Sid Meier's Civilization Beyond Earth - Alpha Centauri sequel announced!

I think they missed the most important quality of Alpha Centauri... the personality of the factions, setting. Where's the military might of the Hive, the Pirates who could build cities on the sea... the memorable quotes about starting a new life amongst the stars.

I need to play this some more but so far bland, bland, bland. Feels like a Civ 5 mod and not a great one at that.
 
Over 40 hours now.

Con:
- Overall it seems a bit basic compared to Civ V, with expansions (kinda expected I guess).
- No real personalities in the AI, apart from Brasilia shining through on my games so far (although I've only palyed upto Vostok)
- Some 'cheap' tactics you can employ to achieve victory quickly, caused by imbalance (use Slavic free tech with Purity then crush others with battlesuits early for example) means online might be a bit narrow
- No time map on victory :(
- Very similar Steam achievements to Civ V
- Still haven't fixed the trading routes, needs more turns before reassignment (I'll micomanage if needs be, thanks)

Pro:
- Excellent score
- New tech map (in theory) means different paths to victory (although the rush to victory means some paths are more likely, see above)
- Some nice attention to detail visually (on the units when they upgrade/align, as well as the leaders)
- Outpost system is a nice change, adds more weight to internal trade routes

Edit -

Forgot to mention a massive issue with it at the moment - the democracy seems a bit broken. The attitude of your conterparts seems to change on a 5 pence piece. One minute friendly and co-op, into denouncement then war. I'm pretty sure this is to do with affinity levels because it happens even when I have done nothing else to provoke it. On paper this is how it should play out (imagine I go +1 Purity and conterpart goes +2 supremacy in one turn, that's a divergence of +3) but in practice you'd expect a period of cautiousness in between.

They also tend to ask for ridiculous deals and the favours are useless.
 
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I have been playing this, only 10 hours 250 on civ 5, but feeling a bit dissapointed, it's missing something hopefully some brilliant mods will be released or firaxis read players comments and do some major updates because I really want to like this
 
I think they missed the most important quality of Alpha Centauri... the personality of the factions, setting. Where's the military might of the Hive, the Pirates who could build cities on the sea... the memorable quotes about starting a new life amongst the stars.

I need to play this some more but so far bland, bland, bland. Feels like a Civ 5 mod and not a great one at that.

This is exactly what I expected (haven't played it I must admit).

It was always going to be hard to live up to SMAC, but having different factions with their own preferred play-style was absolutely fundamental to what SMAC was.

I'm not surprised that they didn't understand that, tho. Each CIV game after Civ II has been at best underwhelming.

Brian Reynolds was the real genius behind SMAC - and Civ II - not Sid Meier. It's a tragedy that Sid's name is used on these games, when Brian designed them.
 
4 weeks and they still haven't fixed the resolution problem, I wish I never wasted my money on this now :/

Same here bought it at release but can't play it full screen unless its in some rubbish low rez,and damned if I'm gonna play it windowed even tried setting the monitor refresh rate to under 60 but still no good
 
I keep wishing Brian Reynolds would come back on board. The way things are now it is more like a money maker for sid meier`s pension pot.
 
Still gritting my teeth and trying to play Last 2 games have ended in a loss screen with almost no idea how or why. I'm only playing on middle difficulty and im realy trying to stick to a path and a win condition.

So heartbreaking how this game feels like some things are just.... missing.

4 weeks and no patches or bug fixes... that is truly shocking.

I still dont regret buyingit for 20 quid but ill never buy another civ game on prepurchase.
 
Firaxis used to be a day-one studio for me, but this release will make me more cautious in the future. Relatively shallow gameplay experience combined with lethargic communication and patching leaves me feeling somewhat burned.
 
Firaxis used to be a day-one studio for me, but this release will make me more cautious in the future. Relatively shallow gameplay experience combined with lethargic communication and patching leaves me feeling somewhat burned.

When XCom released with a fair few game-breaking bugs, there was NO communication from Firaxis.

This is par for the course now it seems.
 
Something Soon ? maybe ?


Originally posted by FXS_MisterKevin:
Update 11/13

We have more information to share with you regarding the patch. Please find notes from the team below:

[GAMEPLAY]
• Revisiting difficulty level scaling. Increasing difficulty when playing on Apollo.
• Implementing balance pass on Health system (penalties, bonuses).
• Adjusting certain Virtues for balance.
• Implementing overall unit balance pass (strength, production and strategic resource cost, affinity level requirements, location on tech web).
• Implementing leader/sponsor trait balance pass (Kozlov, Barre, Rejinaldo, and Elodie), as well as some seeded start option adjustments.
• Implementing Covert Ops updates and exploit fixes.
• Implementing Trade Route balance and adjustments, including simpler UI.
• Implementing gameplay bug fixes as reported in the community (Quests, etc.).
• Implementing general AI improvements.
• Adjusting Affinity reward ramping when earning Affinity from Quests.
• Adjusting Station distribution, and arrival timing.
• Improving AI, including energy management, tactical management, tech and victory approaches, etc.

[ENGINE]
• Correcting screen resolution problems, particularly related to the 144hz refresh rate full-screen (or lack of full-screen) issue.
• Investigating a start-up problem where the game shuts down with an error immediately following the opening movie.
• Investigating crash issues submitted by users, and through Steam crash reporting.
• Adding an in-game option to disable depth of field effect for players that prefer the game without this.

[UI]
• Ongoing updates to in-game text, tool-tips, etc.
• Correcting an issue where actions could be missing from embarked workers (like repairing a pillaged water improvement)
• Adding "Completed" section to city production menu so players know what they just finished.
• Adding advanced touch controls, gesture support, pen support.
• Adding color icons to the tech web (categorized) with an option to disable.
• Better inform players of approaching AI victory, and updated victory/defeat screen with additional information.

[ACHIEVEMENTS]
• Achievements not firing if Max Turns was set in previous games. Also investigating some other possible causes.

[MODDING]
• Fixing 2D leader fall-back image support for all graphics quality settings

[MULTIPLAYER]
• Correcting multiple desyncs and investigating a crash due to content mismatch.
• Ongoing multiplayer improvements.
• Increasing geographic range of server browser distance filter.

Original post continues below:

Firaxis send this update through the BE steam group:


Since we launched Civilization: Beyond Earth on the 24th, we've received reports that some of you are having technical issues with the game, in addition to some well thought out feedback on possible balance improvements. We thank you for your feedback and we want to let you know that the team is working on an update to address some of the issues people are experiencing in the game, as well as continuing to make improvements to gameplay and balance overall.

Here is a list of technical issues we are looking to address – (please know this list is not all inclusive and we will continue to track and research issues that are reported).

[ENGINE]
- Correcting screen resolution problems, particularly related to the 144hz refresh rate full-screen (or lack of full-screen) issue.
- Investigating a start-up problem where the game shuts down with an error immediately following the opening movie.
- Investigating crash issues submitted by users, and through Steam crash reporting.
- Adding an in-game option to disable depth of field effect for players that prefer the game without this.
[UI]
- Ongoing updates to in-game text, tool-tips, etc.
- Correcting an issue where actions could be missing from embarked workers (like repairing a pillaged water improvement)
- Adding "Completed" section to city production menu so players know what they just finished.
- Adding advanced touch controls, gesture support, pen support.
[ACHIEVEMENTS]
- Achievements not firing if Max Turns was set in previous games. Also investigating some other possible causes.
[MODDING]
- Fixing 2D leader fall-back image support for all graphics quality settings
[MULTIPLAYER]
- Investigating reports of potential multiplayer stability issues

There are also other bugs under investigation. If you’re working with 2K Support, and sending along savegames or dxdiag files, that information is coming directly to Firaxis as well and will help us out. We’ll provide additional details on bugfixes as we verify and correct them.

As you saw during the lead-up to launch, we continue to iterate on design through development (remember the station Adept Blue? It got nerfed a month before launch). As we have done in the past, we will continue to iterate and address issues after launch as well. Our players’ feedback on balance drives the design team’s goals for the game. We’ll have more information on the balance changes as the design team has a chance to evaluate and implement your feedback.

We’ll also let you know more about the timing of the upcoming patch as we assemble more information. Thanks for your patience and continuing dialog with us as we continue to support Beyond Earth.

-The Firaxis Games Beyond Earth development team
Last edited by SamBC; 13 Nov @ 9:06pm
 
I just don't get it.

How come a game like this would need so much feedback concerning bugs. It's using the same firkin CIV 5 engine...

Because the Civ 5 game/engine has a mountain of problems that they only got some way through.

I had it for a period of 6-8 months were I couldn't play it after they patched it and broke it, I tried everything bar a OS reinstall to get the game to work and Firaxis are crap at customer support.

I draw the line at the OS as every other game worked on it.
 
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