Yeah, AI is a great threat for human kind - cause one good programmed Siri answer tops 50 percent of all people. The most human intellect is nonsentient cheap AI in greedy corrupt meatsacks, so, no wonder, so much is missing the point (utter bloody).
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I dont understand this argueing about Aliens. To tell the truth:
CivBERT missed a great opportunity to make the game more fun by letting Aliens UTTER USELESS. Why this science about units without any combat capacity??? The Manticore has combat4 and range10 - and this is the "best unit" of the Aliens, beyond SiegeWorm and Kraken, which dont appear in middle and late game anymore! So, Aliens need no science, cause it is completely irrelevant what you do to them - make peace, doesnt matter, hunt them down - I would recommend, cause you get maximum cheap, a good amount of supporting resources, as mentioned before. You earn nothing by having peace with them, and it hurts nothing, it costs nothing, to hunt them down - cause ONE TROOPER after early game, they are no threat anymore - nevermore!
No science necessary or thinking about gameplay regarding Aliens - they are wasted units, the creators of the game could have made them to pink blobs and kick them out of the game - no difference. I often saw one of my units standing fortified on a hill, attacked by Aliens, and they didnt even manage to HURT THEM. Or -1, healed back, END. These Vanilla Aliens are a joke, a worthless sidekick I even hesitate to eliminate by City Arty, cause I am too bored to do that. Argueing about Aliens is pointless, cause Aliens are pointless in Vanilla game!
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You have a million times more fun and trouble with indian tribes in Sid Meiers Colonization than in Vanilla CivBERT with these completely pointless, for the gameplay completely irrelevant, natives of a whole Alien planet - and this is crazy - CRAZY! This is not even a "missed opportunity" but utter brain damage. "Hey, lets design a Civ5 with a colonization of an ALIEN planet and make "biomes", but let Alien activity be POINTLESS, so that Civ2 Test of Time is FAR SUPERIOR with 4 different maps, Sid Meiers Colonization is FAR SUPERIOR with indian trade and trouble, and basically this whole game could happen in NEIGHBORS KITCHEN" - yeah, fools.
They had the idea of an Alien planet being colonized and by far underperformed ANY GAME from 20 years ago, bravo.
The CivBERT gfx are the only reason this game survived as a Civ sidekick to this day - cause the gameplay underperforms some (most!) DOS games I played. The Tec tree is nice, Affinity etcetera is nice, some units and upgrades are nice, but "gameplay", nonexistent diplomacy, pointless Aliens on an Alien planet - THE FIRST THING, you would HAVE TO DO, as an artist and creator, is, to give 5 different biomes 5 different species of Aliens with an upgrading basic roster and diplomacy with IMPACT to the gameplay, and CivBERT would be a million times better!
And then these amateurs wonder why they had a worse Civ7 than Millennia had??? Amateurs. Dont wait for a Beyond Earth 2! Cause it would be a wasted Millennia clone worse than garbage.