Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

Discussion in 'Gaming' started by Kelthaz, Apr 12, 2014.

  1. Captain Qwert Jr

    Captain Qwert Jr Captain Captain

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    OK, I bought it, despite being disappointed in the last 3 Civ games, because of my love for Civ 2 and Alpha Centauri. *sigh* I'm a weak-willed slave to Sid.


    I have gotten each type of victory. I have never had a game last more than 350 turns. 500 is the max. You can get a victory easily enough between 250 and 300 turns. I have played it set to one step above normal, on all three land mass types, and half the time, on a massive map.

    I shall now hock my thought loogie at you...


    Strong new directions:
    -Affinities: Your vision of the future. Your ideology. This is an actual improvement over Alpha Centauri! Good Heavens! Ya see, in AC, your wonderfully fleshed-out faction would often move in a direction, that was anathema to their ideology. The atheist, totalitarian Hive Faction pioneering religious/individualistic techs for example. IN CBE you're given 3 directions to focus on. Harmony (alien diddlers) Supremacy (machine diddlers) and Purity (human diddlers). Following them gives you specific units, upgrades and abilities. They also have specific resources they favor, and a unique victory condition. Now your free to mix and mat[h, and yéu will, because some abilities are too useful to ignore, BUT since acquiring more levels in your preferred Affinity is the only way to upgrade your units, and acquire certain buildings. you'll be sticking close to one, at least for the first 150-200 turns. Your affinity is also a factor in diplomatic relations, but not as much you think (See Diplomacy Sucks below). I wish there were more, and I wish they had even greater influence on the who, what and why of their respective Civs. Sadly the big late game units are not that useful. It seems they exist to give rival factions something to make up for their general stupidity.
    -Tech Web: This replaces the linear tech tree. You start in the center oê the web and%0start branching out through 3 concentric rings. All the primary techs in this web will have sub-techs, aka leaves. Most of your Affinity leveling, with their subsequent advancements, will be gained by choosing leaves. All techs are visible which I suppose i best, since scientists, at least initially, should be able to predict what the colony will need. I suppose the outer rings should be fogged out, but from a game-play standpoint it's not practical. One more thing: I have yet to get more than 75-80% of the web filled out in a single game.


    Directions that need work:
    -Quests: IN CBE There are quests and there are 'quests'. Outside of victory conditions, there are only a handful of true quests, and those are either affinity related, or 'breadcrumb' guides to show you how to do things. The overwhelming majority of what are called 'quests', are just adjustments to buildings. For example do you want this building to produce an extra bit of industry or another trade route? These 'quests' pop up every time you first construct a building. It's a bit of a cheat.
    -Virtues: Where your culture points go. You exchange points for abilities in 4 categories: war, social, science, and industry. Needs work, but I reckon they know that. We are beta testers after all. The Science Column also has the most culture boosting powers, so in most games you will always be putting points there first. You can fill out two columns in a game most of the time.
    -Trade routes: Internal routes are vastly more important than in previous games. Construction is glacial until you set up a route between a new city and an established one, and external ones are a huge source of your income, contributions to science and placating other factions. Unfortunately the trade screen is an abomination. It's just a long scrolling column, that becomes more difficult to deal with as routes and cities grow more numerous.
    -Aliens: Critters would be more accurate, Sadly they don't have near the personality of the invertebrates of AC. But they are all over the place, which makes them a good obstacle the first quarter of the game. Interestingly, they are united, and they treat all human factions as one, so if you fight them too much they become aggressive to everyone. There is even a way to make them friendly (well, indifferent) to you. The rival factions seem to hate alien killing above all else. Also they don't seem to level up, so they are easy to kill later on.
    -City States: They only take up one tile! Huzzah! Unfortunately they are bland, only mildly useful, give no resources, rarely give a quest., and seem to drop in the exact place where your moving a colony. But they fade out if ignored, and new ones pop up every now and then. Just kind of blah really.
    -Expeditions: Aside from the old fashioned goody huts, there are now tile thingies than require you to send an explorer out to preform an expedition to unlock their secrets. They have interesting uses. Some are needed for victory conditions. They need to flesh this out more.
    -Espionage: No need to wait for an expansion for once. You'll be spying a lot. There seems to be next to no penalties for being discovered. You have to create a climate of 'intrigue' in a city to use higher level abilities, and Unfortunately cities are so few, that it's easy for rival factions to eliminate this intrigue before you can try nastier options out on them. Agents also have some domestic powers if you want to leave them at home.




    Directions that Suck:
    -Diplomacy Sucks: And on just about every freaking level. Leaders are based on silly national amalgamations (Polystralians, Amexidans, the Sprench, etc...except Africa which as all westerners know is one country anyway) and they have ZERO personality. NO gloriously thought out factions and personalities, like in AC. Even city names are horrifically bland. Alliances are worthless since it takes so long to mass an attack. There is no technology trading. Trading gold for science points or vice versa, is useless. Just buy a new lab, or use science to level up some gold producer.
    It's all Useless, Erratic, Stupid, and just plain buggy. I have so may stupid examples I can give. I've been offered nothing in exchange for nothing, and then when I accepted, they became angry and refused there own offer...of nothing. I've had allied factions get mad at me for not going to war in 10 rounds with them against another faction, even though they attacked me and we were in a state of war.
    Even open borders is not particularly useful. They don't even seem to notice when your going to win, so it's just a matter of clicking through the turns till victory. They even recycle old dialogue from the previous games, and use them interchangeably.
    -De-wonderization Sucks: It started in Civ5 and now it's complete. Wonders take forever to build, maybe two or three are of any use. No movie, Just a dull voice over over a blueprint. Waste of time. Build military units and take them from some idiot who built them.
    -Voice Acting Sucks: Or rather the decision to have 95% of it come from one female with a un-placeable accent. This woman also plays one of the faction members using the same voice. SO even if the dialogue belongs to the old African guy. She speaks it. Pointlessly stupid.
    -The Maps Suck: A cluttered assault on one's eyes. Don't stare at for more than a few minutes at time. NO ruins, no landmarks. Cities are a pile of garbage. All maps have the same aliens. The only difference is color. (Blue, Green, Yellow) The DLC maps are just set maps. No Terra forming, no adjusting elevations. No sea cities. AC, a near 15 year old game, is still ahead of its time.
    -Living in the Shadow of Civilization 2 SUCKS: This continues to be the primary problem with the Civ series. They are not concerned with making a civilization simulator, they are trying to remake Civ 2. So instead of thinking of new ways to grow a civilization, we are always having to endure new attempts to deal with old Civ 2 problems: The Stack of Doom, road spaghetti, Infinite City Sprawl... Adapting Panzer General's Hex grid combat, was probably a mistake. That game was about cracking open a set scenario. The AI can't use it properly due to the map's random nature.


    Verdict: I actually did enjoy a lot of it, clone that it is. There is a reason Civ 2 is so beloved, after all. You do have an enormous amount of options. More than the AI can deal with, sadly.
    I would recommend everyone wait for an expansion, before deciding to buy it, for while it's not un-entertaining, it going to go through a lot of changes in the next few months. I think the game has tremendous potential.
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2014
  2. Spider

    Spider Dirty Old Man Premium Member

    Joined:
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    Well, I love the game. I also really liked Civ V, so this retooled version of Civ V is also to my liking. I know there are some weaknesses in the game, but there are in any version of Civ. As far as your basic version of a Civilization game goes, it's great. At least to me anyway.

    The two things I miss about both the new Civs, V & VI, are the wonder movies and the victory movies. Watching those little movies (when you stoned) after spending a lot of turns building something was just totally cool. I loved the Statue of Liberty wonder movie.
     
  3. USS Triumphant

    USS Triumphant Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Me, too. And, I want my customizable castle back, with improved and expanded options.
     
  4. Spider

    Spider Dirty Old Man Premium Member

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    I remember that. That was a long time ago. Which version of Civ had that?

    I remember the very first version of Civ, and the little block like avatars that moved about. I used to always play the Aztecs and take over all of South America and launch my attack on the rest of the world from there.
     
  5. USS Triumphant

    USS Triumphant Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Civ I had the palace, Civ II had a throne room, and I want both back, new and improved. :)
     
  6. Kelthaz

    Kelthaz Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Well I was really excited about this game -- I made this topic after all -- but the game flat out sucks. It's an ugly, confusing, poorly balanced mess. I'm cautiously optimistic that future expansions and/or mods will improve the game to a playable state, but a game should be good on day one. This game was not.

    Well, at least it's not as bad as Master of Orion III. The only game that I ever returned to a store for my money back.
     
  7. intrinsical

    intrinsical Commodore Commodore

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    Its on 30% discount in Steam just for today. So its good chance to get it cheap so soon after launch.
     
  8. TheGodBen

    TheGodBen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    This game is on sale right now for $/€20. Is it worth it at that price point? Most of the word of mouth I've come across online has been negative, but it has been several months so maybe some of the balance issues from launch have been fixed, and the game may be justifiable at the lower price point.

    I've been wanting to play the game since it was announced, the sci-fi setting really appeals to me, but I know that if I wait another year I'll probably be able to get the game and the expansion at around the same price. So if the game is still broken/boring then I'll wait, but if it's in a decent state then I may jump aboard.
     
  9. Romulan_spy

    Romulan_spy Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The game did receive 2 big patches that did address a lot of the balance issues. Also, there is a big expansion coming out later this year called Rising Tide that promises to add water cities, new diplomacy, new dynamic leader traits, 4 new civs, and more. So, now, might be a good time to grab the game while it is on sale before the expansion comes out.
     
  10. TheGodBen

    TheGodBen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I know about the expansion, but there's no guarantee that it will address the problems that so many appear to have with the game. Also, as I said, if I wait a year I'll probably be able to get the game and expansion combined for less than €30.

    I played the demo last night, and it certainly has that "one more turn" appeal that the other Civ games do. However, I've read some people saying that BE loses its appeal after your first game because every game after that plays out more or less the same way. But people had the same criticism of vanilla Civ 5, and I'm one of the few who really liked that version (although it pales in comparison with the Brave New World expansion).

    I don't know, I'm truly torn on this one.
     
  11. Romulan_spy

    Romulan_spy Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Well, there will also be a big patch to the base game that will be released at the same time as the expansion. The developers talked about a version 2.0 of the game which is probably what this big patch will be. No specifics, except that the patch will apply core changes from the expansion to the base game. So, it is possible that the patch will address some of the balance issues that people still have. The expansion will of course automatically include this patch.