Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

[crazy canuck]

First impressions: It seems alright....but a bit too much of a simple reskin of civ 5; renaming city states into station, barbarians into aliens, etc...

I only played Civ 5 vanilla and this seems quite different with all the options of customization.  Perhaps the Civ 5 DLCs added that?

[Scipio]

Demo seemed interesting. Definitely more my speed than Civ.

[garbon]

Demo seemed interesting. Definitely more my speed than Civ.

How so? To me it felt pretty similar to Civ just with everything with different visuals and then some minor changes here and there*.


*Have tech in a web rather than a timeline and customization of units don't really strike me as major differences.

[crazy canuck]

The special agents part of the game is intersting. I played a game as ARC with the plan of stealing science and tech to feed my borg machine to tanscendance victory.  But another faction took over all but two of the other capitals and so I just had to Coup the remaining capitals for the Dominance victory.

[Martinus]

To be honest, I don't get the "no different from CiV" complaint. I think it may come from people who just played a couple of turns, without going deeper into the game. The affinities, the special ops and the tech web make the game feel completely different, imho.

[Josquius]

Oh. And is it right that explorers have to return to a friendly city before they can set up another expedition? Or just pass through friendly territory or...what?

[Martinus]

Oh. And is it right that explorers have to return to a friendly city before they can set up another expedition? Or just pass through friendly territory or...what?

Yes, they have to return to the capital. There are several virtues and (I think) techs that increase the number of expedition modules they can carry. And you want to pick up at least Purity 1 so your explorers are not attacked by the aliens.

[Syt]

Some of the decisions seem to be no brainers. For the ultrasonic fences - either make my trade convoys immune against aliens, or give my cities +1 hex push back against aliens ... I'll take the convoy protection every time.

[Martinus]

Some of the decisions seem to be no brainers. For the ultrasonic fences - either make my trade convoys immune against aliens, or give my cities +1 hex push back against aliens ... I'll take the convoy protection every time.

Not necessarily. If you are pursuing a highly aggressive strategy of military expansion, you can keep your convoys safe for internal traderoutes anyway.

[Barrister]

Picked this up and am quite enjoying it.  Haven't played any Civ since... Civ 3? so even if it is close to Civ 5 I don't realize it.

I adored the heck out of SMAC and though this is different too, it does seem similar enough for all sorts of nostalgia neurons to be firing off.

[crazy canuck]

Some of the decisions seem to be no brainers. For the ultrasonic fences - either make my trade convoys immune against aliens, or give my cities +1 hex push back against aliens ... I'll take the convoy protection every time.

Not necessarily. If you are pursuing a highly aggressive strategy of military expansion, you can keep your convoys safe for internal traderoutes anyway.

Yeah, exactly.  The options really depend on the tactics being used.  Playing a peaceful trader go with the convoy protection.  Going the military route you probably dont need that improvement at all.

[FunkMonk]

Hopefully this service (http://multiplayerrobot.com/) will work with this game pretty soon.

What is Giant Multiplayer Robot?

Giant Multiplayer Robot is a multiplayer service for Sid Meier's Civilization V which handles passing your games' save files from player to player. As this happens, Giant Multiplayer Robot can send you notifications for when it's your turn via the website, email, and/or our desktop app. Giant Multiplayer Robot also provides services not normally available in Civilization V hot seat multiplayer, such as leaving an in-progress game, a customizable turn timer, and mod support.

Forget the details, focus on the game
The Giant Multiplayer Robot desktop app manages uploading and downloading your save files, so you don't have to worry about it. Alternatively, if you're a Mac user or prefer not to use our desktop app, you can also download and submit your turns via your browser.

[crazy canuck]

I am playing a game with the aliens set at aggressive - it is a very different game this way. I am having fun with it so far.  Lots of tech from killing bugs

[DGuller]

I can't wait to try out this game.

[Syt]

When you start a game with random faction settings, is there a way to see what you started with, except looking at your units/tech/stats and deduce it from that?

Similarly, can I see what the other factions started with?