Fragamemnon
Member
Credit to Arioch at http://well-of-souls.com/civ/civbe_overview.html for a great summary of information mined from pre-release media that was used in the construction of this OT. Everything is still in progress so if something is missing that you'd like added, let me know.
Developer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Genre: Turn Based Strategy "4X"
Platforms: PC at release, Mac/Linux available later in 2014, Steam required. Steamplay and Steam Workshop will be supported on those platforms as well but it's not assured that it will be there at release.
Release Date: Worldwide staggered release through 10/23-10/24. See the map here for exact times in UTC.
System Requirements:
MINIMUM:
OS: Windows® Vista SP2/ Windows® 7
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 64 2.0 GHz
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: 256 MB ATI HD3650 or better, 256 MB nVidia 8800 GT or better, or Intel HD 3000 or better integrated graphics
DirectX: Version 11
Hard Drive: 8 GB available space
RECOMMENDED:
OS: Windows® Vista SP2 / Windows® 7
Processor: 1.8 GHz Quad Core CPU
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD HD5000 series or better (or ATI R9 series for Mantle support), nVidia GT400 series or better, or Intel IvyBridge or better integrated graphics
DirectX: Version 11
Hard Drive: 8 GB available space
Note-Beyond Earth is capped to eight Civs per game, so one of the big culprits of extreme turn times in Civ 5 (22 Civ maps) is not a factor. However, the bigger maps you play, the more horsepower you are going to need to keep the turn times down.
Overview:
The backdrop for Civilization: BE is that humanity is crawling their way out of a worldwide calamity/mass depopulation event (or sequence of events) known as the Great Mistake. The game is intentionally vague about the nature of that circumstance, but the resulting geopolitical shakeup and widespread ecological and infrastructure damage have made one thing very clear to everyone in the world-humanity must reach out to new worlds or face the possibility of permanent extinction.
Civ:BE is running on a modified Civilization 5 codebase with some of the conventions of that game carried over into Civ:BE, such as one unit per tile, hex based maps, trade routes (though modified/enhanced), three hex city workable tile radius, and the notion of annexation or puppeting cities on capture. However, very little (if any) of the design of the game is completely unaltered in Civ:BE, and the changes summed as total represent the sort of generational leap for the series of a size just short of the one from Civ 3->4. Notable removals from Civ 5 are religion/ideology (largely replaced by the affinity system), Great Persons, Luxury Resources, and the alterations of the victory conditions.
New Gameplay Systems:
The Technology Web:
The single most fundamental difference between Civ:BE and any previous versions of Civ is the change to the technology tree. Civ traditionally has a linear, tiered research tree with the core idea that players would differentiate their technology based on which technologies they prioritized over others. For example, warfare Civilizations might head straight to mathematics for siege weapons, and turtle players would beeline Education to get ahead in science, but in the end everyone gets Mathematics and Education in a game. Civ:BE's Technology Web changes that by allowing Civilizations to branch off their choices along different paths that are no longer dependent on each other. It's hard to explain without a picture, so here's one:
The concept is straightforward-when you choose a tech to research, you can either pick a tech in a "node" adjacent to a tech you have already discovered, or you can "dig deeper" and research a technology that is below one on an existing node you have researched. The design is that players will NOT complete the technology tree in a given game, and that the techs you choose are based off the gameplay situation and your chosen path to victory. There are still core technologies in the game (Physics, Pioneering) that everyone is going to get, but do not expect to be teching every single tech on the outermost leaves of the tech web.
Affinity System: Each Civilization in the game will have to make choices through both quests and research paths, and in doing so you will earn points towards the three affinities in the game, which represent your civilization's view on what the future of mankind on this strange new alien world should look like. The three affinities are:
Purity : Purity factions hold strong to the notion of making the new world in the model of Earth, and that adaptation to the realities of colonization and strange new technologies on a far-off land compromise what it means to be human. They are reactionaries and like big guns.
Harmony: Harmony factions believe that humanity's future is to syngergize the very best of Earth and the lessons and life of the new world to elevate humanity into something better.
Supremancy: Supremacy factions hold a core belief of transhumanism through technology. Like Harmony, they believe that the lessons of Earth point to a need for humanity to think broader, but , unlike Harmony, that lesson doesn't necessarily involve integration of lesser life forms and biology of the new world.
Here's a visual view of how they look and what parts of the mankind's future they embrace:
As you gain levels in the affinities, you will unlock higher tier units and get perks that reflect that affinity's viewpoint. You can advance through multiple paths of each affinity to some degree, but you will want to emphasize one over the other in time. Diplomatic conflict and tensions will result between factions of opposing affinities.
One huge thing to note is that new and upgraded military units are unlocked through affinities, not just through techs.
Virtues:
The virtue system replaces the Social Policy system of Civ 5. The big change here is that the system is much more flexible and much less punishing to pick and choose perks from than the Social Policy trees of Civ 5. There are four trees: Might, Knowledge, Prosperity, and Industry. The trees are fewer in number but more robust and broader than those of Civ 5. This was an important change because the highly vertical nature of the Civ 5 trees led to very narrow and focused bonuses, some of which turned out to be very tough to balance (they nerfed rationalism like four times and it still wasn't enough!).
There is a synergy bonus for every 5 virtues purchased within a particular tree, or for purchasing a certain number of virtues from any tree in the same tier. So you get bonuses for either going deep into one tree or wide across more trees. There's not the big penalty of openers/finishers like Civ 5 policy trees had that heavily discouraged diverse builds that picked from a variety of policies.
The Orbital Layer: Each Civilization can launch satellites into near orbit that will provide various bonuses on the territory that is under the influence of that satellite to the player that controls the satellite. The real gotcha here is that when you have contested borders, satellite coverage can be a very hot diplomatic issue since you are competing for coverage with your neighbor.
Victory Conditions: Out are the traditional wincons of culture and diplomacy. Instead there are wincons associated with each affinity, a science oriented wincon of first contact with other intelligent spacefaring life. Don't worry though, if you take the capitals of everyone else you can still win via Domination.
Domination: conquer the capital cities of all other factions.
Contact (Science): discover clues left by the intelligent Precursor aliens who once inhabited this planet, decode "The Signal" and contact them. To start, complete two of these three tasks:
Find a fragment of The Signal via an Explorer Expedition on Progenitor Ruins. The chance is slim, but possible.
Launch a Deep Space Telescope orbital unit to search for a fragment of The Signal.
Research the Transcendental Math technology and solve the Transcendental Equation to derive a Signal fragment.
Then:
Build the Decode Signal project.
Build the (Contact Beacon) Planetary Wonder to attract the attention the aliens.
The Promised Land (Purity): tame the planet in the name of Humanity and make it a home for our Earthbound brethren.
Research Orbital Networks and build a Lasercom Satellite to reestablish communication with Earth.
Achieve Purity level 13 and build the Exodus Gate planetary wonder.
Receive 20 colonists from Earth through the gate and settle them.
Transcendence (Harmony): awaken the planet's sentient superorganism and mind-meld with it.
Research Nanorobotics, Transgenics, and Swarm Intelligence to develop the Cognitive Link.
Achieve Harmony level 13 and build the Mind Flower planetary wonder.
Defend the Mind Flower from the unclean and support it with resources and Mind Stem buildings.
Emancipation (Supremacy): annihilate humanity on Earth. Er, I mean, "free" them from their biological bodies.
Research Orbital Networks and build a Lasercom Satellite to reestablish communication with Earth.
Achieve Supremacy level 13 and build the Emancipation Gate planetary wonder.
Send military units through the gate to effect the mass genocide of humanity on Earth. Er, I mean, "liberate" them from their trifling, unenlightened existence.
Other changes include a more robust espionage system that looks to somewhat merge the systems of BNW and Civ4:BtS, a huge revamp of the happiness system to be less punitive, the addition of quests that allow you to make decisions that will push you towards different affinities or other outcomes, and the replacement of city states with outposts that can prosper and grow over time or wither and die out depending on if they are successful at attracting trade from the Civilizations in the game.
The Civilizations:
Civilization : Beyond Earth has eight separate factions with different named leaders (who, unlike Civ 5, do not have specific abilities associated with them) and unique perks associated with the factions themselves. They are:
Players will further customize their start by choosing the type of colonists, cargo, and ship modules that they traveled through the stars with. These decisions are made at the start of the game and will provide specific bonuses to the player to further customize the experience.
Frag's Note on Civ:BE:
There's a big temptation from longtime Civ players to write this off as a glorified mod of Civ 5. That's very unfair to the game-the core rules have been changed in almost every key area of the game, and a lot of the things that players have gotten accustomed to doing in Civ 5 have more or less been "designed out" of BE.Gone is that game's abuse of great people and ridiculous endgame science situations, gone is the big preference of tall vs. wide empires ( Civ BE returns to a more traditional idea that Civilizations want to grow their territory when they can and rewards players for taking territory better than Civ 5 did ), and gone are the big game ending unstoppable techs like atomic weapons and stealth bombers. The new neutral native life is a challenge and foe all game and scales well as time progresses, and you're never really a point where you are fully free from its impact like you are after turn 150 or so of a standard speed Civ 5 game.
Things are different. Keep an open mind and try new things out. No one is going to call Civ: BE revolutionary, but no one is going to call it Alpha Centauri 2 either. It represents a chance for Firaxis to make another stab at some of the ideas that never worked out in Civ 5 as well as they could, while allowing players to create and tell a very different story for their civilizations than any game in the series has allowed.
