Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

Well from a "realism" standpoint it doesn't make much sense that the aliens, being fairly simple creatures, would only lash out at one specific group of humans, especially if they're all connected to a single hive-mind.

At the very least, you could have different levels of alien hostility on different continents and islands.

edited 7th Nov '14 1:06:07 PM by Locoman

I was thinking it'd make sense to have 2 bars, essentially. A global bar and a local one, which would be shared between a "network" of nests in a certain area.

So that way your explorers could blunder into a place where the aliens just really hate you without realizing it? That could be really neat.

edited 7th Nov '14 8:31:04 PM by Durazno

Wait, alien aggressiveness is a shared thing? I never knew. How do you ally to them, btw?

You need an uncleared alien nest in your territory and to not have killed any aliens for a while. You may also need harmony level 1 too, but in any case its almost impossible without it. Keeping uncleared alien nests in your territory gives you positive points with the aliens, and if your relationship with the aliens goes positive enough they turn blue. Keep in mind that any unimproved xenomass tile that has miasma on it can spawn an alien nest, so even if you've cleared them out you can grow your own nest, and even keep clearing it for cash and science once you're allies! (basically at this point you've domesticated the aliens and are using them as a cash crop i guess?) Benefits: you get the xenomass from alien nests as a strategic resource without building xenomass wells, aliens will never attack you and on land they dont blockade your citizens. Drawbacks: its currently bugged that sea aliens will still blockade tiles, xenomass wells give tons of resources and you have to give one up. Basically its not really worth it, but it is kind of fun just as something different to do.

edited 8th Nov '14 6:44:00 AM by mrshine

If you have a nest in your borders without clearing it for a while, the aliens will turn blue. You can't actually control them or anything, but they won't attack any of your units.

It's kind of broken, since you can just build an ultrasonic fence, keep that one nest alive, and then merrily run around committing alien genocide without any repercussions.

Oh, I was wondering how that would work.

My explorers keep clearing off the tiles, unfortunately. And I worry that they're going to jump on my colonists and workers if they get left alone for too long. They already tear up my roads for no good reason.

Just got my first domination victory. It's ... rather depressing for victory text. Endless Space tells me how there are billions of planets, and even more asses to kick, and I've kicked them all. Here, it says that all the new world proved is that even with extinction on the line, the path to survival has to be walked alone.

And to my credit, they had it coming. I picked a vast planet with only one other faction, so that I could expand as much as I want without worrying about neighbours getting in the way. I've gotten my first outpost out by the time the competition arrives...

And she puts her capital down almost on top of my outpost. And then, when my outpost became a city, she accuses me of stealing her territory! That game was not going to go without bloodshed.

edited 9th Nov '14 3:00:29 PM by Ekimmak

Domination is comparatively depressing; the other victories actually achieve a major step for humanity, Domination just kills everyone who isn't you.

Meanwhile, AI definitely has a wierd bug about that. I've seen them settle near me I don't know how many times only to accuse me of stealing their territory even though I had an outpost there well before they did.

This game needs to get more factions. Compared to the forty-something in Civ5, coming down to 8 hurts replayability. Even if it is a good game. Especially since they are not that different from one another (so there would not be too much incentive in associating a leader with only one way to play, but still. 8x3 = 24 combinations. Compared to Civ 5, it's not much.

Yeah; I'd say there is a lot of customizeability in some sense (Faction, Colonists, Shiptype etc etc) which gives you a lot more freedom with the group you're playing but it sort of changes it from 40ish clear and distinct factions to sort of a sliding scale of advantages which you can pick and choose between a handful of developmental paths.

So, it's less like you're picking a faction (ie. Good at Food, Good at Building, Good at Expansion) and more like picking where your advantages will be; The African Union can be used for a small boost towards an Industry game while PAC could be used to balance our hammers in an expansive sprawling game. Or concentrate on what they're best at, but mostly it's a spectrum.

Civ5 feels like it has lot more distintive factions which helps replayability, but with a less railroaded empire building style; I like to minmax Culture or Domination, but it was just as feasible to just build a large strong empire and have all five paths more or less open until the end in smaller maps.

edited 12th Dec '14 8:11:53 PM by Fauxlosophe

I put 60 hours into BE when it first came out, which i guess is more than I put into most games so it couldnt have been that bad. But I haven't played it at all since then, waiting for the patch to hit. Endless Legend has been filling the 4X hole in the meantime, damn that game is good but it makes me miss Civ's Civilopedia, nothing is adequately explained in the game itself. Having to go to forums to learn about basic game mechanics is not okay.

edited 12th Dec '14 8:12:59 PM by mrshine

The main problem I have with the differences between the leaders is that...they aren't that significant. Actually, I would compare them to the most "mundane" leaders of Civ 5, the ones who are interesting in their own way, but because of gimmicks that just give small advantages in a given playstyle instead of completely changing it.

Example: Napoleon is mundane; he just helps you building a Tall Cultural civ. Cathy is mundane, she is slightly better at land-grabbing and creating armies, but those will be the same armies everyone else has. Wu is mundane; she just takes your average ranged army and turns it into an impressive juggernaut. Casimir is OP yet still mundane, nothing stands out in what he can do, except that he will do it better than you.

However, Attila, Chaka Zulu, Genghis Khan, Pachacuti, Enrico Dandolo, Maria Teresa, Ahmed Al-Mansour, Seijong, Isabel or Pedro II all are original because if you want to win, you have to play in a way that is not available to other civilizations. You can't pick any civ (except for Arabia, I guess) and hope to thrive in the desert, or destroy everyone with just one city, or create a lightning fast horde no one can compete with but that forces you to make a difference if you don't want to be completely outclassed.

Even some other more straightforward civs I enjoy, like Aztecs, reward an original way to play - in Mocte's case, fighting wars without really wanting to conquer anything.

Problem is; BE is focused entirely on affinities, and all eight factions have been designed in order to fit any of those affinities without too much incentive to pick one over another. Why don't we get Space William of Orange who gets some major advantages at field modification - making him a perfect fit for Supremacy ? And that's just one example: I haven't tried Purity yet (philosophical problem with it), but any leader with a slight advantage while being in poisoned environments would be more likely to go Harmony.

Just like you rarely decide to pick Genghis and go cultural. You can, of course, or go scientific too, but his entire point is to create an army of archers that start on one side of the map and end up fifty turns later on the other after having conquered four capital cities without even suffering any damage. It doesn't make him less entertaining; you can pick a leader that has more than one option too (Casimir, Harun...) because you want to adapt to how the game is going, but you are not forced to.

Anyway. Still a good game. Wish Xenomass was easier to differentiate from miasma at a glance though, my eyesight is not exactly amazing, and it is the first time I had to put the resource icons on display to know where exactly were the green spots, as opposed to the bluish-green fog.

Note that your sponsor is only a small part of your civ. Your colonists, spacecraft and cargo also all contribute to customizing your civ. I wholeheartedly agree that the sponsors are both mechanically and flavourfully dull, i've thought that even before the game came out and i think its still true but sponsors are only part of the civ customization in the game.

Regarding the xenomass/miasma thing, its pretty obvious the game was never tested by anybody with colourblindness or other visual impairments; I've never heard a game get so many complaints on that score as this one has. No idea what made the designers think making everything in the game a slightly different shade of teal was a good idea.

Huzzah! The Linux port is now available!

And just in time for my semester to be done.

I agree, BE lacks the color liveliness V had. Everything looks rather bleak after a while.

Worthy spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri, they said.

Won't feel like civ 5 with a space reskin, they said.

It's pretty good, but I'll admit that it doesn't have the same je ne sais quoi as Alpha Centauri.

I mean, mechanically, it's in many ways better, but there are so many little touches that SMAC had that that made it feel more compelling.

I think it'll take a few DLC packs before we start to see this game come into its own. Remember how Civ V was before G&K and BNW came out?

Nope, I don't.

A few things I wish they done are for the faction leaders sponsors to read their own quotes and for the secret projects wonders to have proper videos.

I strongly disagree that it's mechanically better than SMAC.

I strongly disagree that it's even mechanically better than Civ 5.

I feel like "buy this game to beta test it for free, then buy expansions to be able to actually play it" is Firaxis's new policy.

Also, sponsors lack any character.

"Nothing personal, my dear username, but Planet simply isn't big enough for the two of us. I shall ruthlessly crush your faction, of course, and shall derive great pleasure from having you executed."

edited 21st Dec '14 8:25:54 AM by lazybanshee

It's available for a free weekend on Steam. Won't let me install though. I think I might need to research space-pottery or star-bronze working before I can.

A Steam sale this steep this soon after release says to me that this game is selling very poorly.

I'm definitely getting it, though!

Got this for the free weekend. Much like Civ 5 my first game has been spent doing nothing but derping around as I stumble through everything.

Help.

Supremacists want Firaxite, Purists want Floatstone, and the Harmonious want Xenomass. You can sort the tech tree (or the tech web, if you want to use Firaxis' name for it) to highlight specific things, such as these affinities, technologies which lead to victory conditions, and so on. It's generally better to aim for just one of the three affinities than multiple, so figure out which of the three resources you have more of near your base, then develop from there. There are enough affinity point-giving technologies on the tech tree to max out two affinities though (and get really far on a third), so don't worry too much about getting sidetracked on technologies which are more pressingly useful.

That help?

edited 16th Jan '15 5:10:45 PM by Sabbo