'Civilization: Beyond Earth' announced!

[m15a]

Its been years since I've used this account, surprised if I even remembered the password. Anyway I'm cautiously curious but I love science fiction and strategy games. Though I have to say from being an old school Civilization player no squares? Gosh what ever happened to longitude and latitude? I'm hoping firaxis is trying to be creative with hexagons, maybe even full scale spherical map.

Yeah, Civ V uses hexes instead of squares, and Beyond Earth is following its lead. No full spherical in Civ V, so I wouldn't count on it in this game.

It's obviously debatable which is better, but there are some nice benefits to hexagons. The borders between terrain types looks more natural (or less unnatural) without it being hard to tell the terrain of a tile. The distance from one tile to any adjacent tile is equal, as opposed to diagonals being a great distance, since there are no diagonals (which avoids some weirdness). IMO, it's not a huge deal.

A bigger deal is that it's 1upt (1 unit per tile), which means you can't stack up units for the most part. That has more significant implications, which are harder to summarize, and how it works in Beyond Earth could be different than in Civ V anyway.

 

[Blitzscream]

Yeah, Civ V uses hexes instead of squares, and Beyond Earth is following its lead. No full spherical in Civ V, so I wouldn't count on it in this game.

It's obviously debatable which is better, but there are some nice benefits to hexagons. The borders between terrain types looks more natural (or less unnatural) without it being hard to tell the terrain of a tile. The distance from one tile to any adjacent tile is equal, as opposed to diagonals being a great distance, since there are no diagonals (which avoids some weirdness). IMO, it's not a huge deal.

A bigger deal is that it's 1upt (1 unit per tile), which means you can't stack up units for the most part. That has more significant implications, which are harder to summarize, and how it works in Beyond Earth could be different than in Civ V anyway.

A quick disclaimer and let me apologize for not being clear by "old school." I've played Civilization 2 through 4. But since the the release of Civ 5 I have chosen not to play any Civilization games since. Ultimate reason maturity and time engagement when it comes to playing games. I have payed attention to the development of Civilization 5 and its gotten mixed messages. Personally it doesn't even seem like Civilization. Now about the squares. I have always found hexagons to to be a curious oddity. Some people prefer them. Me personally not really. I always imagined the square-grid trying to replicate a map. Longitude and Latitude. I also like the ability to travel in eight locations.

 

[Gamemaster77]

I'm hoping firaxis is trying to be creative with hexagons, maybe even full scale spherical map.

Yeah, Civ V uses hexes instead of squares, and Beyond Earth is following its lead. No full spherical in Civ V, so I wouldn't count on it in this game.

You actually can't make a sphericalish map out of only regular hexagons. You need at least twelve pentagons to make it work. Now, I'm not sure how well it would work with irregular hexagons.

 

[Soda7777777]

Skeptical.

 

[CraziFuzzy]

Spherical would be awesome, because it would allow proper traversing of the poles - but in the end, it wouldn't greatly affect game play. The biggest issue is how the world would be divided - as mentioned, simple hexes don't work. You could use a geodesic pattern of hexes and pentagons, but then you have inconsistent number of 'tiles' around any given tile. Place your city on a hex, and you've got 6 surrounding tiles to work. Place it on a pent, and you've only got 5. There's also the issue of inconsistent coordinates with a geodesic pattern.

About the only way to work a spherical map, is to use true geometry for all coordinates and distances (lat/long for coordinates, and have the system calculate ranges by miles). Units would have to have a free-form 'zone of control' to control stacking, with collision calculations. Cities would no longer be working 'tiles', but an 'area'. In short, it would no longer be Civ.

I'd love to see a good world building game that did work on these principles. Resources/terrain spread on a very fine geodesic pattern, with city work done over an area of it. Would provide for some VERY varied terrain/maps - but just not a Civ title.

The original X-Com did really good with it's spherical map, but it was not tactically used. Once tactics came into play, it went to a flat plane combat map. The reasons behind this have not changed in the last 20 years.

 

[Acronym]

Really? I kind of consider III to be the weakest of the series, probably because I started playing it straight out of AC.

I was stuck with Civ III for many years because nothing newer would work on my rickety MacBook, so I've got the mechanics engrained in my head now now.

I do think Civ IV has the strongest game mechanics, but Civ III seemed more consistently polished in appearances - the civilopedia just looked tidier, there was less feature-bloat, fewer sliders tacked on wherever they'd fit.

And, again, being on a Mac, I found Civ III the easiest to get mods to work for, as a player - I've never tried making any mods, but mods for Civ IV seem simply to be unavailable on Mac, whereas there are some incredible ones available for Civ III on Mac.

 

[Darth Revan]

LOL looks like Alpha Centauri for Civilization 5. I bet my computer can't run it.

 

[bladex]

LOL looks like Alpha Centauri for Civilization 5. I bet my computer can't run it.

if it can run civ5 than it will run it

 

[Bluetooth]

Before Civilization 5 this would have been good news. Now I’m not even sure I will by this game.

 

[SeBounart]

Civ:BE is first of the top 5 games at PAX East according to GameTrailers !

 

[Meteor Man]

I was stuck with Civ III for many years because nothing newer would work on my rickety MacBook, so I've got the mechanics engrained in my head now now.

I do think Civ IV has the strongest game mechanics, but Civ III seemed more consistently polished in appearances - the civilopedia just looked tidier, there was less feature-bloat, fewer sliders tacked on wherever they'd fit.

And, again, being on a Mac, I found Civ III the easiest to get mods to work for, as a player - I've never tried making any mods, but mods for Civ IV seem simply to be unavailable on Mac, whereas there are some incredible ones available for Civ III on Mac.

Amen. CivIII was by far the best in my opinion, even outweighing V. Not to mention the mods in CivIII...

 

[bladex]

space hexes, extraterrestrials, and terraforming...ok now i'm interested!
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/...eyond-earth-pax-east-14---developer-interview

 

[kazapp]

Earth is overpopulated, full of littered slums where poverty, sickness and unrest run rampart. food and resources are getting thin and conflicts because of it get worse and worse. Most of the money spent goes to developing new weapons and waging war, war that destroys living space even more. Industry and agriculture is destroying last of the nature. Global warming makes deserts expand and rivers to dry out. World is turning into wasteland. Then there is suddenly a great happy day as some selected VIPs are sent to colonize another planet where we can continue (same way).. Well, I really hoped that there would be a DLC or expansion for civilization that really would show how humanity can screw up the planet.. that we really would see how slums and wastelands conquer earth and how resources get completely finished and all new alternate tech needs to be used. Anyway I hope Beyond Earth wouldn't be a cheesy naivistic view on future, but rather would show hardships and dangers that colonizing a completely alien world would be full of.

I'm afraid you're looking for the complete opposite to everything Civ's about.

The Civ game series is about showing you how technology can solve difficult problems as long as ignorance and defeatism can be kept in check. It's a fundamentally optimistic viewpoint. And as such, an infinitely more attractive one in my opinion!

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Nothing wrong with a dystopia, but please keep it out of my Civ, I say!

Luckily, the internet is full of people who love to make things that don't work, magically work.

Yeah, I'm not worried

 

[Cedbird]

No offense.But I see a bunch of whining on this thread.Have you no trust in the Sid series? I have enjoyed all of the Civs since Civ 3 including Alpha Centauri.You like me have enjoyed hours and hours of fun.Yes I know there has been let downs.My first major quote after wow was this could be really good or really bad But yet I have trust. And if nothing else I know Civ 6 is coming and it will be a knockout!

 

[black8]

This idea looks awesome.I cant wait to make civilization i choose into space colonies.Bring it on Firaxis

 

[reventon_703]

Somehow this reminds me of Starcraft 1, still looking forward to this