Don't give up on BE just yet

[cruzin]

Just played a SP game that was... really damn fun.
Maybe even one of best SP civ experiences i've had in years.
I'll give you a small recap

Game settings:
6 civs
Diffuculty Apoolo
Map size Dwarf
World age 5 billion
Sea levels low
played as arc

Mods:
Colorful tech tree
User Interface Tweaks by IhpStitch (must have! Traderoutes no longer a chore


I had to fight off some aliens in the beginning, making expanding a bit tricky, and it quickly got a bit crowded.
Then got backstabed by the friendly neighborhood ,rexing, hutama (7 cities against my 2. , and he had an affinity lead), fended it off barely ,using chokepoints, nodes, rushing of defensive buildings and espionage(stole techs that gave affinity, recruited defectors, even couped his capital for a few turns breathing room)

As i stablize and secure my borders, i take out a station he's trading with, bad idea.
This ticks off my other two neigbors, PAU and KP, who a few turns later decalre war.

I'm at war on 3 fronts, my captial being bombed by polystralian tacjets with an affinity lead, with a pau army is 3-4 tiles away. With most my forces are up vs hutama making yet another push into my lands, leaving a few reserves to fend to save my realm.

And in the 11th hour a s spy steals me a endgame affinty tech, giving me 4 levels of affinity. It gave what remainded of my armies what it needed to push out the invaders, and start invading.

I've not wraped up the game yet, as it stand i have to crush hutama before his newly built mindflower wins him the game (T161)

So why share?
Because of all the negativity against the current iteration of BE on these forums, i just felt like sharing that there is alot of fun inside this game, and that "the ability to resond to situations" in the game. It's there, and it's damn awesome.

TL;DR
Up the difficulty level, use some mods, don't use the cheese strategies, have a good time

 

[GlobularFoody]

I gave up when I saw several AI units near my border just sit in miasma until they died. The AI is the worst it's ever been and there's zero enjoyment in defeating it. This should have just been a mod for Civ 5, and I'm glad I didn't buy it.

 

[ShenMa]

I would like to say I completely agree with OP. BE is definitely not living up to its potential right now, but I like many things about it, such as:

There is now a balance with cities producing and consuming. Terrascapes, academies, and manufactories give nice things, but I find the need to have dedicated generator cities to pay for those.

If I pay attention to my health, I can stay positive with no problem, which is much better than always being constrained by some arbitrary happiness limit.

Tiles no longer determine everything; terrascapes and satellites mean I can turn any part of the map into a productive location.

It's not possible to place the most powerful science buildings in every city, which means I have to specialize. That makes the empire building part of the game much more varied and interesting.

Warfare is no longer all about range+logistics artillery or logistics+air repair bomber stacks. I actually need to make enough melee units to cover my vulnerable artillery units. In my books this is a huge step up from Civ 5.

There are fewer units, but much more variety. I really like how the SABR is meant to be used solely for defense, or with a lot of phase satellite coverage.

Speaking of phase transporters, they're a very nice concept.

Overall I like how BE places a lot more power and a lot more decisions in the hands of the player; maybe this is the reason the AI seems so inadequate compared to before. Regardless, I don't remember a time when the AI wasn't dumb as bricks. I guess it's just not a priority for the developers.

 

[x2Madda]

I would like to say I completely agree with OP. BE is definitely not living up to its potential right now, but I like many things about it, such as:

There is now a balance with cities producing and consuming.

Such as?

Terrascapes, academies, and manufactories give nice things, but I find the need to have dedicated generator cities to pay for those.

I find I just need to spam more trade routes to enemy cities and/or stations and energy is never an issue ever again.
Related, you can have every city with nothing but generators (or farms if going purity) and still do great. This was an issue in base civ5 that resulted in markets being pushed further down the tech tree.

If I pay attention to my health, I can stay positive with no problem, which is much better than always being constrained by some arbitrary happiness limit.

I don't see how that is any different from Civ5, infact many people seem to want the system to be closer to Civ5 because right now you can ignore health altogether and still do great.

Tiles no longer determine everything; terrascapes and satellites mean I can turn any part of the map into a productive location.

Which means I don't need to care, at all, about where I place my cities. Just sit them on a hill for defense & production and i'm set. Further contributing to the ICS rather than hindering or balancing it.

It's not possible to place the most powerful science buildings in every city, which means I have to specialize. That makes the empire building part of the game much more varied and interesting.

Technically no different from Civ5 or Civ4 where great people would be parked within a city so spreading them around wouldn't be efficient. In Civ5 the NC and OU are only for one city and observatories require a mountain.

Warfare is no longer all about range+logistics artillery or logistics+air repair bomber stacks.

It never was unless you specifically and only wait until industrial era to go to war in which case the game cannot be faulted for you deferring early warfare.

I actually need to make enough melee units to cover my vulnerable artillery units. In my books this is a huge step up from Civ 5.

Do you? Horse units in Civ5 had 4 movement base, with some UU reaching more than that, the equivilent unit in BE has 3 movement and still suffers the same terrain issues that horse units in Civ5 had, making them less able to get behind enemy lines.

There are fewer units, but much more variety. I really like how the SABR is meant to be used solely for defense, or with a lot of phase satellite coverage.

I agree, infact I think they did well with streamlining military altogether. I don't find it better or worse than previous civ games, I find it different. Rushing affinity is the order of the day but I like it, to me it feels like you are always working towards winning. Having played so many MP games, I often find players just wonder whoring or getting side tracked by things that are just not important to winning the game. In BE it is still possible but they reigned it in a bit. Not everyone is going to be a superstar player but they should at least be on equal footing to those of us who are fanatics about the game and Civ:BE has made good progress in that direction.

Speaking of phase transporters, they're a very nice concept.

Yes they are, although I feel all the satellites could use a balance pass. Like catapults needing Iron, I think many of the satellites would benefit from having the need for resources removed.

Overall I like how BE places a lot more power and a lot more decisions in the hands of the player; maybe this is the reason the AI seems so inadequate compared to before. Regardless, I don't remember a time when the AI wasn't dumb as bricks. I guess it's just not a priority for the developers.

I think the reason the AI is so bad is because it has to remain flexible enough for when people make mods for the game. It is hard to program the AI to prioritize building certain things right now while retaining mod compatibility because of the logistics the AI is coded to use. I fear a good AI civ game would require the removal of mod compatibility. Although I can't blame modding only since Civ2 AI wasn't really good at all.
Having played these games in MP I don't know about the AI anymore. Even if it was better it is still soulless and annoying.

I also want to end with the caveat that even though I split your post into quote boxes, I was not attacking you, your view point, or your posts in any way. It was just easier for me to respond to like this.
Often when people split your post up it is to be hyper critical, which is not the case here. Thought I should mention it so you don't feel attacked because that is not my intention.
I like BE and I would like it more if I could play MP with people but for various reasons people just don't like the game and no matter how much I rant about how good MP could be, if they don't like the SP experience, why would they even care about MP?

 

[Roxlimn]

I find I just need to spam more trade routes to enemy cities and/or stations and energy is never an issue ever again.
Related, you can have every city with nothing but generators (or farms if going purity) and still do great. This was an issue in base civ5 that resulted in markets being pushed further down the tech tree.

I don't play MP so I'm not sure how that works out. As far as I can tell, spamming farms all over the place just reduces the food output of Trade Routes. Same thing with hammer-making tiles. Creating and maintaining a differential between trading cities maximizes TR output while also allowing the cities to do other things. A city on Desert with nothing but Generators will not trade well with another city on Desert with nothing but Academies.

Which means I don't need to care, at all, about where I place my cities. Just sit them on a hill for defense & production and i'm set. Further contributing to the ICS rather than hindering or balancing it.

There's a tradeoff for that now. A city on a hill makes better defense, but has 2 less food for 1 hammer gain. Sometimes that's worth it, sometimes it's not. In CivIV, you always settled on hill - there was no downside.

I recall CivV being largely the same.

Do you? Horse units in Civ5 had 4 movement base, with some UU reaching more than that, the equivilent unit in BE has 3 movement and still suffers the same terrain issues that horse units in Civ5 had, making them less able to get behind enemy lines.

The horse units were bad at melee and the range units could often defend themselves well enough to get away. In CivBE, if your artillery gets attacked by pretty much any melee, it's almost assured to die. Same with ranged. In addition, the Rover units weren't bad at melee, either. Their main disadvantage is that they require higher Affinity to upgrade, but in a scenario where you have a Marine and an Armor unit, the Armor unit is almost always going to be better in a wider variety of scenarios. It's a case of the Armor almost being an upgade of the Marine.

That is, they don't need to get behind enemy lines to be good melee, AND they can annihilate your Ranged if you mess up.

 

[Victus Mortuus]

The game is a cluster and I'm done with it until they do something about it, however that something will cost me so I'm unsure whether I want to pursue this game now.

 

[Callonia]

I gave up on Civ Be. Since I regret wasting fifty bucks so I will be playing just one map and milking it to hell and back before I proceed to throttle everyone. I want at least one city full of terrascapes with holomatriv satellites covering it for funneth. Its about halfway done now.

On that map, I didn't find a single alien nest at all until I had True Battlesuit hitting the field -.-

So boring. Wildlife is nonexistent at all. I neglected my military and watched anime while AI was doing their turns. Whatever I had is enough to deterrent the AIs from dowing me.

Oh a trade ship got sunk by a bug? No big deal.

 

[Bandersnatching]

The best games, for me, are when I'm completely surrounded by hordes of aggressive aliens. Siege Worms wrecking Stations left and right, 3 Nests around my capital... really puts the fear of Xeno-God in you.
Roleplaying can help add fun to games too. My favorite was definitely going all-Purity, settling a city in a completely snowy area, terrascaping it, and then launching the Lasercom Satellite above it so humanity back on Earth could see that we were creating a Garden of Eden out of the wasteland for them.

But after playing BE for a while, most of the games on Soyuz just aren't engaging enough once the early part is over. I think I'm going to move up to Apollo and see what all of these people are talking about.

I gave up when I saw several AI units near my border just sit in miasma until they died. The AI is the worst it's ever been and there's zero enjoyment in defeating it. This should have just been a mod for Civ 5, and I'm glad I didn't buy it.

So then I assume you've only played the demo? The full game is certainly more fun, but unfortunately doesn't really fix the 'AI keeps its units in miasma until they die' problem.

 

[poom3619]

I going to put the game away for at least half of a year or maybe a full year before try it again, or maybe not. I would writing my fanfic out of it as my own leaders playing against 7 of me-controlled my reimagined leaders. At least it's would be more fun.

On that map, I didn't find a single alien nest at all until I had True Battlesuit hitting the field -.-

So boring. Wildlife is nonexistent at all. I neglected my military and watched anime while AI was doing their turns. Whatever I had is enough to deterrent the AIs from dowing me.

Oh a trade ship got sunk by a bug? No big deal.

Wildlife is actually inconsistent if you ask me. I'm having trouble expanding southward that infested by 3 nests and horde of aliens, it's also my bad luck by choosing wrong path in Virtue thinking that there would be just handful of aliens. What irk me the most is that AI leaders get mad at me because I am killing alien after I "trust" them not to kill off two of my defended settlers. Such logic.