Rising Tide E3 2015: Interview (GameWatcher)

GameWatcher sit down with Firaxis games to chat about the lengthily titled Sid Meier's Civilization Beyond Earth: Rising Tide, the first expansion for Civilizations space-faring spin-off - and learn more about the production process.

It's a video interview that you can watch here- http://www.gamewatcher.com/videos/sid-meiers-civilization-beyond-earth-rising-tide-video/15257

Thanks so much! Excellent interview.

Some new info:
- The "browse all services" button we saw in the screenshot is where the player can spend energy to get to use another civ's traits. Also, Andrew said that they have added more new dialogue text in the diplomacy to help give the leaders more personality.
- Andrew said that they have rebalanced the affinities to fit hybrid affinities and moved around the techs for affinity victories to reduce players just beelining for a specific victory.

SupremacyKing2 said:

Also, Andrew said that they have added more new dialogue text in the diplomacy to help give the leaders more personality.

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That's definitely a good thing. Right now all Sponsors literally use 90% generic text.

Ryika said:

That's definitely a good thing. Right now all Sponsors literally use 90% generic text.

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Yes, and it's funny because they even got lots of phrases (check the video), but we almost never get the chance to hear them because the interactions with other factions are rare and consists in a very quick 'wanna buy this or sell that?'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU8o7RRy2Qs

p.s. if they're really recalling the voice actors to make more lines, I hope Rejinaldo finally get at least some more phrases in portuguese

Here's the Youtube Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyKdnKvCWnQ

As optimistic as I want to be, it's getting a little grating hearing the devs talk about how they "didn't want to move too far away from Civ" and that's why the game felt so much like a reskin.

That frankly sounds like a copout.

I mean it's a 4x using almost exactly the same engine as Civ 5, it's almost impossible for them to have made something wildly different gameplay-wise. So all this talk about how they didn't go far enough because they wanted to keep the essence of Civ intact or whatever sounds more like a generic excuse that they've all been told to parrot in interviews.

Civ 5 plays much more differently from Civ 4 than BE does from Civ 5, and yet no one's accusing Civ 5 of "not being Civ." I hate being cynical like this because I really hope this will be the expansion that makes BE closer to its own game, but god I really wish they would talk about more than just the damn floating cities and the diplomacy system.

I want to hear more about what will truly make this feel like Civilization on an alien world.

@Westwall

In some ways Civ:BE is a step back from Civ 5 in places where it could have built on it.

Whatever they do I just want them to be more bold in pushing mechanics that marry well with BE's themes.

I don't know how we went from Ideologies in BNW to Affinities doing next to nothing aside military units in BE - despite Affinities being one of, if not the core theme of the game.

And as much as they say that Aliens are more dangerous than Barbarians, I've seen Barbarians make more frequent attempts to invade my territory.

(And the Barbarian Lands mod makes them the danger that Aliens never were.

Heck, if they just brought back the Ideologies system from Civ 5 for Affinities at this point with some minor tweaks it would be a huge improvement

Westwall said:

As optimistic as I want to be, it's getting a little grating hearing the devs talk about how they "didn't want to move too far away from Civ" and that's why the game felt so much like a reskin.

That frankly sounds like a copout.

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It's all about establishing a narrative. Make the lie big, make it simple, and keep repeating it, and eventually people will believe it.

The truth is more likely to be something along the lines of, "We already had the engine made so we didn't put many resources into the project, and most of the talent that worked on Civ 5 had left the company so our team hadn't learnt most of the lessons from that", and that isn't nearly as flattering or easy to parrot.

It's fun reading assumptions by people without the actual knowledge to back up their claims. It doesn't really get the thread anywhere, nor is it on-topic, but always fun to read

Anything new about the diplomacy system gets my vote. Being able to purchase bonuses from others has interesting MP connotations.

The Diplomacy system is the one thing I'm cautiously optimistic about.

It's the only change they've announced that actually addresses a core problem and it seems like a good idea - but then again favors were also a good idea with horrible implementation.

(They said something briefly about expanding quests awhile back, but until we get specifics I'd bet its nothing major.)

Galgus said:

And as much as they say that Aliens are more dangerous than Barbarians, I've seen Barbarians make more frequent attempts to invade my territory.

(And the Barbarian Lands mod makes them the danger that Aliens never were.

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Love that mod but so far it has some glaring blind spots... like always ignoring my scouts. Is the new version out yet?

Gort said:

It's all about establishing a narrative. Make the lie big, make it simple, and keep repeating it, and eventually people will believe it.

The truth is more likely to be something along the lines of, "We already had the engine made so we didn't put many resources into the project, and most of the talent that worked on Civ 5 had left the company so our team hadn't learnt most of the lessons from that", and that isn't nearly as flattering or easy to parrot.

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Between Civ 6 and X-com 2, it's obvious now that BE was their last priority. Given to a couple of newcomers who, while capable, were probably at best casually acquainted with the Civ series.

Not yet, unfortunately.

My biggest gripe with it is that I'm the only one clearing the, in the renaissance on Marathon, since the start.

So they are kind of everywhere I haven't had an army for awhile.

I wish I had that going on. Like some kind of virulent plague. So far the AI in my games has been fairly capable of keeping them at bay and even recapturing cities from them.

Westwall said:

I wish I had that going on. Like some kind of virulent plague. So far the AI in my games has been fairly capable of keeping them at bay and even recapturing cities from them.

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Also using the Barbarian Immersion Enchancements which gives them great generals you can capture for Gold and Culture, scales their name with eras, and gives them perks in later eras.

To top it off I use a mod of my own design that makes cities much less dangerous and all but removes the damage melee units take on attack.

The cocktail of three mods keeps things interesting.

In my experience the Barbarians get more and more dangerous the longer they are ignored and the more cities they take.
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I'm Spain with Babylon and the Mongols for neighbors with China in the north - only civs on the Communitas continent.

Its cluttered down south, not helped by my seizure of natural wonders, and for a time I just couldn't spare troops for Barbarians due to a war with my neighbors.

The brigands took a city-state in the north early and one in the south recently, and China actually fell to barbarians, though I liberated them eventually.

(And at this rate, might have to liberate them again.)
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So the north was a massive uninhabited barbarian land that took me forever to clear since they had been spawning for a long time, and there are still barbarians in the north east that will require a real army.

Meanwhile that city state in the south falling has led to Babylon losing the capital, which I've liberated for them.

It's forcing me to devote my forces to the area - too close to my own cities.

This isn't made easier by my army consisting of Conquistadors while the Brigands are primarily using Musketmen - really in need of Cavalry soon, but tactics can win the day.

Outside my continent, pretty much everywhere not immediately occupied by another civ is overrun with barbarians.

It's a problem I've never had in Civ before - too many enemies to fight!

And they keep respawning!

Moderator Action: Let us please get back on topic.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I guess the thing that caught my attention in that interview is that they are considering having the land cities be able to move too.

Eagle Pursuit said:

I guess the thing that caught my attention in that interview is that they are considering having the land cities be able to move too.

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I think that was more the developer not wanting to answer a question with a straight "No." Remember he was prompted by the interviewer asking about movable land cities. So he was basically trying to be as open-ended as possible without actually committing to anything. It was still essentially a "No, and don't expect it anytime soon if ever."

All in all, I'd say he was being very diplomatic about the whole interview, seeming to say a lot even when he wasn't really saying anything. And no, that's not a complaint at all. I'm rather impressed he was able to be so tactful about it. He should be White House Press Secretary or something.

Eagle Pursuit said:

I guess the thing that caught my attention in that interview is that they are considering having the land cities be able to move too.

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I did not get that sense. And I think it would be a big mistake if they did make land cities move. The whole point of water cities moving is to make them different from land cities so that water gameplay offers the player something new from land based gameplay.

SupremacyKing2 said:

I did not get that sense. And I think it would be a big mistake if they did make land cities move. The whole point of water cities moving is to make them different from land cities so that water gameplay offers the player something new from land based gameplay.

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While I agree that land cities should, in general, not move, it would make for a great unique ability for a wonder. The Crawler could still do with some spicing up!

Sent from my phone, please excuse terseness and typos.

Lord Tirian said:

While I agree that land cities should, in general, not move, it would make for a great unique ability for a wonder. The Crawler could still do with some spicing up!

Sent from my phone, please excuse terseness and typos.

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As a wonder ability, that could be pretty cool. But I think it would have to be only for the city that built the crawler, not for all cities. And I would want to see a cool animation where the whole city itself rises off the ground on mechanical legs.

Mhhh... now I want a City Phasal Transporter.

Ryika said:

Mhhh... now I want a City Phasal Transporter.

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Yes, please!

What about orbital cities? The cities could "live" in the orbital layer.

Just goes to show that BE could really push the envelope gameplay wise if it wanted to. Come on devs, be bold! Sounds like Rising Tide is at least moving in the right direction though, but there is still a lot of cool options to explore.