An update from Firaxis Games regarding Beyond Earth feedback

[Roxlimn]

Haggbart:

I'm actually old enough to have been here when Civ IV was new and people were crying bloody murder over Cottages. You see, Cottages are like Roads, except can yield 4 times as much Trade per tile. It sounds completely bonkers if you've only ever known Roads.

People were talking about "Cottage Spam" and how it was brainless, and how easy the game was to win on the highest difficulties because - you guessed it - the release Civ IV AI was astoundingly incompetent at the new economic systems. Arguably, it still is. Noble is still the newbie level, after all. You can still outrace and outplay the AI knowing almost nothing about the game.

When you talk about making the TRs matter less, making the game's pace slower, restricting expansion, I hear echoes of people wanting Cottages be scaled back to be Civ 3 roads.

EDIT:

To clarify, my impression there may not be perfectly fair, but it is what I hear, and my confirmation bias kicks in whenever people want to kill the TR count down to what CiV currently employs. You can't have a CivBE-type specialized economy with just 1 TR each city, and it doesn't solve the concentration-feedback problem anyway.

 

[Haggbart]

Haggbart:

I'm actually old enough to have been here when Civ IV was new and people were crying bloody murder over Cottages. You see, Cottages are like Roads, except can yield 4 times as much Trade per tile. It sounds completely bonkers if you've only ever known Roads.

People were talking about "Cottage Spam" and how it was brainless, and how easy the game was to win on the highest difficulties because - you guessed it - the release Civ IV AI was astoundingly incompetent at the new economic systems. Arguably, it still is. Noble is still the newbie level, after all. You can still outrace and outplay the AI knowing almost nothing about the game.

When you talk about making the TRs matter less, making the game's pace slower, restricting expansion, I hear echoes of people wanting Cottages be scaled back to be Civ 3 roads.

EDIT:

To clarify, my impression there may not be perfectly fair, but it is what I hear, and my confirmation bias kicks in whenever people want to kill the TR count down to what CiV currently employs. You can't have a CivBE-type specialized economy with just 1 TR each city, and it doesn't solve the concentration-feedback problem anyway.

While I do remember Civ4 release, and having played Civ4 on and off for 8 years, I still to this day haven't beat Civ4 on deity. However I did beat it on immortal, both with cottage spam AND without building a single cottage.

So to be fair, you can't compare the magnitude of the problem, even if the symptoms are similar.

 

[Roxlimn]

I think the symptom that makes me think that is that you think that having Trade Routes define a new and exciting sort of economic system in CivBE is itself a problem. For the first time in the franchise, the decision to improve a tile a certain way or build a certain building in one city has direct influence on the outputs of all the cities connected to it Civ-wide. It's like having a unified MOO2-type economy in my Civ, while still being Civ.

That's frickin' awesome to me, and it puzzles me how so many grognards playing this game can't grok it.

 

[Gort]

I think the symptom that makes me think that is that you think that having Trade Routes define a new and exciting sort of economic system in CivBE is itself a problem. For the first time in the franchise, the decision to improve a tile a certain way or build a certain building in one city has direct influence on the outputs of all the cities connected to it Civ-wide. It's like having a unified MOO2-type economy in my Civ, while still being Civ.

That's frickin' awesome to me, and it puzzles me how so many grognards playing this game can't grok it.

A lot of it's only the result of a bug, so enjoy it while it lasts I suppose.

 

[AlaskA]

That's almost irrelevant. By the time you have Organics, Computers, Spy Agency, and Biowells, it's well into the middle of the game, and you're exchanging mass expansion for Academy Game. Each population in Academy Game is getting +6 Science. Without the massive Science and exploit feedbacks you're using, that's pretty hard to beat.

If you've all those including Academies and Terrascapes, that's well into end game - all the factors that allowed you the win are basically over and done with at that point. At that stage, the game gives you multiple ways to just unshackle Health altogether, not just Biowells.

Wow, great post. U must make game guides, not wasting ur time here.

 

[Haggbart]

I think the symptom that makes me think that is that you think that having Trade Routes define a new and exciting sort of economic system in CivBE is itself a problem. For the first time in the franchise, the decision to improve a tile a certain way or build a certain building in one city has direct influence on the outputs of all the cities connected to it Civ-wide. It's like having a unified MOO2-type economy in my Civ, while still being Civ.

That's frickin' awesome to me, and it puzzles me how so many grognards playing this game can't grok it.

I can't argue that you find it "awesome" and "exciting" the same way you can't argue I find it "tedious" and "boring".

Reducing the number of routes pr city or making it a fixed total like in CiV would at least make it less tedious. Having the formula behind the yields basically the same as now would ensure the system was different from CiV anyway. I don't like the calculations, nor do I think they make sense for the internal routes (despite your numberous posts trying to enlighten us).

If it was supposed to be a must to research TR related techs and max out TRs ASAP in all cities and every situation possible they could might as well have made it a discrete system. No need for the techs, buildings and the units, the only thing you accomplish is the human player gain advantage over the AI.

 

[omniclast]

When you talk about making the TRs matter less, making the game's pace slower, restricting expansion, I hear echoes of people wanting Cottages be scaled back to be Civ 3 roads.

TRs are something that a lot of people have complained about, but you're mistaken if you think trade (or any other specific mechanic) is the issue driving people away from the game. Frustrations with trade are a symptom of a much larger problem -- which is that the game isn't challenging or fun. As I see it, that stems from two core design problems: the AI doesn't know how to play CivBE, and there's no consistent way to play against human players who do.

After taking a good hard look at the game files I really get the sense the AI was poorly ported from Civ5 and wasn't taught how to handle the game's new mechanics -- whether it's trade, or tile improvements, or aircraft, or diplomacy. Even if TRs were nerfed, the AI still wouldn't know how to use them properly, so I doubt that would fix any real problems. In that sense it really is a step back from previous Civ games.

People aren't just whining that BE is not like previous Civ games, they're whining that it's not like previous Civ games in that those games were fun to play and this one isn't. A new and entirely different economy system is great and all, but if it makes it trivial for the human player to win, it's not really an exciting change for most people. Without a challenge -- which is a core feature of ANY good game, not just the Civ franchise -- there's little to engage most gamers.

You may be happy sandboxing and exploring the game's possibilities without any real goal in mind, but I (and most gamers, I think) find that's hardly as fun as playing to beat a competent and indeed difficult opponent. I frankly love the game's flavor, and I really enjoy the breadth of possible strategies to pursue, and I've gotten by so far just by experimenting with them -- but even I have trouble imagining playing against myself for another 200 hours.

 

[Xenotitan]

A lot of it's only the result of a bug, so enjoy it while it lasts I suppose.

What bug?

 

[Roxlimn]

Haggbart:

Reducing the number of routes pr city or making it a fixed total like in CiV would at least make it less tedious. Having the formula behind the yields basically the same as now would ensure the system was different from CiV anyway. I don't like the calculations, nor do I think they make sense for the internal routes (despite your numberous posts trying to enlighten us).

The reason it's tedious is because of the renewal mechanic and because the interface is awful. Those can be fixed.

If it was supposed to be a must to research TR related techs and max out TRs ASAP in all cities and every situation possible they could might as well have made it a discrete system. No need for the techs, buildings and the units, the only thing you accomplish is the human player gain advantage over the AI.

Every single economic system in every Civ ever made is handled by the player better than the AI, even when that player knows nothing about the game!

That's as true for Settler units, worker units, and the entire tile improvement and tile system as it is for Trade Routes. In fact, one of the Call to Power titles did away with Worker units altogether in order to solve this "problem."

omniclast:

People aren't just whining that BE is not like previous Civ games, they're whining that it's not like previous Civ games in that those games were fun to play and this one isn't. A new and entirely different economy system is great and all, but if it makes it trivial for the human player to win, it's not really an exciting change for most people. Without a challenge -- which is a core feature of ANY good game, not just the Civ franchise -- there's little to engage most gamers.

Were you around when Horseman rushing and Axeman rushing made it trivial to conquer the highest difficulty settings in the respective Civ games involved? Are you saying that those situations were better or never happened?

I'm not saying that the AI shouldn't be improved. I'm just saying that this is really par for the course for a Civ game. Cavalry-rushing was problematic for Civ V well into the mid patches.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I really hope Firaxis is getting that message, it's pretty loud and clear.

LOL. Where did I say I had superior knowledge of how to run a game business, exactly? I don't need to know the ins and outs of game publishing to tell that when 45% of the people who try your game drop it within a month, you're doing something wrong.

Apparently, the message was neither as loud nor as clear as you thought it was.

I'd guess that something would be releasing a game that is filled with bugs that a handful of spare-time modders have already been able to fix, or creating a game that has a joke AI and no viable multiplayer setting.

Except they've done that in the past, and the games have still been huge sellers and even rabidly defended by fans. You have just described Civ 3 Vanilla. Somehow, Firaxis has managed to make Civ 4 (which had a horrible AI until they integrated . . . you guessed it, fan patches, and even then, it's not terrific at war -- not to mention that they spent time introducing bugs with their patches), and Civ 5, where, in their attempt to curb ICS, they released a game in which ICS was not only pathetically simple, but an even more superior option than in Civ 4. Releasing a buggy, half-finished game is not a mistake if past successes are any indication.

But you know, I'm just some whiny fan on a forum somewhere, right? And all those kids complaining about Halo not having MP, or Assassin's Creed having see-through character models, they just have "no knowledge of [the developers] expectations for the game", right?

Pretty much. If you're thinking anything other than that the Developer's expectations are to turn a profit vs. development costs, the odds are that you're wrong.

If you think so little of fan opinions, why are you reading CF at all?

I only think very little of some of the opinions of some fans. When tommynt tells me that Petroleum increases tile yield, I don't think much of that opinion. When he tells me that you can mine Titanium with Tectonic Scanner, I have a much greater respect.

When somebody comments that the game would have been better balanced by choosing a different design philosophy, I'm likely to listen, on the basis that they are gamers and have at least a rudimentary understanding of how games work.

When somebody posts usage statistics in order to tell a business what they're doing wrong, I don't wonder why I'm the one on a forum that is meant to discuss a game, not business development and modeling.

There's lots of places you could go stick your head in the sand and be happy about buggy half-finished games, without having to listen to all us unenlightened folk expecting more out of the games we love.

Yes, there are. Those places would be every day of every year since the Atari 2600 released E.T. (Which I was around for, just so you know.) There are games I have been happy with, and games I have been unhappy with, but the last game I was disappointed with because it was buggy was Black & White, because I got a CTD every single time. This has not happened to me with BE. The last game I was unhappy with for being half-finished was The Sith Lords, because missing the last half of a story-based RPG doesn't really give you a sense of closure.

The reason I was disappointed with Civ 3 was not because it was buggy or half-finished. I was disappointed because I felt the design decisions were a step backward from Alpha Centauri. I loved Alpha Centauri, which was definitely buggy (Transcend difficulty maintenance and auto-elite units, anyone?)

From the standpoint of whether a game is financially successful, there isn't a discernible relation to whether a bunch of forum posters call it "half-finished."

The history of video games itself tells us that there's no particular relation between whether a game is financially successful and whether it has bugs upon release. This was true even in the days when patching was much less convenient than it is now. And, in fact, it was true in the days when there were no such thing as patches, and yet buggy games were released anyway.

If it is true that I am hiding my head in the sand (which is itself an odd accusation -- apparently bringing up bugs on the bug report forum and making suggestions for improvement on the suggestion forum qualify as hiding my head in the sand?), I don't mind too much. The view is clearer and the odor haler than a lot of what gets slung around on the forums.

 

[spider1]

I would like to see the ability to refuse a station. I just had two in a row plop themselves down right where I wanted to send a settler.

If nothing else, someone should mod that if it's possible. I use a mod for trade routes now so they don't bother me.

 

[Haggbart]

Haggbart:



The reason it's tedious is because of the renewal mechanic and because the interface is awful. Those can be fixed.



Every single economic system in every Civ ever made is handled by the player better than the AI, even when that player knows nothing about the game!

That's as true for Settler units, worker units, and the entire tile improvement and tile system as it is for Trade Routes. In fact, one of the Call to Power titles did away with Worker units altogether in order to solve this "problem."

omniclast:



Were you around when Horseman rushing and Axeman rushing made it trivial to conquer the highest difficulty settings in the respective Civ games involved? Are you saying that those situations were better or never happened?

I'm not saying that the AI shouldn't be improved. I'm just saying that this is really par for the course for a Civ game. Cavalry-rushing was problematic for Civ V well into the mid patches.

No.
The reason why I find TRs tedious is NOT UI. I happen to like micromanagment. I haven't automated a worker in probably 15 years. And I've played and enjoyed strategy games with far worse UI and far more micromanagment.

If we look at CiV for comparison, there are several different things that would decide the optimal order of build and teching as well as city placement (I know you don't care about optimal, but adapting to circumstances and chosing the best possible strategy is what strategy games are about to a lot of people). Who are my neighbours? Are there city states nearby? Do I have iron or horses? Can I build cities by the sea? How many workers do I want pr city? Is there a lot of jungle or forrests nearby? Are there any natural wonders nearby?

In BE I should allways go for TR techs ASAP. Max out TRs ASAP. City placement doesn't matter because of TRs. I beat apollo easily with huge help of the TRs in my first game without having the faintest idea of how the yields were calculated.
I know you will draw parallels to earlier Civ-games about how easy it was to beat the hardest level if you only knew this and that exploit. Well, a lot of exploits got patched out, and I do hope TRs get the same treatment.

I get that the AI doesn't perform as well as human players in any parts of the game, but the magnitude of the problem is increased a lot with TRs having such huge impact. I'm offering a simple sollution to the problem if the current impact of TRs are indeed a design decision: make it a discrete mechanics that the AI can use. I get that the same could be said about workers etc., but the impact of the problem is just so much bigger. It would be like tiles that gives 15 of a given yield when improved that the AI consistantly doesn't improve.

 

[Roxlimn]

I think you're getting some things wrong, Haggbart.

1. The "TR tech" is Pioneering which is bundled with Colonists. You should always prioritize Colonists, not TRs, first. There's no point to making TRs if you have no targets. so maxxing TRs at every opportunity is not a good strategy.

2. The second "TR tech" is Robotics. Once again, it is not clear that beelining Autoplant is superior, and it specifically gets in the way of a Bionics Battlesuit slingshot, and delays a Xenomalleum slingshot. It is only advisable (once again), if you have enough targets to maximize the TRs. Without enough targets, more TRs doesn't do you any good.

3. Even Internal TRs are limited by the output and differentials you can create. If you don't have the tiles or the tech to create differentials, and you have no viable external targets, your focus on TRs would be a complete waste.

All of those factors matter.

If you have no neighbors, you can't max TRs in your capital early. You won't have targets. If you have neighbors but they're obscured by fog of war or Miasma, same thing. If you have neighbors, and they're not obscured, but the way is infested with Aliens, it's arguably more important to get Ecology to protect your routes.

It's not quite as simple as you're making it out to be.

As for city placement not mattering, you're clearly playing some other CivBE than I am, because in the CivBE I'm playing, a Coastal Capital with Continental Surveyor is a huge leg up on a TR-focused expansion and game; and in such a game, placing all of my expansion cities on coast reachable by my capital is a major placement issue. Doing all of these things literally boosts all my internal trade outputs by 50%. That's a really big difference.

I get that the AI doesn't perform as well as human players in any parts of the game, but the magnitude of the problem is increased a lot with TRs having such huge impact. I'm offering a simple sollution to the problem if the current impact of TRs are indeed a design decision: make it a discrete mechanics that the AI can use. I get that the same could be said about workers etc., but the impact of the problem is just so much bigger. It would be like tiles that gives 15 of a given yield when improved that the AI consistantly doesn't improve.

I think you underestimate just how much the Civ IV AI sucked at improving its tiles. The AI was losing way more than just 15 yield per city given that each tile could yield 4 Trade or more. The AI was improved with fanmade solutions.

The AI could also be simply optimized in CivBE for maximum output. It's not like a sorting algorithm would be hard. Just making one for the UI would simplify AI matters immensely.

 

[Haggbart]

I think you're getting some things wrong, Haggbart.

1. The "TR tech" is Pioneering which is bundled with Colonists. You should always prioritize Colonists, not TRs, first. There's no point to making TRs if you have no targets. so maxxing TRs at every opportunity is not a good strategy.

2. The second "TR tech" is Robotics. Once again, it is not clear that beelining Autoplant is superior, and it specifically gets in the way of a Bionics Battlesuit slingshot, and delays a Xenomalleum slingshot. It is only advisable (once again), if you have enough targets to maximize the TRs. Without enough targets, more TRs doesn't do you any good.

3. Even Internal TRs are limited by the output and differentials you can create. If you don't have the tiles or the tech to create differentials, and you have no viable external targets, your focus on TRs would be a complete waste.

All of those factors matter.

If you have no neighbors, you can't max TRs in your capital early. You won't have targets. If you have neighbors but they're obscured by fog of war or Miasma, same thing. If you have neighbors, and they're not obscured, but the way is infested with Aliens, it's arguably more important to get Ecology to protect your routes.

It's not quite as simple as you're making it out to be.

As for city placement not mattering, you're clearly playing some other CivBE than I am, because in the CivBE I'm playing, a Coastal Capital with Continental Surveyor is a huge leg up on a TR-focused expansion and game; and in such a game, placing all of my expansion cities on coast reachable by my capital is a major placement issue. Doing all of these things literally boosts all my internal trade outputs by 50%. That's a really big difference.



I think you underestimate just how much the Civ IV AI sucked at improving its tiles. The AI was losing way more than just 15 yield per city given that each tile could yield 4 Trade or more. The AI was improved with fanmade solutions.

The AI could also be simply optimized in CivBE for maximum output. It's not like a sorting algorithm would be hard. Just making one for the UI would simplify AI matters immensely.

*sigh*. The fact that you even consider city placement to matter in this context makes the discussion futile. To be perfectly clear: it matters if you want the game to be over in 180 turns rather than 200 turns. But it doesn't matter one bit to beat Apollo or not, because it's a big fat red insta-win button as long as you bother to make enough cities and TRs even if all your cities are buried in snow and have no workers.

 

[Roxlimn]

But that's just because the Apollo AI isn't buffed enough and the higher settings don't penalize the player enough. If you really want, you could ask, instead, for a -80% Science penalty on Apollo. That'd surely give you the challenge you're looking for. There being an optimized route and a non-optimized route clearly means that it's not a nothing thing.

You're not winning because of TRs, anymore than you're winning because you bother to improve tiles. Maybe we should nerf tiles, too. And Colonists. They're clearly too powerful.

I'm not saying you're obligated to like TRs, but saying that placement doesn't matter or tech route doesn't matter - both of those are just flat wrong.

 

[Haggbart]

But that's just because the Apollo AI isn't buffed enough and the higher settings don't penalize the player enough. If you really want, you could ask, instead, for a -80% Science penalty on Apollo. That'd surely give you the challenge you're looking for. There being an optimized route and a non-optimized route clearly means that it's not a nothing thing.

You're not winning because of TRs, anymore than you're winning because you bother to improve tiles. Maybe we should nerf tiles, too. And Colonists. They're clearly too powerful.

I'm not saying you're obligated to like TRs, but saying that placement doesn't matter or tech route doesn't matter - both of those are just flat wrong.

Okay, to rephrase myself: it doesn't matter ENOUGH, there, happy?

I get that tiles and colonists are what in the end make the TRs potent, I just hate the way the mechanics get you to basically repeat the same process (with some small variations) every game. If there was a building called THE MULTIPLIER somewhere in the tech tree, that would take each tile yield and multiply it by 10, you could make the exact same argument: that colonists, tiles and workers were overpowered, not THE MULTIPLIER because it was only based on tile yields. It doesn't make it a good idea just because you could somehow use semantics to justify it.

In the end it's down to preferances, and I'm pleased to see that a large majority agree with me that TRs need to be nerfed.

 

[Roxlimn]

If THE MULTIPLIER were bundled in with Colonists, then it really doesn't make a difference that "it's in the tech tree." It's basically assumed that you'll be playing with it as a major mechanic on par with, er, settling.

The reasons for why the TRs are a good and refreshing idea are discussed in the TR thread.

Every time you make a new city, you basically repeat the same process in every city, for most of the Civ license. That's why people have been asking for a pastable build queue.

These things are not just semantics. Basically, I'm just pointing out that most of the stuff being hurled at Trade Routes are essentially nonsense complaints. It's not my fault they're nonsense. I'm not the one making these things up.

Like I said there, you can just say you don't like them and leave it at that. That's a stronger statement. Saying "I don't like them because [provably wrong thing]" or "Trade Routes are a bad mechanc because [thing that's true for every game mechanic in Civ]," - can you blame me for finding them hilariously offbase?

EDIT:

Okay, to rephrase myself: it doesn't matter ENOUGH, there, happy?

First off, if TRs are a major influence and placement of the city alters its effect by as much as 50% or more (as much as 100% if the city happens to be isolated), then I really don't get how much more you want the placement to affect the city. 110%? 1000% Over 9000%? Is that even advisable?

Secondly, terraforming and making inhospitable places viable is one of the major themes of CivBE. That's what the Terrascape is for. It's supposed to make literally even snow tiles and placements useful. If you can place any city anywhere and gain something useful from it, then isn't that kind of Mission Accomplished?

The most amusing thing about this is that it's not even true. Given a choice between a coastal location with two Titanium tiles and a Coastal location with snow, you should clearly settle the one with 2 Titanium tiles first. I mean, unless there's something you can do with snow I don't know about...

 

[SupremacyKing2]

In this whole trade route debate, I would point out that trade has always been hugely important in real life. Take any major metropolis like New York City or Hong Kong. They did not become great metropolises because of tile location. It's international trade that was the major factor in making them grow to such huge financial powerhouses.

 

[Haggbart]

If THE MULTIPLIER were bundled in with Colonists, then it really doesn't make a difference that "it's in the tech tree." It's basically assumed that you'll be playing with it as a major mechanic on par with, er, settling.

The reasons for why the TRs are a good and refreshing idea are discussed in the TR thread.

Every time you make a new city, you basically repeat the same process in every city, for most of the Civ license. That's why people have been asking for a pastable build queue.

These things are not just semantics. Basically, I'm just pointing out that most of the stuff being hurled at Trade Routes are essentially nonsense complaints. It's not my fault they're nonsense. I'm not the one making these things up.

Like I said there, you can just say you don't like them and leave it at that. That's a stronger statement. Saying "I don't like them because [provably wrong thing]" or "Trade Routes are a bad mechanc because [thing that's true for every game mechanic in Civ]," - can you blame me for finding them hilariously offbase?

EDIT:



First off, if TRs are a major influence and placement of the city alters its effect by as much as 50% or more (as much as 100% if the city happens to be isolated), then I really don't get how much more you want the placement to affect the city. 110%? 1000% Over 9000%? Is that even advisable?

Secondly, terraforming and making inhospitable places viable is one of the major themes of CivBE. That's what the Terrascape is for. It's supposed to make literally even snow tiles and placements useful. If you can place any city anywhere and gain something useful from it, then isn't that kind of Mission Accomplished?

The most amusing thing about this is that it's not even true. Given a choice between a coastal location with two Titanium tiles and a Coastal location with snow, you should clearly settle the one with 2 Titanium tiles first. I mean, unless there's something you can do with snow I don't know about...

Again, you have made up your mind on the matter. So have most others including the devs, so let's see what the patch does.

What is hilarious is that you have decided why others don't like the mechanics and think it's tedious (the UI) while throwing around words like "exiting", "awesome", "fresh" to why you like it - all of which are of no meaning to all who disagree. Also I found it quite hillarious that you had so strong opinions on the TRs impact on apollo level before you had even tried it. Not to mention that penalties to health would somehow fix the problem.

 

[Roxlimn]

I never specified my opinions were specifically at the Apollo setting before I tried it. Indeed, they're more generally applicable for the reason that I formed them out of experiences at multiple difficulty settings in the game. Arguably, if your opinion is formed only from a small segment of the settings, then there is an onus to specify so.

Too many Apollo-only players presume that the difficulty levels below Apollo are "the same, only easier." This betrays an arrogance and an ignorance about game mechanics onto which I've been at pains to throw light. Apollo isn't necessarily harder just because the game says so. You don't necessarily know how the game is at different settings just because you're playing on Apollo.

Honestly? Apollo is at Emperor level. I could tell that just by counting up from Sputnik and counting off normal Civ levels. It's not that hard. Playing at it gives you no special insight, other than conditions specific to that setting.

I think adding penalties to negative health will probably fix the expansion problem, presumptively because health is the governing mechanic for controlling expansion. I'm not sure how that's a far-fetched idea.