For someone who hated Civ5, is that worth the buy?

[tzaari]

BE seems to be one of those games that I would really like to have but.. the rational decision is to wait for a couple of years. Why? Well apart from the obvious bugs and bad feedback, this is a decision fueled by the business model Firaxis is making their games. In this model BE is base of the product, that is to be completed with several DLC:s.

On the other hand, BE does not seem to be "the big seller" in long run like Civ5. It is interim product that will make some money before the next big seller. There will be several DLC-packs for it anyway, and why not? Those will sell the game more. I would not be surprised if they take some of the Civ5 elements that were dropped out of BE, name them anew, and and introduce them back in next DLC as a new element.

Eventually there will be sale for the "Complete Pack" and I will be expecting that sooner than it was with Civ5. That is when I buy BE. Of course, if BE would sell better than expected, then there may be more DLC:s, but even before that there will be sales of the base game when new DLC:s come out.

 

[tzaari]

They just released a patch bruh.

Well, call me cynical, but previous patch was year before that in 11/3/2013, meant to fix the trade bug that was finally fixed in the latest patch. What does this tell you about companys patching policy?

Firaxis is not in patching business. They are in game industry producing games that are made to sell as much as possible. For most people, it is enough that the game looks like it is working. If it does not work very well, okay. Lets make new content so people don't notice.

For the shareholders, it does not matter. If the game sells enough anyway, then why bother paying people for patching it? There is no profit in patching games after they have sold it. Yes it is short sighted, but so are most of the people. Even the ones playing games called Civilization are constantly fooled by emotional marketing techniques.

 

[LDiCesare]

It really depends on why you didn't like CivV.
I hate civV because of poor ai, city states, bugged map display, stupid diplomacy, replacement of civics. The sity states and civics gripes only make sense for a "historical" game.
In Civ BE these concerns are less of an issue, but the map display is worse (difficult to make out what is what, where miasma is, no strategic map so you just can't see anything), diplomacy is still silly. City states replacement is bearable although people have gripes with them. AI is apparently a joke. Civics are replaced by a system that makes little sense either but which I think is acceptable.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

It really depends why you didn't lik Civ V. Beyond Earth fixes many of Civ V's issues, makes some worse, and introduces some new problems. Some of my main issues with Civ V were the far too linear tech tree, the general weakness of bonus resources and the lack of interesting and alternative tile improvements, and the dominance of the capital thanks to anti-expansion balancing. I consider all those problems fixed with BE. What it doesn't fix is diplomacy which may actually be worse than vanilla V, and it has major balance problems that you won't notice in the demo because they only become apparent some time after the 100 turn mark.
If you weren't hyped up enough to buy Beyond Earth on day one I would advise you to wait a couple of weeks for a patch and price drop (actually sound advice for every new Civilization game). There is a lot of potential here.

 

[Joch]

On the other hand, BE does not seem to be "the big seller" in long run like Civ5.

CIV:BE has been the #1 top selling game on Steam since its release. Its currently the 9th most played game on Steam with an average of 30,000 players at any one time. Looks like a "big seller" to me.

 

[crocivfanatic]

Well,it is better then vanilla civ 5,but as tzaari said better to wait for complete pack unless you are fanatic(like me)

 

[tzaari]

CIV:BE has been the #1 top selling game on Steam since its release. Its currently the 9th most played game on Steam with an average of 30,000 players at any one time. Looks like a "big seller" to me.

Yes, every new title with well-known brand name sells a lot in release, but not all of them stay on top for years, nor are planned to. Of course things don't always go like the marketing teams plan. Maybe Civ:BE could reach Civ5 sales numbers, but that depends on many things and not least how long Firaxis keeps on making new DLC:s. I just don't think they would try to use the same old engine for another main product as long as they did with Civ5.

I think that BE is competing in more limited market than Civ5. Scifi as a genre, is harder to sell. There is always slight learning curve and also people who simply don't like the genre. Also BE is similar to previous game, which can be good or bad depending on whether player liked the previous game or not. For sure there is a lot of players there who find BE familiar and are fine with that, but there is also the segment of players who aren't.

In my opinion, these are all things that decrease the amount of potential buyers for the game and thus the game lifespan. It can still sell millions of copies but I don't see it selling as much as Civ5 did.

 

[Primacide]

Like I said, the only reason to buy beyond earth if you hated civ 5 would be if you played civ 5 and thought "this game sucks, but it would not suck if it had aliens in it"

Dunno why the hate: this is funny and true. Best kind of post.

I am really enjoying BE, though I can't get my head around the teching. Since it's not linear, I keep wandering out in the weeds without any plan. To OP, the advice to try the demo is good. You get a good feel for the game in 100 turns.

 

[Borgcube]

If you hated Civ5, definitely skip this game. There's not much difference between them, and BE introduces some new problems of its own. The core gameplay is still the same, the hexes are still the same, the 1UPT limit is still here. Unless the reason you hate Civ5 is extremely specific, you probably won't like this one.

 

[Thormodr]

If you didn't like Civilization 5 then IMHO you won't like Civilization 5: Beyond Earth. It's essentially Civilization 5 with a pasted on Sci-Fi theme. There are a few innovations, to be sure but they have also made some things worse such as the UI.

 

[Wulf38]

CivBE fixed some of the things that decreased my enjoyment of Civ5, like formulaic tech paths, lack of diversity in tile improvements, and the strict tall vs. wide dichotomy enforced by global happiness. I'm actually having fun expanding and developing my cities in CivBE in ways that I never did in Civ5. So if you have the same taste in game mechanics that I do, you might enjoy BE more than 5.

 

[Callonia]

Don't buy, AI is bad.

This game is worth 10-20 dollars due to how bad the ai is in wars. And they lied about aliens killing you off. Aliens cannot harm you whatsoever, just build ultrasonic thingie fence and yer safe forever.

It definitely isn't worth 50$ dollar tag. They abused my trust. Next game, I won't even buy at full price at all. Is only fair after what they did to me in Civ BE.

 

[Bandobras Took]

It's essentially Civilization 5 with a pasted on Sci-Fi theme. There are a few innovations, to be sure

In other words, it isn't Civ 5, since those few innovations make the game play differently.

Dunno why the hate: this is funny and true. Best kind of post.

Except it's false. Thus the "hate" for those who claim it's true.

 

[Thormodr]

In other words, it isn't Civ 5, since those few innovations make the game play differently.



Except it's false. Thus the "hate" for those who claim it's true.

It doesn't really play much differently when it comes down to it.

You've got idiotic AI that doesn't know what it's doing and is still utterly befuddled by 1UPT.

You've got horrendous diplomacy if it is even right to call it that.

You've got crappy barbarians that are dull as ditchwater.

Trade posts are somewhat different but they are basically city state vending machines. *Yawn*

Orbital layer is new but it really isn't very exciting.

The Tech web is different but it's basically just point and click for the next affinity bonus for the most part.

Trade routes are different in that they are now annoying and add to the tediousness of shuffling all your troops around doing the 1UPT dance.

In summation, it's essentially Civilization 5 with a pasted on Sci-Fi theme. In fact, it seems to be a downgrade from Civilization 5 because of its terrible UI.

 

[jackal1234]

i didnt like civ 5 alot myself. there are some notable differences in BE as others mentioned that change the whole flavor of the game. global happiness, one of the most annoying unfun things in civ5 is now gone and it makes a big difference. it had no relation to any situation in real life and can you imagine a revolt in a country where every single city did exactly the same thing at the same time? it wouldn't be a revolt it would be a regime change. think current events like two countries fighting civil wars right now.
i'll toast to that mechanic being gone ;D

 

[Callonia]

i didnt like civ 5 alot myself. there are some notable differences in BE as others mentioned that change the whole flavor of the game. global happiness, one of the most annoying unfun things in civ5 is now gone and it makes a big difference. it had no relation to any situation in real life and can you imagine a revolt in a country where every single city did exactly the same thing at the same time? it wouldn't be a revolt it would be a regime change. think current events like two countries fighting civil wars right now.
i'll toast to that mechanic being gone ;D

Uh bad news. You could have like +10 health but the moment you take over 18+ population city? Enjoy your unhappiness errr unhealthiness XD Your entire empire is now down the gutter just because you took a city.

Only thing that changed is it's name and removal of Barbarians that firaxis refused to name as rebels.

Health is far better as local resource instead of global. It doesn't make sense that my cities which have first world healthcare and is very unhealthy cuz an random city in far east got absorbed into my empire. By this logical, USA cities should be very unhealthy the moment we take an european city.

 

[elprofesor]

Note that in the demo you have severly stunted scientific progress (30+ turns for your first tech), so you will only be able to see exploration, and the beginning of the virtue system.

 

[Agent327]

As to the OP, I'd wait for the sale.

 

[Pyramid Head]

Such objectivity. In your 'objective' opinion which needs to be taken seriously (not! ), Civ BE is the worst computer game ever made

To the OP, it's certainly a long way from perfect. If you're looking just to have fun, you probably will have fun with BE. For how long? That would be another question.

If you want to know how this community rates this game on release, check out the poll in the thread linked above. In spite of all its flaws, and the current climate of dissatisfaction, most folks here rated it around a 7/10. That's not bad

Uh huh. 542 reviews. Steam - mixed ratings.
Positive (2,448) Negative (1,499)
80+% of most helpful Steam reviews are negative.

 

[Halbbruder]

You've got idiotic AI that doesn't know what it's doing...

That's not how I see it. The AI what they're doing by aiming for victories and avoiding unnecessary conflict, just like any other person would until someone is about to win.

The metascore however does suggest that civbe is worse than civ 5, but not by much.

Keep in mind, everyone: this game hasn't even got an expansion yet. Give it time. Remember the hate after civ 5 came into being? It'll eventually pass. Firaxis still has an opportunity to make changes. For me, those changes are:
- delay level 4 unique affinity units by 1-2 levels.
- nerf level 1 purity bonus. Millar notes this problem in a livestream and so far, nothing.
- what on earth happens if a harmony player uses a thumper in a city that has ultrasonic fence? I'm assuming that the ultrasonic fence is destroyed in the process? If not, then harmony thumper will do nothing.
- Buff t1 knowledge tree, undo the previous nerfs to knowledge and give it another health bonus policy. Might could also do with another health policy.
- make internal trade routes slightly less powerful.
- Check over the building quest decision options and fix the ones that are laughably one-sided.
- Fix the affinity quests that ask you to build buildings that can't be built unless you have a particular resource near them.
- Improve multiplayer performance.
- Given the discussion about grabbing the planetary carver tech within 100 turns, increase resource requirement for them.
- Would be nice to see some probability figures in espionage. SMAC had them, both the success rate and the survivability rate. More espionage options would be nice.
- Add a scale in options to diversify AI aggression levels to you and each other.

The rest of the game is fine, I reckon.