Who else finds CivBE fun

Not better or whatever, just from a subjective point of view, even tho we know it is lacking in some departments (all science victories...) i found it way more fun than CiV5 BNW, that i had playing the whole weekend.

Maybe it's the setting, but i like that it feels more fast paced than BNW. My biggest problem with it are the victory conditions, but luckily for me, i enjoy domination games so just removed every other VC. Of course that's a bandaid and i hope Firaxis adds real depth to them instead of just being research wins.

Other things i had been thinking that could work as bandaid would be to force affinity 18 to build the VC (gates, plant) for affinities or complete the research tree for contact (no 2 expeditions... really that makes contact to be completely RNG and it is far superior to the others if you happen to get lucky). That way is much more room to interact with your opponents when your affinity flavored units get into play, instead of "ok, it's almost over" feeling i get.

But i don't know how to mod this (or if it is even possible) to test it.

I find it fun (playing it over the free weekend), but it's not even as good as Vanilla Civ V (for reasons that you and others have stated).

It certainly does feel atmospheric, it's just missing a lot of content for a $50 game. Where's the diplomatic or cultural victories? Where's religion? Where's all the resources?

Maybe if the release some expansions and I can get the complete edition for $30, or if it goes on a really deep sale and some good mods come out, i'd buy it, but I still have Civ IV complete, so there's really no need yet...

I guess I like it. Since I've had it, I've played it quite a bit and have not even looked back at Civ V.

I just wish the documentation was more specific as to what techs you need for a victory conditon. Sure, if you hover over a tech, it will tell you you can build that certain wonder. But it doesn't tell you the other two or three you have to build as well.

I was going nuts the other night trying to figure out why I could not build the Mind Flower. Apparently (per google) I had to build the Swarm tech. I wish I would have known that 100 turns earlier. The rest of the techs and infinity level I had. But I needed Swarm as well.

Thank God for google, because this game does NOT tell what you need.

But besides that crap, I do enjoy the game. It's fun.

It was fun for around 100hours, then it was too broken and superficial to put more effort in it.
Still okay for your average video game I guess, although I would never recommend it over Civ5 Complete or Civ4BTS.

But don't despair as time goes buy unsatisfied people will slowly leave this forum

I'm having fun. Though admittedly I'm spending most of my times working on or experimenting with mods. ^^ The base game itself unfortunately has 2 problems that spoil the fun for me: Games are too short. And thus the amount of choices you have becomes very limited on higher difficulties.

docbud said:

I just wish the documentation was more specific as to what techs you need for a victory conditon. Sure, if you hover over a tech, it will tell you you can build that certain wonder. But it doesn't tell you the other two or three you have to build as well.

...

Thank God for google, because this game does NOT tell what you need.

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The Quests/Victories window will show you what you need to complete each victory. No googling required.

Acken said:

But don't despair as time goes buy unsatisfied people will slowly leave this forum

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I don't mind people criticizing a game that i happen to enjoy.

Ryika said:

I'm having fun. Though admittedly I'm spending most of my times working on or experimenting with mods. ^^ The base game itself unfortunately has 2 problems that spoil the fun for me: Games are too short. And thus the amount of choices you have becomes very limited on higher difficulties.

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How would you increase the length of each game ? Or is it not possible through modding ? I feel the same way.

Everytime I start building the Mindflower, I see how much wasted potential the tech tree has. Because at that point I am no longer brainlessly farming techs to increase my Affinity level, no, I once again start to research stuff that I actually want because it unlocks cool things.

So while increasing the required affinity levels would increase playtime, it wouldn't fix the problem that all you do past the early game is beelining for Affinity techs. I think what the game needs is a complete redesign on how Affinity points are earned. Sadly, I can't really tell how one would create a system that awards Affinity points in a natural, non-gamey, non-exploitable fashion.

You could create a system where each tech grants a few Affinity points of your choise, but that would create lots of boring Q window clicking. You could assign Affinity points every X turns, but this would require a really complex equation (techs, improvements, virtues, relations, alien status, etc etc), so it would end up as a black box for the player.

Maybe you could replace the tech Affinity points with quets. You'd need a lot of them, but it could create some really dynamic gameplay. It could also tie in all the game mechanics that are currently lacking. Stuff like: "Create an alliance with player X", "Attack player X and take one city", "Conduct the 'Free Aliens from Alien Preserve' spy mission", "Build building X in all cities", "Train Y air units", "Build Z Terrascapes". All that.

You are probably right, i just said as a bandaid. The more time you require for your research winning condition, more time is in between to fill and some technologies can become more important instead of complete beeline. But you are probably right that instead of beelining for 13 affinity techs, you would just aim for 18. Of course i like playing a more militaristic game, and the units post affinity 9+ are just so much fun to play with but you never get to build them on your regular apollo playthrough.

Instead, since affinity winning condition is so low, most of the time most armies feel like the same, even tho they are differently aligned.

The system someone else mentioned in another thread about inter affinity interactions being forced is for me the best system, but no clue how to implement it either. Quest feel bland to me as an option, but more world based status (pollution vs miasma vs breathable air for example).

The point is, the "cool things" need to equate to the Affinity bonuses / Victories in terms of what they provide. That's all.

That way you can either go an Affinity-heavy route, and reap the rewards, or not, but also reap rewards.

Yep, that's how i feel about it, affinity tied completely to military upgrades makes everything too lineal, when we have what would be a wonderful research web instead.

Gorb said:

The point is, the "cool things" need to equate to the Affinity bonuses / Victories in terms of what they provide. That's all.

That way you can either go an Affinity-heavy route, and reap the rewards, or not, but also reap rewards.

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I don't think that this is possible with the current design.

It would mean that each tech needs something that returns the science investment, so whatever it is it has to reduces victory time inbetween 2 and 10 turns or so. That might work for the low-cost techs around the center, but everything past the midgame stuff would need insane effects. And can you just reduce Affinity points from techs either without adding something in return...

keldaur said:

You are probably right, i just said as a bandaid. The more time you require for your research winning condition, more time is in between to fill and some technologies can become more important instead of complete beeline. But you are probably right that instead of beelining for 13 affinity techs, you would just aim for 18.

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I think I said that somewhere else before, but BNW really benfited from the longer play time. I wouldn't mind playing past turn 300 or even 350. At least you'd build some of the mid-to-late game stuff like Boreholes, Microbiological Mines or Nanopastures. Heck, even satellites would become useful if they have more time grant their extra yields.

But let's be frank:
Balancing a tech web *is* a nightmare unless you somehow limit the player from going to deep.

Eh, it's possible. It'd just require a bit of work, a re-shuffling of the tech web and a look at Affinity bonuses and units.

For example Contact Victory in terms of Science cost is incredibly low compared to other Victories. The Affinity Victories are, by contrast, requiring an incredibly high Science cost. Combat / Diplomacy-related Victories are in the middle, because you only need as much as you require for the dominant units and growth / Culture buildings to prosper effectively.

From a games design point of view it's certainly possible. It just depends if the end result is still true to the vision of the developers, instead of feeling like an entirely-new game.

Bear in mind you can disable Victory types pre-game, so you don't necessarily have to compete by Affinity Victory against someone rushing a Domination Victory.

I don't.

Ryika said:

I'm having fun. Though admittedly I'm spending most of my times working on or experimenting with mods. ^^ The base game itself unfortunately has 2 problems that spoil the fun for me: Games are too short. And thus the amount of choices you have becomes very limited on higher difficulties.

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It is worth pointing out that the latter half of this problem has existed in every single incarnation of the Civ series. Higher difficulties limit choices and have always done so.

I'm having fun with the game. Possibly because I choose difficulties where I don't feel I have to beeline to victory. Fun in a game like this, for me, consists in exploring the game's mechanics and options, not in seeing whether I can win while handicapping myself.

It tells you the main tech--not the smaller ones you need to go with it. My next game, I'll be sure to look carefully. I don't recall it ever telling me to research swarm.

Lanth said:

The Quests/Victories window will show you what you need to complete each victory. No googling required.

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It's fun, but comparatively less fun than Vanilla Civ5.

I'm sitting more on the "This game has alot of potential" fence... it could easily be as fun as Civ5 with the right polish and additions.

keldaur said:

How would you increase the length of each game ? Or is it not possible through modding ? I feel the same way.

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Well, the Beyond Balance Mod does a somewhat good job at making the game last longer by moving the affinity wonders back by a lot, so that's at least something. Overall, as far as I understand it all the victory quests can be bypassed or even directly modified since the patch, so just adding more requirements at different places of the tech web would also help. And then I'm pretty much working on my total overhaul/addon/whatever-mod (which will probably never get done because of the ridiculous size of the project, but it's still fun ), which, in part, tries to allow for more variation by re-assigning the affinity completely different:


...basically assigning tiny bits of affinity on 1/4 of the skill tree (for each one), which does not only allow for very much customization about how to approach the tree, but also allows me to make the affinities feel VERY different from each other - because I can just scramble affinity-specific bonuses on that part of the tree - the passive playerperk-bonuses displayed on that tile are for example upgrades for the tile improvements - and the terrascape itself starts rather weak, so other affinities will no longer want to build them, but as Harmony progresses through the game it will become their Powerhouse-Improvement.

Bandobras Took said:

It is worth pointing out that the latter half of this problem has existed in every single incarnation of the Civ series. Higher difficulties limit choices and have always done so.

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That's right of course, but I think Beyond Earth has still taken it a step further. Or course, in BE we had those insanely fast science victories but if you leave them out of the equasion, then you had at least the midgame where you could make some choices. BE is mainly "Early game -> Beeline to Victory".

Yeah that looks cool. I would not use Terraforming for Harmony but of course i am sure you are toying with it.

I actually thought about it a lot and came to the conclusion that I'll indeed use terrascape for harmony. ^^ The idea is that it's their way of making the planet "prosper" and if I ever get to that point, I'll just re-write the lore for that.

So Harmony will mainly be Terrascapes + Biowells + (some) Mines for a very "green, natural looking" landscape, Purity will be (improved) farms + Academies (+ probably Generators and manufactories). And Supremacy will get Nodes + Manufactories.

Then there will be "neutral" improvements: Domes (renamed to Greenhouses) that give food and Production on Snow/Tundra Tiles (With Snow now by default giving some science and Affinity Techs will improve them into the direction the affinity generally leans to), and Arrays that can only be built on Flat Desert Tiles and give Energy + Science - those "neutral" improvements will make those areas habitable and, probably with techs within the neutral (aka Science Victory) parts of the tech tree, profitable enough that it's a good idea to expand into these areas.