Wide Tech Faction

[Verenti]

Hey, I'm looking to help my friend transition into Beyond Earth with minimal hiccups. I was wondering if you guys could help me develop a basic strategy for him. Normally he plays a game focused on tech booming and he normally plays a very wide Civ.

Now I know in BE that health is harder to come by than happiness in Civ5, so I've already told him he might have to sacrifice width, if he wants to maintain his tech-utopia in BE. Does anyone have any theories to help him construct a loadout and basic strategy for him?

I naturally gravitate to tall civs focused around commerce and industry, so I'm not in the best position to develop a plan for him myself.

 

[Acken]

While health is harder to come by, the penality for staying in low health is less harsh than in civ5. Well at least for the firsts levels of unhelthiness afaik.

Wide plays seem to benefit a lot from the properity tree, free stuff and health bonuses. I would also suggest some Industry policies.

For setup I'd suggest Kavitha for faster Outpost/borders, Artists for 1 health per city and accelerating your aquisition of prosperity, and free worker/free soldier.

For techs you'll probably want a quick Pioneering and health/production bonuses. Trade routes tends to speed up wide plays in Civ5, I'd expect the same in CivBE.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

BE seems relatively good for going wide

Health sources
Key early techs
Genetics
Bionics

Key Virtues
Prosperity
get 10 virtues-+1 /city
mind over matter+7 health
joy from variety +1 health per type of basic resource
Eudamonia- -25% unhealth

Key Citizen choices
Artist/Aristocrat (Maybe Engineer to build health buildings fast)

Also..unhealth doesn't appear that bad
BNW unhappy= -75% growth , -2% per unhappy production, combat, gold
BE unhealth=-10% science, culture

To deal with the city penalties(tech and virtue costs)
2 Virtues from tier 2 knowledge reduce those


Finally dealing with the problem of setting up wide in the first place
Kavithan Protectorate.. for faster Outpost->City

 

[OldEarthRelic]

IMHO wide will be more effective in BE than BNW, due largely to the scalability of trade routes, per city colonist benefits, and lack of "Tradition" benefits for the first four cities.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

My impression is that health is much harder to get in the early game because there's no equivalent to luxury resources, but there's much more health to be gained from buildings. You can still play tall, but expansion will be slower and more gradual. If you're the type who wants to build new cities early and quickly you should get Genetics for one of your first techs. Hospitals, Cytonurseries and Pharmalabs with the right quest upgrades will give you 6 health per city. That should keep you from going too deep into the red until you get more health buildings and virtues.

 

[joncnunn]

I'm not aware of national wonders in Civ BE (that in Civ V required each and every existing city to have X building just to build it), and so if that is the case then you'll be able to gradually continue self expanding without having to give them up.

In addition not having a global health counter also removes Golden Ages as a reason to stay tall.

It is noteworthy for BE though that there is a defensive spy bonus if you stay above +20 health and so later on there's an incentive to get there. (It may be late enough though that a self founded wide empire can still build those health buildings)

 

[OldEarthRelic]

Are the health bonuses based on global or local happiness? I thought local.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Are the health bonuses based on global or local happiness? I thought local.

Health bonuses are all global (also you only need to be +10 to get the spy defense bonus)

 

[rawrkitty]

i plan on playing a very similar style maining in pan-asian most of my games, churn out cities and workers and dump everything in prosperity after t2 industry is reached