BE still fairly boring

[Eji1700]

Civ V, a 4x game made by the same developer, at least had a way to win from every single resource.

Got lots of faith? Turn it into literally anything! Tons of science? Science victory! A bunch of culture? Turn it into tourism! Too much gold? Bribe your way to diplomatic victory! Or if you're one for the classic you can of course murder every living thing that looks at you funny.

Just having a victory condition at the end of every "branch" of ecnomy/playstyle helped open up the game a ton. I knew that I didn't need to convert my culture into science somehow because eventually i'd start nabbing tourism and win the game. You did need to convert faith, but it felt nice to have faith be a "fill in the gaps" resource to help with whatever issues you had as a civ, or when in abundance could crush the game.

All the virtues in the world don't actually win you the game in BERT. Ditto with gold. It's violent conquest or scientific research. Further science is arguably the worst thing to put your victories at the end of given that heavy science focus already supports slingshotting and runaway games, and is arguably the easiest victory condition to run away with.

 

[poom3619]

Since my question was 'why is BE being singled out for flaws that are inherent in pretty much all 4x games when played against an AI opponent, your answer is that because it is badly balanced it's too easy and some players are getting bored? While I'll definitely agree that then game is badly balanced at the moment, let's be honest, that's an entirely different issue.

That doesn't change the fact that other 4x games that have a variety of victory conditions where some play out in a similarly 'boring' fashion. Please point me to one that doesn't as I'd really like to give it a spin rather than be told that BE is badly designed... yet again <Broken record [click] broken record [click] broken...>. At least I can point YOU to other 4x games and say, 'look, it's the pretty much the same'. The only difference is that people on those boards actually like the game and are willing to forgive it the flaws as we did with earlier Civs too. Civ BNW culture or Diplomatic victories for example... absolutely heart-pounding stuff indeed.

THIS! If folks are finding BE boring to play, then go and play a game that engages you and makes you happy. Live your life and be happy because there's absolutely nothing else to do. Why would you intentionally want to waste the precious time of your life fretting about something so utterly meaningless as a computer game when you can play another one?

Well, I for one like CivBE theme' and it's potential, and prefer it's potential to be something more than that. Also, consider me just happy to complain about the game I want to love. So I would hear what complaint other is having and wish the dev listen to it and try to patch something in. Modder already doing some of it. AFAIK, My Rising Tide experience (in demo) is more or less read the lore I bother reading, play it few times and then mod the game, make Old Earth Relic more powerful than every building and wonder combined and have fun .

I just found out the victory cinematic is actually pretty good, not that I care about it if it wasn't something the dev promised. I likely saw a placeholder as no one supposed to win at turn 80 (I did due to Old Earth Relic)

@Kutuzov, I also happen to be one of the people who like durian.

 

[Acken]

Since my question was 'why is BE being singled out for flaws that are inherent in pretty much all 4x games when played against an AI opponent, your answer is that because it is badly balanced it's too easy and some players are getting bored? While I'll definitely agree that then game is badly balanced at the moment, let's be honest, that's an entirely different issue.

Why are you ignoring the part that isn't about balance ? About the fact that CivBE purposely makes you wait a number of turns ?
And no it's not two entirely different issue. The victories asking you to pass turns are indeed a different issue but the subject is (I think) the end game being boring in general not just the VC conditions. Poor balance is a part of why.

I could also underline the fact that 4 out of 5 victories in civBE have no interaction with the state of the world around you or with whatever the other civs are doing. That's a third argument.

Civ BNW culture or Diplomatic victories for example... absolutely heart-pounding stuff indeed.

Obviously, if you do not see why there's more diversity and interesting decisions to take for these two victories then I'm talking to a wall. I cannot point you to games that do it better since your mind is already set that it's all the same. I am not saying they are perfect either, just that in my opinion CivBE is a step back from Civ5 when it comes to victory conditions and this is the reason why it's getting singled out. You asked why, you were provided reasons explaining the feeling (reasons you're very likely to disagree with).

Gorb has it right. "Good design" is highly subjective. That's why "too balanced" is a criticism which actually means "I know this makes sense but it's boring." It's also the reason why good game mechanics are based on wild, unbalanced ideas - such ideas form the springboard for interest. They're enjoyable because they're impressive and compelling. Balancing is done on the back end.

Olodune's comment was:

Quote:
I find it strange for a Civ game to move in this direction - we should care about where cities are placed! (In a more nuanced way than just "next to titanium").
and I have to challenge all of you to think about that harder. Don't justify. Think from a basic nothing perspective. DOES a blank map-based game have to make the player care about placement aside from a specific resource? The obvious answer is no. That is not a required gameplay mechanic whatsoever.

You don't care that much in Starships - you just want as many planet as possible, period. You don't care in GalCiv. Same thing. Once you research or acquire terraforming tech, it's basically all the same thing.

It's not necessarily bad for a Civ game to move in this direction, especially in a game whose overarching theme is that you don't care about location, and which expresses this theme with multiple mechanics. Consider the removal of luxury resources - those made you care about expansion and placement in Civs starting from 3. This was intentional. Do we want that? Obviously, that's not what CivBE is going for at all - your ability to expand is functionally limitless and at your own pace. By design. Because that's what the game is supposed to convey.

People ideas on forums are subjectives. Do we really need to reiterate it every 5 posts ?

I (and Olodune I guess) think it's a poor idea to ignore terrain because it diminishes the number of choices you have to make compared to its predecessors. Some players enjoy having constraints and having to balance options before making a decision. We're provided a ton of ressources, different terrains, bonuses for these ressources etc but in the end it doesn't really matter. Health is trivial and your yields come from routes. I for one feel such a design diminishes my interest. If I were challenged in many other areas I may have not cared as much but the problem is that this phenomenon creeps in many other aspects as well.
You're right that in itself it is not an absolute necessity to have terrain being important. However if that is your choice as a designer then you have to be consistent and try to have mechanics that work elegantly with each other. I do not feel there's any elegance in the whole terrain, ressource, health and yields aspects of CivBE (which is a point I guess you disagree with).

 

[Mutineer]

I believe idea behind Be victory condition was to make them more transparent for p-p.

You have world wide notification - opponent going to win in about ~N turns, do something about that.
In civ5 sudden death could be a case, even if some watch culture statistic, if they do not pay attention to details in some situation some of can win just in a few turns with out anyone notice..

 

[Gorbles]

People ideas on forums are subjectives. Do we really need to reiterate it every 5 posts ?

When people make absolute statements about other people like so, yes we do:

Obviously, if you do not see why there's more diversity and interesting decisions to take for these two victories then I'm talking to a wall.

The admittance of opinion comes with the implicit inference that you are not correct. Ryika got the reference, which is why he made the joke he did.

The problem we have here is "you are wrong" is naturally countered with "that's just your opinion, man" when the people telling others they're wrong are repeatedly forgetting that that is just their opinion.

This is a bit meta, but to relate to the topic of Civilisation and design, people are taking what they like from previous games (using BNW features as a talking point as well, given that that was the second expansion CiV received contrasted to BE's first) and positing their like of such mechanics as an absolute.

Maybe if you explained why you felt the Victories in CiV / BNW were superior (let's ignore the resource / developer time invested argument for now) instead of talking people down, the discussion would flow more.

 

[Ryika]

Gorb has it right. "Good design" is highly subjective. That's why "too balanced" is a criticism which actually means "I know this makes sense but it's boring." It's also the reason why good game mechanics are based on wild, unbalanced ideas - such ideas form the springboard for interest. They're enjoyable because they're impressive and compelling. Balancing is done on the back end.

That's all good and nice, but there is no "wild, unbalanced idea" here. There's a mechanic that was fun in previous games and it's missing without much of a replacement. Or are you saying that: "Oey, I have an idea! Let's make terrain not mean anything!" is an interesting idea? I hope not.

I don't have a problem with being able to expand everywhere (in fact I welcome that change a lot), but if every expansion spot feels the same, then that just makes the whole system very bland. I mean it would be very easy to change that: Make Non-Strategic Resources somewhat localized, then add big, synergistic buildings to a few leaf techs - and there you go, the very basics of a system where you can still expand but will get rewarded for choosing good spots are in place.

Funnily enough I WANT unbalanced City positions, not the "everything is on the same level"-system we have now.

and I have to challenge all of you to think about that harder. Don't justify. Think from a basic nothing perspective. DOES a blank map-based game have to make the player care about placement aside from a specific resource? The obvious answer is no. That is not a required gameplay mechanic whatsoever.

Does it have to have it? No. Do many people feel like it's lacking in Beyond Earth? Absolutely.

You don't care that much in Starships - you just want as many planet as possible, period. You don't care in GalCiv. Same thing. Once you research or acquire terraforming tech, it's basically all the same thing.

Yeah, and it makes starships empire management boring as hell for most people. I literally know nobody who enjoys starships for that. The people who like that game (me included) usually like it for its combat.

It's not necessarily bad for a Civ game to move in this direction, especially in a game whose overarching theme is that you don't care about location, and which expresses this theme with multiple mechanics. Consider the removal of luxury resources - those made you care about expansion and placement in Civs starting from 3. This was intentional. Do we want that? Obviously, that's not what CivBE is going for at all - your ability to expand is functionally limitless and at your own pace. By design. Because that's what the game is supposed to convey.

The two are not mutually exclusive. Again, you can have a system that allows you to expand a ton while pushing you to find the good spots. And it's not even consistent, you still have Strategic Resources that are placed on the map, you still have Affinity Resources that are placed on the map. You still have buildings that require local Resources on the map. You still have buildings that add yields to resources, you still have improvement that connect these resources to your empire - all of these are just way too weak to really matter (with maybe the exception of local titanium), it's not like they're not there.

Bad design is bad design, but theme and intention are not bad. They are what they are and you agree and enjoy it for what it is, or you disagree and you play something else.

If you have to sacrifice game mechanics for theme without filling it by other means then that's a very awkward trade-off to me.

 

[Kutuzov]

Why are you ignoring the part that isn't about balance ? About the fact that CivBE purposely makes you wait a number of turns ?
And no it's not two entirely different issue. The victories asking you to pass turns are indeed a different issue but the subject is (I think) the end game being boring in general not just the VC conditions. Poor balance is a part of why.

I could also underline the fact that 4 out of 5 victories in civBE have no interaction with the state of the world around you or with whatever the other civs are doing. That's a third argument.

Obviously, if you do not see why there's more diversity and interesting decisions to take for these two victories then I'm talking to a wall. I cannot point you to games that do it better since your mind is already set that it's all the same. I am not saying they are perfect either, just that in my opinion CivBE is a step back from Civ5 when it comes to victory conditions and this is the reason why it's getting singled out. You asked why, you were provided reasons explaining the feeling (reasons you're very likely to disagree with).

A quick recap here...

Originally Posted by NASAROG View Post
The end game is either a click-fest for one of the win conditions, or a campaign of conquest/genocide.

But isn't that true of most 4x games? I do that when I play Endless Legend too. Why single BERT out in this instance for a flaw inherent in 4x games, or even strategy games in general when played against an AI opponent?

Your response to my questions is that it should be singled out because the game is badly designed, that the victory conditions are a step back from Civ BNW and that the end game in general is boring. In spite of your insistence otherwise, none of these points are relevant to the discussion, namely that:

The end game is either a click-fest for one of the win conditions, or a campaign of conquest/genocide.

Unlike you, I do not find the end game in BERT, Civ BNW, or even earlier Civ games boring overall because I usually enjoy playing these games in spite of their flaws and part of that enjoyment is in crossing the winning line. I don't need my games to fulfill the same needs that you appear to need them to. Nothing wrong with that. We're all different. That you can state exactly why you find the end game in BE boring is very nice for you but it's not relevant because it's not boring for me or for some others.

I didn't even ignore your point, namely "the part that isn't about balance". I provided you with two examples which you dismissed off hand and I'll deal with that below. With Civ BNW's Diplomatic victory, you can actually see the number of turns that you are 'forced to wait' before the vote comes around and you can finally win. With the Culture victory, you can't see the number of turns you will have to wait but you are still forced to wait for tourism to overwhelm the opponent's culture.

Guess what you do to achieve these? Essentially, you research the requisite techs and you build the buildings and you then.... (go on guess) ... wait until you win. The AI's not going to make any special effort to stop you either

Whether by design or not, Civ BE is a much faster game than Civ BNW. In Civ V, and earlier Civs, you have a much longer journey ahead before you are able to activate the victory conditions other than conquest as the requisite techs are all at the end of the tech TREE. You are 'forced to wait' 500+ turns to have any chance to win in any way other than conquest. Badly designed or not, Civ BE's tech WEB changes the journey substantially.

You are not talking to a wall (how nice of you) but rather stating the absolutely bleeding obvious when you say that "there's more diversity and interesting decisions to take for these two victories" which is, once again, irrelevant to the topic I was discussing. Apart from the length of the game, BE doesn't even have Great people which are an interesting part of the path to one of Civ BNW victories.

And why can't you point me to 4x games that do it better? My mind is not the one that is set, thanks . I can and do change my thinking when it is demonstrated to me that I am wrong. And it has been known to happen too...

 

[bcaiko]

I've found that the flavor of the game is sooooo much better, and that does help alleviate the boredom factor. But I have to agree with the OP - there doesn't seem to be the sense of urgency in this game that, say, Civ5 has. Especially in the early game. The AI's flaws really do show in all their middling and directionlessness.

 

[HughFran]

THIS! If folks are finding BE boring to play, then go and play a game that engages you and makes you happy. Live your life and be happy because there's absolutely nothing else to do. Why would you intentionally want to waste the precious time of your life fretting about something so utterly meaningless as a computer game when you can play another one?

Look, I originally asked this question to engage people on their opinion and find out if they felt the game was boring. I have been a loyal fan of Civ for years so I didn't want to just toss the game after two or three tries. I didn't ask the question to be told in a slightly condescending manner to go play something else. That is hardly contributing to what I was trying to ask. This is a forum about BE and I raised a question about BE. I don't want this to descend into arguments or to get off topic. I am not 'wasting' my time, I am hoping that the game will grow on me and asking if others find aspects of the game boring. This forum would be pointless if the answer was always 'go play something else'.

To the moderators - I apologise in advance for this but felt I had to reply and hopefully we can get back on topic

 

[Olodune]

I like BERT quite a bit, but the last third of a peaceful game certainly needs some work. I think a large part of this is the linear path of affinity victories. Civ 5 has much more interaction between GPP, Science, Policies, Culture, Tourism, and Production. Most victories involve trying to get 2 or 3 separate progression mechanisms to line up in a very small window. For Order-Space, beakers are relevant until the very end - and I need to carefully balance scientist GPP with Hubble - and find enough culture to unlock the required policies - and build all the components. My whole empire is pressed to the limit to meet all these competing demands.

BERT asks for tech, then production in one city, then patience (for the gates). My entire empire is largely worthless for the last 30 turns of the game. Harmony is a little more involved in the first phase, but still comparatively linear with a long passive wait.

Old school 4X games had exponential growth and so the late game was very fast. This helped overshadow the frequent balance issues. With the soft health caps in BERT (acting as the only growth dampening mechanism) the progression is closer to those classic games. However, there are artificial roadblocks placed along the way to extend the late game. If a more classic model is what Firaxis is going for, then removing/reducing the waiting periods would help. Adding more complexity would be even more welcome.

Civ 4 also had waiting after launch (only 10 turns, IIRC), but the Deity AI was much more fearsome.

Regardless, there is nothing stopping me from playing most of my games only through the interesting phases Since there are at least three reasonable economic development paths I find this engaging.

 

[Acken]

When people make absolute statements about other people like so, yes we do:

The admittance of opinion comes with the implicit inference that you are not correct.

I do not feel it's necessary since it is obvious, but you can keep saying "that's your opinion" everytime someone forgets to add "imo" if you think it's interesting.

The end game is either a click-fest for one of the win conditions, or a campaign of conquest/genocide.

I interpreted this as the end game being boring and just about passing turns. How else ? That the game is about clicking ? That makes no sense.
With that in mind it makes sense to talk about:
-Wait time of victories
-No interesting decision due to poor balance
-No interraction with other civs or world for these victories.

That you can state exactly why you find the end game in BE boring is very nice for you but it's not relevant because it's not boring for me or for some others.

What is your point ? Do you also like Gorb have to say "That's your opinion I disagree" every time. Waste of time, we already know that. The point of the discussion is to share opinions. It's bound to be subjective. Otherwise just tell me and I'll stop responding since besides diverging opinions (and their reasons) I'm not sure what we're supposed to talk about.

So let's just admit we have diverging opinion and let's move on.

I didn't even ignore your point, namely "the part that isn't about balance". I provided you with two examples which you dismissed off hand and I'll deal with that below. With Civ BNW's Diplomatic victory, you can actually see the number of turns that you are 'forced to wait' before the vote comes around and you can finally win. With the Culture victory, you can't see the number of turns you will have to wait but you are still forced to wait for tourism to overwhelm the opponent's culture.

BNW diplomatic and culture wait times are not forced on the player in the same way and this makes a lot of difference. With clever play you can cut it down. You have to prepare your end game to spawn those musician, you can kill the culture runaway to not have to influence him. You have a lot of options. These things make a big difference. You have a point about the 10 turns of diplomatic. Still you have something to do in these 10 turns as you have to be sure you have the votes. But I'm not going to defend Diplomacy Victory to much anyway since I think it should be reworked.

The exception is harmony victory where you can actively work at cutting down the turn number. Everything else is 15 turns of wonder followed by 10 to 45 (lol) turns of next turning.

And finally both culture and diplomacy have a lot more player to "world" interraction. What other civs or what is happening in the world has a direct influence on the victory. 4 out of 5 victories in CivBE are 100% isolationists similar to C5 science victory. Which is why civBE victories are often dubbed as being 4 science victories on these boards. By comparison you will have trouble winning diplomacy if too many City states get eaten or if you have Alex in your game. You will have trouble winning culture if you let a runaway accumulate too long. Your faith has a direct influence on your culture victory results. There is a reason why Culture victory is said to be harder than science in Civ5.

I do not deny CivBE and Civ5 share common points. You have to tech in both, build stuff and then achieve victory. But it's still a step back because you simply have less to do, think and manage. You literally have just to wait. There is no external pressure at all.

You are 'forced to wait' 500+ turns to have any chance to win in any way other than conquest. Badly designed or not, Civ BE's tech WEB changes the journey substantially.

CivBE is indeed faster. No question there. What you say with the tech web is sadly not my experience since most techs unlock useless stuff because of the poor balance. You then mostly do the same thing for all affinities since most of your economical strength comes from elsewhere.
If you feel the whole 500 turns of Civ5 are about being forced to wait then I can understand you don't like that game. A standard civ5 game is not 500+ turns by the way or by comparison that would be like saying civBE games are 350+ turns.

You are not talking to a wall (how nice of you) but rather stating the absolutely bleeding obvious when you say that "there's more diversity and interesting decisions to take for these two victories" which is, once again, irrelevant to the topic I was discussing. Apart from the length of the game, BE doesn't even have Great people which are an interesting part of the path to one of Civ BNW victories.

Sorry about bold. Though I found it surprising someone wouldn't see more diversity and more interactivity with BNW victories.

So we agree that BNW provides more diversity and decisions to make ?
How is it irrelevant then ? If there are more decisions to make then the end game is more interesting. Obviously it goes with how I interpreted what NASAROG said. That click-fest for one victory = boring end game.

And why can't you point me to 4x games that do it better? My mind is not the one that is set, thanks . I can and do change my thinking when it is demonstrated to me that I am wrong. And it has been known to happen too...

I can't because I'd point toward BNW which you had already dismissed.

 

[Galgus]

I agree with Ryika that resources don't matter enough, and that every spot feeling the same to expand to is boring.

It's also strange that it seems better to build advanced improvements like Nodes on resources because the yields they get with their relevant improvement can't compete with them.

Higher yields for resources and the ability to specialize for resources with techs, buildings, and potentially even wonders would do wonders to make the map more interesting.

I'd also like more asymmetry in improved resources, like if Gold gave high amounts of culture due to it's relative rarity, Silica providing more science, and Vents improved with a Sea Well giving enough energy to actually stand above Nodes in output, and so on.

 

[Gorbles]

I do not feel it's necessary since it is obvious, but you can keep saying "that's your opinion" everytime someone forgets to add "imo" if you think it's interesting.

So you don't see the problem in making derogatory statements in an absolute manner because you guess people will just dismiss it as opinion? Why phrase them they way you do, then? What gain is there?

I'm not saying say "opinion" every time. I'm saying that when you phrase things as facts you make yourself actually, categorically, wrong. "it's an opinion" is not a defense here, sorry.

Ah well. Sorry for the derail.

 

[Acken]

So you don't see the problem in making derogatory statements in an absolute manner because you guess people will just dismiss it as opinion? Why phrase them they way you do, then? What gain is there?

No I do not see a problem with it. I do not ask people to dismiss it either. I just find it's not needed to repeat the obvious. Of course what I write in my posts are my opinion and beliefs (unless it's about something entirely factual like the number of turn you have to wait for Contact V.). You agree or disagree but having to restate it's an opinion is getting old. People are not stupid, they will recognize what is an opinion and agree or disagree with it.

If the phrasing frustrates you I'm sorry about it.

If a friend tells me a movie suck while I liked it I'm not going to sit there and say 'that's just your opinion man'. I'll ask why and we'll discuss the points, I may agree with some of them, or if I'm uninterested I say that I liked it and move on. Some people disliked Interstellar because of the cheesy stuff in it, I agree the ending was cringeworthy but still very much liked the movie.

If you tell me you find CivBE endgame interesting that's also just a matter of opinion. I'll preffer to tell you why I think it's bad rather than saying 'hey thats just your opinion, some don't like it'. I may ask you why and you're likely to provide example of how you like late game affinity units or how you unlock special buildings and stuff. Some of which I"d agree with probably (CivBE doesn't do everything wrong).
It's just that we care for different things and therefore give different weights to have a general opinion about the game.

I'm not saying say "opinion" every time. I'm saying that when you phrase things as facts you make yourself actually, categorically, wrong. "it's an opinion" is not a defense here, sorry.

Of course some of the reasons are going to be entirely subjective. Like I said it's not necessary to keep repeating 'hey hold on that's not a valid argument, that's subjective'. When we're trying to justify a subjective feeling it's bound to include subjective reasons.

I'm sorry that you don't like how I phrase these opinions.

 

[Roxlimn]

There are two different sentiments that are being conflated here, sometimes intentionally, in order to lend an opinion the force of fact:

1. I don't like this feature.
2. This feature is bad design.

One is not the other. When you say "This is bad design," that's an expression of the latter. It's NOT just that you don't like it. It implies that, independently of whether you actually like that part or not, it wasn't implemented as well as it could.

For instance, I agree with Galgus that some of the resource-specific improvements fall by the wayside. I don't agree that this is necessarily bad design, because of the factors behind it. It does mean that the result is a uniformly Biowell'd everything in mid-game just because. That needs to be looked into. But it's not as simple a thing as resource improvements having to be better - that leads to Civ IV resource-hunting syndrome.

In fact, you could already sort of do that in Rising Tide. Certain agreements boost Strategics by as much as three Culture, Science, Production, Energy, or Health per unit.

Ryika:

That's all good and nice, but there is no "wild, unbalanced idea" here. There's a mechanic that was fun in previous games and it's missing without much of a replacement. Or are you saying that: "Oey, I have an idea! Let's make terrain not mean anything!" is an interesting idea? I hope not.

I don't have a problem with being able to expand everywhere (in fact I welcome that change a lot), but if every expansion spot feels the same, then that just makes the whole system very bland. I mean it would be very easy to change that: Make Non-Strategic Resources somewhat localized, then add big, synergistic buildings to a few leaf techs - and there you go, the very basics of a system where you can still expand but will get rewarded for choosing good spots are in place.

Funnily enough I WANT unbalanced City positions, not the "everything is on the same level"-system we have now.

Hm. Acken's turn vic notwithstanding, I think he overstates the sameness of the terrain by a pretty large amount. You do kind of have to get out there and settle land, and settling land at all is more important than settling fantastically good land; but they're not all the same.

Otherwise, we wouldn't differentiate between starts at all, and we do. In particular, having Titanium is a pretty huge leg up over not. It's a fairly dramatic difference. You should easily go for the Titanium sites if you have a choice.

In addition, being on coast allows you to make naval units, and being on water changes your city's nature fairly importantly - all also not the same things.

There's already systems in play for exaggerating certain spots. Xenomass is good enough in itself, and in clumps of two or three, they're worth settling preferentially and then getting the tile bonuses through the Xenonursery and Xenofuel Plant quests. That is, it does make a tile output difference.

The slingshotting and optimization practices of the outlier gamist few will still favor just paring out everything, of course. You'd have to rejigger the entire thing from scratch to be like Civ V to fix that. By that, I mean you'd have to ask every Civ to research every tech, which kind of defeats the point of a tech web.

By what you want - big outputs from some resources - that's already there. Xenomass has a version of that. Firaxite has a very of that (a few buildings that add outputs to Firaxite). If you really wanted to, you could take additional Agreements to boost that even more. Game mechanics already there, if you really want to play that way.

There's even a version of that for basic - Fungus is a decent enough tile, but it becomes way better with Growlab on Harmony. A bunch of sites with clustered Fungus is worth using for breadbaskets and gunning for Growlab instead of Vertical Farms. Yes, I have done that. It worked pretty well. Yes, clustering like that happens. I believe adding Photosystems later adds +1 food per Plantation, too, so a bunch of Fungus with Tubers and Fiber is a pretty fine site.

If you want a focus on Basics, take Nature's Bounty (+1 Production, Basic Resources), and Commiditization (+1 Energy, Basic Resources).

Thing is, playing like this is optional - you can play like this, but you don't have to. And why not? You can already play the way you say you want the game to be; what's wrong with allowing a sort of play that doesn't focus on resources as much?

If you have to sacrifice game mechanics for theme without filling it by other means then that's a very awkward trade-off to me.

You're not sacrificing anything. Game mechanics serve theme. That's the only way that's good. If the mechanics betray your theme, it's a bad mechanic.

 

[Ryika]

There are two different sentiments that are being conflated here, sometimes intentionally, in order to lend an opinion the force of fact:

1. I don't like this feature.
2. This feature is bad design.

One is not the other. When you say "This is bad design," that's an expression of the latter. It's NOT just that you don't like it. It implies that, independently of whether you actually like that part or not, it wasn't implemented as well as it could.

It's bad design if the majority of the people who care doesn't like it, period. If that's not bad design by your definition, then your definition is worthless, because it only applies to the unattainable standard of empirical truth that cannot and does not exist.

For instance, I agree with Galgus that some of the resource-specific improvements fall by the wayside. I don't agree that this is necessarily bad design, because of the factors behind it. It does mean that the result is a uniformly Biowell'd everything in mid-game just because. That needs to be looked into. But it's not as simple a thing as resource improvements having to be better - that leads to Civ IV resource-hunting syndrome.

So what you're basically saying is it isn't bad design, it just leads to a situation that is boring and bland, and that it should be "looked into" to make sure that it no longer leads to a situation that is boring and bland, but somehow "looking into it" does not equate to changing the design.

I think he overstates the sameness of the terrain by a pretty large amount.

Well, my theory is that he's just a much better player than you and has understood that none of the mechanics that are tied to terrain work as they should. As I already said, in theory they're there, practically they're meaningless. To take your example:

There's even a version of that for basic - Fungus is a decent enough tile, but it becomes way better with Growlab on Harmony. A bunch of sites with clustered Fungus is worth using for breadbaskets and gunning for Growlab instead of Vertical Farms. Yes, I have done that. It worked pretty well. Yes, clustering like that happens.

...that's all good and fine, except that you're either not realizing that placing a city in a food-heavy area just means that you will get less food from trade routes sent to that city, which makes the overall output almost identical.

Again, that's exactly what I mean. The mechanics are there, so no, it's not a "design decision" to meat some theme, the mechanics just aren't strong enough to justify altering your strategies. Food and Production are directly neglected by the trade route system, everything else can't really be stacked due to a positional advantage (well, in some situations Energy could, but Energy is a very ineffective Resource to begin with).

Not even Titanium is exempt from that anymore in Rising tide - you build and work a Mine to then get most of that amount reduced from the trade route yield. What a great idea!

But Xenomass is indeed the one exception. That's the impact that ALL resources should make in one way or the other.

You're not sacrificing anything. Game mechanics serve theme. That's the only way that's good. If the mechanics betray your theme, it's a bad mechanic.

Again, it's not "Either this or that". Game Mechanics can go hand in hand with the theme and still make for a fun and enjoyable experience with actual decisions to make. There's nothing in Beyond Earth that preaches that "now we don't really benefit from natural Resources anymore"m a sprawling empire and gem-cities that are very good at things because of where they're positioned work perfectly fine with each other.

 

[Acken]

There are two different sentiments that are being conflated here, sometimes intentionally, in order to lend an opinion the force of fact:

1. I don't like this feature.
2. This feature is bad design.

One is not the other. When you say "This is bad design," that's an expression of the latter. It's NOT just that you don't like it. It implies that, independently of whether you actually like that part or not, it wasn't implemented as well as it could.

So it's like I already said. You feel it's necessary to constantly add "I think"/Imo/etc to every subjective statement phrased as fact and remind people that what they write is mostly their opinion and is not shared by 100% of the population. Who would have thought.

My point is that it's a waste of time. But like I said to Gorb... if you think it's interesting then continue to do so everytime I say the game sucks or is boring or that trade routes were designed on a party napkin etc. I don't really mind. I just think it truly goes nowhere since my response would just be "yes it's my opinion". By all means attack me if I do not provide any argument to a position though.

Enough of that offtopic for me.

Hm. Acken's turn vic notwithstanding, I think he overstates the sameness of the terrain by a pretty large amount. You do kind of have to get out there and settle land, and settling land at all is more important than settling fantastically good land; but they're not all the same.

I don't think I overstate it for water cities though. The water ressources have no impact and there are only 2 types of water tiles. There's also no difficult terrain for movements. When it comes to improvements you can make everything the same. Hell you can even put farms on top of water ressources now.

Otherwise, we wouldn't differentiate between starts at all, and we do. In particular, having Titanium is a pretty huge leg up over not. It's a fairly dramatic difference. You should easily go for the Titanium sites if you have a choice.

I'd argue that something like Titanium is a good thing. However there's very little of those impactful ressources and still no choice to make. You expand and titanium simply makes some positions better (although with how bad the trade route system is, this is not really clear since it diminishes the delta). There's still very little choice because of the trivialization of health and other terrain features having a very weak impact.

 

[Kutuzov]

Look, I originally asked this question to engage people on their opinion and find out if they felt the game was boring. I have been a loyal fan of Civ for years so I didn't want to just toss the game after two or three tries.

Indeed you did and other people here do. I have also been a very long-time fan of the series but I'm not going to get into a competition about who has been with it the longest with you. As a long-time fan, BERT has presented no real problems for me and I do not find it any more boring to play than other 4x games. That is largely a result of my preferred play-style though. I am not a min-max player. People who play this game will tell you that it IS demonstrably worse than other 4x games. But that's going OT.

I didn't ask the question to be told in a slightly condescending manner to go play something else. That is hardly contributing to what I was trying to ask.

Well, if you feel that it is condescending to advise people who are struggling to find a particular game fun or interesting to play to play another game instead, who am I to disagree? It's just plain, good, common sense which is sometimes not welcome but it was not my intention to condescend to you. I know how much fun it is when posters do that to me

This is a forum about BE and I raised a question about BE. I don't want this to descend into arguments or to get off topic. I am not 'wasting' my time, I am hoping that the game will grow on me and asking if others find aspects of the game boring. This forum would be pointless if the answer was always 'go play something else'.

The answer is not always 'go and play something else'. You have already been given advice on how to make the game more interesting in this thread and yet, by your own admission, it has continued to fail to engage you.

It's entirely up to you to determine just how long you are willing to persist in hoping that it will grow on you. But if you decide to give up on BERT a little earlier and save yourself some 'boring' gameplay and actually have fun playing something else instead, perhaps I have done you a favour? You would now be having fun instead of trying to find fun where it likely isn't for you. IMO, doing anything else IS a waste of your time as it's just a game and not something that we 'need' to master in order to be successful with our lives.

Finally...

If folks are finding BE boring to play, then go and play a game that engages you and makes you happy

Just a small point but the fact that I used the word 'folks' instead of the YOU should have indicated to you that I was not directing my comments directly to you although, as the OP, I can understand your sensitivity. It was not my intention to antagonize you but simply to remind people that it is simpler and easier sometimes to go with the fun instead of persisting with something that doesn't give you pleasure.

 

[Roxlimn]

Acken:

I don't think I overstate it for water cities though. The water resources have no impact and there are only 2 types of water tiles. There's also no difficult terrain for movements. When it comes to improvements you can make everything the same. Hell you can even put farms on top of water resources now.

Nonsense. You're still overstating it. The fact that water cities and land cities have considerably differing mechanics is a significant factor in siting cities between the terrain types. You definitely don't want to be putting a 2nd water city right within a stone's throw of Kozlov. It's basically indefensible and you're provoking an early war with an aggressive enemy.

Water-specific resources can help a city grow by maximizing the TR output to growth - it's easier to maintain basic food neutrality with algae. I actually kind of hate the fish. You could make everything the same, but I fail to see the point in farming titanium and oil, though I haven't even checked if you could do that. So basically, you site water cities next to titanium or oil, both for production purposes so they take food from the land sites and give back hammers.

Having good early production like that also allows the water city to move very fast later on in order to claim tiles - siting them on food first means you'll have to spend escalating amounts of gold instead of relatively cheap moves. As the city matures, more of it becomes tile-agnostic with Specialist buildings, so you can move it completely out of the productive "start" zone and site new cities into the area and have them found instantly. The titanium/oil field then helps kickstart the new city while the old one hies off to its final location, claiming its target tiles as it goes.

Island locations can house Arrays (the city won't be using all its tiles) to boost orbital coverage for spy satellites or offensive phasal transporters. They can also help limit city approaches to enemy melee boats (you can move the city to a more defensible location in response to war).

Islands can also house Domes. Domes add +10 hp incrementally. The worker time value is negligible since you can get an unlimited number of workers for free using the Engineering Corps Agreement, and their maintenance is free with Master Control. It's important to site the Domes on islands so that the attacking enemy ships can't pillage them, so they'll have to work through the hp pool the hard way.

It can also be useful to site Domes in out-of-the-way water corners of land cities for the same reason - in lakes and such. Embarked land units can't pillage improvements, so those are pretty much solid hp. Extra hp matter in city toughness and in using the city as a unit in case of conflict.

The two types of water tiles basically correspond to the two types of land tiles - flat and rough. They don't offer movement restrictions (islands do that) but they do offer differing performance based on submarine upgrades.

Just because you don't need or want to do any of these things or pay attention to them in order to score the vic doesn't mean they don't exist. They do.

I'd argue that something like Titanium is a good thing. However there's very little of those impactful resources and still no choice to make. You expand and titanium simply makes some positions better (although with how bad the trade route system is, this is not really clear since it diminishes the delta). There's still very little choice because of the trivialization of health and other terrain features having a very weak impact.

To the contrary, the Titanium increases the delta. Normally, your capital will be food rich and lack titanium. In cases where your capital is titanium-sited, you will have to go through the trouble of siting a hammer-poor food-rich site to complement - this can be awkward.

A second hammer rich city contrasts well with the capital. A third does so as well. Eventually, you'll want a second food-rich location with an emphasis on no titanium in favor of lots of food, but that's later on.

And no, Food Conversion doesn't do the same thing unless you're Al Falah and you have full Ambitious conversion. Even then, having the food on the tile already means you're more efficient to begin with.

Titanium is also only an early-game advantage. Once you get some techs down, Oil and Xenomass are competitive for production, and better for energy and food respectively.

 

[Acken]

You definitely don't want to be putting a 2nd water city right within a stone's throw of Kozlov. It's basically indefensible and you're provoking an early war with an aggressive enemy.

Well I'm talking about terrain/ressources/yields rather than city position. When it comes to city position things are similar to other game so no problem there. I seriously doubt your claim that it's indefensible though.

Water-specific resources can help a city grow by maximizing the TR output to growth - it's easier to maintain basic food neutrality with algae. I actually kind of hate the fish. You could make everything the same, but I fail to see the point in farming titanium and oil, though I haven't even checked if you could do that. So basically, you site water cities next to titanium or oil, both for production purposes so they take food from the land sites and give back hammers.

Some improvement give +1 gold. That's a direct farm for me. Titanium isn't concerned. Never claimed you should farm titanium.

Having good early production like that also allows the water city to move very fast later on in order to claim tiles - siting them on food first means you'll have to spend escalating amounts of gold instead of relatively cheap moves. As the city matures, more of it becomes tile-agnostic with Specialist buildings, so you can move it completely out of the productive "start" zone and site new cities into the area and have them found instantly. The titanium/oil field then helps kickstart the new city while the old one hies off to its final location, claiming its target tiles as it goes.

Didn't know that was possible (bold part). Good to know if I play CivBE again.
I don't get what you mean about the gold. I certainly don't expand border just using gold. Regardless of what you do in the city, trade routes will increase its production by such an amount that moving the city is always a matter of 1 to 2 turns of production when it comes interesting to move the city.

Island locations can house Arrays (the city won't be using all its tiles) to boost orbital coverage for spy satellites or offensive phasal transporters. They can also help limit city approaches to enemy melee boats (you can move the city to a more defensible location in response to war).

Islands can also house Domes. Domes add +10 hp incrementally. The worker time value is negligible since you can get an unlimited number of workers for free using the Engineering Corps Agreement, and their maintenance is free with Master Control. It's important to site the Domes on islands so that the attacking enemy ships can't pillage them, so they'll have to work through the hp pool the hard way.

It can also be useful to site Domes in out-of-the-way water corners of land cities for the same reason - in lakes and such. Embarked land units can't pillage improvements, so those are pretty much solid hp. Extra hp matter in city toughness and in using the city as a unit in case of conflict.

The two types of water tiles basically correspond to the two types of land tiles - flat and rough. They don't offer movement restrictions (islands do that) but they do offer differing performance based on submarine upgrades.

All this to me sounds like things that could be interesting if they were happening. But
it's pretty much unecessary and end up not being time efficient. Especially since you have to get all these techs.

Just because you don't need or want to do any of these things or pay attention to them in order to score the vic doesn't mean they don't exist. They do.

There are some cool ideas in CivBE don't get me wrong. But in the end the game doesn't work around them because not enough work was put into making sure there is a strong incentive to use these. The stupid AI and poor balance of yields and game length make it so what you suggest is unconsequential. I don't deny they exist, I deny they matter.

Though I'm not the kind of player that really cares for options that only allow you to do something but then fit no efficient strategy. Unless I'm mistaken and this really would improve my game. I've not seen impressive results yet from other players using these ideas.

To the contrary, the Titanium increases the delta. Normally, your capital will be food rich and lack titanium. In cases where your capital is titanium-sited, you will have to go through the trouble of siting a hammer-poor food-rich site to complement - this can be awkward.

Whether in increases or decreases the delta depends where it is and the TR cities. I was saying for an expansion. The route is likely to decrease the delta with the capital. Though you have a point that you can then make this city production rich and play around the delta using that.

To be honest it's not really a system I'll bother optimizing at this point though. I get what you mean and thumbs up if you appreciate having to play around trade route deltas to optimize your yields. I've never liked how trade routes work to begin with as it is the source of many issues in my eyes. I already find them stupid without optimization I don't even want to know what it would look like with perfect management

Titanium is also only an early-game advantage. Once you get some techs down, Oil and Xenomass are competitive for production, and better for energy and food respectively.

By the time Xenomass is competitive the game is over sadly.