First Impressions

First impression - I never played CiV so I have no idea what I'm doing!

But, it loads and works on my laptop which is good though.

Not impressed with the Civlopedia, doesn't always tell you what technology you need for an improvement or somesuch, and a lot of the icons aren't obvious "this is what you should click to do this"
 
I haven't played the game enough to really think about strategy, but I have really been enjoying how the game looks (with a caveat) and sounds. The music is great so far, and I really enjoy how the setting and background story is spread out over the intro screens, tech quotes, quests, etc. I enjoy the tech quote narration, too. I think some people would prefer that multiple speakers were used, but it kind of reminds me of an audiobook.

So, the terrain, etc.: I think it looks good. I spent a good amount of time just zooming in and out to see how it looks, but I agree that it's very hard to see what's what. On the plus side, I think the game looks better with resource icons on than Civ V did (I never played with them on), so I don't mind keeping them on. I wish there were more options of icons you could turn on and off (most importantly, miasma!). I wonder if that would somewhat make up for not having a strategic view. I found myself spending a lot of time mousing over tiles, which also made me wish that the tile info wasn't far off in the corner of the screen.
 
What made Firaxis think going back to Vanilla mechanics was a good idea.

As others have said hotfix the trade route spam.
 
I'm not impressed so far having put in more than 4 hours. I've been playing on medium difficulty, I forget the name but the equivalent of Prince.

On one occasion I was 210 turns into a game and I didn't feel like much was happening. There was little interaction with the AI, though there was a big stack of 7 aliens nearby who stopped my explorer from exploring a part of the map.

I was getting lots of those quests which give +1 production or +1 science from a building. The tech web was confusing. I've put 1500+ hours into Civ IV and 514 hours into Civ V, so i'm a bit disappointed.
 
I am very happy. I love aliens and quests. Expeditions are fun even though its annoying to get back a city to restock tools. However it prevents the AI from getting all of them. I love the new resources and getting lost in the tech web. Civ V was constantly doing the same tech path, in this game its just what to do i need and I can slowly head to it such a different feeling. So I am having a blast.
 
My first impression is that I feel very lost in this game. As someone who has 500+ hours into Civ V, I'm surprised at just how lost I feel looking at the tech tree. There's no easy way for me to figure out the best or even semi-optimal route to go to achieve victory besides domination.

I know many of you have invested time into researching this stuff prior to the game coming out so you kind of knew what to expect, but I didn't.
 
1. I love the tech web.
2. Good, not amazing SMAC level of atmosphere. Other factions are bland. Fungal and desert biomes are alien. Lush is not.
3. Horrible starts. Maybe it is the RNG gods, but I have yet to get a good start. Starting directly next to 4 tiles deep of useless canyon and mountain? The games before were even worse. There are also very few of the big resources (xenomass, firaxite, floatstone) nearby.
4. Off 3, other factions land way, way to close. 6 tiles away from my capital? And another about 10 away in the other direction?
 
Almost won my first play through on Apollo difficulty(was like 2-3 turns away from winning). I don´t think it bad but it does not feel like there is much work that went into this product. It´s just scraping it to be considered a game on its own. They are building alot on Civ5, but that does not have to be bad - Its just that then they could have given some more work on Diplomacy and Planetary Politics.

I feel like its a lazy product, just like I think Firaxis want to have it. Then they will make an expansion(s) with little additions. There is no passion, its was just another assignment for them.
 
Compelled to post to detail my experiences. Long time lurker. Feels similar to Civ5 at release - good ideas, but some very poor implementations. My thoughts

1. I really do like the new feel, and I can see the huge potential that this game could have, especially with the orbital layer, but:

2> Tech web is cool, great for having a more varied approach to the game. But, my god, is the UI bad and confusing. Zooming around it is confusing, the icons for units/wonders/buildings are hard to distinguish (is this a building or a wonder?) and it can be a little difficult to find your way.

3. Dat passive AI, even on higher levels. I have no army and I'm about to plug myself into the planet? No problem.

4. Colour. Everything's the same colour. Miasma is hard to see, being almost the same colour as the ground. I get that green/grey is this planet's colour scheme, but at least make it more vibrant. It also gives you a depressing feel, everything dark and grey, not nice and vibrant like CivV. Works for the 'left Earth and everybody on it behind' but it grates after a while. Maybe the scheme should brighten as you expand and grow and turn into more of a real state rather than a collection of prefab shacks after planetfall?

5. For the love of God, why is there no 'automatically continue this trade route' option. It was extremely annoying in Civ5 to reassign my trade routes as Venice every few turns and it's annoying here too. Seems trivial in comparison to other things, but it was my biggest pet peeve.

6. Wonders are quite unbalanced. Ecto pod in particular is super OP compared to some of the later stuff.

7. Internal trade routes OP, but we already know that quite well. A Tier 3 station trade route is ridiculous if you get lucky as I did and have it up and running by turn 50.

8. Another nitpick, but I'm sad at losing the background environments for diplomacy. The models change outfit based on affinity, but I think it would be really cool to see their 'command centre' changing from super hi-tech computer room (Purity) to cyborg holo-tank whatever or organic computer etc. The backgrounds were the best eye candy in CiV5 and it seems a hame to lose them.

9. More factions, obviously, but that's for the inevitable DLC.

10. Basic UI is quite bad comapred to CivV. Why is there no recap of what I just built when a 'choose production' comes up? Why is everything the same colour on the city bar (item in production, growth, etc). The computer-screen effect makes it almost impossible to tell what is actually being built in the city as well - the icons are very unintuitive.

11. Because all the future units have unique names based on Affinity (once you get out of marine/cruiser/needlejet etc) and again, there are no actual pictures for them, choosing what unit to build is again confusing. Of course this gets easier the more you play, but its hard. Everyone knows what pikemen are, but what are disciples, angels, CRMSs or ambassadors?

12. Not sure how I like the locking of some victory conditions. I mean, why could cyborg humans not want to bring Earthlings to the new robot utopia rather than invade them? Or why couldn't 'pure' humans not think themselves superior through experiences and take over Earth? Why couldn't the cyborgs blast the planetmind with a supercomputer etc.

I love the setting and I know CivV vanilla was hilariously terrible and now is very very good. I hope the same can happen with this game as well.
 
Am I the only one not bothered by renewing trade routes ? I know why it could be seen as annoying, but it gives me this feeling of "more stuff !" despite the fact that I'm often just going for the same trade routes.

I agree with the UI being messy, but renewing trade routes is really not a problem for me. There could be an option to renew automatically I suppose, but I wouldn't use it.
 
Heh, and this is precisely why I did not pre-order or buy on release as I did with Civ5. Don't want to pay for a quick slap-together product with poorly implemented game features, lazy writing, lazy game, and zero passion. Based on LP YouTube stuff, magazine reviews and feedback in this thread and threads similar to it, most of the effort with this game went into the promotional video and marketing, and it shows. $50 saved.
 
It's really no joke.. I only had 6 cities but 3x trade routes per city, tedious as all hell. I couldn't imagine a 10+ city empire. Wheres the quick renew button..
 
1. UI is atrocious. Queuing is so bothersome and that I don't use it - you have to click three times on different menus to put something on queue...only from city queue - no hotkeys, Ctrl or Alt modifiers from main map. In other words - you will waste more time on clicking than if you manually issue orders.
2. Diplomacy somehow managed to become even worse than in CivV, which is achievement on its own. With reduced unity types AI knows only ONE tactic - swarm of suicidal berserking human/tank waves.
3. Absolutely primitive execution of advertized features. Ie. Alien agressiveness is linked only to alien nest destruction it seems. You can shoot dozens upon dozens of aliens standing outside 2 tile radius from their nest without any fear of counterattack - Ai cannot into attack.
4. Absolute lack of any automation. If you have 10 cities then you have to manually isue each and every production order.
5. Leaders lack any personality - they are just animated talking heads.
6. Once again you are spammed with approvals, denouncations and gazillion other meaningless and useless notification via leader animation screen "we like that you like X", "We do not like that you like Y" etc every turn.
7. Trade routes - Firaxis showed phenomenal ability to make their own idea as terrible a possible - if with CivV you had to deal with 5 or so TR now you have 3 per city, you have to manually reassign EACH an EVERY of them.
Game miraculously managed to fall even below my lowest expectations. Beyond Eartyh serves only one purpose - to show how much Alpha Centauri surpasses it in every aspect except for graphics.
 
Well I don't want to remind you but we did mention all this before release...a game designed by kids to squeeze the life out of the engine and rake in the cash. I was shot down in flames by multiple regular forum members but it was clear from the beginning to me.

As predicted, somebody like Ed Beech will pop by in 6 months time and start to release an add-on or two and the game will become half decent but never realise its true potential as he wasnt involved from the start.
 
Frankly I'm very disappointed. I didn't get my hopes up too much because that never, ever ends well for anything but this was still pretty disheartening.

The UI just looks awful. Useful features removed (Demographics, Avoid Growth), others buried in sub menus, fonts that are unbearably tiny and then things that are needlessly huge. I posted this in another thread but I it bears reposting here. The city overview just looks...eugh.

Spoiler :


The GIGANTIC icons on the left look like Clipart. When I saw this stuff in some of the preview material I've seen I thought they were placeholder icons for the actual art. What is with the blocky interface? How is this POSSIBLY defensible?

To me the most embarrassing thing is when you talk to leaders. Civ V had beautiful things for each leader when you spoke to them. Take Attila.

Spoiler :


Then take what you get in BE.

Spoiler :


One has very well done environments. The other blurs the damn game and puts a model that looks so unreal that it looks like she has a plastic sheen on her.

The AI feels barely functional just like Civ V vanilla's release felt. The warmongering hate that drove me nuts in BNW because it was very, very badly implemented has returned. How can you try to force people to play nice and diplomatic with an AI that barely does anything?
I made the mistake of getting Civ V early in its lifespan and I remember what a broken mess it was. I was hesitant to get it at release because I was worried they would repeat their mistakes but I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt that they wouldn't do it again. They basically abandoned BNW and never gave it nearly the patching it deserved to go work on this?

Maybe I'm being too harsh but I don't think I am. This does not look like an AAA game that I paid $50 for. Firaxis apparently didn't learn a damn thing from their vanilla Civ V launch or listen to any complaints about the issues in G&K/BNW. I was willing to overlook the appearance of a cash grab with some of the later DLC in Civ V's lifespan. I overlooked the poor support for BNW because I figured BE would be worth it. And BE comes out and it looks like a cash grab. Like I'm not mad or angry but am I pretty irritated? Yeah, I am. I'll stick to Civ V LPs until(if ever) this stuff gets fixed.
 
My first impressions:

There are quite a number of balance issues and I can tell you that pretty much every single Civ5 bug carried over. Even all the obvious visual animation bugs. If you want to run on a tablet you will have trouble. A lot of the icons are tiny and so close to each other that it's sometimes difficult to define a specific "click" when touching the screen. It reminds me a lot of that Simpsons episode when Homer got so fat the telephone operator said, "I'm sorry but your fingers are too fat to use the phone keypad. Please mash the keypad after the tone to call an operator." This is probably a personal thing, but I'm not taken by the tech web. I personally see it as a complication that is not really needed. The tech web now has interconnected "nodes" which have a couple "leaves" connected to each node. It seems like a hat tip to a proper theory - practical science progression, but for me the actual web introduces complexity not really needed. Trade routes are horribly over powered and as horribly micro-managy as caravans from Civ2. I feel that this concept should have been abstracted more. Also, quite sadly, the non existence of a story line ala SMAC, is felt quite deeply. The game is as "sterile" as Civ5. Once again, I feel that Civ4 is more of a "story" creator than this. Though since CivBE runs on Civ5 that was expected.

But in saying that I will say a lot of work has been done to make this feel like a new game. The graphics revamp is nothing short of spectacular for a TBS game. The game runs well on my i5 4GB Surface Pro 3 (not a top line GPU either) and no slowdowns detected on a "standard" map size with 8 Civs and lots of minors/aliens after 150 turns. The particle effects are totally awesome and I'm coming to love the "blur". The planet really pulls you in and the discovery of new things on the map are like little parcels of neurologically induced happiness. I'm impressed with how you are able to completely customise your Civ. Not only the starting options, but also during the game. Nearly all decisions you make during the game affect your Civ and how you shape it, including buildings, techs, virtues, and techs. It really does feel like your "creating" a Civilisation.

So my conclusion is thus:
I'm finding it an enjoyable game, but it is not as far removed from Civ5 as some may have been led to believe (including me). The game shines with it's own design and playability but is brought down by its Civ5 roots.

Pros:
- A great space coloniser game.
- Top notch graphics.
- Feels like you really influence the shape of your Civ.

Cons:
- All Civ5 bugs carried over.
- No story ala SMAC.
- 1UPT.
- Tech web adds complexity where wasn't really needed.
 
I'm really enjoying it. The tech web is really refreshing; I've long wished for something like it in a Civ game. Affinities add a new layer of interest, as does the orbital plane, though I hope they do more with the orbital stuff. I enjoy the new scouting and excavating mechanic. I don't really care about the AI; I don't like playing Civ games as wargames -- I play grognard games for that. I just want a fun sandbox.

Some stuff doesn't wow me; diplomacy is the same old thing, and leaders don't seem all that interesting. I am glad they added quests, but I rather prefer the quest system in Endless Legend. (In fact, I may still prefer Endless Legend to BE, as I think the former does more to shake up the genre.)

Still and all, this game had me up way too late last night, and I can't way to play more tonight.
 
Got through 60 turns on my first play before deciding the random settings I'd been given - particularly, the duel map - weren't really giving me a good introduction. Maps seem smaller than in Civ V (where even a duel map seems to have a bit more to do) and my explorers were soon twiddling their thumbs.

Unfortunately, for much of the playthrough so was I - aliens behaving differently from barbarians is nice, but now it strikes me just how much aggressive barbarians enliven the early game even if they are annoying. Tech and build times are rather long, so that what reviewers seem to be gushing over as experiencing a slow struggle to survive seems to be the result of artificially extended tech times (build times less so because gold-rushing is as viable as ever, moreso than in BNW because gold is back in the landscape as a farmable resource, with trading posts immediately available to boot).

Quests are nice but a bit too frequent and, in some cases, tutorial-like in their conditions (build an outpost etc. quests I expect appear every game, and which will consequently become tedious and make the experience feel too linear). Some have obscure conditions it seems unclear how to meet - I got a nice narrative quest about stowaways smuggling themselves aboard my trade caravan in order to escape slavery at the station, and a request to denounce the station. It's not clear how to do this.

The game has some odd issues with the interface as well; I rolled random settings as is my wont (the map types are characterful in their presentation, but I wish there were a shuffle option for selecting randomly across all maps, not just the ones described in the 'survey'), and it was very awkward to try and find out from the interface what my settings turned out to be (though I guessed I was Franco-Iberia from the capital name and starting science). You need to go into the game menu and hit the 'game settings' toggle just to find who you're playing.

I can't form a real judgement about the game yet as I haven't yet reached its core, the affinity system (I did get a quest about an escaped plant that prompted me to make a decision which the tooltips told me was between Purity and Supremacy, but as far as I could tell I didn't get any purity points from it).
 
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