I really, really hope that Firaxis doesn't abandon Beyond Earth. It's a solid *template* for a good game, the art assets & music are nice, the affinities could be flavorful... but... it absolutely needs more work. Like, 6 months of work and patching, think Blizzard & Diablo 3. I'll try and be brief in the hopes that someone at Firaxis actually reads this. There are three major areas that I'll call out:
* Reduce tedium. Trade route micromanagement, Exodus Gate spawning / Earthing Settlers having 1 move, etc. It's been said.
* Fix the flavor. Let Beyond Earth stand on its own apart from Civ5. Why is the world map hidden when I'm launching satellites? What's up with the bland virtue trees compared to SMAC's Social Engineering, or Civ4/Civ5 Governments / Policies? Why are the leader comments so lackadaisical? Why is there no planetary council when drastic, whole-planet affecting things like terraforming are theoretically going on?
* Increase diversity of playstyles and options. Playing as Harmony should be radically different than terraforming the Planet as Purity, which should be radically different than Supremacy robots. Within an Affinity, I should care if I picked up certain Wonders with unique powers, and what Virtues I've invested in. This is the big one, the long-term one, and fixing it should directly help the flavor concern above. Because it isn't true right now. Each affinity gets nice new art but it's all glorified bigger numbers. Who cares.
Here's the kicker, and where I disagree with some of the other posters: the above objectives should be pursued without particular regard to balance. Oh, don't get me wrong, balance is important too, but if Supremacy ends up slightly better than Purity in competitive play, whatever. It's far *more* important that the three play differently, that they all have notable strengths and notable weakness, that there's a flavor tie-in. And it's equally important that the game be fast & fun to play without tedium. Balance can always be fixed after the fact; if it isn't *fun*, there's a more fundamental problem afoot.
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Okay, longer rambling, feel free to read along if interested, but mostly I hope those three areas are focused on. More personal thoughts here; feel free to ignore, etc.
Along the above lines, I'm actually fine with per-city trade routes as a way to distinguish BE from Civ5. The problem is both that they're crazy OP and they're tedious. If they're nerfed, guess what, there's still tedium. But.. wait... there's a solution. Just do what SMAC & Civ4 did: have trade-routes be 100% automatic, no alien / hostile interception or anything, and have big bonuses to them when they're to allies to encourage the diplomatic side of the game to matter at all. Of course, they'll need to be nerfed to make up for that fact, but that's *fine*. Kill internal trade routes, they are dumb and flavorless. (If you're friendless in the world, you *should* have a problem, not extra food & production.)
The lack of a planetary council or the impressive terraforming SMAC offered is just weird, especially since Civ5 had the UN / World Congress already. Find a sci-fi author, ask them 10 things that would have global impacts on an alien world that would likely require lots of resources / collaboration, and then apply as many as you can to be voted on.
The Wonders... it's been said before. Never mind that they're weak; weak would be fine if you want to have less feast-or-famine gameplay based on whether they're sniped or not. The problem is that they're BORING. None of them have any flash or sizzle. Flat production increases? Yawn. Wonders should be like Rares / Mythic Rares in Magic: The Gathering; you can't simply throw big stats to get people to care. They need to do something unique & interesting. A few simple ones are fine (e.g. Stonehenge in Civ5, which provides just Faith, but a lot of it early before you can normally get that much...), but later ones need to shine. Even something like "double science in this city" would be fine (that was a SMAC Secret Project). But mostly, let's see weird unique effects that can't be duplicated. If the AI can't use it well? TOO BAD! Do it anyway. See SMAC, which had all sorts of crazy features that the AI wasn't super-great at using. More flavor would be nice here too; the current Wonders manage to be flavorless in both lore & gameplay, a bad combo. Again, it's okay if the Wonders are still "weak"; make them cost a lot of production if you want, but they should be *interesting* and do something noticeable if you manage to build them.
The Virtues need a total overhaul. The current 4 branches are bland goodstuff. Who doesn't want all of Might, Prosperity, Research, and Knowledge? There's no tradeoff there! And they all give a pile of largely the same kind of stat boosts. Honestly, BNW ideologies could be a little *too* flexible, but look at G&K Freedom / Order / Autocracy - they all asked very different things of your empire, and did notably different things, and they all clashed with each other. Now, G&K Autocracy was a tad weak (if I'm conquering the world, give me the happiness boost from the Order opener), but hey, it was different & flavorful. In SMAC, a Green economy was very different than Free Market which was quite different from Planned - a decision I have to make even if I'm not Morgan or Deidre.
While reminiscing about SMAC, look back at just combat in SMAC. Deidre's horde of mindworms was qualitatively different (you need high morale to combat it). Morgan's probe teams & giant bank account was diferent. Yang's endless stream of units was different than Santiago's smaller but more elite units. Throw in a bunch of customizations that quite mattered (get AA units vs. aircraft, get Trance units vs. Mindworms), and even weird touches like the ability to equip nerve gas pods to your troops if you don't mind economic sanctions. The differences in BE's combat units are far, far too subtle. It's just the big number in the combat value that matters. Not that I particularly want to fight anyway, because the Affinities don't feel set up to clash enough as is.
So, yeah. Please offer more ways of playing the game. You can't just use different art but have the same small bonuses under the hood. Go back to Sid Meier's maxim about a few big choices rather than lots of small choices. BE has lots of small choices currently that don't matter, yet the one theoretical big choice you have, the choice of Affinity, doesn't really vary the playstyle. This is a huge killer to replayability. SMAC has endless Faction power + Social Engineering combos; the Civ5 civ bonuses + policy choices are hugely and significantly different; hell, even something like Civ1/Civ2 has wonders & government choice that matter more than BE Affinities currently.
Please, please, PLEASE, Firaxis, keep at it. This *could* yet be a worthy game. I hope it gets there.
