Am I an expert player now!!!

[Skulbow]

no I am not BUT...

I have played around 500 hours of CIV V at mostly the middle levels of difficulty and have have success at these levels but I never win in under 240 turns as a runaway leader but now in BERT I am playing easily on Apollo difficulty and winning in just over 220 turns with 400 culture a turn 1400 science a turn gold in the 1000's and diplomatic points in the 1000's and totally dominating the AI players. I have so many resources I can't even spend them!!!
What is going on that this version is now ridiculously easy compared to previous CIV games. I am only a casual gamer but I do really love these 4x games but I can see so many things are overpowered now. Get the right artifacts (not too hard), have special wonders, get internal trade routes going, beeline the right techs and bam your civ just explodes. I did it first with Hutama but even the weaker NSA just runs away with it.

What I am trying to say is that this game needs a drastic balance patch... I can't imagine that the deity level players in CIV V would get any challenge in this version as it is at present. Look at the numbers on STEAM playing CIV V compared to BERT... I am just an average player and I am now finding the game easy because of certain strats which anyone can put into practise. WARP SPIRE anybody???

I do love this game and feel it has so much potential but please patch...

 

[darkskies]

I agree--I usually just wipe out the two or three strongest civs, plus maybe someone who really annoys me and then move on to the next game. There are various mods that seem to try to address some of these issues, I'm looking at the Tidal Balance mod which might be worth a try for example. Of course if you are in to achievements it doesn't help much. Balancing isn't always easy but they sure seemed to err on the easy side with this game. One problem with BE is there are fewer levels. Until such time Firaxite (er axis) fixes the blance (if they do, but maybe they feel they make more sales this way) mods are worth a look.

 

[Callonia]

I can win on Apollo because Science speed of Apollo is neutered by exploring for affinity levels! That's only reason why to be honest.

 

[Ryika]

The developers are filthy casuals, so of course they don't understand the needs players who border perfection - like me.

Main problem are overpowered mechanics that AIs can't use properly, but of course even without them the player still takes the lead rather easily.

 

[poom3619]

Welcome to the Apollo club, it is a bit crowded here consider AI rarely put up a fight for player for some reason. Maybe they aren't obsessed with teching toward particular affinity or really know how to win other victory unless RNG favor them.

In this current state of game, anyone can go after achievement as much as you can. In other hand, if they want a challenge, they better try some mod.

I use to read someone talk about how modded game is not fun because it disqualify player from achievement, and I'm like "wait, what?"

 

[NASAROG]

naw, the Ai is dumb and they are canceling agreements and going to war every other turn.

 

[Acken]

That's because the balance and design of mechanics are simply not made for the AI. Putting tactical AI aside.

For example:
-Artifacts, players now the good ones are out there and will try to get those. The AI doesn't.
-Virtues. Unbalanced bonus lead to poor AI decisions.
-Tech web. Players have understood since day 1 you need to skip most techs to be efficient. The AI doesn't know that and grabs a ton of useless crap.
-Agreements. Balance again, the AI shouldn't spend most of its capital for crappy bonus and pick crappy bonus.
-Health. The AI is programmed to keep being in positive health like its happiness from civ5. Players now health is a poor expansion limiter and work around it.

 

[EpicWestern]

I can win on Apollo because Science speed of Apollo is neutered by exploring for affinity levels! That's only reason why to be honest.

Its gross how much of a difference mass explorer with the prosperity bonus is. One balance idea is to simply not give the affinity bonus for expeditions at all, or at the very least, give it to whatever affinity you have the least of.

 

[Callonia]

Its gross how much of a difference mass explorer with the prosperity bonus is. One balance idea is to simply not give the affinity bonus for expeditions at all, or at the very least, give it to whatever affinity you have the least of.

I would just build even more explorers as the result.
And by consequence of having even more explorers in field = my explorers is more likely to survive the run ins with bugs.

 

[TheRoadrunner]

As someone who never played Civilization games before this one I really don't understand posts like this.

Obviously I don't know the optimal build order but I try all the things people say are "OP" like trade routes, etc and I still just get my ass kicked on Apollo.

I do notice that most people seem to play on Quick mode with Small planet so maybe that has something to do with it?

 

[TheRoadrunner]

That's because the balance and design of mechanics are simply not made for the AI. Putting tactical AI aside.

HI I am a new player to Civilization games and none of these things you list are obvious or intuitive to me.

I got BE when it came out a year ago, could never even beat it on Soyuz level. With RT I can't come close to beating Apollo.

I usually play on Apollo, Epic Mode, Standard planet with Social Engineering Mod. Any tips you have for this could help alot. I am not someone that has the time to "figure it all out for myself". I still haven't beat Apollo on BERT and posting here is about my last hope to try to win before I bin this game.

-Artifacts, players now the good ones are out there and will try to get those. The AI doesn't.

How do you know which ones are good?

-Virtues. Unbalanced bonus lead to poor AI decisions.

I play with the Social Engineering mod so this doesn't apply.

-Tech web. Players have understood since day 1 you need to skip most techs to be efficient. The AI doesn't know that and grabs a ton of useless crap.

Maybe you expert, experienced players understand this but new players to Civ like myself still have no clue what techs are efficient and which ones are okay to skip. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated.

Can you let a noob like myself know which techs are efficient, which can be skipped and why?

-Agreements. Balance again, the AI shouldn't spend most of its capital for crappy bonus and pick crappy bonus.

Again, I must be as dumb as the AI because every agreement I saw seemed like a massive waste and I would rather just save Political Capital for personality traits

-Health. The AI is programmed to keep being in positive health like its happiness from civ5. Players now health is a poor expansion limiter and work around it.

I heard this since vanilla edition that going negative health was "no problem". Never worked out for me and negative health always just spiraled out of control. I don't understand the strategy here at all apparently or know when to try to get positive health.

 

[Azem.Ocram]

After playing 500 hours of Civilization 5, you certainly are no newbie. Now that you have reached the point where you win games on the hardest difficulty roughly as quickly and powerfully as the best, you ARE an expert at Civilization: Beyond Earth: Rising Tide. The game is just so unbalanced and easy, it doesn't take long to become an expert. If you are not an expert at CivBERT, then it is a game too easy for anyone to be considered an expert.

 

[Callonia]

I heard this since vanilla edition that going negative health was "no problem". Never worked out for me and negative health always just spiraled out of control. I don't understand the strategy here at all apparently or know when to try to get positive health.

Prosperity virtue tree.

And 1 population = 1 unhealth. Something like that.

 

[Ishea]

Another easy way to get tons of health, aside from the prosperity tree and the science tree ( which has a better one in it imho especially if you go for big cities )

Just get the pharmalab and gene garden, then you're already quite well endowed with health if you build those. Otherwise, research the Paean(sp) sattelite, it gives massive health bonusses. If you have one flying around near 2 or 3 of your cities, you should easily reach +20/+30 health without much else.

 

[Acken]

How do you know which ones are good?

Because I just remember them... like the +100% virtue one.

Maybe you expert, experienced players understand this but new players to Civ like myself still have no clue what techs are efficient and which ones are okay to skip. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated.
Can you let a noob like myself know which techs are efficient, which can be skipped and why?

I was mostly making reference to beelining affinity techs. I'm pretty sure the AI will not do it like a player would. Also since the period of economy tech is only like the first 100 turns... there simply isn't that many good tech to pick in that period. I can't remember the tech names but the settler and trade depot one, the water stuff if you make water cities, the one with a lot of health and then you go to super farms or biowells I guess.

Again, I must be as dumb as the AI because every agreement I saw seemed like a massive waste and I would rather just save Political Capital for personality traits

And that's what you should do. Get the personal one first when your capital is low (unless you can grab the worker/settler/TR ones I guess). But the AI will get some +city defense for 9cpt.

I heard this since vanilla edition that going negative health was "no problem". Never worked out for me and negative health always just spiraled out of control. I don't understand the strategy here at all apparently or know when to try to get positive health.

What do you mean by out of control ? -15 after expanding a bit is pretty standard. Grab health boosters (virtues, satellite) make the buildings and grow. You'll get back into positive at some point.

 

[TheRoadrunner]

Because I just remember them... like the +100% virtue one.

I was mostly making reference to beelining affinity techs. I'm pretty sure the AI will not do it like a player would. Also since the period of economy tech is only like the first 100 turns... there simply isn't that many good tech to pick in that period. I can't remember the tech names but the settler and trade depot one, the water stuff if you make water cities, the one with a lot of health and then you go to super farms or biowells I guess.


And that's what you should do. Get the personal one first when your capital is low (unless you can grab the worker/settler/TR ones I guess). But the AI will get some +city defense for 9cpt.

What do you mean by out of control ? -15 after expanding a bit is pretty standard. Grab health boosters (virtues, satellite) make the buildings and grow. You'll get back into positive at some point.

Thanks for the replies. I spent most of today watching your video series in the link and reading forum posts while playing on Apollo.

First let me thank you on your video. You helped me greatly understand Apollo mode more than any other post or Youtube videos I watched.

I only have some minor criticism. To me a lot of the "power gamers" on these forums only play on Quick mode with Small planet.

To me, not only is Quick-Small not the most fun setting for a 4x game (subjective) but its also objectively much easier to play this game on this Quick-Small mode than it is to play on a Standard+ planet size in an Epic game due to how much easier tactics are on Small maps than large ones.

Logically, longer games (epic-marathon) minimize the AI starting advantage FAR more than starting on the easiest Quick-Small setting.

From my experience playing on Quick-Small-Apollo-Default Virtues is basically as easy as playing on Soyuz- with Epic-Standard-Social Engineering mod. A lot of tips here based on the Quick-Small-Default settings really don't work as well on Epic-Standard-Social Engineering. Or at least not nearly as easily for a non-Civ expert gamer.

While I am realizing that the AI needs to be improved a lot, I feel a lot of these forum complaints are based on extremely limited settings.

The other thing I notice is a lot of people here seem to like to exploit things like Virtues yet they do not download mods that make Virtues a lot more balanced. I can't play this game myself with the default virtues because it ruins the element I play these types of games for (my all time favorite games are SM Pirates and Alpha Centauri).

Download the Social Engineering mod. It removes a lot of these easy advantages I see people always saying to exploit. Its also far more immersive which is what I play these games for.

Anyway sorry to be critical. I greatly appreciate your posts and videos. I just wish more BERT gamers seemed to like the modes I play (Epic, Standard+, Social Engineering mod) because I feel those are inherently more interesting and challenging than easy mode Quick-Small/Duel games that many people here post about.

 

[Acken]

Well you do realize I play on standard / standard right ?

As for mod improving the game... they sure do but like any game the base game will be criticized for its shortcomings regardless.

 

[TheRoadrunner]

Well you do realize I play on standard / standard right ?

As for mod improving the game... they sure do but like any game the base game will be criticized for its shortcomings regardless.

I didn't realize that. I thought your video was Quick-Small like most of the vids I saw. Sorry.

I don't mean to be overly critical man, I totally appreciate your videos and posts.

But to be honest, I have to go back to Pirates or original release SMAC to think of a game that I played that didn't need mods. No game I found in the last 10 years didn't need mods to be awesome.

FTL is one of my favorites but only because the Captain's Edition mod was so absolutely amazing. I only bought Crusader Kings so I could play the highly rated Game of Thrones Mod which is the only thing that appealed to me about that game.

I agree it sucks but to me, its just the economics of the gaming industry now ya know?

EDIT:

I don't mean to dispute the balance issues that you and others have raised. I feel they are totally valid as I, a 40 hour gamer in BE and BERT shouldn't be able to win on the toughest difficulty. I just feel some of the critique is misplaced slightly because people seem to like to play on these super fast modes that never really appeal to me. Those modes and mods DO minimize the AI advantage on higher difficulty. That is just objective fact even if the AI being bad at certain choices is also objective fact.

I will try to write a post this weekend on what I think could be improved in BERT- some things I think mods already address like Virtue balance and trade balance.

 

[Callonia]

As someone who never played Civilization games before this one I really don't understand posts like this.

Obviously I don't know the optimal build order but I try all the things people say are "OP" like trade routes, etc and I still just get my ass kicked on Apollo.

I do notice that most people seem to play on Quick mode with Small planet so maybe that has something to do with it?

I actually loathe playing on tiny maps and prefer to play on the biggest possible.

 

[hevans900]

I have only had one challenge on Apollo since BERT was released, an Elodie went insane and had like triple the score of everyone else by turn 120.

Oh wait lol I just rushed 6/6 hybrid units and roflstomped 10 of her cities.