Civilization: Beyond Earth
Out tomorrow. Sid Meier's Firaxis release the latest installment in the Civilization series.
According to Steam, I've spent more time on Civ V than any other game in the library, by a significant margin.
Pre-purchased Beyond Earth earlier at a discount.
Anyone else going for it?
Yeah, I'm already waiting for it to unlock. Wraith does as well
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
God damn steam spies.Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro
Wraith does as well
yo khen - wots yer steam ID?
EDIT: NVM, found ya under Wraith's friend list.
Yah, if you see that tiger as an avatar picture, chances are good it's me
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Currently installing it to my Surface Pro 3 - I'm hoping they have a tablet mode of sorts, like in Civ 5. Or at least controls where you don't need a right-click
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Siege Worms. Nurf.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Native life doesn't seem very aggressive unless you piss them off. I just left the things alone and they all wandered off without doing any damage.
The Siege Worms don't behave that way. Those things pillage the outskirts of cities on a regular basis. They will also go on a rampage after they have been attacked, crushing explorers and workers alike even with the perks of "alien immunity".
Best way to get rid of them if you've got one hanging out around your city: Get the ranged attack unit, build the seismic fence and then proceed to shoot at it for 7 rounds until it either dies or finally shambles off...
And I first thought that the sea dragons were the largest naval unit. Then I found a kraken...
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Maybe I was just lucky, then. I had about a dozen of those swarming outside of my borders early game. They left me alone completely, though. I never shot at them, and I had been making a point of generally not shooting at alien life.
Is it comparable to Alpha Centauri or is the only comparison that it is Civ in space?
Haven't had enough time with it to make a real judgement, but right now it feels like Alpha Centauri by way of Civ V.
Is it worth playing? I read the review in PC Magazine and the guy was lukewarm on it at first and then grew to really like it. He said the aliens will leave you alone if you don't kill them and you don't do much terraforming. If your neighboring civs start killing them or terraforming, they will get hostile to you too.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Considering getting this. Also considering not getting it. Hmm!
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
Hm. Am lukewarm too. It hasn't grabbed me, yet, and made me want to play like Civ V did and still does.
Am only 1 game in though, around 8 hours.
There is much that is different to the usual Civ stuff.
The decision on whether to be harmonious with your alien flora and fauna or whether to fight it and tame it seems to drive a lot. Not just how aggressive the alien life and how dangerous the surroundings are, but also the colony improvements you can build, the units you create, and even the look and feel of your colonies and units.
In my present game, which I am coming toward the end of, I am harmonious. Alien life generally ignores me, the surroundings are no longer harmful to my units and colonies, and I can even create alien/human hybrid units.
I'll try taking the opposing stance next time, and be fully aggressive toward the alien hosts and aim to tame and beat back the surroundings. See if that's more fun.
I'm also playing on the default difficulty setting, which seems to be far too easy.
I'm a bit miffed by the strategic resources. For instance, a lot of the faction specific buildings and units depend on one singular strategic resource. I was lucky to find even one of those. Managed to build it up a bit - but the biggest unit consumes seven(7) units of production...
...which means that if you're a bit unlucky in the resource department and don't plan very long ahead, your research might just be a bit useless.
I also don't understand why the AI insists in attacking the minor factions.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
I played it pretty much all weekend and I have to agree with the lackluster opinion. Maybe all it needs is a few more balance and polish passes but as it stands, I don't think it can really sustain my interest for more than three or so games. The AI isn't very smart or aggressive so all the work to make things difficult comes from either the aliens in the early game or large difficulty bonuses to the AIs so they have a chance to brute-force their way to a victory condition ahead of the human player (among other things, it doesn't seem to prioritize advancing in its chosen affinity much so its units stay un-upgraded and weak against the aliens for way too long).
Health, BE's version of CiV's unhappiness, cuts a bit deeply in the early game but ceases to be any sort of concern in the mid-game and is just a source of the large bonus for +20 health by the late mid-game, pretty much no matter how widely or tall you build. Not that there's much reason not to go wide in every game, particularly not with the incredibly OP internal trade routes. Even if you do go tall, your civ doesn't really feel any different. And the affinity doesn't seem to make it feel or play different either. You get a different visual aesthetic on your city tiles and your units but that's it. Maybe the way they fight is/would be really different but that's not something you're ever really going to need to worry about in single-player. Even if you want to be a warmonger and do a lot of fighting, you're not going to have to make any changes based on your or their affinity if all you're fighting is the AI.
The resource system suffers from too much and yet not enough diversity. I didn't find the available amounts of resources to be too much of an issue, the game pushes pretty hard to pick an affinity and tech direction based on the resources around you and you're not terribly handicapped if the numbers are limited, you just don't build as many, or any, of the special affinity units and the base stuff will do just fine. But then there are the other three strategic resources and those seem to only really be valuable for the improved bonuses to the tile and the occasional special building. They're only ever used for satellites and then only specialty ones which you're only going to want one or two up at a time anyway. The non-strategic resources are everywhere, even on standard settings, and don't seem to be particularly different from each other. Since there is very little limitation on where they can spawn there seems little point to the different varieties except to extend the tech web a bit by requiring a different tech to get additional bonuses for each and to give the map more apparent variety/clutter.
And the maps themselves are a step down from Civ 5. Sure the "lush" and "fungal" biomes look genuinely alien (desert not so much) but. . . the tiles also all pretty much look the same. In the Lush biome, grassland is green, and everything else is brown. Desert is perhaps a slightly yellower shade of brown and tundra is a slightly greyer shade, but it's hard to tell tundra from plains or plains from desert. Hills don't stick out much either (and mountains look like Civ5 hill squares with less texture). The fungal biome is worse, everything is the same purple-tinged gray and the only way to tell what type of tile you're looking at is to hover over it with the cursor. And the miasma often doesn't stick out that well either, particularly if there are resources or forest on a tile. You can make it out it pretty easily in the fog of war, but not in the brighter area which your colony can "see."
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
I finished one game late last week and realized I had no desire to play it again. Mostly agree with Fuzzball's review.
Do you guys play L4D 2 at all? I might own Civ V, might be cool to play a multiplayer game on their together, and chat over steam. I'm jilow on steam, and on League of Legends.
Also don't know if you guys play Hearthstone, but I only half play it now, I kinda got jaded with it.
Sounds like one for a sale, at most.
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
A sale or a balance patch or two. I didn't think Civ 5 was worth it at release either, but after the first two balance patches, I ended up putting in hundreds of hours.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Game sounds tepid and lifeless, a balance patch won't help that.
When the sky above us fell
We descended into hell
Into kingdom come
I'm playing Civ 5. My only complaint at the moment is the game feels so sluggish. I think I have misplayed slightly, I focused a lot on building my city at the start of the game: First maximizing population size, then upgrading market gains (didn't focus on diplomacy too much). However, I: wonder if I put a bit more into my armies if I could have invaded some neighboring cities earlier and just got a big lead. It's fun, but I hate how slow it is.. sometimes I'm just spamming next turn, with nothing I care to do with my troops.
Anyone still playing? Change in opinion?
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Well, the latest expansion for World of Warcraft dropped so I wouldn't be playing BE right now even if they had fixed the problems but to the best of my knowledge, there hasn't been any patching yet, even for bug-fixes. So no, my opinion hasn't changed. I don't think it would be terribly difficult to improve the game by a substantial margin so I don't think it's a total write-off but it is something I should have held off purchasing so soon. I usually wait for a major patch or two before buying a game and I should have done so here.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
I'll probably give it another shot over the coming break, but I haven't yet played it since release.
Yep not played since release either.
Will await patching.
Can't go fullscreen in 1920x1080. Annoying.
I saw they patched it in December. Any better?
Also saw Sid Meier's Starships is in development, due to be released in 2015. Looks like a typical space 4X picking up where Beyond Earth leave's off... always wanted something like that for the entire Civ series, a segue into space. Screenshots look more like a board game than anything even a little bit like how worlds in space actually are. Reminds me a little of Galactic Civilizations that way.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
I did play a game one day back in December. The AI seemed smarter, or at least more aggressive, but I didn't notice any huge changes in anything. I think I completely forgot about that game and never remembered to go back and finish it.
I think the game is going to need expansion-level changes to raise it above mediocrity.
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