Civ:BE Expansion Situation

[ahawk]

I really, really hope they make at least one expansion for Civ:BE... I mean, I think it would be both profitable on their end as well as worth it on our end:

- For one, doing an expansion for Civ:BE should be much easier than for Civ V. If you think about it, each sponsor is easier to make than the civilizations in Civ V, with no civ-specific music, nor leader screens, nor unique cultural architecture (which is covered by the affinity styles of architecture). So, it would be less work for the same level of profit in terms of adding another 8 or more sponsors per expansion.

- Secondly, I feel the game direly needs more air and sea units. Seriously, I expected a sci-fi setting to have more in the way of neat, weird, or powerful air units... not one air unit that is fairly generic. The game really needs a bomber-type unit, at least, for air. Further, the game needs a melee naval unit, too.

- Third, a few more alien units, satellites, and wonders would be great.

- Fourthly, a few more specialized maps wouldn't hurt, either.

Note that I'm not asking for new mechanics, or a new biome, or sweeping changes. Instead, what I'm asking for is basic stuff that could be added for an acceptable amount of man-hours. Really, the four things I mention above would really flesh-out the game, making for a good expansion, while still economizing on man-hours and resources.

I don't know what Firaxis is planning on at this point, but even if Civ 6 is being developed already, I certainly hope they get at least one real expansion in for Civ:BE.

 

[Lucius_]

All that stuff is well in good in an expansion, but would not be sufficient for an expansion. A bunch of DLC items in a single package does not an expansion make.

As far as adding this stuff to flesh out the game, I have to disagree. An additional air unit and a melee sea unit would be nice, but it isn't going to fix the problems the game has. Adding these and more leaders and the game isn't going to suddenly have more depth.

 

[Gort]

Modding in a melee sea unit wouldn't be hard - the AI should already know how to use them since there are alien sea melee units. Chances are it would just use the same AI routines as sea melee in Civ 5.

 

[Mivo]

I'd be surprised if they had made Civ:BE without an expansion already in mind (and partially being developed before release).

 

[JokerJace]

All that stuff is well in good in an expansion, but would not be sufficient for an expansion. A bunch of DLC items in a single package does not an expansion make.

As far as adding this stuff to flesh out the game, I have to disagree. An additional air unit and a melee sea unit would be nice, but it isn't going to fix the problems the game has. Adding these and more leaders and the game isn't going to suddenly have more depth.

This. I wouldn't buy an expansion that doesn't aim to fix this game / add more depth to it.

 

[Lord Tirian]

It'd be much better to see an overhaul of some systems and add some. I'm not going to speculate what could be a new system but looking at BNW (which overhauled gold generation and cultural victories), I could see something as sweeping as a new affinity system (same three affinities but more varied ways to get points and to more effects) and an overhauled victory system (again, much like BNW's cultural victory) that preserves the themes but adds some mechanical depth.

 

[ahawk]

Don't get me wrong: I'd love to see a more involved expansion that does add a new mechanic or two. I just don't know how much effort they are planning on putting into Civ:BE in terms of new content after release. Since this is a spin-off game, I'm not as certain as usual that they even will do an expansion at all.

Hence why I'm listing things that aren't so time-consuming. A couple of units that should be there already, plus a bunch of new sponsors, plus new maps and maybe a few new wonders and/or alien units, and I'd consider that a decent expansion so long as they continue to balance and bug-fix the base game.

All that said, a truly great (BtS- or BNW-level) expansion would add even more, like an overhaul or addition to affinity mechanics, or more interesting diplomatic options and so on.

I just don't know what to expect, though, because of this being a spin-off. Because of that, I'm worried there may not even be one expansion, in which case I'm trying to lobby to at least do something average for an expansion. I guess I'm just nervous because we all probably remember the Civ IV Colonization spin-off/re-make, which received zero additional content after-the-fact IIRC. It's because of that game, which was the last spin-off, that I'm not entirely sure what Firaxis is planning.

Long story short, to me it feels like Civ 6 could already have been in development since Civ:BE was re-using assets from Civ 5 akin to Colonization (Civ IV spin-off) re-using Civ IV assets. And if that's the case, I really do hope Firaxis at least spares the time to do one decent expansion for Civ:BE.

 

[CraigMak]

At this point making the game more balanced would be a much better improvement than adding new content which may in turn make the game even more imbalanced.

 

[Xenotitan]

At this point making the game more balanced would be a much better improvement than adding new content which may in turn make the game even more imbalanced.

This. Also bug fixes.

I won't buy a BE expansion until vanilla BE has most of its problems ironed out.

 

[ahawk]

Note that in the original post, I did say that my suggestion for an expansion was contingent on the bug-fixes continuing for the base game. In other words, as a few have said, the game still needs some bug fixes (though personally I haven't had a crash... or stupid monitor limitation... since the last patch).

 

[stealth_nsk]

Modding in a melee sea unit wouldn't be hard - the AI should already know how to use them since there are alien sea melee units. Chances are it would just use the same AI routines as sea melee in Civ 5.

With hovering tanks there's little use for melee ships.

I'd be surprised if they had made Civ:BE without an expansion already in mind (and partially being developed before release).

Civilization V was developed without expansion in mind (if you don't count DLC with civilizations, of course) - G&K has a lot of concepts opposite to vanilla Civ 5. The same for XCOM - developers originally planned 2 story DLC, but based on user feedback changed the second one to a fully fleshed expansion.

It's quite normal for Firaxis not to plan full expansion beforehand.

And if we compare CivBE with another similar spinoff - Civ4Col, it didn't have any expansions.

 

[Gort]

With hovering tanks there's little use for melee ships.

For a large portion of the game there are ranged ships and no hovertanks. Not to mention that hovertanks lose a quarter of their strength over water.

 

[rastak]

With hovering tanks there's little use for melee ships.



Civilization V was developed without expansion in mind (if you don't count DLC with civilizations, of course) - G&K has a lot of concepts opposite to vanilla Civ 5. The same for XCOM - developers originally planned 2 story DLC, but based on user feedback changed the second one to a fully fleshed expansion.

It's quite normal for Firaxis not to plan full expansion beforehand.

And if we compare CivBE with another similar spinoff - Civ4Col, it didn't have any expansions.

Civ4Col wasn't a spinoff. It was a remake of their original Colonization game.

 

[ahawk]

Civ4Col wasn't a spinoff. It was a remake of their original Colonization game.

It was sort of both, though, in a sense.

In one sense, it re-used a lot of assets from Civ 4 just as Civ:BE re-used assets from Civ 5. In that regard, it could be argued to some extent that it was a spin-off of Civ 4 despite also being a remake.

In another sense, though, both Civ4:Col and Civ:BE are games that are obviously not part of the main, numbered series of Civ games. Again, this sort of means they are spin-offs.

And lastly: the original Colonization itself was not a main game in the series... so whatever remakes it is remaking a spin-off and thus is a spin-off itself, right?

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Modding in a melee sea unit wouldn't be hard - the AI should already know how to use them since there are alien sea melee units. Chances are it would just use the same AI routines as sea melee in Civ 5.

That's just about the only area of the AI I am impressed with. Many times in both games I've seen six melee sea units come out from the fog of war, surround my ship and destroy it. If it has freedom of movement the AI does OK.