Great, what are my sheep duties besides playing Civ V?
Yeah, that’s kinda the thing. I can respect someones opinion who views Civ IV as superior to V. Hell there are some ways I agree with that, though V does have points of improvement I’d not want to walk back from. What I can not respect is someone who holds this view so unquestionable that they attack someone who likes Civ V as ‘fatuous sheep’.
Also what Bleed says. Some days I want EU IV, others I want Civ V. More variety is a good thing. That Civ V has some major changes to the core mechanics should be considered a good thing. For christ sakes we complain enough about lazy sequels that are nothing more than a prettier skin on the same old design.
If you are unwilling or unable to acknowledge any good points for why people like recent Firaxis games, well you are being dense. Beyond Earth aside they are all good games. Whether you prefer another to them shouldn’t invalidate these games.
I believe you also need to understand that the moon landings happened the way NASA said they did, that 9/11 was the work of terrorists against the USA, and that BitCoin is an untrustworthy commodity and not currency.
Get with it sheeple!
Ummm, Firaxis cares about 1,000,000s of sheep. To them it was a success. I’m with you in that Civ V was not as good as Civ IV, but if Civ V made them lots of money they don’t particularly care about those of us who prefered IV. If they can satisfy both crowds with Civ VI that would be an achievement and make them even more $$$.
Seems like a blander Strange Adventures in Infinite Space.
Hmm. I can’t tell whether this is more 4x or more Space Rangers.
I’m nostalgic for a Spacey 4x with turn-based tactical battles… (other than GalCiv’s decidedly non-tactical battles, all the big 4x games of late have been going for some form of real time), and the screenshots definitely look like GalCiv or the Spacey mod for Civ4.
…But I think I’d actually prefer a game where I wasn’t in charge of the planets, borders, industrial production, colonization, research, etc. I like the sound of leading a small fleet on adventures and influencing the galaxy’s direction through our exploits (e.g., Space Rangers, The Last Federation, and The Mandate).
I’m pretty sure it’s not. Let’s look at the screenshot that tends to give that impression again.
Look at the dialog. “Our crew is becoming fatigued from space travel and combat. Only 1 of our 10 crew members are operating at full efficiency. We should consider ending our voyage (SHORE LEAVE) to allow them to rest and recover. During this time we we also collect resources from our star-systems.”
That very strongly evokes Pirates. You’re leading a fleet, and you have to “end a voyage” periodically, which was “divvy the loot” in Pirates. While you own star systems, and they give income, you’re not really managing them on a turn-by-turn basis.
That’s the vibe I am getting, from admittedly limited available press.
Pirates!, without the lovely ballroom dancing. Which is ok by me, as there’s only one dance partner for me and Saints Row V is presumably a long way off stares off into the distance horizon, yearningly
As long as I can marry a governor’s daughter , I am ok without the dancing part.
Is this designed to play on a 2D hex grid like the screenshots suggest? Shouldn’t a space game allow you to zoom off in any direction?
Setting aside other space strategy games that are similar, I just find it a little jarring to see that grid in space.
@Gus: Good point, but I still thought it was noteworthy that the player could see the gold/industry/science/food output for each planet. That suggests to me:
- The game world is modeled with some standard 4x tropes
- A big part of the player’s activity may be focused on influencing/managing those stats (especially since they’re so visible).
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes me think that there’s still a 4x game running and the player is still pretty tightly bound to some of the typical workings of a space 4x game (designing and building fleets and using them in battles, possibly with research and colonization under the player’s control as well).
I’m just contrasting that with the way a game like Space Rangers works: You’re not tied to a faction, you’re not omnipotent across ‘your’ empire, and you certainly can’t see (much less directly control) the production and development of planets.
Anyway, I’ve never played Pirates, but that sounds fun. I’ve always liked the idea of ‘galaxy sim’ games where there’s an evolving political/military landscape that the player can influence but never directly control. I’m just hoping that the player’s faction in this game is somehow independent from the player, or else it might feel like playing a game of Civ where you make heavy use of the city governors.
Owen Faraday has out at PocketTactics a very nice summary of everything mentioned about the game gathered across the various articles posted by different game websites.
Definitely worth a read. Honestly the game sounds a bit disjointed, trying to do all things for all people.
For me. I realize Firaxis did succeed with a new fanbase with Civ V, lots of folks picked Civ V as their first TBS due to Steam.
I don’t hate everything about Civ V, but neat features are meaningless if the AI can’t handle them.
Nice find, a good summary.
From reading that though, makes he more wary. Sounds like it’s a mashed together game of many things, which usually don’t work the greatest together.
This is going on my “watch but don’t bite” list.
No.
Well, yes, realistically space games should have 3D star maps. But the reality is that it’s very hard to represent clearly. Every attempt I’ve seen to do a 3D map in a game has been horribly confusing. It’s never been done well, because it’s inherently a messy thing to display. Even if we had holotanks instead of 2D monitors it would be a problem.
Getting hung up on what’s “realistic” in a game can damage the part where it’s a game, and by and large 2D maps are the smart solution.
No, it will be on PC also.
This was my initial reaction as well, honestly.
Me too, but as has been pointed out, it might just be what you are describing. When they talk about having multiple wrt victory conditions, this could be like sailing for a given country in Pirates.
Ordinarily this would have been a Day One but after BE, I’m going to wait it out. BE really disappointed.
Agree completely. BE, as a full priced game, was shit. It was a Civ5 mod, and not a great one.