet as-is would dislike a colony that kills off the local wildlife and sets up stinky factories everywhere.

toasteroven wrote:I think mine also happened because I set the aliens to "raging horde", or whatever it's called in this game. So I was under attack from pretty much the very start. Had to carve my way through swarms of aliens just to be able to found a second city. Which was all a hell of lot of fun, mind you.

I need to try that.

My little "Starship Troopers" military campaign against the nearby bugs was a lot of fun, and that was on normal settings!

 Lynata wrote:
[Harmony affinity perhaps? I think that one pretty much turns entire factions into Greenpeace.

"That colony is destroying the indigenous life and messing with the environment! Don't they realise they are doing the same thing that led to the destruction of Earth?!"

I could see how leaders who are fixated on coexistence with the planet as-is would dislike a colony that kills off the local wildlife and sets up stinky factories everywhere.

It's possible, and the thought has occurred to me. But if so, then the complaints are happening even before the CPU players get more than a point into the Affinity tracks. I'm not saying that it isn't possible. It merely means that the game decides at the start where each CPU player is going to focus its efforts, and doesn't wait to see how each CPU player's affinities naturally evolve.

And if they complain about removing miasma... well...

There's not much you can do about it then except get ready for war. Given how variable the miasma distribution appears to be, there are some regions of the map in which its more or less impossible to do anything without first clearing out half a dozen spaces worth of miasma.

 Lynata wrote:
Harmony affinity perhaps? I think that one pretty much turns entire factions into Greenpeace.

Amusingly, Harmony is the most warlike of all the affinities.

Yes, even more than Purity.

Eumerin wrote:But if so, then the complaints are happening even before the CPU players get more than a point into the Affinity tracks. I'm not saying that it isn't possible. It merely means that the game decides at the start where each CPU player is going to focus its efforts, and doesn't wait to see how each CPU player's affinities naturally evolve.

Yeah, I think the factions do have a preset affinity, which you can read out of their descriptions and leader interviews. It's just that human players can steer them into different directions?

I've never seen anyone complain about me removing miasma, though. Did you only do it every once in a while, or a lot at the same time? That could factor into it...

Melissia wrote:Amusingly, Harmony is the most warlike of all the affinities.
Yes, even more than Purity.

Well .. Purity doesn't care whether or not the hippies of Franco-Iberia cuddle with the aliens in their zone. On the opposite, I can understand Harmony getting angry if someone unbalances the planetary ecosystem, as that would have repercussions for everyone?

It does. The more people aggressively kill off aliens, the more aggressive and, iirc, powerful level aliens become.

 Lynata wrote:

Eumerin wrote:But if so, then the complaints are happening even before the CPU players get more than a point into the Affinity tracks. I'm not saying that it isn't possible. It merely means that the game decides at the start where each CPU player is going to focus its efforts, and doesn't wait to see how each CPU player's affinities naturally evolve.

Yeah, I think the factions do have a preset affinity, which you can read out of their descriptions and leader interviews. It's just that human players can steer them into different directions?

I've never seen anyone complain about me removing miasma, though. Did you only do it every once in a while, or a lot at the same time? That could factor into it...

I put one of the anti-miasma satellites above my second city. Amusingly, my Chinese neighbors didn't complain about it until just before it de-orbited, presumably due to incremental effects adding up.

Finished my first game last night. I lost. I was doing very well, and was 25% ahead in points of the #2 faction, but I was just a little too slow on getting my victory doodad up and running and they beat me to it. I was also a very peaceful faction, rarely attacking anyone or the aliens, but the late game, wars just started happening everywhere. I eventually figured out that, no matter how friendly you might be with a faction over 100+ years, if your Affinities get too far apart, then they will suddenly turn on you.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Finished my first game last night. I lost. I was doing very well, and was 25% ahead in points of the #2 faction, but I was just a little too slow on getting my victory doodad up and running and they beat me to it. I was also a very peaceful faction, rarely attacking anyone or the aliens, but the late game, wars just started happening everywhere. I eventually figured out that, no matter how friendly you might be with a faction over 100+ years, if your Affinities get too far apart, then they will suddenly turn on you.

Which does make sense. Harmony wouldn't want Purity and Supremacy trashing the planet any further. Purity wouldn't want those who have strayed so far from the human ideal to do whatever crazed they are planning, and Supremacy believes it is doing it for their own good.

So, during last night's game...

- I was playing on Mercury difficulty, but that didn't seem to stop one of my opponents (specifically, not-Brazil) from keeping up in the number of affinities. The others were at the usual lower levels. But the green player was just going nuts with gathering affinities.
- I got another narrative quest that was impossible to complete. This time, it was to build a Neurolab in a city that didn't have Firaxite within its boundaries. This sort of thing seems to be a common problem.
- I lost a city to a ship. This was impossible in Civ 2-4, so I'm guessing that it's a change introduced in Civ 5 that I never noticed.
- You get the "kill a worm" quest the first time you see a worm. But typically, by the time my military can actually hope to fight the things without losing a dozen (or more) units, there aren't any worms left on the map.
- Got another "How dare you remove the miasma!" comment from one of my neighbors after building an anti-miasma satellite. It seems those really set your neighbors off, probably due to how much miasma is being removed all at once (i.e. when the effect finally triggers just before it do-orbits).
- The Diplomatic Favors thing is kind of neat. But at the same time, I'm getting sick and tired of diplomatic "offers" that consist of me offering Open Borders, and an annual energy payment for 30 years in exchange for a Favor. Open Borders in exchange for a Favor is fine. Annual energy payment in exchange for a Favor is fine. But asking for both is just flat out insulting.
- Not-China landed and established its first colony, and the VERY NEXT TURN asked me to declare war on another player (not-Africa, I think)...

Eumerin wrote:
So, during last night's game...
- You get the "kill a worm" quest the first time you see a worm. But typically, by the time my military can actually hope to fight the things without losing a dozen (or more) units, there aren't any worms left on the map.

The odd thing I've found in my games is that worms will come up within bombardment range of my cities, get bombarded once, and then just sit there and let me hit them over and over. If I stop for a turn, they move on. It's worked for killing the things, but it feels like a bug. This is on mercury difficulty; I haven't tried any of the other levels yet.

Ships most certainly could capture cities in Civ II, I did it with battleships all the time.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Ships most certainly could capture cities in Civ II, I did it with battleships all the time.

Odd. I must be misremembering that. But Civ 2 was a long time ago from my point of view. At the very least, I'm pretty sure that they couldn't in IV.

And the idea just seems silly.

Eumerin wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Ships most certainly could capture cities in Civ II, I did it with battleships all the time.

Odd. I must be misremembering that. But Civ 2 was a long time ago from my point of view. At the very least, I'm pretty sure that they couldn't in IV.

And the idea just seems silly.

Certain ones in Civ V can.... For instance, the Trireme can, as it's a "melee" ship, as can the Ironclad, Privateer, and Destroyers. But, the Galleas, Frigate and Battleships as well as submarines cannot because they are all ranged classes.

iirc, Gunboats in Beyond Earth are ranged as well, and they're the only warship in the game (carriers also exist, but afaik they can't attack).

I'll note that I don't use gunboats much myself, as during my first playthrough the sea was literally swarming with sea dragons that kept sinking the things left and right (the dragons always came in pairs; the first dragon would damage the boat, and the second one would sink it). Those incidents left a bit of a mark.

Not related to any ongoing discussion here, I just wanted to say that I rather like the animation when a kraken is attacked by a jet. Very monster movieish.

Eumerin wrote:
So, during last night's game...

- I was playing on Mercury difficulty, but that didn't seem to stop one of my opponents (specifically, not-Brazil) from keeping up in the number of affinities. The others were at the usual lower levels. But the green player was just going nuts with gathering affinities.

It was like that in my game (that I lost). The other factions do keep up fairly well with their Affinities. I think, though, they do so at the expense of other techs (in that the AI may give priority to the techs that match its chosen Affinity)

- I got another narrative quest that was impossible to complete. This time, it was to build a Neurolab in a city that didn't have Firaxite within its boundaries. This sort of thing seems to be a common problem.

I got that same one. To be fair, at the time, the city in question was the closest city I had to any Firaxite, it was still just too far away to ever actually get it. Was your chosen city also the closest one to Firaxite?

- The Diplomatic Favors thing is kind of neat. But at the same time, I'm getting sick and tired of diplomatic "offers" that consist of me offering Open Borders, and an annual energy payment for 30 years in exchange for a Favor. Open Borders in exchange for a Favor is fine. Annual energy payment in exchange for a Favor is fine. But asking for both is just flat out insulting.

I agree. It is nice to throw useless resources at other factions to get favors, and then cash those favors in later on for free energy and whatnot. And I always hate it when the AI wants more in what should be an even trade. Open Borders for Open Borders is a standard, even trade. And yet, the AI sometimes wants extra money on top of it. No thanks, my Explorers can just spend a few extra turns going around you.

That's something that always annoyed me, even when on good terms they often want more than just an even trade.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

Eumerin wrote:
- I got another narrative quest that was impossible to complete. This time, it was to build a Neurolab in a city that didn't have Firaxite within its boundaries. This sort of thing seems to be a common problem.

I got that same one. To be fair, at the time, the city in question was the closest city I had to any Firaxite, it was still just too far away to ever actually get it. Was your chosen city also the closest one to Firaxite?

No, I had a city that actually had a working Firaxite mine when I got the quest. If there was any sort of logic, then that's the city that should have received the quest.

On a more basic level, though, forcing you to go to a particular city is the silliest part of it due to the issue that you describe. The first time I encountered the problem, it wanted me to build a petroleum refinery, and I only had one city at the time - which didn't have access to petroleum. I don't understand why this wasn't flagged as a problem during testing. It makes me wonder if there was a last minute change to the buildings in question only allowing you to build them in cities with the resource. I think the only place that the building description ever explicitly states that you *must* have the resource within the city as a requirement to build the building is on the Build Selection screen. iirc, it's not mentioned in other locations, such as the Tech Web entries. The fact that the buildings typically give you an additional bonus for having the resource (which is essentially required) seems to suggest this also. i.e. the Neurolab might give you (I'm making these numbers up, so they might not reflect the real in-game numbers) +2 Research, with an additional +1 Research bonus if your city contains Firaxite. But you have to have Firaxite within the city to build the Neurolab, so why is it listed as a separate bonus?

That theory makes a lot of sense actually.

Trade routes are bonkers now. There's no reason not to beeline trade depots and convoys ASAP over anything else. With two (three with a 'quest'/decision) from each city, you can have a trade route back and forth between every city you have, and still have trade routes leftover for stations and other civs.

It gets to the point where you're growing a pop every turn, and a city with three pop is outproducing the AI's cities with 10+ pop. Madness.

I really want to like this game, but there's some weird balance issues. I'm also a little disappointed with affinities. I was hoping levels could be accrued by playstyle, not by researching techs or completing a few quests. Like, spending 50 turns at peace with aliens would slowly tick up the Harmony tree, or conversely, every alien you kill could tick you up Supremacy. Having affinity more or less tied to techs is a little boring.

Granted, the tech web is pretty cool. Definitely makes me think a little more.

I dunno. Mixed feelings. Trade routes need a nerf. Badly.

They'll probably get one. Remember, game's been out less than a week now.

Right now I'm so annoyed I could scream. All I want is a nice patch of hilly land to establish my capital(production focus) and some reasonably nearby Firaxite deposits for when I found my first expansion city(science focus), yet without bloody fail every time I finally manage to get such a start, the game bloody bugs out and the "Next Turn" button becomes unclickable.

The last one was the final straw - I only had to Restart once to get the most perfect start I've ever seen for my planned path(Purity Domination victory); a coastal plain tile, surrounded by hills including basalt and copper deposits, a huge canyon within 5 tiles(meaning it's also likely going to get Geothermal), not one but TWO size-10 Floatstone deposits within 4 tiles, and just along the coastline was an area with no less than 4 Firaxite deposits(a couple of 2's, a 7, and a 9). Not to mention the five resource pods and three excavation sites visible right away(I use Retrograde Thrusters). And the button was bugged out. Raeg.

Trade routes are indeed no-brainer beelines, and I'm just finishing up my first marathon game right now and even with only 8 cities, every turn I'm playing "trade route manager 2014".

You'd be silly not to max them out, but in doing so I'm getting very bored with the gameplay...

I swear, some people here have the weirdest issues with the game, from weird diplomacy to the button bug. Have I really just been incredibly lucky so far? The only thing I'm affected by, too, is those annoying repeat-requests for resources and open borders.

Open borders has traditionally always been a big no for me. Keep your military away from my borders. Unless you're at war with someone I dislike, then I'll happily become the Belgium for your Schlieffenplan, for 30 turns.

Eumerin wrote:And the idea just seems silly.

Eh, not to me. As a colonial governor, what would you do when a sci-fi cruiser pulls into your harbour and turns its laser cannons on your buildings?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunboat_diplomacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_New_Orleans

Eumerin wrote:It makes me wonder if there was a last minute change to the buildings in question only allowing you to build them in cities with the resource.

Hmm, it would be cool if there was a way to use your trade convoys to shuffle strategic resources into other cities.

Stuff for an expansion, perhaps? Outposts seem to have a lot of untapped potential, also, compared to Civ V citystates (with addon). I could see all of this being thrown into a themed DLC.

Blacksails wrote:Trade routes are bonkers now. There's no reason not to beeline trade depots and convoys ASAP over anything else. With two (three with a 'quest'/decision) from each city, you can have a trade route back and forth between every city you have, and still have trade routes leftover for stations and other civs.

I'm playing with the "Beyond Balance" mod which addresses this and a few other things. Check it out!

 Lynata wrote:

Eumerin wrote:And the idea just seems silly.

Eh, not to me. As a colonial governor, what would you do when a sci-fi cruiser pulls into your harbour and turns its laser cannons on your buildings?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunboat_diplomacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_New_Orleans

Didn't read the Gunboat Diplomacy link, but reading between the lines at the New Orleans link seems to suggest that the city wasn't really captured until Butler arrived a few days later with 5000 troops. Until then, you had a group of Union marines who essentially traveled where they wanted to, but weren't able to exert any sort of real control on the city outside of their immediate area.

 Lynata wrote:


I'm playing with the "Beyond Balance" mod which addresses this and a few other things. Check it out!

Mods already? I applaud people's dedication.

I'll definitely have a look.

hmmm anyone else notice the graphics being fuzzy?

like, the center of my screen is in focus, but everything else looks out of focus.

Espionage is bonkers balls-to-the-walls broken. 23,000 energy every 60 turns (on Marathon) from ONE spy? I'll just buy an army and win, thankyouverymuch.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Espionage is bonkers balls-to-the-walls broken. 23,000 energy every 60 turns (on Marathon) from ONE spy? I'll just buy an army and win, thankyouverymuch.

Yep. 4-5 spies netting 20k plus each bought me my army of battlesuits, aegis and flyers. Rolled Polystralia in 2 turns...

 easysauce wrote:
hmmm anyone else notice the graphics being fuzzy?

like, the center of my screen is in focus, but everything else looks out of focus.

That would be a depth of field effect. There may be an option somewhere to turn it off, if you don't like it.

As far as ships taking cities, I can believe it. Keep in mind that the one ship you see on-screen actually represents a task force and not a single ship.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:


As far as ships taking cities, I can believe it. Keep in mind that the one ship you see on-screen actually represents a task force and not a single ship.

First, is it? A unit of infantry is represented by a squad. A unit of ground vehicles is represented by a platoon. A unit of aircraft is represented by an element. These all clearly represent more than one of the unit type. In contrast, a ship "unit" only shows a single ship.

Second, unless those ships are troop transports (and they aren't, since transports are abstracted in this game), it shouldn't matter. You would need a *lot* of marines to exert control over an entire city.

Eumerin wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:


As far as ships taking cities, I can believe it. Keep in mind that the one ship you see on-screen actually represents a task force and not a single ship.

First, is it? A unit of infantry is represented by a squad. A unit of ground vehicles is represented by a platoon. A unit of aircraft is represented by an element. These all clearly represent more than one of the unit type. In contrast, a ship "unit" only shows a single ship.

Second, unless those ships are troop transports (and they aren't, since transports are abstracted in this game), it shouldn't matter. You would need a *lot* of marines to exert control over an entire city.

I've always taken the "unit marker" on the screen as not very representative. To get an idea of why I think this, look at the Demographics screen (if you're on Civ V it's called Demographics, and shows the high, median and low numbers of various categories of all civs in your game; Number of "acres", total population, military population, crop yield, etc)

Wow.... The dlc almost turned it into a totally different game, I'm gobsmacked... Thanks all

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I've always taken the "unit marker" on the screen as not very representative. To get an idea of why I think this, look at the Demographics screen (if you're on Civ V it's called Demographics, and shows the high, median and low numbers of various categories of all civs in your game; Number of "acres", total population, military population, crop yield, etc)

Yep. Civ has ALWAYS been very abstract.

Eumerin wrote:Didn't read the Gunboat Diplomacy link, but reading between the lines at the New Orleans link seems to suggest that the city wasn't really captured until Butler arrived a few days later with 5000 troops. Until then, you had a group of Union marines who essentially traveled where they wanted to, but weren't able to exert any sort of real control on the city outside of their immediate area.

Nope. Those 5.000 troops did not arrive before the 1st of May, though it seems their role was important in securing it. Either way, the city had surrendered days earlier.
http://www.civilwarmonitor.com/front-line/the-surrender-of-new-orleans-part-1-the-men-and-the-skirmish
http://www.nps.gov/abpp/battles/la002.htm

Though even if this were not the case, how do you think you can capture cities with just a unit of infantry, which you can then pull out immediately and send elsewhere without the city falling back into the enemy's hand?
Abstraction is the key. The very same thing that causes a city to remain peaceful and loyal when you pull out your squad of troopers lets it remain peaceful after your cruiser has left port. I suppose we could assume that pacification units that aren't part of our active military (and thus do not show up on our map) would arrive to occupy a city the moment we have established military domination, regardless of how exactly we achieved it. After all, consider too that a city can resist attacking forces even without a single military unit inside! The city's hitpoints are independent of any military unit on the same tile, and those rocket batteries will also fire on enemy forces without you having to keep a unit of soldiers inside.

Perhaps we can also look at Battletech for inspiration, where there is an odd situation of city raids between the Successor States having become commonplace after the breakdown of the Star League, yet everybody also (mostly) adheres to a "code of civilised warfare" in order to limit damage to the infrastructure. This includes city leaders surrendering peacefully, and not inciting rebellion out of simple fear for the attackers always having the option to return and take vengeance. Usually, the attackers do not even have to send occupation troops but simply ursurp the entire existing hierarchy, with the bureaucrats continuing to keep the city running, and the cops continuing to keep law and order. It's just that the mayor has a new boss now.
In Battletech, this is partially explained with the vast distanced between planets forcing the settlements to be more independent and more concerned about their own wellbeing than affiliation to their interstellar state. I could easily see this apply to fresh settlements in Beyond Earth, too. Would you want to be the mayor responsible for seeing your city burned to ashes because you refused surrender to that laser frigate that scared off all defenders?

Formosa wrote:Wow.... The dlc almost turned it into a totally different game, I'm gobsmacked... Thanks all

Glad to hear you're enjoying it now!

Just won with a Transcendence victory. I can't really put my finger on it, but the game just feels incomplete, somehow. Until they get some new content in (hopefully some major expansion), I think I'd rather just play SMAC.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Just won with a Transcendence victory. I can't really put my finger on it, but the game just feels incomplete, somehow. Until they get some new content in (hopefully some major expansion), I think I'd rather just play SMAC.

That's oddly how all first Civ's seem to me after 2. 4 and 5 felt like that the most but then the expansions just fleshed everything out so goooood that I didn't care.

It's like they make a skeleton, it has plenty of good things in it and it is a fun game, but it feels like there could be so much more.

And then they make expansions, which make it start feeling like they studded everything proper with diamonds.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Just won with a Transcendence victory. I can't really put my finger on it, but the game just feels incomplete, somehow. Until they get some new content in (hopefully some major expansion), I think I'd rather just play SMAC.

That's oddly how all first Civ's seem to me after 2. 4 and 5 felt like that the most but then the expansions just fleshed everything out so goooood that I didn't care.

It's like they make a skeleton, it has plenty of good things in it and it is a fun game, but it feels like there could be so much more.

And then they make expansions, which make it start feeling like they studded everything proper with diamonds.

I muse they might do that on intentionally and for reasons other then DLC greed. Trying to lean a fully expanded 4x game on day one is rather hard. It's a lost easier to grasp when rolled out in steps.

Yeah, I'm fully expecting at least one major expansion. There's just so many areas where there is so obviously room for more stuff. (outposts, I'm talking bout you!)

I am also missing a lot of options from earlier games, though. How come there's no settings for stuff like barbalien aggression etc? Fortunately, there's already lots of good mods around.

Cool detail by the way - I just recently noticed how the leaders' appearance changes based on their affinity.
If there's ever a Civ VI, I'd love to see changing appearances based on a civ's tech level. It always rubbed me the wrong way to see guys and gals in feathers and chainmail command legions of fightercraft and nuclear bombers.

That was a change made in Civ3 or 4. In Civ 2 at least, the leaders' (and even your advisors!) appearances changed based off of tech level. Granted, it wasn't as graphically intense, so they didn't have to put as much effort in to it. The drawback of having 3d models is that it's more work for probably not enough gain.

I still miss the Elvis advisor from Civ2.

He was pretty rockin'.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I still miss the Elvis advisor from Civ2.

I loved that guy. But the medieval military advisor had the best little video when he had no complaints. Just coming through singing and all.

I was a late comer to the Civ series but really loved Civ5, very happy playing it.

Is this just 5 reskinned though? The more I read about it, the less innovative it seems. That fair comment or?
Are there any innovative features that elevate it above Civ5 barring the setting/gfx?

You will notice similarities, in the same way that you'll notice similarities between Dawn of War 1 and Dawn of War 2.


Not a perfect comparison perhaps-- Civ:BE uses the Civ5 engine. But the way it plays is quite different, in my opinion. Even just having a tech "web" where you start in the middle, instead of tech "eras" makes the game dramatically different, and that's just one change amongst legions.

Worth a splash so if I enjoyed Civ5?

Basically yeah. It uses the same basic game engine as Civ5, but is definitely a distinct game in the franchise.

It is a bit buggy from what people have said in this thread (I haven't run in to any bugs, but I don't discount their experiences), so waiting may not be a bad idea.

 Melissia wrote:
Basically yeah. It uses the same basic game engine as Civ5, but is definitely a distinct game in the franchise.

It is a bit buggy from what people have said in this thread (I haven't run in to any bugs, but I don't discount their experiences), so waiting may not be a bad idea.

Yeah, I absolutely LOVE Civ V, but I waited until a few months ago, and so I got all the DLCs and everything for the price of the original game at release

I may not wait that long with Civ:BE, but I'll probably at least wait till some kind of DLC comes out

Melissia wrote:Civ:BE uses the Civ5 engine. But the way it plays is quite different, in my opinion. Even just having a tech "web" where you start in the middle, instead of tech "eras" makes the game dramatically different, and that's just one change amongst legions.

Yeah. A lot of things just look like Civ V with new icons - for example, Happiness is now Health, and Gold is Energy. But on the other hand, a number of systems have been expanded noticeably, like espionage, or the aforementioned tech tree.

There are a few details from Civ V which I am missing, such as the more diverse unit promotion options, or city state diplomacy, but I have a feeling some of them are going to be added via expansions. CivBE feels very streamlined in some areas, perhaps a bit too much even, but all in all it's a very enjoyable game. And there's already a ton of mods for it.

Have now completed with Supremacy and Purity. Had a lot of fun initially (the graphics are very pretty), having lines of infantry defending against hordes of aliens and a Kraken coming out of the water eating one of my ships - arguably more fun than interacting with the other nations - but I agree this game is very much Civ 5 with a new skin; happiness has been subbed out for health, energy for money etc and I found myself loading up Xenonauts again within a week, which I think speaks volumes.

Loved some of the ideas (the Supremacy victory involving sending the cyborg army back to earth, haha) but then they didn't seem as well implemented as they could have been - why no cut scene of this for instance? The events, while initially seeming like a cool idea, are essentially just 'which bonus do you want your soldier or building to have', are usually a no-brainer, and don't have anything of the character of Civ4.

I think you can be satisfied with this game, but only if you don't apply any thoughts or imagination to what could have been. Why no expansions of space habitats, or planet-cracking (scenery altering) weapons? No drop troops that you can launch through the atmosphere, even the ability to travel to a nearby moon to set up new colonies (in the way that travelling to a new land-mass served in previous games?) Imagine loading in a save-game from Civ5 so you could invade the previous games civilization you had created? OK, perhaps that last one was a bit of a stretch, but for me it highlights the biggest problem with the game - it's good, but very much by the numbers and connect-the-dots with previous versions: Turgid, conservative, lacking in imagination. It's still fun, but nothing like it could have been if the developers had been willing to do more than just re-tread old ground and arguably a big waste of what the new setting could have provided.

 Alex C wrote:
Trade routes are indeed no-brainer beelines, and I'm just finishing up my first marathon game right now and even with only 8 cities, every turn I'm playing "trade route manager 2014".

You'd be silly not to max them out, but in doing so I'm getting very bored with the gameplay...

Yep, that's how I feel as well.

I have always wanted to play these games, but the scale it always a put off for me. I can't stand Frost giant sized soldiers standing next to these tiny houses and vehicles. I was really hoping this one had the scale of something like Age of Empires but it looks like it doesn't. Is there any kind of mods that fix these issues or am I the only one bothered by this?

It probably wouldn't be hard to do, though it would make things hard to figure out at times.

 Melissia wrote:
It probably wouldn't be hard to do, though it would make things hard to figure out at times.

It might just be OCD. I don't know why it bothers me so much. To me it would be like using Flames of War tanks as Landraiders in 40K...

For what its worth, Beyond Earth looks like it would be a really good game.

 Lord Scythican wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
It probably wouldn't be hard to do, though it would make things hard to figure out at times.

It might just be OCD. I don't know why it bothers me so much. To me it would be like using Flames of War tanks as Landraiders in 40K...

For what its worth, Beyond Earth looks like it would be a really good game.

I know there is a mod for Civ V that makes units more "realistic." No doubt the same will be done for this one.

 Lord Scythican wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
It probably wouldn't be hard to do, though it would make things hard to figure out at times.

It might just be OCD. I don't know why it bothers me so much. To me it would be like using Flames of War tanks as Landraiders in 40K...

For what its worth, Beyond Earth looks like it would be a really good game.

Abstractions bother you that much?

I mean, even a Land Raider is way too small for what it is, compared to the size of a Marine that it is supposed to carry.

Which also means that the weapons ON the Land Raider are also oversized compared to the actual tank itself.

In Civ, even tracts of land and resources are abstracted to an extent (with the exception of strategic resources). This is why you're still getting some production from hills, or mines, without metal resources-- it's assumed you have some resource aquisition in that area, it's just that you don't have a rich vein of gold or copper.

If you want "realistic scale", units in Civ would at best be visible as small black pixels slowly crawling from one hex to another.

At best, I suppose you could replace them with symbols.

vs

I'm just not sure if this would really be more fun, but then again fun is subjective.

It doesn't have to be realistic. I can get past true scale vs. heroic scale. For a game like this, I could easily get by with a scale found in Age of Empires or those old desert storm helicopter games. For beyond earth I could go with AoE sized troops and cities being a little larger. It does bother me quite a bit, but like I said it is probably some mild form of OCD. I realize I am a minority here and I am not 100% "it has to be perfect scale!".

I used to play with those little green army men when I was a kid. I had a C-130 that was about two and a half feet long. I was ok with it, because it was slightly believable but say I put my green army men in a 6 inch long C-130...well it would make me cringe.

What's bad is I am complaining more about my attitude then the game itself. I really hate that the scale bothers me so much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lynata wrote:
If you want "realistic scale", units in Civ would at best be visible as small black pixels slowly crawling from one hex to another.

At best, I suppose you could replace them with symbols.

vs

I'm just not sure if this would really be more fun, but then again fun is subjective.

Btw...I never said "realistic scale". That isn't what I want.

Oh - okay, I admit, I didn't expect someone to be bothered by units being "too big", but not "still too big, but a little smaller".

Don't get me wrong, this is entirely a matter of preferences and I'm not trying to make fun of you, I just don't ... get it, hence the misunderstanding and the suggestion with symbols.

 Lynata wrote:
Oh - okay, I admit, I didn't expect someone to be bothered by units being "too big", but not "still too big, but a little smaller".

Don't get me wrong, this is entirely a matter of preferences and I'm not trying to make fun of you, I just don't ... get it, hence the misunderstanding and the suggestion with symbols.

What's wrong with the Age of Empires scale? It seems like a good compromise. I just have a hard time looking at a tank and 10 Frost giants pouring out of it. At least with AoE I can suspend disbelief a little, but with Civilization I can not do that all...

To me this would be like playing 40k with Space Marines being 9 inches tall next to a land raider...the scale just seems unnecessary. I can deal with a few millimeters being off but this is just too much. If this was 40K I would expect people being okay with 2 inch long land raiders. Sure it's a personal preference like you said, but is there really anything wrong with that? I don't think it is wrong for someone to be ok with this scale after all.

There is nothing wrong with the Age of Empires scale. Just like there is nothing wrong with the Civilization scale. In my opinion, both are perfectly fine.

What I attempted to express is merely that I don't get how one can have a problem with the one but not with the other.

 Lynata wrote:
There is nothing wrong with the Age of Empires scale. Just like there is nothing wrong with the Civilization scale. In my opinion, both are perfectly fine.

What I attempted to express is merely that I don't get how one can have a problem with the one but not with the other.

Like I said, I don't think there is anything wrong with someone being ok with with civilization's scale. In addition like I said, a few millimeters off is ok for me. My issues is really focused on "too much" instead of "accuracy". That's not a bad thing is it?

 Lord Scythican wrote:

 Lynata wrote:
Oh - okay, I admit, I didn't expect someone to be bothered by units being "too big", but not "still too big, but a little smaller".

Don't get me wrong, this is entirely a matter of preferences and I'm not trying to make fun of you, I just don't ... get it, hence the misunderstanding and the suggestion with symbols.

What's wrong with the Age of Empires scale? It seems like a good compromise. I just have a hard time looking at a tank and 10 Frost giants pouring out of it. At least with AoE I can suspend disbelief a little, but with Civilization I can not do that all...

To me this would be like playing 40k with Space Marines being 9 inches tall next to a land raider...the scale just seems unnecessary. I can deal with a few millimeters being off but this is just too much. If this was 40K I would expect people being okay with 2 inch long land raiders. Sure it's a personal preference like you said, but is there really anything wrong with that? I don't think it is wrong for someone to be ok with this scale after all.

It's just an abstraction to represent a military unit being in that location. If this was a board game, you would just have a token there.

Looking at the scale of the cities, if you wanted anything even close to actual scale you would end up with some tiny, single pixel dots for units. Which wouldn't be recognisable, and would make the game unplayable. So, then they would have to have some label or abstract representation of those units..... wait a minute!

Okay, going to try an extra-long game...

Anyone have any recommendations for a health-focused Purity game, what general research order should be?

So I broke down and got the game... Started my first with Polystralia, and now I'm wondering /working on how to most efficiently get to the "end game" units/sciences.

I think I started off OK, most of my selections increase my science and culture for now, so the picks keep rolling in (it's also a "standard" game, so not the marathon slog of previous games)

One thing I've noticed though, is that I seem to have a Siege Worm bait near my towns...

Look for the Ultrasonic Fence.

 Melissia wrote:
Look for the Ultrasonic Fence.

Got it on my Capital city... and I have the perk/tech thing that makes it so aliens don't attack my trade units but my second city has 2 of the buggers swimming around it that I've been picking down each turn they're there.

Yeh, but at least you can poke at them without retribution, unlike manticores.

 Lord Scythican wrote:
I have always wanted to play these games, but the scale it always a put off for me. I can't stand Frost giant sized soldiers standing next to these tiny houses and vehicles. I was really hoping this one had the scale of something like Age of Empires but it looks like it doesn't. Is there any kind of mods that fix these issues or am I the only one bothered by this?

Used to bug me as well before I got into Civ but it just represents a company/division/brigade of said unit. If you went into the demographics statistics on Civ5 you saw your army was numbered in hundreds of thousands when you had like 30 units.

So I've made enough progress down my first chosen course (the "become an alien hybrid" one) and I'm beginning to get some of the interesting dialogue happenings

They seem to, thus far, have done a good job with various nations reactions to your choices and each others' choices.

Anyone run into a situation where, no matter how badly you're whoopin' an AI civ, they simply WILL NOT negotiate peace when you're at war?

Normally I have found the opposite to be the case, where you declare war and then they end up negotiating and giving you a city and other favourable terms - actually found it an easier way of conquering than fighting the computer player in some situations!

Do you have a much larger army than the person you are attacking? I wonder if the computer player checks your relative strength levels (or it might be the personality of the person you are attacking also?)

 Pacific wrote:
Normally I have found the opposite to be the case, where you declare war and then they end up negotiating and giving you a city and other favourable terms - actually found it an easier way of conquering than fighting the computer player in some situations!

Do you have a much larger army than the person you are attacking? I wonder if the computer player checks your relative strength levels (or it might be the personality of the person you are attacking also?)

Nope, the "russians" and the "Africans" declared war on me at the same time. I have done ZERO fighting with the Africans (seeing as they are on a different continent than me), and I've now literally wiped the "russians" off of the same continent that I started on. They've lost their capital and basically all military units, when, at the beginning of the war, they had some serious firepower over me.


About the only thing I can think of, is that because I've done all the way down the "become and alien" affinity (I know it's not supremacy or purity... the other one) and they've both gone for Supremacy, I think, so the ideological difference is so great that they won't accede to peace no matter what?

Harmony, you're thinking of.

 Melissia wrote:
Harmony, you're thinking of.

Yep...



.....Aaaand I lost that game to Brasilia, with no option for "one more turn"... stupid fethers I was building my transcendence victory wonder

That's what happened in my first game. I was massively ahead of everyone else (25% more points than 2nd place), but, whoops, someone beat me to one of the magical victories. Gotta keep an eye out for that. Even an underdog can still win if they're quick enough.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Harmony, you're thinking of.

Yep...

.....Aaaand I lost that game to Brasilia, with no option for "one more turn"... stupid fethers I was building my transcendence victory wonder

It doesn't give you an option for 'one more turn' ?

And there is no scoring rank either, or stats/breakdown by turns at the end which can rank you as 'Dan Quayle' by your leadership ability?

Those were the types of touches that made Civ the game that it was..

Yeah, this seems to be following the trend of recent Civ games. Wait a year, see if it's become good then.

 Pacific wrote:


It doesn't give you an option for 'one more turn' ?

It didn't for me, but that may be due to the victory type achieved? I really don't know, as I barely started my second game (still on standard speed, as I want to win one in a "quick" game mode before I go for a marathon game)

Also, I know that I made some pretty significant mistakes in my first game. Trade is pretty interesting/fun in this game, and I didn't fully live up to that potential. Also, I spent most of the game with a red health meter

It gives a "just one more turn" for all victory types, for me.

Haven't lost yet though so Iunno about that.

 Melissia wrote:
It gives a "just one more turn" for all victory types, for me.

Haven't lost yet though so Iunno about that.

It kind of makes sense if you lose to the CPU, you can't try and steal a victory from the ashes with another victory type, although It would still very much be possible to get a domination victory, or your other affinity victory.

First major patch has hit. So far looks like alot of good changes.


http://www.civilization.com/en/news/2014-12--civilization-beyond-earth-fall-update-now-live/


Balance

Wonders and Buildings:
• Holon Chamber provides 3 Science, 4 Energy (was 5 Science)
• Mind Stems cannot be bought with Energy.

Diplomacy:
• Any diplo item can now be traded in exchange for a peace treaty
• Lump Energy trade requires a Cooperation Agreement.

Trade:
• Water trade routes no longer receive any increased yield.
• Revised trade route formula for city-to-city trade, with reduced yields.
• Trade Depots can no longer be purchased with Energy.

Aliens:
• Clearing a friendly alien nest now removes the Xenomass resource from player stockpile.
• Adjusting passive recovery rate for alien opinion to be slower, to permit easier aggression escalation.
Covert Ops:
• Establish Network now has 0 difficulty and produces 0 intrigue. This prevents players from exploiting it to increase intrigue.

Health effects balancing:
• From -20 to -70, Production is penalized -1% per point (up to -50%).
• From -15 to -65, enemy Covert Ops Intrigue is increased +2% per point (up to +100%).
• From -10 to -60, Science is penalized -1% per point (up to -50%).
• From -5 to -55, Culture is penalized -1% per point (up to -50%).
• From 0 to -50, Outpost Growth is penalized -2% per point (up to -100%).
• From 0 to -50, City Growth is penalized -2% per point (up to -100%).
• From 1 to 5, nothing happens.
• From 5 to 25, Production bonus +1% per point (up to +20%).
• From 10 to 30, enemy Covert Ops Intrigue is decreased -2% per point (up to -40%).
• From 15 to 35, Science bonus +1% per point (up to +20%).
• From 20 to 40, Culture bonus +1 per point (up to +20%).
• From 25 to 45, City Growth bonus +1% per point (up to +20%).
• From 25 to 45, Outpost Growth bonus +2% per point (up to +40%).

Virtues:
• Eudaimonia (Tier III Prosperity virtue) now provides -15% less Unhealth (was -25%)
• Learning Centers now provides +1 Science for Academies (was +2)

Game Setup:
• Sponsors:
o Kozlov Ability: Orbital units last 50% longer, +50% Petroleum resource (was Orbital units last 20% longer and first launch grants free technology)
o Barre Ability: +10% Growth when Healthy, all cities start with an Old Earth Relic (was +10% Growth when Healthy)
o Rejinaldo Ability: Melee units +10% Strength, all units +5 Heal when fortified (was +10% Melee combat strength)
o Elodie Ability: provides 1 free Virtue for every 10 Virtues earned normally through Culture (was 1 free Tech for every 10 Virtues earned in any way)
• Colonists:
o Aristocrats now provide +4 Energy per City (no Health bonus)
o Artists now provide +3 Culture per City (no Health bonus)

Tech Web:
• Clear Miasma now unlocks on Ecology (was Alien Biology)
• Miasmic Repulsor now unlocks on Alien Biology (was Ecology)
• Array Science bonus now unlocks on Astrodynamics (was Orbital Automation)
• Planet Carver now unlocks on Orbital Automation (was Astrodynamics)
• Markov Eclipse now unlocks on Transcendental Math (was Artificial Intelligence)

Stations:
• Station start turn base is now 30 (was 20)
• Station minimum allowed distance to another station is now 2 (was 3)
• Station minimum allowed distance to a city is now 6 (was 5)
• Station minimum allowed distance to an outpost is now 5 (was 3)

Affinity Perks:
• Harmony level 1 grants Miasma Immunity to the Explorer unit (was Alien opinion recovers twice as quickly)
• Purity level 1 adds double combat strength when defending to Explorer unit (was Aliens cannot attack Explorers)

Quests:
• Affinity rewarded as a quest reward now ramps up slowly over the first 100 turns (on standard). This ramp will vary with game speed.
• All players now get affinity quests within 1 turn of each other. If it's not possible for all players to receive a quest at the same time, the game waits until this is possible, then immediately gives all players a new affinity quest.
• Autoplant Building Quest grants bonus Production (was +1 Trade Route)

Units:
• Explorers now have 6 combat strength (was 3).
• Sea units now follow the same rules for ranged combat defense as all other units: they use the highest of their combat values (ranged combat or melee combat) when calculating defense.
• Combat Rover unit can no longer fortify, and no longer receives defense bonuses from the terrain it is on.
• Raising the secondary level requirement for the hybrid upgrades of affinity units:
o First affinity unit (ex. Xeno Swarm) now upgrades at level 10 of main affinity and level 4 of secondary affinity (was 10+2)
o Second affinity unit (ex. Xeno Cavalry) now upgrades at 12+5 (was 12+3)
o Third affinity unit (ex. Rocktopus) now upgrades at level 14+6 (was 14+4)
o Fourth affinity unit (ex. Xeno Titan) now upgrades at level 16+7 (was 16+5)
• Lowering strategic resource costs for many affinity units, to ensure consistency across affinities and make top tier units easier to build. The first affinity units require 1 strategic, the second require 2, the third require 3, and the fourth require 5.
o CARVR now costs 2 Firaxite (was 3)
o Rocktopus now costs 2 Xenomass and 1 Floatstone (was 3 Xenomass and 1 Floatstone)
o LEV Tank now costs 3 Floatstone (was 4)
o SABR now costs 3 Firaxite (was 4)
o Xeno Titan now costs 5 Xenomass (was 7)
o LEV Destroyer now costs 5 Floatstone (was 7)
o ANGEL now costs 5 Firaxite (was 6)
• Increased production costs of upgraded Combat Rovers and Missile Rovers:
o Combat Rovers now cost 80, 160, 260, 370 (was 80, 140, 220, 320)
o Missile Rovers now cost 100, 190, 290, 400 (was 100, 180, 270, 370)
• Lowering combat strength progression of Combat Rover:
o Combat Rover combat strength progression is now 12, 18, 28, 52 (was 12, 18, 32, 52)
• Changes to the combat strength of affinity units, to make non-upgraded ones more weak in general:
o Xeno Swarm now has 22 combat strength at start, 54 when upgraded (was 34, 54)
o Xeno Cavalry now has 36, 72 (was 48, 72)
o Rocktopus now has 60, 92 (was 60, 82)
o Xeno Titan now has 86, 114 (was 96, 114)
o Battlesuit now has 24, 66 (was 40, 66)
o Aegis now has 34, 34 double strike (was 40, 40 double strike)
o LEV Tank now has 44, 77 (was 52, 77)
o LEV Destroyer now has 74, 104 (was 84, 104)
o CNDR now has 24, 63 (was 38, 63)
o CARVR now has 38, 76 (was 50, 76)
o SABR now has 52, 86 (was 58, 86)
o ANGEL now has 78 with 78 melee, 102 with 88 melee (was 88 with 88 melee, 102 with 102 melee)

AI:
• Once the game is in Extended mode (after the player clicks the One More Turn button) the AI will now only pursue Domination.
• Warmonger threat per city acquisition is now capped.
• Warmonger calculation now scaled down when cities are taken by Sponsors that are reacting to a war that was declared upon them (that is, when that civ is not the aggressor).
• Adjusted AI bonuses on higher difficulty levels.
• Additional AI tuning, improvements, and tweaks.

Gameplay Feedback:
• Implemented anonymous gameplay telemetry for design feedback.

UI

Settings and Game Setup:
• The menu now displays EQAA modes instead of MSAA modes if in Mantle version and the GPU supports EQAA.
• Added option to disable UI/Map blur.
• The player is now informed that enabling max turns disables victory achievements.

Trade:
• Previous trade routes appear in their own category at top of trade route chooser

City/Production UI:

• Adding Health tooltip help in City View to explain health sources and population cap
• City production pop-up now shows the last item completed.
• Increased city renaming from 15 character max to 23 character max.

Misc:

• Allow "One More Turn" after the default win conditions (Contact, Promised Land, Emancipation, Transcendence, Domination, Time), added text to defeat screen explaining how you were defeated.
• Option to make minimap opaque
• ESC leaves orbital mode instead of raising in game shell menu
• Added a badge to covert ops button in the action corner which will show up, and a warning to the covert ops panel when a player has any cities with high intrigue.
• Tech web - adding color underlays to building and wonder types.
• Added additional Advisors for trade convoy and trade vessel.
• Added support for third party wars in diplo overview.
• Full touch/gesture and pen support added (Ultrabook, Surface Pro, etc.).

Multiplayer

• Setting the internet server browser list distance filtering to worldwide.
• All players are notified when anyone completes a victory wonder.
• Multiple improvements to stability.

Modding

• 2D fallback image now supported for leaders on all video quality settings, not just the lowest.
• Added the ability to mod Quests.

Bugs

• Embarked workers can now correctly repair pillaged improvements.
• Fixed an issue where Max turns was getting set on “Reload”, causing achievements to not fire.
• Fixed bug where victory achievements would only unlock for the first player on a team.
• Fixed empty trade requests that could occur during the AI turn.
• Fixed multiple Quest issues (quest tracking, information, and reward bugs).
• Fixed multiple issues with screen resolution on specific displays (like the 144Hz full-screen issue), and a Mantle issue causing the game to not display on the correct screen.
• Setting MaxTurns only affects timed victory conditions. For a timed victory, you must either not set MaxTurns (of which, there will be a default for the game speed), or set it to 100+ turns. All other victory conditions can be achieved regardless of max turns.
• Friendly aliens no longer blockade cities.
• Fixed some specific issues with resources not appearing properly in the player stockpile.
• Many additional bugs and crashes addressed based on community feedback. Thank you!

Some good fixes in there, yeah. I'm especially glad to see some fixes and depth added to diplomacy, though it still seems like it'll be pretty shallow. What I really want is for there to be "causes" for war. For example, if one of the factions is attacking a station that I trade with, I could use that as a pretext for war.

 toasteroven wrote:
Some good fixes in there, yeah. I'm especially glad to see some fixes and depth added to diplomacy, though it still seems like it'll be pretty shallow. What I really want is for there to be "causes" for war. For example, if one of the factions is attacking a station that I trade with, I could use that as a pretext for war.

Or, if I'm a "harmony" civ, and I declare war on a "supremacy" civ, then ALL of the other Harmony civs should either join in, or not declare me a warmonger

But similar ideologies doesn't necessarily mean similar political goals!

Wait, I guess that it does in this game. Carry on.

They've taken my free Tech Away! Oh, protecting my settlers with an explorer is gone too. That was kinda silly.

I hope they'll add some underwater features, that would be very cool.

Explorers in general are better now, though.

Im just glad that so far this is looking like a better base game than Civ 5 Was.

Soon as we get expansions, it will get even better.



Civ 5 was pretty bland until all of the expansions it got.

Yeah, it's a good game even without expansions, I can't wait to see what they'll add.

 Melissia wrote:
Yeah, it's a good game even without expansions, I can't wait to see what they'll add.

Ive been meaning to ask how it is, I racked about 200 hours up on CIV5. You think its worth buying then eh Mel?

 mattyrm wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Yeah, it's a good game even without expansions, I can't wait to see what they'll add.

Ive been meaning to ask how it is, I racked about 200 hours up on CIV5. You think its worth buying then eh Mel?

I think so. So far I have 197 hours in Civ5 and 67 hours in Civ:BE. Still racking up the latter hours, though Iv'e slowed down as people keep inviting me to more multiplayer games heh.

 Melissia wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Yeah, it's a good game even without expansions, I can't wait to see what they'll add.

Ive been meaning to ask how it is, I racked about 200 hours up on CIV5. You think its worth buying then eh Mel?

I think so. So far I have 197 hours in Civ5 and 67 hours in Civ:BE. Still racking up the latter hours, though Iv'e slowed down as people keep inviting me to more multiplayer games heh.

Just bought it. If I do not enjoy it then I shall curse you until my last breath.

Which may be at some point this week judging by todays hangover.

Now now, I'm sure you'll outlive your liver by at least a month. The Royal Marines didn't train you to die THAT easily.

I am really enjoying this version of Civ. Probably the best since Civ2.

Although I am having some issues. Namely the fact that the AI seems to always get a victory condition, and more advanced units, before I do even on the lowest difficulty.

There is an insane difference in power level between units that are only one upgrade apart.


Anyone have any tips on how to maintain good health? It seems that once you have 4-6 cities that even with buildings that say they give +3 health your positive health doesn't change by much. Even working Biowells doesn't appear to be doing anything for me.

There's a specific route (up and to the right) on the tech web that should help you maintain health if you want to focus on health.

C:BE is 40% off on Steam right now, Featured deal for about a day and a half from when I’m posting.

Just a FYI for if there are other like me who were waiting for a sale to grab a copy.

 mattyrm wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Yeah, it's a good game even without expansions, I can't wait to see what they'll add.

Ive been meaning to ask how it is, I racked about 200 hours up on CIV5. You think its worth buying then eh Mel?

If you enjoyed Civ 5 you will like BE, it's essentially the same game but with prettier graphics and a sci-fi skin. I got bored with it pretty fast though probably because I went straight from a mammoth game on Civ 5 to BE - probably a good idea to put a play on a game in-between for that reason!

And don't call me Shirley !

I wish they had made generic faction avatars or even randomized ones. Its annoying seeing the same faces each game, and the same name.

That is one thing I did not like with Civ games. There was always a set named ruler.

Well, great. The patch has apparently broken Beyond Earth for me.

I'm running a 200 series Nvidia card, and apparently anything 300 series or older is incompatible with the latest patch. I'm supposed to use beta software to revert it to the previous version.

...

 Grey Templar wrote:
Anyone have any tips on how to maintain good health? It seems that once you have 4-6 cities that even with buildings that say they give +3 health your positive health doesn't change by much. Even working Biowells doesn't appear to be doing anything for me.

I don't know on what difficulty you're playing and how well it'll work for you. Purity doctrine has some really nice buildings that increase your health (Gene Gardens), reselin in your control area will allow you to increase health level by building bionics laboratory. I find communal health to nicely counteract the increase of population in the cities, if you're not dedicating completely to a single virtue you can take a dip to other branches, profiteering or public security. Late game, soma distillery will give you nice health increase and trigger a quest where you'll decide for cultural or overall health increase.

I don't know how other two doctrines do it. Purity is in my view been the easiest to maintain good health across the colonies, even though it's easily to get sidetracked as you ponder on investing into butter or cannons. Not building oil platforms, when just founding out the new city also helps. In general in addition of finding a good piece of land you need to take into account that newly founded colony will bring you negative health until it can learn to function on its own. Purchasing health buildings rather than production buildings is one way to have healthier population. Even though I sometimes get the feeling the effect of them is noticeable only after two or three turns.

Repetition of dialogues and faces gets annoying after a while. Particularly, since there are only 8 rather identical factions in the game.

Yeah, figured everything out.

A city can't produce more health than it has citizens. So buying buildings doesn't help unless they are below the population.

Mhm, you need global health to raise health beyond the population, which is given by things other than buildings (I think a few wonders might do it?)

So, from what I have gathered without playing it, would the description of "Civ V in space" be about accurate? As someone who still owns and plays the original Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (Civ II in space) this may interest me.

I just wish Civ V wasn't so simplified compared to Civ IV... the hex based tiles are a welcome improvement though.

Visually, yes.

As far as gameplay goes, in some areas it is the same and in others its different.

Some major differences:

1) Technology is a web rather than a tree. You start in the center and work out. Each node on the web has a primary technology which lets you move beyond that node, and there are 1-2 technologies which are also at that node and need to be researched in order.

2) Units upgrade differently depending on how you develop your affinity. The first 2 levels of upgrades are the same for basic units, but the last 3 depend on how your affinity looks. Soldiers(basic melee unit) turn into Marines. Marines can then turn down one of 3 pathways, gaining new abilities depending on which. Each Affinity has an associated strategic resource too. Harmony utilizes Xenomass, Purity utilizes Floatstone, and Supremacy focuses on Firaxite.

3) Alien lifeforms behave very differently than Barbarians have previously. They're not automatically hostile and can even become friendly. Early on, Alien units are quite powerful. But mid and late game they become quite weak.

4) Workers and Settlers function the same as in Civ 5, although when you found a city it spends multiple turns as an outpost until you can do anything with it. During that time it needs to be protected. Workers also know a bunch of tile improvements from the start. You can build roads, mines, farms, generators, paddocks, and plantations right away. Technology unlocks only a couple extra improvements, and it also improves old ones.

The same unit with a different affinity can have very different abilities.

Also, upgraded units are a major upgrade over their basic types. Even a single level difference can mean you are vastly outgunned.

There are no WMDs in this game. No nuking large clusters of units, although some units can gain splash damage on their ranged attack.


This game isn't in space per say. Its on an alien planet, but no space ships. You do get to deploy satellites. You can have a orbital laser/siege satellite. There are satellites which increase production or energy. There is even a satellite that can randomly spawn new resources on the tiles below it.

But.. I think such changes are minor when you look at it in context of changes within the Civ series since it began.

While I've enjoyed playing BE, it could almost be a fan made mod of Civ 5 - it's essentially the same game with 'in space', refined from the original and with some different unit animations tacked on, a few of the mechanics changed.

I think if you consider the environment in which it is set, they could have done so much more with the game. It's fun, functional, but completely lacking in imagination or the desire to do anything even slightly risky.

Sure, but I'm looking forward to DLC and Mods. Looks like it could be an excellent starting point.

I don't feel that any fan-made mod would have been this polished...

 Grey Templar wrote:
There are no WMDs in this game. No nuking large clusters of units, although some units can gain splash damage on their ranged attack.

The ludicrously powerful "this tile and everything within 3 tiles of it becomes a crater" Planet Buster missiles were one of my favorite part of Alpha Centauri.

So... I know this is a little thing, but is it possible to change the name of a newly founded outpost? Or do I have to wait until it becomes a full city, as it seems?

You have to wait unfortunately.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You have to wait unfortunately.

Huh. That's a shame.

It also bugs me a bit that when renaming a faction, you run up against a character limit that pretty much all of the factions break. This confuses me.

That's a problem all the civ games have had, afaik....

 Melissia wrote:
That's a problem all the civ games have had, afaik....

Yeah, you're right. I guess I just never noticed it before. I mean, I've always known there was a character limit, I just never noticed that the default Civs broke it so often.

I wish they'd not put such a glaring limitation, myself, for a similar reason.