'Rising Tide' expansion announced!

[Liegence]

Let me be honest: I will pick it up. I want to support Firaxis even though I only played BE about 1% of the amount of time I've had with CiV.

My biggest hopes are that the water cities are more than just "now land = sea" and that they are significantly differentiated, and that the god awful diplomacy is actually revamped with something cool and interactive.

 

[Barathor]

No. Those were pre-release version Wolf Beetles and the second is just the Stellar Codex wonder in water.

D'oh, I was afraid that was going to happen, haha. That's good, because those little mite-looking aliens weren't very interesting to look at.

 

[Sherlock]

Exciting, but there are so many core gameplay/UI problems in vanilla this will have to be a huge makeover.

I hope they're up for it.

 

[beetle]

It only just occurred to me, but I would be thrilled by this news -- except that I was expecting BE 2.0.

In the absence of high expectations, news of a BE expansion is fantastic!

Sort of like how by invoking the spirit of SMAC, Faraxis talked me out of buying BE in the first place!

 

[SupremacyKing2]

It only just occurred to me, but I would be thrilled by this news -- except that I was expecting BE 2.0.

In the live stream, the devs basically said that the 2.0 patch will be released at the same time as the expansion. The expansion will of course automatically include the 2.0 patch in it.

 

[Olleus]

I'd expect them to know what sells, personally.

They've made mistakes before...

What's happened to CivRev for example? Has that line of game died out? Similarly Sid wanted a facebook version of civ, I can't remember if that died or never made it out.

Either way, I think firaxis is underestimating just how little interest there is in BE now. Just look at this forum, it's completely dead. The civ4 section looks like it has at least twice as much activity, and that's a game which is over a decade old. Hoping that people will shell out $30 in the hope that it will improve a game they don't like seems misguided.

And if they only sell it to people who are still playing the game, then I'll doubt they'll recover their cost. Its a shame, I like firaxis, even their non-civ games (recently got into x-com and loved it).

 

[benjamin28]

Yay! These are interesting news indeed.

A brief wishlist:

+ Add MORE voices and dialogues for the leaders. It's tiring already to have to listen to Suzanne saying the Adam Smith thing EVERY TIME you talk to her. And she says that even when she's extorting for some resource. We need more variety: that would give a LOT of life to the game.

+ Change the Purity victory condition: do we all agree is the most fustrating by far?

+ Change the code so enemy factions won't appear RIGHT NEXT to you when they land. Especially now, given maps will be "bigger" with the new aquatic tiles.

PS: I CAN'T wait to hear the new biomes' tunes. Primordial music, frigid music: I think they will be amazing.

 

[bite]

You it is just a small thing, but given they are real people in this context, I hope they get the actually leaders to read out the tech quotes. I know it was probably cheaper to get the same person to do all of them, but it is just a small way to make these people into real people rather than the quasi-australia and quisi-chinese civ

 

[AriochIV]

What's happened to CivRev for example? Has that line of game died out? Similarly Sid wanted a facebook version of civ, I can't remember if that died or never made it out.

That Facebook game was released as Civilization World. It ran for two years and then was shut down. I never played it, but I'd guess it was of the same caliber as CivRev and Starships -- lightweight tripe.

 

[Callonia]

I'm guessing that aliens will continue to be irrelevant as usual. Just something to be brushed aside whenever you feel like it.

 

[GenyaArikado]

Did they say how will the hybrid affinities work lorewise?

Yay! These are interesting news indeed.

A brief wishlist:

+ Add MORE voices and dialogues for the leaders. It's tiring already to have to listen to Suzanne saying the Adam Smith thing EVERY TIME you talk to her. And she says that even when she's extorting for some resource. We need more variety: that would give a LOT of life to the game.

+ Change the Purity victory condition: do we all agree is the most fustrating by far?

+ Change the code so enemy factions won't appear RIGHT NEXT to you when they land. Especially now, given maps will be "bigger" with the new aquatic tiles.

PS: I CAN'T wait to hear the new biomes' tunes. Primordial music, frigid music: I think they will be amazing.

and recoloring the farms/generators

 

[nokmirt]

Same old crappy AI or are they going to make it better?

 

[Gorbles]

They've made mistakes before...

What's happened to CivRev for example? Has that line of game died out? Similarly Sid wanted a facebook version of civ, I can't remember if that died or never made it out.

Either way, I think firaxis is underestimating just how little interest there is in BE now. Just look at this forum, it's completely dead. The civ4 section looks like it has at least twice as much activity, and that's a game which is over a decade old. Hoping that people will shell out $30 in the hope that it will improve a game they don't like seems misguided.

And if they only sell it to people who are still playing the game, then I'll doubt they'll recover their cost. Its a shame, I like firaxis, even their non-civ games (recently got into x-com and loved it).

For better or worse, this forum isn't the be-all-and-end-all gauge of interest in Civ. games. My personal opinion is that a lot of this place never even gave BE a chance. Community-generated or not, this forum lacks even a fraction of the wiki content CiV has - something as a modder of BE I wouldn't have minded contributing to myself.

I mean, sure, feel free to predict how the game will do. But AA and AAA gaming (Firaxis is more the former, really) don't waste a lot of time on duds. Even Civ. Rev. had a following (the sequel less so, though).

Someone pointed out in a recent thread that BE had a million sales. A respectable number even when compared to CiV's several million. That's what expansions are aimed at maximising the numbers of. It brings older players back and tempts new ones.

The people who don't want to like BE will continue to find ways to do so That's entirely their right, of course, but that's not Firaxis' worry I don't think. They'll be trying to get back rhe people who do want to give the game a shot, and one million is a decent base to aim for. That's as much as the (underrated) 40k shooter Space Marine got and that was pegged for two sequels before the publisher went under.

 

[PhilBowles]

Loaded up the game for the first time since before the winter update, and find it surprisingly engaging except for the complete absence of relevant diplomacy (and with leaders falling over themselves to grant you favours, you can drag anyone you want into war with your enemies). If that is improved it will be a major step forward, but Firaxis could well be promising more than they can deliver in promising a diplomacy system that's more than a trade screen - that's been a common complaint in most 4x games, including all iterations of Civ (which, where they succeeded in making diplomacy relevant, did so only by making the types of trade on offer - such as technology - more valuable).

Given that the one thing the game definitely did right was the exploration phase, I'm surprised there hasn't yet been any discussion of this tidbit:

New Artifact System: Collect and combine powerful relics to unlock new perks, unit upgrades, and buildings for your faction on the new world.

Not a fan of the Diabloesque 'collect and combine' idea, but the idea that artifacts can have persistent bonuses such as unit or building upgrades is appealing.

 

[Gritf]

I keep wondering if this will mean any changes for the quest system, since it was one of the assest that dragged me in to CivBE. For example, if you keep growing deeper into water and then you get a quest to build 3 Terrascapes, kill a siege wurm or destroy an alien nest, then you might want to expand back to land.

There might be some new venues to improve over the quest system now that there is more stuff out there. Maybe some diplomacy related quests like "build a tile improvement over tuna fish" or "start a water-based trade route" or a decision to go to war with someone and make Rejinaldo show you some Respect(TM).

Also, the tech web might be revamped, like Planetary Survey now being a Tier 1 branch tech (instead of being a tier 0 leaf tech under Habitation) and then branching into other higher tier branches related with water. For example, a Might vitue focused harmony player might prefer to research Xenosharks or Xenodolphins unit instead of Xenoswarm or Xenocavalry for example.

They could even create new victory conditions with the hybrid affinity strategy. Like building the purity Exodus Gate and then using the colonist as batteries to power your supremacy Matrix, or uplifting aliens for the purpouse of making them pay taxes and go tourist for a very special culture victory.

And what if my Japanized-England water focused faction ends up needing lots of titanium and geothermal, is it gonna be super fun to trade with some else or do I have to mine Bikinni Bottom?

For last, the underwater resources and terrain look amazing, until I realized I was squinting my eyes.

 

[GenyaArikado]

I'd be happy with quests having an option to decline them.

 

[Liegence]

Hope they fix Acadamies - they're absurd. This game still has an unfortunately straightforward winning strategy. It would be nice if I actually had to make decisions to win.

Having specialist actually do something would be nice, too. Currently, if you use specialists I think you're just doing it wrong.

 

[Eji1700]

1. Please have more real choices rather than flow charts. More viable tech paths. More viable unit paths. More viable everything. The framework is all there in beyond earth, but it NEEDS to be tweaked so there's a lot more viability.

2. Please god have the new diplomacy system be good. All these games have AWFUL diplomacy systems, and it's a shame because it's really the most interesting potential thing, especially in a good single player system. The most creative strides i've seen in that area are Endless Legend which has a resource for diplomatic actions (which while poorly implemented has a ton of potential to allow cool things such as forcing wars or peace, or great interactions with espionage) or solium infernum (which is a mess everywhere else).

3. Touching on the last one, Beyond earth almost has the best espionage system in a 4x game to date, as most of them are extremely shallow behind the scenes dice rolling. Flesh it out, get rid of stupid techs that just make ALL the cool stuff impossible, and make it something everyone talks about.

4. REALIZE YOUR GAMES AROUND ABOUT LEVERAGING RESOURCES. I don't get how many times they have to do this. Civ V launches. There's basically one strat. Many expansions later I can go hard core religion, and turn it into a military, science, econ, or cultural victory. If i want to rush culture, I can, and then finish with that or spread out into another victory. Science always lets you tech hard if you get the space and crush people with new toys. Military of course also has quick and instant payoffs when balanced right.

Beyond earth is heavily lacking in this. If i go heavy espionage/diplomacy, 1. make that a thing, and 2. make it pay off. Let me leverage a victory or a serious advantage from it. We've got the cool toys at the end of the tech tree for espionage (worm attack and stuff) but it's not nearly viable.

If i go heavy sat coverage, let me turn that into something.

If I want to wonder spam, let that turn into something (there's at least the culture spam thing sorta).

There's so many potential paths, but in practice the numbers/features don't work out, and it's SUPER frustrating in BE simply because they don't need to tear anything apart or start from square one or even introduce new mechanics. They just need to do a numbers balance.

 

[Stylesrj]

I'm reminded of Anno 2070. You had an awesome game, then they make it even more awesomer by expanding the naval aspects of it.
It's rather brilliant actually. Everyone loves a good navy

 

[beetle]

Hybrid affinities seems a move in the wrong direction. Isn’t it a pretty big problem that affinity choices are not that distinctive and don’t steer gameplay enough?

In the live stream, the devs basically said that the 2.0 patch will be released at the same time as the expansion.

That is very encouraging! I hope that they change enough that the “2.0” moniker is warranted.

Genuine question - having finally picked up the expansion a while ago after playing AC back in the day without it, and hating the new factions, the alien soap opera, the aquatic cities, and pretty much everything about Alien Crossfire - were there actually any good features in Alien Crossfire? As far as I can tell, SMAC is the one 'Civ' game that's at its best without the expansion.

The SMAX factions were each worth playing at least once. They were not as strong for the AI, and the Pirate ICS was just annoying. I replayed SMAX so much, but usually with just the original factions. There were a bunch of small but valuable changes, and I am forgetting a bunch. A few new mind worm variants and the option for psychic weapons and resonance armor. Additional options filled in the few larger gaps in the weapon/armor progress. The tech tree was adjusted, and a few wonders added. I am pretty sure SMAC shipped with the option for aquatic cities, but they were quite terrible, and SMAX buffed those. The fungal tectonic missiles are fun too. No, SMAC is not better without the expansion!