CIVILIZATION: BEYOND EARTH

[Coffee Warlord]

While I'm certainly enjoying it, it does feel a little incomplete, and shallow in places.

Much like Civ 5, one or two good expansions will help immensely. (Which is sad, because I'm tired of paying extra money for what the game should be.)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Grover

This.

I've gone with a Harmony build in my first play through. We're at the point where Miasma actually heals the units +5 per turn. We can also create units to disperse Miasma over tiles. I love this, especially in terms of creating a defense to sap away any potential enemies.

+1

If you're able to find a way to work with the aliens, they almost end up being like a second army for your foes to infiltrate.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

+1

If you're able to find a way to work with the aliens, they almost end up being like a second army for your foes to infiltrate.

I've read that if you colonize an area and you get a hex that contains an alien nest, they will not attack within two squares and will act like a defensive army when warring units come into your territory. I'm interested in trying this out at some point.

[cartman]

Just got through playing the demo for a bit, and the calls of this being "Civ V in space" are spot on. The playing mechanics are nearly the same.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Is there a way to enable scrolling around the tech web while zoomed in? Seems like a mind-bogglingly terrible design, but I can't seem to find a way to maneuver around it without clicking on the mini-map version of it in the corner while I'm zoomed in.

Mechanically it's similar to Civ V, but I definitely feel like there are enough changes to it that it's very much its own game.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

Is there a way to enable scrolling around the tech web while zoomed in? Seems like a mind-bogglingly terrible design, but I can't seem to find a way to maneuver around it without clicking on the mini-map version of it in the corner while I'm zoomed in.

Mechanically it's similar to Civ V, but I definitely feel like there are enough changes to it that it's very much its own game.

Click and hold anywhere on the screen and move your mouse. You can slide the tech web around anywhere you want.

[EagleFan]

Tried a second game, this time being a bug loving group. Have not attacked at all and have a few nests relatively close to my area of control. Have had many groups of bug traveling past my cities and explorers. Only was attacked a couple times and it was when I was close to a nest, unfortunately one was an expedition that I had setup and recovered an alien drone unit. Not sure if they went nuts because of that or that I has too close for too long but they attacked like crazy once I got that unit (just the explorer and drone).

Other than that I have been okay. Though I am developing an enemy that has tried to turn the other settlements against me (but my colony is at the top of the food chain and my territory is dripping with alien units that should keep them from getting too bold).

[EagleFan]

dola: officially having a blast with this game. 8 hours worth of play as cut that price point down and I know that 8 will eventually become 80.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Click and hold anywhere on the screen and move your mouse. You can slide the tech web around anywhere you want.

This does not work properly in my game. It won't move.

[MizzouRah]

I finally got my first trade route.. now I have to decide to keep the goods coming in or punish this minor faction for being a butt to people.

I'm at a point it's time to start pumping out military units.

[dolfin]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I finally got my first trade route.. .

I haven't been able to spend much time with this yet, but I've tried twice to set up a trade route and both times those stinking aliens wiped out my escort.

I've actually been pleasantly surprised with this so far.

[chinaski]

Its essential to complete the quest that rewards you with trade vessels that are immune to alien attack, its pretty much a waste to build traders until that point, the aliens will wipe them out almost every time.

Trade routes are really OP, to be successful you need 2-3 in every single city, they provide massive bonuses in the industry virtue as well.

[oykib]

Originally Posted by dolfin

I haven't been able to spend much time with this yet, but I've tried twice to set up a trade route and both times those stinking aliens wiped out my escort.

I've actually been pleasantly surprised with this so far.

There's a solution for that.

Spoiler

Ultrasonic Fence quest decision.

[NobodyHere]

Hmmm, my computer updated to Windows 8.1 and now the demo doesn't work.

[dolfin]

Thanks for the tip on the Quest you guys... I think I'll stop wasting my time on trade routes for the time being

[EagleFan]

Never had an issue with trade routes but then I took that reverse polarity option each time and my current game I am not hostile to the aliens. Though I still get a little nervous when there are a half dozen hanging around one of my cities.

Lost a newly established city in a war but then kicked the crap out of that faction's invading force and he is still hostile towards me but asked for a peace treaty and has since been trying to trash me to the other factions but I have a strong ally who just declared war on him so I think I will step up and support him.

If I haven't mentioned, really starting to enjoy this game.

[HarryLime]

This game is a real mixed bag for me... first game ended suddenly, no idea who won or lost or how it happened...

2nd game, i went for a transcendence victory.. by turn 200 i thought i was going to lose again as progress was slow.. by turn 220, I was 50 or so "Next Turn" clicks to victory...

Whilst the game has that great, classic civ game play, it almost completely fails to immerse me... the different city/unit look dependant on which path you choose is great..

But... i get no sense of wonder from building a wonder.. where are those "mightiest swords", "happiest cities"... etc etc popups you get in civ 5? where are the great engineers, or artists?? yes there are virtues, but they just seem bland compared to getting a great person for your civ..

for that great civ game play i love, i would give it about an 8
for immersion and sense of wonder... about a 4.

[nilodor]

Originally Posted by HarryLime

This game is a real mixed bag for me... first game ended suddenly, no idea who won or lost or how it happened...

2nd game, i went for a transcendence victory.. by turn 200 i thought i was going to lose again as progress was slow.. by turn 220, I was 50 or so "Next Turn" clicks to victory...

Whilst the game has that great, classic civ game play, it almost completely fails to immerse me... the different city/unit look dependant on which path you choose is great..

But... i get no sense of wonder from building a wonder.. where are those "mightiest swords", "happiest cities"... etc etc popups you get in civ 5? where are the great engineers, or artists?? yes there are virtues, but they just seem bland compared to getting a great person for your civ..

for that great civ game play i love, i would give it about an 8
for immersion and sense of wonder... about a 4.

I agree with what you're saying. I'll see a popup that someone built the transcendental equation and I'm like, hmmm should I be worried, is this a big deal? I haven't even found any demographics so it's very hard to know how you are doing. I'm not asking them to write a history, and the quest system is nice, but I'd like to have some sense of how no/little/big a deal things are. I get the sense that this game will go from good to very good with a few patches and very good to excellent with a couple of expansions that really flesh out everything.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by nilodor

I agree with what you're saying. I'll see a popup that someone built the transcendental equation and I'm like, hmmm should I be worried, is this a big deal? I haven't even found any demographics so it's very hard to know how you are doing. I'm not asking them to write a history, and the quest system is nice, but I'd like to have some sense of how no/little/big a deal things are. I get the sense that this game will go from good to very good with a few patches and very good to excellent with a couple of expansions that really flesh out everything.

There is no doubt in my mind about that last part.

[oykib]

Originally Posted by HarryLime

This game is a real mixed bag for me... first game ended suddenly, no idea who won or lost or how it happened...

2nd game, i went for a transcendence victory.. by turn 200 i thought i was going to lose again as progress was slow.. by turn 220, I was 50 or so "Next Turn" clicks to victory...

Whilst the game has that great, classic civ game play, it almost completely fails to immerse me... the different city/unit look dependant on which path you choose is great..

But... i get no sense of wonder from building a wonder.. where are those "mightiest swords", "happiest cities"... etc etc popups you get in civ 5? where are the great engineers, or artists?? yes there are virtues, but they just seem bland compared to getting a great person for your civ..

for that great civ game play i love, i would give it about an 8
for immersion and sense of wonder... about a 4.

I totally agree with you about the endgame being weak. By the time you get to Affinity level 13, the game has become a somewhat tedious slog. They need to:

- Give you the ability to automate trade routes
- Make certain victory conditions less micro-manage(y)-- 20 turns of clicking on the Exodus Gate and then moving the settlers to four different settlements that follow the same rules as outpost and city settlement as real cities? What exactly did they think was going to be fun about that.

Right now, Domination victory is the only one that doesn't want to make you quit and start a new game when you're in the lead.

The early game is pretty good. The mid game is very good. The end game is barely tolerable to okay.

[Thomkal]

Firaxis issued a statement on game fixes and bugs they are aware of and working on:

Sid Meier's Civilization | Official Civ Site | 2K

[Lonnie]

Hmm. No mention of an endgame recap. I really like the old ways of progressing through the timeline with different filters showing you how you ranked compared to the other Civs.

[EagleFan]

Originally Posted by Lonnie

Hmm. No mention of an endgame recap. I really like the old ways of progressing through the timeline with different filters showing you how you ranked compared to the other Civs.

That has to be patched in, I seriously hope. I loved seeing the recap.

[HarryLime]

from main menu, go to Other ---> view replays and you can view a statistical assessment of the game of a host of stats, once you have finished a game, but nothing like what civ offered..

Gonna ramp up the difficulty a notch next game and go for the domination victory... see if that can maintain some more interest! lol

[Icy]

Finally will wait for a few patches and for the game to be released for Mac as right now it's only for windows and hate to reboot my computer just for playing.

In the mean time... just repurchased Alpha Centauri from gog.com for Mac for 5€, haven't played it for like 10 years!

[Coffee Warlord]

I do badly miss being able to immediately name my cities when you colonize, instead of having to both wait for the outpost to grow into a city, and then having to do it via the city details screen.

It's minor, but annoying.

[Thomkal]

Some mods are out there already-including one that might make the tech web a little more coherent and organized.

The best Civilization: Beyond Earth mods - PC Gamer

[HarryLime]

I turned up the difficulty a notch for game 2, playing as Brasilica.. I was hoping to go for a domination victory, but my play style is probably not aggressive enough

Ended up wiping out the Polystralians, and pissing off pretty much all the other sponsors in the process.. The AI could have wiped me off the planet had they chosen, but despite numerous taunts, they never declared war on me...

I struggled with negative health all game, peaking at -38 during the Polystralia war, but was fortunate enough to make a tidy profit of around 200 energy per turn.

In the end, i secured the Contact victory.. Thank goodness i had a back up, as there was no way i was winning domination.. The increased difficulty really seemed to make the game play better.. Immersion still sucks, but it wasnt until last 30 turns that shit got boring

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

Some mods are out there already-including one that might make the tech web a little more coherent and organized.

The best Civilization: Beyond Earth mods - PC Gamer

I have some mods from the steam workshop, but although the game says they are installed and enabled, none of them seem to work? Do you have to start a NEW game or something?

[Coffee Warlord]

This game makes me want to play the original Civ 5 again.

[Blackadar]

My review can be summed up as:

It's not a coaster, but it's close.

What a massive disappointment. Beyond Earth feels like a poorly balanced Civ V mod with the personality sucked out of it. It's like the Firaxis "B" team made this and forgot all the lessons of the poor Civ V launch plus what made Alpha Centauri great. The lousy health mechanic is a repeat of the lousy happiness mechanic from Civ V made even worse. The AI can't play the game. The civs have absolutely no personality whatsoever - which was the thing that made SMAC stand out - and they even removed things like natural wonders for no good reason.

The innovations are hamstrung by their own design choices. The virtue tree might be good if the player wasn't forced to beeline + health virtues to combat the health problems. Of course, once you have the right virtues health becomes a non-issue, but that defeats the idea of "choice" in the virtue tree. Because units are limited to your affinity and the beginning ones are very, very, very weak, your choices militarily are limited to waiting until you're strong enough to actually attack a city. Play on a map with substantial water and forget about attacking because the sea monsters are almost unbeatable until late game.

After giving it a go and not liking it, I gave it a week and tried again this past weekend to see if it got any better.

It did not.

All I did was spam internal trade units for enhanced production, rush to + health virtues and waited until I had military units strong enough to cross the oceans to attack. In the meanwhile I felt artificially constrained because my entire strategy was limited by the sea monsters. I really felt like every decision was taken out of my hands - which/when units get upgraded, when I could attack and when I could expand. I played the last two thirds of the game on autopilot because the AI was so inept that it wasn't even competitive. I finally grew bored and quit after hitting "next turn" about 20 times in a row.

I can safely say Beyond Earth is far worse than Endless Legend and even Pandora is better. There is no reason to play BE over countless other 4x games that do it better.

Oh, I think they'll probably round this into something playable eventually after a number of patches and some much-needed DLC. But as it is, Beyond Earth just makes me want to go play some other 4x game. There's a reason that only 61% of the reviews on Steam are positive (whereas 97% of Civ V reviews are positive as are 88% of Endless Legend reviews) - it's not a good game at this juncture.

[Coffee Warlord]

Harsh, but I honestly can't fault that mini review.

[HarryLime]

agree with everything you say Blackadar... I have pumped about 30 hours into it now, and it will prolly stay at that for a while now.. It looks like a lot of people going back to Civ 5!

on steamstats, Civ V sits at 5th spot, whilst BE is down at 13... Might have to fire up Civ V again, only got 70 hours played.. damn guild wars 2 addiction

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by HarryLime

agree with everything you say Blackadar... I have pumped about 30 hours into it now, and it will prolly stay at that for a while now.. It looks like a lot of people going back to Civ 5!

on steamstats, Civ V sits at 5th spot, whilst BE is down at 13... Might have to fire up Civ V again, only got 70 hours played.. damn guild wars 2 addiction

I have over 400 in Civ V.

The 20 I have in BE is more than enough.

[Buccaneer]

People should not have left Civ5 in the first place for some shiny robot toy that did not even include batteries.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

People should not have left Civ5 in the first place for some shiny robot toy that did not even include batteries.

Hell, I've been saying that about Civ4 for years!! You damn whippersnappers with your 5th edition of Civ .

[jeff061]

I can't go back to stacked unit combat ever again. At least not in a Civ game.

[Buccaneer]

Or civ4's implementation of religion, civics, tiles, vassalage, resources, etc.

[MikeVic]

I really like Civ V and liked Civ IV. I don't know if the series is just easier to get into, or I've played it so much that I forget what the learning curve was like... but I tried to get into I think Crusader Kings and didn't really feel like I knew what was going on.

Can you guys recommend another game like this I can try in between Civ 5 and Beyond Earth (while I wait for it to be on sale, or if the reviews about it are right and I don't end up being engrossed by it)?

When I play Civ, I don't really go for battles and conquest victory. I liked the culture and science aspects of it, if that helps with a recommendation... thanks guys!

[molson]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Hell, I've been saying that about Civ4 for years!! You damn whippersnappers with your 5th edition of Civ .

I was wondering if I was the only one still on CIV 4.

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by MikeVic

I really like Civ V and liked Civ IV. I don't know if the series is just easier to get into, or I've played it so much that I forget what the learning curve was like... but I tried to get into I think Crusader Kings and didn't really feel like I knew what was going on.

Can you guys recommend another game like this I can try in between Civ 5 and Beyond Earth (while I wait for it to be on sale, or if the reviews about it are right and I don't end up being engrossed by it)?

When I play Civ, I don't really go for battles and conquest victory. I liked the culture and science aspects of it, if that helps with a recommendation... thanks guys!

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That game rocks (and I didn't much like Endless Space).

[HarryLime]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

People should not have left Civ5 in the first place for some shiny robot toy that did not even include batteries.

I held off.. until the reviews came through... could not resist with the reviews it was initially getting..

from what i have read this morning, part of the reason the AI plays so boring, is the AI playstyle config files are pretty much empty.. the only way to trigger an AI war declaration, is if you consistently build settlements near their cities, blocking them in and giving them no room to expand..

Expansion pack 1 : AI personalities.. $9.99

Other stuff annoys me.. having to research boats.. huh.. i can fly halfway across the galaxy, but some twat forgot to pack the schematics for boats we had for thousands of years on earth?

there is no game changer.. civ 5 has nukes.. Beyond earth has.. nothing really to potentially change the tide of war..

trade routes are ridiculously OP compared to wonders... why waste time, energy and resources on wonders, when you can set up 2 trade routes and reap ten times the benefit!

the game just feels like a regressive history sim playing out in space, not a human advancing technology sim i was hoping for and expecting.

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by HarryLime

there is no game changer.. civ 5 has nukes.. Beyond earth has.. nothing really to potentially change the tide of war..

You forget there is. Get a affinity boost and magically all of your units are upgraded. That mechanic is not only logically absurd, it can be so significantly overpowered that it's a game breaker.

It's just one of many design decisions that baffle me in this game. In every other Civ game, you research your tech, get the new unit and then strategically build your army if you're going to attack. In this game, you can be (and I was!) advancing on the enemy knowing that in 2 turns all of your tanks will magically become twice as powerful as before. There's nothing like actually positioning yourself against an enemy force and seeing their units magically upgrade from one turn to the next. Oh joy!

Originally Posted by HarryLime

trade routes are ridiculously OP compared to wonders... why waste time, energy and resources on wonders, when you can set up 2 trade routes and reap ten times the benefit!

Yup. Spend 30 turns building a wonder that offers minimal benefits, no "wonder video" and feels like a waste of time OR build 3 trade units inside 10 turns and reap 20+ more hammers per turn. Tough decision...or not.

Sorry Harry, this one is a lemon. As I said, it's almost a coaster at this stage.

[EagleFan]

A lot of curmudgeons in this thread...

[HarryLime]

Originally Posted by Blackadar

Sorry Harry, this one is a lemon. As I said, it's almost a coaster at this stage.

no need to apologise.. i agree 100% nothing a bunch of dlc cant fix tho..

keen to test out civ 5 again tho.. lol own all the content, just never played it..

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by EagleFan

A lot of curmudgeons in this thread...

No doubt I am a curmudgeon (get off my lawn!) but that has nothing to do with my opinion in this case. I truthfully can not think of a worse release for the Civ series and I'm being perfectly honest when I say that I can't think of any reason to play this over games like EL, Pandora, Civ V, etc.

Originally Posted by HarryLime

keen to test out civ 5 again tho.. lol own all the content, just never played it.

Shame. It's quite a good game, though not as good as Civ IV (which is the best ever). My biggest issue with Civ V is the endgame drags on forever. It's a great time until about 1500 - 1600 and then it bogs down. The expansions helped with that but never really fixed the problem of the endgame turns just taking forever.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Blackadar

Shame. It's quite a good game, though not as good as Civ IV (which is the best ever). My biggest issue with Civ V is the endgame drags on forever. It's a great time until about 1500 - 1600 and then it bogs down. The expansions helped with that but never really fixed the problem of the endgame turns just taking forever.

In my opinion, Civ5 exceeds Civ4 in every aspect except one and that is the difficulty level you have to play it in order to get a competitive solo game. It is obvious that programming an AI to use stacks with no regards to zone of control, placements and terrain is easier compared to 1upt (just ask all of the great traditional wargame programmers how hard to manage units using traditional rules on a hex board). However, I will always contend and come out for very strongly in saying that 1upt was the single best element ever to be introduced in the Civ series (apart from coming out with Civ1 in the first place). That made the game 100x more fun to play because at the higher difficulties (immortal/diety, which was where I played), you have to think about each and every unit - where they go to, which order to attack/defend, reinforcements, zone of control, leader influence (generals) and more of all, terrain. Many of my greatest Civ moments in the past 17 years have been in the chess-like puzzle of attacking a well-defended city in a tough terrain in Civ5 games. Civ4 had none of that.

Regarding Civ5 end game, I think BNW improved that immensely, esp. in going for culture. Diplomacy victory, admittedly have been and still is easy but even that is fun in trying various ways to get the votes, esp. if you have Greece and other CS-centric opponents against you. In all of my BNW games, I don't think I had any that lasted much beyond 300 turns of any victory types so I never had a dragged out modern war (would like to though but a scenario would be better for that, imo). The only thing that came close was getting last couple techs for the spaceship.

In summary, a lot of people are playing Civ5 at too low of a difficulty level and there not much AI competition at Emperor or below (which is different than Civ4). In the Strategy & Tips forum, there are numerous Deity and Immortal challenges - conditional gameplays, challenging maps/opponents, etc. that can test even the best civer. I can't quite win at Deity consistently (not trying anymore anyways) but the Civ series, imo, has reached a peak in not only having good competition (only at higher levels) but having so much fun playing at the game too because of 1upt, social policies/tenets, religion/faith, trading, etc.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Blackadar

Civ IV (which is the best ever)

Agreed.

[MizzouRah]

I'm really enjoying Civ: BE - but I've played some really crappy 4x games the past few months.

[Thomkal]

The first patch for the game is now live-i haven't played enough to comment on what changes/improvements were made:

Sid Meier's Civilization | Official Civ Site | 2K