Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

Pre-purchase Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth and receive the Exoplanets Map Pack for free.
The Exoplanets Map Pack includes six custom maps inspired by real-world exoplanets. Specialized scripts produce randomized geographic layouts each time a new game begins, allowing for even more replayability on new alien worlds. 

• Kepler 186f: This lush forest planet is one of the oldest known Earth-like planets.
• Rigil Khantoris Bb: Orbiting the closest star to the solar system, the historical records of this arid continental planet’s settlement are well-preserved.
• Tau Ceti d: This planet of seas and archipelagos features a booming biodiversity and a wealth of resources.
• Mu Arae f: Tidally locked in orbit around a weak star, the southern hemisphere of this planet is a blistering desert where the sun never sets, while the northern hemisphere is perpetually in frozen darkness.
• 82 Eridani e: An alien world of scarce water and wracked by tectonic forces.
• Eta Vulpeculae b: A mysterious new discovery with unknown terrain.

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is a new science-fiction-themed entry into the award-winning Civilization series. Set in the future, global events have destabilized the world leading to a collapse of modern society, a new world order and an uncertain future for humanity. As the human race struggles to recover, the re-developed nations focus their resources on deep space travel to chart a new beginning for mankind.

As part of an expedition sent to find a home beyond Earth, you will write the next chapter for humanity as you lead your people into a new frontier and create a new civilization in space. Explore and colonize an alien planet, research new technologies, amass mighty armies, build incredible Wonders and shape the face of your new world. As you embark on your journey you must make critical decisions. From your choice of sponsor and the make-up of your colony, to the ultimate path you choose for your civilization, every decision opens up new possibilities.

FEATURES -

• Seed the Adventure: Establish your national identity, choosing one of eight different factions, each with its own unique gameplay benefits. Craft your expedition by assembling your spacecraft, cargo & colonists through a series of choices that directly seed the starting conditions when arriving at the new planet. A new quest system guides you as you begin your journey.
• Colonize an Alien World: Explore the dangers and benefits of a new planet filled with alien terrain, resources, and hostile life forms unlike those of Earth. Build outposts, establish trade routes and develop flourishing cities to create prosperity for your people.
• Technology Web: To reflect progress forward into an uncertain future, technology advancement occurs through a series of nonlinear choices that affect the development of mankind.
• Orbital Layer: Build and deploy advanced military, economic and scientific units that provide strategic offensive, defensive and support capabilities from orbit.
• Unit Customization: Unlock different upgrades through the tech web and customize your units to reflect your play style.
• Contend with Rivals: Wage war, form diplomatic alliances, and engage in espionage in your path to victory against other factions, each with its own leader and different gameplay style.
• Multiplayer: Up to 8 players can compete for dominance of a new alien world.
• Mod support: Robust mod support allows you to customize and extend your game experience.

Minimum System Requirements:

• Supported OS: Windows Vista SP2/7.
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 64 2.0 GHz.
• Memory: 2 GB RAM.
• Graphics: 256 MB ATI HD3650 or better, 256 MB nVidia 8800 GT or better, or Intel HD 3000 or better integrated graphics.
• DirectX: Version 11.
• Hard Drive: 8 GB available space.
• Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c‐compatible sound card.
• Additional Notes: Other Requirements: Initial installation requires one-time Internet connection for Steam authentication; software installations required (included with the game) include Steam Client, Microsoft Visual C++2012 Runtime Libraries and Microsoft DirectX.

Recommended System Requirements:

• OS: Windows Vista SP2 / 7.
• Processor: 1.8 GHz Quad Core CPU.
• Memory: 4 GB RAM.
• Graphics: AMD HD5000 series or better (or ATI R9 series for Mantle support), nVidia GT400 series or better, or Intel IvyBridge or better integrated graphics.
• DirectX: Version 11.
• Hard Drive: 8 GB available space.
• Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c‐compatible sound card.

Steam account required for game activation and installation.

SAMPLE CUSTOMER REVIEWS – 

1) Launch day issues...UPDATED with first impression/review. - UPDATED: 10/27

Typical issues rampant on launch day PC games now a days.

High resolution support is STILL(10/27)bugged for some(ie: 1920x1080) 2K/Firaxis are aware(https://twitter.com/CivGame/status/525444246372114432)of the bug as this is not intended, but still, how does something like a pretty standard resolution like 1920x1080 end up missing from the launch build, and not a single tester caught it???
Looks like garbage on low resolution(s), so I'll update how I feel about Civ:BE after they patch/update it.

It's stuff like this that slowly drains my patience with the state of the gaming industry, and it's not isolated to PC games either, it's industry wide. QA has taken a back seat, at our expense.

EDIT: A "work-around" for the lack of Fullscreen 1080 support is: run in windowed mode, however this isn't borderless windowed mode, it's crappy windowed mode, but for now it's better than low res.

UPDATE: After an hour or so of playing:

Gameplay: Nearly identical to Civilization games before it, but has an amazing number of choices that shape your Civilization, that put Civ5 to shame. Unlike Civ5, Beyond Earth really makes you work for what you accomplish, you cannot simply make blind choices, or send out scouts/explorers without significant risk.

So far, I've been trying to learn about the Alien species on the planet I chose, rather than being combative, and I'm finding it to be quite challenging, as some species rattle your nerves in their size and potential threat. I have taken precautions though by placing Marine's along trade routes and my colonies.

Diplomacy seems to have gotten a major overhaul, other Civs are no longer unreasonable jerks like they were in Civ5, that's not to say that some personalities other Civs have are as cooperative, but it's a major improvement in my opinion.

Controls: Very similar to Civ5, though some options are either missing, bugged, or non-functional in the windowed mode all users seeking a 1080 resolution have to deal with until the patch is released. For example, edge scrolling seems to be missing or non-functional in windowed mode(even with the mouse cursor bound to the game).

Presentation: Very slick interface, plenty of onscreen info to keep you informed and able.

The Civs/Advisor/Sponsor etc, do not have any info other than perks ie: +1 food from desert tiles. At least there is little to no info/bio available at the moment, as it could be yet another bug.

The Virtues and Research tree/web is wonderful, and is very clear in explaining what you will get out of your choices.

Audio: As always, Firaxis has outdone themselves with another fantastic soundtrack, the music fits the sci-fi elements of the game and changes depending on situations you find yourself in.

Sound effects are much better than previous Civ titles, not just in quality, but also in the creativity the sound designers put into creating unique effects that despite having similarities to sci-fi media we love, still feels original to this experience.

Graphics/Performance: Art design as seen in trailers/gameplay/interviews, really pops, and continues to amaze me. The artists really outdid themselves with Beyond Earth. The tiles are much more alive in appearance than previous Civ games, not just visually but audibly as well.

The textures are all top notch, and the character/structure/environment models look beautiful even when zoomed in.

My PC- AMD 8350 4.4ghz, 32GB DDR3, 780ti, runs flawlessly, no hiccups in fps, no stuttering. Installed on an SSD, the load times are great.

As I said above in my initial post, Beyond Earth has some bugs(mostly typical things we gamers have to deal with now on launch day(s)), Firaxis is aware, and are working on getting a patch to us ASAP. But until the patch I'd suggest you wait until the bugs are cleaned up, before purchasing Beyond Earth(unless you can overlook the bugs), but once it gets patched I'd suggest you pick this game up, especially if you're a CIV fan, or have been hoping for a modern Alpha Centauri experience.

UPDATE: The missing high resolution options in Fullscreen mode have still not received a hotfix/patch from Firaxis. Some users have reported using 3rd party programs to force the resolution they need, and some have used them to force a borderless windowed mode for 1920x1080.

Completed my first play-through, and as a result, I've taken my rating from 4 stars to 3 stars. I lost, but it didn't exactly explain how or why(apparently Firaxis/2K are aware of this as well, whether a bug or oversight idk).

The more I've played the more I've gotten irritated. Remember City-States from Civ 5? Remember how you could disable them? Well in Beyond Earth, they have "Stations", you cannot disable them, and they frequently get in your way, sometimes even setting up shop where you're literally about to start a new colony.

I also had an AI Civ make planetfall and start within 10 tiles from me...ON A MASSIVE PLANET, it's like the person that sits next to you in a theater that's practically empty.

There is also a "timed victory" condition you've no control over through the game's options, you have to go into .xml files to change this.

I advise anyone considering purchasing this "AAA" title to visit the Steam forums to get an idea of what's going on with Beyond Earth. Some people are nitpicky or let hype get the best of them, but a good amount of the complaints are valid, and the bugs are piling up. I really and genuinely felt that Firaxis learned from the Civ5 launch, I was wrong. This game will likely be worth purchasing after months of patching.

October 23, 2014

By impressivesir

2) Better than I expected but Civ 5 is still better. - I purchased this game from a position of already being underwhelmed. I had watched the pre-release videos on Youtube, found out who the civs were going to be and was pretty uninspired to begin with. Personally I don't like the civilizations they created for this game, and prepare for a lot of your favourite "nations" to be missing from the rather thin line-up of playable nations. That being said, with my initial expectations perhaps being lower than other people, I played the game. The first play through I thought I would just have a quick game, but found myself having played 4 hours in a blink of an eye without even noticing the time going by. The game is very addictive and the game play is actually better than I expected.

The setting up of a game is quite well thought out, allowing you to customize starting bonuses for your chosen civ and map type. This can be important depending upon the type of map you play, for example, playing a water world may prompt you to select the option which reveals coastlines on your new planet. Once the game starts, you select the tile you want your rover/first city to land on, and then you are ready to go.

There are those who will say that this game is a Civ 5 reskin, which in some ways is true since the engine, graphics and UI aspects are similar to the predecessor, I would however argue that the game play is new and different. Early on in the game, I found myself not even really bothered or concerned about the rival civs landing on the planet, because the main concern early on is establishing your first cities and dealing with the aliens. The aliens are vast in number and how you treat them often determines how they treat you, either aggressively or passively. Aliens will always attack units which get too close to their nests, which may force your hand as a player if you need to expand in an area where alien nests exists. This initial alien threat, which is far more engaging than the "barbarians" of previous games, creates a tension between whether to develop your economy, or the need to upgrade and create soldiers, and finding the balance is key to success early on.

Originally I was concerned that the tech tree web would be messy and difficult to navigate because rather than being linear, it starts from the middle like a web and you work your way out, however this actually works and added a level of tension and strategy to the game, making decisions more significant in shaping your empire. I really like the virtue system which is a whole new layer of decision making to supplement the tech tree. The virtue system is a lot like the "social policy" system of previous games however it seems to me to be better thought out because there is a decision to make about advancing broadly or focusing heavily on one virtue type. Players are equally rewarded for choosing a balanced broad approach as they are for choosing a narrow approach.

As you progress to mid game, around 150 turns in, your empire will start to feel more confident and the alien threat will subside as you start to make progress on "affinities" which are unlocked in the tech tree. Affinities shape your empire in either a purity, harmony or supremacy path with each bringing military unit upgrades. These upgrades allow you to more easily deal with aliens than the early units that are available when you first start the game. At this point on, your focus will be less on the aliens and more on your rival players. Depending on the luck of your initial location and your expansion success, you will now have a measure of how you are doing compared to your rivals. In my first game, with 2 large continents, I completely colonized my side and then landed towns on their continent, allowing me to win out. In another game I played on a larger Pangaea-like continent where me and the AI were pretty much even in our land acquisition at the mid-late game.

In conclusion I would say that if you start out with expectations that this game will be inferior to Civ 5 as I did, then you will likely be pleasantly surprised and enjoy the game. If however you were very excited about this game, then you might be disappointed. The problem these days is that the marketing department for game developers are far more skillful at hype and generating buzz for a game than back in the early days in the 90s. In the 90s, games were released and they were usually pretty good on release. Nowadays it seems there is so much hype, which builds expectations high in order to secure those pre-release $$$s, only then to disappoint people when the game comes out and is either not as cool as hyped or has bugs and issues. I have read forums where other people have been facing issues with this game on their systems due to screen resolution and crash issues, fortunately I cannot comment on this since I have had no crash or play issues on my computer. One other gripe I want to mention is the whole DLC issue. As I stated earlier in the review, I was pretty disappointed with the boring and thin in number civilizations which are on offer in this game. If for example you are looking to play as a British or Scandinavian or even German like civ then forget it because they don't exist, and even countries you would demand like the USA are represented as the dull "American Reclamation Corporation" with an equally dull civ leader that doesn't look very American, lets say. Obviously, this lack of civs is something they will of course fix with lots of $$$ making DLCs. It is quite annoying when we keep being sold these half finished games only then to be sold the rest of the game in small DLC pieces. While DLCs are reasonable in price, it seems like a principle here is at the heart of the matter. Going back to that 90s golden age I keep mentioning, back then you purchased a game and you got the whole thing, not something which was incomplete on release and then made better if you pay out more $$$s. Also back in the 90s, games were almost half the price too!

So my final words on this game are that it exceeded my expectations but only because I did my homework before buying the game and so my expectations were perhaps lower than others who are now disappointed. I am sure the game will improve with DLCs and balancing, and the mods available on the steam workshop always add to the experience of games which are mod friendly like the Civ games are. In my opinion, Civilization 5 is still the very best of the Civilization series, and my 1326 hours of gameplay on that game, (according to steam), are testament to that game, (and my lack of anything more productive to do with my time :) ). If you are new to Civilization, buy Civ 5 first before you buy this one.

***UPDATE***

I wanted to add a few specifics that I forgot to mention regarding things that need work in the game:

1) Release world builder for the SDK tools ASAP - This is a must for allowing people to create their own maps and scenarios and is not yet available in the SDK tools.

2) Wonders artwork needs to be improved, the whole look of it is too clinical and nowhere near as beautiful as Civ 5.

3) More Civs please! The game is Civilization and yet the current civs are few in number and rather dull at that. In fact a great tool for DLC would be some sort of Civilization creator which worked inside the game UI, where people could create a Civilization, name it what they want, upload an icon from desktop, set the traits/bonuses and write the menu text, and then create it as a mod. I know this is possible with modding but a specific tool which is easy to use would certainly compensate for the poor offerings of Civs on release.

4) Unique units - While the tech tree allows for customization of units based upon affinity, this is no substitute for the unique units for each civ that we have seen in prior games.

5) More aliens - The aliens are the same regardless of the world you play on. Maybe the desert aliens should be different to the ones on aquatic world? Standard form aliens are unrealistic and need to differ depending on the world in question.

6) Please fix the clunky UI for buying new tiles. The old system in Civ 5 where it popped up after clicking the "buy tile" button was much better. The overlapping icons for which tiles citizens are working makes it a pain to click to buy tiles.

7) Better icons or picture popup for military units - Some people have commented, and I agree, that it is difficult to determine which units are which since the names do not tell me anything about the unit. In civ 5 and archer was an archer and knew it was inferior to a rifleman. This aspect of unit selection is clunky.

8) Trade routes - Managing trade routes in later games can become tedious, since they must be reassigned every 20 turns, and each city can support at least 2 trade vessels. Maybe a better system would be allow trade routes to be auto assigned based on the most valuable available, with perhaps an option to block trade with certain civs or to focus entirely on internal trade between your own cities. This could be achieved with a simple UI popup box that allows a "trade policy" to be established. A system of check boxes could be used to determine who you want to trade with, allowing routes to be auto assigned without all of the annoying pop ups in late game.

October 27, 2014

By J. C. J. Raybould

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