Sorry for the long post.
I just won a Harmony game on the second highest difficulty at turn 266 and I am neither playing at maximum efficiency nor with the optimal decision making. There are so many things that are missing from the game or simply to easy compared to Civ V that I find myself in need to write some thoughts down.
Win conditions
Essentially, all 5 win conditions are simply coming down to who has the most research points. The shift over from researching better military units directly towards upgrading them via affinity levels doesn't really change a thing, the one that gets the necessary technologies faster has the strongest military. Plus, of course, is the first who can construct the beacon or the Affinity related special buildings.
Combine that with the complete lack of anything related to culture and diplomacy victories (or options even) and you have a game with 5 Science Victory conditions. That's really boring and turns every game into essentially the same grind.
Military upgrades
On one hand I like the fact that different units don't have entirely different upgrades over the course of the game as in CiV:V but what bothers me is that a single quest or technology can upgrade all units of a specific type simultaneously, globally. This can swing even matchups heavily and further manifests that research is mandatory even for warmongers. The perks are partially powerful as well so you definitely want the Affinity upgrades over anything else.
Stations, Great People, Forts
Stations are boring and only serve the purpose of providing someone to trade with. Wow. Sure, having "Stet Mining" around your capital is always a success but the whole system lacks depth and appeal. I still don't understand why Firaxis had to downgrade CiV to that extent. Why not turn the stations back into City-States again. Let their territory grow and let them produce military units. No need to implement the whole diplomacy victory again but at least give them SOME purpose aside from stats.
Great People are what made the early to mid game so interesting in Civ V, therefore the lack of those is really hurting the appeal of the game imo. I mean we have specialists again, why not have Great People? The fact that we can now build Manufactories and Academies at will is essentially hurting the game since it takes away from the purpose of the Great People feature. Just take those improvements out of the game and give them back to Engineers and Scientists while simultaneously increasing the yields a bit. Due to the fictional nature of Civ:BE there should be enough room for creativity regarding name choices etc.
Forts - where are they? I definitely miss them, gameplay- and lore-wise. More can be found below.
Techweb and Tile Improvements
As I already suggested, remove Academy and Manufactory from the Techweb and reintroduce Great People again. Furthermore, why don't Terrascapes give Health? Take the health away from Biowells and give it to Terrascapes. Plus, Dome improvements should also act like forts for units stationed on them.
In addition, I would take every late game Affinity level tech out and give more importance to Affinity related tile improvements. We could implement a system where you would need a certain amount of specific improvements in relation to your number of cities in order to further progress in your Affinity. I would chose the following improvements: Biowells (with more 'harmonic' visuals) for Harmony, Dome for Purity and Array for Supremacy. That's just a suggestion of course. Plus, I think Affinity level 13 is not sufficient as a requirement for a Victory Condition. It's at a point where we don't even have unlocked the strongest military units. Maybe we should raise it to 18 or something, with the aforementioned tile improvements helping to get there.
World Wonders
Those could still need heavy rebalancing. Some bonuses are really sweet, but many of the late game Wonders really only have stats and that's it. Not very appealing.
I am especially missing the Great Wall wonder. A fitting equivalent should be easy to implement (it could become a non-factor for hovering units).
Natural Wonders
Where? Everything is fictional, I am sure people would easily and gratefully accept Natural Wonders. Don't give them specific names, more general ones and voilà! Everything is fictional, there is so much potential for beautiful visuals and interesting yields... And of course new quests surrounding them.
The A.I.
Oh boy. Still has the same weaknesses the Civ:V had, but since the game itself got a lot less complex the problems are even more obvious. Inefficient use of improvements, extremely dumb positioning mistakes during combat and - of course - being an integral part of the terrible dimplomacy feature just ruins the fun.
I probably forgot some points.
I really want to like this game because Civ:V was a ton of fun (after heavy modding), I am just frustrated that the complexity isn't on par to begin with.
I just won a Harmony game on the second highest difficulty at turn 266 and I am neither playing at maximum efficiency nor with the optimal decision making. There are so many things that are missing from the game or simply to easy compared to Civ V that I find myself in need to write some thoughts down.
Win conditions
Essentially, all 5 win conditions are simply coming down to who has the most research points. The shift over from researching better military units directly towards upgrading them via affinity levels doesn't really change a thing, the one that gets the necessary technologies faster has the strongest military. Plus, of course, is the first who can construct the beacon or the Affinity related special buildings.
Combine that with the complete lack of anything related to culture and diplomacy victories (or options even) and you have a game with 5 Science Victory conditions. That's really boring and turns every game into essentially the same grind.
Military upgrades
On one hand I like the fact that different units don't have entirely different upgrades over the course of the game as in CiV:V but what bothers me is that a single quest or technology can upgrade all units of a specific type simultaneously, globally. This can swing even matchups heavily and further manifests that research is mandatory even for warmongers. The perks are partially powerful as well so you definitely want the Affinity upgrades over anything else.
Stations, Great People, Forts
Stations are boring and only serve the purpose of providing someone to trade with. Wow. Sure, having "Stet Mining" around your capital is always a success but the whole system lacks depth and appeal. I still don't understand why Firaxis had to downgrade CiV to that extent. Why not turn the stations back into City-States again. Let their territory grow and let them produce military units. No need to implement the whole diplomacy victory again but at least give them SOME purpose aside from stats.
Great People are what made the early to mid game so interesting in Civ V, therefore the lack of those is really hurting the appeal of the game imo. I mean we have specialists again, why not have Great People? The fact that we can now build Manufactories and Academies at will is essentially hurting the game since it takes away from the purpose of the Great People feature. Just take those improvements out of the game and give them back to Engineers and Scientists while simultaneously increasing the yields a bit. Due to the fictional nature of Civ:BE there should be enough room for creativity regarding name choices etc.
Forts - where are they? I definitely miss them, gameplay- and lore-wise. More can be found below.
Techweb and Tile Improvements
As I already suggested, remove Academy and Manufactory from the Techweb and reintroduce Great People again. Furthermore, why don't Terrascapes give Health? Take the health away from Biowells and give it to Terrascapes. Plus, Dome improvements should also act like forts for units stationed on them.
In addition, I would take every late game Affinity level tech out and give more importance to Affinity related tile improvements. We could implement a system where you would need a certain amount of specific improvements in relation to your number of cities in order to further progress in your Affinity. I would chose the following improvements: Biowells (with more 'harmonic' visuals) for Harmony, Dome for Purity and Array for Supremacy. That's just a suggestion of course. Plus, I think Affinity level 13 is not sufficient as a requirement for a Victory Condition. It's at a point where we don't even have unlocked the strongest military units. Maybe we should raise it to 18 or something, with the aforementioned tile improvements helping to get there.
World Wonders
Those could still need heavy rebalancing. Some bonuses are really sweet, but many of the late game Wonders really only have stats and that's it. Not very appealing.
I am especially missing the Great Wall wonder. A fitting equivalent should be easy to implement (it could become a non-factor for hovering units).
Natural Wonders
Where? Everything is fictional, I am sure people would easily and gratefully accept Natural Wonders. Don't give them specific names, more general ones and voilà! Everything is fictional, there is so much potential for beautiful visuals and interesting yields... And of course new quests surrounding them.
The A.I.
Oh boy. Still has the same weaknesses the Civ:V had, but since the game itself got a lot less complex the problems are even more obvious. Inefficient use of improvements, extremely dumb positioning mistakes during combat and - of course - being an integral part of the terrible dimplomacy feature just ruins the fun.
I probably forgot some points.
I really want to like this game because Civ:V was a ton of fun (after heavy modding), I am just frustrated that the complexity isn't on par to begin with.
