Your favorite Civ 6 alternatives

[Moosus Maximus]

The jobs calculations seem to be the culprit, from what I have read.. but the issues people are seeing will likely not impact my games, as I'm still getting my legs and playing on Ensign.

I'd love a properly redone BE II. It should pick up after a 'Science Victory' win.

 

[acluewithout]

I know they'll never do it again for a decade+ but I really would love Beyond earth II: civ6 systems boogaloo, only this time we just release an actual backstory and pre-landing plot.

I’d really love to see BE as a DLC Scenario for Civ VI, perhaps only requiring a player to have the Civ VI base game.

If FXS did it this way, I’d like to see:

1. Options to bring some of the BE content across to your Civ game, at least in terms of Future Units and Tech.

2. Perhaps incorporate some of the Sci-Fi stuff into Red Death, and also better enable Red Death for AI play (either for Single Player or as part of smaller Multi-Player Games).

3. Options for BE to be with or without Aliens. Honestly, I think Sci-Fi is always more interesting without Aliens, or cliche stuff like Psychics.

Overall, I think a BE game that avoided corny, and leaned into Civ VI’s mechanics hard, would be very strong. And directly tying the game to Civ VI base game could provide some really strong synergies for both games.

I don’t know where I stand on back story etc. Too much is a problem, but too little can be as well. Personally, I think the much more important thing is to root the game in the harder more credible Sci-Fi genre. Stuff that feels more real just provokes people’s imagination more - indeed, I think that’s the strength of Civ VI in that it’s based on history and tries to leverage actual history for its mechanics and flavour. My biggest turn off for BE is just all the Star-Trek Techno Babble Rubbish (and silly Aliens). No more Firaxite, please.

 

[Sostratus]

I don’t know where I stand on back story etc. Too much is a problem, but too little can be as well. Personally, I think the much more important thing is to root the game in the harder more credible Sci-Fi genre. Stuff that feels more real just provokes people’s imagination more - indeed, I think that’s the strength of Civ VI in that it’s based on history and tries to leverage actual history for its mechanics and flavour. My biggest turn off for BE is just all the Star-Trek Techno Babble Rubbish (and silly Aliens). No more Firaxite, please.

Well I think where they were right was keeping the "planet you land on" a relatively blank slate- we know its sort of this lush, a bit younger and more primordial planet, and we are landing on it. Phenomenal, that's all you really need.
Where they went wrong was keeping the stuff that happened before we land so secret - they never said what the great mistake was, we had no real understanding of earth's geopolitics when the ships started leaving or any concept of the faction leaders, who themselves often had their own motivations.
But the district system would be perfect for BE; city projects could really be expanded on; inspirations and eurekas could really spice up the non linear tech/civics tree, etc.
The new city state model of unique suze bonuses would do well applied to "stations." The GS power+ disaster system would fit in amazingly. Fundamental stuff like housing and loyalty would be a really great thing in new colonies. The more unique civs approach would be great too. The orbital layer was really neat too, if a bit under utilized. I always wanted a "Falling Skies" expansion to redo the orbital layer to be more dynamic...

IMO they would have done better to have the whole ideology (aka affinity) system be more of a midgame entrance than right away, and have the first part of the game just be about surviving on your fledgling colony. Disasters on an alien planet could be pretty creative, and ways to mitigate them too. You can import BE art assets fairly mechanically (it's the same as civ5 and deliverator has already imported all the civ5 stuff iirc) and once you have that and a new building set the rest would be almost just a reskin/re flavor text.

 

[Patine]

I’d really love to see BE as a DLC Scenario for Civ VI, perhaps only requiring a player to have the Civ VI base game.

If FXS did it this way, I’d like to see:

1. Options to bring some of the BE content across to your Civ game, at least in terms of Future Units and Tech.

2. Perhaps incorporate some of the Sci-Fi stuff into Red Death, and also better enable Red Death for AI play (either for Single Player or as part of smaller Multi-Player Games).

3. Options for BE to be with or without Aliens. Honestly, I think Sci-Fi is always more interesting without Aliens, or cliche stuff like Psychics.

Overall, I think a BE game that avoided corny, and leaned into Civ VI’s mechanics hard, would be very strong. And directly tying the game to Civ VI base game could provide some really strong synergies for both games.

I don’t know where I stand on back story etc. Too much is a problem, but too little can be as well. Personally, I think the much more important thing is to root the game in the harder more credible Sci-Fi genre. Stuff that feels more real just provokes people’s imagination more - indeed, I think that’s the strength of Civ VI in that it’s based on history and tries to leverage actual history for its mechanics and flavour. My biggest turn off for BE is just all the Star-Trek Techno Babble Rubbish (and silly Aliens). No more Firaxite, please.

I FAR prefer SMAC for that kind of TBS game, myself. BE was very much an unsatisfying alternative in the "colonize an alien world coming from Earth" trope of strategy game, for a number of significant reasons, as far as I was concerned.

 

[KayAU]

I don't think many would argue that SMAC wasn't a better game than Civ BE, but I still think Civ BE has a lot of potential. It did many good things mechanically, but as @Sostratus pointed out, failed to present a proper backstory or properly define the factions, which left that side of things feeling shallow. Contrast this with SMAC. The backstory was fairly simple, but it was sufficient as a starting point, and then you had these interludes which unveiled more story as you progressed. Additionally, each faction was very clearly defined by their ideology, which was carried through to diplomacy. Each leader had a clear agenda and personality which was memorable to the point where even if I haven't played the game in years, I can tell you about each one of them to this day. It also helped that the quotes in the game were presented by these characters, further adding to their definition.

SMAC was a masterpiece.

Coming back to Civ BE, I would be absolutely thrilled to see it expanded upon and improved, as there is clear potential there. They do not need to be a direct successor to SMAC, but there are certainly lessons to be learnt. On a couple of points where my views may be a bit different from others presented here:

• Stations: I actually didn't care much for how stations were implemented in Civ BE. It seemed kind of contrived to have these mini-cities suddenly appear on an alien world, and it felt like they just wanted some way to insert city states in a setting where it didn't really make sense to have them. If they want to still do something like this, I think it would need to be reframed to make sense. Perhaps there could be quests where some citizens wanted to start a private enterprise, and you could support it by providing resources and allocating space. Perhaps there could be options affecting the probabilities of which type of station is created. When the station finally appears, you will start out with a relationship advantage based on your role in its creation.
• Alien life: I basically agree that it could be optional, but I would like to point out some of the advantages of having it. Unlike more realistic settings, like the main Civ series, the sci-fi setting provides more opportunities to introduce stronger environmental dangers and asymmetrical challenges. Consider Civ 6, what do you have apart from the other players to challenge you? Basically there are barbarians and natural disasters. Both of these can damage you a bit, but neither are very exciting...they can do some, usually limited damage to you, for some potential limited rewards, and you will usually see the same challenge every single game you play. There is no real excitement to be had here, and neither factor is likely to amount to much in the long run. The sci-fi setting, however, can introduce neutral parties which are truly formidable and interesting, with rewards which are similarly wonderful. Imagine, for example, a cave defended by some formidable alien lifeform...but containing some technological relic or resource which is truly worth the struggle to gain control of it. Or, as in Stellaris, sleeping giants which could devastate your empire if you wake them before you are ready. Or, as in the aforementioned SMAC: an awakening alien consciousness spread across the entire planet you are living on. The possibilities are vast. Fantasy 4X game have the same benefit. Part of what makes games like Fall from Heaven 2/Master of Mana or Fallen Enchantress exciting, is the fact that there are actual dragons and giant monsters wandering their worlds, raising the stakes and adding to the flavor.

 

[Disgustipated]

The Outer Worlds. At least that's what I'm playing right now, it's not Civ related. Though an Outer Worlds mod for civ6 might be cool. I'll eventually get back to civ6. Smac is the only similar game I still play, usually only once a year. I find it difficult to play past versions of Civ.

 

[acluewithout]

Well I think where they were right was keeping the "planet you land on" a relatively blank slate- we know its sort of this lush, a bit younger and more primordial planet, and we are landing on it. Phenomenal, that's all you really need.
Where they went wrong was keeping the stuff that happened before we land so secret - they never said what the great mistake was, we had no real understanding of earth's geopolitics when the ships started leaving or any concept of the faction leaders, who themselves often had their own motivations.
But the district system would be perfect for BE; city projects could really be expanded on; inspirations and eurekas could really spice up the non linear tech/civics tree, etc.
The new city state model of unique suze bonuses would do well applied to "stations." The GS power+ disaster system would fit in amazingly. Fundamental stuff like housing and loyalty would be a really great thing in new colonies. The more unique civs approach would be great too. The orbital layer was really neat too, if a bit under utilized. I always wanted a "Falling Skies" expansion to redo the orbital layer to be more dynamic...

IMO they would have done better to have the whole ideology (aka affinity) system be more of a midgame entrance than right away, and have the first part of the game just be about surviving on your fledgling colony. Disasters on an alien planet could be pretty creative, and ways to mitigate them too. You can import BE art assets fairly mechanically (it's the same as civ5 and deliverator has already imported all the civ5 stuff iirc) and once you have that and a new building set the rest would be almost just a reskin/re flavor text.

I FAR prefer SMAC for that kind of TBS game, myself. BE was very much an unsatisfying alternative in the "colonize an alien world coming from Earth" trope of strategy game, for a number of significant reasons, as far as I was concerned.

Well. If I was taking a stab at a SMAC or BE successor, I think what would be more interesting is re-colonising Earth, not another different planet. Something like the end of Neil Stephenson’s Seven Eves.

Basically, global catastrophe, everyone flees and has to live in orbitals. Maybe some people colonise Mars, Venus, some moons. But all these Orbitals and new colonies suck because, you know, radiation, desperate isolation and humans being really on designed to live on, you know, Earth. Anyway, Earth settles down, breathable air again and all that stuff, and then people come back to re-colonise the original human planet. But, you know, they don’t want to share and blame each other for causing the catastrophe or have gone totally transhuman bat poo crazy.

The advantages of something like that are: factions are inherently easier to create, because you base them on existing nations and or planets / moons in our solar system; no aliens, instead anything alien you find on Earth is just whatever Earth things have mutated or evolved since you left, or whatever has been created by the catastrophe; no FTL silliness and not suspending disbelief that we found some planet just like ours (which, guys, whatever Elon Musk or whoever says, is really not happening); and more stuff to discover stuff on the planet that has some resonance, because you know it’s Earth but it got left alone for 15,000 years and also weird fiction type stuff happened - I mean, think how weird and interesting City States could be...

You could also have a lot of variety with that model. Maybe there’s a default Earth, where it was an ecological disaster, and now everything is lush, green, wet, but totally Day of the Triffids eat you alive stuff. But you can change the settings and have water world, sand world, ice world starts - whatever - or other alien things. Sort of how Civ currently lets you play Real World Map, but lets you play non-Earth maps with no actual explanation.

Anyway. Just a thought.

...FXS really need to announce an expansion before I go off the deep end...

[ @KayAU , you don’t need Aliens to have Aliens. Just look a Dune or Revelation Space. Put humans far enough into the Future, and things could get very alien indeed.]

 

[Abaxial]

The trouble with Stellaris, and also CK2, is it just takes so long to play a game of it.

 

[KayAU]

The trouble with Stellaris, and also CK2, is it just takes so long to play a game of it.

That is true, and may not be to everyone's liking. For me personally, I don't mind, so long as all phases of the game are enjoyable. My biggest complaint about Civilization is that while the earlier stages of the game are excellent, at some point you end up just trying to reach the end of an already decided game, with nothing much to entertain you while you wait.

I just recently picked up Stellaris again, and found that the victory conditions were all removed now, replaced with only a score to determine the winner at a specified point in time. Honestly, I like this change, at least considering how poor half baked the former conditions were in that game. Also, I do think that Paradox have made a real effort to make the later game stages more interesting. At the current stage for me (late mid-game, I think), I have started to unlock the really large vessels, which is fun, and while I am now a lot more powerful than most of the empires in the galaxy, I am still not within striking range of the fallen ones. The marauder factions are also still capable of doing considerable damage. One of them is now unified under a Great Khan, and has already subjugated one of my federation allies. At some point, an end game crisis will be triggered as well, giving me something else to worry about at the late stage of the game.

 

[Sostratus]

My biggest complaint about Civilization is that while the earlier stages of the game are excellent, at some point you end up just trying to reach the end of an already decided game

I do agree here, but all 4X games seem to have this.
Civ5’s BNW really changed up how late game worked. Civ6’s GS added amazing stuff too. It’s not entirely content though- you certainly need stuff to do, but my biggest area for civ6’s late game improvement, ignoring AI, is that the industrial era+ hands you the tools to totally solve all the problems of the first four-housing, amenities, food, yields; but there aren’t really new challenges added. Your domestic empire management is effectively “solved” in the modern era with stadiums.
I mean when was the last game you played where you worried about amenities once you had stadium coverage?
One thing I liked about BNW was that ideologies not only gave you tools to start managing your happiness effectively, but the ideological opinion from tourism meant you could very easily run into massive negatives if you weren’t careful.
It’s that feeling of “keeping the rocket together while we just cross the finish line” that I think is easy to lose in a 4X late game.

Civ6 GS is, in my opinion, the best iteration of civ so far and it’s so close to being so much better. Here’s hoping for xp3...

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

i also think that the late game fails to engage the player in terms of difficulty since it lacks any form of challenge , for me it consists of playing sim-empire ( railroads between every city - air strips to allow fighters to remove fog of war - coastal barriers - tunnels - all tiles improved - all cities powered even if they dont need it ) while ignoring the other surviving civs. By ignoring i mean i dont care what they do since they cannot win if i reached the industrial age.
the loyalty issues leading to rebellions or
enemies making joint wars or
new type of barbarians raiding/pillaging if you are not careful or
power issues causing riots that damage districts/buildings or
religion/loyalty issues forcing you to deal with them or
upkeep needs to costs more , like a lot more and if you cannot pay it they should not simply disband , they should try to get the money from raiding/capturing cities,
there are a lot of possibilities. hopefully firaxis will pleasently surprise us

 

[CoccoBill]

Surprised to not see Total War: Warhammer mentioned. I've played 1 & 2 about a total of 3200 hours in the past 3 years. Previous time-sinks have been HoMM and Ao* among other things.

 

[Patine]

i also think that the late game fails to engage the player in terms of difficulty since it lacks any form of challenge , for me it consists of playing sim-empire ( railroads between every city - air strips to allow fighters to remove fog of war - coastal barriers - tunnels - all tiles improved - all cities powered even if they dont need it ) while ignoring the other surviving civs. By ignoring i mean i dont care what they do since they cannot win if i reached the industrial age.
the loyalty issues leading to rebellions or
enemies making joint wars or
new type of barbarians raiding/pillaging if you are not careful or
power issues causing riots that damage districts/buildings or
religion/loyalty issues forcing you to deal with them or
upkeep needs to costs more , like a lot more and if you cannot pay it they should not simply disband , they should try to get the money from raiding/capturing cities,
there are a lot of possibilities. hopefully firaxis will pleasently surprise us

In Civ2, the other civ's in endgame liked to constantly make exhorbadent "requests" of you when you were the obvious leader,used to make nuclear sneak attacks from time to time, and, if at war, LOVED dropping paratroops into ungarrisoned cities, and would all declare war on you if you were the first to launch a starship for Alpha Centauri. At least that kept you on your toes, at bit...

 

[Patine]

Surprised to not see Total War: Warhammer mentioned. I've played 1 & 2 about a total of 3200 hours in the past 3 years. Previous time-sinks have been HoMM and Ao* among other things.

I am not fond in the least of the actual settings, lore, or storylines put out by Games Workshop. I find them - offputting - I think would be the word.

 

[Basajaun]

Not strategy games per se, but Im a very big fan of rpg, simulators and micromanaging.
Right now installed I have;
Civ VI, Cities Skylines, Skyrim, Minecraft, Sims 4, EuroTruck Simulator 2, Assetto Corsa, and Diablo 3. Recently uninstalled WoW classic because I have a new schedule at work and it doesnt allow me to raid with the people I always did.

Depending on my mood, Ill pick one or the other. Lately Civ is the most played one, when they release the new D3 season I will go around spinning with my barbarian etc...Its almost season for Asetto Corsa too, so soon I will be racing and drifting around there as well. In summer more than 20 minutes and I am sweating, with a wheel with massive ffb and a 80kg brake pedal. But its awesome! A great way to blow some steam without crashing the car or spending €€€ in tyres and gas every month. Plus I usually drive the same car I own IRL so its skills than I can extrapolate there

 

[KayAU]

But since I really loved everything about Exiled Kingdoms and am a big supporter of its developer (a one-man team by the way!) I will highly recommend it for any fan of RPGs, especially classics with deep story lines, impactful choices that can lead to different outcomes, well-balanced and interesting class systems, like Diablo and Baldur's Gate but with better humor. The game even has multiple endings. I can't recommend it enough.

Well, I did pick it up based on your recommendation, and this weekend I finally got around to trying it. I was right, this is my cup of tea. I just wanted to let you know and thank you again for the recommendation.

 

[DWilson]

I'm a bit surprised it wasn't mentioned, but if you want a fun, relatively quick, economic focused game I highly recommend Soren's Offworld Trading Company. It's from the man who led Civ IV, has a soundtrack by Christopher Tin (including one of my favorite instrumental tracks, Red Planet Nocturne), and hex tiles like Civ's V and VI.

It's a really fun game, and good strategies vary based on which resources are available on the map, which change with random generation each game.

It has expansion packs, but unlike in Civ they aren't truly required for a great game.

 

[Elhoim]

Well, I did pick it up based on your recommendation, and this weekend I finally got around to trying it. I was right, this is my cup of tea. I just wanted to let you know and thank you again for the recommendation.

[shameless plug] You might also like our game, The Age of Decadence. We have a demo on Steam which has quite a bit of the game. Try different characters with different factions, they all have their unique storyline but they are parallel with each other, so you see things from different sides, and of course, lots of choices and consequences (and backstabbing) to change the outcomes.

Regarding Civ alternatives, I bought in the last Steam sale "Aggressors: Ancient Rome". It has a lot of VERY interesting ideas, give it a try.

 

[acluewithout]

I do agree here, but all 4X games seem to have this.
Civ5’s BNW really changed up how late game worked. Civ6’s GS added amazing stuff too. It’s not entirely content though- you certainly need stuff to do, but my biggest area for civ6’s late game improvement, ignoring AI, is that the industrial era+ hands you the tools to totally solve all the problems of the first four-housing, amenities, food, yields; but there aren’t really new challenges added. Your domestic empire management is effectively “solved” in the modern era with stadiums.
I mean when was the last game you played where you worried about amenities once you had stadium coverage?
One thing I liked about BNW was that ideologies not only gave you tools to start managing your happiness effectively, but the ideological opinion from tourism meant you could very easily run into massive negatives if you weren’t careful.
It’s that feeling of “keeping the rocket together while we just cross the finish line” that I think is easy to lose in a 4X late game.

Civ6 GS is, in my opinion, the best iteration of civ so far and it’s so close to being so much better. Here’s hoping for xp3... [emphasis added]

This.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[Arent11]

Alpha Centauri
Colonization
Beyond Earth

I also tried Dragon Commander, but it's a far call from Civ. It's really fun, though.