Do we get any unique units or buildings based on our sponsor?

[Oridan]

Like how we get UUs and UBs based on the Civ we play in other Civ games. Anything like that in BE?

 

[Minor Annoyance]

No. Affinities have UU's, although since more than one player can have the same affinity they're not unique in that way.

 

[cooldude1128]

I'd like it if we got 5 unique buildings/improvements per sponsor, or even 15-20 that we could pick and choose 2 from.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

You get UU and UB from
1. Affinities (where you Choose your benefits)
2. Quests (where you choose the benefits for buildings... you can either get +1 extra culture from relics or have them be maintenance free)

 

[Oridan]

Thanks for the replies guys. Yeah, affinity units replacing traditional uniques is about what I expected, I just had to make sure. Quests altering the effects of buildings is news to me though. That's really interesting!

 

[werothegreat]

It would be too silly to try to implement with the Tech Web. In V, with the tree, eventually you would have to go through the tech your UU or UB/UI was at, but in BE, that's not necessarily true. So you might play a game where you'd never see your uniques.

 

[JokerJace]

The reduced uniqueness between the factions is what I feel to be the biggest loss. I was hoping for more uniqueness. But instead they reduced the number of factions AND the uniqueness between them... That is actually the one reason why I'm still pondering whether to buy the game. I get that their new approach is that whole setup thing prior launch... But I personally prefer real uniqueness in the sense of exclusiveness. Why not combine the whole ship loadout approach with completely diverse factions. That would add so much replayability.

 

[Sprenk]

The reduced uniqueness between the factions is what I feel to be the biggest loss. I was hoping for more uniqueness. But instead they reduced the number of factions AND the uniqueness between them... That is actually the one reason why I'm still pondering whether to buy the game. I get that their new approach is that whole setup thing prior launch... But I personally prefer real uniqueness in the sense of exclusiveness. Why not combine the whole ship loadout approach with completely diverse factions. That would add so much replayability.

You might find there is actually quite a bit more "uniqueness" in BE than in BNW. There will be more than just one unique unit possibility now, and there will be more than just one possible unique building.

 

[JokerJace]

You might find there is actually quite a bit more "uniqueness" in BE than in BNW. There will be more than just one unique unit possibility now, and there will be more than just one possible unique building.

Yeah... but that all depends on ingame choices. In BNW I could also choose not to build a certain thing in favor of another thing. The same is true for research and policies. That's not the same level as having truly unique factions. Making all that ingame choices with a different faction could mean totally different things. That whole LAYER is missing.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The reduced uniqueness between the factions is what I feel to be the biggest loss. I was hoping for more uniqueness. But instead they reduced the number of factions AND the uniqueness between them... That is actually the one reason why I'm still pondering whether to buy the game. I get that their new approach is that whole setup thing prior launch... But I personally prefer real uniqueness in the sense of exclusiveness. Why not combine the whole ship loadout approach with completely diverse factions. That would add so much replayability.

The number of combinations was increased a lot, with sacrificed uniqueness. I'm not sure I like it, but:
- The game is different from Civ and it's good.
- That's actually a SMAC way. It was a constructor in many aspects.

 

[AriochIV]

The reduced uniqueness between the factions is what I feel to be the biggest loss. I was hoping for more uniqueness. But instead they reduced the number of factions AND the uniqueness between them...

The factions are more dynamic -- they can each evolve in three different directions -- and more dynamic necessarily means more generic. It also means fewer factions, since with three options 8 quickly multiplies into 24 (or more; it's not clear how many stages of development within each affinity there are for the AI players). But I would point out that Alpha Centauri only had 7 leaders.

Whether unique but static leaders or dynamic but generic leaders is better, none can say until we've played the game.

 

[Lord Shadow]

From my perspective, the loss of sponsor-based unique units is more than balanced out with the new, robust starting options. And those options are felt throughout the entire course of the campaign and/or affect the crucial early game, which I find more valuable than a single UU/UB which provides a minor advantage usually for a limited period of time. That's not a very interesting sort of uniqueness, to be honest.