Does Civ BE means Civ6 in 2016 is hopeless?

[GoodSarmatian]

A great game is incredibly subjective. I put more hours in BE than I did CiV, before RT even came around.

Might be in a minority, but gosh am I tired of people saying "well I don't like this game" (which is fair) "therefore the people that worked on it are incompetent and / or stupid and / or can't make a good game" (which is insulting and makes you look completely ignorant about the realities of games dev).

There's differences in taste, but game design can be judged objectively to a certain extent. A good indicator for 4x games is the number of strategies and techs that aren't worth researching and buildings unists that aren't worth building on any challenging difficulty level, and BE has plenty of those.
It is objectively a very poorly balanced game.

That isn't the metric for "getting an expansion" though, otherwise BE wouldn't have even gotten one.

I would assume that one expansion was planned from the start since all Civ games after Civ I got at least one expansion, but a second one would have required more success.

 

[Callonia]

SahintheFalcon, I've played plenty of wargames.

The problem is that, The AI is either too slow or moves up to Apollo and upgrades its units super quick. There is no middleground.

And then Firaxis didn't bother to improve the AI for CIV:BERT as you put it, a wargame.

ANd what's more, THe biggest map on CIV:BERT is smaller than CIV5's biggest map.

I've already beaten CIV:BERT on Apollo and the ideologies is only reason why I was able to do that, no science cheats to crush my cavemen military this time around. On Civ5, I play on King at most because its too much of a chore to play on anything over it cuz of super quick science means I cannot truly enjoy the eras. I do not find it entertainnig to send cavemen up against modern armor.

 

[Gorbles]

There's differences in taste, but game design can be judged objectively to a certain extent. A good indicator for 4x games is the number of strategies and techs that aren't worth researching and buildings unists that aren't worth building on any challenging difficulty level, and BE has plenty of those.
It is objectively a very poorly balanced game.

We could debate balance until the End Days, but that doesn't really match with what I was talking about. There is a difference in criticising a specific area of the game which only matters to people who actually play for the competitive aspect and claiming developer incompetence / laziness / etc. Heck there's a difference between criticising the whole game, and the latter.

 

[SahintheFalcon]

SahintheFalcon, I've played plenty of wargames.

The problem is that, The AI is either too slow or moves up to Apollo and upgrades its units super quick. There is no middleground.

And then Firaxis didn't bother to improve the AI for CIV:BERT as you put it, a wargame.

ANd what's more, THe biggest map on CIV:BERT is smaller than CIV5's biggest map.

I've already beaten CIV:BERT on Apollo and the ideologies is only reason why I was able to do that, no science cheats to crush my cavemen military this time around. On Civ5, I play on King at most because its too much of a chore to play on anything over it cuz of super quick science means I cannot truly enjoy the eras. I do not find it entertainnig to send cavemen up against modern armor.

I understand - no argument from me with your points there. The way BE is designed makes it difficult for an ai to mimic human decisions. The tech web, the large difference in unit strength between upgrades, and other factors make BE more challenging for the ai than Civ 5 (or at least, more challenging for the ai to "cheat" its way through and still remain on a relatively equal level as the human).

What I should have written was that these types of wargames are better suited for multiplayer. Beyond Earth is more fast-paced than Civ 5 and its mechanics favor a fight between several human players. The very aspects that allow Civ 5 to be fine-tuned to be "not too easy and not too hard" in singleplayer (e.g. expansion penalties, small gaps between unit upgrades, etc.) are largely eliminated in Beyond Earth. So the best player almost always wins. Steamrolls can and do happen; that's how the game keeps a 6-player match under 4 hours.

To be honest, I actually thought Beyond Earth would be hugely successful in the multiplayer area precisely because I feel that its gameplay was tuned for multiplayer.

 

[x2Madda]

To be honest, I actually thought Beyond Earth would be hugely successful in the multiplayer area precisely because I feel that its gameplay was tuned for multiplayer.

I agree 100% with this but the things that killed Civ:BE multiplayer was that their was a bug which meant MP games would bug out and fail if they could even begin at all.

This was unfortunately one of those bugs that hit at launch and killed the MP scene before it ever had a chance to start.

The bug is fixed now, thankfully, but the damage is done. Furthermore in CivV you could at least pursue a peaceful victory so while war was always a given in MP, it was not the end of the world if you were losing a war as you might win in other ways.

Then thier is the fact that in Civ:BE, war is the only way to win any of the victory conditions, unlike in CivV. That might not sound like its true but in CivV if you lose all your cities except your capital and are surrounded by enemies, you can still win. Unlikely, sure, but if you are 5/6 spaceship parts you might still win. In Civ:BE you need physical tiles on the map for any VC no matter what so you can't ever come back.

This also compounds 2v1. lets face it, if you are going to play MP you are going to play a few random matches and at some point you are going to fight human players in an offline alliance. In CivV these scenarios are easy to detect by hitting F9 every couple of turns. Who is building a large army? Who is leading in population + science? Is the large army player marching towards you or towards the other player?

In Civ:BE everyone needs an army and their is no F9. So seeing a large roaming army is meaningless and if 2 players ally against you, as I said earlier, you need your land tiles to win so its game over at that point no matter what. They just need to occupy your tiles to stop you building anything you need to win.

Another thing that killed Civ:BE MP was that believe it or not, most players hate having war declared on them. If you consider Civ to be an RTS (it isn't but just pretend) then this is quite baffling but considering you can win without ever building a military unit in CivV, a lot of players will attempt a peaceful victory. Because you can't achieve a peaceful victory in BE unless everyone and the aliens leave you alone and also don't settle too close to you (you may need more tiles, depending on VC) then you are just not going to get a peaceful victory.

Civ games are not an RTS, they are slow methodical games. Even the NQ group that has many rules to streamline games to be faster, will take over an hour to finish a single game. In Civ:BE we also see that Civ games don't make a good RTS, wars are slow and dragged out, even moreso in Civ:BE because all units upgrade at the same time. That is a feature I love, not to make it sound like a negative but their are times in CivV where you are fighting a very close war and take a city by the skin of your teeth and their are times where the enemy finishes a wall and/or builds composite bowmen when you were still using regular archers. The point is moments like that are close and tense and that enhances the gameplay experience.

In Civ:BE we don't get moments like that, you are never barely winning, you either steamroll or stalemate and its boring. Its even more boring when you have spent an hour or two playing the game to only reach a point like this and finally, their is no penalty for leaving. So you can get stuck, start winning and your foe just quits. Its like a punch to the gut, you haven't even taken a city yet (or maybe you have) and then they quit on you. Something that wasn't fixed from CivV

 

[SahintheFalcon]

I agree 100% with this but the things that killed Civ:BE multiplayer was that their was a bug which meant MP games would bug out and fail if they could even begin at all.

This was unfortunately one of those bugs that hit at launch and killed the MP scene before it ever had a chance to start.

The bug is fixed now, thankfully, but the damage is done. Furthermore in CivV you could at least pursue a peaceful victory so while war was always a given in MP, it was not the end of the world if you were losing a war as you might win in other ways.

Then thier is the fact that in Civ:BE, war is the only way to win any of the victory conditions, unlike in CivV. That might not sound like its true but in CivV if you lose all your cities except your capital and are surrounded by enemies, you can still win. Unlikely, sure, but if you are 5/6 spaceship parts you might still win. In Civ:BE you need physical tiles on the map for any VC no matter what so you can't ever come back.

This also compounds 2v1. lets face it, if you are going to play MP you are going to play a few random matches and at some point you are going to fight human players in an offline alliance. In CivV these scenarios are easy to detect by hitting F9 every couple of turns. Who is building a large army? Who is leading in population + science? Is the large army player marching towards you or towards the other player?

In Civ:BE everyone needs an army and their is no F9. So seeing a large roaming army is meaningless and if 2 players ally against you, as I said earlier, you need your land tiles to win so its game over at that point no matter what. They just need to occupy your tiles to stop you building anything you need to win.

Another thing that killed Civ:BE MP was that believe it or not, most players hate having war declared on them. If you consider Civ to be an RTS (it isn't but just pretend) then this is quite baffling but considering you can win without ever building a military unit in CivV, a lot of players will attempt a peaceful victory. Because you can't achieve a peaceful victory in BE unless everyone and the aliens leave you alone and also don't settle too close to you (you may need more tiles, depending on VC) then you are just not going to get a peaceful victory.

Civ games are not an RTS, they are slow methodical games. Even the NQ group that has many rules to streamline games to be faster, will take over an hour to finish a single game. In Civ:BE we also see that Civ games don't make a good RTS, wars are slow and dragged out, even moreso in Civ:BE because all units upgrade at the same time. That is a feature I love, not to make it sound like a negative but their are times in CivV where you are fighting a very close war and take a city by the skin of your teeth and their are times where the enemy finishes a wall and/or builds composite bowmen when you were still using regular archers. The point is moments like that are close and tense and that enhances the gameplay experience.

In Civ:BE we don't get moments like that, you are never barely winning, you either steamroll or stalemate and its boring. Its even more boring when you have spent an hour or two playing the game to only reach a point like this and finally, their is no penalty for leaving. So you can get stuck, start winning and your foe just quits. Its like a punch to the gut, you haven't even taken a city yet (or maybe you have) and then they quit on you. Something that wasn't fixed from CivV

I definitely agree with everything you say. I suppose it's a matter of personal taste. I like playing Civ like a wargame once a week or so. It would get boring if I had to do it every day or even 3 times a week, but once a week is always great fun for me.

I do, however, find that I actually have more control over victory in Beyond Earth than in Civ 5. Because most of the mechanics are in some way or another related to the eventual big war that will come, I can prepare myself for this. Civ 5 is more unpredictable.

 

[Nares]

And then Firaxis didn't bother to improve the AI for CIV:BERT as you put it, a wargame.

I don't have RT, but BE's tactical AI is at least as bad if not worse than CiVs. The diplo AI is laughable - literally laughable. The city management AI still needs work.

I do agree with anyone saying that several game mechanics were drastically improved. So much so that I was actually surprised. In terms of streamlining the mechanics, this is what CiV should have been. I approve of health, virtues, affinities, quests, covert operations, the orbital layer if not the orbital units themselves, the variety of terrain improvements and resources, and probably a handful of other mechanics I can't think of or am not aware of at the moment. At most, any one of these requires minor tweaks.

Stations are an interesting mechanic still needing development, in particular that there should not be a quest to destroy any as they seem fragile enough already. The techweb is thankfully peculiar to the advanced start premise. There are far too many buildings, and too many are useless. Expeditions are lackluster and make for easy negative diplo bait.

I'm still undecided on how to view the mechanical changes to leaders, unique abilities and the new options available when starting a game. I can overlook the hyper-PC emphasis on the Persian female in the intro video, but the blatant propaganda strewn through the loading screens makes me glad I didn't pay for this game.

Something of a rundown of the entire game, but I think the take away is that I was pleasantly surprised by the core mechanics, ie the ones I think will be or are most likely to be implemented in CiVI.

One last core mechanic I might mention is trade resource, maintenance and upkeep. With regards to CiV, this is currently much improved. However, I would still like to see the reintroduction of CIV-style cottages, or better yet, a fully fleshed mechanic offering CIV-style cottage growth for additional resources; science, culture and faith immediately come to mind, but I could even see production and food joining the list.

Finally, I'm over 1UPT. Put it to rest, and give us an armies mechanic which allows for the construction of various sized stacks (small, medium, large), with additional associated stack development mechanics, and some sort of scaling mechanic limiting the number of stacks we can field.

 

[Lightjolly]

Civ games don't make a good RTS,

Rise of Nations wants to have a word with you

 

[Lightjolly]

I don't have RT, but BE's tactical AI is at least as bad if not worse than CiVs. The diplo AI is laughable - literally laughable. The city management AI still needs work.

I do agree with anyone saying that several game mechanics were drastically improved. So much so that I was actually surprised. In terms of streamlining the mechanics, this is what CiV should have been. I approve of health, virtues, affinities, quests, covert operations, the orbital layer if not the orbital units themselves, the variety of terrain improvements and resources, and probably a handful of other mechanics I can't think of or am not aware of at the moment. At most, any one of these requires minor tweaks.

Stations are an interesting mechanic still needing development, in particular that there should not be a quest to destroy any as they seem fragile enough already. The techweb is thankfully peculiar to the advanced start premise. There are far too many buildings, and too many are useless. Expeditions are lackluster .

.

Actually in RT , expeditions are a must due to the artifacts you get from ruins. Combine three and they do more than freaking wonders

 

[SahintheFalcon]

I don't have RT, but BE's tactical AI is at least as bad if not worse than CiVs. The diplo AI is laughable - literally laughable. The city management AI still needs work.

I do agree with anyone saying that several game mechanics were drastically improved. So much so that I was actually surprised. In terms of streamlining the mechanics, this is what CiV should have been. I approve of health, virtues, affinities, quests, covert operations, the orbital layer if not the orbital units themselves, the variety of terrain improvements and resources, and probably a handful of other mechanics I can't think of or am not aware of at the moment. At most, any one of these requires minor tweaks.

Stations are an interesting mechanic still needing development, in particular that there should not be a quest to destroy any as they seem fragile enough already. The techweb is thankfully peculiar to the advanced start premise. There are far too many buildings, and too many are useless. Expeditions are lackluster and make for easy negative diplo bait.

I'm still undecided on how to view the mechanical changes to leaders, unique abilities and the new options available when starting a game. I can overlook the hyper-PC emphasis on the Persian female in the intro video, but the blatant propaganda strewn through the loading screens makes me glad I didn't pay for this game.

Something of a rundown of the entire game, but I think the take away is that I was pleasantly surprised by the core mechanics, ie the ones I think will be or are most likely to be implemented in CiVI.

One last core mechanic I might mention is trade resource, maintenance and upkeep. With regards to CiV, this is currently much improved. However, I would still like to see the reintroduction of CIV-style cottages, or better yet, a fully fleshed mechanic offering CIV-style cottage growth for additional resources; science, culture and faith immediately come to mind, but I could even see production and food joining the list.

Finally, I'm over 1UPT. Put it to rest, and give us an armies mechanic which allows for the construction of various sized stacks (small, medium, large), with additional associated stack development mechanics, and some sort of scaling mechanic limiting the number of stacks we can field.

In Civ BE, I would argue that high-level play particularly in multiplayer involves the switching of tiles throughout the game (a strategy mostly absent or unnecessary in Civ 5). For example, farms are best in the early game, then some need to be switched to generators or manufacturies in the mid-game. Later on, farms get more benefits from techs than improvements like generators, so generators often need to be switched back to farms.

 

[Callonia]

In Civ BE, I would argue that high-level play particularly in multiplayer involves the switching of tiles throughout the game (a strategy mostly absent or unnecessary in Civ 5). For example, farms are best in the early game, then some need to be switched to generators or manufacturies in the mid-game. Later on, farms get more benefits from techs than improvements like generators, so generators often need to be switched back to farms.

I do that alot, with one addition, if I'm playing As Purity civ, I cover the entire planet in Terrascapes and laugh.

Covering the entire planet in Terrascape is only thing I found fun to do in Civ:BERT.

 

[x2Madda]

Rise of Nations wants to have a word with you

I meant the literal games Civilization, not the genre of games like it.
Rise of nations and Age of empires are fantastic games and I highly recommend them. That said they are literal RTS games as opposed to the turn based (or click spam of sim turns) Civ games.

I never understood why those games never took off. Well age of empires sort of did but still.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I meant the literal games Civilization, not the genre of games like it.
Rise of nations and Age of empires are fantastic games and I highly recommend them. That said they are literal RTS games as opposed to the turn based (or click spam of sim turns) Civ games.

RoN was the most civ-like RTS. It successfully borrowed several concepts from civ which had never been implemented in a RTS before like borders, distinct city centers, tech progression from stone age to modern age, and governments. The game felt like you were building a civilization through the ages, just like in a civ game. Plus, RoN not just let the player pause the game but also had different speeds. When set to slow, the game gave the player so much time to think that it felt a lot like a TBS. So, in a lot of ways, RoN was not your typical RTS.

On the other hand, AoE was very much a typical historical RTS. You basically spam workers to collect resources and spam military units to thrash the enemy. And, it was very much a click fest.