An update from Firaxis Games regarding Beyond Earth feedback

[omniclast]

Certainly, all the comments of "External TRs are too powerful!" sound like they're from Apollo players. Since the Strength of the external depends on both AI and player cities, on anything lower than Soyuz, the Externals are actually competitive with optimized Internals, and on Mercury, they're hardly worth plying.

Even at the lower levels, there is still the issue that you get an extra route from Autoplants and AIs do not.

I'm curious if the decreased TR effectiveness in lower levels is enough to offset the weaker AI bonuses? The problem, centrally, is that the AI is not a challenge -- on any difficulty -- and even if internal TRs are more interesting and competitive on lower levels, if the AIs aren't more challenging then I don't think it really matters whether I play Apollo or Gemini.

I mean I enjoy theorycrafting a bunch, and unlike a lot of civ fans the scifi flavor really does it for me. But there's a limit to how much fun I can have coming up with strategies to beat an opponent that just rolls over.

 

[Aeson]

Oh, i just wanna see best science\culture\produce output with biowells from players, who tell, that they very powerfull. No matters any other context. Im research ur numbers and maybe change my mind about them.

If you want me to go play a game to post results from you'll need to be more specific about what type of game you want to see results from. Especially since if you want a type of game that isn't going to benefit from Biowells we can just save time and agree it won't without needing to play a game.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Even at the lower levels, there is still the issue that you get an extra route from Autoplants and AIs do not.

I'm under the impression that the AI does get building quests. They don't require any actual questing and the scripts for the choices list a 'flavor' which is used by the AI so it has a general idea of what it does.

 

[omniclast]

I'm under the impression that the AI does get building quests. They don't require any actual questing and the scripts for the choices list a 'flavor' which is used by the AI so it has a general idea of what it does.

After double-checking the files it looks like you're right, the AI only ignores affinity quests, not building quests. The building quests file is done with a Lua implementation for some reason so hadn't looked at this specifically before.

Although... the building quest flavors don't have weights, which means that the AI will look at the Autoplant quest as an even choice between FLAVOR_I_TRADE_ORIGIN and FLAVOR_ENERGY and often as not pick the latter, like a chump.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

After double-checking the files it looks like you're right, the AI only ignores affinity quests, not building quests. The building quests file is done with a Lua implementation for some reason so hadn't looked at this specifically before.

Although... the building quest flavors don't have weights, which means that the AI will look at the Autoplant quest as an even choice between FLAVOR_I_TRADE_ORIGIN and FLAVOR_ENERGY and often as not pick the latter, like a chump.

Well I'm fine with one choice being better than another as long as there are circumstances where the lesser one would be useful. However it's hard to fine a trade route that isn't worth 2 energy.

 

[omniclast]

Well I'm fine with one choice being better than another as long as there are circumstances where the lesser one would be useful. However it's hard to fine a trade route that isn't worth 2 energy.

The main issue, as usual, is the trade routes. The AI doesn't understand how good +1 trade route from Autoplants or alien immunity from Fences is, because it assumes -- like I think the devs did -- that TRs would be on par with other game mechanics, not the defining mechanic of the game.

A lot of other quests are imbalanced but they seem a lot further down the to-do list IMO. I can live with AIs not taking a free tech from Institute... but having 1 more TR than they do in every city is a pretty big issue.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I just want to make it clear and honest where my perspective comes from when arguing about problems I have with the game.

That's fair. I personally think a factor in Civ games generally that has been consistently overlooked by Firaxis when they give the AI buffs in order to increase difficulty is that they also need to weight the ways in which a human player can gain resources (in the general sense of a game advantage) from the AI. I'd like to see all forms of AI/Human interaction (trade, diplomacy (such as it is), and possibly even combat), get increasingly unfair as the game difficulty goes up.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

The main issue, as usual, is the trade routes. The AI doesn't understand how good +1 trade route from Autoplants or alien immunity from Fences is, because it assumes -- like I think the devs did -- that TRs would be on par with other game mechanics, not the defining mechanic of the game.

A lot of other quests are imbalanced but they seem a lot further down the to-do list IMO. I can live with AIs not taking a free tech from Institute... but having 1 more TR than they do in every city is a pretty big issue.

It may be intentional that trade routes are to be a key factor but if that's true then there can't be such an easy way to increase them.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

In what file are the building quests enumerated?

 

[Minor Annoyance]

In what file are the building quests enumerated?

BuildingChoiceTemplateQuest.lua is there they all are. If you want to see the rewards from those quests they CivBePlayerPerks.xml has those.

 

[Gokudo01]

what i hate bout Firaxis is how they leave us in the dark :

Zero communication + no interaction with the community.

I dont understand how young designers can act that way ...

 

[Chibi88]

Nobody is playing BE Look at the steam statistics. Most of the ppl went back to CIV V

 

[AlaskA]

If you want me to go play a game to post results from you'll need to be more specific about what type of game you want to see results from. Especially since if you want a type of game that isn't going to benefit from Biowells we can just save time and agree it won't without needing to play a game.

Okay, u have no any competitve results with biowells yet. U need to play. So ur words "biowells very powerfull" was just a opition based on theorycrafting. Ty for explaining it. It's enough for me.

Look at the steam statistics.

Can u post statistic here?

 

[Chibi88]

Can u post statistic here?

http://store.steampowered.com/stats

 

[Yucatan]

what i hate bout Firaxis is how they leave us in the dark :

Zero communication + no interaction with the community.

I dont understand how young designers can act that way ...

No schedule on patch after a month with a bugged and unfinished game is kinda weird. Is it common with firaxis ? This game could be great ...

 

[Cyon]

Now is really the time for them to tell us when the patch will come!

 

[Aeson]

Okay, u have no any competitve results with biowells yet. U need to play. So ur words "biowells very powerfull" was just a opition based on theorycrafting. Ty for explaining it. It's enough for me.

No, it's not just based on theorycrafting. You are the one "theorycrafting" here about my experience with the game. (Like you did recently with Acken, pretending you knew his game settings better than he did.)

I went back and searched your posts to see what the heck you're talking about ... and it seems the only thing you play for is quickest Affinity victories. Biowells aren't useful for small empires. If you want to sit in 10 cities and build a Wonder to avoid using half the game mechanics, that's great. Do it. Don't pretend that's all Civ is about though.

 

[Lord Tirian]

No schedule on patch after a month with a bugged and unfinished game is kinda weird. Is it common with firaxis ? This game could be great ...

Frankly? Yes. Firaxis is an old studio, they very much do things the classic way, meaning devs don't talk too much on forums/openly, it's community managers that do. We've been spoilt lately by the rapid interaction especially indies and early access games do, but Firaxis is old-school.

 

[Yucatan]

Frankly? Yes. Firaxis is an old studio, they very much do things the classic way, meaning devs don't talk too much on forums/openly, it's community managers that do. We've been spoilt lately by the rapid interaction especially indies and early access games do, but Firaxis is old-school.

I don't understand why they don't quick patch bugs and ui then take some time to balance the game. No patch after one month is huge. Civ be player numbers on steam are low.

No communication on a rushed release game has a cost...

 

[AlaskA]

No, it's not just based on theorycrafting. You are the one "theorycrafting" here about my experience with the game. (Like you did recently with Acken, pretending you knew his game settings better than he did.)

I went back and searched your posts to see what the heck you're talking about ... and it seems the only thing you play for is quickest Affinity victories. Biowells aren't useful for small empires. If you want to sit in 10 cities and build a Wonder to avoid using half the game mechanics, that's great. Do it. Don't pretend that's all Civ is about though.

Ou ou, relax dude, no offense plz. Atleast u finally tell, that biowells aren't useful for a small empires. Im agree with it.