Are journalists covering BE required to only ask bland/uninteresting questions?

To be fair I think they had a vision of having the aliens being an early stepping stone to starting down an affinity path (in deciding how to handle the aliens that is), just that they completely dropped the ball in actually implementing any such thing and instead gave us oddly skinned barbs that act a bit weird.

Yeah, this is pretty much it. It feels like they wanted to do more with aliens but didn't have time/budget/appropriately skilled personnel, so instead they're difficult to differentiate from the barbarians they were based on.

Does anyone else think that both the barbarian camps and alien nests would be far more interesting a mechanic if the reward for clearing them was the same as an ancient ruin or resource pod? It'd certainly feel more rewarding than the tiny amount of money you currently get.
 
Well, with the new artifact system, you get alien artifacts from clearing nests, so that's a step in the right direction at least.
 
Yeah, this is pretty much it. It feels like they wanted to do more with aliens but didn't have time/budget/appropriately skilled personnel, so instead they're difficult to differentiate from the barbarians they were based on.

Does anyone else think that both the barbarian camps and alien nests would be far more interesting a mechanic if the reward for clearing them was the same as an ancient ruin or resource pod? It'd certainly feel more rewarding than the tiny amount of money you currently get.

A food boost could also be sufficiently rewarding, and it would seem more fitting.
 
Then I would gladly declare that I am a cat person.

I like the barb as in Civ 4 BTS. They are at the same technological as everyone while the world is largely unclaimed, and according to how city defense worked back then, your city essentially at their mercy when barbarian send spearman against city guarded by a warrior. I also the kind of people who turn on raging barbarian and rushing for The Great Wall in Civ 4.

In CivBE, alien rarely a challenge on land in early game and didn't grow stronger when game progress. I wish the alien being limiting factor in growth to the player who guard their settler, and being threat to city that can't be removed by simply putting up a fence.

Every time someone makes an "amusing" joke about developer competencies, a puppy dies.

Time and / or budget are likely explanations for most things, in most games, though.
 
Then I would gladly declare that I am a cat person.

I like the barb as in Civ 4 BTS. They are at the same technological as everyone while the world is largely unclaimed, and according to how city defense worked back then, your city essentially at their mercy when barbarian send spearman against city guarded by a warrior. I also the kind of people who turn on raging barbarian and rushing for The Great Wall in Civ 4.

In CivBE, alien rarely a challenge on land in early game and didn't grow stronger when game progress. I wish the alien being limiting factor in growth to the player who guard their settler, and being threat to city that can't be removed by simply putting up a fence.

Really?

You prefer a "throw of a dice" system that civ 4 has to civ 5's combat mechanics? Great Wall aside, civ 4 merely just rewards stacking units. Perhaps I've played civ 4 wrong (very likely if I can't get past warlord without a stack of doom AI bothering me within 100 turns after bullying me), but if the way to play civ 4 is to spend time building units to defend yourself just against barbs in a system where stacking your chances is skill, then the combat in civ 4 is entirely flawed.

Besides, barbarians in civ 5 advance also in tech, so I don't know why you're only referring to civ 4 here.

In civBE, you are right in that their strength doesn't scale over time which is a pity, but having them scale to technology would make no sense: they're aliens, not rebel humans. I refer to my earlier idea that aliens should get stronger when more aggressive, like up to 50% on red level. At that point, a siege worm or a kraken could really threaten one of your cities.
 
Really?

You prefer a "throw of a dice" system that civ 4 has to civ 5's combat mechanics?
AI asides, if you are asking me to throw a dice or spamming composite bowman and tear down everything but a city then I choose throwing a dice. There's a lot more factor than just "throw of a dice" in combat.

Great Wall aside, civ 4 merely just rewards stacking units. Perhaps I've played civ 4 wrong (very likely if I can't get past warlord without a stack of doom AI bothering me within 100 turns after bullying me), but if the way to play civ 4 is to spend time building units to defend yourself just against barbs in a system where stacking your chances is skill, then the combat in civ 4 is entirely flawed.

Probably because I wish Civ should be an empire-building game instead of war game with empire-building element. I don't mind if anyone (especially dev) think otherwise.
I prefer strength of an empire/nation judged from capability of cities to produce more so than Civ5 did, and an AI sending an army three-times bigger against several unit of ranged unit. The result should be the same whether it was played by human or AI

Besides, barbarians in civ 5 advance also in tech, so I don't know why you're only referring to civ 4 here.

Because tech advance in Civ5 barbarian generally make them harder to kill but Civ4 make them able to take down your city.

In civBE, you are right in that their strength doesn't scale over time which is a pity, but having them scale to technology would make no sense: they're aliens, not rebel humans. I refer to my earlier idea that aliens should get stronger when more aggressive, like up to 50% on red level. At that point, a siege worm or a kraken could really threaten one of your cities.

Alien bonus from aggressive is a thing, but I envision scaling Alien unit to technology or affinity as representation of research mistakes. Imagine something like experimental version of Earth Kudzu or Killer Bee or invasive species, mutation of lifeform due to exposure to Earth's gene, Harmony Humans turn mad or rogue machines, or maybe just Planet's attempt to stop building Mind Flower.
 
Just going over these two interviews, it's actually quite shocking how little these interviewers seem to want to know about this game.
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Yeah, this is pretty much it. It feels like they wanted to do more with aliens but didn't have time/budget/appropriately skilled personnel, so instead they're difficult to differentiate from the barbarians they were based on.

Does anyone else think that both the barbarian camps and alien nests would be far more interesting a mechanic if the reward for clearing them was the same as an ancient ruin or resource pod? It'd certainly feel more rewarding than the tiny amount of money you currently get.

Makes me wonder what the next expansion will have.

More alien variety and gameplay.

4 more factions.

More biomes and maybe a global event/quest system.

What else?
 
Makes me wonder what the next expansion will have.

More alien variety and gameplay.

4 more factions.

More biomes and maybe a global event/quest system.

What else?

Air units certainly and maybe a new function of the orbital layer.
 
Makes me wonder what the next expansion will have.

More alien variety and gameplay.

4 more factions.

More biomes and maybe a global event/quest system.

What else?

Alien factions. I don't care if they make them nonplayable, I want something more to contend with that frail puny hoooomans and space beetles.
 
Makes me wonder what the next expansion will have.

More alien variety and gameplay.

4 more factions.

More biomes and maybe a global event/quest system.

What else?

New alien species would be cool, maybe more flying ones so that they can threaten land and sea? They can even be "unseen" ones, which infect tiles with some alien looking goo or fungus and needs to be cleaned. This could happen if you linger too long in unhealthiness -- and the deeper you go into unhealth, the less time it takes for it to start appearing on tiles. Maybe it even slowly damages units on them, like miasma.

Gameplay-wise, I'd like to see an expanded and more fleshed-out orbital layer, along with better air gameplay (it's sci-fi... you GOTTA focus on air in the next/last expansion). We can't just focus on the ground and water like a traditional Civ game.

Maybe unique new orbital resources can be space-mined and exploited for new types of units/buildings.

Maybe tacjets can take to the orbital layer and move much like a normal unit would, instead of having to be based within a city or carrier. When attacking below, you perform the swooping attack action from the skies and return to the orbital layer. But from there you can also be shot down by units which can fire at satellites.

Maybe carriers can upgrade to a hovering early starship which can carry the upgraded tacjets. They can also fly up to the orbital layer and move around there as well and protect tacjets from being shot down since it'll take a lot of missiles to shoot down a starship within the orbital layer.

Four new factions would be great. They don't need to be based on countries either; they can just be corporations, cults, etc. Basically, any kind of group that can create/buy or conquer/steal a seeding ship.

Non-playable, intelligent, and powerful alien factions could starting making planetfall midgame to spice up the later half of the game. Or instead, maybe even a couple technologically advanced human factions from another planet which have been seeded much earlier than your own can start appearing and colonizing your planet. They would always be hostile, though, since it's a pretty aggressive act -- they're strong and everybody else is weak, so they're there to conquer you. These late NPC factions could also be a random affinity combination in an advanced state -- you could be dealing with a cyborg supremacy leader, alien-like harmony one, a monstrous harmony/supremacy leader, a cold and pretentious purity/supremacy leader that looks down upon you and has all kinds of gizmos and things worn on them, a purity space admiral, etc. (Though, I still think aliens would be better, and wouldn't need to be hostile towards factions all the time, plus they wouldn't be competitors, they'd be truly neutral things to interact with.)

Psionics can be introduced and be a sort of mystical side to the game which players can develop towards. In some ways, it can perform similar to religion in Civ 5. Great people can be reintroduced, but instead, they're called Gifted Ones and are periodically discovered or born in your empires depending on the amount of psi you're accumulating, and can be used to perform great things.

Hybrid affinities can be fleshed-out more and made into their own affinities alongside the primary ones. Own title, icon, complete unit and city graphics, more unique upgrade abilities instead of copying the primary ones, maybe even their own unique victory types. Though, everything is still based off of those three primary affinity point types -- just like with colors. You don't call crayons blue/yellow or red/blue, they're green and purple.

Biome-wise, I can't really think of any other types, at the moment. I think things are covered pretty well.

Oh, and call it all Falling Skies! :D
 
In order of need:
Rebels and Foreign Influence
general rebalancing
Aliens that get stronger(sponsored by Harmony players that choose to do so)
Global Terraforming
Better station mechanics
4 new factions

No intelligent aliens/psi please...might as well have time travel (things that should stay victory conditions)
Air/Orbital improvement would be OK, but not needed
 
Every time someone makes an "amusing" joke about developer competencies, a puppy dies.

Time and / or budget are likely explanations for most things, in most games, though.

Yes, because as we all know developers are entirely immune to questions of competency and never make errors in judgement ever. In fact it's the only profession in the world beyond being the great leader of best Korea where you can't get the job in the first place if you aren't an idealized Übermensch.

I suspect time and budget limitations did play a role in various failings of course, but lets not pretend we're talking about veteran developers who's abilities are beyond questioning here.

Makes me wonder what the next expansion will have

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the rumours already swirling that CiVI is set to drop some time next year? If that's accurate I wouldn't hold my breath for another expansion (never mind we've yet to see how BERT is received). Mind you I didn't think BE was gonna get any expansion in the first place, so hey. :crazyeye:
 
Personally, I'd rather they worked doubly hard on refining the current systems and improving the AI to some degree of competency instead of continuing to pile on new features it won't know how to properly use.
 
Stations and victories are a big one.

Also overhauling the tech web and virtue tree.
 
Personally, I'd rather they worked doubly hard on refining the current systems and improving the AI to some degree of competency instead of continuing to pile on new features it won't know how to properly use.
the AI will remain the same with tweaks.
working on current systems is a no-no, because Firaxis cannot sell the same game mechanics twice.

second expansion material:
stations, VCs, specialists, additional sources of affinity xp (!!), great people (!!), virtues tied to affinity, maybe a religion-like affinity spreading mechanic? :goodjob:
 
Yes, because as we all know developers are entirely immune to questions of competency and never make errors in judgement ever. In fact it's the only profession in the world beyond being the great leader of best Korea where you can't get the job in the first place if you aren't an idealized Übermensch.

I suspect time and budget limitations did play a role in various failings of course, but lets not pretend we're talking about veteran developers who's abilities are beyond questioning here.
It's a good thing I said nothing of the sort, then :)
 
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