Rising Tides Aliens is deader than dead.

Callonia · Oct 11, 2015

I chilled for like first 100 turns before I decided to shoot at the aliens. Starting with hydracoral thingies north of my capital. Surprisingly they went hostile very fast right after i pillaged like third nest.

Unsurprisingly, they was horrifically weak. Even barbarians in civ5 put up a better fight than this. I'm killing alot of bugs with no apparent consequence of some kind.

Very disappointing when I see a picture like this on loading screen.

Spoiler :

Oh and I did the marvel quest for hydracorals that gave me vision of every hydracoral on the world map.

Ten turns later, the hydracorals became extinct.

I'm pretty much well on the way to winning the game already. Building the exodus gate already.

Eji1700 · Oct 11, 2015

I've been slightly shocked by this as well. I lost my first game to a kraken I wasn't expecting, but after that I've noticed that aliens seem MUCH weaker than in the base game? Maybe I just never bothered with the right alien bonuses before, or maybe it's because most of my battles are navel, but really outside of krakens nothing is even remotely scary once I hit affinity 2/3.

Eagle Pursuit · Oct 11, 2015

That picture is of a Xenotitan, which is the top Harmony unit, not a true alien.

Red Menace · Oct 11, 2015

Eji1700 said:
I've been slightly shocked by this as well. I lost my first game to a kraken I wasn't expecting, but after that I've noticed that aliens seem MUCH weaker than in the base game? Maybe I just never bothered with the right alien bonuses before, or maybe it's because most of my battles are navel, but really outside of krakens nothing is even remotely scary once I hit affinity 2/3.

I stacked a lot of bonuses in the demo and just destroyed everything, only thing that put up a fight was Makaras and Krakens and I only fought 2 Makaras, they should make them stronger. but most of the aliens become a lot less deadly after the first upgrade.

Eagle Pursuit said:
That picture is of a Xenotitan, which is the top Harmony unit, not a true alien.

its teeth are bigger than people, HOW DOES IT CHEW.

oakdragon · Oct 11, 2015

Eagle Pursuit said:
That picture is of a Xenotitan, which is the top Harmony unit, not a true alien.

I thought that was a siege worm.

And hydracorals are not supposed to be strong. They're just supposed to be annoying, breeding and choking the oceans, getting in the way.

Gort · Oct 11, 2015

Yeah, aliens are only really an obstacle in the early game. Once you've a few tier 3 units they're pretty much toast.

Eagle Pursuit · Oct 11, 2015

oakdragon said:
I thought that was a siege worm.

And hydracorals are not supposed to be strong. They're just supposed to be annoying, breeding and choking the oceans, getting in the way.

Firaxis talked about their art in one of the Livestreams last month. They said it's a Xenotitan.

Makavcio · Oct 11, 2015

Well, a lot depends now on the biome you are enjoying.

Anyhow, aliens are not meant to be some super great threat, though the fact that at least one of you needs tier-3 troops to deal with them, i.e. late-game units, offers a little different point of view

They are an obstacle and you need to decide how to deal with that obstacle.

From my non-stop civing over the weekend, after I managed to get my hands on the expansion, I must say that aliens are a major threat for initial exploration and especially nautical colonization, especially if 2-3 nest cluster in a tight passage. It's impossible to clear out a large group of sea dragons and krakens in time short enough to make funding a city in that area viable.

On the bright side, they are a great natural shield wall for you and since AI is extremely hostile in early game (at least on apollo), they can be life savers. Sea dragons are also great naval melee units. Paired with submarines, they can create a powerful early-game and mid-game force. Saved production amounts to a dozen of wonders. Not to mention saved time. Those smaller yelling sea bastards are great for scouting. Catch two of them and you're good.

Also, leader traits that allow bonus science, energy or culture from killings are fantastic on very prolific biomes with a lot of weak aliens. You can just park a soldier or two near their nests and gather yields.

Aliens were my greatest disappointment in BE, and even though they are still far from perfect, I must say that at last they are diverse, slightly intelligent, not as random and there are at least several available approaches to the alien issue, while in vanilla game the only sane option was to exterminate them as soon as possible.

Greasy Dave · Oct 11, 2015

Makavcio said:
Well, a lot depends now on the biome you are enjoying.

Anyhow, aliens are not meant to be some super great threat, though the fact that at least one of you needs tier-3 troops to deal with them, i.e. late-game units, offers a little different point of view They are an obstacle and you need to decide how to deal with that obstacle.

From my non-stop civing over the weekend, after I managed to get my hands on the expansion, I must say that aliens are a major threat for initial exploration and especially nautical colonization, especially if 2-3 nest cluster in a tight passage. It's impossible to clear out a large group of sea dragons and krakens in time short enough to make funding a city in that area viable.

On the bright side, they are a great natural shield wall for you and since AI is extremely hostile in early game (at least on apollo), they can be life savers. Sea dragons are also great naval melee units. Paired with submarines, they can create a powerful early-game and mid-game force. Saved production amounts to a dozen of wonders. Not to mention saved time. Those smaller yelling sea bastards are great for scouting. Catch two of them and you're good.

Also, leader traits that allow bonus science, energy or culture from killings are fantastic on very prolific biomes with a lot of weak aliens. You can just park a soldier or two near their nests and gather yields.

Aliens were my greatest disappointment in BE, and even though they are still far from perfect, I must say that at last they are diverse, slightly intelligent, not as random and there are at least several available approaches to the alien issue, while in vanilla game the only sane option was to exterminate them as soon as possible.

Agree with everything you said

Furycrab · Oct 11, 2015

The biggest thing I found with the aliens isn't usually back at home. If you make the aliens aggressive, your explorers start dropping like flies and can't explore safely anymore. I find this kinda interesting because you would think this would screw you out of artifacts, not being able to explore the map very safely and all, but you get a bunch of artifacts food and energy for clearing out the nests.

What I'm exploring, and so far not bad results, is the idea of starting with Lifeform Scanner so you can steer your Explorers away from some nests (or at least the ones that were there on turn 1) and taking a soldier and getting Physics first to get a Ranger, then just go hunting with the Science per alien kill.

ptoss1 · Oct 11, 2015

You could just turn the "Frenzied Aliens" option on if you don't think it's challenging enough. Honestly though I'm not seeing the problem. Krakens, sea dragons, and even Rippers are far more troublesome than a barb ship will ever be. Terrestrial aliens aren't as problematic, but Siege Worms can still one shot your tier 2 veteran Marine if you get unlucky, which can be annoying.

Kzell11b · Oct 11, 2015

oakdragon said:
I thought that was a siege worm.

And hydracorals are not supposed to be strong. They're just supposed to be annoying, breeding and choking the oceans, getting in the way.

You thought THAT was a siege worm? Really?

ptoss1 · Oct 11, 2015

I mean come on, this is at least a LITTLE problematic right?

Spoiler :

Moderator Action: Spoiler Tags added

Ashbery76 · Oct 11, 2015

There should be new aliens appear mid to late game that are very powerfull.Pandora did that.

Galgus · Oct 11, 2015

Gort said:
Yeah, aliens are only really an obstacle in the early game. Once you've a few tier 3 units they're pretty much toast.

Tier 2 units can take most of them with the right perks.

Callonia · Oct 11, 2015

ptoss1 said:
You could just turn the "Frenzied Aliens" option on if you don't think it's challenging enough. Honestly though I'm not seeing the problem. Krakens, sea dragons, and even Rippers are far more troublesome than a barb ship will ever be. Terrestrial aliens aren't as problematic, but Siege Worms can still one shot your tier 2 veteran Marine if you get unlucky, which can be annoying.

Wanna know what's really horrible about my game experience? I already set the aliens to frenzied aliens. ;_;

And only damage I took was two pillaged sea hexes from a kraken then I had a bunch of cutters smashing into said kraken two turns later.

And the worst part, traditionally Civ ai have trouble against raging barbarians.. but not against frenzied aliens. They're so very easy for civ AI to exterminate.

PhilBowles · Oct 11, 2015

Ashbery76 said:
There should be new aliens appear mid to late game that are very powerfull.Pandora did that.

Seems too gamey a solution; definitely not something you want if you want to add flavour. It's a planet and the aliens are just the native life - they aren't hiding until you reach a certain level, let alone training or upgrading themselves.

However, having said that the alien types are all revealed disappointingly quickly. You're exploring a new world - some exploration should be required to actually find the things, perhaps with something in the code that recognises different map layouts and spawns aliens accordingly such that more distantly-'related' alien types may be confined to separate continents.

Ryoga · Oct 11, 2015

PhilBowles said:
Seems too gamey a solution; definitely not something you want if you want to add flavour. It's a planet and the aliens are just the native life - they aren't hiding until you reach a certain level, let alone training or upgrading themselves.

On a minor degree this is actually already in the game. Siegeworms only appear after a set amount of turns.

ptoss1 · Oct 11, 2015

PhilBowles said:
Seems too gamey a solution; definitely not something you want if you want to add flavour. It's a planet and the aliens are just the native life - they aren't hiding until you reach a certain level, let alone training or upgrading themselves.

However, having said that the alien types are all revealed disappointingly quickly. You're exploring a new world - some exploration should be required to actually find the things, perhaps with something in the code that recognises different map layouts and spawns aliens accordingly such that more distantly-'related' alien types may be confined to separate continents.

How about stronger aliens spawn as a result of clearing nests, killing aliens? Sort of like the environment evolving to handle new threats.

KrikkitTwo · Oct 11, 2015

ptoss1 said:
How about stronger aliens spawn as a result of clearing nests, killing aliens? Sort of like the environment evolving to handle new threats.

I would prefer Harmony players having the option to make the natives stronger. (assuming blue aliens are fixed)

Rising Tides Aliens is deader than dead.

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