Civilization: Beyond Earth Goes Seaward in Rising Tide Expansion

[Steven Bogos]

Civilization: Beyond Earth Goes Seaward in Rising Tide Expansion

Rising Tide brings four new factions, multiple new units, and the ability to colonize the ocean itself to Civilization: Beyond Earth.

Brave New World [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/civilization%20beyond%20earth]). Launching in the Fall of this year, Rising Tide brings four new factions, multiple new units, and the ability to colonize the ocean itself to Beyond Earth.

"Beyond Earth extended the Civilization franchise from its historical setting into the possible futures of science fiction. Rising Tide extends Beyond Earth to new frontiers on the planet's surface and beneath its seas, adding even more choices and diplomatic options as you continue to build "just one more turn" toward a new vision for the future of humanity," wrote Firaxis on its official website [http://www.civilization.com/en/games/civilization-beyond-earth-rising-tide/].

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Alongside the new factions and special "hybrid" units that reward players for mixing and matching multiple affinities, Rising Tide will feature a new "artifact" system, which has players collect and combine powerful relics to unlock new perks, unit upgrades, and buildings.

One of the biggest complaints about Beyond Earth was that unlike the charismatic personalities of Civ V, leaders didn't seem to have too big of an effect on the game. Rising Tide seems to be trying to address this with the addition of Dynamic Leader Traits, which change how your leader acts in the newly revamped diplomacy system.

Source: Firaxis [http://www.civilization.com/en/games/civilization-beyond-earth-rising-tide/]

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[Paragon Fury]

I'll admit it; despite owning Beyond Earth for quite some time now...I've never completed a game in it.

Unlike Civ V, BE seems to be much harder and less enjoyable for some reason.

 

[the doom cannon]

I'll admit it; despite owning Beyond Earth for quite some time now...I've never completed a game in it.

Unlike Civ V, BE seems to be much harder and less enjoyable for some reason.

I don't think it's harder per se, just different. I agree that it is less enjoyable, maybe because there are too many things spread out across the tech web? I definitely find myself falling into the "get everything" mindset. And as the game progresses it seems I am always getting farther ahead in a different victory track than the one I had intended to. I'm probably just playing it wrong tho.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

I'll admit it; despite owning Beyond Earth for quite some time now...I've never completed a game in it.

Unlike Civ V, BE seems to be much harder and less enjoyable for some reason.

Yeah, one the biggest problems I honestly had with Beyond Earth is that while all the units were cool and the buildings and techs fun, the actual combat was fucking DREADFUL! If you weren't a higher affinity level than your opponent, fights were very slow slogging fests and if anyone was a higher affinty level the fights were push overs because one battlesuit or whatever of max level could decimate everything. It just didn't have that grand war feeling to it that Civ 5 did when you ended up with a big ol' war. It just felt like a few very powerful units with way too much hp would walk at each other and slog it out. Really, unless you went down the military tree and you were Brazil, it was hard to try and outclass anyone else. I guess it has to do with units not being tied to tech anymore. Meant that if you focused on tech you could easily produce lots of useless units.

And my one victory I did do was Supremacy, which involving literally just sitting a wonder in my land that the AI did nothing to stop and very slowly filling it with shit tons of units until I won.

OT:

Yay? I hope they really mix it up, and it sounds like they are now going to have the normal layer, orbital layer and the under water layer.

 

[Strazdas]

hmm looks like its getting closer to Alpha Centauri once again. I guess its going to be like Civ 5 - gets good with expansions.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Just an inferior version of Alpha Centauri. They should have made more drastic changes rather than just "Civ V on another planet". Something like, I don't know, 3D tiles so you can go down into the earth or up into space.

 

[Gennadios]

So, whereas BE was a poorly realized and executed allusion to Alpha Centauri, the next expansion sounds more like a desperate plea for legitimacy for game that's pretty forgettable and not all that well received.

A doubt I'll be touching BE any time soon. Maybe if the reviews are glowing and after all the expansions come in at a deep discount.

 

[Zulnam]

One of the biggest complaints about Beyond Earth was that [...] leaders didn't seem to have too big of an effect on the game.

Really? That was one of the BIGGEST complaints? Based on what?

Not the glaringly moronic AI that has plagued the series even from before BE?
Not the dumb aliens which somehow managed to be less invasive at launch than the barbarians from C5? (without the roaming barbarians mode)
Not the fact that the game was crawling up it's bu*t with trade routes which you had to re-establish every 15-20 turns and which also made the game too easy?
Not the satellites which rarely made any significance?
How about the fact that they have once again launched a game with half of the features the previous title had, storing improvements and features for later DLC?
Or that, at launch, a significant number of users couldn't even play the bloody thing.
We didn't even begin to talk about the upcoming Civilization MMO.

Firaxis, Sid Meyer and 2K have been forgiven far too long for their dodgy business practices and incompetent development, mainly sustained by equally dodgy game reporting which gave scores of 7, 8s and 9 to this re-skin of Civ5 which, based on steam, has a user score rating of 52%.

Never again.

 

[BoogieManFL]

My fucks given are equal to or less than zero.

Already wasted too much money on your Civ 5 reskin, not going to fall for it again.

I'd rather just go play Alpha Centauri, it's still better.

 

[Rastrelly]

AC still wins with sooooooo much score, it's overkill =) After BE disappointment I'll wait for some sort of "Complete edition" to go for 75% discount, and maybe then I'll touch this game again.

 

[Kahani]

As far as I'm concerned, there was only really one problem with Beyond Earth - the terrain. For the most part, Alpha Centauri was little different from Civ. The leaders may have been a little more polarised towards specific personalities, but things like the warlike Gandhi have been a running joke since the series started. The techs names are different, but the tree still works in pretty much the same way. Aliens aren't quite barbarians, but they have the same effect of being a threat in the early game and nothing to worry about later once you're dealing with the main civs. Unit design was largely meaningless since it just resulted in same sorts of units you'd have had anyway - attacking, defensive, cheap throwaways, etc.. The big difference was that instead of the same old plains, hills, etc., you had factors of altitude, rainfall and rockiness that not only combined to give tiles different locations depending on location rather than the random jumble of Civ, but which could be manipulated is useful and logical ways - raising or lowering a mountain range would affect rainfall, for example. All the other factors that people tend to bring up about Alpha Centauri were all perfectly serviceable, but were really nothing more than minor variations on what Civ already did. It was having a planet, with the associated terrain and resources, that both looked and worked completely differently from the other games (and from any game since for that matter) that really made it interesting.

And that's where Beyond Earth really falls down. The tech web is much more different from regular Civ than the Alpha Centauri tree ever was. Units are more different as well, since it's no longer a race to specific technology but instead depends on overall progress and dedication to a goal. Aliens are again different - instead of just being always hostile and eventually finding a way to deal with them or eliminating them completely, they're initially more passive but can respond to aggression with much more force than either Civ's barbarians or AC's aliens. The factions are a bit lacking in character, but aren't functionally different from either Civ or AC. Different people may or may not like some of these differences, but the overwhelming problem is that it just feels bland because the "alien" planet is identical to the Earth of Civ 5. They didn't even bother to change the names of the types of terrain. That's why it seems boring. The actual game mechanics are more different from Civ 5 than Alphas Centauri was from Civ 2, but it just doesn't feel different because those mechanics are playing out on a boring, static, substitute Earth instead of an interesting alien planet that you can manipulate to you advantage. No amount of adding factions and the like in expansions is going to fix that.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

I was crushed by the disappointment of BE.... just crushed. I should have seen it coming after the pathetic x-com expansion. I seem to recall civ 2 contained something like beyond earth within it in the form of exotic scenarios

 

[webkilla]

Just an inferior version of Alpha Centauri. They should have made more drastic changes rather than just "Civ V on another planet". Something like, I don't know, 3D tiles so you can go down into the earth or up into space.

This

AC allowed for oceanic atoll cities from the getgo - plus tons of other features that no 4X to date has managed to replicate or copy.

Hell, even its graphics have aged fairly well IMO

 

[Frankster]

All right let's see if this expansion can help push Civ:Be from a mediocre game to a decent one for me...

4 new faction: Pass. Factions in Civ:Be are the definition of lifeless and charmless. They don't hold a candle to the factions/leaders of Alpha Centauri or even Civ 5. So 4 new ones ain't likely to do much for me.

Fun in the seas: Congrats on putting in a feature I expected to be at launch. Snark aside, this is a step in the right direction.

Hybrid units: Congrats on putting in a feature I expected to be at launch part 2. This was something I was asking for way back when Civ:BE was being previewed and first heard of the affinity system. Hopefully it will help individualize factions in a satisfying way. Cautiously optimistic here assuming they do a decent job of adding a respectable amount of diverse units.

Artifacts: Don't feel too excited here but let's see. I love building wonders in civ type games but I didn't care for them in BE, perhaps artifacts can change that?

Dynamic leader traits: So leaders will have more personalities then planks of woods? Yey... And somehow they still won't have half as much character as the leaders of a game that's more then a decade old. Bleh shouldn't keep comparing BE to AC but sod it, I expect games in futuristic 2010s to be better then that of games of the 1990s, not worst and with less features.

Overall hype rating: tepid.
Hybrid units+artifacts might interest me if done right but can't say this is making me very excited.

 

[Jburton9]

I was initially excited, ok expansion to finally fix what needs to be fixed so badly - demonstrate to the gaming community they still have the lightning in the bottle.

After reading the initial details... wow what a let down.


This CivBE expansion is just another illusion of choice. It plays a shell game and really changes nothing. Again CivBE keeps acting as described, a reskin of Civ V.


Here is a thought. Real actual Terraforming. Being able to have worker units make real changes to the environment. Sick of that massive crater wasting space, gone. Want to set up a mountain range as a barrier to an opposing Civ nearby? Done. Raise the land or lower it into the sea? No problem.


It truly is a shame that this game still fares so poorly vs an over 15 year old game.

 

[Randomvirus]

I really like Civ 5. Like 1200 hours and going really like. And I bought it at launch, but it didn't become a great game until the second (BNW) expansion.

So, I'm kinda waiting for a second expansion for Beyond Earth. Because this one, don't seem so great. It seems like the Gods and Kings, an expansion on the way to a better expansion.

 

[Creedsareevil]

Remember civ: call to power?


Yeah that has space battles, space to ground drops, sea battles, sea colonies.... and for its time looked really good.