colinp

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

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Speaking of new sci-fi, and also to go completely off-topic: what are the good modern sci-fi writers that I should be reading? The newest sci-fi book that I've read is the Star Wars book where Chewbacca died (and I read that in middle school.)

 

I recently read "Hyperion" and "The Fall of Hyperion" by Dan Simmons and they were astonishingly good - epic in scope, a fantastically realized world and multiple characters/plot threads both interesting in themselves and then intricately woven together.

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Choosing your spacecraft for a non-representational, initial knowledge-bonus is such an interesting decision (18:30 in the video Cordeos linked). I love this idea. The bonuses on that list are things that would greatly influence that particuar match for me. The representational bonuses like +10% production are things I think hard about when choosing between, but I often forget what I have chosen. In comparison, something like immediately revealing all coast-lines will inspire grandiose plans that will determine how I remember that match regardless of whether I succeed ot not. This is exciting.

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I'm just excited they seem to be making all the bonuses useful. I ended up playing a small number of the factions in Civ5 because their bonuses fit my play style and there were some Civs that had useless specials. Now that I get to customize more, i will probably play around more with aspects of the game I would have otherwise ignored.

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Since we are asking questions, I got one.

 

So is the diplomacy going to be deeper than that of Brave New World?

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Since we are asking questions, I got one.

 

So is the diplomacy going to be deeper than that of Brave New World?

 

I think they've said in one of the RockPaperShotgun interviews that the three "factions" based around ideology are intended to create natural power blocs that help the AI determine friends and enemies. I am skeptical, as with everything, but at least it's better than how religion is intended to work, but does not, in Civilization V.

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I can't believe they decided to go with a black map at the start. It's so dumb it makes it tough to take the game seriously. I'm both excited to play this and just deflated by that lack of imagination. I honestly don't know what to think.

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I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one who was a bit deflated after hearing the developers talk about their somewhat-generic influences. In my opinion, the only real reason why SMAC is still so highly regarded is the painstaking research that went into the writing and worldbuilding. I think any prospective futuristic 4x needs to get this aspect just right, or it will be doomed to live in the shadow of SMAC.

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50 minutes of "gameplay", go over the customization options you pick before the game starts. sponsor (big bonus), colonists (supplement bonus), ship (starting bonus), cargo (other starting bonus) and what kind of planet you are going to. They also look at the map customization options. 

 

After 32 minutes they finally get to the actual game. You get to pick your starting your location from a small radius (can be modified with a start bonus). Neat stuff to see, but I want to know about mid and endgame.

 

So Firaxis has been putting a lot of these kinds of videos up lately, looking in depth at each of the features of the game. I'm a big Civ newbie (just started playing V the other day) but a lot of the stuff here looks pretty cool. Has anybody with more Civ experience been watching these and have anything to say about how Beyond Earth looks?

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So Firaxis has been putting a lot of these kinds of videos up lately, looking in depth at each of the features of the game. I'm a big Civ newbie (just started playing V the other day) but a lot of the stuff here looks pretty cool. Has anybody with more Civ experience been watching these and have anything to say about how Beyond Earth looks?

 

I am having trouble with any thoughts that aren't incredibly cynical, because my relationship with Firaxis has approached the level of mine with Creative Assembly in recent years. I will say that I have grown to like Civ V, although I doubt I'll ever really love it, and a lot of the little design touches here signify to me a team that has considered both the low- and high-level shortcomings of moment-to-moment Civ play. That's a good thing, it shows an ability to reflect critically on what is certainly a flawed but still interesting game.

 

However, I'm going to echo brkl (and myself, earlier in this thread) saying how crushed I am by the lack of imagination on the macro level, in spite of some improvements like granularity in faction creation. Besides the sci-fi setting, which seems to be the most rote "New Wave" standard anyway, there is nothing here that goes beyond the purview of a mod of middling ambition. It's an inane comparison, but Civilization NiGHTS changed the game more than this, and it was a vanilla rebalance mod. The fact that this game seems to be Civilization V, Mk. ii with a sci-fi theme because we can't have Civ VI yet is really disappointing, but it does explain why they pulled back from "spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri" to "Civ in space."

 

Basically, they had the chance to make any 4X game they wanted, and those fifty minutes of gameplay footage suggest strongly that they decided to make Civ V again. It makes me feel incredibly suspicious, despite my best intentions.

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Don't get me wrong. I'm still waiting for this game with baited breath and the changes from Civ V seem interesting. Some more radical changes would have been welcome, especially ones that result from the fiction: did they not once look at the planet when approaching it? No curiosity in these people considering they were chosen as settlers to an alien world.

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I am having trouble with any thoughts that aren't incredibly cynical, because my relationship with Firaxis has approached the level of mine with Creative Assembly in recent years. I will say that I have grown to like Civ V, although I doubt I'll ever really love it, and a lot of the little design touches here signify to me a team that has considered both the low- and high-level shortcomings of moment-to-moment Civ play. That's a good thing, it shows an ability to reflect critically on what is certainly a flawed but still interesting game.

 

However, I'm going to echo brkl (and myself, earlier in this thread) saying how crushed I am by the lack of imagination on the macro level, in spite of some improvements like granularity in faction creation. Besides the sci-fi setting, which seems to be the most rote "New Wave" standard anyway, there is nothing here that goes beyond the purview of a mod of middling ambition. It's an inane comparison, but Civilization NiGHTS changed the game more than this, and it was a vanilla rebalance mod. The fact that this game seems to be Civilization V, Mk. ii with a sci-fi theme because we can't have Civ VI yet is really disappointing, but it does explain why they pulled back from "spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri" to "Civ in space."

 

Basically, they had the chance to make any 4X game they wanted, and those fifty minutes of gameplay footage suggest strongly that they decided to make Civ V again. It makes me feel incredibly suspicious, despite my best intentions.

 

Once again, I'm not a Civ expert, but there do seem to be a few more significant changes. The Affinity system seems to be pretty core to the design and affects multiple systems. At the very least, having those types of choices represented aesthetically is really interesting, as are the ways it affects victory conditions.

 

But you're right, it's still building on the core of Civ V.

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Once again, I'm not a Civ expert, but there do seem to be a few more significant changes. The Affinity system seems to be pretty core to the design and affects multiple systems. At the very least, having those types of choices represented aesthetically is really interesting, as are the ways it affects victory conditions.

 

But you're right, it's still building on the core of Civ V.

 

The Affinities seem like a natural outgrowth of the Ideologies. I'm glad they're taking the chance to root them in the core design, but they seem mostly to me to be a workaround for the poor diplo AI and a better way to force an interesting endgame. I am also kind of irked that they essentially took seven SMAC factions and boiled them down into three, but maybe they'll be more complex for it.

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The Affinities seem like a natural outgrowth of the Ideologies. I'm glad they're taking the chance to root them in the core design, but they seem mostly to me to be a workaround for the poor diplo AI and a better way to force an interesting endgame. I am also kind of irked that they essentially took seven SMAC factions and boiled them down into three, but maybe they'll be more complex for it.

 

The Affiinities aren't really factions. You still pick a "Sponsor" at the beginning of the game, like you would pick a Civilization in any other Civ.

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The Affiinities aren't really factions. You still pick a "Sponsor" at the beginning of the game, like you would pick a Civilization in any other Civ.

 

As far as I can tell, "sponsors" are limited to just a single big bonus you choose at the beginning of the game. If we're talking about a faction as something that dictates unit and tech progression, play style, and win conditions, then the Affinities are a better fit for factions, with sponsors and colonists as perqs.

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As far as I can tell, "sponsors" are limited to just a single big bonus you choose at the beginning of the game. If we're talking about a faction as something that dictates unit and tech progression, play style, and win conditions, then the Affinities are a better fit for factions, with sponsors and colonists as perqs.

 

I suppose so. That's not how factions seem to work in Civ though. Unless I'm completely off-base, whatever Civ you pick only gives you a couple perks and special units. Otherwise, they're identical. But I take it that wasn't how Alpha Centauri worked. Did all of the seven factions in that game really play all that differently or look that unique? Because I could see bringing it down to three as an attempt to make each feel more unique. For me, in this instance "more" does not necessarily mean "better."

 

That said, each Sponsor does offer a unique personality, so there's still variety there, along with all the other starting options you get. It seems like there will be plenty of opportunity to get a variety of different combinations.

 

The worry I do share is weather the game will be too combat focused. Unique units and combat technologies have been the focus of a lot of the previews, although they've talked about how you'll be able to earn "favours" with other leaders that can be cashed in later on (the devs specifically referenced The Godfather as the inspiration for this) and the Covert Ops system for spies sounds like it at least has the potential to be interesting. However, while theoretically the only victory condition that actually requires combat is Dominance, I do wonder if the emphasis on opposition between the affinities will make things overly difficult for peaceful players.

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I suppose so. That's not how factions seem to work in Civ though. Unless I'm completely off-base, whatever Civ you pick only gives you a couple perks and special units. Otherwise, they're identical. But I take it that wasn't how Alpha Centauri worked. Did all of the seven factions in that game really play all that differently or look that unique? Because I could see bringing it down to three as an attempt to make each feel more unique. For me, in this instance "more" does not necessarily mean "better."

 

That said, each Sponsor does offer a unique personality, so there's still variety there, along with all the other starting options you get. It seems like there will be plenty of opportunity to get a variety of different combinations.

 

Yeah, I guess I'm just disappointed because the ideological factions in SMAC worked so hard to submerge you in a totalizing worldview that invariably bled over into your play style. Even though there weren't any unique units or anything, thanks to the much-hated component workshop, you'd never mistake a Hive game for a Peacekeepers game. You could theoretically pick any play style and win condition, but the fiction and the mechanics of the different factions incentivized different ones so heavily that it's almost inconceivable. It's totally just reactionary bullshit, but I do resent the "build your own faction" feature because I feel it'll discourage any kind of synergy that strong again.

 

The worry I do share is weather the game will be too combat focused. Unique units and combat technologies have been the focus of a lot of the previews, although they've talked about how you'll be able to earn "favours" with other leaders that can be cashed in later on (the devs specifically referenced The Godfather as the inspiration for this) and the Covert Ops system for spies sounds like it at least has the potential to be interesting. However, while theoretically the only victory condition that actually requires combat is Dominance, I do wonder if the emphasis on opposition between the affinities will make things overly difficult for peaceful players.

 

I am of two minds about the factions. In one moment, I think, "Great, there will be AI factions that'll stick with me through thick and thin," and in another, I think, "Great, there will be AI factions that hate me for no reason despite mutual interests." It's bound to be a mixed bag, but if they make Affinities these grand meta-factions that can specialize their components, it'll be cool to push hard on science because I know my AI buddy has my back militarily. Or they could just be a +4 opinion modifier in the diplomacy screen that also unlocks certain victory conditions, who knows.

 

I really hope, with all the little tweaks they're making to the formula, that Firaxis manages to tune the AI to something less rabid and unpredictable. My biggest complaint with Civ V is not all the systems that still fail to gel, with their soft caps and easy optimizability, but the fact that the AI plays the game at almost any difficulty level like a particularly impulsive and greedy human. The fact that I have to keep a bunch of military units stationed on the border with my longtime ally, lest he think I'm weak, no matter what game I'm playing, is really tedious. I want the chance to play a 4X where there are viable ways to avoid military conflict besides just taking my licks every so often.

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Well, at a certain point there won't be "other AIs hate me for no apparent reason despite mutual interests" because, almost by definition, AIs that don't share your Affinity will not have mutual interests with you. You victory conditions will be incompatible. Which is, as you say, something of a mixed bag. However, I do like that it at least fictionally will justify the "AIs gang up on you to stop you from winning the game" problem. In regular Civ, I can see it being frustrating if you're going for a Diplomatic victory and the AIs all stop you just because they don't want you to win, even if, fictionally, a diplomatic victory might be nice for everybody. Here, it makes perfect sense that if one person's trying to emancipate humanity from their flesh cages and the other is trying to settle a new planet and maintain the essential humanity of the populace, that those two groups would stop at nothing to prevent the other from achieving their goals. I think the "competing visions for the future of humanity" angle they've taken is a smart one.

 

Honestly, though, I'm still not certain I'll be picking this up. I've only just gotten into Civ V and I'd like to pick up the two expansions, which I'm sure will go on sale when Beyond Earth comes out. However, I find the historical theme pretty distracting, since they really make no attempt to say anything interesting about history and instead use it as window dressing. If the theme is going to be window dressing, I'd rather it be fictionalized, and putting things in the future in space solves a lot of the cognitive dissonance problems I've got with Civ: the scale of space and time seems to make more sense, the ideas of technological determinism are somewhat less present, there's fewer weird "these people are inherently this way" sorts of problems. I don't know, I'm on the fence.

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If you buy the Civ 5 expansions, look into whether or not you have to buy both. i think you may get both by just buying Brave New World.

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I don't think that's the case. Brave New World  and Gods and Kings are both the same price and sold separately on Steam. It wouldn't really make sense to sell them that way if Brave New World included all the Gods and Kings content.

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I'm not sure why civ V is quite so decisive amongst long term civ players - I love it, I'd even go so far as to say I prefer it to Civ IV (although I admit the AI was much better in that version) but carrying that forward to Beyond Earth, it does feel a little conservative. I like the affinities, I appreciate that to some extent whatever faction you choose won't matter as you'll be able to adapt to circumstances on the ground (unlike civ V where your choice of civ pretty much dictates what victory condition you'll be looking for). You either like that Civ V approach or you don't (I do) but it doesn't trouble me too much.

I do think calling Beyond Earth 'a Civ V mod' is a bit harsh, but on the other hand it is clearly modelled on Civ V and not SMAC, which a lot of people don't seem to have got past even now. I totally understand that, after all SMAC is an amazing game, but I will take Beyond Earth on its own merits and try not to constantly peg it back to other games.

XCOM had the same issue really. People expecting X-COM where bitterly disappointed from the outset, but taken on its own merits XCOM is a fantastic game. Just a shame about the ending......

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XCOM had the same issue really. People expecting X-COM where bitterly disappointed from the outset, but taken on its own merits XCOM is a fantastic game. Just a shame about the ending......

 

That's a little unfair. XCOM was an unprecedented and transformative design, despite its "inspiration." Now, if Firaxis were to announce and demo a Terror From the Deep sequel tomorrow that had a lot in common with the 2012's XCOM, you might be hearing the same complaints. If they want me to judge Beyond Earth on its own merits, I really wish they'd do a better job of demonstrating how they made decisions for it because they inform a holistic design and not because they worked well enough in the previous game. There are definitely cool things they've talked about, but to me, there's even more stuff that just seems unconsidered, from their creative influences to the blank starting map.

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I don't think that's the case. Brave New World and Gods and Kings are both the same price and sold separately on Steam. It wouldn't really make sense to sell them that way if Brave New World included all the Gods and Kings content.

It didn't make sense to me either.

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=633351

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Oh wow, that's nuts. I guess my decision is made then, for purely monetary reasons. Heck, I'd pick it up right now if I weren't almost certain that it will go on sale once BE comes out.

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Watching the quicklook on giant bomb and I'm fine if it plays like Civ 5, but a lot of what I am seeing looks simply like a mod. I know going in I won't be getting my SMAC sequel, and the whole tech web does look like it was inspired by the idea of the SMAC civs where instead of having a predefined world view and ideology you make one by researching along their techs. Which is kind of cool I guess, but kind of disappointing that the sponsors don't have more of a unique identity. I realize it doesn't mean much in terms of gameplay, but for atmosphere and fiction, for both regular Civ and Alpha Centauri, it means a lot to me.

 

The choice of of language for the Quest system seems really bizarre. It makes sense in terms of game words, but for future civilizations why wouldn't they be called Directives, Objectives, or something else more suitable than some fantasy roleplaying word? Just odd.

 

The landing on the planet rather than crashing and not having any data of the terrain or world, when you just came from space, seems rather odd too. Again it's in service to the Civilization series, but there is no context for it in the fiction and seems like a dissonance between the set up and design.

 

I'm going to stop nit picking a video and just wait to play it for myself. Cautiously optimistic. 

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