Is this an unfair comparison?

[Roxlimn]

I consider city management distinct from the expansion and map mechanics. I'll withhold opinion on city tile management until I've actually played the game, but most reviews and players don't even really mention it at all.

Not that that means anything - it just means that I don't know much about that.#

Frankly, it's hard to discuss it since you haven't played it and you're solely going by reviews - this game has a terribly steep learning curve (the reviews and tutorial certainly didn't prepare me for the mechanical depth it does have).

That sounds like you're actually talking about complexity. Complexity is not depth, and depth is not complexity. Games with steep learning curves are often complex games, but they're not always deep games.

 

[vahouth]

Nearly all the asymmetry in EL sounds derivative. OCC Civ has been done. War Civ has been done. No-diplomacy War-Civ has been done (Silicoids in MoO2, Yor in GalCiv2, etc, etc.).

Yes OCC Civ, War Civ and no diplomacy Civ has been done before, but what about a Civ that won't use food but dust (income-energy) instead for growth? Or a Civ that stockpiles the corpses from combat and uses them as a food resource? Or a Civ that its units are masochistic and are more powerful when injured?

But if this is not enough asymmetry, BE has a bigger problem since there is not enough variety in factions as is.
Builder Civs, spy Civs, growth Civs, Trader Civs, War Civs, "Culture" Civs, Expansive Civs, all those have been done already too.
Yes, their initial loadout add some more, as well as the virtues they'll choose, but all of that is already been done before even in the same franchise, like Standardized Architecture which is a copy-paste of Rome's UA from Civ5.
The only things that really changes the playstyle of a faction in BE are the Affinities.

That sounds like you're actually talking about complexity. Complexity is not depth, and depth is not complexity. Games with steep learning curves are often complex games, but they're not always deep games.

True, but in this case unfortunately, EL is a deeper game than BE.

 

[Lord Tirian]

That sounds like you're actually talking about complexity. Complexity is not depth, and depth is not complexity. Games with steep learning curves are often complex games, but they're not always deep games.

For me, complexity is the number of moving parts, depth the combinations of the moving parts.

EL doesn't really have more moving parts than Civ:BE but they have a lot more potential interactions. EL is easy enough to grasp and play but figuring out how to play it well is more of a challenge (apart from combat - the tactical AI is just brain dead).

 

[Roxlimn]

vahouth:

Yes OCC Civ, War Civ and no diplomacy Civ has been done before, but what about a Civ that won't use food but dust (income-energy) instead for growth? Or a Civ that stockpiles the corpses from combat and uses them as a food resource? Or a Civ that its units are masochistic and are more powerful when injured?

Food alternatives for growth are as old as the Meklar. Income is a fairly novel thing to use for population growth, but simply purchasing new population is as easy as purchasing a new city - that's new population.

Civs that take the "injured units are stronger" policy in Civ 5 will have all their relevant units stronger when injured. Civs that benefit from Combat directly can be Montezuma or Might CivBE factions. Output being food is kind of new. I'll think about it more after I get the game this Winter.

But if this is not enough asymmetry, BE has a bigger problem since there is not enough variety in factions as is. Yes, their initial loadout add some more, as well as the virtues they'll choose, but all of that is already been done before even in the same franchise, like Standardized Architecture which is a copy-paste of Rome's UA from Civ5.
The only things that really changes the playstyle of a faction in BE are the Affinities.

That is incorrect. A Prosperity-focused player who arranges their Virtues and properties a specific way can create new cities indefinitely without affecting their Health. An Industry-focused player with a heavy emphasis on Generators can basically buy everything instead of building anything. A Might focused player can basically ignore Science, Energy, and Culture output for the entire early to mid game and rely on Alien-hunting to leapfrog to game-winning war technology.

Depend on mix of tech and mix of Virtues, you can play an ever-expanding wide Civ with few large cities, a wide Civ with two or three large cities, and evenly growing Civ with a lot of very large cities, or a bunch of setups in between. You can rely on Farms or on Biowells, or just not have food-making improvements beyond Plantations. Your food sourcing could be centralized or decentralized. Hammer sourcing could also be centralized or decentralized. You can mix and match either.

Your science could come from External Routes, sacrificing internal growth and production, or you could set up super-early Academy Cities and not have Externals contribute much science at all (Knowledge play).

Depth vs. Complexity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVL4st0blGU

Just so we're on the same page.

 

[vahouth]

Food alternatives for growth are as old as the Meklar. Income is a fairly novel thing to use for population growth, but simply purchasing new population is as easy as purchasing a new city - that's new population.
Civs that take the "injured units are stronger" policy in Civ 5 will have all their relevant units stronger when injured. Civs that benefit from Combat directly can be Montezuma or Might CivBE factions. Output being food is kind of new. I'll think about it more after I get the game this Winter.

I've never seen in a 4X before a mechanism that coverts the dead to food, or rather a stockpile to use as you please. BTW this race also has a -1 food penalty from tiles.
As for the Meklar, they didn't exactly have a food alternative, the simply used half food & half industry. Also a Civ that has no use for food whatsoever but eats up more of your income, must be played with a different approach.

That is incorrect. A Prosperity-focused player who arranges their Virtues and properties a specific way can create new cities indefinitely without affecting their Health. An Industry-focused player with a heavy emphasis on Generators can basically buy everything instead of building anything. A Might focused player can basically ignore Science, Energy, and Culture output for the entire early to mid game and rely on Alien-hunting to leapfrog to game-winning war technology.

Exactly my point. All the factions can do that. There is no real variety in gameplay that is dependent on the faction you choose.

Depend on mix of tech and mix of Virtues, you can play an ever-expanding wide Civ with few large cities, a wide Civ with two or three large cities, and evenly growing Civ with a lot of very large cities, or a bunch of setups in between. You can rely on Farms or on Biowells, or just not have food-making improvements beyond Plantations. Your food sourcing could be centralized or decentralized. Hammer sourcing could also be centralized or decentralized. You can mix and match either.

All of the above options are also present in EL and can be influenced by the various faction traits, adopted Empire Plans, stockpiled resources management, Heroes, influence gained, bonuses from assimilated minor factions, techs, Anomalies (natural wonders) and even quests.
The OCC Civ can even play the mid to late game with units that come exclusively from minor factions. Now this is variety in gameplay.

Your science could come from External Routes, sacrificing internal growth and production, or you could set up super-early Academy Cities and not have Externals contribute much science at all (Knowledge play).

Trade in BE is so powerful that I never had to choose between Internal and External routes. In fact I never even felt the need for Academies in my playthroughs.

Depth vs. Complexity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVL4st0blGU

Just so we're on the same page.

As stated in the video, depth comes in the player's ability to come to meaningful choices.
Do you think that BE quest system holds to that?
Because to me, most of the choices are a no brainer...

 

[Roxlimn]

vahouth:

I've never seen in a 4X before a mechanism that coverts the dead to food, or rather a stockpile to use as you please. BTW this race also has a -1 food penalty from tiles.
As for the Meklar, they didn't exactly have a food alternative, the simply used half food & half industry. Also a Civ that has no use for food whatsoever but eats up more of your income, must be played with a different approach.

Can't really comment more on this until after I've played.

Exactly my point. All the factions can do that. There is no real variety in gameplay that is dependent on the faction you choose.

The faction you choose is dependent on how you play the game. Your faction is emergent, which is the main point of difference between choosing in-game, and having all your traits in front of you MoO2-style.

An Industry-focused faction isn't the same as a Prosperity-focused faction, and they can't do the same things, even if they started out from the same Start Options. That constitutes a real variance in gameplay.

Trade in BE is so powerful that I never had to choose between Internal and External routes. In fact I never even felt the need for Academies in my playthroughs.

The game is easy enough that you really don't need much of anything to win, really. It's not that Trade is so powerful and more that the settings are whacked at the moment. Choosing all-Internal and all-External is radically different. If you haven't used Academies, you can't know how much they affect the Science output.

Might want to try playing CivBE in different ways. You don't need to, but you don't need to do that in EL, either. You can, if you choose to.

As stated in the video, depth comes in the player's ability to come to meaningful choices.
Do you think that BE quest system holds to that?
Because to me, most of the choices are a no brainer...

Yes. Many of the choices are traps, but most are not. The little choices add up. With a broad direction, consistent choices, and planning, all the Quest choices together have a meaningful impact. Of course, the non-building Quests have fairly palpable effects. If you're not thinking about how to manage the Quests and their outputs, I imagine most of them would not be systemically decided, and that you've chosen the exact same choices game after game. It would stand to reason that you haven't seen anything different because you haven't done anything different.

 

[vahouth]

vahouth:
The faction you choose is dependent on how you play the game. Your faction is emergent, which is the main point of difference between choosing in-game, and having all your traits in front of you MoO2-style.

Well, it shows you the main focus of your game, but really the mechanics are the same.
Why choose Brasilia for example when a simple virtue pick can give you the same benefit?
Is the 10% melee strength that more game-breaking that requires a different tactical approach than let's say a Might oriented ARC?

vahouth:
Yes. Many of the choices are traps, but most are not. The little choices add up. With a broad direction, consistent choices, and planning, all the Quest choices together have a meaningful impact. Of course, the non-building Quests have fairly palpable effects. If you're not thinking about how to manage the Quests and their outputs, I imagine most of them would not be systemically decided, and that you've chosen the exact same choices game after game. It would stand to reason that you haven't seen anything different because you haven't done anything different.

If I were to give a percentage, I'd say about 50% of the quests are somewhat meaningful, 20% you can go either way without serious impact on gameplay, and 30% are simply bad.

 

[Roxlimn]

vahouth:

Well, it shows you the main focus of your game, but really the mechanics are the same.
Why choose Brasilia for example when a simple virtue pick can give you the same benefit? Is the 10% melee strength that more game-breaking that requires a different tactical approach than let's say a Might oriented ARC?

I'm not sure I'm getting the message through. A Might ARC is a different faction from an Industry ARC. The start sponsors are the same, but the emergent faction is different. A Prosperity Brasilia is not the same as a Might ARC. A Might Brasilia is actually more similar to a Might ARC, but that's because they made similar choices.

The faction you choose is literally dependent on how you choose in the game. The menu of traits is not presented at the start of the game but within it.

If I were to give a percentage, I'd say about 50% of the quests are somewhat meaningful, 20% you can go either way without serious impact on gameplay, and 30% are simply bad.

Almost all of the start and mid-choices are meaningful, and most of the end-game choices are, simply by dint of how insanely strong they are individually. The building quests collectively have a very serious impact on gameplay; you can't just make each decision strategically on a case by case basis and expect to draw an intentional overall effect out of random choices.

 

[vahouth]

What I mean to say is that it doesn't really matter which faction you'll pick because the core mechanics don't change so much in order to give you a different gameplay experience, unlike EL.
I mean, yes, virtues, affinities and quests can add to that, but no more than what similar mechanisms can add to other 4X games.
I feel like they needed to go that extra mile and make the factions feel more unique.

 

[Roxlimn]

What I mean to say is that it doesn't really matter which faction you'll pick because the core mechanics don't change so much in order to give you a different gameplay experience, unlike EL.
I mean, yes, virtues, affinities and quests can add to that, but no more than what similar mechanisms can add to other 4X games.
I feel like they needed to go that extra mile and make the factions feel more unique.

Actually, I think they specifically and deliberately go out of their way to say that most of your faction identity and feel will be decided by what you do in-game.

Outside of Civ5, which is founded on similar lines, I don't know of any 4X game that makes you earn the majority of your faction traits as you play the game. CivBE arguably ups that a lot more since it relocated many faction traits into the Virtues. Most 4x games set faction traits at the start. GalCiv2 did. MoO2 did. So does EL.

CivBE even increases that feel by saying that even your UUs and how your UUs will evolve is a chosen thing. You can't normally choose your UU in Civ5 after the game has started.

 

[vahouth]

EL adds to the faction traits via asssimilated minor factions and managing the Empire Plan in the overview screen. A significant boost comes from the administrator heroes and their upgrades too though it's mostly local. (The OCC Civ benefits most from this.)
There are also faction specific techs that add up to that.

Another example is SMAC with its social policies.

As for the BEs UUs, have you forgotten that every single unit in 4X games from SMAC to GalCiv, MoO, EL, ES and even Pandora can be upgraded as you please?

 

[Roxlimn]

EL adds to the faction traits via asssimilated minor factions and managing the Empire Plan in the overview screen. A significant boost comes from the administrator heroes and their upgrades too though it's mostly local. (The OCC Civ benefits most from this.)
There are also faction specific techs that add up to that.

Can't really speak to that until I've played the game.

Another example is SMAC with its social policies.

No. That doesn't count. Any Civ on Planet can and often does adopt the same Social Polices as you do provided you're on the same tech level. In fact, similarities in Social Policy and shifting Social Policies form a part of the diplomatic layer. They are not Civ-specific traits or identities.

Virtues in CivBE are strong and have specific strengths. You also cannot alter them once chosen, so the Virtues can't be very similar between Civs or even between playthroughs, unless you specifically choose to play in very similar fashion.

As for the BEs UUs, have you forgotten that every single unit in 4X games from SMAC to GalCiv, MoO, EL, ES and even Pandora can be upgraded as you please?

We're speaking to identity, not upgrades. Anything you make in GalCiv2 is replicable to some extent by other factions. In fact, without your faction-specific component, GalCiv fleets tend to be interchangeable. MoO2 is the same way. The best way to defeat an opponent is sometimes to just build whatever he's building and just build more of it.

SMAC's Workshop allowed you to build unique units, but it's not like that's faction-specific.

The Affinity units are faction-specific. That's why they're called Unique Units. You can't use the Unique Units of other Affinities unless you have the tech and the Affinity points, and some units you simply will never access. If you choose Purity as an Affinity, you will never be able to build Apostles or Minotaurs.

It's not a matter of upgrades. It's the UUs.

More importantly, are you getting the main idea? The idea is that your faction and faction traits in CivBE evolve as you play, not chosen at the start of the game. I hope that message is plain.

 

[vahouth]

The UUs are not faction specific, they are affinity specific and not mutually exclusive to the player.
I had a game where 3 civ were following Purity and the map was crawling with Battlesuits.
And I don't consider those units unique, at least no more than other affinity specific upgrades.
A CNDR is no more unique than the Apostle who needs an even greater commitment in Supremacy.
I would consider unique an affinity specific unit that also has a special ability that is tied to its faction eg Brasilian Apostle fires twice or ARC Apostle has stealth-cover etc.

But I get what you mean by traits also being acquired throughout the game, it's just that EL already does that.

 

[Roxlimn]

vahouth:

Depending on choice, faction Apostles can still be different from each other. You get a permanent decision at each upgrade point - Marine, Disciple, and Apostle. One faction's Apostle would only be completely the same as another's if all three upgrade choices were the same. Otherwise, each Apostle can be different in potentially 3 ways, while sharing some characteristics.

So yes, each Affinity Unit does have a special ability that's tied to its faction, but that ability is not set in stone when you start the game.

But I get what you mean by traits also being acquired throughout the game, it's just that EL already does that.

The bonuses you get from the minor factions appear to be small and not very consequential. In CivBE, the combination of the choices you make and permanent traits you acquire makes your faction play in a very distinctive fashion. It's not all the same.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I actually don't view EL as a Fantasy game. For me it is more of a steam-punk-ish SciFi setting.

Apart from that, the interesting thing is that both games suffer from the same flaws: Tech webs that promote first-order choises, irrelevance of terrain and city placement, severe imbalance (units, trade routes, ressource bonuses, etc), a bad combat system, lack of transparency for the relevance of ressources and a lack of lore induction into the game.

In the end both games are "okay" (once the balance issues are sorted out), but fall short of their true potential.

 

[ehroifcf]

So having played about 40 hours of EL and easily over 100 hours of C:BE i find this argument very interesting. To me this comparison that has been made is not really helpful. EL forces you to play in a very specific way that evolves into slight variations over the course of the game whereas C:BE starts out (and to a certain extent ends) with a myriad of different possibilities that all propel you to what seem like cookie cutter choices.

For instance, in EL i enjoy using the Broken Lords (people who survive off of money instead of food) because of their inherent ability to settle in any biome on the map and while the economic related techs always get grabbed first, i find that there is a lot more strategy involved in choosing what other techs to grab. The maps also influence your choices throughout the whole game.

Conversely, in C:BE i find the strategy to be more the same all the time despite all the little differences that add up. The strategy is as follows: find out which affinity strategic you have the most of, plan out the best order of techs to emphasize that affinity as well as growth, get as much health as possible through virtues, build whatever thing, win. while each affinity has huge differences in playstyle, i've found that it really doesnt matter which faction you are or what choices you make in terms of building quests or what affinity you chose because at a certain point it comes down to sitting around doing the thing that will make you win.

Admittedly i choose to do things mostly the same each time in terms of building quests however i have forced myself to play things differently many times just to experiment and to me it really just feels the same even whether i play knowledge-purity-PAC or might/industry-harmony-AfUn

 

[Roxlimn]

ehroifcf:

At a certain point, every TBS game devolves into "press next turn, win." At the penultimate turn of every TBS ever made, that's how it goes. If that's the similarity you're pointing out, then that's just true of every TBS game.

Conversely, in C:BE i find the strategy to be more the same all the time despite all the little differences that add up. The strategy is as follows: find out which affinity strategic you have the most of, plan out the best order of techs to emphasize that affinity as well as growth, get as much health as possible through virtues, build whatever thing, win. while each affinity has huge differences in playstyle, i've found that it really doesnt matter which faction you are or what choices you make in terms of building quests or what affinity you chose because at a certain point it comes down to sitting around doing the thing that will make you win.

Admittedly i choose to do things mostly the same each time in terms of building quests however i have forced myself to play things differently many times just to experiment and to me it really just feels the same even whether i play knowledge-purity-PAC or might/industry-harmony-AfUn

If it still feels the same, you're not forcing yourself out of your comfort zone nearly well enough. A Might/Industry PAU doesn't have the kind of Academies a Knowledge PAC would have and cannot set them up nearly as fast. That means that they can't derive the same benefit from Academy-spamming, nor are they incentivized to do so by the techs they favor. A Knowledge Game PAC might have several sites or cities that literally have no improvement other than Academies around it, planned especially for that purpose, whereas a Might/Industry might fare better overall doing Trade Route Science and doing game-long alien hunting.

Growth is not as important for some strategies as it is for others. How you come by that growth is different as well. Some games I get some buildings. Other games I simply don't get those buildings or improvements at all on account of simply not having those technologies.

A Purity faction, for instance, has little use for Biowells aside from the occasional one or two on account of their having extremely powerful Farms. A Harmony player doesn't have nearly the same power Farms, so you really don't use that. Instead, you use Biowells, which means that you don't care about Health buildings (or Health from Virtues) quite as much.

 

[Pietato]

I actually see that as a throwback to a less complex and less interesting economy - MoO2-type. It's literally a decades-old game design at this point.

It should be entirely based on trade routes instead. Right?

 

[ehroifcf]

Roxlimn:
I agree with what you say but i guess what i'm trying to say is that once you choose your affinity, no matter what aspect you choose to emphasize through more techs or different improvements, playing within that affinity sort of forces you into a certain way of doing things much in the same way that whatever race you choose in EL forces you to play the game. i agree that there are many many more permutations of ways you can go about things in C:BE but the constraints that ultimately having to choose one affinity effectively makes whomever your sponsor is completely arbitrary in the late game. i think that perhaps of the bonuses/drawbacks of each sponsor were more nuanced but not quite as extreme as EL i think that all the little (and big) choices throughout the game would feel more different in the long run

 

[Roxlimn]

Pietato:

Not at all. GalCiv2 has an interesting tax/spending economy that I found very fascinating. Civ IV's systems were interesting as well. What I don't want is for CivBE's new system to be nerfed to an old system, on the strength of a few people wanting it to be Civ5: Again.

ehroifcf:

I think it's quite intentional on the part of the design that the sponsor effect is small in the mid to late game. In Civ5, the Civ effect could be powerful at the start, but inconsequential at the end, or vice versa. In CivBE, all the sponsor effects are powerful at the start, but not that important at the end.

Affinity is not the only thing that defines how you play the game. Strategic, economic, and tech path choices all play a role. I have played a Supremacy game with a Purity-like economy. I have played one with a Harmony-like economy. I have played one that's neither - presumably a Supremacy-theme economy, with lots of Generators and no Farms, no Biowells.

Virtues also strongly affect how your game plays and feels. If you only ever play the Virtues the one way, your games will start to feel like they're the same. A radically different path or selection changes that. Majoring in Might for Scavenging affects your incentives for alien-killing, whatever Affinity you may be. I actually played a Might Brasilia on Harmony. I still killed a LOT of Aliens.