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

[Acken]

I can't remember if the threshold is warlord or Prince but yes low difficulties have special rules for barbs:
-More time before first barbs
-Slower spawn rates
-Shorter distance at which they roam
-Forbiden to enter borders
-Bonus in fighting them

 

[Eji1700]

Gaming marketing is one of the worst industry's when it comes to innovation, and it really does show. Dota 2 pulled 18 million out of a tournament they've been running for 5 years now, and although their model is unrepeatable and unsustainable for a majority of companies out there, they've absolutely shown that there's merit to catering to the hardcore market (and for the record dota 2 is balance for competitive, but still keeping casual in mind, with extremely obnoxious stuff being hit even if it's not top tier). MKX actually had halfway decent streams all the way up to launch, which while loaded with casual junk, at least managed some moderate skill and even had one or two pro's on to play the game.. There's plenty of evidence that throwing your competitive market a bone pays dividends (especially if those desiging the marketing content are even remotely aware of how little we actually want to know, and how very very easy it'd be to demonstrate a majority of that quickly and within theme of your other material), but I don't expect most to catch on for another 2 years because the other industry leaders have an easier to copy model.

Firaxis bugs the hell out of me though because their Xcom 2 launch is at least acknowledging that there's serious players out there while BE in general is ignoring it. NO ONE would have said something like "yeah we made chrisalids harder!" if they thought their casual crowd was their only appeal. Hell i've still got friends who think they're game ending on normal, let alone the you start going through in long war.

BE though has been an afterthought from day 1, and I worry it's just marked as a "low budget money maker" on the books. Civ 5 launched like crap, and never handled every issue that was brought up, but not only were attempts at least made, they actually expanded game mechanics in a way that they understood some of the core issues (mainly alternate win cons and better ways to leverage resources like faith). BE they decided trade routes are a thing and we're going to have to get used to it after some mild nerfs, which is fine, but also left us with academy spam which makes the already vapid world even more lifeless.

 

[Gorbles]

You should play above Warlord

Haha, perhaps! I've never been as comfortable on CiV.

Does anyone know if Aliens have similar difficulty-based mechanics?

 

[Gort]

Here's the deal with difficulties in Civ 5 - Gorb playing on Settler will see barbarians never entering his land, while Westwall playing at the heady heights of Warlord will be safe from them until turn 21!

Beyond Earth is different, with higher difficulty levels meaning that aliens come from further afield to attack you.

I found BE aliens a lot easier to deal with than Civ 5 barbarians - there's no building to make your cities and trade units immune to barbarians, after all.

 

[Manannan]

Aliens attack you in BE? When did they patch that in?

 

[Gali]

Aliens don't attack you but I do find them a bit different from barbarians. they are also more of a threat. Barbarians are more consistently annoying. From prince on they come for you. i tend to favor starts with land So I deal with a number of barbariasn often from multiple camps. that pressure is not there from aliens.

Aliens are more like wildlands from Fallen Enchantress than barbs. Those were special zones with tough monsters but were very fertile. the big monsters took the best land.They don't attack me much. But any alien nest requires my full military to clear in the early game. The aliens do present a threat in that way. They block expansion far more than barbs. Hopefully the new fence mechanics and alien AI will make them fiercer at the barbarian harrasment. The livestream showed them leaving workers alone but fiercely attacking any military nearby.

That attitude has them acting more like what they are, really smart animals. they are territorial, but smart enough to distinguish between humans.

 

[Gorbles]

Here's the deal with difficulties in Civ 5 - Gorb playing on Settler will see barbarians never entering his land, while Westwall playing at the heady heights of Warlord will be safe from them until turn 21!

Beyond Earth is different, with higher difficulty levels meaning that aliens come from further afield to attack you.

I found BE aliens a lot easier to deal with than Civ 5 barbarians - there's no building to make your cities and trade units immune to barbarians, after all.

I like how it took exactly one post to move me to Settler-ville I keep on getting confused between Warlord and Prince, admittedly.

It's interesting that Aliens don't have a similar mechanic, however as you've noted Ultrasonic Fences exist. Good thing they're getting nerfed in Rising Tide!

 

[GenEngineer]

I think it comes down to territoriality. Barb's have a home encampment, but they're happy to wreck anything they come across, no matter how far away they've wandered.

Aliens are much more tied to where their nests are. If you're very close to a nest or two, they are far more aggressive than barbs, but they calm down a lot when you get further away. They're supposed to expand that range of where they'll attack as aggression rises, but it rises too slowly for it to have much of an effect. Just making them more volatile in terms of opinion would do a lot (not everything, but a lot) to fix people's opinion of them.

EDIT: Just saw the link to Aliens and difficulty. Why on (not-)earth do Aliens spawn less at higher difficulties? Or am I misreading that?

 

[Acken]

According to gort BE link, all those variables are also in civ5
Spawn modifier, land/sea distance and combat bonus
according to the XML of Civ5.

I think some of the things with Civ5 barbs are also done in the code but I'm too lazy to find out and there's no way to compare with civBE since we don't have the code.

 

[Galgus]

Aliens don't attack you but I do find them a bit different from barbarians. they are also more of a threat. Barbarians are more consistently annoying. From prince on they come for you. i tend to favor starts with land So I deal with a number of barbariasn often from multiple camps. that pressure is not there from aliens.

Aliens are more like wildlands from Fallen Enchantress than barbs. Those were special zones with tough monsters but were very fertile. the big monsters took the best land.They don't attack me much. But any alien nest requires my full military to clear in the early game. The aliens do present a threat in that way. They block expansion far more than barbs. Hopefully the new fence mechanics and alien AI will make them fiercer at the barbarian harrasment. The livestream showed them leaving workers alone but fiercely attacking any military nearby.

That attitude has them acting more like what they are, really smart animals. they are territorial, but smart enough to distinguish between humans.

That doesn't make sense - how would an Alien automatically know what a gun is?

They should be more aggressive - and they aren't even much of an expansion speedbump if they don't kill unguarded units.

 

[Gali]

Its not just automatically knowing what a gun is. Military forces act in very different ways than civilians and the aliens would recognize that. Besides not seen on screen but I'm sure in the background someone fired a gun at an alien. They figured out what they were and labeled it a threat. The main thing is they act more like intelligent animals now. They are territorial and defensive. Only attacking things that threaten them or rile them. They are not human marauders actively seeking look like barbarians.

I would actually prefer if the aliens were hands off on all units unless a nest is threatened or until attacked. Then they would identify the unit that attacked them and label it a threat attacking it more aggresively. They would still not pin all military units as threats just that unit and those like it. So for a soldier they would target any people with guns such as explorers or rangers. For armored units they would target armor. For ships they would target all melee and ranged ships. Maybe subs are different. That would fit closer to the idea.

Another idea would be to have them label human cities as nests. They would not attack near a city as they would view it as human territory. Any unit beyond two tiles be it military or civilian would be seen as aggressively leaving that territory and be subject to attack. That way they won't tear down all your improvements immediately allowing the game to function considering aliens are much stronger early game. That would still make them more of an impediment to expansion and trade. Given how much stronger aliens are you can't have them act like barbarians everything would be pillaged. So it is a fine line to cross.

 

[Eji1700]

I would actually prefer if the aliens were hands off on all units unless a nest is threatened or until attacked. Then they would identify the unit that attacked them and label it a threat attacking it more aggresively. They would still not pin all military units as threats just that unit and those like it. So for a soldier they would target any people with guns such as explorers or rangers. For armored units they would target armor. For ships they would target all melee and ranged ships. Maybe subs are different. That would fit closer to the idea.

This sort of solution though is exactly what BE almost is already in practice except even worse. Barbs exist in Civ to give variety to the early game. Your goals are otherwise very simple and static. You explore, expand, and if your civ is good at it, start an early war (which is hellishly dangerous with how these games are balanced).

Barbs give you reason to spend resources on military even if you're not sure you want a complete military start, and force your starts to be more than just optimised empire building. Yeah some games you're on a giant continent all alone and can tech like a mad man, but others you're surrounded by barbs and AI and need a legit military before you can even think of doing more. Further by having multiple civ ablities that ineract with barbs (Free recruits) plus a few culture options to help you farm/use them as a resource, they add a few dimensions to the game. The main thing is though that they actively threaten not just your units, but your cities as well. On higher difficulties an undefended newly made city can be massively hampered if not outright destroyed by several barbs, so you need to plan accordingly.

Aliens just don't do any of that, other than sit there as an optional military resource (farm them for XP + science) and this is mostly because their so passive. It doesn't help that the land they occupy is usually quite awful to settle barring the xenomass they come with, which is always worth working, but if you've got lots of firaxite or floatstone you'll likely just ignore it until later. Making them dwell mostly in forested and miasma ridden area's actually makes the land less attractive early game unless they've got serious resource's besides the unworkable biomass next to them. By the time you're considering farming biomass, they're already a non issue.

Aliens NEED to interact with the player in the early game (hell honestly at any point in the game). We should not easily be able to make them a passive element. Barbs force interaction by screwing with your stuff. Aliens should do the same to some extent, and then have technology/affinity options if you want to deal with them harshly, mildly, or passively. This promotes choice. Passive systems where they're just there until you want to interact with them do not. Right now it's an almost completely passive system as a majority of games you choose when to engage the aliens and on what terms, and it's seldom more than a chore to do so.

 

[Galgus]

Its not just automatically knowing what a gun is. Military forces act in very different ways than civilians and the aliens would recognize that. Besides not seen on screen but I'm sure in the background someone fired a gun at an alien. They figured out what they were and labeled it a threat. The main thing is they act more like intelligent animals now. They are territorial and defensive. Only attacking things that threaten them or rile them. They are not human marauders actively seeking look like barbarians.

I would actually prefer if the aliens were hands off on all units unless a nest is threatened or until attacked. Then they would identify the unit that attacked them and label it a threat attacking it more aggresively. They would still not pin all military units as threats just that unit and those like it. So for a soldier they would target any people with guns such as explorers or rangers. For armored units they would target armor. For ships they would target all melee and ranged ships. Maybe subs are different. That would fit closer to the idea.

Another idea would be to have them label human cities as nests. They would not attack near a city as they would view it as human territory. Any unit beyond two tiles be it military or civilian would be seen as aggressively leaving that territory and be subject to attack. That way they won't tear down all your improvements immediately allowing the game to function considering aliens are much stronger early game. That would still make them more of an impediment to expansion and trade. Given how much stronger aliens are you can't have them act like barbarians everything would be pillaged. So it is a fine line to cross.

The Aliens are essentially smart, trainable animals with a hive mind attachment: they don't really have a military or the concept of one without anything to fight.

You could have Aliens be more aggressive than barbarians and the game would still function: players would just build armies.

Though I wouldn't mind Aliens being that docile at first if they became an actual threat when angered early game.
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The proper role of Barbarians is to encourage players to have an army even if they aren't planning on going to war and don't anticipate another declaring war on them.

Aliens should play this role with two twists.

The first is that, if noone angers them, they will be less dangerous.

The second is that if someone attacks and angers them they will become much more dangerous than barbarians - an indirect warmongering mechanic to force others to invest in units.

 

[Hail]

The proper role of Barbarians is to encourage players to have an army even if they aren't planning on going to war and don't anticipate another declaring war on them.

the role of barbs is to force the player to spend hammers on military units, not on settlers and/or workers.

what role aliens play I have no clue. it's part of the lack of vision I mentioned earlier.

 

[Gorbles]

The next person to assume that you get Science from Aliens without the appropriate Might perk (arguably not the most useful of the existing Virtue trees) gets a negative cookie

@Eji:

Barbarians force you to expend military resources; they're not an option given the ability to invade and harass on higher difficulties. You posit the interactions with Barbarians r.e. Culture expenditure, etc . . . but dismiss similar interactions with Aliens as "farming".

I agree with you on the scaling; Alien territory is often pointless to seriously excavate in an "optimal" build, but then again Barbs have similar conceptual issues. There is no incentive outside of City-State influence to take down a Barb camp given their ability to respawn in short order.

I mean, there are issues with Aliens. I just wish people would stop pretending Barbarians are some kind of awesome predecessor. They're not.

Then again I still don't get why everyone apparently has passive Aliens in their games. It's like everyone stopped playing before Alien aggression got rebalanced.

 

[Eji1700]

The next person to assume that you get Science from Aliens without the appropriate Might perk (arguably not the most useful of the existing Virtue trees) gets a negative cookie

@Eji:

Barbarians force you to expend military resources; they're not an option given the ability to invade and harass on higher difficulties. You posit the interactions with Barbarians r.e. Culture expenditure, etc . . . but dismiss similar interactions with Aliens as "farming".

I agree with you on the scaling; Alien territory is often pointless to seriously excavate in an "optimal" build, but then again Barbs have similar conceptual issues. There is no incentive outside of City-State influence to take down a Barb camp given their ability to respawn in short order.

I mean, there are issues with Aliens. I just wish people would stop pretending Barbarians are some kind of awesome predecessor. They're not.

Then again I still don't get why everyone apparently has passive Aliens in their games. It's like everyone stopped playing before Alien aggression got rebalanced.

Barbs don't force interaction every game. That's the point. Some games you wind up needing a player crushing military just to survive the early barbs and wind up thinking "well why stop there". Some games they require an archer and the occasional warrior escort so you tech. It changes your interactions. Aliens are such a non event in such a reliable manner that they literally haven't changed or altered my play style since I learned the basic mechanics of them.


I dismiss the aliens as farming because there's no other use for them. I'm not going to leave an alien nest alive to harass another player who's low on military because they won't do it, while I've chosen to ignore barb camps I could have cleared to let them harass another player who's got a more tech related civilization. Left untouched barbs will be a threat for teching civs in certain timings, while left alone aliens will...sit there, do nothing, and only grow in numbers, never advance in strength (while barbs tech up throughout the game almost as soon as players reach that tier). There's an investment to doing a barb harnessing strategy that you might not go otherwise, especially if you're looking for a diplo/culture/science victory. Aliens are so easy to kill or ignore they might as well be a resource yield.

Also i'm not claiming barbs are perfect.

I'm claiming aliens are a step back, and seem to indicate they had no idea what positive effects barbs had on the game, or how to expand that, which is confusing as hell because all the barb changes before that were positive.

 

[Ryika]

Barbs don't force interaction every game. That's the point. Some games you wind up needing a player crushing military just to survive the early barbs and wind up thinking "well why stop there". Some games they require an archer and the occasional warrior escort so you tech. It changes your interactions. Aliens are such a non event in such a reliable manner that they literally haven't changed or altered my play style since I learned the basic mechanics of them.

That sounds like you're not doing a good job with barbs to be honest (assuming you don't use Raging Barbs option). You should never ever need a "player-crushing military" to survive against barbarians, see Filthy's Barbarian Guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqg1jd39ON8

I agree with that though:

I'm claiming aliens are a step back, and seem to indicate they had no idea what positive effects barbs had on the game, or how to expand that, which is confusing as hell because all the barb changes before that were positive.

The Aliens currently don't really fill a role overall. With Rising Tide they become a bit more useful for Harmony (which might be a reason to kill them as Purity/Supremacy) and I think there's a new "Get Energy from ANY Unit you kill"-Trait (or something along those lines), but overall the core problem doesn't change. They're basically a more complicated mechanic - that really doesn't do much to influence the game.

I vote for Alien Evolution and Aggression due to overpopulation.

 

[Eji1700]

Yeah i know i'm far from optimal (although i'll probably just be watching those vids for the next few days during down time) , but the point was more towards the effect on the average player. Again it's no secret that barbs/aliens don't do a ton vs a top player either way. Also the "city kill army" was also more in reference to kill an AI, not a human.

Even still I feel like the entire section where he's got his warrior staying close to help with barbs (and to be fair it's also because it's demonstrating PvP tactics as well where you can't just get away with murder or restart) is something I rarely feel forced to do in BE. I sometimes start soldier just because it works out as a second scout. Aliens won't be harassing my worker/starting civ, so I don't need to keep him close to home.

Really more than anything though this whole thing is just frustrating? Aliens strike me as a piece of something greater, but I feel like that never came. I'd love if they evolved/changed over the match if they want the early game to be easier (as lots of players just get angry with even civ V barbs), but as they are just feels like half a mechanic.

 

[Galgus]

The next person to assume that you get Science from Aliens without the appropriate Might perk (arguably not the most useful of the existing Virtue trees) gets a negative cookie

@Eji:

Barbarians force you to expend military resources; they're not an option given the ability to invade and harass on higher difficulties. You posit the interactions with Barbarians r.e. Culture expenditure, etc . . . but dismiss similar interactions with Aliens as "farming".

I agree with you on the scaling; Alien territory is often pointless to seriously excavate in an "optimal" build, but then again Barbs have similar conceptual issues. There is no incentive outside of City-State influence to take down a Barb camp given their ability to respawn in short order.

I mean, there are issues with Aliens. I just wish people would stop pretending Barbarians are some kind of awesome predecessor. They're not.

Then again I still don't get why everyone apparently has passive Aliens in their games. It's like everyone stopped playing before Alien aggression got rebalanced.

Even at red anger, Aliens don't ever actively invade a player. Changing that alone could make them a somewhat meaningful mechanic.

They just kind of wander around as usual and attack if they happen to run into something.

At least with the right mods Barbarians can be something approaching a threat - weaker city defenses, the ability to found cities, initially spawning more, and the default raging barbarians options mostly.

(I still have fond memories of what I could describe as a decent war against the Barbarians in the Medieval Era due to a perfect storm of mods and chance. There must have been over 30 technologically up to date Barbarian units scattered around, though most were hanging out in their snow homelands. Those that weren't were a source of troublesome raids.)
___________________________________________

All in all it's a mechanic that could have been interesting, but seems to have been toned down into being irrelevant sometime before BE released.

 

[Manannan]

the role of barbs is to force the player to spend hammers on military units, not on settlers and/or workers.

what role aliens play I have no clue. it's part of the lack of vision I mentioned earlier.

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.