Factions are all the same.

[Soronery]

BE has a lot of problems. I'm going to complain about this one.
In Civ 5 different civs had a different bonus and 2 different unit/building/improvements. Playing different civs felt different.

In Civ BE the faction bonuses are almost non existent. You might as well have 1 faction.

 

[Monado]

Seeding options (and almost all the Faction UA's) are such a bore they could actually be removed and It wouldn't make a difference to me.

It feels like, at the faction/seeding select screen, I am simply choosing a territory boundary color.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Agreed. What this proves is that maybe they should finally stop and forget trying to differentiate civs by "condensing" them into those cool (not really) talking (annoying) animations (bah), and actually make interesting different factions that will feel different and act different. You don't need those talking animations (they're so proud of) for that.

 

[Krajzen]

It is funny how excited I was when Firaxis was revealing new factions and how much I cared about them only to see them turned into faceless, completely devoid of any atmosphere bunch of rather weak bonuses

However I am not devastatingly disappointed as since first actual gameplays of BE I had strong suspectons of what is going to happen - reskinned Civ5 with all it's problems.

Still I am amazed how bland the factions are.

 

[Tinker]

it is weird, because the pre-release stories and everything about them was pretty great - but there's just no real difference playing any of them, because their bonuses are minor, and unique units/buildings/improvements don't exist. Most "UA"s also just entail a bonus of x% on y, which is not particularly inspiring.

Honestly, both in the leaders and the affinities, I really would've liked them to go way more extreme, with insanely powerful UAs on all of them that you have to pick between and affinities drastically changing your territory. That's kind of what I expected.

 

[ToothedBomb]

Agreed. What this proves is that maybe they should finally stop and forget trying to differentiate civs by "condensing" them into those cool (not really) talking (annoying) animations (bah), and actually make interesting different factions that will feel different and act different. You don't need those talking animations (they're so proud of) for that.

It worked fine in Civ V. It's just that the factions in BE are really bland, and their UA's are so basic and boring, they could be social policies or virtues.

 

[Krajzen]

It worked fine in Civ V. It's just that the factions in BE are really bland, and their UA's are so basic and boring, they could be social policies or virtues.

It is especially amazing for me as... Go and check civilisations made by amateur modders for Civ5. Burmese Civilisation of Pouakai alone with it's active boosts and unique gameplay is more interesting than these 8 bland factions combined.


Seriously, it is brutal word but I more and more have a feeling someone was very lazy during producing BE. Awesome trailer, countless polished previews and really controversial, unfinished, baffling final product.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Agreed, the leaders are definitely a let-down and down match up with their lore-wise representations.

They really need more active Civ5-style unique abilities that just have more flair without pushing them down any affinity path - if you stripped the Civ5 civs of their UUs/UBs (which would force a certain tech path in Civ:BE), they'd still be very varied and it would still work with the extra picks you get during the seeding options.

 

[ToothedBomb]

It is especially amazing for me as... Go and check civilisations made by amateur modders for Civ5. Burmese Civilisation of Pouakai alone with it's active boosts and unique gameplay is more interesting than these 8 bland factions combined.


Seriously, it is brutal word but I more and more have a feeling someone was very lazy during producing BE. Awesome trailer, countless polished previews and really controversial, unfinished, baffling final product.

Definitively. All that time and effort they spent on making those trailers would've been better spent on clips for the victory conditions and Wonders, and making tech and unit icons you can actually recognize at a glance.

 

[Jaeger5]

Yeah, there's no, "oh 'ell, Monte is going to be up all in my grill." in BE. Somebody being PC?

Out of the three game sessions I've played, the Slavics have either hated me for nothing (I was going towards Supremacy but early game they hated me too when my Affinity was ambiguous and I was trading with them and far away from them on the same continent) or loved me while playing towards Harmony and Purity.

In my Surpremacy playthrough I played the AMC. I was going to capitalize on their espionage and go Military and Industrial. I didn't know about my purity or Surpremacy choice until the blurb at the beginning of the game where the AMC ceo said, she was going to get hers and F Earth. Paraphrasing. Well, that's not exactly trying to help Earth, so no Purity in my future.