First Impressions

[bladex]

ok played a few games now and i can see a list of stuff that is bad in this:

sponsors are boring: in civ 5 most civs had their own unique building and units and some could even do stuff other civs couldn't like Austria could take over city states. in BE every civ might as well be 1 civ their pretty much all identical there's nothing really special about any of them.

wonder blunder: why even have them their boring and 95% of them aren't even worth building most just give you +product, energy and science big deal. I can get through a whole game without even building one!

siege worms get off my planet: these things either have to be toned down so their easier to kill or get rid of them completely!

victories are P easy: the victories in this are incredibly easy in civ5 you had to wait till your near the end of the tech tree to complete most vics in this you can get the techs and wonders to build very quickly. the promised land is way too easy it should be at least 50 maybe even 100 earthlings you need to bring through not 20 (modders i'm looking at you to fix this.) the signal is a damn joke this has to be the easiest vic in the entire game i can complete it in under 200 turns easily!

forests...is the future run by hippies?: forests are useless now you can't build any improvements on them that really helps unlike the lumber mill in civ 5. did they forget how to build lumber mills in the future or don't they use wood anymore? they blew up my wooden bar stools do you know how hard they are to get?!!

culture...oh is that in it?: culture might as well not even be in this you can go through a whole game and completely ignore it and still get a full culture tree filled!

even smaller maps: the map sizes are even smaller in this than civ5 the huge map might as well be a standard map.

color blind tech tree: the tech tree is a joke all one color how are you supposed to know what is what you can't even tell what your researching half the time even if you mouse over something when your researching it you look at it and think...what was i researching again? thank god for mods though a mod fixes this.

boring units it's attack of the clones: every unit all the same every civ the same units, the same look.....zzzzzzz

green is in....NO!: green here, green there, green everywhere! green on all the map tiles, can't tell if that's a marsh is it. What were they thinking adding green to every single map tile?! Half the time i can't even tell if there's a mountain there or not the mouse over effect is doing serious overtime in this...

colonies\city states...why are you here?: these pop up early in the game and if you don't trade to them they...vanish and that's it you never see them again and they always plop down right in your way every time than you have to wait for them to go away. Why are they even there they are the most pointless thing in the whole game!

dumb ass aliens: yeah great job guarding that nest i just park a explorer with alien immunity near it and wait for the dumb S to move off the nest tile...it does it every time!

Trader routes: yep you know the drill i don't even bother with trade anymore.

favors....you owe me you SOB!: what do these do? how can you use them? when i try to trade my favor back for something every single damn time the Ai refuses. well stuff you mate you can stick your favors up...don't even accept favors!

 

[Autolukos]

After three games (one for each affinity, of course), I've enjoyed the gameplay twists on the CiV formula, with the exception of insane amounts of trade route micromanagement. If I wanted to play a game where my economy is utterly dependent on unit micro, I'd fire up SMAC.

Which brings me to severe disappointment at the utter lack of flavor; I had some hope that they would at least take a stab at developing an engaging atmosphere. Outside of the opening cinematic, the execution is poor and effort frequently lacking.

Overall, a decent enough game (that could improve significantly in gameplay with a few balance patches) but not one that I imagine I will be firing up for nostalgia's sake in 10 years.

 

[kirbdog]

Looking over my shoulder, my brother and wife both commented on how sexy the graphics were.

Which is good - it's a lot easier to mod a few values here and there for the other stuff.

 

[knighterrant81]

After a few playthroughs, here are my thoughts:

- I could watch the opening cinematic all day. Really inspiring.

- The game beyond that first cinematic lacks flavor. The unit icons never change, the leaders don't really do much (and don't have backgrounds). The blueprint wonders are really dry (And the wonders themselves are unappealing to build). I miss the Civ wonder movies! There's also nothing to differentiate the Sponsors, like unique units and buildings, and the Sponsor abilities are pretty forgettable (I think the starting bonuses like Spaceship and Cargo, which are nice, also tend to water down the sponsor flavor).

- Aesthetically, the buildings and units don't stand up to Civ 5. Even the Affinity based units. To be fair, the Civ 5 units aren't that amazing, but unit design is NOT the place to invest all of your art development assets! They're just too small to carry the game. I find myself constantly zooming in to actually see if any work was done!

- Diplomacy in general seems de-emphasized from Civ 5 (which may be due to me playing lower difficulty levels atm while I learn the new mechanics). All that ever really changes is the look of the units through the affinity system, which can't really carry an entire game.

- The gameplay seems a lot more simplistic. All the buildings basically feel the same...which is to say, like a little icon with some funny sci-fi name that has some resources attached to it (ditto for technologies). Sometimes I catch myself not bothering to actually read the name of the building (or the quest text), I just build it (or choose) based on resource icons. I'll also catch myself simply searching the tech tree for resource icons for whatever I need. Again, this may just be difficulty level or me learning the ropes.

- The waiting and the micromanaging. All the victory conditions involve some sort of waiting. This is always a problem with Civ, but in BE it is particularly bad. I'm certainly not motivated by the possibility of actually LOSING (because it doesn't exist). By the time you've got to the last 3rd of ANY civ game, it tends to be a forgone conclusion.

- Aliens are cool, but not the ocean ones. They seem a lot meaner, and it hurts a lot more to lose a ship than to lose an explorer. All my games I haven't bothered to explore even half the planet, because after the first 50 turns it isn't worth the effort. I do really like powerful Barbs, er, Aliens, though!

- I do like the *concept* of affinities. Right now, though, there are only minor differences in the victories.

- I don't like the aesthetic of the new planet. It is too hard to tell the difference between different types of tiles. In Civ, I know when I fire up the Arabians, I am DEFINITELY in a desert!

- Quests actually work out nicely. Nice addition (well, they're kinda in Civ 5 through city-states).


Positive:

Opening Cinematic
Affinities
Alien Barbs
Quests

Negative:

Lack of flavor
Sponsors are too similar
The aesthetic is off-putting (too much green, perhaps?)
The gameplay is unengaging, too much waiting


Honestly, I found the Civ 4 --> Civ 5 jump fairly jarring, and at first everything felt the same then, too, but it was definitely more engaging. All that BE makes me want to do is try different affinities and starting bonuses. Beyond that, I probably won't play it much.

 

[Mustakrakish]

After another "next turning" win (emancipation this time) unopposed, and after having a good look during the week, as to what this game has to offer, I decided to refrain form it until the heavy patches start rolling. After a few patches it will be playable, but I fear it will take an expansion to keep me actually interested in playing.

As it stands now, I have mixed feeling of either this is a full game or an expansion. It looks like expansion, a grand expansion. But the thing is, expansions tend to build upon and add, fix, but not remove. So I cannot really consider it as an expansion, as things are missing.

A full new game on the other hand might often be missing things from the previous one, because it does things differently, it changes stuff etc. (see Civ4 >Civ5). But here, not much has changed, some stuff were added, some changed, but just not enough to be considered new, to justify missing so much from the previous. Especially when so much was copy pasted.

My 10 gripes (that comes to mind right now):

1. Trade routes. No comments necessary.

2. Affinity progress itself is nice, with quests and techs, but it's too forced. I want to be able to avoid having to devote to one of them every time. There needs to be a reason to spread out (or to almost ignore it) as a viable option too. Right now there's no reason not to fully beeline one of them. It makes for a boring game. Just beeline affinity techs and make quest decisions in favor of that affinity.

3. (Tied to number 2) One of the reasons that makes affinity beelining so OP, is that unit upgrades are insane! 4 level infantry against all 2 level units is like GDR vs pikemen. There's no progress or challenge to get the OP godracearmy at all. If this model is to stay, it needs about 8 levels (that's 4 more), which are harder to get and an individual unit gold costing upgrades. Also the more advanced versions of the same units also need a tech requirement.

4. (Tied to 2 - 3) No reason to research non affinity techs. None. Except for the required ones (contact with earth satellite, prerequisites to affinity techs).

5. Trade routes.

6. Diplomacy. It's an old record, but seriously, I don't remember there ever being ZERO reasons to interact AT ALL, whole game... Not even in vanilla 5.

7. Factions so underwhelming, I can't even find words to say anything of notice here... boring... boring... Let's look at the leaders. Just look at Elodie. Who taught it was not a boring idea to make an old aristocratic lady a faction leader? She's just the embodiment of boring. Not that it matter anyway, they all boring, factions themselves and their representative animations... One positive thing I can say is I kinda like Daoming's body language and face expressions. Well, maybe "like" is a bit of an overstatement, but likeish? yeah.

8. Trade routes.

9. Aliens. Why is it considered a fun balance when land aliens are total pushovers (with exception of one siegeworm) and the water is full of sea dragons and krakens. There's no reason to send boats out to explore before getting level 4 destroyer, because those sea dragons and krakens won't let you move much. All while your level 1 purity explorer goes around clearing empty nests everywhere and your 1-2 (3 if you're feeling fancy) units hold off or exterminate land aliens (again, with exception of siegeworm... that is a job for city bombardment apparently). What's the deal with krakens? Why am I finding a group of up to 5 krakens chilling in one place? I call it "The Kraken Carpet".

10. Trade routes.

 

[bladex]

whats the point being the harmony affinity if the aliens keep attacking you. than you get in the bad books from the other alien loving AI's for attacking them to get them away from your borders? it should make the aliens never attack if you if you get to a certain harmony affinity level! because of this i barely play harmony

 

[Boygor]

Yes I thought Harmony would result in building/ taming alien units and at least provide an allied status of sorts.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Why was the aerial part of the research tree and units made so......miniscule? The colonists traveled the stars to colonize a new world and forgot how to fly? Why don't Explorers fly? Where is the air force in the game. The Tacjet is an after thought and a city defender only unit.

Land and sea only for units? Weak sea units. Orbitals for city bonuses and defense but not exploration?

Some very big holes here.

JosEPh

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I've been playing the game a lot. I still enjoy it immensely. I think the key to my enjoyment is that I am not a hyper competitive player in SP. I don't fully maximize my cities every single turn or manipulate every single exploit to win every time in the smallest number of turns possible. I still try to win but I am a bit more casual. I do role-play a little. In my latest game, I conquered Franco-Iberia because she was Supremacy and I was Purity and she only had 3 cities that were blocking me from a huge area ripe for expansion. But I am leaving Hutama alone even though I could smash him to pieces because he's been nice and we are the same affinity. I will certainly win this game in about 300 turns. I developed a small number of cities in the beginning, built some wonders, had to deal with some aliens messing around my cities, had an easy war with FI (easily took her cities with battlesuits and artillery), then expanded a lot after the war. Now, I am pleased with my 15 cities or so and now it is smooth sailing to a Promised Land or Contact Victory. I play to "enjoy the ride".

 

[Napoleon_IV]

Hey guys! I'm in my third game of BE now and loving it.. the designerd created a great atmosphere, the graphics and soundtrack really suit the game, the tech web is awesome and i love how your civ evolves through its affinity. Best of all over civ v is the game pacing! Building stuff is no longer a long labored chore and it just feels more dynamic and robust! Awesome!
The points that i feel could still have been done better include: better more meaningful diplomacy, a requirement that affinity upgraded units need at least to return to your territory for upgrade, and i still haven't quite warmed to espionage.. just can't seem to make it work for me but that could just be my inexperience!

My score so far is 8/10. What scores would you give?

 

[kingsbury]

9/10

I wish Justin Bieber had composed the soundtrack so I give it a -1 from 10.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I'm with you. The game has a lot of good things about it. Sure, it is far from perfect and it has its flaws (some big ones) but it is still a very fun game (at least for me). I'd probably give it a 7/10.

 

[Napoleon_IV]

Oh crap! I just noticed there already is a first impressions thread - sorry all!

 

[spider1]

There are certainly lots of things to be fixed in this game, but it's a new release and we should all expect that. There will be updates to game code, new features, and tons of mods to chose from in time. For now, I love this game and I've completed about four games so far. Lost two and won two before I figured it out.

Being retired I have plenty of time for just relaxing and enjoying the game for what it is. The only thing truly irritating to me at this point are the trade routes, and I'm sure that will get fixed soon.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Yes I thought Harmony would result in building/ taming alien units and at least provide an allied status of sorts.

I read in another thread that you need to get an active Alien Nest in your borders to get allied status, but I haven't tested it yet. Apparently, an Alien Nest in that state will count as a Xenomass Well.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Why was the aerial part of the research tree and units made so......miniscule? The colonists traveled the stars to colonize a new world and forgot how to fly? Why don't Explorers fly? Where is the air force in the game. The Tacjet is an after thought and a city defender only unit.

Land and sea only for units? Weak sea units. Orbitals for city bonuses and defense but not exploration?

Some very big holes here.

JosEPh

I have often been asked: if we have traveled between the stars, why can we not launch the simplest of orbital probes? These fools fail to understand the difficulty of finding the appropriate materials on this Planet, of developing adequate power supplies, and creating the infrastructure necessary to support such an effort. In short, we have struggled under the limitations of a colonial society on a virgin planet. Until now.

If you fly to another planet you have to develope a whole new infrastructure to use and maintain your equipment. And you have to adjust it for the different physical properties. Gravity is one example. Another one is the different composition of elements in the atmosphere (and its thickness) - your earth planes might not get far by default. Same is true for ships - depending on the properties of the oceans a boat that works perfectly fine on earth might not work at all on the new planet.

The fact that there isn't an actual recon satellite is indeed a bit meh - but remember normal ones will oncover the territory below them AND the mechanic is quite abstract.

One thing I agree 100% on, though: Having only one type of air unit was not a great decision. Fighter/Bomber NeedleJets seemr pretty *meh* to me. A seperate bomber unit (and maybe an G2A unit) would have been nice. Or at least some sort of AAA building for cities that provides some basic defence against air raids.

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: The First Impressions thread merged into the main First Impressions thread.

 

[Pyramid Head]

At least something good came out of this mediocricy of a game - Aplha Centauri is rocking on GOG bestellers.

 

[IronfighterXXX]

I've just finished my first game. While game is addictive I think we are all beta testers

 

[tommy61157]

Hello, I'm just curious, what are people's general thoughts on the game? What's good about it and what's bad? I've watched a couple reviews and first impressions, however, I would like the community's take on the game to determine if I should buy it at any point or not. Please post what you find to be the pros and cons about the game below along with how stuff matches up to civ 5 (since I've played that game a lot)