Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

[Andy Kappa]

Haven't you noticed? They're adapted from something else and the words are changed to make 'em futuristic. My favorite is John Henry picking up his shovel again against some mega future-machine!

I did wonder about that but never made the connection. It's not really high on my list of priorities, but I did pause occasionally and think about somebody sitting at a desk and dreaming up these things. I've no doubt somebody on the main website will have referenced them all by now!

First game I played I got a 'failure' screen that I couldn't make sense of since it had no explanation of who (if anybody) won.

The impression I have ATM is that there is a huge amount of content compared with Civ V (although the parallels are not hard to spot - energy=credits; health=happiness; research =er, research; etc, etc.), but as yet I'm finding it hard to get really involved with the game (though happy to persevere pending an expansion ).

 

[JeffRyan]

Well /this/ weekend I fired up a game to complete my trio of mercury victories, have one victory with harmony, one with purity and was going for the supremacy one. But after 30 minutes or so I shut it off and went and played Elite Dangerous.

I don't think I feel the urge to open it up again now until the next expansion. It just really didn't grab me. I'll probably play Civ 5 again first.

 

[Andy Kappa]

Yup, I've also done all 3 of the affinity victories (plus the 'Contact' one) at Mercury level. I'm getting more used to the Tech web now and it's quite clever in the way it allows you to ignore techs that have no bearing on your chosen path or perceived needs (not something you can do in Civ V until near the end).

However it doesn't quite feel finished: there's something odd happening with the weapons upgrade animations (on my system at least); I'm not sure I like the way the explorer 'expedition' mechanic is working (having to keep going back to the nearest city to restore your exploration privileges is becoming annoying); and the victory screen is indeed a tad underwhelming - what was wrong with the Civ V format? I'm sure I'll find others as I go. Also the 'Station' mechanic is grating a bit for reasons I can't quite put my finger on...

Roll on the update sequence!

Edit: on the massive world the terrain display is taking a second or two to catch up on the revealed parts of the map. Pretty sure it's not my machine as it's less than a year old and was bought and specced specifically as a gaming machine (and in any case it runs E: D just fine). Bit of work to do still I'd say. Perhaps it'll get fixed in the next nVidia driver update - here's hoping!

 

[Andy Kappa]

Sooooo...

About a month down the road, what do we think?

I'm currently playing Gemini level (I think... the game lists it as 'hard') on a massive world with the full set of opponents and TBH I'm finding it (dare I say it?) a bit... you know... easy. I can complete the Contact victory in well under 300 turns; the AI doesn't seem to be very aggressive (players that is, not aliens); and it's still rubbish at combat! The other victory types take a bit longer but feel like a bit of a grind as you get close to the finishing line.

To be fair, I am a long-time veteran of Civ V and so my learning curve is a bit shallow I guess (and I still haven't entirely got my head around the tech tree just yet); but even so...

I am enjoying it, just not blown away by it. Just wondering what others' experiences are before I up the difficulty.

 

[adoredtv]

It's way too easy, I'm waiting on the patch before I play it again. You literally cannot lose by following simple tech strategies.

 

[Juniper]

I've yet to complete a full game of this.

It looks good - just don't have the time to devote 6+ hours to a computer game. It's on my "todo" list for over the Christmas holidays.

As I recall, I had similar issues with Alpha Centauri. For some reason, the idea of an SF based Civ is more fun & engaging to me than the reality.

 

[Eirichur]

I'm interested in Beyond Earth, despite the many negative reviews about it being a bit empty and soulless. None of the current factions appeal to me, though. It seems a bit peculiar that they didn't include any factions representing Germany, the United Kingdom, and Scandinavia... in fact Northern Europe isn't represented at all. Hopefully one or two additional European factions will be included in the inevitable expansion.

 

[Jenner]

I was very interested in it until the negative reviews started coming in. I may try it eventually when Steam has a good sale going on, but right now I have too many other things to keep me occupied.

Just seems like a concept that was way cooler on the drawing board but failed a bit in execution from what I've been reading.

 

[Juniper]

In fairness of what I've actually played, the negative reviews seem to centre on the fact that not a huge amount has changed in terms of game mechanics from Civ 5.

People were expecting Civ 6 - which it isn't.

Nevertheless, I find it hard to care about the various factions in the game which limits my enjoyment somewhat.

 

[Andy Kappa]

Having played it quite a lot since release the impression I have is that they've done with this what they've done before, which is to release a game that's perfectly playable and possessed of some interesting new features (though not entirely bug-free IME) but pretty light on content - it needs more factions for one thing (and those that are there are really not that interesting to talk to and extremely repetitive: was it too much to hope for more after all this time?) - and a lot of the mechanics need tweaking as well: it just doesn't feel balanced. Finally, although there's been at least one update since launch the various victory routes really do feel like a grind (and not in a good way), and there's real pressure to complete the game quickly - I'm playing at Soyuz level, and if you don't complete the game in under 300 turns then one of the AI players invariably does. There appears to be no option for a game that runs anywhere near the 500 available turns.

In truth, this discussion has some bearing on the one that took place recently in the ED forums over features promised for the game but missing at launch or left out altogether. I'm a huge fan of both games and have a fair amount of goodwill to spare for them, but if I'm honest I have to admit to a slight feeling of being short-changed. If this is the way the gaming industry is right now then so be it, but it does rankle slightly.

ETA: All these comments relate to the single-player game of course. It may be that an online multiplayer game will feel more balanced - it could even be that the developers are looking to push people in that direction with the current implementation. If so then I fear that my time with it may be limited as I have always played solo and have no plans to change.