Affinity Discussion

Let me further ellaborate in what I mean by affinity flavour and asymetrical balance.

I don't mean something along the lines of "Supremacy ought to be more military powerful than harmony". But rather, that the military strenght of supremacy should be archieved by different means than harmony. For example:

Harmony:
- Gets wealth, science and culture by horizontal expansion and city positioning (terrain-dependant)
- Military power archieved trought high mobility ground forces and miasmic bonuses, making terraforming a weapon: Harmony units should recieve plenty of bonuses for fighting in certain terrain types such as miasma, and flanking

Supremacy
- Military power archieved trought unit composition and specialization: Units recieve bonuses to having friendly adjacent units and stats that further specialize their roles (artillery units being fragile glass cannons, very inmobile yet tough infantry, etc)
- Get wealth, science and culture by having turbo-charged specialits (transhumanism!) and automatically operated improvement that doesn't need to be worked by popullation (nodes, manufactories) in order to represent cyborgs and automatization

Purity
- Military power archieved trought turtling and defensive instances. Very costly yet though units, promotions for fighting inside your territory and for mounting up siegues in enemy cities
- Get wealth, science and culture by city specialization trought resource-consuming buildings and improvements (buildings that increases the output of city improvements, for example)

This is what I meant by asymetrical balance: Each affinty should reward a different playstyle (wide for harmony, min-max for supremacy, tall for purity) but they shouldn't limit your chances of victory, thus making your strategic options wider, rather than narrower.

The game current style, however, rewards only one style of gameplay and a very limited set of paths towards victory.

OP article made me expect that a or even an expansion might have be announced shortly. It has been six weeks...

Ikael said:

This is what I meant by asymetrical balance: Each affinty should reward a different playstyle (wide for harmony, min-max for supremacy, tall for purity) but they shouldn't limit your chances of victory, thus making your strategic options wider, rather than narrower.

Click to expand...

That sounds very good -- but really the kind of thing I was expecting from the beginning. Old school we have the civ horse / swordsman / spearman triad. Blizzard has the well balanced but very different zerg / terrain / protoss. Absolutely the three different affinities should result in very different games.

Ikael said:

Let me further ellaborate in what I mean by affinity flavour and asymetrical balance.

I don't mean something along the lines of "Supremacy ought to be more military powerful than harmony". But rather, that the military strenght of supremacy should be archieved by different means than harmony. For example:

Harmony:
- Gets wealth, science and culture by horizontal expansion and city positioning (terrain-dependant)
- Military power archieved trought high mobility ground forces and miasmic bonuses, making terraforming a weapon: Harmony units should recieve plenty of bonuses for fighting in certain terrain types such as miasma, and flanking

Supremacy
- Military power archieved trought unit composition and specialization: Units recieve bonuses to having friendly adjacent units and stats that further specialize their roles (artillery units being fragile glass cannons, very inmobile yet tough infantry, etc)
- Get wealth, science and culture by having turbo-charged specialits (transhumanism!) and automatically operated improvement that doesn't need to be worked by popullation (nodes, manufactories) in order to represent cyborgs and automatization

Purity
- Military power archieved trought turtling and defensive instances. Very costly yet though units, promotions for fighting inside your territory and for mounting up siegues in enemy cities
- Get wealth, science and culture by city specialization trought resource-consuming buildings and improvements (buildings that increases the output of city improvements, for example)

This is what I meant by asymetrical balance: Each affinty should reward a different playstyle (wide for harmony, min-max for supremacy, tall for purity) but they shouldn't limit your chances of victory, thus making your strategic options wider, rather than narrower.

The game current style, however, rewards only one style of gameplay and a very limited set of paths towards victory.

Click to expand...

I like those ideas.
Regarding Supremacy, I don't think automated tile improvements really fits with the way civ operates. Building don't require population though. The same effect of automation via robots etc. could be seen with buildings that have high energy maintenance, but provide a large, flat bonus. Then you could have small cities built on unproductive terrain that still produces well as long as it has energy. We were told of high energy use supremacy before but it didn't seem to materialize. I'd also have them be better at internal trade. Seems like they'd want to be independent from outside factions for resources but have their colony be very interconnected.

With Purity I hadn't thought about the resource consumption angle. Makes sense as we are now very consumey and purity wouldn't change that so quickly. I did notice that purity is the only affinity that doesn't have buildings that require their signature resource be within the city's territory. I just assumed floatstone was so easy to transport that a facility using it could function anywhere. Having more resource consuming buildings that give a percentage bonus rather than a flat bonus (like I'd have for supremacy) would give them a resource hungry identity.

Do people really see harmony as the "wide" affinity and Purity as the "tall" affinity? I actually imagine them the other way around. ^^ Something like:

Purity:
- Wide Empire
- Additional Food/Production for Internal Trade Routes
- Buildings that yield raw Culture/Science and Improve Yields from Trade Routes

Harmony:
- Tall Empire
- Many %-Food and Per-Pop bonuses
- Buildings that add bonuses for worked Tiles

Supremacy:
- Neither Tall nor Wide
- Do not need direct growth bonuses but get reduced Food Consumption for Specialists
- Buildings add bonuses to specialists, as well as Energy. Unique National Wonders, "Building Blocks", that have building quests that make these buildings highly configurable.

Ryika said:

Do people really see harmony as the "wide" affinity and Purity as the "tall" affinity? I actually imagine them the other way around. ^^ Something like:

Click to expand...

I think the reason for Harmony as wide and Purity as tall is more of a flavour thing, I think. Tall equals high population density and wide low pop density.

Low density is more in line with low-impact settlements that are in tune with nature and live off local resources, while high density is more like having huge cities with a lot of high-impact farmland and factories feeding them.

I disagree with OPs portrayal of the affinities. If you intend to go tall or wide, either affinity will do. Choosing an affinity really all depends on the strategic resources. Of course some people will roleplay but to me that means they're shooting themselves in the foot if they don't get a good start for a particular affinity they wish to pick.

In terms of combat, the affinities are balanced:
Harmony has solo and miasma bonuses, which if combined, can be insanely good. They also have the strongest healing per turn. they also have suicide squads which are great for diversions and blowing holes into enemy defences. Harmony also has the most mobile artillery in the game so harmony style combat usually involves harassing cities from a distance.

Purity has raw combat bonus + non-used movement combat bonus which does make them ideal for turtling, but their tanks also make them very ideal for storming cities. The ultimate unit, flying fortress, also counters supremacy style gameplay to an extent. LEV-tanks are also pretty flexible artillery units. Wardens (purity gunners) are also brilliant in garrison defence.

Supremacy has the best combat stacks in the game with friendly adjacent unit buffs, bonuses against wounded units and better flanking buffs. One level 4 infantry unit can acquire heaps of bonuses and get up to 110 combat strength. With a prime CNDR, they can get up to 120-130 combat strength and that makes supremacy excellent for line/trench warfare. They generally win fights through attrition and are meant to be beaten by flanking attacks.

In terms of victories, this needs to be fixed:
Harmony just needs to rush prerequisite techs, build mind flower then wait and defend. Miasma condensers make that easier combined with tacnet hubs. Defending is also easier with the solo combat bonus, so you can essentially create a 1-tile spaced line of troops that have that bonus and the miasma bonus. Cover them with the tacnet tub and they'll have nearly doubled combat bonus. It's too easy if you manage to science snowball with this affinity, even for AI.

Purity, depending on their starting position, either has to expand rather early to secure spots or be aggressive and perhaps declare war to capture land. They just need 4 spots to secure for the earthling cities, get prerequisite tech, send off lasercom, build gate and then take at least 21 more turns to win the game. Even if you're ahead in tech, aiming for this victory requires true effort and your opponents might catch up and set back your progress. Generally, whenever I see a purity player snowball, I usually assume they're aiming for a hovertank rush ASAP.

Supremacy is also a bit easy but the victory mechanism is decent. It just needs a higher combat strength prerequisite, otherwise you can do it in just 10 turns after you build the gate. Generally this victory becomes easier to attain if you have a heap of firaxite near you and then you build a few angels, consume your firaxite supply, save up energy and rush buy angels once you send them through. Use all your other forces for defence by creating maginot lines covering each front, situate planes in each city, especially the coastal cities and you'll be fine. Seeing a player snowball with this affinity could mean anything as supremacy is pretty much the most versatile in attack and defence. It also means you should set up orbital cover around any firaxite you have near you.

Again, all this info rests on the premise that you're playing a MP game with decent people. In SP, needless to say, it's all a matter of keeping the harmony factions in check and you can take as long as you like to win, even on Apollo if you manage to weaken all the harmony factions. Although, the AI is somewhat smart enough to aim for contact victory. That's probably attained by AI luck in finding 2 progenitor pieces of code to cover the first task in the contact victory.

I agree with what you said (well, the non-multiplayer-only parts, no exp with be-mp), but that's not what the original posts were about - this thread was separated by a moderator, from a larger thread, because it went off topic.

The discussion was not about how affinities are now, but rather how affinities "should be" and how they could become more distinct so that we can leave the status quo of having 3 affinities that, for the most part, are the same.

I don't think the affinities should necessarily be locked into tall/wide playing styles. Differentiating their armies and their preferred trajectory on the tech web is good enough.

I've heard arguments that Supremacy is OP, Harmony is OP, and so on. Haven't played enough to determine the situation, but to me it's mostly a matter of resources and starting situation, and where else I want to go on the tech tree.

I usually just tech whatever I find useful, but then I don't usually rush for a given victory conditions. Although it's bad, I'll sometimes rush for Purity 2/ Harmony 2 and the techs for Gene Gardens, Xenonurseries/Xenofuel, and other benefits along that path in the tech web. Doing that sets up for cities that can academy spam really well, and have the population and food to make academy spam really good for a tall empire.

I support the view mentioned above that no affinity should be made intentionally best-suited for "tall" or "wide" or anything in between. I think, if the player wants to go "tall Harmony" - let him; huge hive-like cities, overminds and all; if he wants to go "wide Harmony" - let him too, that would be above mentioned "low density" concept. Same for Supremacy (who said they shouldn't be able to develop as a few but huge centers? Remember Geth Heretics from Mass Effect, with their huge space station?), same for Purity (we see different opinions about whether those should be tall or wide above in this topic already).

But military style is sure something which should differ, perhaps more than it does in the current game.

It is indeed interesting to compare Civ:BE affinities to Starcraft. In fact, i suspect, creators of Civ:BE were using Starcraft 1 as a prototype at least to some extent!

See,

- Harmony = zerg (obvious):
-- ultralisks = xenotitans (obvious, yes? );
-- queens = rocktopus (slow unit doing no direct harm, but creating "trouble" for enemy);
-- zerglings = xeno swarms (cheap unit, normal speed, relatively weak, swarming enemies);
-- mutalisks = xeno cavalry (more expensive, fast-moving, short-range attack).

- Purity = terran (both are "old Earth"):
-- siege tanks = lev tanks (and i mean siege tanks going around in "tank" mode and not in the "cannon" mode),
-- battle cruiserss = lev destroyers (tough to kill, extremely potent ranged attack, very expensive),
-- firebats = battlesuits ("tough infantry" style, short range, moderate price);
-- goliaths = aegis' (the "jack of all trades, master of none" kind, moderate price, moderate efficiency).

- Supremacy = protoss (both are "cyber"):
-- zealot = CNDR (cheap and relatively strong melee unit, spammable early);
-- dark templar = CARVR (more expensive and stronger melee-range unit);
-- reaver = SABR (expensive, slow, but long-range and heavy-hitting siege unit);
-- archon = angel (expensive, tough to kill, ranged attack but practically melee-range).

As you can see, the similarities are too many for any chance of "coincedence". Furthermore, i clearly see how Civ:BE creators cut certain abilities to further specialize Civ:BE factions. For example, Starcraft makes all three sides to be able to perform long-range heavy-hitting assault (Guardians, Siege Tanks, Reavers) - while Civ:BE only maintains this ability to Supremacy (SABRs) and to a lesser extent - to Purity (via Lev Destroyers, and only with a certain specific upgrade for +1 range). For another example, Starcraft has all three sides using purely supportive units (Queens, Science Vessels, Arbiters) - while Civ:BE only keeps this kind of unit for Harmony (Rocktopus).

So i think, Civ:BE is doing rather good job at specializing militaries of its 3 different affinities in terms of concept. The flaw is, i think, in insufficient _scale_ of differencies. Here's what i would do:
- Xeno Swarms - make it cost 1/2 Xenomass and half its shields' cost, but reduce their combat power by some 40% or so;
- increase speed of Xeno Cavalry by 1, increase its xenomass cost;
- increase CNDR combat power by some ~20%...30% and to balance it - increase its shields' cost correspondedly;
- dramatically increase CARVR combat power when attacking (by some 60% or even more), increase its Firaxite cost and give them penalty to combat power when defending (some ~40% perhaps) - Dark Templars hit extremely hard, but perish rather easily when attacked;
- increase floatstone cost of LEV destroyers to some 10 or even 12 and increase shields' cost by ~50% or so, but make them even harder to kill (up their combat power) and give them 2 shots per turn (Battle Cruisers operate separate anti-air and anti-ground laser batteries, after all ),

- and, of course, re-work upgrades to further differentiate affinities' military. I'll take the gunner line as an example of what i mean:
-- one of gunners' Supremacy upgrades, iirc, makes them able to fire twice per turn, but at the too harsh cost: HALVED ranged power in compare to other affinities. What i'd do - i'd move this "two attacks per turn" to Purity, while for Supremacy, i'd up their ranged power and give them a bit of extra combat power. That would correspond to Starcraft's dragoon unit - high health, heavy but not so often hitting "ranged meat" unit;
-- for Purity, gunners would represent Starcraft marines. So, i'd have Purity end-game gunners having ~70% of ranged power of Supremacy gunner, add to them 2 attacks per turn (stim packs, you know ), and to balance it out, - i'd give Purity gunners -50% combat power straight in compare to Supremacy eng-game gunner. So Purity gunners would be very weak when attacked by anything. Here we go - your typical Starcraft marine. Possibly reduce their shields' cost somewhat, too;
-- Harmony gunner upgrades - "Hydralisk way" - i'd have going with some ~90% of ranged power of Supremacy gunner, some ~70% of Supremacy's combat power, 1 attack per turn, but much reduced shields' cost - perhaps only 50% of Supremacy's gunner. That would be quite hydralisk'ish - low-cost, "nothing special", solid "ranged meat" unit.

Overall, there is huge potential in the upgrade system to further differentiate factions' military, and i think it should be used.


Bottom line: IMHO, it's only the matter of increasing differencies quantatively (including most upgrades) which needs to be done in Civ:BE; once those between-faction differencies are large and balanced enough (including affinity-differentiating for "available to everyone" units - gunner line, combat rover line, missile rover line, etc) - i think it'd be OK.

I'm sorry, but starcraft is certainly not the creator of the Human-Beast-Technology-triad, that one already existed a looooooong time ago. ^^ In fact, starcraft was heavily inspired by starship troopers as the creators said themselves. And for BE... Purity is so obviously 100% warhammer and not starcraft, it's not even funny.

Anyway, I agree that it would be rather limiting to reduce all Affinities to one play-style each. At least for a Civ-Game - if this was any other game series I'd argue that limiting Affinity-Playstyles and making local resources more important would actually make the game more interesting because you'd need to learn all 3 of their unique play-styles and you couldn't plan ahead at all. But of course, that's not the "spirit" of Civ, so it would really be an invalid argument.

Sweet, another who sees a lot of Starcraft influence when they view this game.

Basically, I would like to see the affinities based around some of these flavors (just a few ideas; incomplete):

Purity:
Less mobility and very strong defenses. (Existing ability type works great for this.)
More resistant to "Unhealthy". (examples: Big cities and/or pushing production hard).
More incentive to eradicating aliens.

Harmony:
Very mobile and they take Supremacy's special ability of the adjacency bonus to represent more of a symbiotic, swarm like army.
More vulnerable to "Unhealthy"... or instead, to avoid granting penalties, Benefits more from "Healthy" status.

Supremacy:
Slightly more powerful, superior units. Energy upkeep costs increased.
They take away Harmony's special "lone wolf" ability bonus as their own.. (I'm thinking of things like Terminator, RoboCop, etc; powerful, robotic characters taking on everything, haha).
Superior orbital strategies and range.

Also, with their slightly pious flavor (units named ANGEL, prophet, apostle, seraph, etc.) and their superior attitude, they can bring back destroyed enemies from the dead (cybernetics) as their own (but, they become Supremacy unit types) -- which is their way of guiding them (or more like shoving them) into the (their) light. Kind of like how units are captured after defeat in Civ 5. This is obviously powerful, and would need to be implemented in some kind of balanced manner -- just throwing the idea out here, for now.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Also, I would like to see the Dome, Biowell, and Node redone and for each affinity to have a unique, powerful terrain improvement granted by reaching a certain affinity level, with abilities to supplement their flavors.

I would love to see a Purity empire with lots of Domed improvements shielding their citizens from the planet and raising their defenses, a Harmony empire with aliens everywhere and lots of green Biowells making their territory look more like a fertile garden, and Supremacy with lots of monolithic and ominous Nodes erected throughout their colder, more barren empires.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Some other ideas I plan on working on once I'm satisfied with my map script and it's complete is reworking the affinity resources and their distribution -- but I hope Firaxis does this as well!

I would like to ditch Floatstone as Purity's main strategic resource; its implementation is a little awkward. I would like to see Adamantite (with a reddish hue) introduced as Purity's main. Incredibly tough metal to armor their battlesuits and vehicles in, but is also extremely dense and slows them down.

I would like Firaxis to rename Floatstone to Etherium (ether = upper regions of the sky -- fitting), since Floatstone doesn't sound as cool and important, haha. Though, perhaps Adamantite and Etherium would need to become Adamantium and Etherite if "ium" pertains to metal and "ite" to stone.

Etherite would be a later game strategic resource to supplement the cost of the more powerful affinity units. All affinity units would cost some amount of their affinity resource plus a bit of a common strategic resource. So, the earlier half of affinity unit costs would be supplemented with titanium and the later ones would require Etherite instead. This way, affinity units can be made more powerful, while their numbers are controlled more.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Expansion-wise, Etherite could later be used as a fourth affinity resource for a fourth psionic affinity and something else could take its place as a common, later game strategic.


Divinity:


(Psionic Sid)

First, this would be an expansion which introduces psionics to the game with its own tree and such. Also, perhaps even religion can be reintroduced based upon all these new beliefs forming because of the incredible psionic abilities surfacing while exposed to Etherite on the new planet with its large deposits of it.

Possible story:

Also, beliefs can form because of artifacts found on the new planet and clues which lead them towards beliefs around a benevolent progenitor alien race that created them on Earth, from their own DNA and the native apes, since the apes displayed incredible reactions and mutations from exposure to the Etherite from developing little resistance to it. Also, the apes had their own natural tendency to evolve rapidly.

But, the progenitors abandoned humans after witnessing the behaviour of them during ancient times where they used to interact with them as they evolved: their territorial, tribal nature; their propensity towards greed and power; their self-destructive tendencies towards the planet and themselves; etc.

Humans showed great promise and a truly powerful and gifted one was bound to be born one day to bring much good to the galaxy, but it was too dangerous to continue since there was also a good chance for an evil one with incredible powers to come into existence. The progenitors also couldn't bring themselves to wipe out the humans because of their own benevolent nature and because they were viewed as their children race. They were simply abandoned with the belief that they would inevitably destroy themselves anyway (hence the Great Mistake).

Yes, a bit cheesy and cliche, but it could work. I'm sure Firaxis could come up with something a lot better, so enough of that, on to the other stuff!

- - - - - - -

Psionic powers are incredible and awe-inspiring and people gifted with them are seen as superhuman and godlike, hence Divinity. (Nothing at ridiculous levels though, like Superman -- more like Star Wars.) Plus, this affinity can be fanatical in its beliefs, much like Supremacy, so they have a bit of religious flavor too. Much like Purity and Harmony are natural rivals, Supremacy and Divinity would be, since Supremacy would reject all things arcane and supernatural and fully embraces science and technology.

Main affinity color: Purple

Units would be colored light silver with purple highlights. (example color
Their cities would be spire-like and shining silver, with floating structures about.
(Silver contrasts the dark steel armor of their rival, Supremacy, much like the warm colors of Purity contrast Harmony.)

The subtle changes that their leaders display in diplomacy would be that their eyes start to faintly glow purple, while the clothing receives the silver and purple coloring, and they have much less adornments.

Divinity focuses on things beyond science and technology and more towards the supernatural -- the mind and spirit. They have a very mysterious and arcane flavor to them.

Some examples of abilities could include control over emotions, nightmares, mind control, illusions, invisibility, telekinesis, force fields, telepathy, teleportation... purple lightning, haha. They could have unique melee units which wield psi-blades or swords, for example. Their ultimate affinity unit could be a being of pure energy, called the Avatar (similar to the Archons of Starcraft). Their units and vehicles could appear more fragile and sleek than other affinities, because they rely more on the protection of their psionic force fields.

Examples of existing unit name themes:
Purity: protector/guardian, classical, familiar (Centurion, Lancer, Bastion)
Harmony: aggressive, animals, mythology (Marauder, Viper, Hydra)
Supremacy: haughty, religious, inspiring the lesser (Apostle, Prophet, Shepherd)

Some random new ones I'll blurt out to fit Divinity's theme:
Oracle, Seer, Sage, Magus, Hypnotist, Enigma, Myth, Mesmer, Ethereal, Mirage, Figment, Aberration, Delirium, Morphling, Mimic, Phantasm, Specter, Phantom, Rogue, Chimera, Sphinx, Avatar, Archon, Nightmare, Phobia, Stalker, Dementor, Deceptor, Nebulus, Doppelganger, Zephyr, Illusion

I'm not sure of their victory type yet. Perhaps some other form of Contact victory, but instead they contact the progenitors and wait for their arrival? Or another one could be that a Great One must be born (specialists are reintroduced in the expansion), which makes you really hit hard psionic specialists in all your cities' Temples (like Jedi temples!) and other thematic buildings to generate a ton of psi or psion, at the cost of other things you could be doing with your cities.

Warhammer had it before Starcraft had anything, just a thing.

Warhammer is the one with Legionary Battlesuits with Rolls of Honour where they entomb relics of their glorious history into their Largest Armoured Tanks. That's what Purity espouses, and Starcraft simply being popular somehow gets the vote.

Nerd up, fellow nerds! Learn your sci-fi gaming history! The whole ethos of Purity is what attracted me to it, I was originally kinda into Harmony but I found it very boring, very fast. Expanding on each of these ideals in such a way would really bring more love to the game that I honestly feel it deserves.

Purity: scorched earth tactics, ancestral worship, might makes right.

Harmony: lone wolves, communion with Planet, assimilation before destruction.

Supremacy: combined arms, Cybertronian ethics, subvert and control.

Read as military strategy / cultural keynote / preferred action in any deadlock.

nimling said:

I don't think the affinities should necessarily be locked into tall/wide playing styles.

Click to expand...

Having a bonus to one is not being locked out of something else.

In civ 5, Mongolia isn't locked out of allying with city states just because their advantage is to conquering them. Autocracy isn't locked out of building a spaceship just because the other ideologies have advantages towards building a space ship. You could say India is locked out of rapid early expansion, which is hard to argue against, but later in the game the extra happiness from having local happiness with half the unhappiness of population can counter the extra per city unhappiness and allow for more cities. So even they aren't totally cut out from a wide strategy.

Having an advantage towards one thing is not the same as having a disadvantage to another, unless that other thing is an unviable strategy without a bonus, which is a flaw in general balance, not in the bonuses. It's been said that in Civ5:BNW that tall strategies are generally better than wide which could mean that anyone that doesn't have an advantage towards wide empires is "locked out" of them, but not in the sense that Purity is locked out of building Xeno Titans.

Indeed, Starcraft isn't the creator of this game's flavors and Purity is very much Warhammer. I just feel, when viewing the triad as a whole, it reminds me a lot of Starcraft, among other things.

Gorb said:

The whole ethos of Purity is what attracted me to it, I was originally kinda into Harmony but I found it very boring, very fast.

Click to expand...

Me too -- love Purity! Though, initially I was into Supremacy instead of Harmony.

Barathor said:

Supremacy:
Slightly more powerful, superior units. Energy upkeep costs increased.
They take away Harmony's special "lone wolf" ability bonus as their own.. (I'm thinking of things like Terminator, RoboCop, etc; powerful, robotic characters taking on everything, haha).
Superior orbital strategies and range.

Click to expand...

I like the idea or superior/more expensive units but I think I prefer them staying as a force that works together as a collective. The idea of the Terminator-esque stuff is cool, but they give off more of a Star Trek Borg vibe to me, which is really cool too.

Even though it sucks in game, I love they have stuff like the Human Hive wonder and whatnot that further emphasize that aspect of them.

IMO, each Affinity should have preferred playstyles that fit with the lore (but that do not lock out other playstyles), as well as unique units, buildings, improvements, and even wonders.

I don't really see the point of the Affinity system if each one doesn't result in a unique play experience. My Purity empire should look completely different from my enemy's Harmony empire - more than just aesthetically, I mean.

Ryika said:

I'm sorry, but starcraft is certainly not the creator of the Human-Beast-Technology-triad, that one already existed a looooooong time ago. ^^ ...

Click to expand...

No, i'm sorry, Ryika - but can't help but ask: why you talk about "not the creator" within response to my previous post here?

Minor Annoyance said:

Having a bonus to one is not being locked out of something else.

In civ 5, Mongolia isn't locked out of allying with city states just because their advantage is to conquering them. Autocracy isn't locked out of building a spaceship just because the other ideologies have advantages towards building a space ship. You could say India is locked out of rapid early expansion, which is hard to argue against, but later in the game the extra happiness from having local happiness with half the unhappiness of population can counter the extra per city unhappiness and allow for more cities. So even they aren't totally cut out from a wide strategy.

Having an advantage towards one thing is not the same as having a disadvantage to another, unless that other thing is an unviable strategy without a bonus, which is a flaw in general balance, not in the bonuses. It's been said that in Civ5:BNW that tall strategies are generally better than wide which could mean that anyone that doesn't have an advantage towards wide empires is "locked out" of them, but not in the sense that Purity is locked out of building Xeno Titans.

Click to expand...

Purity or Supremacy isn't locked out of building Xeno Titans, if you really want to waste time teching Harmony 12-16 after Purity.

Some of my games have involved taking two affinities in order to utilize low-level affinity buildings and the stuff those techs bring. Feedsite Hubs and Gene Gardens are on the path to Purity and Harmony win conditions respectively, and any empire with Xenomass would really want the wells.
There is however a big difference between Vertical Farms pursued early, Terrascaping, or a Harmony player that goes for Solar collectors. I don't think the difference should be as simple as "Purity empires look like this", so long as the tendency is that Purity would go for particular techs.

In my experience, Purity favors tall(er) cities, Supremacy is much better wide and Academy spamming, and Harmony isn't really either.

nimling said:

Purity or Supremacy isn't locked out of building Xeno Titans, if you really want to waste time teching Harmony 12-16 after Purity.

Click to expand...

I know.

nimling said:

In my experience, Purity favors tall(er) cities, Supremacy is much better wide and Academy spamming, and Harmony isn't really either.

Click to expand...

Right now with the way things currently are, I'd say no affinity particularly favors anything during real, relatively efficient gameplay.

At least on Apollo, you want(and pretty much need) to go wide and spam academies regardless of affinity, and I find going any affinity can accomplish this pretty equally. Even though every affinity has their own specific buildings, they don't usually matter enough to push you into playing a certain way. And in some cases, like the % science and % production buildings, each affinity has one that's pretty much the same.

So I do see the indication that you're supposed to find some variance in how you build your civ based on affinity, but the bonuses aren't really enough to really skew the direction of how you go about things.