It's been fifteen long years since Sid Meier has given us the opportunity to conquer the
cosmos with Alpha Centauri.
Galaxies far, far away and alien life have been unmolested by man for far too long and
by popular demand, Civilization: Beyond Earth has reached store shelves and Steam.
Putting down pikes for laser cannons and researching alien technology instead of animal husbandry
is certainly a welcome change of pace but is Beyond Earth a proper full release, or
will fans be waiting for a few expansions packs before this voyage among the stars reaches
its full potential?
Set 600 years into the future where the earth is on the brink of destruction.
The nations of the world send some of their best and brightest into space as a last ditch
effort to colonize another planet.
With an uncharacteristically utopian view on things, many nations have combined and
cooperate with one another.
For instance, Australia and Polynesia merge to become Polystralia, America, Canada, and
Mexico become the American Reclamation Corporation and the entire continent of Africa becomes
the African Union to name a few examples.
These alliances take to the stars to begin anew on the wild frontier of alien planets.
Utilizing the core of Civ V, Beyond Earth is a turn-based strategy featuring hexagonal
tiles on a grid without unit stacking.
The terrain offers benefits in the same way its predecessor does.
Mountains are impassible, hills provide extra defense, and rivers are difficult to cross.
You start the game by picking a plot of land to build your first city, while each of the
tiles offer different bonuses, such as food, production and energy.
After founding your first city, you’re able to explore the alien landscape, searching
for resource pods and artifacts for your explorers to excavate.
It's here that one of the games’ first alterations comes to light: quests.
Players will be given quests to complete and choices to make that help dictate the evolution
of your civilization as well as providing additional buffs and bonuses.
Decisions you make during quests can allow your clinics to produce additional science
or health for your civilization for instance.
Exploration leads to encounters with other civilizations as well as alien life-forms.
Diplomacy is alive and well among these new colonies allowing you to trade with other
civilizations, and you have access to all the diplomacy options seen in Civilization
V, as well as the inclusion of favors which can be cashed in on later trades.
The Alien life-forms are the game’s equivalent to barbarians albeit a lot stronger.
They are however not as aggressive and will generally leave your units alone unless they
happen to path towards a tile you’re occupying.
This changes throughout the game though based on the Affinities you choose.
Also if you go out of your way to attack an Alien or approach a nest, they will become
hostile for a few turns.
Certain bonuses and abilities make it worthwhile to actively exterminate these pests but later
in the game that can become a diplomatic blunder with civilizations that are more sympathetic
to alien life.
The Affinities are by far the most unique feature to Beyond Earth.
They allow you to specialize your Civilization with a specific ideology.
Players who follow the Harmony path will have players synthesizing with their new planet
and the alien life that inhabits it.
Supremacy takes a page from the cyberpunk playbook with a focus on augmentation and
improvement through technology.
Ultimately supremacy players will have a civilization made of cyborgs.
Finally there is the path of Purity, which focuses on retaining humanity and destroying
anything that threatens that, such as the aliens making them the space Nazis of the
game.
Not only do these Affinities grant you special units and buildings, but they also change
the way that other civilizations react with you.
Think of it as being on-par with Religion or Political Doctrines from other Civilization
games.
For example, if you choose Harmony, you’ll be friendly with other civilizations that
picked Harmony but at odds with those that picked Supremacy or Purity.
The technology tree is also non-linear in this, allowing for you to choose any number
of paths which allows for a lot of variety between different civilizations.
It did seem like there were a few very specialized paths that were far superior to the others
though, as you generally want to amass whatever Affinity you’re going with quickly, as it
will immediately upgrade your troops without the need to do things manually like the past
Civ games.
Your research does allow you to produce new unit types but the basic units that you have
access to from the onset also evolve as your affinity level increases.
Failing to increase your affinity will leave you woefully unprepared to fight more advanced
factions.
This is where the differences in Beyond Earth end though, as everything else is simply re-skinned
from Civilization V. Happiness has been replaced with Health, Gold has been replaced with Energy,
while food and production remain the same.
There are also a lot of things that don’t really make sense, such as having the technology
to colonize another planet without having anyway to unveil the map.
You’ll uncover the mystery planet much the same way as your primitive warriors will back
in 4000BC like past Civ games.
The tech-tree also has some inconsistencies such as having to research Physics, Chemistry
and Computers despite the game taking place in the year 2600.
All of the units function the same way as well, with the majority of units being melee
along with a few ranged, naval, and air units.
The fact that naval technology is used at all is a bit strange with hovercrafts only
being unlocked late-game.
One would think the majority of units would be flying in a time like this while the few
air units in the game function exactly the same way as jets from previous Civilization
games.
The world in general feels exactly like past civ games, with no option to move on to other
planets and what’s worse is that the game seems to have lost any charm or personality
that was apparent in other Civ games.
Leaders like Genghis Khan, Gandhi, and Montezuma are all replaced with overly polite, boring
politicians.
In an effort to replace the clever quotes of history that were once narrated by Leonard
Nimoy, they’ve come up with their own quotes and dialogue which are hit or miss for the
most part.
None
of the civilizations displays any semblance of personality or is anyway memorable.
They also seem to favor peace over war and will very rarely declare war on you which
can make the game feel a bit dull.
Having a few alien civilizations would have been a great way to add some personality to
the proceedings.
While the AI of the civilizations does seem a bit more robust should you go to war with
them, this can be avoided for the most part.
Espionage has been completely buffed and is now nearly game breaking, as spies are now
able to stage coup-d’états and take over other civilization’s capitals without any
resistance.
Should you take a capital, the AI civilizations barely seem to react and will still not declare
war on you.
Espionage isn’t the only thing that’s unbalanced either.
The virtue tree is this game’s equivalent to the Social Policies of Civ V, and one of
the virtue trees is by far superior to the rest.
Specializing into Prosperity will allow you to amass as many cities as you want as quickly
as possible without falling behind on health, making it the best way to play generally,
while the other virtue trees are only worth speccing into as secondary options.
If you were expecting this installment to not have bugs, you would be sadly mistaken
as the multiplayer is still barely playable.
You’ll constantly be faced with disconnects and crashes where you’ll have to re-host
the game.
You could of course continue the game and have your friends rejoin you, but that will
be at the cost of the AI temporarily taking over their civilization and rerouting all
production, scientific research and virtues.
Even when playing single player, I faced the odd random crash to my desktop which had me
frequently reloading auto-saves.
The game also feels a lot more tedious when compared to past Civilization games.
The world is covered in an alien gas known as miasma which will damage your units every
time you land on a corresponding tile.
This can be beneficial if you choose the Harmony Affinity but otherwise will just slow the
pace of the game down even more.
Trade convoys are also essential and can make or break your economy.
This wouldn’t be a big deal if you could just leave them automated but you’ll be
constantly prompted to refresh their routes every few turns.
If this wasn’t enough, orbital units have also been included which hover in the atmosphere
over your cities or units for a set amount of turns which then must be rebuilt and replaced.
The soundtrack is well done and fits the space theme, feeling a little reminiscent to games
like Xcom Enemy Unknown or Deus Ex Human Revolution despite being composed by different composers.
It’s not as expansive as the library of licensed classical tracks featured in past
titles though.
Ultimately, Civilization: Beyond Earth feels like a mod or scenario for Civilization V.
It doesn’t stray away or do anything innovative enough to warrant being a standalone title.
While the non-linear tech tree, quests and affinity system are welcomed, they allow for
some unbalanced combinations.
Beyond Earth is also missing many features from past Civ games such as Corporations,
Religion, and Great People.
Having more meaningful interactions with aliens would have been welcomed as well but the game
feels like it was inspired by Sid Meier watching the movie Starship Troopers.
The game is lacking in all personality and charm as even when you complete a game, you’re
not even given a score screen or a graph, you’re simply just sent back to the main
menu.
Ultimately, Beyond Earth isn’t a bad game; it just fails to meet the standard set by
past Civilization titles and can feel a lot more tedious in the process.
We suspect that like its predecessor, Beyond Earth will improve immensely with the addition
of expansions but as of now, any cravings you have for space exploration might be better
satiated by taking a trip to the theater to see Interstellar.