The occasionally thrilling Beyond Earth can't quite get beyond Civilization V

I actually think his whole comment was sarcasm that just didn't come off right...

I wish Brian Reynolds would step out of the Zynga factory and give us a good game again.

Fair enough, but this is weirdly close to the kind of shit these guys always come out with.

This is a very accurate review. I've won my first (and only) game of BE at 300 or so turns, with the promised land victory without firing a shot. The AI could not be bothered to try and stop me at all, at Vostok difficulty. The promised land victory is drawn out and terribly boring. 30+ Turns to build a gate, 20+ to settle colonists. All the while nothing at all happens, cities don't have anything to build and armies serve no purpose (not that they could fight well with the tight maps). Map design is atrocious, I was playing on massive and it felt constrained, impassable canyons and mountains blocking off everything. A ton of +1-5/+5% decisions in this game that don't add up to anyting. I'm willing to bet that all playthroughs look alike because you're never wielding the power to change the course of the game significantly (because none of the decisions have any real impact)... merely stacking up bonuses as you go until you hit the tech apex and win. There can be no comparison with SMAC. The Civ V framework needs to be binned permanently.

Seems this game is suffering from theorysis. The devs focused on a lot of cool stuff in theory without thinking of what those things would end up doing in the game, ie: the gameplay. The "affinity" system is a symbol of this. The "affinity" system would mean that humans in Beyond Earth are more interested in philosophy than power or expansionism. In theory, you can say that humans are good-willed and unambitious and only care about equality. In reality, any human given power over a nation or government wants either to keep his powers at all costs in the face of adversity or expand his power in the face of weakness. "Affinities" would have been a lot better if they were methods to achieve supremacy, on the top of my head I would suggest a faction that relies on making and collaborating with AIs(which risks an ai uprising!), a faction of technological implants(cyborgs) and a faction of genetic enhancements. Not only would those factions actually would implement a lot of different gameplay(robots vs cyborgs vs mutants), those themes are actually central to sci-fi and imo would be attractive to a lot of people.

Another example of theorysis is that they didn't do anything to improve the actual gameplay. It's actually civ 5 in space, with a lot more pop-ups and more choices in the beginning. Giving choice to the player is very good in theory, but in practice if those choices are low-impact/meaningless, they can actually be a very bad idea. If you put a gameplay element in your game, it should always matter, unless its a easter egg or something.

So which is the better game? Beyond Earth or First Contact?

Beyond Earth.
Basically Pandora FC is CivBE with worse diplomacy, lack of wonders, overlysimplified economy, terrible espionage, overly focused on military, even more dull factions than in CivBE and so on.
Personally it is dissapointing to see that CivBE is more akin to slightly imporved PandoraFC rather than SMAC/X

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/P...

I'd disagree, there's an expansion that came out recently for pandora that addresses basically every one of those issues (especially diplomacy and espionage). Plus the AI in Pandora is actually aggressive as opposed to Beyond Earth which is borderline catatonic.

How about a drinking game? May as well have fun while the mob fumes.
Take a drink whenever review rager accuses Tom (or anyone else) of:
1. not having played the game.
2. sucking at games.
3. not being objective.
4. being bias (they never seem to use the correct word: biased).
5. intentionally low-balling (or inflating) his score for clicks, attention, etc.

Amend or modify as desired.

Oh Hey another lowball Tom Chick review, how not at all shocking.

After finishing my first game, I totally agree with this review. I achieved a transcendence victory without any AI ever lifting a finger against me. I hunted alien wildlife down just to give me something to do. Crappiest end game ever.

Read and watched reviews/gameplay of recent expansion and unfortunately it did not close pretty much any of mentioned gaps to any meaningful degree. New diplomacy faction is joke and otherwise diplomacy didnt changed much, we still dont have any sort of planetary council, nor we can make deals that involve more than 2 parts. Spies implemented rather poorly as well, though at least that can be called a step into right direction. Still no wonders or unique buildings in expansion, and all in all it adds very little besides mentioned diplomacy faction and spies and some extra random popups. At least I definatly would not say that recent expansion closed all gaps or made game significantly any better.
As for AI, its 2 extremes of one scale. CBE AI indeed can be quite catatonic at times, on the other hand AI in pandora often is too agressive, even when clearly cant win the war it starts. Though overly agressive AI is understandable for a game that is focused 98% on military units and tech, which again does not provide it any good merit as a 4X title

It used to be a solid rule with Paradox games that if you actually want to enjoy them, you should wait for a few patches first. CK 2 broke that mold (though it is still a way, way bigger game now than it was at release, thanks to all those DLCs). EU 4 seems to have returned to it.

Don't worry Tim, I'll bite

;)

He step out of the Zynga factory, but where he stepped out to remains a mystery...

Yeah, neither game is perfect obviously, but I find the simcity aspects of civ rather boring, so I usually go for a military victory anyways. I actually prefer the combat in beyond earth to pandora, it's just a shame that the AI can't put up a good fight. Also I enjoy that in pandora the aliens can be a real threat to your faction for most of the early to mid game whereas in beyond earth I could completely ignore them.
I don't know, agree to disagree I guess.

I guess its a matter of taste then. While I dont mind to fight ocassional war if nessesary (or if I play warmongering civ) I value good diplomacy, exploring, economy build up and so on, those what makes a good 4X game in my opinion. Again, its seems to be a matter of taste. Pandora to CBE is what Age of Wonders 3 to Endless Legend.

Very good review. I like firaxis games, but this one feels like something is up - either they're over relying on expansions or seeing this as a gap in between Civ 5 and 6, a bit like Colonisation, or they actually blew it. It isnt Master of Orion 3, but it has that same feel of 'what happened' for me.

Shit man, I don't think my liver can deal with that.

Can we skip the bias part and sucking at games part? That way it may be survivable.