Civilization: Beyond Earth - Page 27

On January 12 2015 09:43 nttea wrote:

Imo you need to wait for an expansion. Game still isn't very good. Unless you are really tired of civ5 but really really want another civ game to play i don't think you should bother.

On January 14 2015 07:21 Nachtwind wrote:
At least CBE had one good thing. It made me play the old AC again and hell was it fun again.

Firaxis was too concerned about alienating players of previous titles in the Civilization series when creating the most recent, science-fiction themed entry, Beyond Earth, the game's lead designers said during an open and honest retrospective on the PC game at GDC 2015 in San Francisco today. "We should have been more audacious," said Will Miller, co-lead designer on the game.

David McDonough, Miller's co-lead designer, agreed: "In moving Civilization from a historical setting to a science fiction setting we had a real opportunity to do things differently. But we were too conservative." McDonough ascribed this conservatism to the team's anxiety about alienating long-term players of the series, "We wanted to find a compromise between the game being like Civilization V and something entirely new. But in the end we were caught between the two poles. This left players feeling a little short-changed and flat, especially with aspects of the sci-fi that we kept close to our chest."

Miller gave the example of the diplomacy system as an area of the game which was borrowed from previous Civilization titles, but which failed to work in the game's new sci-fi context. "The diplomacy system is when a famous historical leader pops up and engages with the player directly," he said. "We figured it would work exactly the same in our game, but because we didn't have the historical foundation for the game, the system didn't work." Miller claimed that the psychology of interacting with historical figures is different to that of interacting with fictional leader, and the leaders Firaxis wrote for the game weren't strong enough to carry the mechanic. "If we could go back we would provide players with more fiction to hold onto," he said. "We actually wrote a lot of this material, but we held it back from the game."

McDonough also talked about how the way that Firaxis operates caused some problems for the design team. "The studio doesn't grow and shrink as projects come and go," he said. "We keep a steady staff." He explained that this way of operating offers employees security, and allows the studio to prepare art and code even when there isn't a live project. "But this meant that the design remained gooey for a while, even while art and programming were steaming ahead. It’s a testament to their skill that they managed to pull off a terrific game despite the burden of having to change so much to accommodate the changing game design."

The pair also explained that it was a mistake to not run an Open Beta phase for the game, during which they could have gained valuable feedback from players before final release. Miller gave the example of "Wonders" as an area of the game that would have benefited both from a more daring approach from the design team, as well as player feedback during a Beta phase. "Wonders are exclusive buildings and structures from history," he explained. "They’re things that players covet for their emotional and historical value as much as anything."

On March 07 2015 05:50 Gorsameth wrote:
all that talking about emotion and context.
No, the issue with diplomacy wasn't that you weren't talking to Ghandi or Washington, it was that even on the highest difficulty they were utterly passive and let you spam cities with 0 military.

On May 19 2015 19:59 WindWolf wrote:
The combination of studies and being busy with other games has made that I haven't had the time to play Beyond Earth. But i still think it is a good game and that it is a lot better than pre-BNW CiV5

On May 19 2015 06:53 Gorsameth wrote:
I read the first bulletin point and all I can think of it Alpha Centauri: Alien Crossfire which added a sea based faction. If your going to copy a game you might aswell copy its expansion? :p

On May 19 2015 22:59 ref4 wrote:


you'll think that after the debacle of vanilla Civ5 that Firaxis had learned to do better. Apparently they didn't.

seriously every single developer has gone to literal shit nowadays. And they get away with releasing 75% finished products and charge the remaining 25% as 2 expansions each (12.5%) because people rush headlong into buying their half-assed games.

CD projekt red is the exception but I am afraid they too will join the dark side.

On May 20 2015 09:24 Eliezar wrote:


Vanilla Civ5 even makes Civ 3 look good, but Beyond Earth probably finished the extended franchise for me. AC was my favorite until Civ 4 and I played them all when they came out (including the original Civ).

Beyond Earth was too easy, the planet didn't have near the impact that AC had, and the factions were too limited and too boring.

What can they do to change this? I don't know, but I bought EU4 shortly after getting bored with Beyond Earth and have found it to be much more fun, strategic, and challenging...so its my strategy game of choice now.

I can't imagine what they could do to make BE worth playing. But here is a start

1) Make the planet actually behave like another faction that you can't interact with
2) When going for a win that is against the planet, have the alien life forms go crazy in number, aggressiveness, etc
3) Improve diplomacy considerably and in every way and especially amongst the other factions.