First Civ that's too easy to be playable :(

[AU_Armageddon]

Hi, been playin a lot of Civ since the first so maybe there's just such a thing as getting too good from practice, but with Civ BE on hardest difficulty picking worst combo I can it's still impossible for me not to rocket ahead of the AI in points while facing zero danger in war, and zero danger of not winning whichever Victory I feel like as well.

Loved every iteration of the Civ, and though early Civ 4 and Civ 5 had limitations, they were 100% playable and I loved them - just that obviously the xpacs really improved them even more.

However, Civ 5 I could still occasionally lose Deity with a terrible start, or some early tragic luck, or if I got drunk and careless. And the big draw is that many games have difficult points where I have to micro in and strategize thoughtfully to earn the win. It's that challenge that I love.

53 hours and 9 or 10 matches in, I have to quit BE (1,575 hrs on Civ 5, and a lot more on Civ 2 & 4) but I'm really unhappy to walk away. I love everything about BE, except that it's the first in the series to fail at being challenging.

Is it salvageable? So little challenge that's it's hard to imagine. I find Apollo to be about the equivalent of playing King on Civ 5. Where there is no amount of handicapping that could result in a loss (fun handicapping - obviously choosing not to act for 100 turns would do it just fine, but not exactly fun way to play in the Civ spirit of what I'm talking about. It needs to feel legit to feel like the challenge is genuine).

Anyone else having this experience?

 

[The_Reckoning]

Pretty sure you're in the majority, there.

Some people will never notice, since the idea that "it's not a challenge if I'm never close to losing" doesn't cross their minds.

Everyone else has realised the AI is slow to win and incapable of hitting you militarily.

 

[Jacozilla]

Try Apollo but go to war with AI. Not sure but your post above seems to say you're playing the game mechanics purely, "while facing zero danger in war" - does this mean you aren't going to war with the AI or are engaging in war but so easy there is no danger?

For me, guess I'm not a Civ-series god because while I very much agree Apollo is not near the difficulty Deity was in CiV, trying to go toe to toe domination slug matches with BE at Apollo is challenging for me - doable, but not always a win.

I'm about 12 full games played now, about half on Apollo and I'd say my win record is only 50-50, especially if I play duel 1v1 on skirmish map against someone like Hutama as AI.

If you are going to war with the AI on Apollo and still sleep through it, then you are clearly not the average or even above average player Firaxis targeted the play balance of BE to. Which imo is a good thing.

 

[Dactyl]

I tend to agree with the OP's assessment, and it wouldn't be too hard to make the game more challenging at the most difficult setting. Some things just don't make sense. The aliens aren't really all that aggressive. I've played around with a dozen games or so on Apollo level, just to familiarize myself with it. Not once has a kraken taken out one of my explorers or colonists in the water. Another example, it's all too easy to take out a siege worm when it moves back and forth a hex away from one of your cities so that the city can take pot shots at it until killing it. I would expect the aliens to be more trouble at the most difficult setting. It should never be safe to send a unit out across the waters without an escort, and unless you have an ultrasonic fence, the worms should just plain devastate a city most of the time. In one of the videos that was released before the game was out, someone (MadJinn?) said that the prerelease versions had two difficulty levels above Apollo. If that's so, why were they deleted? It doesn't make any sense unless their marketing research shows that casual players like to win at the most difficult levels and that making it easier will sell more copies of the game. I don't know. That's just a guess, but as I said above, I don't think it would be all that hard to make the game more challenging.

 

[blacai]

I used to be afraid of the first 100 turns on Deity... but in Apollo it is relative peaceful.
They declare war but they prefer walking around on the borders than attacking me.

Three wars before turn 200 and I only killed ~15 units (most of them navy)

 

[Loucypher]

Honestly? I don't feel that way. I'm not really a hardcore Civ player who min-maxes, and I find that due to the way the planets are usually set up, you can't exactly freewheel your way to victory.
If you can win Civ V deity except "when having a terrible start, poor luck or being drunk", you're not exactly an average Civ player. Heck, this board doesn't exactly represent the average Civ player.

 

[Civking5]

I agree with op. After playing three games, it is clear to me that game needs an ai patch and a lot of balancing.

 

[Resipsa]

Have you experienced a run away AI? I'm on my third game on Apollo playing a Purity/Domination game but in this game Elode had finished the Mind flower on approximately t200 and by the time I fought to her capital the mind flower was 1 turn away from transcendence. If I had laid back I would have lost. Certainly this game is an outlier but it seemed like she was a monster at developing harmony affinity levels.

Also might is a fun branch to go down; 2 free affinties and adaptive science is pretty good.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Well, it's easiest of all Civ games, yes. But bear in mind:
- Most players honed their 1UPT tactics on Civ5. The thing AI is not capable of. There are some interesting twists in passability, etc. but overall skills are the same.
- The game just launched and is far from being balanced.
- I could be wrong, but I believe the AI bonuses are significantly lower. On Apollo AI don't have crazy 2 settlers they have in Civ 5. Probably higher difficulty levels will be added later. It occured before (in Civ 3 if I'm not mistaken).

 

[Aeson]

I, II, and SMAC werent challenging either.

 

[Rellin]

I am not sure how you managed to play 9 or 10 games. I finished my third game last night, and can not imagine starting another match. The game is fun, and I want to like it, but it is so easy and broken I just can not believe it. I am really upset with Firaxis.

 

[Resipsa]

TBH I like the relative weak nature of cities best in the game its actually fun to be able to wage war and not have the city oneshot all of your units while taking 4 turns of damage to capture.

I also like the espionage system, alot actually

 

[bhavv]

SMAC was even easier and extremely unbalanced, but people still love it.

 

[Greasy Dave]

Pretty sure you're in the majority, there.

Some people will never notice, since the idea that "it's not a challenge if I'm never close to losing" doesn't cross their minds.

Everyone else has realised the AI is slow to win and incapable of hitting you militarily.

I'm pretty sure he's in the minority there. There's a curious bias on these boards that assumes because most of here play Deity, then everyone in the world does too.

Let me break it to you gently - Deity isn't the world gold standard ability for the average civ player. It's funny but some people will never notice that their idea of a challenge is beyond the majority of others. I don't know why that doesn't cross those people's minds...perhaps you can ask anyone like that that you know and tell me in your reply?

I'm not of the majority minority that fills these boards. I learnt to beat vanilla V on Deity. Beat it at G and K but moved down to immortal for more relaxation. And with BNW never went back up. So I'm no skilled Deity player.

I find Apollo a serious challenge. I'd say it's somewhere close to V vanilla Deity. 5 attempts to beat it and so far all were lost. My 6th looks like it's going to be a win.

I'd estimate BE's difficult somewhere between BNW immortal and Deity. BNW immortal is a guaranteed win for me. BE Apollo isn't.

I agree. The game needs balance. The majority minority that fills these boards need some challenge and something to get their DEity teeth stuck into. No problem with that.

I do however, have a problem with gross generalisations that slip back handed insults at people who play on lower difficulty levels than the Halcyon Hero who made the off-the-cuff claim.

Thank you and your welcome.

 

[Rellin]

Apollo is a challenge? Really? What are you doing, researching every tech rather than trying to win? Purposely pissing off every single AI? What did you do that made it difficult? I have tried every sort of advance option setting to try and make the AI difficult, some sort of challenge, but it just doesn't do anything. It may try for a Harmony win, but it certainly does not know how to wage war to prevent me from winning.

Moderator Action: Please do not attack others players to whom the game is more challenging than to you by implying they are doing worse than their best.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Burck]

TBH I like the relative weak nature of cities best in the game its actually fun to be able to wage war and not have the city oneshot all of your units while taking 4 turns of damage to capture.

Yeah, they actually made defensive buildings really valuable: the base stats of cities (100 hit points and about 24 strength) are pretty weak as soon as Combo Rovers have developed into Armor.

----
Regarding challenge:

So far though, the only neighbor I've had to watch out for is ARC. They have DoW'd me everytime I was their neighbor, usually pretty early in the game. They would come at me with a carpet of 8 units or so and actually cause a lot of trouble. Just about every other Civ has been content to just twiddle their thumbs- except Kavitha who has been a menace when it comes to rushing the Victory Condition.

Point being, ARC and KP are two civs that actually do a good job of competing with the human player, and I wish the other civs were more like them (although I should add that Hutama is also fairly competent when given room to expand.)

Opposite of these three competent leaders are what I think are the two worst AI leaders: Rejinaldo (doesn't expand enough), and Elodie (always loses her capital).

 

[Fr33lanc3r]

Apollo is a challenge? ... <other comments>

People have different skill levels and different interests with the game. Just because you and a few other people don't find any challenge at the current maximum difficulty level doesn't mean that many people won't.

Further, on Civ:5 I'm a pretty consistent immortal player (~60% win rate). I played my first 3 games on mercury to figure out mechanics, quests and the tech web. Played 1 game on Vostok to get the achievement. My first pass through Gemini was pretty shakey, I was still working on tech web pathing. I'm finishing up my second game on Soyuz, and it seems to be on lock. I will be moving up to Apollo in the next few days, and I wholey expect a good chunck of games to be reasonably difficult.

Does your ability surpass other people; sure, but so does mine, I have friends that are having issues on Gemini difficulty. Does it give you the right to be patronizing, no.

The AI is pretty rough around the edges, all things considered. On difficulties of Gemini and lower, I've seen major issues with how the AI goes about teching and end-game goals. It definitely seems to get leaps and bounds better as you move up in difficulty, but then other issues come out; AI tech efficiency, growth efficiency, and military prowess all need some love. Even if you threw a giant tech bump, or an extra colonist or two at the AI, I don't think that would fix the inherent issues with how the AI is executing on the overall goals it's supplied.

 

[Rellin]

I should note that I play Emperor or Immortal in Civ5, not Deity. I play Emperor when i want to be lazy and most likely win and Immortal for a challenging more difficult game that I will probably lose. Apollo in Beyond Earth is like Prince.

 

[Chaleb]

Really I think they just made the AI not have ridiculous starts. In Civ V diety you'd see AI's with a few cities up by the time you meet them, here you always land first and the AI doesn't get as much bonuses.

 

[bryanw1995]

Apollo is a challenge? Really? What are you doing, researching every tech rather than trying to win? Purposely pissing off every single AI? What did you do that made it difficult? I have tried every sort of advance option setting to try and make the AI difficult, some sort of challenge, but it just doesn't do anything. It may try for a Harmony win, but it certainly does not know how to wage war to prevent me from winning.

I just started reading the forums a couple of hours ago, and it's clear that you hate the game. Why are you even posting here if you hate it so much? Civ 4 and 5 are excellent games with tons of mods, perhaps you'd be happier in their forums?

Moderator Action: Please do not call other posters haters of the game.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889