Got my copy of Civilization: Beyond Earth.

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Went to walmart and bought my copy of Civilization: Beyond Earth. Nice of the folks at wally to do their utmost to go find my game in the back and sell it to me, even though their street release date is not till the 5th of November... lol

Not going to do a review, just doing a little happy dance that I got another game before I was supposed to have it. (I did the same thing when Sims 4 dropped)

I should explain, in my little town, the only place to buy games is walmart. I could buy them online, but, I like to have a physical copy.

Anyway, The game is basically Civ: V, In Space. tech tree has changed, I like it. It plays a bit snappier then the vanilla version of the game.

I see myself playing lots of it.

Huh. They still sell these at places like Walmart?

Typically when I've been there they hardly have anything..... though I'd rather buy online anyway since physical copies only mean that discs are going to get lost, which is an issue if I have to reinstall later.

Havent entirely decided wether or not to buy it yet. $50 on Steam, not a bad price...


EDIT: Argh, I should really just go and buy the bloody thing. I know I'll do it eventually, may as well do it now, feh.

I also purchased Civilization: Beyond Earth. I have been a long time fan of Sid Meiers Civilization since the original DOS game. Just started playing Beyond Earth last night by purchasing it on Steam. I usually like a to get a physical copy as well however having both a pc & a mac it costs twice as much. The nice ting about Steam is that they usually provide access to all gaming platforms (if available) the mac version is not out yet however will be in a few months it should be. So I bought the PC version on stream and enjoying every minute of it. It's a fresh take of the game with much of the back end mechanics the same so I feel at home in a hole new environment.

I bought it at EB Games (pre-ordered it quite awhile ago), the package in comes in is awesome. I love having physical boxes for my games, though I don't mind if I don't get one all the time for PC stuff.

The game is slightly confusing me, which is weird since I've put in about 220 hours in Civilization 5, which I've gotten only 110 out of 287 achievements. In my first game of Beyond Earth as Fielding (forget the exact name of the American faction) I got 17 out of 64 achievements (27%) which amused me. I'm having fun though despite me not really knowing what I'm doing so far.

I am enjoying it. The only problem I am having is it doesn't do to good of a job of explaining more about the game. Also the some of the game's systems I don't understand. Though some of the things are because of it being a game in space. (i.e. alien creature behavior). I would still recommend it to any Civ or turn-based strategy game fan.

Yeah, the lack of explanation in this one is pretty poor, which is weird considering Civ 5 had some of the best tutorials and tips I've ever seen in a game.

I still cannot figure out how to build my own satellites in the game, unless the only way you find them is with explorers and launch them then. I know about the miasma orbiters, but not the regular orbital stuff.

do any of you feel that there is too much detail and too much to learn in the game to be able to play it? it took me about 20 hours to really get into the game

I feel there is too little explanation, something the Civilization games have been great at explaining before. I mean I can get into games with little explanation no problem, but this one is stumping me for some reason.

That, and the aliens seem absolutely insane, particularly the siege worms. I wish there was a way to turn them off, like with the barbarians in Civilization 5.

I've been playing it for almost a week, working my way through the different victories (on a pretty easy setting, though). So far I've gotten them all except domination. The game feels like a modded version of Civ V, and it seems like it isn't going to be a complete game until all the expansion packs have been released. But it's still pretty good.

Those alien creatures really take some getting used to early on. On one of my earliest games my city touched down next to two alien nests. It played havoc with trying to get workers and soldiers between my cities, and I ended up getting crushed by an opportunistic civ. But other than that, I usually just give them a wide berth in the early game.

Best civs for me so far are the Pan-Asians and Polystralians ( at some of these names), because they suit my Civ V style of play. Wish the civ leaders had more personality, though. It feels like the developers were trying hard not to offend anyone. Maybe they'll introduce more polarising faction leaders from other regions (maybe Japan, or Germany?) in later expansion packs.

That's my thoughts after having played the game for a few days. Looking forward to getting better at it, though.

You build them like regular worker or soldier units, once you've researched their required technology. You can sometimes get one from an expedition, too (usually a solar collector, for me).

I might get it when it becomes like civ 5 where there are tons of dlcs and content and when it becomes cheap during sales

One year later ...

... and I've just downloaded the first expansion pack, Rising Tide.
'Tis the weekend here, so I'm looking forward to getting used to the new features and factions.

Aquatic cities, though. Sounds interesting.

So after a couple of weeks playing the expanded game and getting to know the added features, I'm glad to see that the game is starting to become more different from Civ V. As much as I love that game too, a sci-fi game deserves to differentiate itself from its historical predecessors. A few thoughts on some of the new features:

1) Aesthetics. The starting video looks really cool. PC game videos are getting more and more realistic. I like the menu page as well, although the loading screen really should have the word "loading" on it. When I saw it for the first time, I couldn't tell if the game had frozen until the menu page loaded.

In the game itself, the maps and biomes look really, really nice – particularly the coastal and ocean tiles. I like how each biome has slightly different characteristics, too – like aliens on primordial worlds being more temperamental. On the down side, the in-game interface still looks so unappealingly basic. Fix it, please.

2) Cities on water. Probably the most unusual, and futuristic, addition to the game are aquatic cities. They're actually really interesting, because they essentially allow you to grab strategic resources over a much wider area than what you'd get with a land-based city. Seeing tile improvements in the water is really pretty, too. Using aquatic cities effectively requires some planning, but you get used to it eventually. Makes me wonder what the next expansion will have. Air cities, maybe?

3) Revamped systems. Diplomacy and to a lesser extent affinities have also been revamped. The new system looks intimidating at first, but you get the hang of it eventually. I do like how your colony's traits are becoming increasingly customisable throughout the game, but diplomatic interactions between players still seem underdeveloped. Hopefully this aspect might be fleshed out more in a later expansion. There have been minor tweaks to trading and wonders, as well.

Another interesting change has been to alien creatures. They look and behave slightly differently in each biome. Plus, with a high enough level of the Harmony affinity, you can actually "leash" alien creatures and control them directly. Makes for a nice army of explorers.

4) New leaders. The new leaders are all right but unremarkable IMO. But the new diplomacy and trade system has kinda solidified Hutama (from Polystralia) as my favourite leader, mostly because his strengths suit my style of play from Civ V that favours trading (like Civ V's Enrico Dandolo from Venice). Some of the old leaders have had their traits adjusted somewhat. I still don't get why Franco-Iberia is still so underpowered, though.

5) Marvels and expeditions. These keep me exploring the map for a good chunk of the game. Marvels are kinda like giant, partially interactive versions of natural wonders from Civ V. I wish the missions accompanying them were more varied, though. Some of the rewards you get from them are underwhelming.

Expeditions are more or less unchanged, although now you can also get artefacts, which when combined can give you powerups and unlock interesting buildings and wonders. How the different artefacts combine to produce the different powerups and buildings/wonders is still largely a mystery to me. It'll be a long while before I really figure them out, if at all.

6) War scores. I'm not much of a warmonger, so I haven't quite figured out "war scores", the new mechanic that determines the outcome of wars. My military is only used defensively, so neither my opponents nor I really get a significant advantage in war scores.

7) Victories. The victories are mostly unchanged, although Transcendence has been made slightly less boring by affecting the alien creatures and (supposedly) the planet itself – which makes sense, in such a scenario. Personally, I'd like to see another couple of victory conditions, although I have no idea what they might be like.

Other stuff. There are a few other minor oversights, like a few typos in messages that will hopefully get fixed in due time. Also, I noticed that none of quotes from researched technologies are attributed to the four new leaders – just the old ones from the original version. And for some reason the Ultrasonic Fence no longer keeps alien creatures away from cities (although it still protect trade routes from alien creatures). Hopefully these will get changed, too.

...

All in all, it reminds me of the gradual development of Civ V, which didn't become a fully fleshed game until after the second expansion. I suspect they'll do the same thing here. Still, the new features make the game more enjoyable than the original instalment.