Thanks for the only accurate review I've read so far. I've just finished my second game by achieving a transcedence victory and I'm absolutely dissapointed. Everything feels messy and incomplete: aliens, affinities, quests, victory types, combat, diplomacy, endgame (100+ turns in epic doing nothing of importance!) I find it very hard to even like one single aspect of the game. I'll probably give it another go when a major DLC comes out, but until then it's back to Earth for me..
Did you receive ad money from 2K? This score is ridiculously high. I would give it no more than 0.5 star.
First of all, I feel like the biggest mistake you made was playing on Vostok difficulty (Soyuz or Apollo recommended), game pace is adjusted easily enough to preference.
As for all playthroughs being the same? Isn't that every Civ game, with slight variations based on how you choose to address the situation? Think about it.
Regardless, you deployed the turtle strategy against the Vostok (Moderate) AI, conquered it via technology and say you didn't have the power to change the game significantly? Be creative.
All in all, some valid pointers, mixed with a dull play style and a genuine lack of RP capacity.
But... If what you're actually getting at in this excessively long comment, that Civilization: Beyond Earth is Civ 5 no DLC edition, in space?
*furiously mashes eject button*
Was waiting for this game for ages, so excited to play. After couple of games with my friends. We got seriously bored. Loaded up Civ 5 again. its so much better.
The so called Wonders are really pointless as far as I can see. I can spend a whole lot of resources and time building some monstrosity that gives me 4 culture points and a free building, or I can just build that building plus 3 other culture based buildings or more in the time it takes to build the me to build the monstrosity, plus I'm not horribly committed to one task should an emergency arise and I need to change production.
I read somewhere that wonders count heavily towards your end score. I have never seen a score yet. Its just "You transcend, yay. We're done now. Want to play again?"
On the whole unless you're building a wonder to get to a victory condition (Mindflower etc.) I'm not sure I see the point of bothering with the wonders. If anyone can explain why wonders should be built, please tell me.
Diplomacy is another sore spot. If they can tell me not to attack the wildlife, I need to be able to tell them the same thing. The conversation is woefully one-sided in the AI's favor. There's many examples of that.
The constant need to re-examine trade routes and diplomatic situations every 30 turns drives me insane, especially if I'm in the middle of a war. Its frustrating when you're trying to deal with a battle and some idiot trade ship needs to be told where to go. Who cares? Go trade with someone I'm not at war with and shut up. Better still just keep doing what you were doing unless I tell you to stop doing it.
By the end of the game everyone is condemning everyone so that gets pointless and nobody gets along so you may as well go commit heinous war crimes because its irrelevant, everyone hates you and they hate each other.
The health penalty for capturing enemy cities is absurd. It gets to the point that conquest is not possible.
Aliens park all over your territory if you're affinity is harmony and disrupt your units and land bonuses. Thats not harmony, that's hostile. In the later game I find its best to park orbital weapons all over your territory and fry the buggers. They don't play nice even if you pet them and tell them you love them, so drive them out of your land.
I could go on with the litany of wrongness, but I think by now it should be obvious to the game designers what they need to patch and soon.
Its funny, because the pre-launch reviews were so good, but that's also because the first 50 turns are fun for this game. After that you start realizing each choice is "do you want 1 production or 1 science?" "Do you want 1 gold, or 1 food?". This reviewer nailed that boredom that sets in after 50 turns. And yes, the combat is pretty much the same as Civ 5 in terms of weaknesses. the only battles you ever lose in Civ 5 were when 3 powers joined and overwhelmed you late in the game. Same thing here, you'll have someone go to war with you, run 50 units straight at your city which easily repels that with defenses and 3 ranged units, and then he asks for peace and gives up one of his cities.
"be creative" - Wait, so it's on me to make it harder on myself? When you can easily win without trying, the game loses meaning. And the problems aren't based on the difficulty. The same stupid AI manages all the battles, they repeatedly move their units back and forth around the edges of the city defenses, and you just sit there picking them off with ranged units. By the time they actually attack, they've lost 6 units, and they put their ranged units up front to die first.
Yea, I actually liked Civ 5, even with its crazy diplomacy issues, and this still is pretty boring. I am just jamming next turn, waiting for something to happen, and it never does.
Have bought them all since the series began; hoping for another CIV2 with improved graphics.
Sadly have played each of them a few times & tossed them in a box in the shed somewhere.
Has anyone got CIV2 to work on Windows 8 yet???
I am at a loss. I loved Alpha Centuri and have played it to death - every skill level, every faction, every world scenario, every planet size etc- but that did take 10 year! I bought Beyond Earth hoping that all this time later they might have improved on AC but not a bit of it. You can't build armies on the same tile and have the satisfaction of anihilating opponents. You can't sweep across the world conquering cities with carefully composed army units.The above article articulates all my dissappointments with the game which I would rate 3/10 as opposed to 10/10 for AC. Surely Sid must realise what features of his earlier games appealed to people and by now should be in a position to produce the ultimate game not a very inferior version. Deeply frustrating.
What do you think of Endless Legends?
What? Have you actually played it? This review was spot on. I have never felt so empty as during the endgame of this game. The AI is horrible, the economy system is horrible, the "alien" world is just an empty skin.
If you have never actually played Civ 5 or Alpha Centauri, then this might be a 70%+, but now we have, so...
I always found in Civ 5 the end game was the MOST interesting. All the decisions form the early game form settling cities, wars, etc came together. Also with constant new units and advantages and disadvantages with techs, tourism in BNW expansions, and nukes created a much needed tense end game trying to achieve your victory conditions before you opponents.
Excellent and honest review, thank you for not just passing this excuse for a game on its laurels as so many other reviewers have obviously done and giving it a fair assessment based on its own merits (or lack thereof).
And hey, there's always hope that some AI fixes and perhaps an expansion will make this title with so much potential and so little to show for it playable someday...
I wonder if these guys even play the games before writing reviews
'another great firaxis game?' u gotta be a civ noob ;/ civ5 was great for multiplayer but its ai was hopeless wich made that mostly boring, still overall civ5 was decent. Beyond earth had the potential to be at least as good in a scifi setting, better if they had corrected some of the issues from civ5, but instead it made things worse. id rate civ5 four out of five, but i feel this guys rating of two out of five is being generous wich is a damn shame i love civ and have a preference for scifi but until and unless the ai is made good at war then this game has no future.
Eh, Civ V's excellent once you inject enough mods to crash a low-end computer into it.
"Clique".