Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

[Morgoth]

I still miss the Teutonic Arbeiter Federation.

 

[Borelli]

Anyway, I think they're getting way too detailed with their civ leaders. Alpha Centauri was intelligently evocative and did well to play on its strengths like atmosphere, good writing and neat visuals. I don't at all get the same impression from what I've seen of this so far.

This. In SMAC most details you get about the leaders are from dialogue you are having with them and tech/secret project quotes. The rest is up to your imagination. In fact, it is very Dark Souls like in that regard. I haven't read the novels though, i don't know how much they reveal.
I remember when during some dialogue i noticed some picture slideshow in the lower left corner, it was a psych profile with SMAC leaders as children, in college etc, however, no text. I don't think this game will be so subtle.

 

[Infinitron]

Hands-on RPS preview: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/07/21/hands-on-civilization-beyond-earth/

Excerpt:

Beyond Earth is not a reskin, although it is recognisably a sequel to Civ V, sharing some of the same philosophy. Civ V changed the course of the series and that’s something I’ll be writing about later this week, with commentary and thoughts from several Firaxis members, including the two designers at the head of Beyond Earth.

It’s a far more interesting game than I’d anticipated. Early impressions, from afar, suggested that it might lack Alpha Centauri’s character and it certainly takes a very different approach. But the initial disappointment when the factions were revealed has drained away – Beyond Earth has backstory aplenty but its mechanics are engineered to allow players to create a personality for their faction rather than to adopt one. The tech tree, the affinities and the wildly varied victory conditions – one involves ‘emancipating’ the people of Earth from their flesh, another involves becoming Carl Sagan’s poet – are all part of the process by which the people who have left Earth become something new.

Their story hasn’t already been told and their choices haven’t yet been made. Through exploration, development and conflict, factions will take on a personality. The choices and strategies that define that personality are already looking far more diverse than what I’ve come to expect from myself, and from Civ. To avoid being the same game in a new set of clothes (purple clothes, right? Aliens always come in purple), Beyond Earth needed more than flavour text and thematic weight.

It has those things and the intricacy with which these particular futures have been created is far more impressive than I’d expected, but it also requires new strategies, many of which comfortably tie back to those themes of controlling strangers in a strange land. After years of feeling in control of my various civilisations and their path through history, a taste of the unknown is more than welcome.

Until I’ve experienced the mid- and late-game, it’s impossible to say whether the game will retain the tension and surprise of these early hours, but it’s a pleasing start. Importantly, there’s enough shown in those beginnings to leave my mind full of imagined tactics and strategies a week after playing. Beyond Earth presents a lot of information but all of it feeds back into the basics of the design – management of resources and space. Easy enough to grasp, but with so many new permutations, mastering it might be as tricky as holding onto a siege worm.

Civilization: Beyond Earth is out on October 24th, worldwide (no oceans in space).

 

[Space Satan]

Supermacy Carrier

One thing that did strike me in my dealings with rivals on the planet was how the diplomacy had a new features called "Favors." Your relations with other factions or civs in other Firaxis games has always been a pretty simplistic affair. You'll trade or not, and maybe go to war over religions or something. But there was always more meaning attached to your dealings than the system could model. "When I was playing I would go and make lopsided deals and I would impart all these meanings like, 'I asked you for gold to help me out and you didn't say yes, so now I clearly have to go to war with you and conquer you for being petulant.'" Anton Strenger said, mirroring how I would put all kinds of meaning in deal that was never codified. "What happens in a lopsided deal? What's really going on? Do they owe me a favor now? Do they think I'm indebted to them?"

"In a nutshell, a favor is the promise to repay for things that you do good for them," McDonough said. When you trade something to a faction, and they have nothing to give you in return, they may offer you a unit labeled as a favor. You can accumulate multiple favors from a faction, and trade them back to them for something later down the line like resources, money, science or even declaring war on a third party.

"Favors give the player the ability to manipulate, in the long term, the balance of power in the diplomatic landscape," McDonough said. "You can literally make your opponents do things that fit your plans."

 

[King Arthur]

That carrier looks like it has space for about two planes.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

this mod crashes waaaaay more than all the other mods put together.

 

[Galdred]

Regarding the civ I think that their background and fluff in general is just plain unimaginative.

Wait, Franco Iberia sounds like a much better idea than this whole European Union fiasco. Now I wish our technocrats were that unimaginative.

That carrier looks like it has space for about two planes.

Is the plane supposed to turn at the end of the inner tracks? The deck design is a bit weird.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Space Satan

Regarding the civ I think that their background and fluff in general is just plain unimaginative. Now, I have not been following the updates much at all so I don't know what has been revealed or not but for some reason I expected something different. With "the great mistake" pretty much annihilating Europe I think there'd be a reaction to that and a change in the political climate. Maybe a step backwards to some sort of neo-monarchy or maybe even a complete rethinking of the system in favour of perhaps a real democracy and the abolishment of nations in favour of a more decentralized society since merely electing figureheads and giving away too much power was what could have lead into the "great mistake" or if the situation is dire I'd expect a system that puts safety and stability over liberty and humanism with a strong militaristic tone to ensure what remains is safeguarded. With the European Union dissolved you'd expect more tension and thus more nationalism, expansionism and power hungry leaders if things haven't changed all that much, but nah, apparently liberal "socialistic" plutocracies remains in charge even when things have gone to total shit.

Normalfags think we're heading toward utopia and that our current society and lifestyles are the straightest paths to it. We just need to be even more multicultural, social and rainbow farting which is what the great mistake made us realize, make up sh33ple !!!!111111111

This just indicates the target audience better than anything else. Did you expect the disturbing themes of alpha centauri? This time is behind us, if you're being a tiny bit more pessimistic or cynical and disturb them in the slightest they will not continue to play and recommend this game to their friends.

This is great because you know it's going to be Popamole just looking at the lore behind. No surprise, no waste of bandwidth.

 

[Morgoth]

"Me and my friends don't want to be disturbed by realistic and dark themes"

 

[tindrli]

"Out now, the 'Nuke 'em' DCL, reasonably priced at only $5.99! Buy it before your neighbor and nuke him preemptively!"

Nuclear DLC arms race! Brilliant!!!!!

Also add the feature of limited number of nukes per one DLC. People will begin to stockpile DLC Nukes! Just like real life!

and right after comes.... ZOMBIES!!!!

 

[King Arthur]

That carrier looks like it has space for about two planes.

Is the plane supposed to turn at the end of the inner tracks? The deck design is a bit weird.

Most science fiction and fantasy designs are like putrid parodies of the real thing. Fantasy armours for instance always look ugly and impractical, and it's pointed out a lot in random Dragon Age threads. Here we have an example of how science fiction fails as well; rather than just copy real ships and have an awesome looking vessels, the designers felt obliged to be 'creative,' meaning they made random changes without any sort of artistry whatsoever.

vs.

I remember an interview where Kubrick was asked why he didn't have professional Hollywood artists design the costumes for Barry Lyndon, and he basically said that the actual clothing they wore in that period looked a million times better than whatever tripe some idiot could come up with.

 

[tuluse]

Civ designers are just making the art match lore since a carrier can only hold 3 fighters.

 

[Destroid]

If only it were practical to have engineers and industrial designers as concept artists

 

[Drax]

 

[Random Word]

I suspect the design isn't quite as insipid as it immediately appears. The two main takeoff runways are catapult assisted from inside the primary superstructure. The two random runways branching off the sides are purely for landing and terminate in an elevator into the lower decks near the tip of the vessel. The aircraft are stored inside, lifted to the launch rails, and recovered into the hold using the landing runways. Not a terrible design if you expect to have a lot of aircraft landing and taking off simultaneously, something ordinary carriers have trouble with.

The elevator probably should be at the end of the landing runway itself and not require so much taxiing, but that's not a very serious issue and there are plenty of reasons it might not have been feasible to fit the elevator shaft there. Actually, re-examining the front on view it looks like there isn't enough depth that far out to have an elevator. Perhaps I'm wrong and they really are crazy, or the elevator shafts are simply not visible. EDIT: Never mind. That's a rear view, not a front view.

I agree with The Brazilian Slaughter - the Atlantis was a great aircraft carrier. I also expect Supremacy to be able to deploy the Monkey Lord.

 

[Raghar]

When China announced theirs carrier, I designed a carrier just for kicks. It was wavepiercing catamaran with waveguide. I was quite proud on position of these nuclear power plants and high stability and ability to land medium bombers. I made it tower less design, so it was really safe. You know material calculations are fun. I was also proud about that roll in roll out space in the back which made resuplying in the port trivial. Thought I didn't check if waterjet thrusters can be made reliable of that size, and thrust vectoring was a must, otherwise it wouldn't have any maneuverability whatever (this is REALLY important in port).

Well considering I made the above just for fun. Can we have developers that spend more effort with design?

 

[Galdred]

The thing is that if the design is cool enough, impracticality can be forgotten, so it's hard to blame them for trying ( look at WH40K for instance : How do Space Marines raise their arms with those shoulder pads? How come they have been using outdated WW1 tank designs for 30.000 years, including the paper thin armor specifications (WH40k tanks specs have thinner armor than some WW2 tanks iirc)? The problem is when you end up with designs that are in between. But that said, Random Word has a good point, the design is probably not as impractical as it first looks.

 

[Ulminati]

Why not have submarine aircraft carriers shooting VTOLs out of railguns?

If the aircraft is VTOL there's no need for the railgun.

 

[Morgoth]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/07/23/beyond-civilization-discovering-firaxis/

Civilization ends in the dining hall.

 

[Space Satan]

Oi, we got ourselves a Morgan

Talk us through the creation of the Polystralia faction.
McDonough: We had a lot of fun creating this. I think Australian history is fascinating and really rich, but relative to the rest of the world [Australian culture as we understand it today] isn’t that old. It’s new enough that it’s often overlooked as a historical Civ. In this case we had an opportunity to look forward and draw a line from where nations and peoples are today, and then where they might be in a few hundred years following a worldwide cataclysmic event.

Polystralia was formed from blending the trajectories of Australia and the Pacific Rim [through to] South-East Asia. We’ve imagined a future in which a global event we call The Great Mistake inspires these two groups to knit their futures together and pool their strengths to create a pan-national entity that would be a superpower and take control of the whole region of the southern Pacific. So Polystralia is a portmanteau of the two regions, of course, but we really see it as a celebration of what makes those two regions really strong.

Q: How does Polystralia fit into the new political landscape? What makes them unique?

Miller: After The Great Mistake, Polystralia became the food source of the whole world. They figured out very clever methods of agriculture and were able to produce lots and lots of food for people who weren’t able to do it themselves, and in doing so made quite a lot of money. In terms of their gameplay function in Beyond Earth, they are the economy Civ, and they tend to favour policies and gameplay tactics that make them lots of cash.

So if you’ve playing against the Polystralia faction, if you’re next to them, it might benefit you to establish trade with them early because they’re going to be making a lot of money.

McDonough: Another thing that they really embody is that of all the factions in the game they probably represent the greatest combination of cultures from our current world. So they’re very much building a Civ of international cooperation. As an opponent, they’re more likely to be friendly and more likely to be collaborators in efforts you’re working on, and that sets them apart from some of the more inherently hostile factions like Brasilia and especially ARC, the American Reclamation Corporation.


Q: The Polystralia faction is led by Hutama, who is he?

McDonough: Yeah, so he’s a figurehead who embodies the Polystralian ideals we just described: wealth, international cooperation, trade, and diplomacy. He’s billed as a young, charismatic mixture of politician and tycoon. He’s a very suave and clever businessman, but also very personable, he has strong populist appeal.

He’s the closest of any of the leaders to what you might call a celebrity. He has a television show, and is known as an international figure before he becomes an official of the Polystralian state.

As far as the leaders go, he’s also one of the youngest, and probably one of the most interesting to converse with because he has this very extroverted, charismatic way of speaking.

Q: We’ve talked about Polystralia’s strengths, what are its weaknesses?

Miller: It’s important to us that there aren’t any systematic weaknesses when you’re selecting a Civ. We want it to be a choice between a big list of very good things, so what you don’t take with you is the penalty for what you do. But there are certainly a few ways you could take Hutama down if he were your neighbour: military might, perhaps – if you roll up with some tanks that’ll do the trick. Covert operations are also a good strategy, so if you invest heavily in covert subterfuge, that’s also an avenue that’s pretty effective. But Polystralia can invest in that as well.

Q: Hutama is the face of Polystralian diplomacy. How is diplomacy different in Civilization: Beyond Earth?

McDonough: Yeah, so functionally, diplomacy is fairly close to what it was in Civilization V. Leaders engage in sporadic discussions, trading items and ideals, commenting on one another’s activities, which can lead to greater friendship or greater hostility, and of course war.

There are also a number of new ideas that have been added. As Will mentioned, the covert ops system has been expanded beyond any preceding idea. There’s a lot more ‘under the table’ interaction you can have between civilisations. We have technology you can use to spy on other factions, you can smuggle wealth and goods from their lands, you can sabotage and even plan coup attempts in their cities to take control of them. There are a variety of other activities that factions can do. That’s the black hat flip side to what you do in diplomacy.
Another big feature we’re excited about is the introduction of a form of diplomatic currency in the game called Favors. This is a new idea for Civ diplomacy, which is you getting the AI to agree to pay you back for something good that you give them. For example, if the AI is low on money, and they ask you to divert some energy their way, they’ll offer you one or more Favors in return. These you can store up and use later on to require, shall we say, that AI to agree to a request that you make. That request can be up to and including declaring war on your behalf.

So Favors give you a long term, mastermind-puppeteer perspective on the diplomatic play of the game. You can set up factions to be your allies in a predictable way, you can also set them up to fight each other. You can use it to distract by getting AI leaders to squabble with each other when you need them to be looking the other way as you make a victory attempt, or you can get them to pay you back important resources at a very critical moment when you’re about to make war with somebody else.

Miller: We’ve also added a lot of new hooks to diplomacy in the game. One of the biggest new things in the game is called Affinities, these sort of three post-Humanist trajectories that your civilisation progresses through as you play through the game. Depending on which of these Affinities your civilisation devotes itself to, other AIs will react to you differently as they begin devoting themselves to others. So there are a lot more knobs that we’re turning.

 

[Tigranes]

Beyond Earth: Where every trans-national futuristic faction is the most predictable nationalist stereotype

Which is then cleverly subverted by a Australia-Asia leader who looks entirely European and is so young and charismatic he has silver combover hair

....although that is indeed a clever commentary on the state of Australian politics today

 

[oscar]

Outside the hair that's actually a reasonably accurate portrayal of a Polynesian (probably with some European mixed in).

So if you’ve playing against the Polystralia faction, if you’re next to them, it might benefit you to establish trade with them early because they’re going to be making a lot of money.

Huh. Doesn't that mean I should avoid trading with them at all costs as they're going to get the better deal?

 

[tuluse]

Huh. Doesn't that mean I should avoid trading with them at all costs as they're going to get the better deal?

If they're making money from trading with you, you become a valuable asset/ally to them.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Miller: It’s important to us that there aren’t any systematic weaknesses when you’re selecting a Civ. We want it to be a choice between a big list of very good things, so what you don’t take with you is the penalty for what you do.

 

[Tigranes]

Outside the hair that's actually a reasonably accurate portrayal of a Polynesian (probably with some European mixed in).

So if you’ve playing against the Polystralia faction, if you’re next to them, it might benefit you to establish trade with them early because they’re going to be making a lot of money.

Huh. Doesn't that mean I should avoid trading with them at all costs as they're going to get the better deal?

Yeah, he somehow transforms when becoming a 3D model.