Will Beyond Earth be a dumbed down Alpha Centauri?

[drhirsch]

I was watching several Videos and I fear for the worst.

Keeping in mind that Civilization 5 was - in my opinion - a very uninspired game without depth (but good looking) but after all a great financial success for Firaxis.

Will they do the same with AC? A stupid game for the masses, easy to master but easy to forget?

 

[Teodosio]

I really hope it will be.

+1 for dumbing down

 

[GoodSarmatian]

If the order of the games was reversed, would SMAC be a dumbed down Beyond Earth ?
It does have much simpler satellites, no virtue trees, no affinities, no improvement maintenace, fewer improvements, no explorers with expedition modules, only automatic trade routes, no strategic resoures, no resource or location dependant buildings, no stations, only pre-built factions without cargo, colonist or ship choices and a very linear tech tree.
People really should stop throwing the expression 'dumbed down' around. Many older games look more complex than they actually are because of bad UIs and many poorly implemented and unbalanced features that don't really add that much.

 

[Civ'ed]

Civ BE won't be a dumbed-down SMAC.
Why?
SMAC is a different franchise.
BE literally doesn't have to be the new SMAC, because it isn't.

 

[Aeson]

I hope CivBE has a lot of depth. It looks like there's some good systems that have been added that will be both fun and complex.

(On behalf of the SMAC tech tree though ... we must dissent. That thing wasn't a tree ... or a web ... it was the hairball you pull out of the shower drain after forgetting to clean it for a few weeks.)

 

[a space oddity]

[OT] Hi Aeson! Good to see you! [/OT]

I pre-ordered CivBE, which I haven't done with a game in ages. From what I have seen from the game so-far, I am optimistic about it.

 

[Napoleon_IV]

I think civBE isn't dumbed down at all.

Consider the complexity planning a research strategy in a tech web that isn't linear and needs to be played to the different circumstances of available resources and affinities.

Consider that compared to SMAC you cannot just city spam everywhere. You need to plan your empire height/width strategy in accordance with a sound virtues strategy.

Consider the new orbital layer, the choices you need to make before settlement, the improved espionage and favours thingy in diplomacy..

I reckon its gonna be great.

 

[Teproc]

As it has been said a billion times : if you don't like CiV, you won't like this.

 

[Lord Shadow]

If the order of the games was reversed, would SMAC be a dumbed down Beyond Earth ?
It does have much simpler satellites, no virtue trees, no affinities, no improvement maintenace, fewer improvements, no explorers with expedition modules, only automatic trade routes, no strategic resoures, no resource or location dependant buildings, no stations, only pre-built factions without cargo, colonist or ship choices and a very linear tech tree.
People really should stop throwing the expression 'dumbed down' around. Many older games look more complex than they actually are because of bad UIs and many poorly implemented and unbalanced features that don't really add that much.

Bingo. Hit the nail on the head.

After all, mechanically, SMAC is largely a souped up Civ2. Let's not blindly canonize it.

 

[Ryoga]

and a very linear tech tree.

I would never think to call it "linear" even less "very linear".

(On behalf of the SMAC tech tree though ... we must dissent. That thing wasn't a tree ... or a web ... it was the hairball you pull out of the shower drain after forgetting to clean it for a few weeks.)

Exactly!

Not to mention the fact that by default you couldn't even decide which technology to research and you could only give broad directives that would lead to some sort of randomized result with restrictions.


Now I don't quite know, does the fact that the tech tree web will be something comprehensible rather than a huge mess make the game look "dumbed down" to people and cause them to complain?
Because I don't think that's a bad thing.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

The "very linear tech tree" was meant in comparison to BE's tech web, not tbe couple of rails we got in Civ V.

 

[Aeson]

That's how I took it. SMAC's tree was actually very interconnected. No matter how you arranged it it was a tangled mess.

CivBE's web in comparison has very clear paths through it. It's essentially a very short/wide tech tree with lots of dead end techs. And laid out in a different manner of course.

Like Killbray says ... not actually a bad thing that it's more readily comprehensible though

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

I don't see how civ5 lacks depth, a one dimensional single-player meta perhaps. I just played a game of SAMC for nostalgia purposes, and I must say that game is dumb as hell. Morganites and Believers both dow me, and proceed to put up no resistance to the Spartans. Spartans declare war on me without having ships to reach me. I'm capturing at least one Spartan city per turn now, and Santiago demands 3000 credits from me for peace.

 

[Ashbery76]

SMAC was all about the theme and gameplay based around it.Sadly BE is not anywhere close to that level looking at the streams.They seem to have based BE around the film Avatar.

 

[AriochIV]

I sometimes wonder why people even ask for sequels to games like SMAC or XCOM when all they're going to do is crap on them. If the developers make any attempt to modernize the game, it's being "dumbed down." If they leave everything exactly the same, they're just "rehashing" and making you pay again for the same product.

Beyond Earth is built on Civilization V. It's got lots of great incremental changes, but those who hated Civilization V cannot possibly like Beyond Earth.

 

[Asmodean]

Will this game be a dumbed down version of Alpha Centauri?

Yes it will. Now move along. Clearly there is nothing for you here.

/Asmodean

 

[Manannan]

If the order of the games was reversed, would SMAC be a dumbed down Beyond Earth ?

This. I get it, nostalgia makes you say weird things that aren't grounded in reality, but come on. A game from 15 years ago is just oh too complex and well made for anything coming out in the future to match up? Get real. I'm all for harping on what we've seen from BE's writing (ie: the stuff they've copy-pasted from CiV) while pointing out SMAC had vastly superior writing, but lets cut the hyperbole that's coming with it, k?

 

[gunnergoz]

I will happily be one of the masses stupidly easy to forget and will play BE as soon as I can get my hands on it.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

To be fair, SMAC isn't necessarily that complex. My usual strategy always was something like this: Go Gaians, settle 6 (or was it 8?) cities, plant forests everywhere, get Hybrid Forest tech asap and watch as I outtech the AI even on 2nd highest difficulty level...

...however, I think I will miss stuff like the UN and "real" terraforming. I also liked the SMAC setting (factions, starting conditions, story) much better than the stuff I have seen from BE so far.

Still: If anything, they sacrificed potential on the setting/surrounding/immersion (however you might call that, I don't have the english word atm) and instead focused more on gameplay.

 

[Lord Shadow]

Still: If anything, they sacrificed potential on the setting/surrounding/immersion (however you might call that, I don't have the english word atm) and instead focused more on gameplay.

Basically, SMAC exploited philoshophical ideas already out there and digested them, and had the advantage of being the first to do so. There's not much in the way of particularly revolutionary original content.

CivBE can't reinvent the wheel, so it has to run on similar philosophical currents plus a different brand of original writing.