PolyCast's Swag Contest, Episode 213 Celebration of "Civ: Beyond Earth" Release

'Ask and Ye Shall Receive' Contest
Take a day or two, even ten, to think to ask to receive. PolyCast (PC), the bi-weekly podcast giving the Civilization community an interactive voice on game strategy, is running the 'Ask and Ye Shall Receive' content celebrating the release of Civilization: Beyond Earth on October 24th. As you play this newest installment in the Civ franchise, think about what questions or even questions you would like to ask developer Firaxis Games. Then ask any and all of them in response to this thread on/by October 31st for a chance to win limited edition game swag.

1st Prize: "Firaxicon Swag Bag" (BE backpack, keychain, mousepad with XCOM dogtag and shotglass)
2nd Prize: Choice of 'CivAnon' or Penny Arcade eXpo (PAX) exclusive 'Diplomatic' shirt
3rd Prize: BE "Lush Biome" poster

From all entries received, PC regular co-hosts Daniel "DanQ" Quick, "Makahlua", Philip "TheMeInTeam" Bellew and "MadDjinn" will compile a "Top 10" -- a show tradition -- and forward onto BE's developer for answering. The top three ranked questions which are answered will receive a prize described above; name, postal address, email address and telephone number will be required for shipping. Like BE's release, this contest is open worldwide: must be 18 years of age or older. To-be prize recipients will be contacted via email.

Episode 213 Celebration
Be apart of recording of PolyCast Episode 213 this Saturday, October 25th starting at 12PM ET North America (timezone converter). Join the live recording of this audience participation driven episode in the sharing of initial thoughts, experiences and insights of Civilization: Beyond Earth play released the day before.

Who is your favourite leader and why is it Hutama?

We know that Kozlov is essentially representative of Yuri Gagarin, but what/who were some other interesting inspirations for the Sponsor Leaders?

What sort of mods are you looking forward to playing?

TPangolin said:

Is there a decent amount of history and lore on the Sponsors/Leaders contained within the Civilopedia equivalent akin to what was seen in Civ V?

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Given that the game will be out long before the deadline to put your question up, you will know the answer to this already.

The way units now upgrade seems very streamlined. For example you do not have to upgrade old units into new ones any more. What was the basis of this gameplay decision? Was it based on narrative, multiplayer, or just a simple design choice?


What were some game mechanics that did not make the final cut for the game and why?

Ok i'm sorry but i read the title first as "Drag contest"


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Despite the open-to-interpretation nature of the game, you have an internal explanation of stuff like The Great Mistake. Do you also have one about Kavitha Thakur's longevity?

In your personal headcanon, which faction would be the winner of each kind victory?

Do you have any plans to implement a feature to visualize your own leader as it progresses through affinity? A throneroom or gallery feature of some sort.

Do you think developing on the CiV5 engine limited your gameplay options and compromised your artistic vision for BE?

Are you planning more serious options for terra-forming in the future? Meaning: Making a planet more Earth-like, being able to lower/raise sea levels and terrain?

(first one is my main question if we have to have only one)

1 If you could go back in time to the start of development on the game, what would you do differently and why ?

2 Did you have in mind much the comparisons people would be drawing with civ v; did you think they would go as far as a lot of people claiming the game was just a re-skin and did fear of this affect the development of the game in any way, for example trying to be as different as possible, perhaps dropping the way something was going to be implemented just to be different "for the sake of being different", maybe the turning happiness into health and gold into energy ?

3 Did you run out of time when developing the game or was it really always the idea that games would end so abruptly with no indication of why you won or lost, no graphs and statistics etc. ?

4 Is the explorer unit on auto really supposed to attack aliens or is it a bug ?

5 Do you feel the publisher over-hyped the game when marketing it and did this put a lot of pressure on you as developers ?

1. Why did 2K/Firaxis choose to leave the Contact Victory disappointingly undefined?

2. Why didn't focus groups or play-testers discover that playing ARC on a Lush Biome with Miasma everywhere can cause considerable eyestrain due to color shading similarities?

3. Why isn't there a third option when choosing a Station which allows you to decide you are not interested in a new Station at this time?

4. Why does the AI tend to wait until its its fourth affinity point (access to Supremacy Battle-suits for example) before becoming hostile to the player?

5. How much development time was invested in Civ:BE (as the game feels a little bit rushed)?

1) You have a lot of new mechanics, such as the tech web, affinities, seeded start, and less railroaded civs. Which of them do you think will do well if they were added to Civ 6? Which of them do you think won't do well? Why?

2) How do you handle internal testing and feedback in the alpha versions? Does the team do end-to-end games, or are they busy going through bug reports/test cases for bugs?

3) The tech web feels like it front loads a lot of the player work because of the abundance of options early (8 first-tech options vs Civ 5's 4 choices) and shallow trees requiring you to know more total techs at each decision point. What are your thoughts on how Beyond Earth's learning curve compares to previous games? Did you plan on the curve being different?

4) It's nice to see females in video games who don't look like 20 something models fresh off the runway. What went into Elodie's design?

5) Did you consider leader-specific unique units or unit art? Hutama really should have kangaroo Xeno Cavalry.

6) Kavitha looks really good for being 200. What's her secret to looking so young?

1. Why not keep the option (from Civ V) to select different upgrades for each unit, rather than the same option for every unit in the class? I liked the idea of specializing some infantry as healers, and some as attackers, for example.

2. Why did you remove the 'luxury' resource concept? It seems like you could still use some of the resource types to boost health (similar to luxuries and happiness), it would make the new alien resources seem more valuable. As it is, they have little impact other than making me build a paddock/plantation instead of a farm, whereas in previous civs I would plan city placement around those resources.

3. Will we get the ability to rename specific units?

1. How were the sales of Civilization: Beyond Earth?
---> 1B. Were they good enough to warrant future content, such as DLC or potentially an expansion?

2. What types of units, leaders, new features, affinity extensions and such would you enjoy adding that couldn't make it into the game's launch?

3. Will Firaxis do more streams of upcoming games or future content like they did for Beyond Earth pre-release? It was a great way for people to get insight into how the game played before release, while hearing some interesting commentary about its development.

4. How much attention do you give to fansite communities like CivFanatics during the development process, both pre and post-launch, and has this had any influence on Beyond Earth?

Why did you let a blind person design the interface?

Thanks to all who submitted who submitted one or more questions for this contest in this thread. All entries will be reviewed; those who place in the top three will have their originators contacted for confirmation and ultimate ranking. Public announcement of the winners of the ten chosen questions will accompany receipt of their answers from Civilization: Beyond Earth developer Firaxis Games during a live stream of an upcoming PolyCast episode recording.

I'm a bit confused. Are you counting questions in both threads? If so, cool. If not, which one are you counting cause the link in the announcement was for the other thread.

S.K. Ren said:

I'm a bit confused. Are you counting questions in both threads?

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Yes.

If so, cool.

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Yesterday, the ten questions chosen for sending to Civilization: Beyond Earth developer Firaxis Games were read aloud -- along with their answers -- during the live recording of PolyCast Episode 215. This episode is to be released this Saturday, November 29th. Those who submitted the questions that placed first, second and third place were contacted respectively for the information needed for the shipping of their prizes.

Thanks again to all who participated in this "Ask and Ye Shall Receive" contest, and to those that took the time to read the entries here too.

Yay!

So, uhhh, does anyone have pics of the 'CivAnon' and Penny Arcade eXpo (PAX) exclusive 'Diplomatic' shirts? Or know what a 'Diplomatic' shirt is?

m15a said:

Yay!

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(For those wondering, or to otherwise confirm based on the above, m15a placed second.)

So, uhhh, does anyone have pics of the 'CivAnon' and Penny Arcade eXpo (PAX) exclusive 'Diplomatic' shirts? Or know what a 'Diplomatic' shirt is?

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Negative on both accounts -- surprise yourself!

The winners for this contest were announced last Saturday during the live recording of PolyCast Episode 215. The post-produced version of this episode is now available.