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[FlyinJ]

So, what is the deal with aliens?

It seems that the other civs get really pissed at me for attacking them. How does this mechanic work? Why are they angry? Are they benefiting somehow from the aliens? Can I somehow benefit from them?

They're aggressive dicks that attack my convoys. I'm supposed to just let them be? Is there a way I can get them to move off my trade routes without killing them?

 

[GrandHarrier]

So, what is the deal with aliens?

It seems that the other civs get really pissed at me for attacking them. How does this mechanic work? Why are they angry? Are they benefiting somehow from the aliens? Can I somehow benefit from them?

They're aggressive dicks that attack my convoys. I'm supposed to just let them be? Is there a way I can get them to move off my trade routes without killing them?

Factions that go Harmony (ie one with the planet) will go PETA on you about the Aliens.

I think the Fence quest line will give you an option to equip your trade vehicles with anti Alien barriers.

 

[bjaelke]

Internal trade routes are just flat out broken.

Yeah the output needs to be toned down a bit. Can't be bothered with stations right now.

 

[Fragamemnon]

They're aggressive dicks that attack my convoys. I'm supposed to just let them be? Is there a way I can get them to move off my trade routes without killing them?

The Ultrasonic Fence has a quest upgrade that adds protection to your trade units.

 

[ShemhazaiX]

I'm confused as to why some people don't think this is getting expansions. This is pretty much Civ VI. It's not some expansion or standalone DLC for Civ V. This is the Civ that we're going to have for the next couple of years.
They'd be in a worse situation if they just went with a generic Civ VI with historical figures, because there's only so much you can do with that setting. People would be calling it a mod even more than it is already. What else could they even change with the regular setting? At least with this we get more flexible tech trees and customization paths and a change of scenery.

 

[luxarific]

Really wish you could move long the tech tree more easily. I hate having to click on the minitree to move to a section that isn't in your screen's real estate.

 

[spiritfox]

Wow, they removed keyboard shortcuts to the map icons and yields, and removed tabbing between units altogether. WTF man.

edit: Eesh, you can't scroll in the tech web, and no promotion icons on units. The UI team needs to be fired.

 

[wowzors]

went in completely blind, already bought and own this. What is different from V? Can i go into space and stuff?

 

[AHindD]

went in completely blind, already bought and own this. What is different from V? Can i go into space and stuff?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=917446

 

[FlyinJ]

Factions that go Harmony (ie one with the planet) will go PETA on you about the Aliens.

I think the Fence quest line will give you an option to equip your trade vehicles with anti Alien barriers.

I've actually gone harmony as well. What benefits to I get when myself and others do not kill aliens?

 

[BRocknRolla]

My impressions now are as follows:

-The aesthetic of the game is great. I'm very pleased with the look, sounds, and writing.
-This game is clearly very dense. As a long time lover and player if Civ IV and V, I'm finding that beyond basic strategy, a lot of thr mechanics feel very different. I like that, but I clearly have a couple throw-away games to look forward to while I suss out the flow of the game.
-The UI could use some work. There are also a lot of menus and icons that are far from self explanatory.
-I haven't gotten a good feeling for whether or not I like the factions. They're conceptually interesting, but I hope their personality grows.
-The quest system seems interesting, but I'm curious to know whether or not it will lose its luster on new games. Are the quests always the same depending on your affinity?

 

[maabus1999]

Collecting my thoughts on this after playing most of yesterday and all night. I have the day off and wanted to get down what I thought before getting some rest.

Two things are certainly clear to me.

The first is that the game really needs a balance pass. Internal trade routes are just flat out broken. The majority of the food and industry output of your cities comes from the trade routes, and the majority of the culture and science comes from buildings. Sure, you have some citizens out there working tiles, but it the real benefit of the city is the city itself, and not the land that the city claims or the improvements on that land. Health is very easy to manage in wider empires once you get some technology, and in my current game I have around +30 health and cities everywhere without even trying.

Which brings me to my other point-the game doesn't have an AI setting that is suitable for Immortal or Deity Civ 5 players. Experienced Civ players will roast and toast the AI even on Apollo. Part of that is due to the above trade route abuse, but even without heavily abusing that, the AI is just too passive. You don't need to spend time managing it like you would in Civ 5 on Deity, and in general it lets you do whatever you want without much fuss. The only time it has bite is if you settle too close to Brazilia or ARC. Otherwise it's usually happy to send you caravans and let you simcity as you see fit.

I'm in love with the super dense nature of the game and its turns, but until the above two items are fixed, this game is really just a really enjoyable distraction, and not a skill testing experience.

For the first point, it is crazy how much benefit you get. When I received the Automated Factory Questline and saw one of the options (

Spoiler

Extra Trade Route

, I basically said "that is no brainer every time." I see that quest maybe getting nerfed. However I'm only mid-game right now so maybe it isn't as strong as I think it is later.

Second point, I'm torn on. If you go by the whole story of the game, it SHOULD be less aggressive at the start at least and just friendly competition. However, I think the AI should start becoming more aggressive as it racks up affinity points, which itself would blend into the story as they choose the "right path."

 

[phazedplasma]

What starting trait would you pic if you were going for hardcore harmony? aka turn all my citizens into blue avatar people?

 

[maabus1999]

What starting trait would you pic if you were going for hardcore harmony? aka turn all my citizens into blue avatar people?

Artists? Is that what you are asking for trait wise?

 

[FlyinJ]

So, after playing about four hours and three restarts, I love the game. It reached my expectations almost entirely.

I think my only real complaint is that it's missing the "hard sci-fi" writing of Alpha Centuari, as well as the awesome faction banter. AC was the rivet counter game of hard sci-fi.

I kind of wish there was an option to "force" you into a faction like AC did, instead of cherry picking different aspects of all of them.

 

[-Amon-]

No soundtrack included. Developer said it would be present. On the game official site the developer wrote that the soundtrack is present for all copies of the game, steam or not, in this directory:

[drive]:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization Beyond Earth\assets\Soundtrack

That directory is not present in my installation. I'm alone in this ?

Link with the news:

https://www.civilization.com/en/news/2014-10-soundtrack-included-with-beyond-earth-purchase/

 

[brainzelda]

What's the deal with roads now? I remember in vanilla civ 5 that you could build them between your own cities to get a gold boost. But with trade convoys, is there any economical benefit to roads anymore? Seems like they would exclusively be for traveling fast.

 

[phazedplasma]

Artists? Is that what you are asking for trait wise?

Nah i meant all the starting characteristics you pick before the game begins.

 

[Saganator]

Only played for about 75 turns, loving it so far. I can see why people are complaining about the UI. I think a more tech/computer type font for the UI would go a long ways. The music so far is top notch. For my first game, I went Pan-Asia and Harmony affinity.

Where are all the wonders? 75-80 turns in and I haven't seen a wonder to build yet. Any must have wonders I should be aiming for?

What's the deal with roads now? I remember in vanilla civ 5 that you could build them between your own cities to get a gold boost. But with trade convoys, is there any economical benefit to roads anymore? Seems like they would exclusively be for traveling fast.

I remember seeing an adviser thing tell me if you connect your cities you get a significant gol... energy increase. I'm not sure how much.

 

[Mengy]

I'm confused as to why some people don't think this is getting expansions. This is pretty much Civ VI. It's not some expansion or standalone DLC for Civ V. This is the Civ that we're going to have for the next couple of years.
They'd be in a worse situation if they just went with a generic Civ VI with historical figures, because there's only so much you can do with that setting. People would be calling it a mod even more than it is already. What else could they even change with the regular setting? At least with this we get more flexible tech trees and customization paths and a change of scenery.

Civ:BE is not Civ 6. Firaxis has stated as much. It is much more akin to how they made Civ Colonization out of Civ 4, but Civ Colonization was not Civ 5. I have no idea if they will make expansions or not for Civ:BE but there will be a Civ 6 set in the same historical Earth setup that all previous Civ games have been set in. The series is far too popular and successful for them to end it with Civ 5.

 

[DEO3]

Factions that go Harmony (ie one with the planet) will go PETA on you about the Aliens.

I think the Fence quest line will give you an option to equip your trade vehicles with anti Alien barriers.

Yeah, building a fence is super important for this very reason - even if you've got no local alien problems. My first game was with Polystalia, who gets extra trade routes, and because of this I was trying to make the most of my leader's bonus by trying to always make sure my routes were capped, but aliens just kept taking them out. It was only when I built my first fence and got the quest that was associated with it that I finally realized how important that building is.

 

[flashburn2012]

Is there a way to see what the last production was that completed in a city when choosing a new production? I'm pretty sure in Civ V this would show up as one of the status pop ups.

 

[Zarx]

I expect there will be DLC (due to the Exoplanet stuff in preorders) but not a full blown expansion. I see BE as a spin off to the main Civ line and not the next big entry. I mean next year is 5 years since V came out and that's about the length each entry has had between installments since Firaxis got the licence from Microprose's cold, dead hands.

The main team was presumably doing Beyond Earth. A smaller team doing the Civ 5 content, they just finished Brave New World mid last year they probably have been rolled into Beyond Earth or Civ Rev 2 on mobile rather than straight on Civ VI. The XCOM team is probably not on Civ VI given they only finished Enemy Within last year and are probably spinning up on another Jake Solomon project by now. That is already spreading ~120 people pretty thin given they also did a bunch of smaller mobile projects at the same time, plus DLC. 1-2 years seems a pretty short dev cycle for a full civ game, Civ V already took 3+ years of development.

I would guess one expansion for Beyond Earth (like XCOM rather than the traditional 2-3 that main Civ games get) which will probably be next year. And then Civ VI and maybe whatever the XCOM team is building the year after.

 

[Rollo Lawson]

NM

 

[Saganator]

Civ:BE is not Civ 6. Firaxis has stated as much. It is much more akin to how they made Civ Colonization out of Civ 4, but Civ Colonization was not Civ 5. I have no idea if they will make expansions or not for Civ:BE but there will be a Civ 6 set in the same historical Earth setup that all previous Civ games have been set in. The series is far too popular and successful for them to end it with Civ 5.

I can see the reasoning for not giving Beyond Earth an XP, but I'm pretty sure they will. BE is begging for an XP, it's such a no brainer. Add like 4-6 Alien civs, each with their own style (hive, psi, mech, bio, reptilian, ect), add their techs to the tree, tweak a few things, and go crazy with terraforming (please god do this). Beyond Earth is good right now, but it would be fuckin awesome if they did an XP like the one I described.

 

[KnightHart]

So, what is the deal with aliens?

It seems that the other civs get really pissed at me for attacking them. How does this mechanic work? Why are they angry? Are they benefiting somehow from the aliens? Can I somehow benefit from them?

They're aggressive dicks that attack my convoys. I'm supposed to just let them be? Is there a way I can get them to move off my trade routes without killing them?

You're gonna need to get the fences thing that blocks off aliens, and choose the quest option that prevents aliens from fucking your convoys up.

It seems that this is something reminiscent of the ideology system in Civ 5. If other civs go harmony and you decide to go Starship Troopers all over the aliens they get get really pissy. I actually had two civs denounce and act hostile towards me because I was basically going around erasing siege worms and alien nests off the continent.

But fuck those Harmony guys. The only good bug is a dead bug

 

[Rains]

I dont game on the PC no more a miss games like this dare i say i would love a xbox one port lol

 

[Crackbone]

BE is solid and different enough from Civ V to be fun.

My biggest complaint is the lack of feedback via the UI. This IMO needs a lot of work.


What did I just build? Why did I lose? Lol. Yeah it's that bad.

Other than that there's a solid game here I'm going to lose some free time to.

 

[DEO3]

Went Harmony for my first game, intended to play nice with the local wildlife, but you know what? Fuck those guys, they were dicks to me all game long. In my second game I'm just wiping the floor with them and it feels sooooo much better.

 

[Ethical Hedonism]

Played about 150 turns yesterday and fell in love with the game.
I like how different from barbarians the aliens are, they will just let you be most of the time if you don't attack them. I think I lost one explorer and one trade convoy (before getting the fence quest) to them, and that was it so far. I'm surrounded by aliens now but they are pretty chill about my presence on their planet.

I'm going full harmony and I think most of the AI is going harmony too, which annoyed me a little. I'm getting behind in wonders even playing on Mercury difficulty, I guess I'm branching too much on the tech web instead of focusing on something.

I'm playing a game on a Massive map with 7 AIs and the map doesn't feel small at all.

The AI could use some personality, but I think the comparison with Civ V factions is really unfair, since all the Civ V factions bring a lot of historical factual background (as in at some point these people and their civilizations existed in human history) to them, guess it's a lot harder to do that from scratch. (Disclaimer: I never played Alpha Centauri)

The game feels different enough from Civ V for me to continue playing it.

All that said, the UI needs a lot of work.

 

[Poodlestrike]

First thoughts: the game requires much more adaptability in the early game than Civ V, which I think is a good thing. The aesthetics are great, other than the UI, which give me an "Icerbeg Games MOO knockoff" vibe. Affinities and Virtues are great. Internal trade routes are hilariously OP, those should definitely be fixed so Stations can actually be relevant (they're really cool concepts, but as things stand right now, why bother?)

Also, I'm really loving the quest system, which I didn't expect. All told, great game. Hoping it gets that Firaxis Expansion Experience, though.

 

[Mrbob]

Sorry if I missed this but is there a way to rebind keys? I can't see any option to do so. I hate having the camera movement set to the arrow keys. Want to move them to WASD. Outside this and the UI having a good time.

 

[csquared587]

Can this game not be played with Steam library share? My brother bought it and plays on his PC in the other room, but I don't see it on his game list on my pc. Anyone have an experience playing this with library share?

 

[Slacker]

I dont game on the PC no more a miss games like this dare i say i would love a xbox one port lol

You have chosen... poorly.

I'm enjoying the game so far, but it's not as epic as I had pictured in my head. I pictured competing for multiple planets, each with different risks and rewards involved. Still, it's Civ with new challenges so I'm happy.

And playing Endless Legend for the last week makes Civ BE look a little drab. The visuals in EL are just fantastic (I can't comment on the depth of the gameplay for either one yet).

Regarding expansion, in the reddit AMA the devs made it sound like that was the plan:

Q: Civ V saw some great improvements and support with expansions throughout its life.
Can you talk about your road map as far as expansions for BE or is it more of a wait and see?

A: Right now we're focused on getting the game out on Friday, and once it's launched we will be keeping an eye out for any balance issues that need to be addressed. Beyond Earth has incredible potential, and we hope it has a long life.

Take that for what it's worth.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

Dumped a handful of hours into it so far. It's a'ight.

I like the space theme - but, as expected, overall it feels like a beefy mod. Culture, "melee" units, and countless other untouched aspects feel like holdovers from Civ V that Firaxis was too lazy to change.

The tech 'web' is an improvement, but isn't nearly as liberating as it seems. Research costs still deter you from moving in the direction you'd wish to. I still think Endless Legends tech tree is far superior. There are less techs overall in Endless Legend, but each one feels significant, and each tech choice feels like a weighty decision. BE still seems to have throw-away techs that just get in your way. But, again, it's still better than the linear tree in Civ V.

Graphics suck. Sorry. Civ V was barely passable when it was released 4 years ago....

Don't regret spending $35 on it, but wish it were better. Looking forward to Civ VI.

 

[Dylan]

Kind of surprised there are only a couple of pages of posts since last night, but maybe everyone is busy playing?

I chose Brasilia, combat strength bonus, and thinking of going for Harmony but not sure if they will mix.


Anyway, I'm really liking it so far.

I'm coming in after playing over 300 hours of Civ V, so that's obviously my benchmark. A few things that struck me:

- Inability to name your faction/leader!!! Unless I missed it..... (Someone please tell me I did.) This was one of my favourite things in Civ 5. I've made Civs named after breakfast cereal, robots, Spring Breakers, even the fabled Lizard Man Illuminati. Really miss this feature.

- So far disliking all the "arbitrary" choices. Mainly "Quest Decisions". In Civ 5, quests were given to you by city states, so there was always the context of whether you wanted to bother helping out the city state to get the reward, which was always influence, with the end goal of allying up with that city state. Here, it's just "Do you want Health or Production? Do you want +1 this or +1 that?" I get the feeling that min/maxing is the way to play this game, and so far, it seems like they could have just asked you how you want to build your faction from Turn 1, and then made all the decisions automatically for you. Hopefully there's more to it than that. Anyone else totally ignore the quest dialogue and skip to the decision output?

- Similarly with the Virtues, compared with Social Policies, instead of 8 shallow trees, we get 4 deep ones. Again, this gives me the impression that I'm better off just maximizing one or two of these. The game gives me the ability to be a generalist but it really doesn't strike me that you are supposed to go that route.


Regardless, I'm still very much enjoying it, and loving the music especially. Obviously, I won't be able to really get a feel for this game vs. Civ 5 until I've played through once entirely.

 

[Dylan]

A: Right now we're focused on getting the game out on Friday, and once it's launched we will be keeping an eye out for any balance issues that need to be addressed. Beyond Earth has incredible potential, and we hope it has a long life.

Take that for what it's worth.

^ To me this says "If this game sells, you bet your ass there will be DLC."

 

[exmachina64]

Civ:BE is not Civ 6. Firaxis has stated as much. It is much more akin to how they made Civ Colonization out of Civ 4, but Civ Colonization was not Civ 5. I have no idea if they will make expansions or not for Civ:BE but there will be a Civ 6 set in the same historical Earth setup that all previous Civ games have been set in. The series is far too popular and successful for them to end it with Civ 5.

You do know no one was saying they're ending the series with Civ 5, right?

This game is Civ 6 in the sense that it's a major departure and technical advancement from the previous games in the series. No one is saying that BE is Civ 6 and the next game would be Civ 7.

Look at the timeline of release for Civ games. We got Civ 3, 4, and 5 (each with expansions) in the space of a decade. Civ 6 isn't coming out next year and I'd wager not in the year after. It's not a bad thing that Firaxis diversified out into BE and XCOM.

It's hard for me to believe that Civ 5 came out over four years ago, but it still feels fresh and playable.

Edit:

Graphics suck. Sorry. Civ V was barely passable when it was released 4 years ago....

You're on crack.

 

[Soi-Fong]

I can't harmonize with these fuckers (aliens) when they keep on attacking all my explorers and soldiers.. Harmony is hard, but gotta get that mind flower.

 

[DEO3]

The only good bug is a dead bug.

 

[Chariot]

The only good bug is a dead bug.

Indeed. Humanity shall stay pure from the alien. They will only bring doom upon gods children.

 

[Sothpaw]

Already 72K people playing on Steam; another monster seller Civ game.

The only good bug is a dead bug.

Correct.

 

[Poodlestrike]

I can't harmonize with these fuckers (aliens) when they keep on attacking all my explorers and soldiers.. Harmony is hard, but gotta get that mind flower.

It seems wacky to me that Purity gets the "aliens won't attack explorers" opener.

 

[beato_angelico]

Graphics suck. Sorry. Civ V was barely passable when it was released 4 years ago....

lol?

 

[fleck0]

Am i missing something obvious or does the UI not tell me what a city just finished building, not even a text log?

 

[Soi-Fong]

lol?

BE isn't a looker, but it does not look bad.

 

[Finalow]

woo, the game should arrive next week.

it's basically my first Civ. I'm probably going to play online multiplayer the most but I wouldn't like too much to have matches there that last for something like 3-4 hours. I hope that you can rush things in some specific maps or with some strategies? :v

 

[Danj]

Just started the game up for the first time, intro movie was incredible (I'm guessing it was pre-rendered) but now I've got a problem, the graphics seems to be stuck on Low? I have a GTX Titan, I want to be on Ultra but when I set it to Ultra and restart the game it goes back to Low again. Is this the nvidia problem you guys were talking about earlier?

 

[twobear]

I played a little this morning and I have to say that while the mechanics seem a lot of fun, it definitely seems to be missing the soul that made Alpha Centauri such a joy. AC was a 4X game that had aspirations of saying something big and important about the human condition. It sometimes felt a bit hammy in doing so but sometimes even attempting it is worthy of congratulations. Beyond Earth is too dry, it plays it too safe.

 

[Meteorain]

Suck it all of you bug haters. Living it up here with my Human/Alien hybrid population. Not sure why you guys are having such trouble from the Aliens; I was running around amidst packs of them and they left me alone. Except that siege worm. The Siege Worm is the Moby Dick of BE. My explorer's leg shall be avenged,

Enjoyed the little of what I played of the game. The UI is not particularly intuitive and a bit messy, but that is something that can be easily improved. I would also like to see them leadership tables please.

Enjoying the ability to be diverse from your fellow man in the tech trees, start choices and how each little building you make changes your Civ in little tweaks.

Really happy that the Alien populace is acting more like the planetary fauna that it is meant to be instead of being mindlessly/suicidally aggressive like the barbarians.

Last 2 things. Trade between your own cities is probably far too good and finding little use so far in diplomacy since I can solo all the way!