How is Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth?

[DemonMaster]

Civ V Vanilla Technical Disaster <> unbalanced game with broken AI without fixis ANY of the issues facing BNW <>

I could say a lot of things, but instead I will say:

Why do you come to a forum for a game you hate so much. If you have hated a game for four years and the devs have not pleased you personally during that time, why do you think they will start now? Why not skip this series of games and move on to something that is more suitable to you.

 

[Kissamies]

Given several patches & DLC (and lots more $$$ spent...) I'm sure it'll be better. For now it feels to much like a reskinned version of CIV5 for me. First Civ game i've been bored playing.

Oh, and civ4 >>>>>>>> civ 5 btw!

Indeed. Being better than civ 5 is not that impressive. I personally didn't get bored playing civ 5, but it must be the first civ game I don't feel compelled to come back to, unless you count the CTPs. It's OK, but not great like a civ game ought to be.

In the case of BE, it sounds like the patches fix some of the issues and an expansion or two will fix most of the rest.

 

[Zerrigan]

Not gonna vote since I haven't bought it, but the more I read, the more I am confident in my decision to wait until it is on a sale during Christmas or something like that.

I love sci-fi and the game looks really neat. However, the game jut seems rushed. I haven't interacted with the UI, but just from looking at it it looks...clunky. Everyone tends to think the AI is no better which is a huge letdown, and apparently there are still a lot of balancing issues.

The setting really appeals to me, but I'm not going to pay the price of a full game for what seems to be a glorified expansion/mod. I'm hoping by the steam winter sale there will at least be a patch or two out. Such a shame; I had really high hopes for this game and while I'm sure I will enjoy it, I too am getting fed up with this 2 steps forwards 1 step back mentality. If you have had years to work on a game, and fix issues with it, there is NO reason to repeat the same mistakes with another game. ESPECIALLY when the new game is at least 50% similar to the old game you worked on for so many years! I know issues are going to be there and I don't expect everything to be perfect! Honestly, the balance doesn't bother me too much (although I still question how certain things like subpar wonders and internal trade made it through in such a state) because those are fairly easy fixes, but for things such as UI, AI, and how we interact with aliens/other civs, those usually are set in stone and don't change much except perhaps in expansions to a small degree.

 

[Sherlock]

questionable UI changes.

BUMP.
Moderator Action: Please do NOT bump threads without adding new content.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Eji1700]

I'd say it's on far with vanilla civ 5 on release.

I'd argue its slightly better. Theres the usual slew of exploits, balance issues, UI problems, and other things, but in this case I actually see the potential of the system once they fix the BS.

With Civ 5 I was so unhappy with the vanilla launch I didn't touch it until one of the expansions really showed the potential of the system and fixed some of the major issues.

That said, i can see why people might hold off.

 

[Ether150]

the game just released,
everyone needs to calm down and let time take it's course.
In due time there will be DLC,patches,etc that will make BE a WAY BETTER game than Civ 5.

In my opinion BE is ALREADY BETTER than CIV 5 in vanilla status.
The way it feels and plays is awesome.

 

[Krajzen]

I could say a lot of things, but instead I will say:

Why do you come to a forum for a game you hate so much. If you have hated a game for four years and the devs have not pleased you personally during that time, why do you think they will start now? Why not skip this series of games and move on to something that is more suitable to you.

What the hell are you talking about?

I am fan and modder of Civ5 and I have played it for 1236 hours according to Steam.

I have said Civ5 on a release date was a technical disaster because it was technical disaster - AI couldn't do literally anything - and I mean anything, from economy to killing barbarian - the game was unstable mess, there were more bugs here than in Amazon Rainforest, there was not such thing as balance anywhere, there was no other option than war conquest, AI was impossible to ally and only was declaring war on everything, there was no religion, no espionage, no replays, no multiplayer (unstable), almost no mods (hella lot of restrictions), city states were buy for win and naval combat didn't exist. And I was patient enough to approve Firaxis hard work and finally somehow making brilliant game out of such complete disaster, but I thought four years were enough to make next game based on Civ5 engine to finally have:

- decent AI, especially as since half of a year there is amteurish Civ5 MOD which manages to repair everything Firaxis wasn't even close to repair about AI
- non frustrating diplomacy
- functionable interface
- balance
- stable multiplayer (yes, I had crashes while attempting to play multi BE)

without next year of desperate patches, excuses, saying a game has a 'potential' or my need to pay more than 50 dollars for expansions necessary for a game to be playable.


BE is basically reskinned mod for Civ5 which has all problems of Civ5 unfixed + already we can see has a lot of its own problems.

the game just released,
everyone needs to calm down and let time take it's course.
In due time there will be DLC,patches,etc that will make BE a WAY BETTER game than Civ 5.

In my opinion BE is ALREADY BETTER than CIV 5 in vanilla status.
The way it feels and plays is awesome.

It is pretty sorry then that average player's rating of the game is even worse than rating of the base release date Civ5 - http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/sid-meiers-civilization-beyond-earth

6.3 vs 6.8

not to even mention BE vs BNW: 6.3 vs 8.5 - you can't escape from general reception.

EDIT

When I checked Civ5 ratings for the base game, they were like 6.8 mixed for years, suddenly I look they are 7.7 lol like many people revised their comments basing on patched, polished Civ5. Still, 7.7 vs BE's 6.3 is even bigger difference!

 

[Greasy Dave]

You can't really compare them. I'm enjoying it. The tech web is the innovation I've been waiting for for years - it feels more "creative" than Civ V.

That might change the more I play and get to know it better - I'll find myself beelining and repeating beelines each game. But right now, it feels much more flexible - which is a great thing.

The affinities are also a really interesting new aspect to the game.

I can't say one is better than the other though - there's enough fresh aspects to BE for it to not be a like for like comparison

The UI is awful.

 

[Teproc]

I like it fine so far. There are problems (mostly the UI, a few balance issues and bugs that will hopefully be fixed soon), but it's a very enjoyable game for me.

As for this poll though, CiV is obviously better, but I never expected this to be better than CiV.

 

[Stalker0]

As I said already two times in other threads, look at Endlees Legends: non AAA game released by new, fresh, young small company which is polished, balanced and perfectly playable on a release day without need of desperate patching and without such idiotic excuses.[/B]

I agree with most of your points, but having played Endless Legends myself, it is far from balanced. That game needs a good amount of love as well

That said, we are comparing a AAA game company to a young upstart, and the AAA had the advantage of using the same game engine as their previous game.

 

[Eji1700]

What the hell are you talking about?

I am fan and modder of Civ5 and I have played it for 1236 hours according to Steam.

I have said Civ5 on a release date was a technical disaster because it was technical disaster - AI couldn't do literally anything - and I mean anything, from economy to killing barbarian - the game was unstable mess, there were more bugs here than in Amazon Rainforest, there was not such thing as balance anywhere, there was no other option than war conquest, AI was impossible to ally and only was declaring war on everything, there was no religion, no espionage, no replays, no multiplayer (unstable), almost no mods (hella lot of restrictions), city states were buy for win and naval combat didn't exist. And I was patient enough to approve Firaxis hard work and finally somehow making brilliant game out of such complete disaster, but I thought four years were enough to make next game based on Civ5 engine to finally have:

- decent AI, especially as since half of a year there is amteurish Civ5 MOD which manages to repair everything Firaxis wasn't even close to repair about AI
- non frustrating diplomacy
- functionable interface
- balance
- stable multiplayer (yes, I had crashes while attempting to play multi BE)

without next year of desperate patches, excuses, saying a game has a 'potential' or my need to pay more than 50 dollars for expansions necessary for a game to be playable.


BE is basically reskinned mod for Civ5 which has all problems of Civ5 unfixed + already we can see has a lot of its own problems. As I said already two times in other threads, look at Endlees Legends: non AAA game released by new, fresh, young small company which is polished, balanced and perfectly playable on a release day without need of desperate patching and without such idiotic excuses.



It is pretty sorry then that average player's rating of the game is even worse than rating of the base release date Civ5 - http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/sid-meiers-civilization-beyond-earth

6.3 vs 6.8

not to even mention BE vs BNW: 6.3 vs 8.5 - you can't escape from general reception.

EDIT

When I checked Civ5 ratings for the base game, they were like 6.8 mixed for years, suddenly I look they are 7.7 lol like many people revised their comments basing on patched, polished Civ5. Still, 7.7 vs BE's 6.3 is even bigger difference!

Umm unless I missed a patch, endless legend is a balance mess, and so is space. I'd argue that the dev's care much less about balance past a "spreadsheet" point than the civ series.

 

[Iblis]

I voted worse but would chime in with the ones who say it depends on what you're comparing it to - if Civ 5 on day of launch, BE is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better. Civ 5 fully expanded and patched kicks the out of BE.

But that's the way games like this work now, and personally I think it's fine. I'd rather play an okay version of a game for a few months as it slowly gets patched into a state of good, then fall in love with it again and again with each expansion

 

[cooldude1128]

Vanilla CiV to BE, or expansion CiV? BE wins out over vanilla CiV, but the expansions to almost every last one of Firaxis's games tend to fix almost all the bugs and balance issues.

 

[Borris]

I'd say you shouldn't do a poll like this until a good couple of weeks after launch. Otherwise your results are so distorted I think they lack meaning.

 

[Dasta]

I should point out that you'll probably hear quite a few nay-sayers based solely off the fact that... Most of the people who really like BE are playing it, and therefore not on the forum. Whilest the people who either chose not to get it or are disappointed thus far will probably be on the forums.

Also, I agree with the point of comparing it to either CiV Vanilla or CiV BNW. Years of polishing really payed off for CiV.

 

[ToothedBomb]

There's no way BE can beat Civ V with its many DLC and expansions.
If you don't own that game and you're looking in this thread to see which one to get; there's no contest. Civ V wins hands down.

However, most people here are fans of Civilization games, and have probably played Civ V a lot already.
If you enjoyed that game, but you want a somewhat different experience, Beyond Earth is a great option. Even on release.

 

[Gliese 581]

I think it's comparable to release CIV5, in other words interesting but quite broken. It will take years of patches and expansions for it to reach the current CIV5 level and even then I don't know if it could really happen. A lot hinges on if the AI can ever become not horrible at navigating an exponentially more complex tech tree. Also some of the omissions are worrisome even for a newly released product.

There's been a good track-record with post-game polish for the main CIV-series but CIV4: Colonization was extremely broken on release and just dropped with no fix and CIV:BE is a spinoff game after all so we will have to wait and see if it recieves the full support or not.

 

[s0nny80y]

It feels like the information age, for the whole freaking game.

 

[59saintdane]

Better than Vanilla, worse than BNW. Enough said.
I have high hopes for what this could become after expansion packs and patches though; after all, look at what Firaxis did with CiV.

 

[Krajzen]

Better than Vanilla, worse than BNW. Enough said.
I have high hopes for what this could become after expansion packs and patches though; after all, look at what Firaxis did with CiV.

What the hell happened to people's mentality and dignity that they can receive clearly unfinished, disappointing, overpriced game from a high - quality company and 'oh everything is ok because I am ready to pay twice as more and wait one more year for them to make it look exactly as it should looked on the release date'? With this mentality we will never receive polished product or true Gem of Strategies because we don't deserve it.

When Firaxis, AAA company, releases a game we should expect, as a consumers, to receive good, finished product on a release date - expansions should EXPAND the already good game, not FIX mediocre one. Not to even mention idiocy of paying producer for repairing the game.

Civ5 was on the new, rushed, sophisticated engine, Firaxis admitted it (also the game was pretty revolutionary for the entire series) so I accepted it especially as they worked really hard to make the game playable (and after three years and spending cash on expansions it finally became very good).What I am totally NOT going to accept is repeating the same idiocy again, with a game based on exactly the same engine, with exactly the same mistakes previous title had and with countless own design problems.It is really not too much to demand one little thing, learning on previous mistakes and listening to the community - they had four years to investigate what went wrong with Civ5 and not allow on it repeating in their next EXPENSIVE HIGH QUALITY GAME, and when we finally receive a game with broken AI/diplomacy/balance/interface you say 'it's totally okay, we will give them more money!'

No, I won't buy any expansion, DLC or whatever for BE. My - quite big, by the way - patience has ended here.

I am waiting on Civ6 and hope Firaxis Main Team knows better what are they doing.



By the way, this is my personal opinion but I am not alone here as you can see on the Metacritic page with 300 ratings creating disappointing average 6.2/10 - to compare, even Civ5 on its release date had rating 6.8/10 (currently it is 7.7 for base game and like 8.5 for BNW!). This is defeat on all fronts.

In the same time, Endless Legend - with it's own problems with balance - a smaller game released by smaller and younger studio has 8.2/10 rating on the release date (because it's beta was actually tweaked for long moths with cooperation with community) and now it's customers are not awaiting on 'fixes' but on expansions improving already very good game.