official Civilization: Beyond Earth

[trag3dy]

[PGHammer]

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth dropped onto Steam yesterday - including a demo.

 

While it has similar mechanics to Civ V, it doesn't play anything like it (according to any of the reviews so far, or according to my own impressions).  Rather surprisingly, it is also graphically improved - both capability-wise AND performance-wise, compared to Civ V.  1920x1080, and 4x MSAA as the defaults - which is a setting that Civ V does not even have on the option sheet - and it is BE's default (Q6600/GTX 550Ti).  I have it installed in both Windows 8.1 and the Technical Preview.

 

Has anyone else taken the plunge?

 

[Andre S. Veteran]

It looks pretty good if confusing due to the setting - all the technology and building names are necessarily unfamiliar and unintuitive, but that's a surmountable problem. I'm more disappointed that you can't play an alien race as in SMAX - I suspect an expansion might add this but I don't know if any is actually planned.

 

Definitely going to try the demo though.

[trag3dy]

From what I've seen of it the research web is the most confusing part. It's very easy to bypass important upgrades until you learn what everything does. Which could take some time. I personally don't care fo the web style over the progression paths in previous games.

 

And I think there will be expansions, all the older Civ games have them. And some one I was watching stream it earlier today said the game did not feel complete in it's current state, compared to Civ 5 and expansions. Which I would agree with.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Reviews:

 

IGN: 7.9/10

Polygon: 9/10

Joystiq: 4/5

PCWorld: 4.5/5

Escapist: 3/5

PCGamer: 87/100

Eurogamer: 8/10

Gamesradar: 4/5

 

Will be picking it up very soon :yes:

[PGHammer]

From what I've seen of it the research web is the most confusing part. It's very easy to bypass important upgrades until you learn what everything does. Which could take some time. I personally don't care fo the web style over the progression paths in previous games.

 

And I think there will be expansions, all the older Civ games have them. And some one I was watching stream it earlier today said the game did not feel complete in it's current state, compared to Civ 5 and expansions. Which I would agree with.

And how complete did Civ V feel (in fact, any Civ game) until the expansions started showing up?  What kinda irked me about SMAC was there was just one (Alien Crossfire).

[trag3dy]

And how complete did Civ V feel (in fact, any Civ game) until the expansions started showing up?  What kinda irked me about SMAC was there was just one (Alien Crossfire).

 

I don't know? I didn't play Civ V until after all the expansions were out for it. Same goes for Civ IV.

 

I'm not saying that as a criticism by the way. I'm simple stating my opinion. There will likely be expansions.

[spaceelf]

I like the demo more than I liked Civ 5.

 

Heh.

 

Won't have spare change anytime soon though.

[PGHammer]

I like the demo more than I liked Civ 5.

 

Heh.

 

Won't have spare change anytime soon though.

The Christmas shopping season hasn't started yet.

 

When it does, look for deals on it.

[PGHammer]

From what I've seen of it the research web is the most confusing part. It's very easy to bypass important upgrades until you learn what everything does. Which could take some time. I personally don't care fo the web style over the progression paths in previous games.

 

And I think there will be expansions, all the older Civ games have them. And some one I was watching stream it earlier today said the game did not feel complete in it's current state, compared to Civ 5 and expansions. Which I would agree with.

The research web is closer to SMAC than Civ - which, if you are familiar with SMAC, will almost be like old-home week.  I use a research track like my old one with SMAC, in fact - the Harmony track (work with the planet, instead of fighting it).  Like SMAC, there are "green" factions - however, I play as the ARC (American Recovery Corporation (similar to the old University faction in SMAC)).

[trag3dy]

The research web is closer to SMAC than Civ - which, if you are familiar with SMAC, will almost be like old-home week.  I use a research track like my old one with SMAC, in fact - the Harmony track (work with the planet, instead of fighting it).  Like SMAC, there are "green" factions - however, I play as the ARC (American Recovery Corporation (similar to the old University faction in SMAC)).

 

Not a single clue what SMAC is.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Not a single clue what SMAC is.

I had to Google it. It's Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. I know of the game but the acronym threw me.

[trag3dy]

I see. Well, as a guy I was watching stream the game pointed out the AI doesn't know how to use the web properly. He beat the hardest difficulty his second game and started with the third highest.

 

Comparatively he's never beat the hardest difficulty in Civ 5.

[PGHammer]

Not a single clue what SMAC is.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri - the first bestseller from Firaxis (and, in fact, my introduction to Sid Meier as a game designer).

 

The rather odd juxtaposition is that I was interning literally *down the road* from Firaxis in Towson (Firaxis - then and today - is in Hunt Valley, which sits between Towson and Timonium) when Alpha Centauri went gold; I bought the game at the old Electronics Boutique in TowsonTowne Center.

 

Despite Firaxis (and MicroProse, which was also based in Hunt Valley), Hunt Valley itself is more known for power tools (Black and Decker) and spices (McCormick and Company) than gaming - or even software.

[+Asmodai MVC]

I preordered the game and I'm a bit disappointed to be honest.  I got several hours this weekend to play so maybe that's not enough to form an opinion but:

 

The affinities seem pretty rigid.  I didn't realize there was no way to upgrade your units other than affinity points (no weapon or armor research for example).  If you answer one quest with the purity answer and the next with supremacy and the next with Harmony you're really hurting your play because the affinity points aren't SUPER easy to come by and if you've got three but no single category has even 2 yet then you're really handicapped.  This may seem silly just reading that but on my first playthrough I actually closely read the text on the quests and honestly made decisions and I ended up with my affinity points all over the place instead of focused on one of the tree.  I quickly learned that was a HUGE mistake.  Off the top of my head it seems like it should go by your affinity point TOTAL is for the fixed combat strength upgrade (if you can't just research the upgrade on the tech web) but sure the available perks could still depend on how many you have in a specific affinity.

 

Now when I play I don't even bother to read the quest text most of the time, I look at the effects of the answer and pick the one that matches the affinity I want to play.  The research I do the first two leafs on the starting branch then stick to doing the branches unless the leaf has an affinity boost for my chosen affinity or I've been specifically given a quest to research that leaf.  Maybe that will change when I get a better feel for what these "future tech" discoveries are but I don't really have much else to go by.  It really sucks the fun out of the game as everything seems so centered on the affinity and there is only three.  It makes the game feel like the only MAJOR choice you have is which of the three affinities you'll play that game and once you make that you're bound to it for the rest of the game.  Anyone else having a similar experience?

 

Also I was kind of hoping for some terraforming like actually raising and lower land and such but if that exists I must have missed those techs.  There are very few unit types.  There isn't much to do in the water on maps with large oceans (again, unless I missed the required techs).  Maybe my memory is wrong but I seem to recall being able to build cities and stuff in the water in SMAC.  This really does seem just like a simplified Civ 5 with a sci-fi coat of paint on it.

 

The tech web actually leads to some problems because of lack of dependencies... for example I was able to make carriers on my first play through before I could even make aircraft.  Of course I didn't actually build one but man how does that happen?  I had to go looking through to help to see what tech it was I missed that built the aircraft.  I also didn't get "rangers" until my second playthrough where I decided to just buy the cheapest techs instead of going in any particular direction to see what the heck they actually were.  I STILL don't feel very comfortable with what tech I need to do this or that and I'm sure with only a few hours of experience at the game there is still A LOT of things I didn't even realize was there.  I really hope this gets better as I get more used to it or that the expansions add a lot because right now I'm not really feeling this game... despite how much I want to.

[Emn1ty]

So far there's two gripes I have with this game, compared to Civ 5 (only played a couple games, though... and this will be very nitpicky).

 

First he game is slow compared to Civ V. It takes a very long time to create improvements. Miasma often ends up slowing the game down as well, forcing you to take baby steps in exploring and keeping your units healed. Secondly Health is a pain to keep up. It almost feels like Civ V without luxury resources, and as a result you start to run out of Health by your third city. The most I could ever get per turn was 8, but mostly I averaged between 3/4 Health.

 

Besides that the game is really fun and the small differences add a lot to it. It's nice that wonders aren't game defining anymore, too. The only other problem is all the crashing in multiplayer... we average around 2-3 crashes a multiplayer game (that's just trying to start it). The more players the more likely someone will crash (4 player game I crashed 3 times in a row). I really hope a patch for that comes out soon, for now the workaround we've found is starting a game by yourself with AI's and having people join after. They lose a turn, but at least you can play.

[Dashel]

A good game, but disappointingly not an AC successor.  It just doesn't have the character or atmosphere to be a classic.  Maybe I'll go back and play some more when I can import the Nimoy voiceovers (Someone get on that).

[Emn1ty]

Alright, an update on the crashing issue.

 

It seems to be exclusively due to people with the pre-order dlc playing with people without the dlc. Just an update, you can go an uninstall that dlc and most of the crashing should disappear.

[PGHammer]

A good game, but disappointingly not an AC successor.  It just doesn't have the character or atmosphere to be a classic.  Maybe I'll go back and play some more when I can import the Nimoy voiceovers (Someone get on that).

It is more of an AC reboot than an AC successor.  Further, an 8.1-ready version of AC (with Alien Crossfire) is available via GOG.com

If you have the original CDs, all the voiceovers are on them (as MP3s - I know of at least one wiseacre that replaced Windows' default system sounds with several of them - and it was NOT me).  (While I DO have several favorites - and I have my original CD images - I didn't go THAT whole-hog.)