can we please get an option to hide planetfall locations?

[KrikkitTwo]

Also, this might require more work than thought. If the engine assumes you have vision+diplo relations, then it might be a bit difficult to separate them.

 

[SupremacyKing]

There's no harm in making something optional, but I think some folks are inevitably going to be disappointed if they can't get behind the idea that Beyond Earth is a different game than they've played before.

Funny how some players think CivBE is too similar to Civ5 and others think it is too different.

 

[rkade8583]

I think they should offer an option to hide drop points for MP. It's story-game balance segregation.

 

[rawrkitty]

There's no harm in making something optional, but I think some folks are inevitably going to be disappointed if they can't get behind the idea that Beyond Earth is a different game than they've played before.

It's not about it being different, it's just not a good "feature" to have in a pvp enviroment.
It's caustic and leads to unhealthy multiplayer games.

If you guys WANT it, more power to you.
I dont.

i'm just tired of civ being a "single player" game where literally NO consideration is EVER given to multiplayer.
It's sad. this shoulden't even be a question, this defeats nearly the entire purpose of fog of war..

I completley understand and respect people who want "different" and "new" things, but this just isn't about being different, this completley changes the way the game is played, and not for the better. i've played THOUSANDS of hours of civ5 multiplayer, and the game nearly entirely boils down to military conflicts between players, and more often than not players will gang up on others very early on, and thats FINE. but being able to see where everyone is, is just another metagaming tool like the arbitrary "score" that causes players to make decisions based off things that are not part of the game. as a result, we will expect games to end sooner, fights to break out earlier (may be a good thing) but a side result is players techs will be lower, and less of the trees will be explored. and thats something that is already an issue with civ5 MP, one person gets the great library, and 8 people leave.
Every. Single. Game.

 

[Ryika]

It's not about it being different, it's just not a good "feature" to have in a pvp enviroment.
It's caustic and leads to unhealthy multiplayer games.

Mhhh. Coming from WC3 and SC2, I wouldn't actually be so sure about that. Knowing where everybody starts gives more information to every player, instead of letting luck decide who finds who first and giving a player an advantage this way. In SC2, even the disadvantages of starting on a 4-player-map and scouting an empty starting location first would give the opponent an advantage if he finds your starting location immediately.

Also actually scouting opponents (instead of just the surroundings), maybe even harassing each other much earlier than it's common in Civ 5 (messing with the fact that I started with a soldier and you started with a worker ) might become way more relevant.

But again: I'm all for choice here. I wouldn't see the new standard all that negative though.

 

[Gokudo01]

There's no harm in making something optional, but I think some folks are inevitably going to be disappointed if they can't get behind the idea that Beyond Earth is a different game than they've played before.

right moreover, it destroys the spy balance and the health balance.

You fear to go super unhealthy because enemies' spies will destroy your cities. If you are hard to reach, on another continent for example, and the other faction can't see your capital, what stop you to be under -10 or even - 20 for a long time ?

 

[rawrkitty]

Mhhh. Coming from WC3 and SC2, I wouldn't actually be so sure about that. Knowing where everybody starts gives more information to every player, instead of letting luck decide who finds who first and giving a player an advantage this way. In SC2, even the disadvantages of starting on a 4-player-map and scouting an empty starting location first would give the opponent an advantage if he finds your starting location immediately.

Also actually scouting opponents (instead of just the surroundings), maybe even harassing each other much earlier than it's common in Civ 5 (messing with the fact that I started with a soldier and you started with a worker ) might become way more relevant.

But again: I'm all for choice here. I wouldn't see the new standard all that negative though.

in some cases i agree, for starcraft, the game prides itself on symmetry so there is some degree i can agree with you on that one.

Civ is in no way, nor has ever been, symmetric.

in RTS the game scales are also much smaller and length is much shorter, in Civ being able to see every players exact tile start location lets you know with near perfect precision that players current, and eventual sphere of influence, you know to expand away or towards them, you know where your freinds are, you can VERY easily ascertain continental divides through just seeing the start players, especially on larger maps, the black spacing allows you to KNOW a continent is natively uninhabited, or KNOW that player X and Y are not on the same continent, or are.
You start the game KNOWING that your continent has an prospective enemy or ally, you start the game KNOWING that you have no opposition to your continental expansion.

ALL of these implications completley remove most of the necessity of scouting.

I just.. i dont like it.
This isn't starcraft, this is Civ.
Exploration is a large part of the game.

I see your point though Ryika, the game will live on, but i will not enjoy having to use all this meta-knowledge given to me by the god of firaxis. i might as well just have a ing maphack lol

 

[Greybane]

Scouting would still be incredibly relevant. Great, you know their capital location. How many cities do they have? What does their production look like across them? What sort of strategic resources do they have committed to specialized units, vs being free for trade? Nests location, expedition sites, and resource pods (early game) are all going to make scouting still an important part of the game even if you know the capitals location.

Starting without having someone else on your continent is pretty darn unlike, unless you do a small islands map or something. I think I have had it happen maybe twice in over a thousand hours of playing Civ V (which, while not BE, is likely the best comparison at the moment).

As far as multiplayer, I don't see a Great Library equivalent right off the bat (thank you tech web!) so ragequitting seems less likely. Military will be important anyway, due to local fauna that completely neglecting it to focus on infrastructure and letting yourself be open to another player attacking you seems risky even with a bunch of pacifists all playing together.

As far as a metagaming tool...there are a ton of them? Scores being shown counts, if they have that position scoreboard thing they had in Civ V here that everyone uses there is another, basically there are tons of ways to get and use meta information. Their capital location can normally be pretty accurately guessed just from when you meet their scout, and which direction it moves in. At that time, if you are planning an early military push you are probably just popping off a unit or to for it, so you haven't really changed much at all. A few turns knowledge? I disagree with this ruining anything in multiplayer. Makes it more interesting to me, that politics between people can start from the get go.

 

[rawrkitty]

As far as multiplayer, I don't see a Great Library equivalent right off the bat (thank you tech web!) so ragequitting seems less likely. Military will be important anyway, due to local fauna that completely neglecting it to focus on infrastructure and letting yourself be open to another player attacking you seems risky even with a bunch of pacifists all playing together.

This is actually quite true and i am extremely grateful for it, all the wonders seem really cool and unique, but few of them seem gamebreaking, but still people just love to leave when they're behind, i really like pandora because wonder's are "projects" and are not exclusive and score really isn't calculated deeply enough to have much variance, and players are less inclined to feel ahead or behind, that kind of metagaming tool actually really does harm the game in my opinion.

i just am not a fan of my civ5 MP experience (sp bores me after beating nearly every variation of game) at times, i'll be 400 score to players 200-300 and they'll just leave despite having tech leads on me, military leads, but they s ee me get these arbitrary "points" and they think they have no chance at winning the game.
It's annoying.

But yeah you are very right its not as bad as im makign it out to be, i just want an option to remove it

Mostly if not for any reason other than i dont want to be instantly rushed by players soley because they know where iam (im not kidding this happens to me a lot in civ5, i had a game yesterday where i was ghandi and because no reason other than a wonder ibuilt 3 players allied to try to kill me, and it took them a very long time to assertain my location and allowed me time to defend, in BE this will not be possible.

I also agree with you it makes things more interesting, but that may not necissarily be a good thing.

When im playing my first few "learner" games with all my friends i'll keep it on because we're generally peaceful, but having the game assist you in all out rushes of players really removes a lot of the game's content, since most games players are elminated or leave by turn 100 anyway, and in Civ5 quick turn 100 is medieval era or later, but in BE turn100 is far less deep in tech web (i mean jesus MDJ played 400 turns on PAC and barely scratched the surface on the web haha) i want to be able to have quality MP games in BE.
With civ5's track record poor engine and netcode combined with some of the issues related to player retention i just dont see that ever happening.
It saddens me, i guess.


Not zergfests.
If i wanted zergfests i'd go play some starcraft lol

 

[Aeson]

right moreover, it destroys the spy balance and the health balance.

You fear to go super unhealthy because enemies' spies will destroy your cities. If you are hard to reach, on another continent for example, and the other faction can't see your capital, what stop you to be under -10 or even - 20 for a long time ?

With embarking available to research from day one exploration could open up most of that pretty early for anyone who wants to focus on it. Brasilia and ARC were sending units over to the other continent on Maddjinn's FI game for example.

It could also open up further Spy operations ... like "find Capital" and "steal [portion of] map" missions.

I think that would be better than the current situation where intercontinental exploration seems rather useless. (Perhaps intercontinental trade has a bonus? That would be a good exploration carrot as well. We haven't seen intercontinental trade routes yet that I can think of.)

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Moved to CivBE - Ideas & Suggestions.