Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

[baturinsky]

For me most annoying is AI turn time. Why is it so big? It's not like they have a big map or lots of units to move around.

 

[Zeriel]

I thought "we looked Alpha Centauri up on wikipedia as research" was just them putting their foot in their mouth, but it really feels like that is the limit of how acquainted with it they were.

Did they say that? Do you have a link on that?

It was proudly trumpeted in several interviews, but it's also on the wikipedia page for Beyond Earth:

In designing the tech web, the Beyond Earth team began by going to the Wikipedia article on Alpha Centauri, as well as reading books the article listed as sources of inspiration for Alpha Centauri designer Brian Reynolds.[8]

Well tech web looks original. It's just the rest of the game that's disaster because it was copied from Civ V.

Tech web is a straight copy of Endless Space, actually.



The entire game strikes me as a great collection of cribbed ideas from elsewhere without thinking about how they are supposed to fit together. A Contact ending from a Carl Sagan novel, next to a space marines save the human race and turn everyone into cyborgs ending, because hey why not! Every tech is from a different, specific book with completely different underlying ideologies and sensibilities. A tech tree from Endless Space, and a shitty underlying engine from Civ V. There's a lot of good ideas that could have had a good game built around them here, but none of them are executed with any consistency, or any dedication.

I'm furious at myself for buying this game at full price on launch day. Before release I saw videos and was like, "Welp, that looks like Endless Space's UI plastered on top of Civ V, this is gonna be trash!" But somehow I allowed the hype train to roll over me, probably due to my hunger to play Alpha Centauri in a modern engine, and here we are. It really is as garbage as it looked. People often say you shouldn't trust first impressions, but I find that in most cases they remain correct in perpetuity.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Played the demo for a while, it's a 10$ dlc for CiV at best and no more of a "new" game than the sf campaign for Test of Time was.

And although the mind-numbingly boring gameplay of CiV is copied here virtually 1:1, BE still manages to be more striking in its blandness, probably due to the supposedly alien and sf setting. You just landed on a new, mysterious planet, it is a huge step for mankind, see that strange alien resource there? Do you know what you will get when you manage to exploit it? Wait for it... Drums... +1 production! God, I'm really struggling to contain my excitement here.

Also, I suspected that all the comments about the science quotes and their lector might be a bit of a sperg overreaction that happens on this forum from time to time so it was a pleasant surprise to find out that they (and she) are actually that bad

 

[codexian reject]

For me most annoying is AI turn time. Why is it so big? It's not like they have a big map or lots of units to move around.

They code most of the gameplay and AI in scripting languages these days, 2-3 times faster to develop in, 50 times slower to execute.

 

[baturinsky]

http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/172365-Planetfall?s=40ab42673243f074740858ea9a9e83a9

AC-themed mod for Civ4

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

planetfall is almost as bad as this game.

 

[cvv]

Wait...don't tell me THIS is the "outro". Rly? That's what you got for completing the game? A grey box with "lol you won" type of message?

Jesus fuck. And I thought the static outro picture of Civ5 was bad.

You know pre-release I was defending this game from the Codex default scepticism but the sceptics were right this time. Allthough mechanically solid, this game is bland, soulless, monochromatic, dull, looks cheap and has no personality. Although paid for by a multi-billion dorra publisher it looks like it was done on a budget of Endless Space (actually, notwithstanding the idiotic minimalistic approach to UI of both games, ES looks better.) This is a shameless, lazy, complacent money-grab and Firaxis gets another reputation downgrade from me.

I'm so disappoint I can't even.

 

[Jaedar]

Wait...don't tell me THIS is the "outro". Rly? That's what you got for completing the game? A grey box with "lol you won" type of message?

Jesus fuck. And I thought the static outro picture of Civ5 was bad.

I'm so disappoint I can't even.

Actually, you do get a static outro picture as well. I just didn't screenshot it.

 

[DeepOcean]

Man, Firaxis is lazy these days, getting the narrator chick and even some static slides telling what happened on the end wouldn't hurt.

 

[DreadMessiah]

Yeah you get a nice reading to about how great it all is. I did the supremacy victory. Anyways this game is really bad for many reasons. Uninstalled it and shadows of mordor today. Both are bad games. Won't be getting anymore games for awhile since they really all suck. vOv

 

[HanoverF]

Wait...don't tell me THIS is the "outro". Rly? That's what you got for completing the game? A grey box with "lol you won" type of message?

Jesus fuck. And I thought the static outro picture of Civ5 was bad.

I'm so disappoint I can't even.

Actually, you do get a static outro picture as well. I just didn't screenshot it.

Yeah you get an uninspired little graphic with the same exact text below it and the option to return to main menu or one more turn, presumably because you really want to wrangle trade caravans for another hundred turns.

 

[Average Manatee]

For me most annoying is AI turn time. Why is it so big? It's not like they have a big map or lots of units to move around.

They code most of the gameplay and AI in scripting languages these days, 2-3 times faster to develop in, 50 times slower to execute.

Pretty sure it's just because the morons at Firaxis spend time animating the movement and combat of all AI units even if you can't see them, when everything could be completed in an instant. Processing power is no excuse, the game is doing absolutely nothing else CPU-wise while the AI is playing.

 

[Thane Solus]

For me most annoying is AI turn time. Why is it so big? It's not like they have a big map or lots of units to move around.

They code most of the gameplay and AI in scripting languages these days, 2-3 times faster to develop in, 50 times slower to execute.

Pretty sure it's just because the morons at Firaxis spend time animating the movement and combat of all AI units even if you can't see them, when everything could be completed in an instant. Processing power is no excuse, the game is doing absolutely nothing else CPU-wise while the AI is playing.

that will be state A retardo programming, but i wouldn't be surprised. In CIV 5 vanilla, the AI was making lots of workers which simply destroyed the performance, so i added a limit of 2, and everything was smooth... Dont even get me started that the first mod i made was historical location and europe map, because they didnt bothered with that even today. Firaxis is the new Bethesda.

 

[MrMarbles]

A game made by accountants, directly or indirectly. Will give them one thing, they've got to have some pretty solid cojones to compare this to the screens/story/descriptions in SMAC.

 

[Jigawatt]

Just like all the cool kids I turned my rambling rant into a video review:

 

[Morgoth]

A game made by accountants, directly or indirectly. Will give them one thing, they've got to have some pretty solid cojones to compare this to the screens/story/descriptions in SMAC.

Cojones? More like vanity and narcissism.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

in my town that's called "retardation".

 

[Infinitron]

RPS calls the game an "interesting failure": http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/10/29/review-civilizaton-beyond-earth/

Dear me, this is turning into a long list of complaints, and that’s probably not entirely fair. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being very like Civ V – quibbles aside, Civ V was a superb game, especially once it had been expanded and enhanced by the Brave New World and Gods & Kings add-on packs. Maybe that’s what’s missing here. Every stunted or banal gameplay element in Beyond Earth is just waiting for an expansion to bring it to life.

But they really should have sent that poet. Parts of C:BE are just unforgivably dull. Complete a wonder, for instance, and you see nothing more than a little blueprint of whatever obscure futuristic device it is you’ve just completed, which as it’s made of balonium, tells you precious little. I won the game by making contact with an alien intelligence and for this stupendous, epochal achievement I received a still picture and a line of text telling me what an achievement it was.

Shorn of the history, culture and myth of Old Earth, an interstellar Civilization game needs to do extra work to create atmosphere, suspense and a sense of narrative. C:BE’s designers were clearly aware of this as they put in those quests, tasks the player can complete (or choose not to) along the way, which flesh out a bit of the feel of a future society making its way in the unknown. But most of the “quests” aren’t exactly epic. You’ve completed a new building type – do you want these buildings to provide a bonus of +1 energy or +1 food? Congratulations, you’ve completed a quest.

They’re not all like that, but most of them are. Those dark forests, the glowing Rifts (a new terrain type, impassable like a mountain), the poisonous miasma … there are the bones of an atmospheric world. But play for an hour or two and I doubt you’ll have any spaces left on your alien lifeform spotter’s card. The in-game characters are cardboard cut-outs against the memorable cast of Alpha Centauri, and the “harmony” affinity’s route to special understanding with the local flora and fauna will not astonish anyone familiar with Lady Deirdre.

Beyond Earth is still fun, and an immense time-sink – of course it is, it’s Civilization. But would that it was truly beyond Earth, and truly beyond Civ V. Not a crash and burn – but the Prometheus of the Civ franchise, an interesting failure with much of value in the wreckage.

 

[ChristofferC]

In Civ 2 we got wonder videos. In BE we get a static "you win" when we are victorious. :D

Edit: I mean

 

[mastroego]

A game made by accountants, directly or indirectly. Will give them one thing, they've got to have some pretty solid cojones to compare this to the screens/story/descriptions in SMAC.

"Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew and eat our fill."
CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Ethics of Greed"

You are the children of a dead planet, EarthDeirdre, and this death we do not comprehend. We shall take you in, but may we ask this question--will we too catch the planetdeath disease?
Lady Deirdre Skye, "Conversations With Planet"



Whoever thought even for a moment that some sort of SMAC "spiritual successor" could come from this buffoons is an even bigger fool.
And I might even be part of the "for a moment" crowd.

 

[Norfleet]

In Civ 2 we got wonder videos. In BE we get a static "you win" when we are victorious. :D(

I dunno, some day we could look back upon such a thing fondly. After all...

Congraturation!

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

RPS calls the game an "interesting failure": http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/10/29/review-civilizaton-beyond-earth/

Dear me, this is turning into a long list of complaints, and that’s probably not entirely fair. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being very like Civ V – quibbles aside, Civ V was a superb game, especially once it had been expanded and enhanced by the Brave New World and Gods & Kings add-on packs. Maybe that’s what’s missing here. Every stunted or banal gameplay element in Beyond Earth is just waiting for an expansion to bring it to life.

But they really should have sent that poet. Parts of C:BE are just unforgivably dull. Complete a wonder, for instance, and you see nothing more than a little blueprint of whatever obscure futuristic device it is you’ve just completed, which as it’s made of balonium, tells you precious little. I won the game by making contact with an alien intelligence and for this stupendous, epochal achievement I received a still picture and a line of text telling me what an achievement it was.

Shorn of the history, culture and myth of Old Earth, an interstellar Civilization game needs to do extra work to create atmosphere, suspense and a sense of narrative. C:BE’s designers were clearly aware of this as they put in those quests, tasks the player can complete (or choose not to) along the way, which flesh out a bit of the feel of a future society making its way in the unknown. But most of the “quests” aren’t exactly epic. You’ve completed a new building type – do you want these buildings to provide a bonus of +1 energy or +1 food? Congratulations, you’ve completed a quest.

They’re not all like that, but most of them are. Those dark forests, the glowing Rifts (a new terrain type, impassable like a mountain), the poisonous miasma … there are the bones of an atmospheric world. But play for an hour or two and I doubt you’ll have any spaces left on your alien lifeform spotter’s card. The in-game characters are cardboard cut-outs against the memorable cast of Alpha Centauri, and the “harmony” affinity’s route to special understanding with the local flora and fauna will not astonish anyone familiar with Lady Deirdre.

Beyond Earth is still fun, and an immense time-sink – of course it is, it’s Civilization. But would that it was truly beyond Earth, and truly beyond Civ V. Not a crash and burn – but the Prometheus of the Civ franchise, an interesting failure with much of value in the wreckage.

That's quite an eloquent way to say someone's dick stinks, but they'd like to keep sucking. Very professional.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Just won on the highest difficulty with only a single city because Beyond Earth has well thought out and implemented gameplay systems.

 

[Azira]

Rush ahead for maximum affinity and go full retard with hovertanks.. Doesn't matter which affinity you go for, as the basic rover model will eventually have move 4 and hovercapability across the line. Why choose the more cumbersome "ultimate units", when the rover has them solidly beat on maneuverability? ...

 

[DeepOcean]

An this piece of shit remain number 1 on steam top sellers, mainstream market rewarding incompetence since 2005.