Its funny how Firaxis keeps making new games that are in some ways a step back

[Thormodr]

It is a troubling trend, I agree.

If this keeps up, I weep for Civ VI.

 

[Mozzington]

It is a troubling trend, I agree.

If this keeps up, I weep for Civ VI.

They wont leave VI in the hands of a couple of kids, surely...

TBH though, started off disliking BE on Friday night but as the weekend has gone on and I have familiarised myself with the systems (and tech web!) I have been starting to enjoy myself. A couple of patches and one expansion and this would be decent.

 

[King Flevance]

My biggest problem is health. In my current game I have 5 cities. Each city has a (+3) Pharma Lab, and (+2) Clinic and a (+1) Cryo Lab. Now, by my math, that would be +30 health from my city buildings. However, apparently, that only adds up to 21. I was at -6 health and buy a +3 Pharma Lab. Makes sense for it to go to -3 right? Nope. It goes to -5. I buy a clinic for +2 same turn. I went from -5.... to -5. What?

"Okay," I tell myself. "There is some other math at play here, lets check the civilopedia." According to the civilopedia, 2 clinics produce twice as much health as 1 so we are talking basic addition here after all. "So why do 5 clinics not offer 25% more health than 4?" Apparently 6 health times 5 cities = 21 health from cities.

 

[Chaos Blade]

it also depends on your population, if your city produces say health 6 and has a pop of 5, you only get 5 health. its been informed in the forums, but for some reason it is not in any in game info I've seen

 

[Thormodr]

They wont leave VI in the hands of a couple of kids, surely...

TBH though, started off disliking BE on Friday night but as the weekend has gone on and I have familiarised myself with the systems (and tech web!) I have been starting to enjoy myself. A couple of patches and one expansion and this would be decent.

I sure hope not.

 

[rawrkitty2]

I havent bothered to read the thread, but i can tell you as of now you can remove tile improvements, create a terascape then build what you want on the tile afterwards
Its a fun trick that results in fair "balancing" in-game due to you having to spend a lot of turns to 'remove' a tile improvement

 

[TLHeart]

My biggest problem is health. In my current game I have 5 cities. Each city has a (+3) Pharma Lab, and (+2) Clinic and a (+1) Cryo Lab. Now, by my math, that would be +30 health from my city buildings. However, apparently, that only adds up to 21. I was at -6 health and buy a +3 Pharma Lab. Makes sense for it to go to -3 right? Nope. It goes to -5. I buy a clinic for +2 same turn. I went from -5.... to -5. What?

"Okay," I tell myself. "There is some other math at play here, lets check the civilopedia." According to the civilopedia, 2 clinics produce twice as much health as 1 so we are talking basic addition here after all. "So why do 5 clinics not offer 25% more health than 4?" Apparently 6 health times 5 cities = 21 health from cities.

a city can not produce more health than population...

There is city health, which the buildings provide...
then there is empire health, from the base level of the game, and virtue modifiers.

so yes there are two equations to get to your empire wide health on the top bar.

 

[darkskies]

I'm on the fence about whether or not to buy it now or wait to it's full release. Would you recommend it? Is it already better than GalCiv2? Thanks in advance.

I'd recommend it too, especially after the Oct update. There is a lot in already, I'll be honest I've only played a few hours so far but I'm taking my time and just sort of dabbling now, but it actually seems a nice complement to BE since the emphasis is more on space exploration, being able to design a rocket ship (but not like Kerbal Space Program which all about the ships).

I'll also plug Sins of Solar Empire: Rebellion, a bit old now but still fun if you want a space oriented 4x real time type game. It's not got the most complicated in terms of its tech tree but its AI is pretty decent, at least on the higher levels I find myself swearing at it which is always a good sign . Also refreshing when I get tired of turn based 4x.

 

[Question]

Removing things like map trading is a step backwards and certaintly doesnt help to "simplify" the game. They also removed the search option from the civlopedia for some reason.

Its like making a new version of windows except that you are no longer allowed to change the desktop wallpaper. It is not an improvement.

The diplomacy in civ 5 and BE certaintly isnt any better than alpha centauri.

In alpha centauri if i partner up with an AI, fight a war, and avoid taking opposing ideologies, we would be allies all the way to the game. In civ 5/BE, we will fight a war, they will eventually denounce me as a warmonger when i win the war for them and they will whine and and remain on guarded/hostile forever.

You cant even create vassals like in alpha centauri which is a huge downside. You dont need any form of agreement to trade which was the major incentive to have allies in alpha centauri. There are no penalties whatsoever to trading with someone who is on guarded and keeps ing at you.

Theres really nothing of value to trade and favors are worthless because the AI demands unfair deals or they will decide "oh hey im going to denounce you now and suddenly all the favors i owe you are worthless".

Diplomacy in civ 5 is like if canada kept trying to invade and denounce the US IRL in the 21st century. Its really stupid.

Firaxis also seems to refuse to put any effort into even basic AI pathing. Everyone has seen the aliens that just walk back and forth pointlessly while you shoot them to bits. Funny how alpha centauri never had this problem...

Also they added canyons but they seem to serve no real purpose other than being a requirement for a lackluster wonder.

Compared to alpha centauri, city placement is much more important because you cant fix things with terraforming or supply crawlers later on. Given that one of the resource buildings gives you +10% health, this is really important.

I've had the reverse experience - covert ops missions mostly work, and this is a problem given the huge payoffs and that the missions are free (no adverse diplo effects and no chance of agents being killed).

Very strange, my experience has been that they have a ridiculously high failure rate for no discernible reason.

Establish Spy Network gives the same information as the city screen, just as a list.

It doesnt seem to tell me what tiles are being worked, what is currently being produced, what units are garrisoned, what buildings are in the city, etc....

Step back from what? Civ V didn't have airbases as tile improvements.

AC did, and aircraft ranges were much larger in civ 5 so it wasnt as big of an issue. Oh hey we can make spaceships and launch satelllites but we cant figure out how to make an airbase.

With Civ V mechanics, the last thing you want is any discount on gold purchasing - with gold from tiles, trading posts available from the start, the brokenness of resource pods containing solar collectors, and covert operations siphoning off ridiculous amounts of energy, you're not exactly short of the stuff.

Energy balance is much better in BE, it takes a lot longer to end up with infinite energy than in BNW. Especially if you use the expensive tile improvements. But once you get solar collectors you do start making ridiculous amounts of energy, not sure what they were thinking with these. No resources required so you can spam infinite amounts of them and they take one turn to build.

This is how barbarians have generally worked in Civ games (not in AC, but only because the aliens didn't have camps - instead mindworms would randomly spawn anywhere they wanted to); Civ V's camps do the same thing.

Barbarians in civ 5 stopped being an issue once you had the map explored for a bit as they cant spawn in revealed areas. Nests and miasma will keep respawning infinitely unless you park a unit on the tile or its within your borders.

Would be more of an issue if promotions did anything much.

Its more of an issu due to bad game design. It encourages people to keep nests alive for xp farming which doesnt make sense realistically.

 

[Question]

Also ideally you want to grow as large as possible. More people = more tiles = more prod/gold.

Having 10+ tiles of terrascapes worked gets you a ton more than playing population control with specialists, even after you factor in the negative health modifiers. Specialists were a lot more powerful in AC to make you want to use them.

An upgraded farm can easily net you what, 5/1/2 with a solar collector? That is many times better than what a specialist can do.

Health's main problem is that all the major health boosts are shoved to late game rather than being spaced out appropriately.

 

[Browd]

Removing things like map trading is a step backwards and certaintly doesnt help to "simplify" the game.

Removed in Civ V, so kind of water under the bridge at this point.

They also removed the search option from the civlopedia for some reason.

Nope. Civilopedia search box is top left of the Civilopedia screen (just right of the <> buttons and left of the magnifying glass).

 

[Camikaze]

With regards to strategic view, some of the pre-release interviews did deal with why it was removed - apparently it wasn't possible to implement effectively with the orbital layer within the constraints of the development schedule. Now, perhaps that's not a very good reason, but it is a reason that has been explained.

 

[Chaos Blade]

In alpha centauri if i partner up with an AI, fight a war, and avoid taking opposing ideologies, we would be allies all the way to the game. In civ 5/BE, we will fight a war, they will eventually denounce me as a warmonger when i win the war for them and they will whine and and remain on guarded/hostile forever.

You cant even create vassals like in alpha centauri which is a huge downside. You dont need any form of agreement to trade which was the major incentive to have allies in alpha centauri. There are no penalties whatsoever to trading with someone who is on guarded and keeps ing at you.

Theres really nothing of value to trade and favors are worthless because the AI demands unfair deals or they will decide "oh hey im going to denounce you now and suddenly all the favors i owe you are worthless".

Diplomacy in civ 5 is like if canada kept trying to invade and denounce the US IRL in the 21st century. Its really stupid.

I am going to agree here, it was a pain in the ass in CiV, and it is a pain in the ass here too.

Firaxis also seems to refuse to put any effort into even basic AI pathing. Everyone has seen the aliens that just walk back and forth pointlessly while you shoot them to bits. Funny how alpha centauri never had this problem...

the AI seems to be sub par and the modded game cannot be multiplayed. see the problem?

Also they added canyons but they seem to serve no real purpose other than being a requirement for a lackluster wonder.

they are also places where geothermal power pop ups, but they are rather underused., iirc.

Compared to alpha centauri, city placement is much more important because you cant fix things with terraforming or supply crawlers later on. Given that one of the resource buildings gives you +10% health, this is really important.

this needs to be stated, also no sawmills so forests are unimproveable... and rather worthless. but manofactorums came with negative health issues. and while no biggie being a bit in the red of health, it limits you to this kind of buildings.

Very strange, my experience has been that they have a ridiculously high failure rate for no discernible reason.

maybe the dicegods hate you? I've had a good success rate with those missions, honestly it is a bit op, too easy to get energy that way.

AC did, and aircraft ranges were much larger in civ 5 so it wasnt as big of an issue. Oh hey we can make spaceships and launch satelllites but we cant figure out how to make an airbase.

or a tanker plane or send your craft in a one way mission (sometimes it might actually be worth it)

Energy balance is much better in BE, it takes a lot longer to end up with infinite energy than in BNW. Especially if you use the expensive tile improvements. But once you get solar collectors you do start making ridiculous amounts of energy, not sure what they were thinking with these. No resources required so you can spam infinite amounts of them and they take one turn to build.

also for some reason a lot of the orbitals need oil... that makes, from in universe, zero sense.

Barbarians in civ 5 stopped being an issue once you had the map explored for a bit as they cant spawn in revealed areas. Nests and miasma will keep respawning infinitely unless you park a unit on the tile or its within your borders.

I though it was on visible tiles, I seem to recall encampments poping up in explored terrain

Its more of an issu due to bad game design. It encourages people to keep nests alive for xp farming which doesnt make sense realistically.

Not even that. there is an XP cap on alien hunting. though you can use it to farm for Energy and science, specially with the right war "virtues"

 

[Question]

Also you dont have any units that can bypass ice in BE, when you at least had subs in civ 5.

 

[PhilBowles]

also for some reason a lot of the orbitals need oil... that makes, from in universe, zero sense.

Though the graphic is the same as in Civ V, the resource this time around is called petroleum, and modern satellites do indeed require petroleum products ... i.e. plastics. So this makes more sense than it may appear.

I though it was on visible tiles, I seem to recall encampments poping up in explored terrain

Yes, I've even seen complaints about it on the Civ V forum here. It's not new - and barbarians could spawn on revealed tiles in Civ IV from recollection (cities couldn't, but I think individual barbarian spawns in the landscape could).

 

[Question]

And you cant make synthetic petroleum in the far future because...? Or a substitute?

Ive never had barbarians spawn on revealed tiless, seems like a bug...

 

[PhilBowles]

Also you dont have any units that can bypass ice in BE, when you at least had subs in civ 5.

You'd think by this point in the future they'd at least be able to melt it...

And you cant make synthetic petroleum in the far future because...? Or a substitute?

It seems as though factions in BE start with 21st Century-level technology, as suggested by the intro. The game starts in the 27th Century because of the time in transit from Earth to the new system. "Synthetic petrol" as it exists now is, so far as I know, only suitable for fuel production, not for creating plastics.

In any event, whatever they were to synthesise it or a substitute from, they would need some raw material that the resource could represent - that they've chosen to go with petroleum is no particular conceptual problem or any more implausible as a prerequisite for satellites than, say, sulphur would be in its place. They could have done a lot worse - this is a game where chitin is a resource, so I'm not sure I'd put sillier things past them.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There's some fun to be had in the game, but it's principally missing 2 major things:

1. Balance - I presume this will get better, but we'll see. Right now certain strategies are just overwhelmingly favorable against alternatives, to the point of trivializing decisions otherwise.

2. QoL - The UI in this game is pretty rough. Previous Civ iterations (especially IV) completely trash it in terms of "how intuitive and seamless is it to do x". There's a big difference in #inputs to change or queue builds in BE that hurts it. Beyond that, trade route management is crucial but a real drain on forced micro as your empire grows (and the design in this game right now merits growing it quickly, putting much more micro pressure than a 4 city empire in V might). Deal renewals can still be handled better too. Far too many things are turned into menial tasks, and good design would prevent that.

 

[Chaos Blade]

You'd think by this point in the future they'd at least be able to melt it...



It seems as though factions in BE start with 21st Century-level technology, as suggested by the intro. The game starts in the 27th Century because of the time in transit from Earth to the new system. "Synthetic petrol" as it exists now is, so far as I know, only suitable for fuel production, not for creating plastics.

In any event, whatever they were to synthesise it or a substitute from, they would need some raw material that the resource could represent - that they've chosen to go with petroleum is no particular conceptual problem or any more implausible as a prerequisite for satellites than, say, sulphur would be in its place. They could have done a lot worse - this is a game where chitin is a resource, so I'm not sure I'd put sillier things past them.

But one of the ship loadouts is a Fusion Reactor... there are processes for creating synthetic fossil fuels, but are energy intensive, with a fusion reactor... well, it is less important.
Personally I'd rename petroleum to something else, Deuterium, perhaps?
Another option is to force oil on all sats
And another is to idea is to use oil for another units, personally I think flying units would be dashing with an oil requirement.

 

[PhilBowles]

I'd recommend it too, especially after the Oct update. There is a lot in already, I'll be honest I've only played a few hours so far but I'm taking my time and just sort of dabbling now, but it actually seems a nice complement to BE since the emphasis is more on space exploration, being able to design a rocket ship (but not like Kerbal Space Program which all about the ships).

I'll also plug Sins of Solar Empire: Rebellion, a bit old now but still fun if you want a space oriented 4x real time type game. It's not got the most complicated in terms of its tech tree but its AI is pretty decent, at least on the higher levels I find myself swearing at it which is always a good sign . Also refreshing when I get tired of turn based 4x.

I warmed to Sins over time (and the DLC makes exploration fun), but it's a game for RTS fans rather than 4xers - although it wants to be a hybrid between the two, it's very much a traditional RTS with the same 'build economy - spam army - do battle over resource points - win' gameplay beneath an admittedly unusual (for the genre) gloss.