8 Civs. Is that enough? More to come?

[gunnergoz]

I don't mind a cap on civs (8 is fine by me given what I know of the game) but I would buy DLC's with more Sponsors with varied UA's and accompanying graphics. I expect modding will allow us to change the existing Sponsor UA's quite a bit, so there may be a lot of potential variety down the line as modders get into doing their thing. An Alien "Sponsor?" Well...maybe, I don't know about that. Perhaps if it were well crafted by the original design team and offered something really interesting to gameplay, I might go for it. I could see a scenario where, upon sufficient "injury" to the planetary ecology and lifeforms, an "Alien Sponsor" could spontaneously "Land" (or evolve) into existence, to challenge the humans for control of the planet. Obviously, it would have to be different enough from Harmony to be interesting and still playable. This "Alien Sponsor" could be the human player, simply played out on a map against existing AI human faction colonies.

 

[Deggial]

There could be some interaction with the map. Boni for special tiles (e.g. "traditional" production ressources), special buildings, movement-costs, sight radius,... many of them already well tested in Civ5.

 

[mabalogna]

I miss revolutions being punishment for mismanaging your empires, so instead of more Sponsor civ's it'd be nice if they invented a pool of "Revolution" civs that can appear as a result of a mismanaged empires by either the AI or the player.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I miss revolutions being punishment for mismanaging your empires, so instead of more Sponsor civ's it'd be nice if they invented a pool of "Revolution" civs that can appear as a result of a mismanaged empires by either the AI or the player.

I think it would be easy enough having cities revolt to another player.

 

[Falrinn]

I think in this case we need to consider that sponsors aren't precisely the equal to civilizations in previous games. In previous games pretty all of your starting bonuses were determined by your choice of civilization. In BE you also get to pick 5 different types of colonists, 5 different types of spacecraft, and 5 different types of cargo. This means there are 1000 different potential starting states for your civilization, which dwafs any previous civilization games.

I do believe that the idea of more sponsors is a heck of a lot more exciting then new cargo choices, so they should be given priority in any potential expansions/DLC's.

 

[Manannan]

I'd much rather they do something like add a second leader to each sponsor than add new sponsors honestly. Keep sponsors aligned to the same over-arching concept (ie: Polystralia is still the economic sponsor, Franco-Iberia is still the cultural/scientific sponsor, Brasilia is still the militaristic sponsor, etc) but give the option of a different leader with a different UA (ex: a second Slavic federation leader who gets -50% production cost on orbital units) and different personality traits. I'd still be concerned about power creep, but not nearly as much as if they added new sponsors outright who start to do things better than existing sponsors.

 

[gunnergoz]

Since these "sponsors" seem to be more like corporate entities than nation-states, perhaps there should be an economic layer to the game allowing us to buy and sell shares in them and get into some of that good old capitalist skullduggery.

 

[Thormodr]

8 Civs, eh? Sounds like there is going to be lots of DLC coming out.

 

[Snownova]

8 Civs, eh? Sounds like there is going to be lots of DLC coming out.

8 sponsors
5 colonist types
5 spaceship mods
5 cargo's

8x5x5x5 = exactly 1000 possible starting civ variations. More than any civilization game before. Unless you count all possible variations the SMAX faction creator could cook up.

But there will probably be DLC sponsors, spacehip mods and cargo's, which is fine, it worked for CivV. (I can't think of a colonist type they could possibly add)

 

[gunnergoz]

Colonist: Politicians - Reduce alien aggressiveness by putting them to sleep during windy speeches.

 

[Thormodr]

8 sponsors
5 colonist types
5 spaceship mods
5 cargo's

8x5x5x5 = exactly 1000 possible starting civ variations. More than any civilization game before. Unless you count all possible variations the SMAX faction creator could cook up.

But there will probably be DLC sponsors, spacehip mods and cargo's, which is fine, it worked for CivV. (I can't think of a colonist type they could possibly add)

I wouldn't say that variable starting conditions make for unique civs, really. These are nice options, don't get me wrong. However, I'd rather see really nice, fleshed out civs/sponsors along with all these starting options.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'd prefer that they Not have many factions.

8 is a good number to start with it means they hopefully won't go more than ~16 or so. (over 20 and they are jumping the shark)

They could flesh them out a bit more, but some of that fleshing is done through other benefits (particularly the colonists)... so I'd put it at equivalent to maybe 20 or so civs currently.

If they fleshed out a bit of diplomatic dialogue and quests (so that Brasilia with Engineers got some different quests and different dialogue than Brasilia with Scientists.). then that would be good

 

[AriochIV]

8 sponsors
5 colonist types
5 spaceship mods
5 cargo's

8x5x5x5 = exactly 1000 possible starting civ variations.

x 3 affinities = 3000

 

[KrikkitTwo]

x 3 affinities = 3000

Those aren't starting variations...if you do that you should include
x8 possible first techs to research
x4 initial virtues to take
x6 tiles your worker can first improve
x7 spots to put your initial settler

etc.


in terms of different Gameplay... well all those things matter to a lesser or greater degree.

I do agree that having the Affinities makes the game more replayable..but so does the open tech web, the wide bonuses for virtues, the quests, and the unit perk choices.

(essentially Affinity+Unit perk choices=UU, Quests = UB)

 

[gunnergoz]

I think one thing to consider is that in every game, each AI sponsor will take on a different affinity, depending upon a variety of factors that will change every game. So the enemy won't always look or act the same.

What may become repetitive is having to combat the same three affinities all the time. This may be mitigated by the different Sponsor UA's and appearances, which in turn will affect how the AI plays that particular game out.

Until I play the game several times, I won't know for sure myself. Will fighting a Supremacy AI Brasilia feel that different from fighting a Supremacy AI Polystralia? For that matter, will fighting a Supremacy AI Polystralia feel that different than fighting a Harmony AI Polystralia or Purity AI Polystralia? I suspect it will for a while, given that the Virtues each AI uses will add variety, but for now I'm not sure how long it will take before dreaded player "deja vu" sets in. I remain open minded and hopeful because I really want to enjoy this game for a long time.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

What may become repetitive is having to combat the same three affinities all the time.

The last five civ games had one affinity.

 

[sherbz]

I personally think less is best. The problem with 5 is that the breadth of Civs is so big that they are not really very distinct. Apart from one or two different units and buildings, they are basically the same. 8 Civs with 3 affinities allows for some interesting diplomacy between small blocs of 2 or 3. I hope they are distinct as well. As others have mentioned SMAC had 7 and they were very distinct and you could sort of identify with each of them in a unique way.

 

[Shafi-is-back]

How many civs start on a standard sized map? does anyone know?

Also the purity victory condition says receive 20 colonists from earth and settle them, so im assuming there will need to be a considerable amount of bare land even in the end game?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

How many civs start on a standard sized map? does anyone know?

Also the purity victory condition says receive 20 colonists from earth and settle them, so im assuming there will need to be a considerable amount of bare land even in the end game?

It seems 8, could be seven

2 on duel
4 on tiny
6 on small* (confirmed in advanced setup)
8 on standard
8 on large/huge.

 

[gunnergoz]

The last five civ games had one affinity.

Yes, but each faction leader had his/her own set of preferred goals and means to achieve them - and these could be, and were, modded.