This game feels lifeless...

[hardcore_gamer]

I agree with peoples claims that the game is lifeless.

However, what I so far hate the most about it is that inspite of basically being a fancy mod for Civ 5, the game is actually missing some very important features from that game.

What happened to the information screen where I could compare different factions to each other? Why can't I see who has the most production, who as the most wealth, who is the leading army power and so on anymore?

Another thing I noticed is that it doesn't appear to be possible to tell cities to stop growing anymore, meaning that if you want to limit population growth you have to do it through micromanagment. Why?

And what happened to the UN? I think even the original AC had some kind of UN feature, and Civ 5 already has it if you have the expansions. Since Beyond earth is just a port of Civ 5 with new graphics and few new mechanics, why did they not also include the UN mechanic to make diplomacy interesting?

It's mainly those things that are making me dislike this game. The fact that it isn't very different from Civ 5 is bad in and of itself, but the fact that it actually appears to have fewer features is what really gets under my skin. I feel like I am playing a lesser version of Civ 5 with a space theme.

While this is not a bad game, it's not worth the 40 bucks I paid for it.

 

[Strickl3r]

Technically yes the option should be there, but you do know that you can get away with a ton of unhealthyness before anything bad happens? It not like it's bad just because the number is red. Better to have one more good city and all citys growing than 10% of some other stuff for sure.

Think about a 3 food 3 production 3 culture terraforming tile with wealth perk boost in the late game. So you get a 10% minus on everything, if you grow with 10+ unhealthiness and work that tile, so what it's stil good, as long as you have enough workers that ensure improved tiles everything is fine... And if you really want to late game a huge amount of surplus health is not that hard to achieve and early game if you are always healthy you are doing something very wrong in my opinion.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

Technically yes the option should be there, but you do know that you can get away with a ton of unhealthyness before anything bad happens? It not like it's bad just because the number is red. Better to have one more good city and all citys growing than 10% of some other stuff for sure.

Still no reason to not have the option.

Also keep in mind that just like having negative health punishes you, you also get bonuses for having a high rating.

 

[Sekh765]

I mentioned this in a reddit thread on the same topic. Glad to see I'm not the only one that feels this way.

The faction leaders could be anyone. They are incredibly generic.

Let's look at why the leaders in SMAC are so interesting. SMAC was a game where the leaders are just a static picture. Why are they so cool and interesting? They aren't even animated! First, every leader had their own custom dialogue text that they would use that helped make them feel more real, instead of recycled text from Civ 5. "This person has made me angry, will you go to war with me?" line is the exact same text from Civ 5.
But what really sold you on the leaders in SMAC is the Techs. Every Tech was read by the leader who it was important to, and they all had their specific accents and ways of speaking. You could hear how angry Academician Prokhor Zakharov was at the Mind Worms, or the self righteousness in Godwinsons voice when she read from "We Must Dissent". This was incredibly important on selling the faction leaders to people. Also they ended each set by saying their own name, and reading the title of the book. It reminded you they were an actual person.

Now we have the same two or three people reading some quotes to us with very little conviction in their voice. I believe one of them is the leader of the Kavithan Protectorate, so a few of her lines seem nice when she quotes herself. Hearing the same bland woman reading me all these Hutama quotes about markets and selling things is a huge letdown. It would be like the Gaians reading me the techs for Nwabudike Morgan.

Firaxis isn't an indie dev company. They have the money to keep their VA's on for a few more days recording the Tech dialogue. I don't know why they skipped out on something that's really crucial for selling their leaders as real people in a real world, but it's sad that it is something that will probably never be fixed.

 

[nephrahim]

I mentioned this in a reddit thread on the same topic. Glad to see I'm not the only one that feels this way.

The faction leaders could be anyone. They are incredibly generic.

Let's look at why the leaders in SMAC are so interesting. SMAC was a game where the leaders are just a static picture. Why are they so cool and interesting? They aren't even animated! First, every leader had their own custom dialogue text that they would use that helped make them feel more real, instead of recycled text from Civ 5. "This person has made me angry, will you go to war with me?" line is the exact same text from Civ 5.
But what really sold you on the leaders in SMAC is the Techs. Every Tech was read by the leader who it was important to, and they all had their specific accents and ways of speaking. You could hear how angry Academician Prokhor Zakharov was at the Mind Worms, or the self righteousness in Godwinsons voice when she read from "We Must Dissent". This was incredibly important on selling the faction leaders to people. Also they ended each set by saying their own name, and reading the title of the book. It reminded you they were an actual person.

Now we have the same two or three people reading some quotes to us with very little conviction in their voice. I believe one of them is the leader of the Kavithan Protectorate, so a few of her lines seem nice when she quotes herself. Hearing the same bland woman reading me all these Hutama quotes about markets and selling things is a huge letdown. It would be like the Gaians reading me the techs for Nwabudike Morgan.

Firaxis isn't an indie dev company. They have the money to keep their VA's on for a few more days recording the Tech dialogue. I don't know why they skipped out on something that's really crucial for selling their leaders as real people in a real world, but it's sad that it is something that will probably never be fixed.

I agree, the faction leaders are pretty bleh. I mean, comparing Napoleon or Ghandi to... some guy in charge of some fictional nation is always going to be hard, but they didn't even seem to try with them.

 

[markusbeutel]

I agree with peoples claims that the game is lifeless.

However, what I so far hate the most about it is that inspite of basically being a fancy mod for Civ 5, the game is actually missing some very important features from that game.

What happened to the information screen where I could compare different factions to each other? Why can't I see who has the most production, who as the most wealth, who is the leading army power and so on anymore?

Another thing I noticed is that it doesn't appear to be possible to tell cities to stop growing anymore, meaning that if you want to limit population growth you have to do it through micromanagment. Why?

And what happened to the UN? I think even the original AC had some kind of UN feature, and Civ 5 already has it if you have the expansions. Since Beyond earth is just a port of Civ 5 with new graphics and few new mechanics, why did they not also include the UN mechanic to make diplomacy interesting?

It's mainly those things that are making me dislike this game. The fact that it isn't very different from Civ 5 is bad in and of itself, but the fact that it actually appears to have fewer features is what really gets under my skin. I feel like I am playing a lesser version of Civ 5 with a space theme.

While this is not a bad game, it's not worth the 40 bucks I paid for it.

My thoughts on the lack of information, is that due to the variety of new systems/mechanics/victory conditions and tech web options, there is a huge spectrum of AI incompetence going on behind the scenes, and if we had access to this information, it would be too jarringly obvious that they don't have the slightest clue how to play the game.

As an example, just imagine seeing an AI on Apollo and how it's receiving vast bonuses, and then seeing how it fails to use these bonuses appropriately in-game, having only, for some reason, settled just a handful of cities when there are wide swathes of land available to be colonized. I'm sure Firaxis' designers were of the mindset that the less we know of the AI's incompetence the better. But look at all these amazing cinematics!

The AI's main stumbling block, is that they don't tech efficiently to upgrade their units, and this is to be expected of them as BE uses virtually the same code found in Civ V and the expansions. The tech tree in V funnelled them in the right direction, the tech web does no such thing, and there are just too many variables for them to provide a sufficient challenge.

In a sense, the game is doing us a favour by not reminding us on this front, that we're essentially playing a game against pylons.

 

[Strickl3r]

Still no reason to not have the option.

Also keep in mind that just like having negative health punishes you, you also get bonuses for having a high rating.

In late game you can get perks that will let your health be at huge amounts even with lots of citys at size 20+. In early game 10% bonus to research is not that much and you kind of only get those perks in the knowledge tree to get to other better perks in my opinion. As i said I'm 90% sure that it won't be worth avoiding growth to ensure those extra %.

 

[Thorn]

It's not a mod any more than Civ4 Colonization was a mod for Civ4. It is more than a mod. If after following the development of this you thought it was going to be a brand new Civilization game then you got what you deserved. Nothing wrong with breathing a little new life into this engine. I will play this, Civ5, Civ4 Colonization (with Dale's mod of course) and look forward to Civilization 6.

 

[Gilgamesch]

Its sad when devs try to make a remake (A.C.) and fail that bad.
Sure i dont own the BE, and cant say for sure if i would like it.
But i played the 100 turn demo and iam not going to buy this game at the full prize.
Maybe after Firaxis did some updates and released some DlCs and the game is on a huge drop, i will get it.
Until then i will stay with CiV and CCTP.

Like i sad its sad that BE isnt a ode for A.C. like we all hoped, i played A.C so many hours that it affected my real live

 

[Thorn]

The developers never said they were trying to recreate Alpha Centauri.

 

[SnowKomodo]

Its sad when devs try to make a remake (A.C.) and fail that bad.
Sure i dont own the BE, and cant say for sure if i would like it.
But i played the 100 turn demo and iam not going to buy this game at the full prize.
Maybe after Firaxis did some updates and released some DlCs and the game is on a huge drop, i will get it.
Until then i will stay with CiV and CCTP.

Like i sad its sad that BE isnt a ode for A.C. like we all hoped, i played A.C so many hours that it affected my real live

Ditto. I want the game for sure, but I'm waiting for a Steam sale (one of the good ones that takes it way down, not one that takes it down just 10 bucks). If that means I have to wait for a year or two then so be it because no way in hell I'm spending $50 bucks

 

[Breezin]

A callback to Alpha Centauri's diplomacy would have been a more welcome inclusion...

the fact that ACs diplomacy is so much better than BE's is a testament to the fact AC was great but also little effort was invested in it. The same thing occurred with vanilla Civ V but they did improve it somewhat.

Two big fails with diplomacy: (1) it is generally uninteresting and simple. (2) the leaders are boring and aren't distinct.

Even Civ V had a past history of other Civs to draw upon with their leaders that they could use to craft the personalities. Even that was poorly done initially but still better than BE.

 

[Drakarska]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone heard from our brand new spiffy Community Rep so that we may politely inquire a general purpose WTH towards a variety of these issues? Or did he just pull a ninja vanish like his predecessors now that 2K is starting to bring in the Benjamin s ( and yes, snarky sarcasm intended)?

 

[hardcore_gamer]

The developers never said they were trying to recreate Alpha Centauri.

Ugh, I am so sick of hearing people say this.

Then who is this game for? Who is the target demographic? The game just so happens to be like AC for no reason?

 

[Lord Tirian]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone heard from our brand new spiffy Community Rep so that we may politely inquire a general purpose WTH towards a variety of these issues? Or did he just pull a ninja vanish like his predecessors now that 2K is starting to bring in the Benjamin s ( and yes, snarky sarcasm intended)?

To be fair, it's the weekend - that's the problem with a Friday launch. Let's wait until Monday/Tuesday before we judge them.

 

[Drakarska]

To be fair, it's the weekend - that's the problem with a Friday launch. Let's wait until Monday/Tuesday before we judge them.

Fair enough. That gives me and the boys sufficient time to make the effigies .

 

[_hero_]

2 games and I've yet to have the AI declare war on me even though it'd have been tactically advantageous (I barely even built any troops in my first 2 games until late game). This needs to be fixed.

 

[Strickl3r]

2 games and I've yet to have the AI declare war on me even though it'd have been tactically advantageous (I barely even built any troops in my first 2 games until late game). This needs to be fixed.

I though this isjust me^^ Has anyone been caught with his pants down yet? Lost a city to a backstab?

 

[Krajzen]

The developers never said they were trying to recreate Alpha Centauri.

Fail.

They were saying in few interviews they were inspired by Alpha Centauri and this was their beloved game.

The line between this and a 'spiritual successor to AC' is thin. Too thin for people not to expect something... At least with similar quality, if not gameplay.

 

[Tinker]

It's not a mod any more than Civ4 Colonization was a mod for Civ4. It is more than a mod. If after following the development of this you thought it was going to be a brand new Civilization game then you got what you deserved. Nothing wrong with breathing a little new life into this engine. I will play this, Civ5, Civ4 Colonization (with Dale's mod of course) and look forward to Civilization 6.

The pricing is completely, completely off then. $50 is a new game, built from scratch, not a-little-more-than-a-mod. If it was $20-30, it would've been fine (not to mention that euros=dollars again, so a lot of people get screwed over in that way, too).

Also, not everyone has followed the development of this game. On Steam, it's just a new Civ game for 50 bucks, and a random fan of a game in the series might pick it up thinking it's completely new. That's awful.