How did different sponsors work out for you ?

[GeoModder]

Okay. The purpose of the starting sponsor/abilities is the same purpose as the civ choice. That purpose is to create varied gameplay. BE fails miserably at this.
If I pick Montezuma I will play way differently than if I pick Ghandi or Korea. The only variation is the 3 affinities. But those don't create as much variation as leaders do.

Well, for me the game is not about civs in space, but going beyond Earth. IOW, I feel its useless to compare too much of the game mechanics to CiV.

 

[kirbdog]

2 Trade Routes / Better Spies / Free Slavic Tech Guy / Free French Tech Lady are superior. They can also play a little different. If the other four were also made to play a little different, we'd have less consensus about the leaders not playing differently... because right now about half of them do that (semi-decently) and half of them not at all really.

 

[Prophet Skeram]

2 Trade Routes / Better Spies / Free Slavic Tech Guy / Free French Tech Lady are superior. They can also play a little different. If the other four were also made to play a little different, we'd have less consensus about the leaders not playing differently... because right now about half of them do that (semi-decently) and half of them not at all really.

Well, I personally feel like PAC and the KP play a lot differently from the "tech sponsors" aswell.

PAC lets you actually grab quite a few good wonders on higher difficulties and lets you improve a ton of tiles with relatively few workers, which just feels great, imho.

The KP let you grab all the land (and good sea tiles) without much effort and you'll rarely have to fear that the AI will snag important tiles close to your cities just because you were low on energy.

 

[Ikael]

My favourite is Elodie and her Franco-Iberia because it is one of the few UA that rewards a certain style of gameplay other than being an uber-bland, imagination-killer % bonus a la Brazilia or PAU.

The only problem with it is that yes, it is a little tad unbalanced, the best gameplay balance is asymetrical, so it's a question of lifting up the rest of the factions rather than administering a nerf to this particular one.

 

[bovinespy]

They're interchangeable in the manner that "Financial" Civs in CiV 4 are interchangeable. The trait incentivizes play a specific way, but all Civs with the trait basically exhibit similarities.

Similarities? Sure. But I think you're downplaying the uniqueness of the civs in CiV(BTS) vis-a-vis the sponsors/cargo/etc. in CBE. Three specific aspects come to mind:

1) In CiV, all the civs have two traits out of a total of eleven, not just one. The various combinations make significant changes in how each civ plays. For example, Catherine's CRE/FIN leads to different strategies than, say, Mansa Musa's SPI/FIN. Sure, they'll both try and cottatge spam (FIN), but CRE and SPI traits lead to differing approaches to gameplay.

2) In CiV, all the civs have both a UU and a UB. There is no analogue at all like this in CBE.

3) In CiV, all the civs start with two techs, but the individual techs vary from civ to civ. In CBE, everyone starts with the same tech.

 

[m15a]

1) In CiV, all the civs have two traits out of a total of eleven, not just one. The various combinations make significant changes in how each civ plays. For example, Catherine's CRE/FIN leads to different strategies than, say, Mansa Musa's SPI/FIN. Sure, they'll both try and cottatge spam (FIN), but CRE and SPI traits lead to differing approaches to gameplay.

Speaking of having two traits, I feel like the issue has less to do with the sponsors (although they could be a little more interesting) and more to do with the colonists. Ignoring balance issues, it seems like the colonist benefits don't really support different strategies as much as they could. From the story perspective, choosing different colonists could have a huge affect on strategy, too. (For those that have read Foundation, think about how different Seldon's two colonies played out even though they came from the same sponsor/leader.)

Then, you'd feel like you had two traits, plus a couple early-game bonuses from the other options.

 

[Agent327]

They're interchangeable in the manner that "Financial" Civs in CiV 4 are interchangeable. The trait incentivizes play a specific way, but all Civs with the trait basically exhibit similarities.

Kavitha Thakur's land grabbing ability is remarkable. With that ability, you can settle 2 or 3 tiles apart from any useful resource and still be assured of naturally getting it quickly. Polystralia's early trade advantage speaks for itself. ARC facilitates quick coups. I was able to take capitals with ARC using spies. Other Civs would have it significantly harder.

The other half (actually there's a lot of Start Options) is the Colonist Type. Artists play like CiV France before BNW. Refugees play kind of like a non-sucky India. Scientists play like auto-Messenger Of the Gods.

All the Start Options combine to give you a distinct feel of game. It's purposefully not all lumped into the Sponsor alone, and it's actually very much like Civ IV to me.

Here's an example:

Kavithan Protectorate + Refugees grabs tiles fast and then fills it out with Population fast to work the tiles. It's all about grabbing land and then working it.

Kavithan Protectorate + Artists is all about grabbing a lot of land super-fast and then playing the Virtue game. On Prosperity, you can settle fast while keeping Healthy and just straight up squeeze out the AI from any land through tile claim.

Neither of these types of play would be easy to get with, say, African Union, Brasilia, or ARC. They just wouldn't have the same land-grab ability.

I usually count 2-3 tiles to any given resource, whether I get Kavitha or no. The way you are presenting it, Kavitha gives a huge advantage. This is not so. The basic requirement for any player is to get his or her economy going, up research, and stay healthy expanding.

After a number of games carefully picking my presets, I am now playing full random. Why? Because when you get the game basics I just mentioned down, it doesn't really matter what sponsor or presets you picked. Instead of the advertized 'infinite replayability' you get infinite repeatability. I don't agree with your conclusion that if you pick your presets carefully you get 'a real feel of the game'. The fact that this 'feel of the game' depends entirely on the presets picked already indicates that the game has no such feel of itself. Unlike SMAC, where it really mattered what faction you picked, because that determined your presets. Currently the game is just very barebones. Like the developers couldn't decide on presets for factions, and because of this thought 'Hey, we'll let the players decide for themselves'. Now, some players may like that, but personally I find that makes the game somewhat...bland. Unfinished, if you will. Much the same as CiV was at first release with numberless bugs that any decent playtesting would have flushed out.

 

[Roxlimn]

Agent327:

I'm not sure I entirely understand what you said.

Based on what you're saying, it's like you want for there to be less choices, not more. Certainly, there was that sentiment in Civ IV that argued that there oughtn't be leaders to represent every trait combination, but that eventually went away. There's still some restriction in that you can't pair every trait combination with every UU.

I don't get the feeling that Artists are equal to Engineers are equal to Refugees in that each choice basically results in the same game. Certainly, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone willing to agree with that, I think.

 

[CraigMak]

You pick the Slavic or French and are crazy OP.

PAC and Poly are pretty good at playing normal, the other civs are very specialized or horrible.

What makes a really big difference is starting with artists because they are currently so strong that all other choices are null and void. Tectonic scanner with titanium(strategic balance) and a worker is also very strong.

 

[Roxlimn]

You pick the Slavic or French and are crazy OP.

PAC and Poly are pretty good at playing normal, the other civs are very specialized or horrible.

What makes a really big difference is starting with artists because they are currently so strong that all other choices are null and void. Tectonic scanner with titanium(strategic balance) and a worker is also very strong.

They are only null and void in the same sense that playing Financial in CivIV makes every other trait choice null and void. Just because a choice isn't the best one doesn't mean it's pointless to play it.

 

[Lucius_]

I think my favorites are PAC and Polystralia. I like KP but her ability isn't all that great. FI is interesting as well but is limited to a certain playstyle.

IMO, Brasillia really sucks. SF requires a very specific strategy to be good, moreso than FI, which I don't like.

PAU is meh and I suck at spying so ARC wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped.

 

[Carl_Bar]

PAC are absolutely fairly strong, won my first game as them, it's not just the quick workers as such either though, it's how you combine that with other stuff, especially how easy getting road routes in is. Really the OP hit this on the head.

African Union, on it's own in a perfect world this bonus would be middling. I played a game where thanks to my drop location relative to everyone else and some luck on a few things i was able to grow my capital at an average of 1 pop per 6 turn all the way to 40 odd pop before i gave up that game. In combination with hardcore food spam from fully maxed farms it's decent. The problem really is that farms are not an awesome improvement whilst gens really are by comparison so it ends up little used as gen spam is an inherently low pop low growth, and very broad low health strategy.

Brazillia, leaving aside just how many late game units don;t benefit from the trait offensively the bigger issue is that 10% just isn't noticeable in any really decisive way, it doesn't stand out at all under any circumstances i saw.

KP would be nice if there was a reason to spread your cities out or to go vertical in a big way so a city can use a lot of tiles at once. As it is there's no use for either so you end up not caring about the territory grab factor. Faster outposts is very nice but it's just not as powerful as it should be.

Elodie, is an arkward one. That free tech can take a while coming if you manipulate for low culture income, but generally getting a T2 tech before you get the freebie is tough in most situations, doable but tough. Which means outside of very rare circumstances you have to skip out on all your other T1 techs bar the minimum needed for the T2 you need before the bonus pop's. You end up compromising pretty hardcore to make it work. And that carries some major downsides of it's own. Use it in a normal fashion and you end up getting your T2 early, which whilst powerful in most cases, isn't game breaking. And the time to get the second is so overly long you can forget ever getting anything really vital with it. And you'll never see a third before the game ends.

Slavs are basically elodie but with better control so you can guarantee that first free tech when you really need it, but you gimp yourself even harder because you'l almost always have a solar collector you have to hold back on.


In terms of balance suggestions:

PAC: Leave them be.

African Union: strip the healthy requirement and dd a large percentage food carryover bonus, (20-30%)

Elodie: Reduce the number of virtues to 7, that makes the first come a lot sooner making it virtually impossible to abuse whilst making the second and third more useful. Alternatively make it 5/15 and every 5 thereafter, does the same but with even more force.

Slav's need somthing to make holding onto that sat for so long a bit more of an issue IMO.

Brazillia: really have no suggestion's, it's inherently an issue with creating a military bonus that's always handy without being utterly broken.

 

[Agent327]

Agent327:

I'm not sure I entirely understand what you said.

Based on what you're saying, it's like you want for there to be less choices, not more.

That would be correct. With the current setup it's the player that decides 'flavour' rather than the game itself.

That holds true for every preset, including the type of pioneers you pick: you can mix them up any way you want. So where's the flavour? There is basically no limit to what you can preset, and this is what makes the game bland in my opinion.

What the game aims for, obviously, is for the player to pick the presets he likes (as in the previous post). Now, does that make for infinite replayability? I think not.

It's been 2 or 3 weeks and I've never had this with any Civ game, but I'm already waiting for the expansion (ignoring the numerous bugs) to see if that will add some personality to the game.

 

[Roxlimn]

That would be correct. With the current setup it's the player that decides 'flavour' rather than the game itself.

That holds true for every preset, including the type of pioneers you pick: you can mix them up any way you want. So where's the flavour? There is basically no limit to what you can preset, and this is what makes the game bland in my opinion.

What the game aims for, obviously, is for the player to pick the presets he likes (as in the previous post). Now, does that make for infinite replayability? I think not.

It's been 2 or 3 weeks and I've never had this with any Civ game, but I'm already waiting for the expansion (ignoring the numerous bugs) to see if that will add some personality to the game.

I think the personality is there if you want it to be. After all, no one is preventing you from creating a bunch of presets that you will use to the exception of all else. Frankly, I played SMAC without sound or video, so I didn't see any of the Project Videos when I played it long ago. I tend to skip Wonder animations, too, in mainline Civs.

I think the game's flavor can be expressed more strongly with more of these videos and animations.

 

[sprang]

PAC: Leave them be.

PAC: My favorite faction. Balanced without being broken.
But, fer crying out loud, change that eye-gouging pink, plz

African Union: strip the healthy requirement and dd a large percentage food carryover bonus, (20-30%)

PAU is currently self-defeating. Culture is so much more important than food in the early game, so I'm not sure how good the growth bonus gets before its worth taking.
Oh, you finally got healthy? Here's some growth to get rid of that pesky "10% culture" - which is actually 30% of your culture because 2.8 rounds to 2.

Elodie: Reduce the number of virtues to 7, that makes the first come a lot sooner making it virtually impossible to abuse whilst making the second and third more useful. Alternatively make it 5/15 and every 5 thereafter, does the same but with even more force.

Elodie: Make it every 7, but limit the free techs to LEAF techs only, so you can't jump a tech ring.

Slavs need somthing to make holding onto that sat for so long a bit more of an issue IMO.

Slavs are broken twice.
1) Free higher-tier tech is too powerful. Limit this to Leaf Tech only.
2) Satellite times need to be fixed - faster Miasma Repellers / Condensors please, and Weather Controllers / Orbital Fabs need to spawn more resources if they last longer. Usually that's the main reason I'm launching them so the Slav ability is actually hurting me.
C'mon Capital Oil for that busted quest! Damn... more geothermal.

Brazillia: really have no suggestion's, it's inherently an issue with creating a military bonus that's always handy without being utterly broken.

Beats me, but then I don't warmonger much and never played the military factions much in Civ, unless the UU/UB let me turtle more effectively. Agreed tho, 10% is too weak. That kind of bonus is only good in mirror combats as a tie-breaker. Sure it might be nice for a multiplayer edge, but you don't need it to beat the AI. At the same time, the alien unit strengths aren't mirrors of yours so 10% doesn't get you over any combat thresholds.

Maybe specialize it: +25% vs. aliens? +1 unit vision? +20% unit production, or -25% unit purchase cost? Colonists invulnerable to aliens (like purity 1 rovers)?

 

[Agent327]

I think the personality is there if you want it to be. After all, no one is preventing you from creating a bunch of presets that you will use to the exception of all else.

That's not flavour, but the exact opposite. Which is my point. I've now switched to playing with SMAC mod. Plenty of flavour in there.

 

[CraigMak]

The free tech sponsors are massively broken and op..

PAC & Poly are good.

ARC is OK

The others are considerably bad.

They meant for you to be able to tailor your "civ" to your liking. The sponsor is only one of many options you can pick. Unfortunately some of the options are so over powered that the others are not usable in comparison. This makes you pigeon holed into certain choices every time or be weak.

 

[Roxlimn]

The free tech sponsors are massively broken and op..

PAC & Poly are good.

ARC is OK

The others are considerably bad.

They meant for you to be able to tailor your "civ" to your liking. The sponsor is only one of many options you can pick. Unfortunately some of the options are so over powered that the others are not usable in comparison. This makes you pigeon holed into certain choices every time or be weak.

The way I see it, choosing different options at the start can be a way to jack up the difficulty. I mean, with so many players complaining about the ease of winning at Apollo, you'd think they'd at least try playing something a little more challenging, right?

Brasilia can actually do Scavenging considerably better than the other factions. Their Marines can actually directly face down and kill Siege Worms, which yields a hefty chunk of Science.

The land-grabbing KP is fun. It doesn't directly add to your Science the way Poly does, but that's kind of the point.

 

[Kaigen]

ARC is OK

If you aggressively steal science with ARC's faster spies it's easily the equivalent of one or two free techs (more if you prioritize buildings that provide extra covert agents). The difference between that and FI or the Slaves is you actually feel like you're working for it.

 

[Pietato]

I love the Kavithan Protectorate's bonus, but I despise the faction.

Just thought I would mention that.