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Civilization: Beyond Earth |OT| - The Future of Mankind
- Thread starter Fragamemnon
- Start date
My feelings summed up pretty much exactly. I've had fun with the time I've spent on this game, but it just feels way too much like a retread of Civ 5. Overall very disappointing.
They talked about Civ BE on the most recent Idle Thumbs podcast. It's interesting that the things they noticed were not at all the things Civ veterans do. They complained about the UI (especially as one of them is a UI designer) and how the sci-fi setting didn't seem as compelling as the historical one to them. They said practically nothing about game balance or difficulty. Interesting to hear things from a different point of view.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Jesus christ cities are defensively OP. Like 3-4 units of artillery and I just can't get a shot at the city because there's some tiny sight-blocker. They nuke one unit every turn and regenerate a billion HP. I try to go for another angle of attack and then aliens spontaneously attack me even though I've been totally peaceful the whole game towards them. So now I have to go around a third way, which takes fucking 50 turns or something because there's 500 hills in the way even though it's a really short traversal. And I'm gaming in stupid windowed mode because they never tested on 144hz monitors.
It's bad enough when the city has mediocre defensive terrain, but when there's a good choke point they're practically unkillable. I'm going to have to research doom satellites or some shit to take these out, but then the city will probably have 1 trillion orbital attack as well.
It's bad enough when the city has mediocre defensive terrain, but when there's a good choke point they're practically unkillable. I'm going to have to research doom satellites or some shit to take these out, but then the city will probably have 1 trillion orbital attack as well.
Prototype Viktor
Member
air support is useless as hell which i don't really like either. sea to city attacking works well until you realize the city can basically one shot the unit
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
I eventually just had to keep teching up. It's sort of bearable once you get attack-over-obstacle units and your sea units upgrade to get 3 range (for coastal cities).
Orbital warfare is clumsy as heck - if you can get a laser satellite (3 range) near the target city, you're in for an easy siege. If they have their own sat covering the city tile, orbital units are useless. Not even military sats either, like a Miasma repulsor or Solar collector will prevent you from sticking a laser sat within 300 miles. No space units, and orbital units can't hit other orbital units, so you have to get missile rover / later upgrades to get within 1 tile of them and attack.
The air layer is uber simple as you say. They really need more than just one air unit that upgrades. It's like they've put fighters in, then forgot to put attack aircraft in.
Slackbladder
Member
That shouldn't be normal. The game is a bit faster than Civ V for me when it comes to starting up and setting up.
Well its not the same save. But if you get a science victory in V you can launch BE from the victory screen. They patched it in recently.
Usually when the enemy city can one shot a unit it means it's rather late in the game to start an invasion. Doesn't make it impossible, just more frustrating if you're going on foot.
By that point, you should have enough affinity that the ranger, boat and artillery can shoot from 3 tiles/over obstacles. If the enemy has coastal cities, take them first with the boat and a couple of hovering units then use their own magrails and territory to take the rest.
I have to say, I'm playing on the difficult level one below max and find the exact opposite. City strength isn't scaling with unit strength at all - it's far easier to take cities than in Civ 5 for example. When your affinity melee units have strength 60+ and cities only have 25 defence it only takes a couple of attacks before it falls over. That would never work in civ 5.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Montezuma misses my blue jeans.
Soyongdori
Member
Will a person who have never played previous Civ games enjoy this one?
LurkerPrime
Member
Like others, I find CivBE to be rather content-thin. That said, it is good foundation for beyond, and it still has the "one more turn" magic.
Hopefully Firaxis will continue to refine and work on the game... it seems to be selling well enogh to warrant this. (Charting just below CALLADUTY NEXT on the Steam charts)
Good news: there's a demo!
Hopefully Firaxis will continue to refine and work on the game... it seems to be selling well enogh to warrant this. (Charting just below CALLADUTY NEXT on the Steam charts)
Good news: there's a demo!
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
This is weird, I'm allied with the aliens, but their nests on my territory are not counting as an improved source of xenomass. I thought it was supposed to? I have the tech to build xenomass wells.
I've had largely the same experience, and then today I took a capital in a coup d'etat and it could not have been easier. I mean sure you have to wait around until their espionage gets pretty high, but it's a very passive way to knock a player right out of the game.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
I was thinking that I'd like to sabotage another AI's health so that I can do covert missions more effectively, but I don't really see anything I can do to do that.
I loved how in Brave New World I could make my culture so badass that everyone else who was a different ideology go massive negative happiness.
I loved how in Brave New World I could make my culture so badass that everyone else who was a different ideology go massive negative happiness.
I was just thinking today Egypt would make a good DLC sponsor. African Union is the only one that makes any sense as is.
I read the description on them and it doesn't seem to include the countries of North Africa. Then I figured that the region could also be lumped in with whoever has the other Arab countries, but it doesn't seem like the Middle East is with anyone. Did the oil run out and our asses ignored? lol
It could be that the Middle East just seems too touchy for Firaxis -- I mean, you'd have to have someone winning the region, right? -- but I'd bet they're just waiting on DLC. I haven't dived into the descriptions of every sponsor but there are some big countries that at least on the surface don't seem to be represented -- the U.K., Germany, Japan. Gotta have something to sell after launch, right?
Joke post or really? Because that would be kinda cool.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Judging by the lore of the game, I think the "Great Mistake" involved a big nuclear oopsie in the Middle East, among other things. That might be why.
North Africa is included in Franco-Iberia apparently - although I'm guessing it doesn't extend as far as Egypt.
In terms of the great mistake, it's apparently further east than Than the middle-east, and involves a nuclear exchange between India, Pakistan and China.
(And yes, the odds are very high we'll see some sort of 'North Atlantic Alliance' nation as DLC which will be sea focused and comprise the UK, Germany and the Nordic States).
In terms of the great mistake, it's apparently further east than Than the middle-east, and involves a nuclear exchange between India, Pakistan and China.
(And yes, the odds are very high we'll see some sort of 'North Atlantic Alliance' nation as DLC which will be sea focused and comprise the UK, Germany and the Nordic States).
What would it even do? Virtually nothing carries over between the two games in terms of flavor, let alone useful mechanics.
EricTheCleric
Member
Instructions on how to download the soundtrack. "Just" MP3 format but this will do fine as music on my way to work tomorrow.
Should probably just say I've joined a bunch of acquaintances pretty much putting BE on hold till at least a post-launch balance pass (seriously Trade Route Simulator is not really fun) and playing Endless Legend instead for now.
Although it's out of Early Access, the game subjectively broken, don't get me wrong, but it's the hilarious/interesting kind of broken rather than the monotonous kind.
Although it's out of Early Access, the game subjectively broken, don't get me wrong, but it's the hilarious/interesting kind of broken rather than the monotonous kind.
No. They've announced their plans:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=537545
This fits the pattern they've followed before - a bug fix patch a couple of weeks after launch, and a balance patch several months later.
Japan is part of the PAC.
So it has been over a week since the launch of this game. And I must say, overall I'm very disappointed. I've been a Civ fan since the original Civilization, putting an embarrassingly huge amount of hours into the series, and this is the first entry I have no interest in replaying.
This game seems to be the product of two possible scenarios, neither which make Firaxis look good:
Possibility 1: Firaxis are holding content back for future expansions à la Civ V. I considered this strategy forgivable in Civ V because, even if the game lacked a certain complexity that was present in Civ IV, the new graphics engine as well as hexes/one unit per tile made the game seem fresh enough that it was still fun to play. Unfortunately with BE, we have the same engine but less to do. This is unacceptable in my eyes. Are we really supposed to believe that the "city state" stations are lifeless trade-route hubs because the designers thought this was an improvement? Doubtful. It's likely that stations will play a more important role in future expansions, but because we have already been exposed to the elaborate city-state system in Civ V, the lack of complexity in BE's stations makes it feel like we are playing a Beta.
Possibility 2: BE is simply a product of bad design decisions. While I'm still holding out hope that future expansions will improve the game, I can't shake the feeling that the base product here is so flawed that future additions/tweaks will not save it. So much of the strategy in BE is focused on exploiting whichever affinity you choose to maximize. Largely, I feel like my path is predetermined from turn 1. The "quests", in my opinion, were a huge mistake. Decision making in BE seems trivial compared to Civ V, where city states played a huge role, and every quest choice was bound to affect important relationships. BE encourages much less thought and creativity in strategy.
It really is too bad! I was so looking forward to this game being my go-to for this winter. For now, I will be going back to Civ V for my turn-based fix.
This game seems to be the product of two possible scenarios, neither which make Firaxis look good:
Possibility 1: Firaxis are holding content back for future expansions à la Civ V. I considered this strategy forgivable in Civ V because, even if the game lacked a certain complexity that was present in Civ IV, the new graphics engine as well as hexes/one unit per tile made the game seem fresh enough that it was still fun to play. Unfortunately with BE, we have the same engine but less to do. This is unacceptable in my eyes. Are we really supposed to believe that the "city state" stations are lifeless trade-route hubs because the designers thought this was an improvement? Doubtful. It's likely that stations will play a more important role in future expansions, but because we have already been exposed to the elaborate city-state system in Civ V, the lack of complexity in BE's stations makes it feel like we are playing a Beta.
Possibility 2: BE is simply a product of bad design decisions. While I'm still holding out hope that future expansions will improve the game, I can't shake the feeling that the base product here is so flawed that future additions/tweaks will not save it. So much of the strategy in BE is focused on exploiting whichever affinity you choose to maximize. Largely, I feel like my path is predetermined from turn 1. The "quests", in my opinion, were a huge mistake. Decision making in BE seems trivial compared to Civ V, where city states played a huge role, and every quest choice was bound to affect important relationships. BE encourages much less thought and creativity in strategy.
It really is too bad! I was so looking forward to this game being my go-to for this winter. For now, I will be going back to Civ V for my turn-based fix.
Conspiracy theories don't impress me. My opinion is that the balance problems in the game are due to pure design choices. But this doesn't imply that they aren't fixable, I don't see where you are getting that idea.
I've gone back to Civ V myself, but I still feel there is the basis for an interesting game underneath the UI and balance problems.
Not according to the civilopedia. The PAC is mainland Asian countries only - China, Korea and Mongolia are explicitly listed but there's absolutely no mention of Japan in any shape or form. That can't be an oversight given it's importance and size in the region.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Yeah in a panel, they said that Japan is separate. Probably DLC or expansion material.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Oh man, how cool would it be if they lifted some stuff from Red Alert 3 for Japan? XD
Fragamemnon
Member
I've been playing XCOM: Long War for the last couple of weeks while I wait for the mod scene for BE to develop a little bit more.
There's nothing inherently flawed about the game, it just needs some balance tuning, a little bit more character, multiplayer fixes, and low hanging fruit UI improvements. The changes needed really aren't too significant.
Firaxis will expand on the game via substantial expansions, but there's no conspiracy behind that. Iterating on their existing designs is just the way they work.
Man, I don't know who does the soundtrack for Firaxis games, but they are stellar.
Civilization 5's was amazing, but this one is equally mind-blowing. Way less tracks though
I'm still playing the game. I'm definitively hoping for some UI improvements soon, but I wanted Civ in Space for so long that my enthusiasm still hasn't settled down.
Civilization 5's was amazing, but this one is equally mind-blowing. Way less tracks though
I'm still playing the game. I'm definitively hoping for some UI improvements soon, but I wanted Civ in Space for so long that my enthusiasm still hasn't settled down.
BE is attributed to Geoff Knorr, Griffin Cohen, Michael Curran, Grant Kirkhope
Everything Grant touches is pure gold.
edit: You can see who's on which track in detail here. Recorded in Prague.
edit2: Amazon listing with previews so that it's not just a bunch of names tied to a bunch of names
Man, I don't know who does the soundtrack for Firaxis games, but they are stellar.
Civilization 5's was amazing, but this one is equally mind-blowing. Way less tracks though
I'm still playing the game. I'm definitively hoping for some UI improvements soon, but I wanted Civ in Space for so long that my enthusiasm still hasn't settled down.
Civ 5's soundtrack was mostly a compilation of famous classical music. Still fantastic though, I agree.
My bad. I was going off of this quote that was revealed months ago:
There are some amazing arrangements and orchestrations. Brazil's war theme being an orchestral rendition of Chega de Saudade for example.
Oooh, thank you for that.
I hope they fix the soundtrack issue soon. I'm listening to the OST right now, but I sure would like to know actual track names instead of Lush_1 to 6, Fungal_1 to 6 and so forth.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
I finally got around to downloading the OST. Very impressive. I love the epic, sci-fi, pioneering emotions it invokes. Especially when that intro video plays. Chills, man. I love that shit.