Civ: Beyond Earth

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

soo...didn't see a topic on it yet.


Who else has played it so far? I put an hour or so into it earlier, and from what I can see it definitely shares the same engine and plays just like civ V (which is okay, I wasn't expecting some huge revolutionary thing in that part, I mean..it's civilization. you know what you're getting into.) but the art style definitely looks like starcraft and alpha centauri had a baby, and it is this game.


It is probably just an illusion since I'm not accustomed to it yet, but it seems like they really revamped how the tech tree works and how resources/economy play into that.


One new thing I'm really enjoying are the quests (typically given to you based on what you're doing/researching), after you accomplish the goal your civilization is given a decision on which path you want to take based on the quest, and it gives your civ different boosts which can really help long term depending on what kind of civilization you're planning on building.


I haven't quite gotten the hang on the outpost/city thing, still figuring out when it's best to break off and make more or if it's even worth it in some cases, it seems like overgrowing is being penalized in this game alot more than in civ V which was alot more about land control.


anyways, thoughts? anyone wondering anything I might be able to answer?


all in all, if you enjoyed Civ V, this feels like more of it and is basically an awesome/huge expansion, which I would recommend getting if you have the cash to drop on it.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Currently downloading it. First impressions are good. Holy shit, does Firaxis know how to cram enjoyment into a gigabyte. It's just a 2.7 gig download. It'll be done in under 20 minutes even for my somewhat crappy internet.

Also, I've been looking at pre-release let's plays. It seems like they've crammed most of Civ 5 plus the expansions gameplay into one game at release. I can't wait to see what the inevitable expansions open up.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Currently downloading it. First impressions are good. Holy shit, does Firaxis know how to cram enjoyment into a gigabyte. It's just a 2.7 gig download. It'll be done in under 20 minutes even for my somewhat crappy internet.

Also, I've been looking at pre-release let's plays. It seems like they've crammed most of Civ 5 plus the expansions gameplay into one game at release. I can't wait to see what the inevitable expansions open up.

yeah compared to civ V at release, this game seems to really have alot more pack to its punch, and it's quite beautiful imo


I will say I'm relearning this game though, had it on one of the lower difficulties and I was still getting overtaken by the CPU (I turn scores on in single player, prefer it that way) while in Civ V I would've been stomping them right off the bat. Probably because I have no idea what some of this shit even does (so much space/future vocabulary, not always sure what's worth investing in or not.)

another mechanic I haven't invested much time into yet is satellites, which orbit above certain tiles (I just plopped mine right over my city) that can give bonuses or act as an offense/defense sort of eye in the sky for you. As far as I know they all eventually come crashing down out of orbit though, so they are only temporary, which makes me wonder if/when they are worth getting.

 

[Elfgore]

I've played about an hour so far. I had a slight run with the graphics, trying to change them was a massive ***** for some reason. But other than that I've enjoyed it. I wasn't really expecting revolutionary gameplay and I'm happy with what I got. I'm going down the Harmony branch right now, can't wait to get my first alien unit. The new research branches took me a bit to get the hang of them, but in the end they feel a lot less... hand-holding than other Civ games. I'm looking forward to playing some more after work tomorrow.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Im going purity. Fuck yo alien dna and robot suits, Im changing the world to suit my purposes. Everybody gets a nice oldstyle earth home and an acre of earth grass!

 

[Jandau]

It's finished downloading this morning and is sitting on my PC at home, waiting for me to come home from work. And this is one of the rare Fridays I have overtime. It's torture. I NEED to colonize things. NOW!

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Im going purity. Fuck yo alien dna and robot suits, Im changing the world to suit my purposes. Everybody gets a nice oldstyle earth home and an acre of earth grass!

it was too hard for me to go purity on my first run, some humanoid spaceship crash landed and they were half cyborg, and I felt bad so I let them live with my civ :/


It'll be interesting to see in the long run how much (if at all) that kind of stuff truly matters or is just a different way to approach a victory.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Im going purity. Fuck yo alien dna and robot suits, Im changing the world to suit my purposes. Everybody gets a nice oldstyle earth home and an acre of earth grass!

it was too hard for me to go purity on my first run, some humanoid spaceship crash landed and they were half cyborg, and I felt bad so I let them live with my civ :/


It'll be interesting to see in the long run how much (if at all) that kind of stuff truly matters or is just a different way to approach a victory.

I've just gotten the same thing! But there's so much floatstone nearby it looks like they will just have to live as pariahs in my pure society. I've managed to snap up the supply for my continent. I wonder if my also purity AI neighbour is feeling nervous right whilst I make float tanks...

 

[Weaver]

I'm really liking it so far! I find the aliens to be impressively irritating. I'm not totally sure if I'm supposed to be killing alien nests or not because when I do the fucking AI players tell me I'm being too mean to the aliens. This playthrogh is a supremacy playthrough for me. The thought of becoming computers is appealing.

I'm also finding taking cities to be incredibly difficult; much more than Civ V.

That said, I'm liking the game a lot so far. I can't wait to finish my first "learning playthrough" and starting a new game ^_^

 

[L. Declis]

Can I just say, the intro cinematic to the game is really, really good? It made me tear up, I won't lie.

As far as the game is concerned (2 hours in, damn work!), I am loving this. However, the aliens are being a pain in the arse and I'm trying to be nice and live and let live, but they keep destroying my trade routes and Colonists so it's becoming tempting to kill them.

I'm currently 3/3 on Harmony and Purity (the idea of becoming cyborgs is a bit... mmmm.... at the moment, but I think next play through I'm going to load up my Marines and start wiping aliens, fuck that shit).

And Brazilia is an aggressive little bastard, isn't he? Also, there is basically no point to Diplomacy as far as I can see. I hope the first expansion they release really buffs Diplomacy (and adds a Germanic-AngloSaxon race).

Having all the options are nice, but it does seem to me that some things are just so clearly better I don't know why I would ever take the alternative option given, so maybe a bit of balancing will help with that.

Happi... Health is starting to get a bit antsy, I miss the luxury resources from Civ 5.

Also, the virtues tree is nice, but some virtues totally kick ass, and some are a bit... meh. So you have to sink a crap virtue to continue back to the good ones. But I love that they let you have a bit of all of them, or you can specailise. I'm currently using 2 routes (Science and Industry) and you get a good mix of both bonuses.

I really think this game is good, if a bit slower paced than Civ 5.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Can I just say, the intro cinematic to the game is really, really good? It made me tear up, I won't lie.

no kidding, I've always liked civ intro's (the different ones for each expansion even) but this one definitely hit me in the feels. Gonna have to watch it 50% of the time on start up probably lol

 

[the doom cannon]

I just finished my first game. I am very pleased with how the game plays. Here are my thoughts:
Pros
There is no annoying UI lag like in Civ 5
The tech web is way more interesting than the linear Civ 5 tech tree
The unit upgrades throughout the game are interesting
The choices with regards to buildings are pretty awesome
The landscape is littered with various resources that some buildings can use
The alien mechanics are pretty novel
Virtues are a neat take on culture

Cons
Health was VERY hard to manage in the first half of my game. I ended up going deep into the green virtue track just to get the +7 health virtue, and once I had that and built a third/fourth city the health stat wasn't a problem at all. I found out toward the end that there is a tile upgrade that give +1 health; probably gonna try grabbing that earlier.
I can't for the life of me find out how many trade routes are available in each of my cities without having a free trader to click on. This is pretty annoying, since I built probably 10 traders over the course of the game that had no available trade routes.

Other thoughts
I actually managed to complete this game without going to war with anyone. Game completion time was ~8 hours, and I ended up winning via contact victory, even though I already had the first couple transcendence victory things researched before starting the contact one.
The different victory routes seem equally viable to me, which is a huge step up from Civ 5 on release, which was basically only winnable on harder difficulties via domination. Will have to up the difficulty level to find out how BE scales.
I found the production speed of late game wonders to be kinda long. I could build military units in 3-5 turns, but damned if I can finish one of those wonders in less than 40.

 

[Jandau]

The game is amazing. Looks great, plays great, the various mechanics and systems mesh together quite nicely, there are plenty of ways to specialize your civilization and tailor it to your own needs and desires. It's a brilliant game and I already prefer it to Civ 5.

I'm particularly fond of the building customization - for those who haven't played it, when you build a building for the first time you get a small event concerning how that building will be put to use. This gives you two options, each providing a different bonus that will then be provided by ALL subsequent buildings of that type. For instance, a Pharmalabs provide a +2 Health, and let you pick between an extra +1 Health or +1 Science. This lets you emphasize the aspects of your civ that you are pursuing.

I have a few complaints, however...

First of all, Health is nearly unmanageable (for Civ 5 players, Health = Happiness). Even on mid-range difficulties, the penalties accrue so rapidly that it takes stacking every Health bonus you can get just to keep your head above water. Sure, lategame you can get it really high, but the curve should be evened out a bit, allowing for slightly easier management early on and less stacking potential later.

Secondly, I've gotten a few sidequests that are outright impossible to complete. For instance, one that I have in my log at the moment requires me to build a Neurolab in one of my cities. No big deal, right? Except that a Neurolab requires a city to have an exploited source of Firaxite. No, that doesn't mean you need to have Firaxite available, that PARTICULAR city has to have it in order to build it (there are a number of such buildings, requiring local access to a resource). Need I state that the city in question does NOT have Firaxite anywhere near it? I have 20 Firaxite available, but that one place doesn't and now I can't finish the quest.

Third, the wildlife is a bit easy to gun down. They are a threat in the early game, sure, but once you get 3 units and some basic tech they become trivial. A pair of marines backed by a ranger can easily antagonize a nest, draw out the defenders and wipe them out one by one with little trouble. I have yet to try the Advanced option for harsher aliens, but I think it might be mandatory. I miss the escalation of wildlife we had in Alpha Centauri.

Fourth, the inability to set convoys on automated. As it is right now, you need to reissue their trade route orders every 20ish turns. It's not a major issue, but tends to become a bit annoying. Just a checkbox allowing you to automate it until you tell them otherwise would be welcome...

However, all this is easily fixed and aside from the health isn't that big of a deal. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got robots to build and Slavs to kill...

 

[Pseudonym]

I've played two games so far. I like it. It is a breeze at lower difficulties but I suppose I shouldn't expect the AI of a game that looks this much like civ 5 to go up against my hundreds of hours of experience with that game. I'm a bit confused about the people complaining about problems with the health system. Compared to civ 5 hapiness I found it very forgiving. Too forgiving, even. I hardly went negative and the damage to your empire is much less severe than the 75% growt reduction that cripled you in civ 5. And I've had large empires with large cities. (10-15 cities 15-35 inhabitands each, courtesy of a huge amount of internal trade routes) In fact I'd say they should make health more important or difficult to attain. Maybe it was because I jumped straight onto prosperity. Seriously, did you see that virtue far down the line that reduces all unhealthiness by 25%. In the two games I played once I got that one I could expand as far as I liked before getting my victory.

I'm also glad to see that cities have less hp than in civ 5 so conquest is a little bit easier. I remember civ 5 games where cities were inconquerable until I had artillery because they were protected by mountains and hills and my trebuchets would just get killed by the city before they could fire and I couldn't get more than 2 siege units in range at a time, etc. That isn't really an issue as far as I've played so you do need a substantial army to defend yourself this time around. It's not like in civ 4 where a city had no hp or any defensive capabilities apart from buffed armies defending it, but cities are certainly less powerful than they were in civ 5.

Also, again a little bit more like civ 4, I feel like I have more time spend building units, workers and trade routes, and less time on buildings compared to civ 5.

The tech web is interesting and not very linear though as far as I can tell the best thing to do is just getting one affinity straight up and getting that as much as possible to (freely) upgrade your units. Virtues, like the health system feel a little bit too forgiving compared to civ 5. In civ 5 if I wanted a policy three I needed to keep in mind that finishers mattered. I couldn't just get random policies here and there and expect to go as well as somebody who just focussed on tradition and rationalism. But because in this game you have both vertical as horizontal finishers so to speak I needn't finish any three and can just get what I need. This takes away an element of skillful planning in my opinion. I also didn't get as many policies in civ 5 as I got virtues here because culture was harder to come by. So the whole culture system feels dummed down, especially later in the game. Early game there are at least a couple of things I want quickly or not at all, like the free colonist, or the science bonus on excavations so I need to focus but later on I am not really even in a hurry anymore to get any specific thing.

Aliens so far, feel like they can't really replace both barbarians and city states (which don't do much in this game, as there is no diplomatic victory)

I've so far had the purity and the harmony victory and I have been close to the contact victory (after you get one victory you can continue playing to get another, but when I saw I needed to emit the contact signal for 30 turns and realised that the AI or anything else wasn't going to stop me from sitting out those 30 turns I stopped trying) I've also conquered several other civs in my purity game but there were 7 others in total and I haven't tried killing them all. The new victories feel more isolated than the regular civ victories. To make the comparison with civ 5 for the 12th time in my post, for a diplomacy victory I needed to compete with the other players for the allyship of citystates, for cultural (at least in BNW) I needed to culturally influence other players, for conquest I needed to go to war with them and only the science victory could be won by merely turteling. Here, all victories except conquest feel like turtle-victories. Add to that the gutted citystates and the lack of any real culture or religion pushing (like civ 4's culture pushing and civ 5's religion spreading) and except for some trading (which I can do internally for food and production if I need to) I don't really interact or compete with the other players that much. The sattelite system and the different ways in which different civs respond to miasma can make up for this a little bit but I hope the expansions that firaxis ussually makes will add more ways to interact and compete with other civs and the aliens.

I'm going to look into ways to speed up my progress, my second game was already won 50 turns earlier than the first one. I'm also looking for ways to rush powerful units to overwelm other players. I expect firaxis to patch the game a lot and make some expansions so that like civ 5, I hardly regocnise the old tech and policy/virtue threes anymore in two years time. After that I can make some more serious conclusions about it beyond 'haven't found anything disastrous this far'.

 

[Sarge034]

I've put in three hours at this point and can say it seems like a solid game. The only real issue I have with it is that the tech tree is a jumbled mess. I understand the idea behind the tech web but I did like the more straight forward approach in Civ 5. On the other side I do really, REALLY, enjoy the new quests. It's a way to personalize and give your civ a story. You can play the game with the exact same leader, tech, everything, but between the affinities and your quest decisions it can be a whole different story and feel.

 

[lassiie]

One of my biggest issues with Beyond Earth is the lack of buildings and wonders. It felt like I constantly ran out of shit to build which was annoying. In Civ V you rarely ran out of shit to build to late game. Hopefully that gets expanded upon.

 

[Bernzz]

Just finished a game as a Purity Brasilia with a Domination victory.

Yeah, I'm loving this.

And LEV Tanks, LEV Destroyers and Dragoons are an amazing combination.

I'm all obsessed, just like I was when I started playing Civ V for the first time.

 

[Feraswondervahnn]

Been playing for 14 hours so far. Made sure I had the weekend free for the release! I love it. Quests make things much more interesting, and I love that each city has its own trade routes. Aliens are absolute pains, but after some affinity levelling and if you choose to reverse polarity on Ultrasonic Fences then the only time they get in the way is if you want to expand.

Virtues are good, and I really like the Tech Web! Being able to progress in a much more diverse way can end in some fantastic building combinations. I find I have had more time between buildings to build more units without having to play a war like game to keep up. Current save I am using African Union going Harmony, with mixed Knowledge and Prosperity virtues on Epic. Really enjoying the save, Covert Ops are awesome! Looking forward to calling in a Siege Worm Strike!

This is just first impressions though. Another 10/20 hours and I'll see if it's still as good.