Civilization: Beyond Earth Announced

An anonymous reader writes "Today at PAX East, Firaxis announced Civilization: Beyond Earth. It's a new Civ game inspired by their sci-fi strategy classic Alpha Centauri. Beyond Earth is currently planned to launch this year on the PC. According to Game Informer: 'Beyond Earth presents an opportunity for Firaxis to throw off the shackles of human history and give players the chance to sculpt their own destinies. Civilization games typically have a set endpoint at humanities modern age, but Beyond Earth has given Firaxis the opportunity and the challenge of creating a greater sense of freedom. ... The five different victory conditions that represent that next major event in human history are tied to the new technology web. At the start of the game, players will choose leaders and factions (no longer bundled with one another) and choose colonists and equipment to settle the land. Once descending from orbit, the technology web allows players to move in a number of directions.'"

Comments

Trailer

[JohnSearle]

Civilization: Beyond Earth (Announcement)

Alpha Centauri 2

[Ottawakismet]

I know they say its not Alpha Centauri 2, but thats all it has to be. The original had so much depth and fun, just keep that intact, and don't mess it up, and it will be a brilliant game. Alpha Centauri remains one of the best games in the Civilization world

Re:Alpha Centauri 2

[drinkypoo]

Try the Planetfall Mod for Civ IV BTS. If you play it on a fairly modern system with a fully patched game it might not even crash before you finish a moderate-length game.

You don't get to design your own units. But they do get upgrades reminiscent of AC.

Shut up and take my money

[mseeger]

It's says "Civilization" in the title, so i will buy it anyway... ;-)

Re:Shut up and take my money

[TFlan91]

I've always hated the end game of Civ's. It's always felt... dissatisfying. Early/Mid game was always fun but if it lasted to the end game, I usually ended up quitting and starting over.

This newly announced game has so many paths it could take and the possibilities are truly endless, if the dev's decide to make it so that is. I had faith, but after Civ V, the Sid Meier's brand has faltered in my eyes.

(i've been playing his games since Sid Meier's Civilization (holy shit that was a long time ago), my favorite, to this day, is still Gettysburg)

Re:Shut up and take my money

[khallow]

The original Civ V release was terrible. Sure, it had some nice tactical flavor to it (which the computer players are completely incompetent at BTW), but it loses a lot of the fun of Civ IV.

For example, there's a lot more restrictions in play - especially the penalties on placing more cities. They dropped the health mechanic of Civ IV for growing cities and population, but they replaced it with a bogus penalty to culture and research from additional cities. It just doesn't feel right. The tech tree is bogus and it's clear that they structured the tree as they did for game balance rather than any sense of realism. Even worse is the culture trees. They don't feel even remotely realistic.

Subsequent releases have helped balance that stuff out somewhat (Civ 5 does have a better religion system an the ideology conflict in the late game is nice) and add more to the mid and late games, but it still needs a lot of work. For example, in the latest variant of Civ 5 there are three different ways to trade.

The city state mechanic needs work too. A more realistic mechanic would be that the barbarians eventually settle down and form the city states (as they adopt the civilization ideas of the core civilizations). But that would mean a lot more city states than are presently in the game and a whole new mechanism for dealing with trade and city state alliances is required.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[KingOfBLASH]

The worst part is I know the gameplay is probably going to be so similar to old versions of the Civ franchise that I might as well just dust them off, but because it's shiny and new I'll pay any price and waste many hours of my life on it. Only game that ever beat Civ in terms of replayability for me was nethack.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[AuMatar]

Because Civ is a single player game. It isn't meant for multiplayer, and multiplayer has always been a terrible experience. I'd prefer if they dropped it entirely and spent more time on polishing the AI or released it earlier. Because they shove in a half baked multiplayer we get a worse game.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[cbhacking]

Those are good critiques of Civ5. There are a more, of course, but *most* of them boil down to the original release of the game being, basically, too big a change for them to get it right.

Let me say that again: Civ 5 was *badly* flawed at release, because it was too big a change.

For example, in a game where each unit (and tile, since they go together) is so much more precious than they were before, the 10HP system (where even a curbstomp battle costs 10% of your health, and the enemy rolling just a *little* too well can easily kill a unit that should have been wounded but near-guaranteed to survive) is stupid. They fixed that in the first expansion, and it made combat *much* better.

Then there's the silliness where ranged units turn into melee units as they upgrade. That is, sadly, still present in a few units (chariot archers, etc.) but it's way less common than it once was, and there are actual ranged units in the late-game now.

The original culture system was undeniably silly. The new one is better in many ways, although the lines between things that give faith and things that give culture and things that give tourism still feels a bit arbitrary. I mean, shouldn't world wonders *inherently* give tourism? Shouldn't religious buildings have a cultural impact as well? It's weird.

On the other hand, there are good things that I think you missed, too. You complain about three ways to trade in C5:BNW, but I see more than that (unit transfers are not explicitly trades, but they achieve much the same thing, and AI goodwill is effectively a commodity you can sometimes trade) and Alpha Centauri had the same things (Econ tech + treaties, direct trade over comlink, vote-buying in council). The tech tree has plenty of absurdities, but what else is new? That's hardly something Civ5-specific, and the power level progressions throughout the game are pretty good.

Re:Shut up and take my money

[sound vision]

Shouldn't world wonders *inherently* give tourism? Shouldn't religious buildings have a cultural impact as well? It's weird.

Many world wonders (and most national wonders) contain a Great Work slot, or even a slot pre-filled with a Great Work. If you are trying to win a tourism victory, it's difficult if you only rely on non-Wonder buildings to provide Great Work slots. Unless you have a large empire (6+ cities) you will run out of building-provided slots sooner than you'd like - then you're left with slots from Wonders. FWIW there are also 1 or 2 wonders that directly give a tourism boost, not just great works slots.

There are also several religious buildings that provide a culture bonus. The Shrines and Temples don't, but once you or any other player found a religion, you can add religious tenets allowing you to purchase Mosques, Cathedrals, and I believe one other building. These advanced religious buildings [i]do[/i] increase culture, as well as giving +1 to faith and/or happiness depending on the building. Furthermore, they can only be purchased with faith, not gold or production. Not having to sacrifice gold or production is [i]very[/i] useful in the small empires you'd build trying for a tourism victory. True, you have to spend faith instead - but it's not a lot, and you should already have excess faith if you're taking this strategy.

What graphics card will be enough?

[ChefInnocent]

Is the NVideo GTX TITAN Black or Radeon R9 295X2 going to be enough GPU for the game? Will I have to 3-way SLI or CrossFire them? It seems all the last Civ games have really pushed the graphics envelope which never made much sense to me since I find them to be almost spreadsheet games. I love Civ (particularly 2 & 4), but the video requirements seem excessive. I remember buying a GTX 8800 for Civ 4, and GTX 580 for Civ 5.

Re:What graphics card will be enough?

[Nyder]

Is the NVideo GTX TITAN Black or Radeon R9 295X2 going to be enough GPU for the game? Will I have to 3-way SLI or CrossFire them? It seems all the last Civ games have really pushed the graphics envelope which never made much sense to me since I find them to be almost spreadsheet games. I love Civ (particularly 2 & 4), but the video requirements seem excessive. I remember buying a GTX 8800 for Civ 4, and GTX 580 for Civ 5.

I thought you were joking, but I think you are serious.

Civ doesn't push the graphics boundaries at all. You seriously thought you needed a GTX 580 for Civ 5? Runs great on my Nividia 285 from like 5 years ago. Currently I have a 460 in my main gaming machine and it has no problem pumping out high graphics at 1080p on modern games. I'm probably going to need to upgrade in a year or so when the next gen titles start coming out, maybe. But in the last 5 or so years, games have not taken advantage of the power of the graphic cards, except for a few exceptions.

Civilization Reskinned?

[poity]

Where is the unit workshop? Just a bs reskin without unit workshop.

Re:I wonder if it will acutally work

[Arker]

As a fan of the franchise all the way back the original, I gotta say, I did not buy 5, and I doubt I will buy this either. The days when I thought it was fun to spend as much time in a debugger fixing deliberate breakage as I actually spent playing it are in the past.

With Linux Support!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not even a single person that mentioned it will support Linux?
This fall on Linux, Mac and Windows PC for $49.99, Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth will [...]"
This is incredible news.

Here's a better (and cheaper) game

[Charliemopps]

Here's a better (and cheaper) game:
Banished
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Do I need a 12 step program for Civ? Or is it OK?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been playing this series since the first came out when I was 9. Steam tells me the last few games have claimed man years of my time. No other series has ever captured my attention quite the same way with the feeling of epic strategy.

but... The way I half-assedly justify this vice to myself is that Alzheimers runs in my family on both sides and cracking out on Civ hopefully gives me a decent brain workout, e.g. researchers and those asshats at lumosity saying people doing crosswords, puzzles, etc... stave off the disease longer.

There are worse vices right?

Re:AI Optimization?

[cbhacking]

Your requests are, unfortunately, somewhat contradictory. You ask for a smarter AI (that doesn't put ranged units in front, for example) and then ask for one that processes faster. You complain about the late-game AI time (where the decision trees are *huge*), then say you want the AI to give a harder game without handicaps.

Don't get me wrong, I want to see optimizations too. But, I think they did a pretty decent job of balance, especially in the expansions (the original game was kind of bad in many ways, AI included). Diplomacy has gotten a *lot* better, partially because the AI's motivations are more transparent.The AI unit management is non-ideal, but it's rarely outright bad anymore (and can in fact be really good at specific goals, like "capture that barbarian camp"). As for handicaps, the AI *does* play dumber/friendlier at the lower difficulties, and always has; the point at which the AI starts needing to cheat, and the degree of its cheating, has crept up over time though.

Produced by Team Fail

[kolbe]

The game is being produced by the same group that put out the failed Civilization V ala Lena Brenk, Dennis Shirk and Lisa Miller. They can pay off all the game reviewers they want, but the simple fact remains that Civilization V sucked when it came out. It might as well have been an expanded version of Civilization Revolution!

For me an countless others out there @ CivFanatics, I am heartbroken that this series has lost its way and any games they have put out since Civilization IV lack any merit as they play like garbage.

I truly hope Sidney Meier actually puts his foot down and ensures this game is done right without the constant pressures from the asshats @ 2K Games & Take-Two shits, but I highly doubt it considering the current industry trend of releasing unfinished games and then gouging their supporters by forcing them to buy DLC and fixes.