Recent Q&A - 12/05
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KrikkitTwo
Immortal
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Actually they didn't dodge it. There is no unit workshop.
Instead you get to decide how your units upgrade.
ie Will your warriors upgrade to pikes or longswords? (Anti-mount bonus or basic strength bonus) You choose... But it applies to All of your warriors (and is unlocked by affinity rather than directly by tech)
Instead you get to decide how your units upgrade.
ie Will your warriors upgrade to pikes or longswords? (Anti-mount bonus or basic strength bonus) You choose... But it applies to All of your warriors (and is unlocked by affinity rather than directly by tech)
Lord Tirian
Erratic Poster
To be honest, I... don't mind it that much. SMAC/X workshop was great in theory, but in the end, you usually ended up with some core designs anyway. This just means you design the "core designs" straight away.
It's a decent compromise between the customisation of the workshop and having a game that has less false choices, this way they can ensure that most designs are useful and viable.
Lancor
Prince
I second that.
It was nice to have some flexibility, produce cheaper units or highly specialized units, but then again... these circumstances were really rare and would be hard to explain with this kind of morphing system here too.
Also promotions are still in, like I suspected, yay!
I also like the fact that you can customize your game style with the late arriving factions.
So we got some solid informations! Thanks for the Q&A!
awesome
Meme Lord
sorry, but your use of "ie" instead of "eg" kind of bothered me. it took me awhile to wrap my head around your post because i thought you were saying that beyond earth was going to start back at warriors because "ie" doesn't mean "for example," but rather "that is."
okay, now that that rant is out of the way: that sounds pretty cool, kind of like you're making your own uu in a way, only different and more streamlined than the way most games do it.
Agreed, towards the end-game SMAC/X unit editor kind of got more annoying and tedious than fun. Oh look, let's make thirty variations of the Recon Rover! Only about three or four of them are worth a damn! This system seems both a lot more streamlined and a lot more fun.
sendos
Immortal
The random faction arrival feature seems intriguing. It looks like both a difficulty feature and a technical option for the player. It would be interesting if the player could also decide to arrive at the new world later rather than earlier and then get more techs and other things to start with.
As for the new workshop, "purchase upgrades" is referred to. By "purchase" they mean XP, not some currency right? Other than that, it sounds like there could be more diverse skill trees for affinities if they're confident enough to say that 2 factions with the same affinity can have different fighting abilities than each other.
As for the new workshop, "purchase upgrades" is referred to. By "purchase" they mean XP, not some currency right? Other than that, it sounds like there could be more diverse skill trees for affinities if they're confident enough to say that 2 factions with the same affinity can have different fighting abilities than each other.
Lord Tirian
Erratic Poster
They also confirmed that promotions are still in, so I guess XP is for promotions and you get something else to unlock the upgrades - without saying what you use to purchase them.
My personal guess would be something like the number of technologies you have, unlocking a new upgrade every X techs you research (with individual technologies increasing your choices). That might also solve part of the military side of the tech web, if you get guaranteed upgrades every X techs, beelining for a military tech becomes less important.
KrikkitTwo
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They said affinities unlock the upgrades. (And affinities are unlocked by techs)
However, I wouldn't be surprised if they Also needed some currency to upgrade individual units that were already produced in the chosen path. (But it is possible they won't)
However, I wouldn't be surprised if they Also needed some currency to upgrade individual units that were already produced in the chosen path. (But it is possible they won't)
This makes sense... currently, upgrading, say, Spearmen to Pikemen requires both unlocking a technology and shelling out some cash. Except it sounds like it will be a one-time payment, rather than having to pay for each individual unit.
stealth_nsk
Deity
If upgrade will cost money, the cost should depend on the number of units. Otherwise it looks like duplicate system (2 similar things for one purpose). Most likely it will be free, IMHO.
"have them gradually arrive over the first few hundred turns of the game"
How long is one game going to take? "first few hundred turns" just to get everyone on board? Some people complain about civ's game length with standard pacing and if civ:be is going to take 2.000 tuns to complete one game, I will be overjoyed but most people will hate it.
How long is one game going to take? "first few hundred turns" just to get everyone on board? Some people complain about civ's game length with standard pacing and if civ:be is going to take 2.000 tuns to complete one game, I will be overjoyed but most people will hate it.
stealth_nsk
Deity
Too many "if". If there's no mistake. If developers meant standard speed. If standard speed is still second lowest and not average. And even if these are true, the standard speed could still be 500 turns - I see no problems in opponents arriving till the first half of the game, providing unlimited expansion is not possible.
SammyKhalifa
Deity
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I just want to know if there are so many planets out there to choose from at the beginning of the game, why would all of the other nations decide to come to yours? 
I disagree as I really appreciated the feature. You did have to manage it for a few minutes every time you unlocked a new weapon technology.
The main thing that made the workshop necessary was having distinct and independent values for attack and defense. Not so in Civ II, III, IV, V. So if CivBE sticks with this tradition (and why would it not) then I agree with the consensus that the feature is not needed.
But split values for attack and defense would be cool IMHO.
Lord Shadow
General
I never found SMAC's unit workshop to be such a great thing. My largest complaint about Alpha Centauri was that most units looked ugly or silly, and that was mostly the workshop's fault for making them all ultimately generic and devoid of personality. The core concept was fine, including the graphical representation of almost every component of the design on the unit itself, but it just... didn't work out, aesthetically. It's just bad execution coupled with the very limited 3D technology of the time. You get things like huge drills on tiny boats or soldiers pushing carts with laser cannons, which I found the most jarring. Frankly, it might've been better to do it the Master of Orion 2 way: pick a whole model/sprite from a selection according to unit type (and possibly tech level), and then customize features at will, without impact on the unit's appearance. And yes, they should've stuck to 2D, like Civ3 would afterwards.
It can easily be interpreted that every faction launched colony ships towards most every habitable candidate in range. It's unlikely there'd be many of those. But you won't find every faction on a given planet unless you set up your game to have the maximum amount of players, which still won't be everyone until all the hypothetical DLC come out.I just want to know if there are so many planets out there to choose from at the beginning of the game, why would all of the other nations decide to come to yours?
stealth_nsk
Deity
Well, that's a disadvantage actually. Things you have to spend time without too much thinking (and since optimal units are the same from game to game workshop doesn't require thinking) is a part of bad design.
I disagree with both. Separate attack and defense could be easily replaced with unit abilities. Why Civ 4 and 5 didn't have pure +attack/+defense abilities? Because it's dull.
Actually unit workshop is a freedom which limits. It doesn't allow really distinct units. Having 1 point stronger doesn't make unit distinctive. Take a look at unique units in Civ 5. Unit workshop allows nothing close to them.
I agree that the SMAC units looked silly, and that was one of my least favorite aspects of the game, but I think that the bigger gameplay issue was that the vast majority of the customizations were irrelevant. If you want full customization, I agree that something like the MOO2 model works better, but full customization makes less sense for infantry and tanks than it does for starships; there's only so many useful combinations of equipment on an infantryman, or a scout buggy, or an interceptor. The Beyond Earth approach sounds more sensible from a gameplay perspective, as well as from an aesthetic perspective.
I agree that Civ V UA are nice and interesting enough give up separate attack/defense values. Unfortunately, we had to wait through III and IV which also kept things simple, but without UA that really mattered.
I submit that the reason units in III/IV/V don’t have separate attack/defense scores is because the developers think that the majority of players are too stupid to understand the mechanic. Sure, separate attack and defense abilities could be replaced with unit abilities, but that has not happened with III/IV/V (except with siege), so no reason to be hopeful about it being in CivBE.
Yes, having a unit 1 point stronger doesn’t make unit distinctive, but the workshop facilitated so much more. My city garrison units had the strongest defense available, but only offense to the extent that did not increase cost. Recon rovers got strong offense, but no defense at all. Neither of these designs have been possible in III, IV, V. With SMAC, only my infantry on the front line were “tanks”. Contrast this to units in III, VI, V where everything (except siege) are “tanks”.
And this doesn’t even cover the workshop unit which were just fun, like grav ship formers and colony drop pods!
I submit that the reason units in III/IV/V don’t have separate attack/defense scores is because the developers think that the majority of players are too stupid to understand the mechanic. Sure, separate attack and defense abilities could be replaced with unit abilities, but that has not happened with III/IV/V (except with siege), so no reason to be hopeful about it being in CivBE.
Yes, having a unit 1 point stronger doesn’t make unit distinctive, but the workshop facilitated so much more. My city garrison units had the strongest defense available, but only offense to the extent that did not increase cost. Recon rovers got strong offense, but no defense at all. Neither of these designs have been possible in III, IV, V. With SMAC, only my infantry on the front line were “tanks”. Contrast this to units in III, VI, V where everything (except siege) are “tanks”.
And this doesn’t even cover the workshop unit which were just fun, like grav ship formers and colony drop pods!
