Rising Tide E3 Footage and Interview

We posted footage of Rising Tide gameplay, direct from E3: https://youtu.be/OBjKGPKqiMM

We also have an interview about the new aquatic gameplay, including moving cities, and the Primordial biome. You can read it on the Civilization.com blog here: http://www.civilization.com/en/news...-tides-primordial-biome-and-aquatic-gameplay/

Thanks for the heads-up, it was a nice read!

Also, this part was especially interesting:

What are some of the things (units, resources, abilities) that only ocean cities can do or have access to?

There’s a whole catalogue of aquatic-themed buildings and wonders that only ocean cities can get. A lot of those have to do with improving the city’s movement or its attack and defense to make your city more like a floating fortress. There’s a whole set of aquatic resources that only occur at sea. The expeditions you can find at sea are very interesting. Players are going to find some weird things in the deep ocean.

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It really does feel they want aquatic gameplay to be an interesting element. Not just be cities, but on water.

I really do want to see the new diplomacy in details, and know more about the mechanical effects of the biomes.

So the two mentioned ocean-only wonders mentioned in the video seem to be the "Benthic Auger (???)" and the "Abyssal Mirror" (not sure about the first one).

Benthic Auger makes sense. It essentially means a seafloor drill.

Kind of Random:
I really hope these sea resources can be re-used as models for land-resources as well. If so, then there totally needs to be a mod that allows to spam the floating sea things on normal terrain on Fungus map for the perfect Morrowind-Experience.

Wait do the subs submerge and then surface as an action? In the last battle it looked like two of the subs were above water and the third was underwater, then it surfaced when it shot the alien. That could be a cool mechanic.

omniclast said:

Wait do the subs submerge and then surface as an action? In the last battle it looked like two of the subs were above water and the third was underwater, then it surfaced when it shot the alien. That could be a cool mechanic.

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If I'm not totally wrong, I think the "submerged" subs MP goes from 2 to 0, while the surfaced sub only "pays" 1 MP for the attack, so maybe. If true, it would be cool. The ocean has nice 3d look to it, so ...

Subs in Civ V submerge and surface when moving and attacking. It's purely cosmetic.

DemonMaster said:

If I'm not totally wrong, I think the "submerged" subs MP goes from 2 to 0, while the surfaced sub only "pays" 1 MP for the attack, so maybe. If true, it would be cool. The ocean has nice 3d look to it, so ...

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No, they just went to 0 after attacking, like all units do, unless they have "move after attacking"-promotions.

AriochIV said:

Subs in Civ V submerge and surface when moving and attacking. It's purely cosmetic.

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A point in favour of that is that the subs say "invisible" whether they are on the surface or not. If submerging was a mechanic, surely that would change (or another indicator of submersion would appear).

Would be really cool if Submarines went visible on coastal tiles though, wouldn't it? That way they'd be the deep sea predators that become useless in shallow water, while actual naval ships are the ones who can actually threaten land cities and anything that wants to move along the coast.

Will be interesting to see if they managed to give all boats their unique roles or if submarines are just "stronger ranged boats".
In the video that Submarine even has 18 Combat Strength (compared to 20 Ranged Strength), so they don't even seem to be the glass cannons they were in Civ5. (Unless some Units get heavy bonus-attack against them)

Ryika said:

Would be really cool if Submarines went visible on coastal tiles though, wouldn't it? That way they'd be the deep sea predators that become useless in shallow water, while actual naval ships are the ones who can actually threaten land cities and anything that wants to move along the coast.

Will be interesting to see if they managed to give all boats their unique roles or if submarines are just "stronger ranged boats".
In the video that Submarine even has 18 Combat Strength (compared to 20 Ranged Strength), so they don't even seem to be the glass cannons they were in Civ5. (Unless some Units get heavy bonus-attack against them)

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Personally I'm really hoping they are both visible in the shallows and weak to counters.

BE took a step forward in toning down ranged units' ability to defend in melee - ideally a sub-hunting ship should crush a submarine like a tin can.

Ryika said:

No, they just went to 0 after attacking, like all units do, unless they have "move after attacking"-promotions.

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Ah, forgot about that, haven't really played for while

Edit: And also sad. I mean, there has been civ games with layered maps before and BE has already layered map ... and "deep going" subs wouldn't really be needing a layer per se, only the illusion of it.

Is it me or is the city art different? They are purity affinity, but I don't remember the buildings having those shapes.

the more i read about BE:RT the more i feel some hype in my stomach. The diplomacy and artifact system sounds quite interesting. The traits they mention that act like "adjectives" as they mentionned in an interview, and the ability to trade specific perks from a civ to another are cool. If n top of that they managed to somehow make AIs a little less erratic and jerky in negociations, it would allow for some good fun.

As for the artifact system allowing to build wonders, it may allow player to play on the same level as AI in Appolo as their cheated uber-prod and science wont play any role for wonders based on artifact collecting.

More and more interesting. I sure hope RT boosts BE like BNW boosted Civ V. And if it does, well they can shoot 2 more expansions and i'll blindly buy them.

Here are a couple random thoughts on this video.

1. Why does the first, lower tier submarine fire like an artillery, while the other first like a proper submarine?

2. So submarines remain invisible after firing? Does this mean we need a newly introduced destroyer unit to deal with them?

3. I think the diplomacy screen could be far better if they re-woked it a litte. They way they organize it is really weird. They seem to have a minimalistic approach to it, trying not to clutter the screen. Unfortunately, it makes things worse IMO. I think they should just make a copy of the icons on the left side, and move them into the main bar next to Kozlov's name. Grouping the nations based on the ones he hates, is Neutral against, and is friendly with. The way the current setup is makes you look through the entire bar over and over again, and that's only with 8 players, imagine it it with 10, or even 12 if that is possible. It just isn't practical, and what is the point of reducing screen clutter to this degree in a menu screen in which we can't even mess with the background anyways, it's just too much of an attempt the keep the screen clean in my opinion.

4. Now let's talk artifacts. Do they add something to the game? Well, I guess, but what exactly is it? I see the military usage, and the quick bonus. But do they add enough to make them worth making the game more complex? I really don't know. Are they going to be balanced? Is there a way for other players to know that you have recently acquired an artifact they plan on using on you? I am also skeptical about these bonus that they are tacking onto these artifacts, I think keeping them good at doing one thing is good enough, but do we really need +yet another 50, + 50 that? We will really have to see how these turn out, as for now I really can't tell.

5. Alien Egg Resources? (3:25 in the video) I guess they are referring to where the tile where spawns from. Is this going to be something a Harmony player can interact with? Or is this going to be another bland +2 food?(maybe both combined) I don't really know, and there isn't much I can say about it since I really don't know how this expansion works yet in terms of water cities.

6. The diplomacy system. Are we just going to pile up points to give ourselves traits/use them to influence others? and will this feel meaningful? Will this system be better than civ V's diplomacy?

7.Will they have fixed the majority of Civ BE issues with this? Honestly, who knows, but hopefully they at least hit some of them.

8. I really hope they work on their color pallets, the tile colors seem so uninspired and empty. They still have a menu color obession with everything being this space blue color. Please, look at your colors again, because the game is just hard to look at. Get some lively colors in here and there.

9. Lastly and more importantly, is the game fun to play yet?

These are just some questions that hopefully will help people keep their expectations in check, and make us think a bit more about how much this expansion will actually do to Civ BE. I am aware Firaxis does usually fix their games eventually, so I definitely have hope, but I won't expect anything until I play this new version.

That's about it, I am not trying to hate on something that isn't even out yet, again, I am trying to adjust my own and other's expectations of this. I am really trying to assess how much of what they have changed in the game is what they have currently showed us. My guess is this might just be 50%, and the other 50% might be the big 2.0 patch that is coming up. In terms of this expansion, the more things they attempt to change/fix the better, because for, the majority of things could be better.

Submarines frequently have surface-to-air or surface-to-surface capabilities, as a general note.

The game will never be "fun" to play for you, it looks like. Fun is subjective. The current game is "fun" for me. It isn't "fun" for others, and everyone has valid reasons.

But the game will never be objectively "fun", because "fun" cannot be measured objectively.

ZTZaorish said:

6. The diplomacy system. Are we just going to pile up points to give ourselves traits/use them to influence others? and will this feel meaningful? Will this system be better than civ V's diplomacy?

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Keep in mind that there is still a lot about the new diplomacy that we've not seen yet. All, we've really seen is the intro screen where you can check on how civs feel about each other. We have not seen the negotiation section, what the "my affinity" button does, the leader traits section. And we don't know how diplomatic capital is gained. The negotiation part where you can make special agreements with other civs, the leader trait selection part and how diplomatic capital works are the real important parts of the diplomacy system. When we see those parts, then we will have a much better sense of how diplomacy works and whether your concerns are valid or not.

Frankly, I think it will be very hard to be any worst than the current BE diplomacy.

Eagle Pursuit said:

Is it me or is the city art different? They are purity affinity, but I don't remember the buildings having those shapes.

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As someone who kind of always goes Purity it looks the same to me.

A rather blocky style, really.