Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

It's no less ambiguous than the Science victory in classic Civ: why would sending a spaceship to another planet win you control over Earth? It's sort of like, "Yay, whoop-de-doo, we're going to colonize another planet, but this one is still fucked." I guess the idea is that it's your civ, your culture that sends the first humans offworld, so you win at evolution?

It's the problem with every victory being a science victory basically.

In Civ5? I've noted it as an exception where it did feel more ambiguous than the other victories.

But at the same time, it's possible to win it by centuries; guides will show you how it's possible to claim victory by like 800 AD as the Incans (though it's pretty well impossible to pull off on harder modes).

In which case, yeah, you definitely deserve the victory.

Even a hundred to seventy years of interstellar travel which the rest of the world doesn't have? You can presumably throw up Killsats or just fuck off and take all the good planets in the immediate vicinity before they've made it to the moon. It'd be the point where your Science boom goes from advantage to expotential growth.

Where it's a close victory? Yeah, it's ambiguous but I mean, one could take that ambiguity as the premise for BE. With BE pretty much every victory is ambiguous and not in a way that could serve as an interesting sequel hook.

Edit: I should note, that unlike in BE, I've never played a "close victory" in a science game in Civ5. I tend to play with all available victory conditions, and even on higher difficulties, I've never once had two people competing for rocket parts.

This is probably in part because I rarely go science myself, but also because of the diversity of victory options, it's not something that everyone shoots for.

On higher levels of BE though? Pretty much every game is the AI and me just turns a part from one or another kind of victory. It just doesn't feel as satisfying... It's not a deal breaker and raiding to prevent their victory has probably led to some of the more entertaining parts of game play but flavourwise, it just doesn't feel as conclusive as a Civ5 (or SMAC) victory.

edited 20th Jan '15 10:17:02 AM by Fauxlosophe

In Civ V G&K, I frequently blunder into a Culture victory on my way to one or more other victory conditions, with Diplomatic a close second. I try to dominate all city-states for the bonuses and to maintain my ability to propose favorable World Congress initiatives, so it just sort of naturally happens that as soon as the Information Era rolls around, I get voted World Leader.

I must say, the sci fi aspect gives BE a more immediate grab for me, and I'm pleased with the aesthetics of everything. But Civ 5 just has far more options to play with. I think I'll be waiting for the ultimate edition before I get the game.

I started a new game as ARC. Mercury difficulty (Normal), large world. I had a much slower start than as PAC, partly because my UA isn't well suited for the early game. I probably also fell down in terms of not pushing for a Spy Agency off the bat.

Unlike last game, I was DOW'ed in this one, by Elodie. Fortunately, warfare is seemingly even more lopsided in favor of the defender in BE than in Civ V — that or the AI is just really bad at it. She barely scratched my capital and I crushed her, getting a nice bonus when she submitted.

Then the Kavithan Protectorate, who really did have a big army, went right through my territory to opportunistically attack her, and also got wiped out. Aggression is tough, yo.

However, espionage, the strength of ARC, is absolutely brilliant when it works. I stole Elodie's capital city with an agent. I was utterly flabbergasted when it worked, but my catch-up in points was extremely rapid thereafter. Too bad that doing it gets me a warmonger penalty. I also stole a few techs that boosted me up as well.

I'm trying to determine for myself the value of miasma in my territory: I suppose that it acts as a military bonus if you're going for Harmony, because you can force your opponents to take free damage while healing your own units. In fact, generating miasma in their territory with an orbital unit seems like a crazy good offensive move, both economically and militarily.

The only problem is that I may have to rush to a victory condition, as at least one of my competitors is seemingly working towards Contact and I am still a little behind in wonder production. Getting a Domination victory seems out of the question in a map of this size, especially since I had the misfortune to place my capital on a landlocked ocean.

edited 26th Jan '15 2:04:11 PM by Fighteer

Warfare is a bit weird in this game because unlike Civ 5 your city's defense doesn't go up on its own, and uniquely for this game it's totally possible to just never research any defensive buildings at all. So it's pretty likely that your cities (or the enemy's) will actually be somewhat weaker than your military units, and unlike Civ 4 or previous you can't defend a city by having a unit inside. In fact, that just gets the unit killed. So the best strategy is to have tons of melee units blocking off access to the city and/or being ready to immediately recapture it. Clearing out the enemy's melee units is also more important than weakening the city, because they will recapture it, and trading back and forth repeatedly just destroys all the buildings in there.

I finally got enough health built up to go on a significant war of conquest, and Elodie has vanished into the annals of history. When I pick up the game later in the week, I'll be only about 15 turns from my Transcendence victory.

The KP is my staunch ally thanks to affinity synergy, even though they have a pretty nasty army. I wonder if she'll DOW me to stop my victory condition. If she tries, I've got a ton of energy saved up to buy units.

The AI is pretty bad about trying to stop players from winning. They have the same fear-based diplomatic penalty as always, but they don't drop everything to stop you like a player would. If you've taken care of your aggressive immediate neighbors, it's extremely likely you'll just uneventfully End Turn your way to victory.

Does anyone miss more nuanced unit promotions? It seems that Firaxis decided to scrap the Civ V system in favor of a simple choice between healing and a minor stat increase. All of the tactical bonuses are now done via Affinity upgrades.

I wonder what the logic was behind that choice. Veteran units can be more powerful than normal ones, to be sure, but earning XP through combat is no longer something that seems mandatory to have a good military.

Given how much less crucial veterancy is, the military culture tree seems awfully weak, as does the science tree given that you are unlikely to be able to have positive health that early. I always go down the industrial and health trees, stopping to pick up science later.

edited 27th Jan '15 2:24:44 PM by Fighteer

I think the logic is that by giving fun, game-changing choices to the unit type instead of the individual, players won't be disproportionately encouraged to feed/protect already strong units. Basically it lets a cannon fodder strategy become more practical. The fact that units can still level up at all is just a function of them keeping Civ 5 mechanics by default.

I've always felt that the "heal 50 hit points" promotion is awfully cheesy, especially given how the AI uses it in Civ V. "You thought you had this unit almost dead? Ha, ha!" At least here, there's a reason to choose it over a flat +10% to stats. And I still find myself using my military in Civ V style, carefully shepherding every unit.

edited 27th Jan '15 2:30:41 PM by Fighteer

I won that game with ARC. Amusingly, a dozen or so turns after the win, I got involved in a global war, with Kavitha and I mutually DOW'ing one faction, followed by the other two that were at war with her DOW'ing me. I learned a valuable lesson about BE warfare: when tech levels are equivalent, quantity trumps quality. That and tactics. The orbital laser and TacNet Hub that I deployed were pretty awesome, too.

It's not about having a lot of units to begin with; it's about being able to deploy a lot of units quickly, and my empire's production capacity vastly outstrips anyone else's.

Also, orbital units are freaking amazing for developing territory. I'm going to start deliberately leaving unimproved hexes in my empire so that I can pop extra strategic and bonus resources in the mid to late game. That is so overpowered.

Also, also, ranged units are cannon fodder for melee units if not protected. Ouch.

edited 28th Jan '15 11:19:05 AM by Fighteer

Fully upgraded farms are actually more powerful than fully upgraded resources.

Fully upgraded biowells also seem insane.

EDIT: those resource satellites really earn their keep over water though. Turn all that useless water into petroleum and algae yummmm

edited 28th Jan '15 12:08:47 PM by MrShine

The one that produces strategic resources, though, seems much more valuable over land. I had a severe deficit of Xenomass for my Harmony affinity units and buildings until I started popping it with satellites.

Edit: Thanks to the synergistic buildings that you can develop with techs, strategic resources are far and away the best tiles you can have, biowells be damned. Some of the endgame improvements like the Biofabricator can absorb insane quantities of strategic resources if you want to build them in every city.

Basic resources can also have synergistic value, of course.

edited 28th Jan '15 1:51:12 PM by Fighteer

Looks like Beyond Earth is getting an expansion this fall.

Will it Win Back the Crowd?

At least it sounds like it will have some replayability aside from testing all three affinities. But a lot of these ideas would probably have been better in the default game - hybrids, colonizing oceans...

I only played two games of BE. I played dozens of games of Civ V. I hope this expansion improves replayability.

Sea colonies, new resources, new diplomacy options, and hybrid-affinity unique units all sound pretty good. It also all sounds like stuff that should have been in the first release, not something you charge another $40 for. I'll probably wait until it goes on a Steam sale or something, but I am interested.

Yeah. On this one it seems safer to just wait until the deluxe edition pops up on the Steam sales in the near future. Most of the bugs in the new expansion (or expansions) should be squashed by then anyway.

One thing that bugs me about Beyond Earth as it is right now is how orbital unit life works. If you have something that extends satellite duration, like the quantum computer wonder, the Industry virtue, or you're Kozlov, it actually makes a bunch of the satellites less useful. The Miasmic Repeller/Condenser, the Weather Controller, and the Orbital Fabricator have their effects over the course of their duration. If you extend the duration it just means the same effect happens slower with no actual benefit.

I'm interested to see how the biomes will affect gameplay. My guesses:

• Lush: increased alien spawn rate

• Fungal: more miasma

• Arid: Not entirely sure about this one. Maybe tiles give less food in exchange for more energy?

• Primordial: Geothermal wells and canyons yield extra resources.

• My guess is that the fifth biome is going to be an all-water planet, with no land whatsoever.

Yes, that was an incredibly stupid design decision that makes no sense. Even for the other satellites, it's not like you care about their duration all that much, since they're relatively cheap to produce. Pretty much the only limits on satellites are the strategic resources and sky-space.

edited 23rd May '15 5:59:34 PM by Clarste

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Instinctively, I remember stuff like the Arboreal Maps which are basically fodder for Iroquois vs. Celts and so forth. Things get bottlenecked into a handful of playstyles and only a few factions are viable.

On the other hand, in BE there should be less of a bottle neck in Factions since they're almost more like a Belief in Civ5. Affinity seems more subject to bottlenecking here and that might be a good thing. In a Map where factions are really pushed towards adopting one affinity /might/ actually help the factions feel more separate; if everyone is rushing for Harmony affinity, then maybe we'll start to really notice a difference, say, between Franco-Iberia and PAC...

edited 24th May '15 1:01:39 PM by Fauxlosophe

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