Civilization: Beyond Earth

[fragger]

Interesting :-X

Also interesting is that when I fire up BE there is a small bit of text at the bottom of the opening splash screen which tells me that my GPU doesn't have the latest driver installed. I did upgrade it a few months ago, but evidently there's a new one available. I haven't looked into that yet.

The map screenpic shown on the page that Stiku linked to is not a typical BE game situation. Just about every hex has a unit in it and it appears to be something that's been deliberately assembled that way pure and simply to put the GPUs to a stress test. You would never see a map so chaotically full of units like that, and there doesn't seem to be any cities or hex improvements such as Farms, Generators, etc. It appears to be nothing but units, which is not possible in an actual game. Most games of Civ would find you not needing any more than about thirty to forty units of varying types and I think it would be the same with BE - you would never have hundreds of units, nor would there be any need to have that many. The support costs for so many units would be prohibitive anyway because each unit you build requires money to maintain per turn, and there is a limit to how many units you can have which is determined by how many cities you have and how populous they are - at least that's how it works in Civ V. I haven't yet taken notice of how unit support works in BE, there's been too much other stuff to take in first.

Civ V can lag a little on a big map that's been completely revealed and when it's late in a game (i.e. a lot has been built), but the frame rate is still acceptable - at least it is on my rig. BE is simply a more graphically demanding game, but that's par for the course with newer games - witness AC5...

[PZ]

Seems that there is a never ending cycle of upgrades required for the latest games.  Funny thing is that on the consoles, the developers know the constraints within which they need to program, so they somehow make it w@&k.  There really is very little excuse for sloppy programming other than laziness.

[Art Blade]

I used to say that games push the PC industry, demanding better hardware and in return, better hardware caused "better" games. The console domination put a stop to that. Now it's perhaps indeed going back to the roots which I generally appreciate.

[Binnatics]

I remember the problems my systems had when playing C&C games, which can be compared to Civ, performance-related. Once you fill up the map with units, it will in the end loose frame rates quite a lot. Seems to me that indeed the set up Stiku is referring to is the best way to stress test your system. I always thought it would be the processor bottle-necking the crowded areas, since all behaviour and connections have to be calculated instead of their graphic appearance. But I might be completely wrong with that. It's just my logic telling me so.

I like the web upgrade system. It gives you a whole lot of liberty in the way you'd like to approach the gameplay. Looking forward to your discoveries and experiences. Keep it coming :) :-X

[fragger]

Cheers Binn :)

I started a new game, because my first go was just an initial paddle in the pool to test the waters - and besides, I didn't get off to a very good start. In fact I screwed the pooch somewhat due to my clumsy newbie fumblings ::)

There are a bunch of options you can choose between at the beginning of a new game which allow you to customize your faction before you make planetfall. This is pretty cool because you can tailor yourself according to what it may be that you want to achieve in the game. You can choose to play with one of eight "sponsors" (i.e. this determines your faction), each of which have their own inherent strengths and/or special abilities, much like the different cultures in Civ V. But in addition to this, you can also choose amongst various start options in the following categories:

Colonists
There are five types: Scientists, Refugees, Aristocrats, Engineers and Artists (you can choose only one type). The type of Colonists you choose will determine which of the basic resources will be boosted in the form of added bonuses in each of your cities per turn throughout the game (Science, Food, Energy, Health, Production and Culture, or various combinations thereof).

Spacecraft
Five types: Continental Surveyor, Retrograde Thrusters, Tectonic Scanner, Fusion Reactor and Lifeform Sensor. The different types of ship will determine under what conditions you will make planetfall, e.g be able to see coastlines (even under Fog Of War), larger area of land initially visible in which to choose a landing site, and so on.

Cargo
Five types: Hydroponics, Laboratory, Raw Materials, Weapons Arsenal and Machinery. Whichever one you choose will give you an initial Tech, Building, Unit or population boost to start with.

Planet
Lets you choose what type of world you would like to play on, such as Terran (a few large land masses and some small islands), Protean (one big contiguous land mass surrounded by ocean), Atlantean (lots of islands of varying sizes), or Random. The Exoplanets Map Pack DLC that came with my copy will allow you to choose between a further six different types of world.

There are also six difficulty levels and five map sizes to choose between.

A word about the basic (city) resources: They are the same and w@&k the same way as they did in Civ V, only now Energy is substituted for Gold (as it was in Alpha Centauri) and Health now stands in for Happiness. Energy as a form of currency makes sense when you consider that this is a society that is utterly dependent on electrical power for survival (the atmosphere is poisonous) and as a result energy will be the most coveted commodity there is in a relatively small community trying to survive in a hostile alien environment far removed from the Earth's banking systems, worth way more than mere money. Try eating, drinking and breathing coins... This was the principle in Alpha Centauri and has been speculated about in a number of science-fiction stories.

Social Policies are still attained through Cultural points accumulation, as in Civ, but they are now called Virtues. Works in a very similar way. There is Espionage (once you make the appropriate tech discoveries) and works in much the way it does in Civ Gods & Kings, but with a bunch of added twists. Too much to go into here right now.

There is no Religion as such, but instead you can focus your efforts more towards three sort of philosophical imperatives: Purity, Harmony and Supremacy. Various tech discoveries will allow you to "level up" in these areas, and getting to the max in any of them will then allow you to go for a victory in the corresponding area. This constitutes three of the ways you can win, and are a tad complicated to go into here (read: I don't entirely get it myself yet :-()). There are two other ways to win: the venerable Conquest Victory (occupy everyone else's Capital Cities) and a variant on the Science Victory called Contact (a direct homage to the novel by Carl Sagan) which consists of you establishing contact with the original race of sentient beings that once inhabited the planet but left, long ago. This was how you could win in the expanded game of Alpha Centauri if you chose to play as one of the two alien factions (not available in the vanilla game).

There's a swag more that's new, but I've waffled on enough for now.

Phew... OK, I'm off to play some more of it in a bit. It's not grabbing me with both hands like Civ V did, but it is definitely growing on me, like alien moss :-X I do miss the classy Art Deco elegance of the Civ V user interface - this one is a bit more utilitarian in form - but it's a good straightforward UI nonetheless.

[Binnatics]

Plenty to choose from, I like the Science Fiction in it. In my last post I forgot to mention the Siege worm. It reminds me of the worms in Dune 2 ^-^

[PZ]

... It's not grabbing me with both hands like Civ V did, but it is definitely growing on me, like alien moss...

:-X

[Art Blade]

 ^   :-D :-D :-D +1  :-X for yet another fraggerian expression.  :-()

[fragger]

 :-D Thanks Art :)

[fragger]

I've gotten a bit more into BE, and I have to say it's not rocking my world like Civ V did.

For one thing, I'm not greatly enthused with the user interface. Overall it's just not as pretty as Civ's - it's very utilitarian and plain-looking, and it's not always easy to find what you want - at least, at first. Civ's UI is very intuitive and straightforward as well as being elegant and attractive, with buttons and controls that just seem to somehow fall easily to hand. The minimap in BE is next to useless - it's a tad too small and it can be quite difficult to make out what's what. Plus it's kind of dim. It brightens up some when you hover the pointer over it, but it lacks the vibrant clarity of Civ V's minimap.

It's not a terribly pretty world to look at, although the colours and landforms seem to vary depending on what style of planet you pick. I know they're supposed to be alien worlds, but is there some kind of gaming principle which dictates that all alien planets have to be ugly/weird-looking? I believe it's possible to have a world that's both alien and attractive, like the one in Avatar. Everything looks kind of dark and foreboding. I don't mean hard to see - it's colourful yet there's an overall impression of moroseness. It's hard to describe, but it's not pretty. The alien wildlife is the usual cross between reptilian and insectoid in appearance - generic game aliens, in other words.

If you look at the map colours in this screenie from my second game compared to the one in my first game (pic shown earlier in the topic) you can see that this world is more bluey-purple in appearance. I don't think I like it very much. Note the not-very-informative minimap in the top right corner.

[smg id=7288 align=center width=600]

I'm finding the gameplay to be a bit repetitive and kind of dull. So far it's build, explore, discover techs, throw up a new base once in a while, rinse and repeat. It's looking like a case of if I want combat, I'm going to have to start it myself. So far no other players have shown any inclination to be belligerent or territorial. Maybe they're just too busy trying to eke out a living on this somewhat inhospitable planet, but at the point I'm at in my current game, if it was Civ I more than likely would have been attacked or at least threatened by someone by now. It doesn't always happen in Civ either - it depends on where you start in relation to the other Civs and who those other Civs are. That's another thing - you can choose between a grand total of eight factions to play as, compared to over a couple of dozen in Civ (more with the EXPs).

The whole game has a kind of lacklustre feel to it, despite some of the truly cool innovations. I find myself getting sick of playing a session of BE much sooner than I do with Civ V, which I can happily play all day (and have done on occasion).

Time will tell, it's still early days for me and maybe I'll warm to it some more as I go on. So far though, I like it but I don't love it.

[PZ]

That's too bad, fragger - sounds like Civ V is like FC2.  Subsequent games are just not as fun

[fragger]

Seems to be a trend ::)

I wonder if Sid Meier himself actually had any input into this game. Although it bears his name, it doesn't necessarily mean he was involved with the development. He largely seems to be content to be the pres of the company these days. It was the case with earlier Civ games that if he was directly involved, the games were terrific, if not, they weren't. Two Civ sequels (Civ: Call To Power and Civ: Dream Of Empire) were developed by other companies after a messy legal squabble over who actually owned the rights to the title after Sid and his team quit Activision to start their own company when Microprose acquired Activision and tried to pressure Sid and his team to develop Civ III, which at that time they weren't interested in doing. Microprose and Activision, despite being ostensibly in a parent/child business arrangement, immediately tried to simultaneously develop their own respective post-Sid Civilization III games and thus got into a tussle over which of them actually owned the copyright. The court battle went on for several years and cost both companies a fortune. The legal decision was ultimately made that both companies could release their respective Civ games (which by then were fully developed but couldn't be sold before the legal pronouncement was made), but neither could call their game Civ III. The resulting games were named Civilization: Call To Power from Activision and Civilization: Dream Of Empire from Microprose. They were released simultaneously, i.e. as soon as they could be hustled out the door - and tanked after just a couple of months, when Sid's company Firaxis released Alpha Centauri. Nice last laugh, Sid :-X I tried CTP and it was an absolute dog of a game which deserved to tank. DOE was just pond scum.

Whenever Meier has been directly involved, the games shine. There was the original Civilization (a Sid game - I never played it, but it was very popular); Civ II (a Sid game) - excellent; Civ/Call To Power (no Sid) - lousy; Civ/Dream Of Empire (no Sid) - even lousier; Alpha Centauri (Sid) - excellent; Civ III (Sid) - excellent; Civ IV (no Sid) - lousy; Civ V (Sid) - excellent.

BE seems to lack the Sid touch.

[Art Blade]

Damn. When you voiced your hope that the game might turn better later on, I immediately thought the game wouldn't do you that favour. If a game can't convince me from the start, I'm almost bound to toss it. In other words, a game should capture you right away and keep doing it until the end. Anything else is crap. No matter whether a game starts bad and ends good or the other way round, it's just crap or crappier. A bloody shame if you ask me. :(

[fragger]

I have to agree. I was so looking forward to this game and I guess I keep hoping something about it will jump out and dazzle me, but so far nothing really has.

It's not a bad game and I like it in some ways, but Civ V still rules for me in this genre. I'll play BE for an hour or so, but then I'll get tired of it, fire up Civ and play that for several hours instead. Civ just seems to have a lot more character, or something.

[Art Blade]

at least you've still got Civ V :)

[fragger]

And there's still the Brave New World EXP for Civ V which I haven't picked up yet :-X

[Art Blade]

 :)

[fragger]

I had another go at BE tonight determined to give it another chance but I'm just not feeling the love. It's simply not an engaging game. For one thing I don't like the presentation of it, there's a kind of unattractiveness to its design that leaves me completely underwhelmed. The user interface is uninspired and kind of bleak, and in some ways downright annoying. The game simply lacks character. It's funny how some games can have an indefinable quality about them that can keep drawing you back in time after time (Civ V has that effect on me), while some games make playing them feel like a chore. It's a shame because there was such potential with this, but the all-pervading ordinariness that permeates this game keeps it from making any kind of significant impression on me.

Civ V, on the other hand, I can play until the cows come home.

BE can go into the "whoops, I wasted my money" drawer.

[Binnatics]

Sorry to hear that. We should start a blacklist of games with bad sequels :-\\

[PZ]

Unfortunately that would be virtually every game that has been released.   8-X

[Art Blade]

 :-D

[fragger]

Sad but generally true. Once upon a time game sequels were better than their predecessors, but now they've gotten like the movies - cash in on something that worked before but don't waste too much time trying to greatly improve upon it. Just give the masses what you think they want and gather in the bucks...

[Binnatics]

You guys are right. Although there are exceptions. But they are hard to find :-\\

[PZ]

So true fragger - you already have the masses hooked so why waste money making a quality product.

[Binnatics]

Beyond Earth hit Steam holiday sales already; -40%. That says about all :-\\