Quineloe
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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It's pretty sad units obsolete ever since Civ 1, but the same thought never occured to them regarding buildings...
I just researched Genetics, and I get two buildings that do the same thing. It's so bloated.
Civilization - Beyond Earth (Alpha Centauri Sequel)
- Thread starter Teron D'Amun
- Start date
I just researched Genetics, and I get two buildings that do the same thing. It's so bloated.
The buildings issue has been a problem for Civ since time immemorial. It's actually improved in BE because trade routes boost production in your new cities massively - before it would take almost the same number of turns (barring some small improvements) to build your new city as the old.
The +health buildings definitely could be more spread out and/or consolidated. There are three early game +health +sci buildings and then nothing with +health until the late midgame or so. The power scaling of units seems pretty odd as well. Supremacy 4 unique unit with 40 strength has been pretty OP for me when you don't even get your melee 3 unit, which is like 25 str, until affinity 6 or so.
Trade routes are both overpowered and annoying, but I do like the idea. Lack of wonders is a bit disappointing (did anyone really hate wonders in civ? it's a staple of the game), covert ops is cool I guess but really it's just a menu that adds relatively little to my gameplay experience, there are some minor things like I can't tell the promotion rank of a unit easily and I couldn't figure out how to have the city governor change priorities.
I do think the tech web is pretty fun - there are definitely way more options than ever before in terms of how to progress, and few dead techs. I have been in a lot of positions where I think 'well I should be doing x to get my affinity up, but y seems more useful for my situation' etc. It is a bit overwhelming even as a civ veteran though when you have 20 options as compared to the usual 4. I like the way they have made resources synergize with techs and development in more than just the basic way, as well as adding more tile improvements. I found myself wanting more and more workers throughout the game rather than just the usual build farms/mines and be done with it.
There are so many things this is missing from alpha centauri though. First obviously is the combat system. AC had three things going for it that Civ in general doesn't - separate attack and defense values, custom units w/choosable bonuses, and the psi-combat secondary system. The third in particular was a great fit for the alien setting and kept alien units relevant all the way through the lategame rather than being irrelevant after two unit upgrades.
Second off that is the interaction with the alien environment. Fungus grew, mind worms used the fungus as roads and spawned in it, it blocked vision so entering the fungus was always a risk, pollution and destruction of the environment caused more attacks/fungus, but you could turn that around and eventually harness it for yourself. Clearing fungus was a real chore that iirc required an early midgame tech. Here the miasma gives you a slight hp hit which is pretty much irrelevant and it can be cleared en masse via satellite early game (I only played 200 turns as harmony on quick so maybe it gets more relevant) and aliens are basically barbarians though more numerous.
Third and maybe obsolete with the way civ has progressed is the happiness/growth system. AC had buildings that were required to go beyond a pop of 7/14, and then happiness was on a per-city basis via drones. The question was then how to handle the drones, either by suppression or telepathic specialists generally speaking. Again a nice thematic touch that is lacking, and arguably a nicer gameplay system compared with the copy-paste from Civ5 that is in use here.
Culture leading to virtues is again an obvious copy-paste from Civ5 that is not at all tailored to the alien theme. AC of course had government options, which then tied in to the ideologies of the factions and also to the futuristic theme. Culture also was much more powerful in Civ5 since you could actually win with it ... here it is pretty tacked on. I'm surprised they didn't try to go with an ideology-esque bonus menu that was tech activated and had real tradeoffs (though net positive). I guess this is what the quests do, but they seem much harder to keep track of and also don't involve any negative repercussions.
I could go on more, but yeah this is Civ5 in space not a modern remake/successor to AC that brings in the unequivocal successes of Civ5 (city-states, trade, religion). Oh well.
The +health buildings definitely could be more spread out and/or consolidated. There are three early game +health +sci buildings and then nothing with +health until the late midgame or so. The power scaling of units seems pretty odd as well. Supremacy 4 unique unit with 40 strength has been pretty OP for me when you don't even get your melee 3 unit, which is like 25 str, until affinity 6 or so.
Trade routes are both overpowered and annoying, but I do like the idea. Lack of wonders is a bit disappointing (did anyone really hate wonders in civ? it's a staple of the game), covert ops is cool I guess but really it's just a menu that adds relatively little to my gameplay experience, there are some minor things like I can't tell the promotion rank of a unit easily and I couldn't figure out how to have the city governor change priorities.
I do think the tech web is pretty fun - there are definitely way more options than ever before in terms of how to progress, and few dead techs. I have been in a lot of positions where I think 'well I should be doing x to get my affinity up, but y seems more useful for my situation' etc. It is a bit overwhelming even as a civ veteran though when you have 20 options as compared to the usual 4. I like the way they have made resources synergize with techs and development in more than just the basic way, as well as adding more tile improvements. I found myself wanting more and more workers throughout the game rather than just the usual build farms/mines and be done with it.
There are so many things this is missing from alpha centauri though. First obviously is the combat system. AC had three things going for it that Civ in general doesn't - separate attack and defense values, custom units w/choosable bonuses, and the psi-combat secondary system. The third in particular was a great fit for the alien setting and kept alien units relevant all the way through the lategame rather than being irrelevant after two unit upgrades.
Second off that is the interaction with the alien environment. Fungus grew, mind worms used the fungus as roads and spawned in it, it blocked vision so entering the fungus was always a risk, pollution and destruction of the environment caused more attacks/fungus, but you could turn that around and eventually harness it for yourself. Clearing fungus was a real chore that iirc required an early midgame tech. Here the miasma gives you a slight hp hit which is pretty much irrelevant and it can be cleared en masse via satellite early game (I only played 200 turns as harmony on quick so maybe it gets more relevant) and aliens are basically barbarians though more numerous.
Third and maybe obsolete with the way civ has progressed is the happiness/growth system. AC had buildings that were required to go beyond a pop of 7/14, and then happiness was on a per-city basis via drones. The question was then how to handle the drones, either by suppression or telepathic specialists generally speaking. Again a nice thematic touch that is lacking, and arguably a nicer gameplay system compared with the copy-paste from Civ5 that is in use here.
Culture leading to virtues is again an obvious copy-paste from Civ5 that is not at all tailored to the alien theme. AC of course had government options, which then tied in to the ideologies of the factions and also to the futuristic theme. Culture also was much more powerful in Civ5 since you could actually win with it ... here it is pretty tacked on. I'm surprised they didn't try to go with an ideology-esque bonus menu that was tech activated and had real tradeoffs (though net positive). I guess this is what the quests do, but they seem much harder to keep track of and also don't involve any negative repercussions.
I could go on more, but yeah this is Civ5 in space not a modern remake/successor to AC that brings in the unequivocal successes of Civ5 (city-states, trade, religion). Oh well.
I agree about the 40 str units. I was playing purity and got the battlesuits and it was even more shocking to me that they only cost titanium and not float stone. If I remember right the harmony equivalent actually costs xenomass.
Also this game basically wants me to go purity all the time because there's 500 billion float stone nodes around me and barely any of the other stuff.
Also this game basically wants me to go purity all the time because there's 500 billion float stone nodes around me and barely any of the other stuff.
Selix
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 2,149
- 4
Disclaimer: I'm an advanced Civ noob. I am not an authority on Civ by any means.
Lot of interesting stuff here. I've found that my easiest wins are Mind Flower/Harmony games. Go straight for city spam grabbing Gene gardens then Biowells. Pick up Trade Depots early on obviously and autoplants later on. Grab the Work immune to misma tech since I pump out workers candy all game long. Soon as someone decides I'm weak enough to attack (Usually happens early enough that you can see someone starting to mass forces in your direction for 3-4 turns) I just start purchasing whatever the highest tier unit I have access to is. I usually try to grab the tech of the most prevalent resource I have access to (xeno/firaxite/titanium). I can usually pump out a 10+ army in 1-2 turns and have 5+ units coming out a turn after that whenever I am attacked.
I haven't tried this yet but i'm planning on a late game misma defense where all of my unit upgrades are in miasma bonuses and my units heal in miasma and spamming miasma on every tile in and around all of my cities (even MORE workers needed!)
Hatorade
A nice asshole.
- 8,175
- 6,574
Even on hard the AI is pretty dumb and I think they still cheat, they started to surround my weakest city, than declared war, same turn I bought a defense battery(city can now bomb the fuck out of you, and I high level 38ish str melee unit) I moved some aircraft over as well and proceed to repel and destroy their attack. This causes the dude to offer a peace treaty that includes one of their cities, I annex that city, setup shop and proceed to dominate them using the same city they just gave me. Rinse/repeat. As long as you don't make the first move and repel their attack they try to make peace and give you a city. It is a glaring AI issue.
Faltigoth
Bronze Knight of the Realm
- 1,380
- 212
That is a carryover from Civ5 - the AI there does the same thing if you dismantle enough of its units, it will sue for peace and hand you a city - sometimes extremely well developed cities - even if all you do is defend and never make a single move to attack. Just had a game today where the AI did that and I was like, thanks Caesar! All I did was arrow a couple things to death and boom, free city. Probably triggered by losing a certain % of their military strength, and if the AI comes after you, they generally throw everything they have at you so you dent that army, you have them damn near wiped out.
It is almost like an overcompensation; I remember the option to ask for a city being there from the beginning of Civ, but the AI would never give a city up unless you were steamrolling them, had taken most of their cities, and they were on the verge of extinction, and even then it was iffy. Not so much anymore.
Quineloe
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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There are a few wonders that are actually pretty good, such as the Panopticum, but some are basically just the hanging gardens (without the free garden), i.e. a small +resource boost.
For the hanging gardens it worked because +6 food is pretty massive and it's the only wonder of its kind, in BE half the wonders are like that (and smaller boosts)
There's stuff like Crawler , +25% towards wonders and nothing else - of course way late game when most wonders are already built
Daedalus Ladder, +3 happiness, +2 food - uhm ok. (super expensive endgame wonder too)
Holon Chamber, +5 science and nothing else.
New Terran Myth, +4 culture - so basically a Pantheon, already considered a weak wonder, minus the great work.
Resurrection Device, +8 happiness, also an endgame wonder. Compare to Notre dame...
Tectonic Anvil, +9 production - end game tech, super expensive. Ironworks in BNW at medieval era to compare to?
I'm comparing to BNW wonders because some of the wonders are actually so good, they'd shine in BNW just as well, such as Ectogenesis pod with +3 food, +3 hammers, and all farms +1 food, or Deep Memory with 2 free virtues at the end game. As opposed to BNW, in the last 50 turns you don't run out of policies to buy, so +2 is actually huge, or the Drone Sphere with +10 healing for all units in friendly territory - this means you can easily stack up 40hp / turn healing on your fortified units. Since archer spam is nerfed, fortified melee units in rough terrain are actually a force not easily overcome.
I had the opposite experience today, I was besieging an enemy city with 3 tanks, 2 infantry and 3 gunners and one Raptor Jesus.
He lost a lot of units trying to push me away while I waited for Affinity to reach 7 for gunner upgrade, and I saw almost no military presence after 20 or so kills, yet when he offered peace, he asked for half my cash.
After I took his city, he offered half his cash, and I hardly destroyed anything of his army in the process. He still has 4 more cities and plenty of military.
I was never much of a warmonger in civ 5 but I honestly can't remember too many times where a civ offered me a city for peace. In this game almost every peace offer comes with a city attached.
Quineloe
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 6,978
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It was actually pretty common in BNW. The major factor was your army size vs their army size. If you barely held off their army with 4-5 ranged units, exploiting your terrain as much as possible, you'd never see cities offered. But if you had a 20 unit army that just crushed their force in 3-4 turns, then they'll very quick to offer one or more cities.
If you've always played defensive games, you never really had a stronger army (on paper) than the AI, because by the time your crossbowmen finished cleaning out the invading force, the AI had already replaced those units with a dozen new ones, but didn't send them to you.
AI is bad in BNW, but predictable.
If you've always played defensive games, you never really had a stronger army (on paper) than the AI, because by the time your crossbowmen finished cleaning out the invading force, the AI had already replaced those units with a dozen new ones, but didn't send them to you.
AI is bad in BNW, but predictable.
Twilering
Trakanon Raider
- 21
- 14
This was in the original SMAC. For example recycling tanks(+1food/production/energy in base square) recreation commons(+2 happiness) ,network nodes(+50% science),energy bank(+50% energy) all were available free to new bases once you had some late game techs.
Agraza
Registered Hutt
- 6,890
- 521
Yea, I've been noticing that recently. Everything I conquer is retardedly undeveloped.
I do like how significant the geological barriers can be. I think with the tech they have that mountains/canyons should be worth far more in resources while still being impassable for most of the game. That's one of the big reasons it feels like a re-skinned Civ 5. These guys are obscenely future tech and you're still researching all that basic civ shit. Air units seem like they'd be common.
Float stone basically throws load-bearing architecture out the window. You can design everything akin to a balloon with that shit, including bridges across those canyons. The width of the chasm isn't even relevant. It's not about meeting in the middle, it's about developing a stable construction platform and growing it in any direction you choose.
It's a sci-fi concept that doesn't even take advantage of its sci-fi elements. It's Civ V: Magic Tech Remix.
Endless Legend has some serious shortfalls, but they embrace the basic elements of their game far better than Firaxis has here.
Hatorade
A nice asshole.
- 8,175
- 6,574
Quineloe
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 6,978
- 4,463
No. Unless you have a few hundred hours on Civ5, don't get this. It's really a step back in a few regards, and the new stuff isn't as great as people pretend.
