It got best strategy 2014 award from GameInformer so I guess they are.
... Maybe.
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Civilization: Beyond Earth |OT| - The Future of Mankind
- Thread starter Fragamemnon
- Start date
It got best strategy 2014 award from GameInformer so I guess they are.
... Maybe.
.
jonnyp
Member
I've only played 8 hours and gone back to regular Civ 5 again. Just can't get into it at all. Just so bored of it already.
marvelharvey
Member
I've played more Civ5 in the past 7 days than my total time with BE... I'll be back in a year after a few patches.
In a year when we had multiple good strategy game releases the idea that anyone could award this 'best in show' is staggering. BE was an even bigger dissaspointment than Destiny - I knew it wasn't going to top alpha centauri, but I had expected they might avoid making exactly the same mistakes as vanilla civ 5 did.
Complete failure of a game, and even Warlock 2 ended being a more enjoyable game.
Age of Wonders 3 got robbed hard then.
jaundicejuice
Member
I uninstalled Beyond Earth, not going back to that game until it's received some substantive changes and additional content.
After got Endless Legend in Steam sale, I forgot all about this game. Shouldn't have wasted my money when I could get a whole lot better experience and play time just for $18.
Same here. It's not even fun compared to CIV V.
They finally released a patch so I could play with my slightly-older graphics card, so I've played a couple games.
Do you have any general tips on how you get your win time so quick? I feel like it's much more straightforward in Civ V, but in BE affinity progress seems to hold up my progress all the time. Even when I'm pretty clearly ahead of the AI in tech, they're somehow well ahead of me in affinity (on Vostok or so).
I usually go with the Prosperity tree so I can expand to 4-5 cities while having a health that hovers around 0. It seems like internal trade routes are still way better than external ones, but beyond that I pretty much just stagger around in the tech web based on immediate rather than long term goals, and at some point around T200 I start pushing for affinity techs. Nothing seems much more powerful than anything else to me.
Still having some fun with it, but I'd agree it needs a lot more time in the oven to be on par with Civ V.
Getting more and more familiar with the tech tree is a good step, since affinities are tied to specific techs, not tech progress as a whole. There are slingshots just like in Civ5, but they aren't so apparent since you don't have the historical familiarity to base things off.
If you're ahead on tech you shouldn't be behind on affinities. They go hand-in-hand. (It's one of the main criticisms of the meta design)
If you're ahead on tech you shouldn't be behind on affinities. They go hand-in-hand. (It's one of the main criticisms of the meta design)
Right, I guess one of my problems is that I don't prioritize affinity techs as much early on, since they're pretty expensive science-point wise and the "only" benefit of many of them is the affinity points themselves (which I can pick up later when I have more science per turn). I have a hard time coming to the realization that those points are the most important thing to a victory condition (unless I skip affinities entirely and go science victory).
sobaka770
Banned
The futuristic theme of the game is cool, but after I played for about 6 hours, I find a lot of issues with the game which ruin the fun for me:
- The main issue is the UI/resources/unit names - everything is bland and unintuitive.
The cool thing about Civ5 (and older Civ games) is that it is a complex game but things are very straightforward and easy to understand: I need the lighthouse tech to get my ships moving faster, the scout unit is for scouting, the worker unit is for work. Buildings are also simple: farms provide food, resources like spices, wine are useless but provide happiness while iron, oil are useful and are used to outfit units.
In BE it's a mess: the resources are weird, the units are names at random, the tech "web" is not only more complex (which I actually think is a cool idea) but understanding why you need to research a particular tree and what your focus should be is almost impossible. The whole thing is off-putting, even if I read all the descriptions I'll need at least 4-5 games to understand all the weirdness. It's annoying, especially when I want to have friends over to play a "new" Civ and explaining the basics is so bloody complicated.
- Visually, the game is also bland. Cities look bland, tile improvements for most part are okay, and the Wonders might as well not be shown on the map. There is no cool factor from having pyramids or the Wall of China built, in this game it's all just a big lab.
- Minor annoyances: Fun preexisting systems such as religion removed. City-states are now labs which make no sense in the context of the game (although I assume from the gameplay perspective they had to have them).
My problem is that all this blandness really pulls down the interesting features such as the aforementioned tech web, satellite layer, affinities, alien monsters as improved barbarian mechanic etc. This game really does a poor job of creating a cool visual identity and recreating and adding to the intuitive mechanics from the Civ5.
This game is going to the bin, but the good news is that Civ 6 can still be great since nothing is fundamentally broken.
- The main issue is the UI/resources/unit names - everything is bland and unintuitive.
The cool thing about Civ5 (and older Civ games) is that it is a complex game but things are very straightforward and easy to understand: I need the lighthouse tech to get my ships moving faster, the scout unit is for scouting, the worker unit is for work. Buildings are also simple: farms provide food, resources like spices, wine are useless but provide happiness while iron, oil are useful and are used to outfit units.
In BE it's a mess: the resources are weird, the units are names at random, the tech "web" is not only more complex (which I actually think is a cool idea) but understanding why you need to research a particular tree and what your focus should be is almost impossible. The whole thing is off-putting, even if I read all the descriptions I'll need at least 4-5 games to understand all the weirdness. It's annoying, especially when I want to have friends over to play a "new" Civ and explaining the basics is so bloody complicated.
- Visually, the game is also bland. Cities look bland, tile improvements for most part are okay, and the Wonders might as well not be shown on the map. There is no cool factor from having pyramids or the Wall of China built, in this game it's all just a big lab.
- Minor annoyances: Fun preexisting systems such as religion removed. City-states are now labs which make no sense in the context of the game (although I assume from the gameplay perspective they had to have them).
My problem is that all this blandness really pulls down the interesting features such as the aforementioned tech web, satellite layer, affinities, alien monsters as improved barbarian mechanic etc. This game really does a poor job of creating a cool visual identity and recreating and adding to the intuitive mechanics from the Civ5.
This game is going to the bin, but the good news is that Civ 6 can still be great since nothing is fundamentally broken.
I'm fully expecting Civ 6 to have major issues at launch, just like Civ 5 and even Civ 4 did.
Not that it'd stop me from preordering though.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Here is an example of an early game start. I'll use some particular settings, but not all games will have the same starting situation, unless you keep reloading, or unless you use the advanced start option to setup the map generator to be a certain way.
In this example, I have the resource generation map setting to "strategic balance". That means that all civs' starting locations will have at least one titanium and petroleum tile.
The best sponsors, IMO, are Africa, ARC, PAC, and Polystralia.
The best colonists are artists, especially if you go Africa. +3 culture per city is good. +2 science per city is okay in the early game, but doesn't matter much in the late game. +2 food, +2 production, or +3 culture will always be useful for new cities to help them grow in the early, mid, or late game.
Best cargo is probably the free worker. There's no drawbacks to it; it'll always be useful. Free pioneering tech is also pretty good if you're ARC, and want to tech to computing for the Spy Agency that much quicker.
Best spacecraft, since we are using Strategic Balance resources, will be Tectonic Scanner. That means we can start to mine the Titanium ASAP, and have some resources to sell to the AI, plus a crazy good 5 or 6 production tile. That makes a big difference in the early game.
So land your ship, and then you probably want to build one or two explorers, then the old earth relic and then the clinic. You probably want to improve one food tile first, (plantation or farm), then go for the titanium.
A good research order is Chemistry (for petroleum wells), then ecology (for clear miasma and vivarium), and then tech to the ectogenesis pod wonder.
Once you mine the titanium, sell it to the AI. You can sell it to a neutral AI for 2 gold per turn per 1 resource. You will have to sell it individually, however. If you try to sell 10GPT for 5 titanium in one trade, they won't agree. A quick way to do this is to at first sell 1 Titanium for 2 GPT (gold per turn). Then go to "declare war", but say no. Then go right back to the "deal" window. Your previous trade settings should be back on the screen. Hit accept, then repeat the process. This is a lot faster than doing it manually over and over again.
Ideally, though, you want to sell your resources for science, which will lower your research times by a LOT in the early game. To do this, you will need a cooperation agreement. This will happen quickly if you have a trade route from your civ to theirs, or if they have one from their civ to yours. You can check this via the trade routes info screen. Make sure that other civs' explorer units have a good look at your territory so that they can send a trade route your way.
You can sell 2 resources for 1 science, or 4 resources for 2 science.
As much as possible you want to buy gold or science from the civ that is in the lead, since any gold or science you buy from them will only slow them down. You might also consider buying it from one of your neighbors to slow down his progress, making it easier to war with him later.
One of the early affinity goals is to get to affinity 2 in anything. This unlocks the first tier of buildings which are very useful. Gene gardens at level 2 purity are good for health, and xenofuel plants and xenonurseries are really good for gold and science. The quest for xenofuel plants makes all the xenomass tiles have really good yields, so you want to get that building up ASAP, especially if you have lots of xenomass tiles around. Feedsite hubs are good for ARC, since the quest gives you an extra spy.
As for virtues, I find the industry tree is the best, although prosperity is good too. If you have a lot of space in the beginning, you might want to start with Industry. If you're in danger of having early expansion areas getting taken by the AI, go with the free colonist from prosperity first.
If I have space, this is what I'll usually do. I'll get the opener from industry for the 10% boost to building production. Then I'll get the +1 gold per bonus resource tile. Those are immediately useful. Then I'll get the opener for Knowledge, and then maybe the next two after that (+0.25 culture per pop, and +0.25 science per pop). It depends how fast I get my first colonist out. The reason being is that you want to get the Industry virtue Standardized Architecture (+25% production for buildings already built in the capital) right before your first outpost turns into a city.
At any rate, you want to get the first 3 in knowledge and industry eventually so that you get one free virtue from the tier 1 synergy bonus. Then just work your way down Industry to get to Magnasanti. After that, work your way back down Knowledge. The -40% science penalty for new cities is good if you have a lot of cities, and the sooner you get it the better. The -40% culture penalty virtue is good too, but you can wait on that since its effects are retroactive, so it doesn't matter when you get it.
When you expand, always prioritize strategic resources, especially titanium. The more resources you have, the more you can sell to the AI for science. Titanium tiles are also really good to help new cities build fast. Once you get the alloy foundry, titanium tiles become even better, so that is one of the important techs to get.
You also might want to go for the Promethean for the free virtue and health, and holosuites is good because the quest gives you a free virtue. Water refineries are good for coastal towns since it makes water tiles pretty useful.
Health: the key to managing health is growing your population to at least 12. At that point, the health from magnasanti + your health buildings, especially if you have gene garden, will be taken care of for the most part. The +0.5 health per trade route virtue is good too because they don't even need to be running to work. You can just build as many trade convoys as you want to get more health. Be advised that it will also increase your maintenance costs for all those convoys.
Also, once your cities are big, the community medicine virtue is very powerful. That is one of the reasons why the ectogenesis pod is so powerful. If you can get super farms up and running, then you can grow your cities for very cheap. Farms are free, unlike biowells.
Eventually, you want to start thinking about victory. I usually go for Harmony, Supremacy, or Contact Victory. Purity victory is too damn annoying. All these victories can be achieved within turn 250 on Apollo.
Harmony:
If you got to affinity 2 for the xenofuel plants, you might as well continue on for a harmony victory. Use the free tech from the institute quest to get Nanotechnology and the Nanopastures. These are really good to grow cities fast, plus they have scientist specialist slots for science, which works well with the +10% science boost from xenonurseries. Or, you could use it to get Artificial Evolution to get the +1 science for every farm, which works well if you have a lot of farms because you got the Ectogenesis Pod.
Supremacy:
I usually use the free tech from the institute quest to ding Neural uploading, or Geoscaping. With Supremacy, coastal cities are good since it works really well with weather controller satellites and orbital fabricator satellites since they only generate resources on unimproved tiles, and unimproved coastal tiles are still really good with a water refinery.
Contact:
Use the free tech from the Institute quest to ding Orbital Automation. It's also good for defense or offense because it also gives you planet carvers, which can fuck shit up real good.
Contact alternative:
You can try to get the third tier 1 synergy bonus virtue, which gives you a free tech. That way, you can ding Astrodynamics and Orbital Automation with the insitute quest free tech too. Franco Iberia is good for this strategy since she gets a free virtue for every 10. You will have to manage with using only tier one virtues for most of the game though.
ARC strategy. For ARC, you can try this: Do the first 4 in Industry (10% building, +1 gold per resource, 25% for every building in the capital, 0.5 health per trade vehicle). Then go to the Might tree and get Special Service (+40% intrigue for every covert action). Start with Pioneering already researched, and research Chemistry and then Ecology and Computing. Build the Spy Agency ASAP. You should have just gotten special service by the time your first agents get done with their first "Steal Energy" covert op. If successful, then steal energy. Then steal tech. Then keep stealing tech until you can do a Coup, Then try to coup as many capitals as possible. You probably won't get them all, so you'll want to just try for a contact victory probably. Eventually, the AI will build the surveillance web building in their capital, so you'll never be able to coup it anyway. Just keep stealing tech. You want supremacy 2 for the feedsite hub, and then the command center, and the CEL cradle. These all give you an extra spy.
War strategy:
You can pretty much hold off most attacks from the early to mid game with affinity 2-3. Fortified marines backed by gunners are pretty strong. If you anticipate war, build a lot of rangers right before you ding affinity 2 so that they'll all be upgraded to gunners for free.
You can forward expand right in your neighbor's face, but they'll probably declare war on you. To even the odds, research Ballistics earlier so you can get rocket batteries. This increases your cities' defense so that affinity 1-5 ish units kill themselves pretty easily when they try to attack your city.
Remember that if you capture a city, you can sell it to another AI. If you sell a city to an AI that has territory nearby, they'll value that city a lot and pay a lot for it.
This is great, thanks a lot! I had a ideas on some of these (which sponsors are good and some starting strategy) but I hadn't thought to trade resources for gold/science directly early on as I don't like how finicky/pestering the AI can be about this stuff ("I want open borders with you... so if you give me that and 4 floatstone I'll give you a favor!").
Last game I did go for the farm bonuses, and they did seem pretty effective so I might go that route again while trying some of the specific recommendations here.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Farm strategy is good, but it's not always the best. There's a lot of situational decisions you have to make in the game to get the most bang out of your buck, especially when you take synergies into consideration. For example, if I didn't get the Ectogenesis Pod, I probably won't go for the Vertical Farming tech, and will probably go for biowells instead. That means I'm not going for a game that has much Purity points in it, and therefore will probably avoid some of the other Purity techs in favor of others.
You really need to think to yourself what are the immediate benefits of going in any particular direction, and how well they will synergize with any particular choices you might make in the near future.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
More tips:
Trade route yields are calculated by the difference between the two cities. So for example, sending a trade route from a newly founded city to another civ's capital city will give you a lot of science and gold. That's why, generally speaking, you want to send trade routes from your new cities to other civs' cities, and send trade routes from your older, larger cities to your new cities, or to stations.
As for stations, with the Industry virtue "alternative markets", you can get a lot of gold. Just make sure that the other AI civs don't destroy the stations.
For the contact victory, one strategy you can use is to found your first two expansions really close to your capital. If you notice, the area that the Deep Space Telescope covers is pretty huge. You can fit 3 cities within its range, and they'll all receive +25% science. You have to arrange the cities in a kind of Y-shape.
From time to time, you might want to check to see if you can bribe any of the AIs to go to war with each other. This helps to keep them occupied and waste resources on war instead of teching up.
If you notice that two AIs make a cooperation agreement, bribe one to attack the other. That makes every other civ hate that civ, and when everyone denounces that civ, you can denounce that civ too for some positive friendliness from the other civs.
If I'm aggressively forward expanding in the early game, some civs like to feign friendliness and offer a cooperation agreement, but will declare war on you later. In these situations, if I feel like an allied AI is going to betray me, I'll sell my resources to him for a lump sum of gold instead of science per turn. That way, when he war decs me, I'll get all my resources back, but I can still keep all the gold from the trade, muahahaha.
You can tell if an AI is going to war dec you if you see lots of troops on your borders. ARC and PAC seem like they betray me a lot, and Brasilia, Koslov, and ARC seem like pretty war-happy civs in general.
Heebie Jeebies
Banned
Sweet, will try it out later.
Yikes, people have really abandoned this game if they are giving such deep discount pus free weekend.
I'm not really sure how effective it's gonna be considering the graphs show that there -was- a sizable spike at launch that nosedived back down past e.g. Civ 5 in a short duration. The game isn't suffering from lack of exposure, it's suffering from lack of retention.
Good sign that it's not being abandoned to the ether though. I'm personally waiting on at least another balance pass before jumping back in.
Good sign that it's not being abandoned to the ether though. I'm personally waiting on at least another balance pass before jumping back in.
I bit. I'm excited.
Even though I was able to pick up on Civ V quickly (my first Civ game), this one is absolutely destroying me. After several (yes, several) plays of either realizing my doom early on or having a nation seemingly out of nowhere crush everyone else, I finally had one where I was mostly on top or neck and neck with another nation I was working peacefully with (there were 2 nations I always had a constant alliance with).
When one of them inched closer to victory, I made the mistake of condemning them and trying to win by brute force; assuming they had a weak military because they only had 2 (albeit well-established) cities. It was essentially a stalemate war where they won a Transcendental Victory anyway. I continued to play on and in the end to see if I could learn anything from it but ARC destroyed us both by having a crazy xeno-creature filled army and claiming 70% of the map.
Going to do another run through to see what I'm wasting my time on.
When one of them inched closer to victory, I made the mistake of condemning them and trying to win by brute force; assuming they had a weak military because they only had 2 (albeit well-established) cities. It was essentially a stalemate war where they won a Transcendental Victory anyway. I continued to play on and in the end to see if I could learn anything from it but ARC destroyed us both by having a crazy xeno-creature filled army and claiming 70% of the map.
Going to do another run through to see what I'm wasting my time on.
jaundicejuice
Member
I re-installed Beyond Earth to see what, if any, meaningful changes had been made and while there are minor improvements here and there (managing trade routes is less shitty) the core experience is unchanged.
One thing struck me while I was plodding through Beyond Earth's early game. There's almost no reason to chase any of the wonders in this game outside of victory condition wonders and ones that provide health bonuses that fill in the gaps left by your building quests. In Civ V early game wonders lend themselves to playstyles. The Great Library - Science, Stonehenge - Religion, The Colossus - Commerce, The Parthenon - Culture, The Statue of Zeus - Conquest. If your immediate neighbour is Attila the Hun and he builds the Statue of Zeus, you're probably shitting bricks, throwing whatever playstyle you had in mind for that particular game out the window and scrambling to build an army. The Pan-Asian-whatever builds the Stellar Codex and has 3 more tiles of satellite coverage over their cities. Oh, okay.
One thing struck me while I was plodding through Beyond Earth's early game. There's almost no reason to chase any of the wonders in this game outside of victory condition wonders and ones that provide health bonuses that fill in the gaps left by your building quests. In Civ V early game wonders lend themselves to playstyles. The Great Library - Science, Stonehenge - Religion, The Colossus - Commerce, The Parthenon - Culture, The Statue of Zeus - Conquest. If your immediate neighbour is Attila the Hun and he builds the Statue of Zeus, you're probably shitting bricks, throwing whatever playstyle you had in mind for that particular game out the window and scrambling to build an army. The Pan-Asian-whatever builds the Stellar Codex and has 3 more tiles of satellite coverage over their cities. Oh, okay.
WhirlwindMonk
Banned
Exactly. I don't dislike the game, but that part feels like a serious omission to me. It was really disappointing when I was first digging through the tech web to see all these expensive wonders and not one of them made me think "wow, that's impressive, and I can really see how it would benefit play style X to have it."
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
More or less, but the ectogenesis pod is a really really good early wonder.
promethean is the only health wonder that seems worth it though.
jaundicejuice
Member
Well, the Gene Vault is kind of an early game gauntlet that lets you know someone is going Purity. Dunno if there's really an equivalent for Harmony or Supremacy, at least as an early game signal.
I will give the game this, the one thing that Beyond Earth did brilliantly is espionage. I hope that the next Civ and, honestly, pretty much any 4x game , wholesale lifts the system as is from Beyond Earth.
I will give the game this, the one thing that Beyond Earth did brilliantly is espionage. I hope that the next Civ and, honestly, pretty much any 4x game , wholesale lifts the system as is from Beyond Earth.
LurkerPrime
Member
Does anyone know more about this? I'd look into it more but real life is getting in the way right now.
jaundicejuice
Member
Interesting, trying to provide some sort of incentive for PC gamers to buy it, I guess. I don't know if it's a game I'm interested in, don't really know anything about it, or if the the Beyond Earth tie-in is something I care about. I don't imagine it being something dramatically substantive.
Been wrapping up playins as the remaining factions and map types I hadn't beaten the game on yet as well as climbing through the difficulties and, boy, Beyond Earth sure is buggy, buggier than I recall it being when I bought it at launch. I've had everything from the Next Turn button stop functioning completely after nearly 100 hours of being perfectly fine or espionage window go completely blank, saving, quitting out and reloading fixing neither issue. I've had the game outright crash when processing a turn. I've had weird audio issues when a A.I. leader attempts to have a "diplomatic" dialogue with me where two audio files play over top of each other and no animation plays on the leader. Weird selection issues with worker and military units, when one overlaps the other, the selection is switched and interrupts whatever the queued action was on the other unit. Units being unresponsive and requiring three or four clicks to make them move. All manner of minor quality of experience issues to major progression stoppers.
I've played Civ V for over 1200 hours and haven't encountered as many issues as I have with Beyond Earth in its 100 or so.
Been wrapping up playins as the remaining factions and map types I hadn't beaten the game on yet as well as climbing through the difficulties and, boy, Beyond Earth sure is buggy, buggier than I recall it being when I bought it at launch. I've had everything from the Next Turn button stop functioning completely after nearly 100 hours of being perfectly fine or espionage window go completely blank, saving, quitting out and reloading fixing neither issue. I've had the game outright crash when processing a turn. I've had weird audio issues when a A.I. leader attempts to have a "diplomatic" dialogue with me where two audio files play over top of each other and no animation plays on the leader. Weird selection issues with worker and military units, when one overlaps the other, the selection is switched and interrupts whatever the queued action was on the other unit. Units being unresponsive and requiring three or four clicks to make them move. All manner of minor quality of experience issues to major progression stoppers.
I've played Civ V for over 1200 hours and haven't encountered as many issues as I have with Beyond Earth in its 100 or so.
I have the same bugs. Recently, I've gotten other leaders attempting to make deals with me which I want to accept but when I do, they scoff at the deal and refuse. They refuse their own deal!
jaundicejuice
Member
Just beat the game on Gemini, you basically have to have your Affinity/Victory wonder constructed by turn 300. That's when the A.I. starts to pop all of their victory wonders. Although a few were built and should have won before I completed mine in my recent game, probably by a solid 80-100 turns. I suspect the Promised Land victory is particularly problematic for the A.I.
Nope, that's just Civ V A.I. logic. Say earlier you make a deal with an A.I. leader where you lend them a strategic or luxury resource for 30 turns, in BE that would be trading a resource for a favour. Basically to earn a positive relationship modifier with an A.I. When that deal ends, they propose to renew the deal and then immediately shoot it down, it usually means they want more than what you're already providing them. Next time that happens try clicking the "What will make this deal work?" option to see what exactly they want. Usually it's a sign that their military is greater than your own and they're gradually going to become more and more hostile towards you. Insulting and denouncing you. If they're in close proximity to you, they're likely to declare war on you, even without any significant negative relationship modifiers.
A cursory Google search revealed that many of these issues are quite common. An .ini edit gets around the stalled unit and next turn issues.
Nope, that's just Civ V A.I. logic. Say earlier you make a deal with an A.I. leader where you lend them a strategic or luxury resource for 30 turns, in BE that would be trading a resource for a favour. Basically to earn a positive relationship modifier with an A.I. When that deal ends, they propose to renew the deal and then immediately shoot it down, it usually means they want more than what you're already providing them. Next time that happens try clicking the "What will make this deal work?" option to see what exactly they want. Usually it's a sign that their military is greater than your own and they're gradually going to become more and more hostile towards you. Insulting and denouncing you. If they're in close proximity to you, they're likely to declare war on you, even without any significant negative relationship modifiers.
A cursory Google search revealed that many of these issues are quite common. An .ini edit gets around the stalled unit and next turn issues.
Ah, I've never had that happen in Civ 5. I suppose that when I choose "What will make this deal work?" and no additional options appear, it means I must be really screwed militarily by comparison then, huh?
jaundicejuice
Member
It'll just be an additional amount of gold/energy per turn on top of the free resource, however if they propose the deal you can simply decline. You receive no penalty for doing so, you just lose the very minor positive relationship modifier.
I find in beyond Earth the moment you pop a strategic resource--like titanium, xenomass, floatstone, whatever--even if an A.I. can't do anything with the resource, they'll ask for it for 30 turns in exhange for a favour. It could be 60 turns in to a game or a core building material for a completely different Affinity, it's completely useless for them but they'll ask anyways. I just use it as a cheap early game coin to get positive relations with A.I. civs, usually to try and maintain safe trading partners.
I find in beyond Earth the moment you pop a strategic resource--like titanium, xenomass, floatstone, whatever--even if an A.I. can't do anything with the resource, they'll ask for it for 30 turns in exhange for a favour. It could be 60 turns in to a game or a core building material for a completely different Affinity, it's completely useless for them but they'll ask anyways. I just use it as a cheap early game coin to get positive relations with A.I. civs, usually to try and maintain safe trading partners.
Thanks for the tip. During one run through, I kept a healthy relationship/alliance with KP and ARC only to get destroyed by ARCs 15+ Xeno Titans in the end. I was completely unaware of what I was doing or what kind of victory I was even prepping for and was rightfully destroyed because of it. Lol
jaundicejuice
Member
Started a game on Soyuz, not noticing any distinct difference in the player heath penalties between Mercury, Vostok and Gemini. The A.I. were obviously getting buffed through research advantages and a lack of health penalties in Gemini as they were popping cities everywhere like cancerous polyps and had level 10 Affinity units around turn 200. I'm guessing those advantages will just be increased in Soyuz with more starting units...if they haven't started receiving those already.
jaundicejuice
Member
I don't think I'm going to bother with Soyuz or Apollo runs. I was able to work myself up to Deity runs in Civ V back in Vanilla but I just don't think I can do it in Beyond Earth. In part because I don't like the game all that much but also because I think the advantages the A.I. get are pretty much bullshit. I get that the A.I. is brain dead and needs the playing field tilted in its favour in order to be an actual challenge but it doesn't make it any less bullshit.
They're basically playing on Settler and can plop cities down anywhere, like cancerous polyps, without having to worry about developing tiles or any sort of Health penalty and this accounts for usually half of their score. If not more. Whereas I'm restricted to three or four cities for the first two hundred or so turns if I go deep into Prosperity, and maybe two or three if I go Knowledge. The bigger frustration is that they start with all sorts of units, buildings, culture that I have to burn my first hundred turns acquiring.
Even if I have all of my spies stealing technology and science constantly, even if I do every building and espionage quest to get more spies, and have them stealing science and tech as well, I can't catch up. The A.I. rushes all of the Affinity levels it can, gets a scary military really fast and because diplomacy is nonexistent and Affinities don't seem to bind Civs together as much as Religion or Ideologies do in Civ V, you get Civ V vanilla hostility. Everyone is a warmonger and there's little to no consequence. I miss City-States, I miss the World Congress. Minor Powers are a shitty version of City-States.
Minor Powers appear in the least convenient spots possible. Most are useless until you complete a few building quests and add energy and production to each route mid-game. But then there are beauties like Stet Mining Facility, which absolutely blows you production levels up to ridiculous levels once they're maxed. But then minor Powers can be attacked and destroyed with no consequence. You have no diplomatic recourse to make someone stop. There's no penalty either, the rest of the world doesn't freak out when someone nukes a Minor Power. If you declare war on someone to make them stop attacking a vital Minor Power, you're the villain.
In Gemini I have to have my victory wonder by roughly turn 300, I don't want to imagine what it's like in Apollo. I can't get far enough into a Soyuz game to find out.
They're basically playing on Settler and can plop cities down anywhere, like cancerous polyps, without having to worry about developing tiles or any sort of Health penalty and this accounts for usually half of their score. If not more. Whereas I'm restricted to three or four cities for the first two hundred or so turns if I go deep into Prosperity, and maybe two or three if I go Knowledge. The bigger frustration is that they start with all sorts of units, buildings, culture that I have to burn my first hundred turns acquiring.
Even if I have all of my spies stealing technology and science constantly, even if I do every building and espionage quest to get more spies, and have them stealing science and tech as well, I can't catch up. The A.I. rushes all of the Affinity levels it can, gets a scary military really fast and because diplomacy is nonexistent and Affinities don't seem to bind Civs together as much as Religion or Ideologies do in Civ V, you get Civ V vanilla hostility. Everyone is a warmonger and there's little to no consequence. I miss City-States, I miss the World Congress. Minor Powers are a shitty version of City-States.
Minor Powers appear in the least convenient spots possible. Most are useless until you complete a few building quests and add energy and production to each route mid-game. But then there are beauties like Stet Mining Facility, which absolutely blows you production levels up to ridiculous levels once they're maxed. But then minor Powers can be attacked and destroyed with no consequence. You have no diplomatic recourse to make someone stop. There's no penalty either, the rest of the world doesn't freak out when someone nukes a Minor Power. If you declare war on someone to make them stop attacking a vital Minor Power, you're the villain.
In Gemini I have to have my victory wonder by roughly turn 300, I don't want to imagine what it's like in Apollo. I can't get far enough into a Soyuz game to find out.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
IMO, this game is actually much easier than Deity Civ5. I think you're just not familiar enough with the game yet. See my tips above.
jaundicejuice
Member
That may be true that I don't understand Beyond Earth well enough to game it like I can Civ V but I also just have no intention of playing it anymore. At 100 hours I've won with every faction and victory condition on every map size and type and it doesn't feel like there's anything interesting left to do in the game.
Also, if I have to hear the African Union or Polyustralia lines any more I'm going to stab out my eardrums.
"No village was ever ruined by trade"
"No village was ev...."
"No village..."
"No village..."
"No village..."
"What's mine is yours....for a price" *douchebag smile*
Also, if I have to hear the African Union or Polyustralia lines any more I'm going to stab out my eardrums.
"No village was ever ruined by trade"
"No village was ev...."
"No village..."
"No village..."
"No village..."
"What's mine is yours....for a price" *douchebag smile*
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
I got to that point once, but then I got more out of the game by trying to refine my playstyle to get my win time faster and faster. I've hit the wall at about turn 230 being the fastest for me, and since then, haven't really played much.
I found this irritating.
Anyone else find themselves really turned off by the alien life in Beyond Earth? I mean between the nests and the damn miasma poisoning my every unit constantly I find myself not wanting to explore beyond where I'm going to build my cities.
Hell, it feels like you need an entire army to just get rid of the aliens near your starting cities!
Hell, it feels like you need an entire army to just get rid of the aliens near your starting cities!
I just found the entire thing disappointing, from start to finish. The lack of ambition, scope and creativity in the game is really shocking considering what they previewed it as, and the basic game mechanics are a clear step back from Civ 5.
the worse part is, they spent a lot of time telling us it wasn't Alpha Centauri 2 - but then they replicated the same storyline and atmosphere but *really badly*.
I even liked vanilla Civ 5, and I cannot get over how bad BE turned out.
the worse part is, they spent a lot of time telling us it wasn't Alpha Centauri 2 - but then they replicated the same storyline and atmosphere but *really badly*.
I even liked vanilla Civ 5, and I cannot get over how bad BE turned out.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Thoughts: The wonder reworking is good. Most of them were ass. PAC, with their increase in wonder build speed, will be even better now.
Stacking all the wonders that give defensive bonuses to your city and increased strike range would make it damn hard to capture.
If the really good energy boosting virtues from the Industry tree are still viable, Holon Chamber (Gain Science equivalent to 10% of global Energy income each turn) could be a beast. Combined with Solar Collectors, it could be very strong.
I'll miss the free virtue from the Promethean. Not so much with the New Terran Myth, since most games (prepatch) are won way before you'd even think of getting it anyway.
Markov Eclipse (Military Units attack at full strength even when damaged) is like the Bushido trait the Japanese have in CIv5 and it sounds awesome. Can't wait to try that one.
Unlocking trade routes via population is an interesting decision. I hope they reworked the yield formula since it seems backwards now.
Stacking all the wonders that give defensive bonuses to your city and increased strike range would make it damn hard to capture.
If the really good energy boosting virtues from the Industry tree are still viable, Holon Chamber (Gain Science equivalent to 10% of global Energy income each turn) could be a beast. Combined with Solar Collectors, it could be very strong.
I'll miss the free virtue from the Promethean. Not so much with the New Terran Myth, since most games (prepatch) are won way before you'd even think of getting it anyway.
Markov Eclipse (Military Units attack at full strength even when damaged) is like the Bushido trait the Japanese have in CIv5 and it sounds awesome. Can't wait to try that one.
Unlocking trade routes via population is an interesting decision. I hope they reworked the yield formula since it seems backwards now.
LurkerPrime
Member
Your dedication to CivBE's mechanics continues to be remarkable, Rentahamster. I almost wish I could get interested in CivBE (or, heck, any game) the way you do.
The thing that gets me about Firaxis' handling of CivBE is how reactionary it is. It's as if they did no internal play-testing to iron out the balance and playability issues prior to launch. Now here we are - months after release - and Firaxis is slowly... ever so slowly... turning the Beyond Earth into what it should've been to begin with. This is particularly baffling after Civ5; CivBE should've been a home-run, instead of the quiet disaster they ended up giving us.
And I can't stand that 2K is pushing their account system on us again. (Not that cross-game connectivity could work any other way, I guess...) Shadow of Mordor didn't compel me to sign up, and I doubt CivBE will either.
The thing that gets me about Firaxis' handling of CivBE is how reactionary it is. It's as if they did no internal play-testing to iron out the balance and playability issues prior to launch. Now here we are - months after release - and Firaxis is slowly... ever so slowly... turning the Beyond Earth into what it should've been to begin with. This is particularly baffling after Civ5; CivBE should've been a home-run, instead of the quiet disaster they ended up giving us.
And I can't stand that 2K is pushing their account system on us again. (Not that cross-game connectivity could work any other way, I guess...) Shadow of Mordor didn't compel me to sign up, and I doubt CivBE will either.