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

[Lord Shadow]

As an alternative to Aliens, I think late Sponsors could be far more interesting.

Before BE released it sounded like a late landing sponsor could really shake things up, but in practice they all land by the early game.

What if a sponsor could land in the mid-game with a strong military and powerful capital at the start, and quickly seek to expand?

They could either start with or rapidly adopt an affinity and really stir the pot as a wild card in the game.

Toss in more mid-game affinity wars, and that could make the mid-game far more interesting without breaking the theme.

I know we keep drifting off-topic, but in essence this is a lot like a concept I had written down, about an AI-only human faction which would land en force in the late game, sporting overpowered bonuses.

Essentially, the concept was that Earth somehow pulled through its calamities, got back on its feet and eventually sends a military vanguard to reclaim its rightful governance over the Seeding-born colonies. Upon landing, the faction leader (tentatively named Marshal Cortez) would congratulate the player for safeguarding humanity's interests for all these decades/centuries, and basically end his ingratiating speech with "we'll take it from here".

At which point you (and every other player) can decide whether to ally with the Terrans and crush those who would oppose Earth's rule, or become a rebel yourself. There would be time constraints to this "independence war", as the Terrans would start building a sort of reverse Supremacy gate upon arrival. If completed, all resistance would be doomed. There would be two new victories, depending on whether you won as a rebel or as a loyalist.

I had brainstormed a bunch of city names and unit names, since the Terrans would have a whole unique unit tree (corresponding to a unique pseudo-affinity), graphically a mix of reskinned, grey-and-purple Purity and Supremacy units.

But the development challenges, graphics and code-wise, coupled with the possibility of BE's dubious AI ultimately dooming everything, kept this idea of mine on the drawing board.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Essentially, the concept was that Earth somehow pulled through its calamities, got back on its feet and eventually sends a military vanguard to reclaim its rightful governance over the Seeding-born colonies. Upon landing, the faction leader (tentatively named Marshal Cortez) would congratulate the player for safeguarding humanity's interests for all these decades/centuries, and basically end his ingratiating speech with "we'll take it from here".

At which point you (and every other player) can decide whether to ally with the Terrans and crush those who would oppose Earth's rule, or become a rebel yourself. There would be time constraints to this "independence war", as the Terrans would start building a sort of reverse Supremacy gate upon arrival. If completed, all resistance would be doomed. There would be two new victories, depending on whether you won as a rebel or as a loyalist.

I like this idea a lot!!!! I think it would be good if it happened randomly towards the late game. That way, players could try to win before they arrive but it would serve to shake things up if the game drags on too long.

 

[Galgus]

I don't think this would need to be limited to a single Earth faction, coming, but I like the idea of an Earth faction coming.

There could be possibly a sort of random chance on what happened to Earth after the seeding, with anything between Earth becoming incapable of sending more ships to Marauders to such a coalition.

It would certainly make reestablishing contact with Earth more interesting.

I'd not a fan of hard lose conditions with the gate, but I think it would be interesting if they sent progressively more and scarier units through that make resistance difficult.

I'm a bit worried that this would draw some focus away from the affinities, but it could work.
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Looking at Starships, it could potentially even be expeditionary forces with their origins in other seeding operations.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

SMAC had the game mechanic of the planet increasingly revolting against the human factions to give the game some urgency in the late stage. I think a mechanic like that is good. Having a strong earth faction come to the planet in the late game would do that.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

SMAC had the game mechanic of the planet increasingly revolting against the human factions to give the game some urgency in the late stage. I think a mechanic like that is good. Having a strong earth faction come to the planet in the late game would do that.

I think it would be better if that was done by other players.

Mechanism for other players to cause you unhealth as their propaganda/influence spreads and affinities grow farther apart

Mechanism for Harmony players to strengthen the natives so they stay (or again become) competitive.

 

[Galgus]

Good old fashion wars would also help, but that would require getting the AI to build respectable armies and stop being docile kittens.

 

[Lord Shadow]

I don't think this would need to be limited to a single Earth faction, coming, but I like the idea of an Earth faction coming.

There could be possibly a sort of random chance on what happened to Earth after the seeding, with anything between Earth becoming incapable of sending more ships to Marauders to such a coalition.

It would certainly make reestablishing contact with Earth more interesting.

I'd not a fan of hard lose conditions with the gate, but I think it would be interesting if they sent progressively more and scarier units through that make resistance difficult.

I'm a bit worried that this would draw some focus away from the affinities, but it could work.
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Looking at Starships, it could potentially even be expeditionary forces with their origins in other seeding operations.

Well, it's true that it'd alter the tone of the endgame. A strong Earth would preclude both the Emancipation and Promise Land victories, for example. So the mod would be better seen as a special game mode which can't fully coexist with vanilla Beyond Earth.

I suppose the whole concept was jointly inspired by Starcraft's United Earth Directorate and Colonization's Royal Expeditionary Force. Similar vibes. The Terran vanguard's units could even be traditionally more powerful but unable to benefit entirely from the planet's alien terrain. Perhaps specially vulnerable to miasma, as well.

Oh well, it's mostly a pipe dream. I can show more of my notes and some graphics concepts once I get home from work, if anyone's interested. Probably in a proper, different thread.

 

[Galgus]

It would be a fun scenario at very least, though I still need to play them in Civ 5.

(Since I exclusively play Marathon games playing standard speed scenarios is a bit daunting.)

What-could-be scenarios would generally be fun in BE, though obviously none of them would be solid canon.
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I'd be interested to see those.

 

[Westwall]

Animalistic aliens and more advanced yet passive artifacts and ruins serve as a background/secondary component, adding some colour to a story in which humanity remains the protagonist.

Throw in an active/playable alien civilization (somehow) on par with or more advanced than the human factions and they steal the spotlight the theme puts on our species.

That's the idea, how well you steal the spotlight back is predicated on how well you play the game. If you aren't able to beat the scene-stealing aliens, then frankly they deserve to bask in the rays of glory while you lament the folly of human hubris. Duh. Did you really think that was a possibility we as a species would never have to face? Time to wake up and smell the cosmic insignificance.

If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Not to mention the fact most of the game's systems (especially the affinities) are geared towards humans, and the effort required to adapt them to sapient aliens would be colossal, enough to warrant a completely different game. That is, unless you just want to lazily rename/reskin affinities, virtues, buildings and techs, and pretend diplomacy, trade and espionage would work exactly the same with aliens as it does between humans. But I can't fathom how such extraterretrials would be remotely interesting.

You can't, but the designers probably can. Unless they're hacks.

And who says they need to use the affinity system? Maybe they can just be NPCs like I already said.

I honestly can't believe you feel this threatened by the possibility of intelligent aliens that you'd actually keep them out of the game.

I hope you steer clear of the GalCiv series or SMAC with expansion or most every other sci fi 4x or I bet you're really going to freak the hell out.

 

[Lord Shadow]

Take a chill pill, Westwall. I'm not the one feeling threatened and taking it personal.

You have your perspective and I have mine. I'm sorry if that poses a problem to you.

Thematic and feasibility objections aside, I simply don't believe conveniently equivalent intelligent aliens are mandatory in every single 4X space game.

 

[Westwall]

Who said anything about equivalent?

 

[GenEngineer]

If they were to be included, they would have to be equivalently intelligent from a mechanical standpoint- too much smarter and you'd be wondering why they weren't wiping the floor with us, not smart enough and their the alien life already present.

 

[Ryika]

Who said anything about equivalent?

Ignoring 98% of the post and responding to a single word just to feel right on... something?

I agree with Lord Shadow. Intelligent Aliens are not part of the concept of the game and I see no "need" for them. It's interesting to think about them as a mod concept, but in the official version of the game? Naaaah, wouldn't want them.

 

[Westwall]

Ignoring 98% of the post and responding to a single word just to feel right on... something?

Or maybe I'm only arguing the part I disagree with.

Didn't consider that, did you? Yeah I didn't think so.

I agree with Lord Shadow. Intelligent Aliens are not part of the concept of the game and I see no "need" for them. It's interesting to think about them as a mod concept, but in the official version of the game? Naaaah, wouldn't want them.

A lot of things weren't part of the original "concept of the game," hence the need for an expansion. Because the original concept was boring with a capital BORING.

 

[Ryika]

Or maybe I'm only arguing the part I disagree with.

Didn't consider that, did you? Yeah I didn't think so.

Would be a possibility if it wasn't the same thing you always do. You even do it again in the very next paragraph:

A lot of things weren't part of the original "concept of the game," hence the need for an expansion. Because the original concept was boring with a capital BORING.

...when the original statement was...
"Intelligent Aliens are not part of the concept of the game and I see no "need" for them."

 

[Lord Shadow]

Who said anything about equivalent?

On a cosmic scale, if species X can be militarily defeated by species Y, then those species are practically equivalent.

At first I thought of typing "conveniently defeatable". Often times, and unlikely as it would be, intelligent alien antagonists in fiction are depicted as "very advanced", but conveniently just primitive enough they can be defeated by inferior human technology. The great paradox of the typical spacefaring alien invader: they can travel the stars in record time and achieve great things with their wondrous technology, but relative cavemen can somehow fight them off.

 

[Westwall]

Would be a possibility if it wasn't the same thing you always do. You even do it again in the very next paragraph:


...when the original statement was...
"Intelligent Aliens are not part of the concept of the game and I see no "need" for them."

I'm not seeing your point. Maybe try making one.

On a cosmic scale, if species X can be militarily defeated by species Y, then those species are practically equivalent.

At first I thought of typing "conveniently defeatable". Often times, and unlikely as it would be, intelligent alien antagonists in fiction are depicted as "very advanced", but conveniently just primitive enough they can be defeated by inferior human technology. The great paradox of the typical spacefaring alien invader: they can travel the stars in record time and achieve great things with their wondrous technology, but relative cavemen can somehow fight them off.

I'm thinking they should be fairly advanced and powerful in the sense that their units would take several of yours to defeat. There are many ways to justify why we'd be able to fight them, which shouldn't be hard considering we've found ways to justify/suspend belief not knowing the layout of the planet we landed on and satellites that don't reveal said planet, not to mention resources being equally distributed.

All for the sake of fun in a game that should be going wild with its ideas instead of setting limits; aka the thing that made it mediocre at inception. I'd rather they go overboard than underboard is what I'm getting at here.

 

[GenEngineer]

I'm not seeing your point. Maybe try making one.

Seeing as you're entire point boils down to 'This would be cool, it should be included," while the rest of us are saying we don't find it that cool, maybe you should trying being less hypocritical and hostile?

 

[Galgus]

@Westwall

Though it's implementation may not be, the concept of Beyond Earth is rock solid.

The story of humanity finding a second chance on a new world and moving towards differing visions of the future, molded by technological progress and what they find.

 

[Westwall]

Seeing as you're entire point boils down to 'This would be cool, it should be included," while the rest of us are saying we don't find it that cool, maybe you should trying being less hypocritical and hostile?

I'm standing by something SupremacyKing already said so you're already wrong. Also I'm not being hostile, but if people are going to snippy they should probably expect the same in kind.

It's called proportional response. Whomp Whomp.