Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

 PC
User Score
5.5

Mixed or average reviews- based on 1085 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 344 out of 1085
  2. Mixed: 375 out of 1085
  3. Negative: 366 out of 1085
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  1. Varyag
    Oct 24, 2014
    6
    I was very much looking forward to this game, seeing as how Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is one of my favorite games of all time. As more of Beyond Earth was revealed however, it seemed that the ideas featured in SMAC are no more than window dressing for another Civ V game. This is more significant than it seems at first glance. SMAC was, mechanically, Civ II. But the story, setting,I was very much looking forward to this game, seeing as how Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is one of my favorite games of all time. As more of Beyond Earth was revealed however, it seemed that the ideas featured in SMAC are no more than window dressing for another Civ V game. This is more significant than it seems at first glance. SMAC was, mechanically, Civ II. But the story, setting, semi-plausible technology, secret projects, quotes, factions and the overall cornucopia of ideas, went so far beyond any Civ game that Alpha Centauri ended up being unique.
    Beyond Earth is superficially the same thing, but look closer and the technologies are more akin to techno babble, the factions are merely the nations of Civ, without character or a recognizable ideology that drove the ones in SMAC, the resources border on epic fantasy (firaxite? floatstone? really?), the victory conditions specific to this game are all variations of Civ's "man in space". There is no back story, the quests are repetitive and fail to feel relevant (more on them later). There is no soul to this game, for the lack of a better term, nothing to set it apart - its Civ V in space in a SMAC costume that's falling apart at the seams and Chairman Yang is not amused.
    Failing to innovate while being bad at imitation is a sin but the real problem is the fundamental issues that Civ V has. The maps are small, curtailing expansion, the research is slow, you're not likely to have more than a few cities at any time unless you take more by conquest, the troops need constant shuffling around the tight maps, city management is trivial, social engineering is non existent (present only in constant buffs that you can buy with culture - there is no give and take) and that leaves a vacuum where the player simply has nothing to do from turn to turn. They tried to fill this void with quests that the game gives you but they're repetitive and there's little motivation to do them. At most they lead to a little blurb about some changes in your civilization and a small permanent bonus.
    Its shallow and plodding, and probably the worst overall game design in the Civ series. The addictive flow of a slow start but rapid expansion, of large scale warfare, of massive civilizations clashing for supremacy - there's none of it here. There was none of it in Civ V, but here things feel even more constrained, smaller scale and meaningless.
    This is the Civ equivalent of Diet Coke with Colonel Santiago on the label. Civ V fans will gobble it up, claiming its the next best thing since pre sliced bread... and for them, it might be. For me, its merely an above average 4x game that will fade from memory in a month or so with none of the genius one has come to expect from the Civ series.    … Expand
  2. Yesname
    Oct 25, 2014
    6
    Almost nothing new. Worse than any predecessor almost in every aspect. Factions and aliens have no personality. Awkward UI. Dumb, illogical AI. It is just a scam. A DLC, a reskinned Civilization 5. Not worth more than $10. I am very disappointed.
  3. Ahkhsteamuun
    Oct 24, 2014
    5
    I was never particularly excited for Beyond Earth, I set my expectations lower than I usually would for a Civ series. I watched a lot of lets plays before the game came out as well, so I knew what to expect. Even so, I'm still left disappointed. The game isn't awful by any means, but it's certainly not deserving of some of the high scores I've seen.

    The game is just... boring.    I was never particularly excited for Beyond Earth, I set my expectations lower than I usually would for a Civ series. I watched a lot of lets plays before the game came out as well, so I knew what to expect. Even so, I'm still left disappointed. The game isn't awful by any means, but it's certainly not deserving of some of the high scores I've seen.

    The game is just... boring. Progression feels extremely slow and doesn't have the same energy as advancing through the eras in Civ V. The tech web is okay, but it's still quite linear since you have to specialize. Affinities give a sense of progression, but it isn't as rewarding as going from warriors to mechanized infantry in traditional Civ. You start with slightly futuristic looking units and cities... And you end with slightly more futuristic looking units and cities. The new victory types are almost all passive, and this encourages the AI to be more passive, and this makes the game feel a lot less eventful than it should. The UI also needs work. It's unnecessarily time consuming to set up a queue, it's hard to pick out where the wonders are on the tech web, you can't lock tiles without disabling the AI governors, and frankly it just looks bland.

    But by far my biggest complaint is the AI. Others have said it here, but it's even worse than Civ V AI. Civ V's AI was pretty stupid, but it could at least settle cities somewhat decently with the BNW expansion. I've seen maybe a few AI cities in BE not 3 tiles away from another city. It's infuriating to look at the AI just spam useless cities all over the place and then ruining the landscape with generator spam. Aren't you glad generators always have the exact same model? It's as if they designed the AI to troll you. The military AI is just as bad as in Civ V, but I don't think many people were expecting an improvement there.

    Diplomacy feels a lot less interesting in BE, since the AI rarely seems to have anything useful to offer you. The favor system is somewhat interesting, but with diplomacy this weak it doesn't come into play often. Right now the whole game just has a lot of problems, including balance issues I didn't really go into. It adds a lot of interesting features like satellites, quests, and aliens, but these don't really make BE better than Civ V or even its equal.    … Expand
  4. Escherichia
    Oct 24, 2014
    6
    Beyond Earth constantly forces you to continually pick between small numbers and fixed percentages, I did not like to be spammed by all these constant, meaningless decisions that do not seem to affect the gameplay at all. The factions are bland and soulless, and the tech quotes make me cringe.
    The only thing this game has that reminds me of Alpha Centauri is the inconsistency in its    Beyond Earth constantly forces you to continually pick between small numbers and fixed percentages, I did not like to be spammed by all these constant, meaningless decisions that do not seem to affect the gameplay at all. The factions are bland and soulless, and the tech quotes make me cringe.
    The only thing this game has that reminds me of Alpha Centauri is the inconsistency in its leader's motivations: In my first game, 3 different factions kept praising me for not engaging in combat with the aliens. Suddenly, 2 of them declared war to me for no reason. Not that it matters, the combat AI is as dumb as ever. Enemy units will just go back and forth, struggle with the terrain and camp on damaging miasma hexes, just to beg for peace a few turns later and start praising you all over again. Somehow, enemy factions are dumber than in the previous civ games.
    The new tech web is a nice addition, altough I dont think it will help newcomers find their way, and the affinity system is alright, but it does take ages to truly kick in.
    All in all, It still is a Sid Meier's game, a 6 is as low as it gets.    … Expand
  5. TUHD
    Oct 24, 2014
    5
    What. The. Hell.
    - Majorly imbalanced. Some of those victory conditions are idiotic (like, really. Play ARC and you'll be able to pretty fast snatch up all the cap cities without even having a wardec, making it an domination victory. While other victories take a long time).
    - Normal is way too easy - only thing the AI is good at is throwing out a lot of military and somehow never    What. The. Hell.
    - Majorly imbalanced. Some of those victory conditions are idiotic (like, really. Play ARC and you'll be able to pretty fast snatch up all the cap cities without even having a wardec, making it an domination victory. While other victories take a long time).
    - Normal is way too easy - only thing the AI is good at is throwing out a lot of military and somehow never suffering health problems. If you want a real challenge as even just an mediocre Civ/player, start at Hard or higher.
    - The techweb is interesting, but headache worthy when it comes to searching for what´s recommendable.
    - Try to understand the numbers vs %, and you´ll get an guaranteed headache. The overview is bad and not really intuitive.
    - Etc. It could be a good game. But due to cheap reskinning, wrong setup of new stuff and really bad balancing - it´s just not worth the money atm.    … Expand
  6. Verdan
    Oct 24, 2014
    6
    All i can say is that Sid Meier set new record for an expansion. Making a new skin for an all ready working game is pretty bad and i personally was expecting bit more than new theme.
    Game looks good but then again. I just played this game for a lot of hours under different title.

    9 points for the CIV V
    - 3 points for going for "shake my money makers" strategy
  7. Calendyr
    Oct 24, 2014
    5
    I am writting this rewiew after 5 hours of play.

    Been awaiting this game for months now. I am a Civ 5 veteran with over 1000 hours of play. My first impression of Beyond Earth is one of deep disapointment, I will cover my major issues with the game if I don't mention something it's either because I like it or don't find anything wrong with it. Tech Web: I like the idea of a web    I am writting this rewiew after 5 hours of play.

    Been awaiting this game for months now. I am a Civ 5 veteran with over 1000 hours of play.

    My first impression of Beyond Earth is one of deep disapointment, I will cover my major issues with the game if I don't mention something it's either because I like it or don't find anything wrong with it.

    Tech Web: I like the idea of a web instead of a tree. What I don't like is that you are completelly lost when you look at it. It's hard to try to make a plan when nothing stands out. Would it have been so hard to color code the items of put the category icons in there? You look at the icons and you can't tell what is a Wonder or what does what unless you read every single description. I am sure with time it will be ok because I will learn what everything does but for my first game it's seriously tedious!

    Alien life: So after watchching countless hours of prelauch videos, I know I should not attack the aliens. Here is ny issue: While I can't attack them, they sure don't have any reservation about attacking me, I have lost 2 explorers and 2 drone units in the past hour and I never made any agressive move towards the aliens. I am exploring and BAM! 4 of them jump on my unit and kill it. So Firaxis tie both my arms behind my back by sayong that if I attack the aliens siege worms will come kill my cities and other nations will go to war with me and then punch me in the face repetedly when I cannot defend myself... just great!

    Map clarity: When you look at the map I find it really hard to understand what is what, Very unclear what is a luxury resource, what is a production bonus. In Civ 5 you could press ALT-R and have all the resources show up with nice Icons, it's not the case in BE, Alsp in CiV5 you could press Y and have all the tiles yields show up,.. yep gone as well... WHY?

    Health: Health basically replaces happiness in BE. With only 2 cities I am at minus 5 health and I see no easy way to fix that, Very frustrating!

    Purchases: In Civ5 you had a production/purchase toggle in the city build window, They removed it. Now you have to go in the city manamenent screen and press the purchase buttin to open the purchase window, Not only is it less conveniant but I have been doing purchases in the build window for years, why are you forcing me to change the way I do things for something that is less intuitive and less efficient?

    Blocking: Tbere are several blocks in the game that are contre-intuitive, For exemple: A trade post appeared close to my city so I researched the trading unit, Try to send it there and I can't because there is Miasma in the way. So I research the miasma removing satellite and try to put it in orbit but again I can;t because there is already a satellite there,,,, so I research the trade vessel so I can go to it by sea.... but it won't let me without giving a reason, I read all I could find in the Civ help menu but could not find any answer, So now I have spent a ton of research on trade and can.t trade, Same with other nations, I normally am a heavy trader in Civ5, but in this game there is nothing to trade, All it shows is you research and production. No resouces strategic or luxury in there, Really annoying and frustrating,

    The last thing is the way I feel when playing, So far it has been boring with nothing to do most of the time and frustrating (with all the issues listed above). I hope with time and experience this will change that but my first impression is very negative.    … Expand
  8. Amstaad
    Oct 25, 2014
    6
    Beyond Earth is basically Civ5: Space Edition. There is only token innovation in the game with the inclusion of an orbital layer and the tech web. Every thing else is basically just Civ5 concepts and mechanics with different names (i.e. aliens are barbarians, energy is money, health is happiness, etc). This in itself isn't so bad as I liked Civ5 but there just isn't much depth orBeyond Earth is basically Civ5: Space Edition. There is only token innovation in the game with the inclusion of an orbital layer and the tech web. Every thing else is basically just Civ5 concepts and mechanics with different names (i.e. aliens are barbarians, energy is money, health is happiness, etc). This in itself isn't so bad as I liked Civ5 but there just isn't much depth or flavour to the game. One issue is that it's hard to identify things quickly on the tech web or in a cities production queue as there is no clear visual indicator for what's a wonder, a buff, unit or building in the tech web so you need to spend a fair bit of time reading through each entry to try and figure out what every thing does. The AI seemed awfully weak on my play through on normal setting and didn't even defend itself when I attacked it on normal difficulty. If you have Civ5 your better off just playing that until Firaxis patches the game and rolls out its DLC. On a side note my play experience is closer to 4 out of 10 due to Firaxis deciding not to support DX10 in this game. If you're using an older graphics card (I'm using a GT330M) you can play the game but won't be able to use the mini-map, see the leaders animations and will have some minor screen pixelation. I didn't dock the game any negative points because it only effects a few people but it's annoying never the less because this game isn't exactly a graphical power house and my card would work fine if they had bothered to include DX10 support.… Expand
  9. ChunkySaurus
    Oct 25, 2014
    5
    This was a disappointing wasted opportunity to do something really cool. Instead it comes off like a mediocre mod for Civ 5. The elements of an exciting game are there, they just weren't put together very well. I am hopeful that this can be patched to something better but it is more likely that this will be fixed with an expansion.

    I can see what they wanted to do with the aliens and    This was a disappointing wasted opportunity to do something really cool. Instead it comes off like a mediocre mod for Civ 5. The elements of an exciting game are there, they just weren't put together very well. I am hopeful that this can be patched to something better but it is more likely that this will be fixed with an expansion.

    I can see what they wanted to do with the aliens and the miasma. They wanted to make YOU feel like the alien, like this was a hostile world. So you would build outposts slowly and close together until you could tech up to deal with the hostile environment. This mechanic was pretty exciting until trading stations just appeared out of nowhere all around my first city, in the first 25 turns. These stations block you from building new cities nearby so you have to over-extend yourself. I didn't feel like a pioneer when the space version of WalMart opened up next door.

    In the end, the Alien mechanic is just bad. They spawn like crazy and actually become more of a nuisance by clogging the map. Seriously, 10-15 units moving one space to the left and then one space to the right. Getting from point A to B is more like playing Frogger. Eventually they just reach a saturation point and you need to cull them just to get around. This mechanic could have been done so much better. Alien nests scattered throughout the map, preventing you from expanding or accessing resources until you destroy, domesticate or learn to understand them (as per your affinity) would have been so much better.

    The addition of quests had great potential but it was wasted on dozens of pick option A or B quests. Every time you build a building for the first time, something "exciting" happens and you get to pick a bonus. Trivial stuff like +1 food or +1 energy. The dialog and choice are both pointless. They happen all the time so they don't feel special at all. The victory conditions are not well-defined either. They don't feel immersive at all. If they were going to put in quests, they should have been tied into the victory conditions.

    The new tech web hides most of the details of what you are researching. The icons are all the same color so you have to mouse over everything to have any idea what you are going to get from a tech. The whole thing is at odds with how you are actually expected to perform research. You will realize partway through your first play through that you are supposed to exclusively pick technologies that advance one of the three Affinities. I don't understand why they bury Affinities within Technologies. A choice between Solar, Petrol and Xenomass generators is much more immersive than being able to research all three.

    The UI and city management is worse than Civ 5. A lot of little irritating things like cities not telling you the last project they completed or the trade micromanagement. Seriously, by mid-game you will be resetting 5-6 trade convoys each turn. They reset very quickly and you will have 2-3 per city. This would have been much better without auto-reset.

    The leader interactions and voice-overs are dull and lifeless. Half the time there is no voice over or a message is interrupted by another.

    I'd recommend it on sale, but not at full price.    … Expand
  10. titannet
    Oct 25, 2014
    5
    Alpha Centauri went above and beyond Civilization II by bringing new ideas and and engaging story to the table. Beyond Earth does not. It is Civ 5 on another planet with Barbarians switched out for aliens.
    New additions are the tech web and the quests. The quests are mostly stupid.. mostly stuff you would have done anyway and nothing really interesting.
    Same as civ 5 the game is crippled    Alpha Centauri went above and beyond Civilization II by bringing new ideas and and engaging story to the table. Beyond Earth does not. It is Civ 5 on another planet with Barbarians switched out for aliens.
    New additions are the tech web and the quests. The quests are mostly stupid.. mostly stuff you would have done anyway and nothing really interesting.
    Same as civ 5 the game is crippled by penalties for having citys. What do I need an army for if the next city will make tech discovery even slower?
    But enough said, all the 0-6 reviews are basically saying the same. The game is a soulless mod for Civ 5, shallow, slow and boring. Next turn. Nothing happening.    … Expand
  11. Spoodey
    Oct 26, 2014
    6
    Loved Civ V. This one (so far) feels like a lifeless version of Civ V with some changes to game mechanics and a science theme. Factions are bland and boring, and progressing in the game just feels... not fun...
  12. m0nitor
    Oct 25, 2014
    6
    The AI is frustrating. It's been said 1,394,934,022 times of Civ V so I don't know why they would build on Civ V in making this game without addressing it. Automated workers wander into stupidity and die, enemy units behave illogically. The issues I have with AI are literally identical to the ones I had with Civ V.

    The game is beautiful and I like the atmosphere. The tech web is    The AI is frustrating. It's been said 1,394,934,022 times of Civ V so I don't know why they would build on Civ V in making this game without addressing it. Automated workers wander into stupidity and die, enemy units behave illogically. The issues I have with AI are literally identical to the ones I had with Civ V.

    The game is beautiful and I like the atmosphere. The tech web is nice and while the UI is strange to me I don't mind learning it. I don't need to play the same exact game over and over - I'm capable of learning new things.

    Some of the concepts don't feel fully fleshed out, though. If this is because they're playing at future DLC then I wish they'd stop that crap and build and sell a complete game instead of piecing a complete game out for additional money. But whatever.

    This game isn't horrible and over time (like when they decide to get around to selling me the rest of the game) I'm pretty sure it'll improve greatly.    … Expand
  13. luster
    Oct 24, 2014
    5
    A competent entry in the Civ franchise but dissapointing overall

    This really feels like a mediocre expansion to Civ 5. Despite taking place on a bizarre alien world, the setting feels quite lifeless and dull. The leaders and factions have zero personality. The quotes (that might give some insight into their personalities) are bland and generic and all voiced by the same actor. It's like    A competent entry in the Civ franchise but dissapointing overall

    This really feels like a mediocre expansion to Civ 5. Despite taking place on a bizarre alien world, the setting feels quite lifeless and dull. The leaders and factions have zero personality. The quotes (that might give some insight into their personalities) are bland and generic and all voiced by the same actor. It's like they took everything that was so flavourful and unique about Alpha Centauri and turned it on its head.

    Other than this, the engine is almost identical to civ 5, albeit less polished and balanced mechanics. The affinities are an interesting innovation. The AI presented very little challenge (I was able to win my very first game on the 2nd hardest difficulty without much difficulty). The tech tree is diverse and seems to be based on 'Endless Space' to a large extent. However, it's quite hard to learn what each tech does since they all have baffling (albeit generic) sci-tech names like 'gene harmonics' and 'alien splicing'. Again, unlike previous Civ installments the tech advancements provide very little colour to the world. The AI is also EXTREMELY passive - on hardest difficulty it never attacked me once. This made the game very easy - I just spammed trade units so that I was earning a fortune each turn. It became so easy/tedious that I didn't bother to finish the game.

    There isn't much else to say about this game really. If it was a free fan-made mod for Civ 5 I would call it 'impressive'. However, considering how expensive it is it's hard not to feel dissapointed and a bit ripped off. Perhaps I'm holding it to a higher standard than most games since it's part of the Civ franchise but I don't think that's unreasonable. This will be the last time I pre-order from Firaxis and if you haven't ordered yet I recommend you wait till it's on sale before throwing away your money!    … Expand
  14. JackPaladin
    Oct 26, 2014
    5
    I am reviewing this game on it's own merits, and not comparing it to SMAC.

    It has a couple new twist and additions to Civ 5 engine, but it in no way justifies the outrageous price. I would think $29 would have been a far better price. It has the feel of an unfinished and unpolished beta. With bugs and missing features that seem impossible to have just been "unnoticed" before    I am reviewing this game on it's own merits, and not comparing it to SMAC.

    It has a couple new twist and additions to Civ 5 engine, but it in no way justifies the outrageous price. I would think $29 would have been a far better price.

    It has the feel of an unfinished and unpolished beta. With bugs and missing features that seem impossible to have just been "unnoticed" before release.

    I would highly suggest you wait till a couple more patches, at the very least, before buying. And even better, waiting until the price is dropped by a least half before buying also even after patching/updates.    … Expand
  15. Doc_Hopwood
    Nov 20, 2014
    5
    I buy pretty much every Civilization game at some point. This one I bought at release and I was pretty satisfied with it until I realized that it's pretty much a single play through game.

    I had it in my head that this was going to be a bit grander than it actually is. The units are all identical and only vary a little bit based off which affinity you choose. Maybe it was just that I had    I buy pretty much every Civilization game at some point. This one I bought at release and I was pretty satisfied with it until I realized that it's pretty much a single play through game.

    I had it in my head that this was going to be a bit grander than it actually is. The units are all identical and only vary a little bit based off which affinity you choose. Maybe it was just that I had it in my head this was going to be an updated version of Alpha Centauri and really it's like a watered down Civ 5.

    The factions are all pretty much the same. The units are literally the same no matter your faction. The entire universe is populated by the exact same insect like creatures and every planet is just a shuffled around version of every other planet.

    I guess there's a chance it's just me getting tired of the same game over and over again but I don't feel like there were any improvements made here. Pretty disappointed.    … Expand
  16. TomSEA
    Oct 27, 2014
    6
    Enough here to keep you engaged for 3 or 4 run-throughs, but after that - it amounts to a re-skinned Civ 5. Aside from the space theme, the similarities are obvious. The voice-overs for the various leaders are very lack-luster and the tech-tree can be overwhelming at the beginning. The graphics don't seem to be as refined or crisp as Civ 5. The monsters don't seem to be worth the timeEnough here to keep you engaged for 3 or 4 run-throughs, but after that - it amounts to a re-skinned Civ 5. Aside from the space theme, the similarities are obvious. The voice-overs for the various leaders are very lack-luster and the tech-tree can be overwhelming at the beginning. The graphics don't seem to be as refined or crisp as Civ 5. The monsters don't seem to be worth the time or reward to fight. Easier just to avoid them.

    Having said that, it's still a decent Civilization game - it's not awful, just what we've seen before. The average Civ fan will get dozens of hours out of it. I'd wait until it hits the $20 (or lower) mark before buying as there's not enough there to differentiate it from Civ 5..    … Expand
  17. Sjalka
    Oct 27, 2014
    6
    I will compare that game to the old Alpha Centauri (hopefully that is fair to do)

    Beyond Earth feels just different enough from Cvilization not to be confused as a mod - however - the planet and playstyle is still too similar to civilization so you never really get the feeling to be on an alien planet. ( could as well be earth with a mutant mod ) Alpha Centauri felt much more alien -    I will compare that game to the old Alpha Centauri (hopefully that is fair to do)

    Beyond Earth feels just different enough from Cvilization not to be confused as a mod - however - the planet and playstyle is still too similar to civilization so you never really get the feeling to be on an alien planet. ( could as well be earth with a mutant mod )

    Alpha Centauri felt much more alien - landscape and design was so different from civilization that it was never confused for something earth-like.

    Where Alpha Centauri scored big time was the technologies AND how they were delivered. Starting with future tech and getting more and more trancendent - Beyond Earth fails in that department. The commentary by the factions upon reaching a tech was kept, but the voice acting is worse than in Alpha Centauri - also what they say about the tech is less interesting ( mostly due to the factions being a lot less fundamental/extreme )

    The graphics seem to be a little worse than Civ 5 - not so much in quality, but in design; but not by a greatly significant margin. The sound and music can only be described as average.

    Personally, i find it a little sad that the "original" .. Alpha Centauri beats this remake in terms of atmosphere a hundred times.

    However - Beyond Earth is not a bad game. It is very playable - it just feels like the dumbed down junior version of a much more mature Alpha Centauri.    … Expand
  18. Truth_
    Nov 5, 2014
    5
    It's about what I, and so many others, were expecting: A Civ V reskin with little to offer than Civ V had, and taking nearly nothing from its inspiration, Alpha Centauri.

    There was quite the crowd of complainers that Civilization V was lacking compared to IV, however, an at least somewhat valid excuse was that Firaxis had to design and create a new engine as well as update all the    It's about what I, and so many others, were expecting: A Civ V reskin with little to offer than Civ V had, and taking nearly nothing from its inspiration, Alpha Centauri.

    There was quite the crowd of complainers that Civilization V was lacking compared to IV, however, an at least somewhat valid excuse was that Firaxis had to design and create a new engine as well as update all the graphics. What was the excuse this time? It is the same engine, and the graphics and art style have not been changed. It looks like many assets were slightly altered and plugged back in, too. So what did we get in exchange for this time savings?

    Exploration, aliens/barbarians, the tech tree, factions, and unit upgrades were changed. But the exploration is still largely bland, the aliens are uninspired and otherwise in fact worse functionally than barbarians, the tech tree is refreshing yet convoluted and seemingly random (as opposed to Endless Space's themed branches), the factions have no character, and unit upgrades are simple, boring, and unbalanced. Adding in quests like Endless Legend and a bit of story was nice, but the choices are the same every game and lead to nothing in the future.

    Additionally, the strategic resources were made irrelevant until the late game, luxury goods were removed, health was made easy to manage, and the UI is missing critical options and information (that existed in Civ V). Finally, the AI is incredibly passive and dumber than a sack of potatoes. Again Civ V's removal of the Giant Stack of Death meets its flaws: inability to move armies and attack cities as well as the AI's inability to functionally attack in most instances.

    I wrote a large essay on another website that exceeds my limit here, and plenty of other reviews go into detail about many of my points and more. All I would like to add is that although I was not expecting much, Civilization: Beyond Earth is still a disappointment. It is somehow worse than its predecessor, Civilization V, takes nothing from Alpha Centauri (a game lauded by a loving fanbase), and puts no effort into a truly interesting and fun science-fiction setting (no creativity in units, aliens, resources, terrain types, map effects, map design, factions, or mechanics).

    Ultimately the game is okay from an objective, stand-alone perspective. But when I know it's from a long-standing series and was inspired by Alpha Centauri, and now has competitors like Sins of a Solar Empire, Endless Space, and others... I can't help but rate the game poorly.

    I have little doubt interesting things will be sold later as DLC, but it disheartens me greatly to think we must pay extra to get a game we wanted in the first place. Perhaps next time, Firaxis... but I doubt it.    … Expand
  19. Archontos
    Nov 13, 2014
    6
    Civilization 5 with graphics mod. These two or three additional features are much much smaller than any DLC to earlier Civ games. Classical rip-off, nevertheless just as good as normal Civ5. If you have Civ5 - don't buy. You already saw 95% of the game and new graphics can be watched in demo version on Steam.
  20. Cyberlion
    Nov 5, 2014
    5
    After the initial few hours of euphoria exploring a new alpha centauri game, I realized there were no significant innovations since its predecessor. All the factions, aliens and planets look and feel the same. After the first few hours, I realized there are no new gameplay mechanics. Graphics, sounds gameplay all mediocre. I built up a colony, explored the map, built a few units andAfter the initial few hours of euphoria exploring a new alpha centauri game, I realized there were no significant innovations since its predecessor. All the factions, aliens and planets look and feel the same. After the first few hours, I realized there are no new gameplay mechanics. Graphics, sounds gameplay all mediocre. I built up a colony, explored the map, built a few units and realized I have as much desire to continue playing as I do to replay Civ 5.… Expand
  21. matt79
    Nov 20, 2014
    5
    This is a reskin of Civ5 with all the expansions taken out, no improvements, and problems in the interface department (20% of the game time I'm setting the trade routes). I'm dissapointed. Game is ok, but i just don't see the point in playing it when I have a fully developed Civ5.
  22. Woopya
    Nov 14, 2014
    5
    This is a tough 1 for me. I have been playing Civ games for a long time and while I do think this game is fun to play, I just do not feel it is different enough from Civ 5 to be considered a new game and not just a mod to Civ 5. They try to give it a sci fi feel to it, but it kinda fails because we are stuck playing as the same old rearranged human factions with new names. 1 of the keysThis is a tough 1 for me. I have been playing Civ games for a long time and while I do think this game is fun to play, I just do not feel it is different enough from Civ 5 to be considered a new game and not just a mod to Civ 5. They try to give it a sci fi feel to it, but it kinda fails because we are stuck playing as the same old rearranged human factions with new names. 1 of the keys to success, as well as the most difficult aspects to sci fi genres is the aspect of lore. This game has a backstory, but it isnt really a lore. We are not really given any reason to want to play any particular faction nor are we given any reason to dislike any particular faction. That is what the historical aspect of the regular Civ games gives us that this game lacks. There are some new smallish features changed or added , but nothing that really grabs me. So I find that I do play it, for now but it doesnt consume me the way new Civ games usually do. In truth it just feels like an "inbetween "release, or an expansion to Civ 5. But in truth, in just a couple days I found my desire to play Civ was greater than it was to play this game.… Expand
  23. Yyrkroon
    Nov 9, 2014
    5
    I hate to pile on, but this game deserves it. I'm a long time fan of the Civilization, going back to Civ I on the Atari ST. This is by far the worst of a great franchise. It isn't a horrible game - nothing like M003, but it isn't really worthy of the Civ, or Sid Meier, moniker either. It is very lack lustre and lacks the famous, "just one more turn" digital-crack addiction of its siblings.I hate to pile on, but this game deserves it. I'm a long time fan of the Civilization, going back to Civ I on the Atari ST. This is by far the worst of a great franchise. It isn't a horrible game - nothing like M003, but it isn't really worthy of the Civ, or Sid Meier, moniker either. It is very lack lustre and lacks the famous, "just one more turn" digital-crack addiction of its siblings.

    Had this game arrived side-by-side with Civ 5 in 2010, it might have been received better, but it hasn't really brought much more to the table than a semi-ambitious fan mod of Civ 5. The 4x genre has evolved in the last 4 years, and new comers such as Endless Legends really put this to shame.    … Expand
  24. Nightioz
    Feb 17, 2015
    5
    I'm sad to say that this game really makes me wanting to go back and play the old Alpha Centauri game, instead of this one. Only thing this does better is the new updated graphics. The rest is just way too dull designed.

    Too bad, since I have been dreaming of a new Alpha Centauri game since I completed that the first time years back.
  25. Robobob
    Jan 4, 2015
    5
    I got Civilization: Beyond Earth for Christmas and finally got around to playing it. I have been a long time Civilization fan, starting with the first one from the early 90's. I've never played Alpha Centauri, though so I cannot compare. Looking at the User Score.. a 5 is about accurate. It's an OK game, not terrible, not great.

    I'll start with some of the pros. I like the Affinity    I got Civilization: Beyond Earth for Christmas and finally got around to playing it. I have been a long time Civilization fan, starting with the first one from the early 90's. I've never played Alpha Centauri, though so I cannot compare. Looking at the User Score.. a 5 is about accurate. It's an OK game, not terrible, not great.

    I'll start with some of the pros. I like the Affinity system: researching certain technologies to increase my level with a certain affinity. These increases in affininty can automatically upgrade my units, which is another great plus. No need to rebuild units or return to base to upgrade. The units upgrade immediately with a great increase in Power. That is nice.

    Another pro: The Quest system gives you little missions with bonuses to achieve when completed. Though, there weren't nearly enough of them in the mid to late game to keep things interesting. Also, when new buildings are built for the first time you can choose a bonus to add to that building. That is nice.

    Another pro: There is a huge technology tree with tons of things to research, which leaves tons of buildings to build. This actually leads to a con: There are so many buildings to build and it's very easy to very quickly have huge cities with high production and "energy" (or gold) output. But it is impossible to keep up with the Health stat. My entire civ takes a penalty if it is "unhealthy" so I'm constantly scouring the huge and confusing tech web to find anything to help improve my health. And there isn't much. As a perfectionist, I found it annoying that I couldn't improve this stat at even easy difficulty.

    The next big con: The game is dull. The Civilization games are a great race to build that awesome Wonder you need, or research that next big tech to give you the big edge on the battlefield. I didn't feel that at all on this game. Every Wonder just gave you more production, energy, food bonuses, etc. No techs really stuck out and were kind of confusing. I chased after a couple techs to increase my Affinity, but other than that my research was mostly random.

    Games like this have to realize that they need to keep me interested by throwing something at me to keep me fishing for the next tech or Wonder. One that changes up the game or give me something more than just a production bonus. Or give me a cool cutscene to show my patience and strategy paid off. Otherwise it feels like a slow grind to.. nothing.    … Expand
  26. 123456
    May 25, 2015
    5
    I started playing Civ 5 again a couple of months ago (mid 2015) without any expansions, and whilst shopping for those I saw a deal on this and thought I would give it a try. For reference I played Civ 2-5 but not Alpha Centauri and I'm reviewing version 1.0.2.666

    The first thing I noticed was the game engine, it's exactly the same as Civ 5. That is not necessarily a bad thing but I did    I started playing Civ 5 again a couple of months ago (mid 2015) without any expansions, and whilst shopping for those I saw a deal on this and thought I would give it a try. For reference I played Civ 2-5 but not Alpha Centauri and I'm reviewing version 1.0.2.666

    The first thing I noticed was the game engine, it's exactly the same as Civ 5. That is not necessarily a bad thing but I did expect more than a reskin of a 5 year old game. Where happiness was, now we have health, and gold has become energy, among other rebrandings.

    Gameplay wise, the technology structure going from tree to web is a nice touch, giving a more open ended narrative compared to the history of human science. Things like borders and exploring remain from Civ 5, although they do not make much sense when you have so much technology that you can launch satellites and the planet is uninhabited by intelligent life, but you can forgive this as a game principle.

    The AI is quite unforgivable though. If you get an idea of how to play the AI will never attack you. The difficulty settings, like Civ 5, are based on giving the AI cheats instead of making it more tactically effective. It will attack other nations or independent stations (which you have no diplomacy option to complain about) or beg you for resources with the offer of favours, which are quite worthless.

    When war does finally break out, you end up being heavily penalised in Health (should you take an enemy city) or in reduced trade routes, which are extremely valuable throughout the game. If you set up your armies correctly you can rarely lose a unit to the rather incompetent AI. In fact, after entering into a war with several nations, and barely even a laser beam fired, I am offered a peace treaty and one of their cities! Not only is the AI incompetent, it actually wants you to win with as little fuss as possible.

    The affinity system is the basis for your new societies beliefs, or whatever. In actuality, it represents what upgrades your units get, and much like Leonardo's Workshop in Civ II, all your units are upgraded automatically. It also turns your cities a different colour. The levels for this are linked to the tech web, meaning science heavily outweighs culture in this game. This is also because most of the victory conditions rely on research. Whilst there are cultural borders and virtues provide buffs, there is no cultural victory (but military domination remains).

    The early game with explorers and aliens is quite fun as you try and dodge their nests and find relics and escape pods that aren't covered in poisonous gas, much like the early game of Civ 5 is enjoyable for finding city states and ruins whilst dodging barbarians. Quickly though the game becomes a grind, mostly due to the weak AI and the build more research more repeat actions, followed by the all too familiar "Next Turn" button spam.

    One of the most disappointing things is the lack of visual stimulation with regard to the tech and wonders. When you build a wonder you receive a pop-up screen with an image of a futuristic blueprint that basically looks like nothing at all, a quote which means very little out of context, and the buff it gives you. These are supposed to be world shaping discoveries but outside of the civilopedia the game offers you nothing. This was fine in Civ 5, it's Earth. But this is the unknown fiction.

    Beyond Earth is not a bad game but it feels very undercooked. With the first expansion coming later this year I hope, unlike the Earth the game leaves behind, Firaxis are more about looking back to what needs to be fixed before looking forward to new challenges to explore.    … Expand
  27. ultraviper
    Apr 26, 2016
    5
    Some people claim this is a re-skin of Civ 5, but it's not. It's worse than that. Almost everything about this game is worse than previous games. The military units have been reduced to a small handful that automatically upgrade as your tech level rises. The tech web is confusing and hard to navigate. Aliens (the new barbarians) cover the entire map and go from being a danger early game toSome people claim this is a re-skin of Civ 5, but it's not. It's worse than that. Almost everything about this game is worse than previous games. The military units have been reduced to a small handful that automatically upgrade as your tech level rises. The tech web is confusing and hard to navigate. Aliens (the new barbarians) cover the entire map and go from being a danger early game to a frusration late game where they are STILL all over the map but pose no real threat. Trade routes are mandatory because of how powerful they are, yet they are implemented in a very annoying way that makes you choose trade destinations way too often. Health (the new happniess) is badly balanced and from what I've found it's impossible to keep it in the positive numbers if you have more than one city, until late game when your virtue tree bonuses can bring it back up. And playing with just one city in games like this is just not fun. Skip this one, play Civ 4 or 5 instead.… Expand
  28. iseeall
    Jan 14, 2015
    5
    What do you expect... Brian Reynolds who was the designer behind Alpha Centauri and Civ 2 left Firaxis long ago. AC is my favorite game of all time, and I still play it. Yes, AC has some minor flaws (like, poorly tested endgame, and some minor bugs with happiness display and predicted outcomes of worms vs fusion powered units) which could be fixed with 1-2 patches, but in general AC is aWhat do you expect... Brian Reynolds who was the designer behind Alpha Centauri and Civ 2 left Firaxis long ago. AC is my favorite game of all time, and I still play it. Yes, AC has some minor flaws (like, poorly tested endgame, and some minor bugs with happiness display and predicted outcomes of worms vs fusion powered units) which could be fixed with 1-2 patches, but in general AC is a perfect game. It corrected all the flaws of Civ 2 and expanded many of its features. AC could easily be the last game in the series. Yet, to keep monetizing the franchise, they made the awful Civ 3, then Civ 4 (which I also didn't like due to absence of collateral damage) and Civ 5 (which I bought on a crazy Steam sale with all expansions for just 1.5 euros or so) - I tried hard to like Civ 5 and played it maybe 8 times but no, I still failed to like it really. Civ 5 was an ok game but so far from AC. Now comes this game, which is mostly a reskin of Civ 5, with many features removed and without even a proper tutorial (?). It's definitely worse than Civ 5 and undoubtedly worse than AC. Good thing I tried a demo first. The demo crashed after 20 mins of play. The worst thing about Civ: BE (which other reviewers didn't mention, or I didn't see it) - is that the terrain tiles are just a mess of gray and violet colors. It's very hard to tell where miasma is, and where hills are. Even in Civ 5 I wouldn't usually be able to see the terrain types and even the units (!) properly, if not the icons hovering over them. But here it's just nonsense. The bad design decisions which I didn't like in Civ 5 stay here too: "unlockable" civics which stay with you forever (instead of selectable ones like in AC), crippled diplomacy system, too abstract and too simplified espionage system, 1-unit-per-tile rule. Now, here they removed the unit editor, the water bases, terrain up/down, and the psy combat. The small improvements (like, more interesting tech system and the quests) don't really save the situation. It will be funny if no one ever reaches the level of Alpha Centauri :) It's similar to what happened to Jagged Alliance 2. So many remakes, and all were a disappointment to the fans.… Expand
  29. Shane_IL
    Dec 16, 2014
    5
    I was very excited for a new civ game with a different spin, but my excitement was short lived. This game is basically Civ 5 in space. They really could have done some great stuff with this concept, but nope, you're pitted up against other human civilizations with pretty much the same graphics, game-play mechanics and development trees as previous title, just in space.
  30. masterhoodwinke
    Nov 11, 2014
    6
    Missed opportunity here in Beyond Earth. I've played and loved all previous Civ games. This one just feels rushed, like a re-skinned Civ 5 Mod. Yes the Tech tree is new, and a step in the right direction, but I found it almost boring. The space age technologies are so incomprehensible that it takes the joy out of technological progress. What the hell are half of these technologies...Missed opportunity here in Beyond Earth. I've played and loved all previous Civ games. This one just feels rushed, like a re-skinned Civ 5 Mod. Yes the Tech tree is new, and a step in the right direction, but I found it almost boring. The space age technologies are so incomprehensible that it takes the joy out of technological progress. What the hell are half of these technologies... why should I care? Is it just me or was researching gunpowder before any other players in Civ 5 incredibly satisfying? Nothing in BE can come close to that.

    Setting is interesting, but shallow and unremarkable in many ways. There is really no difference between any of the civilizations so replay is hindered. There is little to no lore in this Civ BE universe...

    Bottom line is this game is a missed opportunity and not worth the price. Not enough innovation or experimentation to justify a full new title. It will feel almost exactly the same as Civ 5. Yes I still love the Civilization franchise and I'll be there for the next game. With that said my trust in Sid Meyer as a innovative "Elon Musk" of Strategy video games is shaken.

    Try out Endless Legend if you want a really fresh innovative take on 4 x strategy games. I'm loving it.    … Expand
  31. ScireActus
    Jan 14, 2015
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. What this game should be: Alpha Centauri remake
    What this game should is: A average mod from CIV 5

    This game is simple a reflection of 2014's games... disappointing, engine reused, RUSHED, unbalanced, and lack of care for the franchise ideology.
    What is more frustrating is that they already have lots of good ideas that them can had used even from the original alpha centauri , of civ 3 , civ 4 .... but no... it´s civ 5 engine.

    Ideas that work:
    Affinities are great... by the end of the game, they change what resources are most important to you, the way you have to fight , and the way diplomacy works

    Units are simple to understand, and they upgrade as you upgrade

    Ideas that didn’t work:
    Aliens... are there to be killed or ignored. most of the time, killed ... all that "they are a new level of strategy" , just forget that

    Orbital layer: must of the time is useless buff

    Tech web: that one is actually a good idea, just need some fix. to became more affinity centric

    World Map and Resources: Man...... this is were you fell the lack of commitment. its just civ 5 , copy and paste... change the resource name and that is it. A rock planet , fungi , desert, water, earth like.... all look and play the same way.    … Expand
  32. Rastrelly
    May 27, 2015
    5
    This game on every level Alpha Centauri succeeds. But its main problem is lack of atmosphere. Faction leaders are not interesting, there is no cool story about the Planet and humans, units feel not that entertaining, as well as ending scenarios. Game requires too much boring micromanagement which should've been easily automatizeable. Tech web is an interesting concept though. Better go getThis game on every level Alpha Centauri succeeds. But its main problem is lack of atmosphere. Faction leaders are not interesting, there is no cool story about the Planet and humans, units feel not that entertaining, as well as ending scenarios. Game requires too much boring micromanagement which should've been easily automatizeable. Tech web is an interesting concept though. Better go get Alpha Centauri - it's a much better experience.… Expand
  33. ZeroWaitState
    Oct 24, 2015
    5
    This game came out about the same time as Interstellar. The backstory has the same vibe as that movie. Don't be fooled, though. The box says "Sid Meier's Civilization" is small letters and "BEYOND EARTH" in huge letters. The box has it backwards. This is a reskinned standard Civ game, and it has absolutely nothing to do with survival on an alien planet in terms of actual gameplay.This game came out about the same time as Interstellar. The backstory has the same vibe as that movie. Don't be fooled, though. The box says "Sid Meier's Civilization" is small letters and "BEYOND EARTH" in huge letters. The box has it backwards. This is a reskinned standard Civ game, and it has absolutely nothing to do with survival on an alien planet in terms of actual gameplay. Standard Civ game concepts like caravans, culture, wonders, etc. are translated into this game even though they make no sense contextually.

    Also, the graphics performance is terrible, with texture pop-in galore.    … Expand
  34. BadIdeas
    Jun 1, 2017
    6
    This game is said to be the spiritual successor to to Alpha Centauri. That is a fair assessment, because in order for Beyond Earth to be a true successor it would need to be more than a ghost of Alpha Centauri.

    Let us compare it to Alpha Centauri, a game released 15 years before it by the same studio. What BE has that SMAC lacks: Hex tiles instead of square tiles Much better    This game is said to be the spiritual successor to to Alpha Centauri. That is a fair assessment, because in order for Beyond Earth to be a true successor it would need to be more than a ghost of Alpha Centauri.

    Let us compare it to Alpha Centauri, a game released 15 years before it by the same studio.

    What BE has that SMAC lacks:

    Hex tiles instead of square tiles
    Much better graphics
    Visible research web instead of more linear hidden research web
    Better artifact system
    Marginally better AI?

    I think that is it.

    Now let us look at what SMAC had that was better than BE:

    Better story line, what little there was in each
    Much better factions/faction distinction
    Voice overs from all faction leaders, not just one generic voice reading quotes
    Unit customization, that gave a few dozen core designs, hundreds of specialized designs, and literally hundreds of thousands of possible variants.
    Wonder videos, not just panning over a blueprint.
    Terraforming, as in raising/lowering terrain, and the sea level as a whole.
    A chart in the UI that tracked your relative strength.
    Atrocities such as planet busters, nerve stapling, and nerve gas.
    The ability to manage social policies as actual policies you could change

    That is just off the top of my head. That is what we get after 15 years, a watered down Civ 5/SMAC hybrid, that dumbs down, or completely removes some of the best aspects of SMAC. The only reason to play this instead of SMAC, is you may have played SMAC a million billion times, and want something new, even if it is the kiddy version with limited depth.    … Expand
  35. Violett
    Jun 14, 2015
    5
    Really nothing new. Though I'm a big fan of Civ series this game is EXACTLY the same as Civ5, just under another sauce. Though fans of old Alpha Centauri might find it intriguing.
  36. FelipeAlbrecht
    Dec 14, 2014
    5
    My first impression when I started a march: It does look like a Civ5 Mod. I really do not know whay I paid 40 euros for this "mod". The game is not so bad. The "civs" are interesting, but they strongly look like normal civs from Civ5 but with another names and futurist clothes.

    The technology tree is interesting, but *very* confusing. You know which path to follow when do you play    My first impression when I started a march: It does look like a Civ5 Mod. I really do not know whay I paid 40 euros for this "mod". The game is not so bad. The "civs" are interesting, but they strongly look like normal civs from Civ5 but with another names and futurist clothes.

    The technology tree is interesting, but *very* confusing. You know which path to follow when do you play vanilla Civilization, but it was impossible in Beyond Earth. What I did? I focused in one of three colours that are: I am a pure human, I am human but I like aliens too, and I am a machine. These specs are interesting, because you got new units from them. But again, it was really hard to follow a strategy.

    Besides, why strategy? The IA is to dumb that will lost for the IA from first civilisation running on a old DOS. It is sad to see how a Sid Meier's game can have so horrible IA.

    After all, the game is... okay. The aliens are interesting, but repetitive. The technologies are interesting., but confusing.

    My conclusion: Wait a few more months or some promotion, buy the game for 15-20 bucks and spend an evening playing. It does not worth more than this.    … Expand
  37. Fjonk
    Dec 4, 2014
    6
    I am a loyal fan of the Civilization serie, having played more than 45 days of Civilization V on a pirated copy only to buy it on steam in order to show my support to the brand, allowing me to play an additional 45 days. However, Beyond Earth has caused major turbulence to my dedication of the brand.

    Firaxis wanted, of course, to continue the Civilization serie, but also to evolve the    I am a loyal fan of the Civilization serie, having played more than 45 days of Civilization V on a pirated copy only to buy it on steam in order to show my support to the brand, allowing me to play an additional 45 days. However, Beyond Earth has caused major turbulence to my dedication of the brand.

    Firaxis wanted, of course, to continue the Civilization serie, but also to evolve the brand. The outcome was Beyond Earth. For those who are aware of its prequel, Civilization V, Beyond Earth is simply Firaxis take on a Sci-Fi based Civilization V. Now, the strength of Civilization V was its historical accuracy and description, which Firaxis managed to bring forward beautifully. After Firaxis announced Beyond Earth and its Sci-Fi theme I was already hesitant. I don't believe that I hold a grudge against Sci-Fi based strategy games, but I would never favour it over the historical narrative Civilization V had. Regardless of the theme and setting, I admired the thought that Firaxis could and would meet my expectations, and then exceed them.

    It saddens me, however, to say that Beyond Earth fell short. I feel that given the new setting Firaxis managed to distract itself, and drift away from what previously had made the brand so special. Beyond Earth had very few new features or unique development, that could possibly suprise and intice experienced players. Instead, Firaxis completely revamped Civilization V into Sci-fi Beyond Earth.

    I would be furious if Beyond Earth was Firaxis' panic move, in order to continue the serie. As if there was no more future for development to the setting seen in Civilization V. Civilization V proved itself worthy due to its unique setting. Beyond Earth, however, is just another game with the Sci-fi theme.    … Expand
  38. Vorpal_SF
    Jan 15, 2018
    5
    I came into the game with high expectations. I've been a Civ fanboy since the very beginning and Alpha Centauri was, in many ways, my favorite Civ experience. So, I was very hopeful. Maybe that was my first mistake.

    Beyond Earth and Rising Tide feel like they were designed someone who played enough Civ to like it, but never understood how and why it worked as a game. So, there are the    I came into the game with high expectations. I've been a Civ fanboy since the very beginning and Alpha Centauri was, in many ways, my favorite Civ experience. So, I was very hopeful. Maybe that was my first mistake.

    Beyond Earth and Rising Tide feel like they were designed someone who played enough Civ to like it, but never understood how and why it worked as a game. So, there are the clearly referential moments and common elements of design. But very little of the game balance or structured experience that made Civ really worth it. For one thing, the difficulty level is pretty flat. I started on the second difficulty level, got bored in a half hour, tried again on 3, got bored in half an hour and then finally played through on Gemini, the fourth level ("hard" per the game's description text) and got pretty bored. Unlike every other Civ game, no other Civilization attacked me until I already had an insumountable advantage, without even really spending any effort building a military. Being jumped on by other Civs is the check against people like me, whose tendency is to focus on making hyper-developed cities and building a tech advantage. I spent the last third of the game basically just wanting to beat it once, for personal satisfaction, but desperately bored and wanting the game to end.

    Besides the difficulty curve problems, which who knows, may have been solved if I went up to a higher level, the design just shows an ignorance of pacing and balance. One of the great hidden mechanics in the Civ series is how the different types of movement constrain you to a small, but ever-growing chunk of the map. When you start, you're on your island or continent, so you spend a lot of time focusing on the metrics of land conquest, expansion and road-building. Then you start exploring but your early ships are either limited to the coastline, or have a tiny capacity, so building transport networks or moving invasion fleets takes time, effort and planning.

    Nope, says Beyond Earth, everything can embark on its own boat, right from the start. Land and water might as well be the same thing. No mechanism to force you to concentrate on certain things before broadening your horizon. No mechanism that makes early game feel fundamentally different from late game. It's all the same, the numbers just get bigger.

    In most Civs, the tech tree does branch, but it stays in a fairly narrow wedge. No one can get too far ahead or behind unless they're massively dumping points into science and praying they stay alive long enough to benefit.

    Nope, says Beyond Earth. This hyper-branched stem-and-leaf approach means that if you want, you can run for endgame techs whenever you want and deploy a massively overpowered unit early.

    On and on, it goes like this. Rather than the carefully balanced, limited slate of buildings, Beyond Earth just throws in twice as many, all of which do really similar things and mostly just increase numbers. Units get some powers designed to make combat a little more interesting, but since you can get to endgame techs much faster than a computer (since the computer doesn't just min/max and run for an endgame tech) you can just walk over them with a unit 1-2 generations advanced.

    So, yeah. I really wished that they gave this project so someone with a better sense of game design, who could take the time to figure out a mechanic that added something to the experience, rather than just throwing in more units and more buildings which did basically the same thing: slightly changed large numbers in ways that made no appreciable difference.

    Man I hope Civ 6 is better than this.    … Expand
  39. HungryHippo123
    Apr 14, 2015
    5
    They added some new elements but its really just the last one and copy and pasted on and they changed a few things and that's all really, and i felt i always did the same thing over and over
  40. ptrayal
    Apr 16, 2015
    6
    Well, this was the first Civ game I've bought since Civ 2 or 3 and I was a big fan of SMAC back in the day (with the wonderful alien expansion). This though, is nothing like SMAC. I really want it to be, but it's not.

    Pro's: Nice graphics (though from what I've heard, the tiles are similar to Civ V), decent tech tree/branch/leaf thing, I like affinities and virtues, seeding is a neat    Well, this was the first Civ game I've bought since Civ 2 or 3 and I was a big fan of SMAC back in the day (with the wonderful alien expansion). This though, is nothing like SMAC. I really want it to be, but it's not.

    Pro's: Nice graphics (though from what I've heard, the tiles are similar to Civ V), decent tech tree/branch/leaf thing, I like affinities and virtues, seeding is a neat feature.

    Con's: No faction editor, factions are pretty bland and have nothing to do with you after you land, the AI is pretty bad, aliens are nice but not very smart, no unique geographic features/landmarks (give me my Pholus Ridge).

    It's not a bad game, but I definitely do not think it is the "spiritual successor" to SMAC. Maybe a distant cousin, but no successor. Which is a shame, because I really want it to be.    … Expand
  41. sbuenger
    Aug 15, 2015
    5
    It hurts to rate a game poorly in a series I enjoy so much, but I wouldn't recommend this game if you're a returning Civilization fan. Below I'll list the bad and the good.

    THE BAD 1. The game feels like a skin/mod for Civilization V. It felt all too familiar too soon. I was especially disappointed that the same strategies for Cvilization IV and V still apply to Beyond Earth. This is    It hurts to rate a game poorly in a series I enjoy so much, but I wouldn't recommend this game if you're a returning Civilization fan. Below I'll list the bad and the good.

    THE BAD

    1. The game feels like a skin/mod for Civilization V. It felt all too familiar too soon. I was especially disappointed that the same strategies for Cvilization IV and V still apply to Beyond Earth. This is the core flaw in the game, as it gets boring quickly and thus has no staying power.

    2. The maps are boring. Nothing unique in the alien world, just different names for the same tiles.

    3. The DLC adds components to the game that should have been included at launch.

    THE GOOD

    1. The affinity points are a fresh addition; however, the amount of units are still limited.

    2. The new tech tree provides a more engaging visual when teching up

    BOTTOM LINE: Don't buy this unless you catch it on sale. Newcomers to the series may enjoy it, but veterans beware.    … Expand
  42. Fany000
    Feb 22, 2019
    5
    At the first look game seems to be very tempting, space version of great civilization V. But the whole game feels like a not completed piece. This should stay as a DLC for Civ V and then it would be considered as a masterpiece, but somebody has decided to make it a full game and that is the biggest problem of Beyond Earth.

    First, if you look at the game it's just reskin for Civ V, then    At the first look game seems to be very tempting, space version of great civilization V. But the whole game feels like a not completed piece. This should stay as a DLC for Civ V and then it would be considered as a masterpiece, but somebody has decided to make it a full game and that is the biggest problem of Beyond Earth.

    First, if you look at the game it's just reskin for Civ V, then you find out that many other things are just taken from Civ V and simplified. For someone it is a plus, but for me it was a little bit dissapointing. After 2-3 hours a stereotype appears as you do always same things and ways to develope your civilization are very trimmed. The thing I found out to be the most irritating about game is attitude of AI towards aliens lifeforms, all of them just seem to love them and if you start a proper war with them, your earth "comrades" always scold you. I think there should be more variety among nations in this attitude.

    Another minus is the missing campaing, it would be really nice to play this in some story mode. There is only sandbox mode and multiplayer a small amount of content for the full game, pity. Otherwise I really apreciate the idea of sci-fi Civilization, but it could be done better to be the honest part of Civilization family.

    Pros:
    All the good stuff from Civ V is preserved
    Nic graphics
    Wide range of ways how to develop your nations
    Proper Civ gameplay

    Cons:
    Predictible behaviour of AI
    Sterotype comes very quickly
    Missing campaign
    Classic Civ is still more funny and satisfying
    A lot of things could be done better

    Good but average game, there is plenty of better turn-based strategies than this.
    Time spent playing: 20 hours.    … Expand
  43. Parik
    Apr 7, 2020
    7
    This game isn't a really NEW Civilization, but it can give you a few dozens hours of fun while you are waiting for discount for Civilization 6. I like the idea with poisoned hexes and alien nests. Different ways of your progress make every game a bit unpredictable and you can't say what direction would be better before you land on a planet.
    I find new tech web is fuzzy, but on the other    This game isn't a really NEW Civilization, but it can give you a few dozens hours of fun while you are waiting for discount for Civilization 6. I like the idea with poisoned hexes and alien nests. Different ways of your progress make every game a bit unpredictable and you can't say what direction would be better before you land on a planet.
    I find new tech web is fuzzy, but on the other hand it gives much more freedom to your scientists.    … Expand
  44. DarkCornatus118
    Oct 24, 2014
    6
    Entirely reskinned version of Civ5. If you played a lot of Civ 5 and got a bit bored of it's simplicity, then probably don't expect much from this one. If you are new to Civ, it's going to be a really good experience. Not a whole lot of pros for me. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, but it's a mod to me rather than a new experience.

    Pros: - Tech map is MUCH better, even if    Entirely reskinned version of Civ5. If you played a lot of Civ 5 and got a bit bored of it's simplicity, then probably don't expect much from this one. If you are new to Civ, it's going to be a really good experience. Not a whole lot of pros for me. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, but it's a mod to me rather than a new experience.

    Pros:
    - Tech map is MUCH better, even if daunting at first. Probably the only really major thing to change in the game.
    - Races feel more customisable
    - A little bit more diversity in Tech and Virtue (culture) perk trees
    -No Astronomy!!!!!

    Cons:
    - Every feature from Civ 5 exists as a renamed feature in CivBE. I mean everything (except Religion - DLC?)
    - Terrain is extremely drab and bland. You can't make out clearly what things are and it's just plain ugly!
    - Music is not immersive
    - Same bugs from Civ5. The Production queue jumping (when trying to do something else first). The grey texture lag is now black, but the same.
    -The is even LESS diplomacy than before, absolutely nothing to trade as luxury resources are gone.
    - Health (Happiness) MUST be a priority, expanding or not.
    - Can chose a perk to show outline of every island in game.... SUPER OP! Takes the fun out of exploring!    … Expand
  45. sundeki
    Oct 25, 2014
    6
    I really wanted to like this game.

    When I first started playing, the first thing that came to mind was "This is just a Civilization V re-skin". That feeling began to go away the more I played and I began to enjoy it quite a bit. Then I began to get a different feeling: The game feels completely empty. There is a complete lack of content and variation. There is no Alien variation. I    I really wanted to like this game.

    When I first started playing, the first thing that came to mind was "This is just a Civilization V re-skin". That feeling began to go away the more I played and I began to enjoy it quite a bit. Then I began to get a different feeling: The game feels completely empty. There is a complete lack of content and variation. There is no Alien variation. I thought: "Well each different map you play on the aliens would have different stats and abilities randomly selected from a pool". Nope, they are identical every single time.

    The Alien AI is even poor. I thought that because of something else in the game (can't say because of spoilers) the Aliens would be far more efficient, adaptive and co-ordinated. They aren't. They are literally glorified barbarians.

    When the devs explained the affinity mechanic, I thought you would have to make hard choices. That you could only really go down one path, that each path was unique in some way. Disappointed yet again. Every game I've played; I've ended up with maxed of all affinities and that was without even trying to get them.

    There is a new mini-quest system that allows you to make small changes to your empire depending upon your choices. At first I thought this was really cool, as I've always enjoyed customization and choosing things for myself in games. Then I realized the quest pool is so small, unoriginal, void of any real choice and repetitive. I found myself doing the same things at the end of the game, that I did at the start of the game.

    The HUD was confusing until I figured it out, the whole thing is just one giant grey blur. The terrain was slightly interesting at first, but once that first feeling fades away it begins to look really ugly. The Diplomacy screen in every way has just been ripped from Civ V. The other factions literally say the exact same thing they did in Civ V. I could go on.

    Overall: the game is effectively a glorified re-skin of Civ V, but 80% of the content was removed and the HUD and terrain has been made ugly.

    6.5/10 : I would pay $30 max for this with hindsight (paid $50) and that's only if I was in a good mood.    … Expand
  46. Corinthian
    Oct 28, 2014
    5
    AI is still dumb as a brick. So no improvement from Civ V in this part. As of now (november 2014) Beyond Earth looks like a big DLC, not a standalone game.
  47. Kraks
    Oct 27, 2014
    5
    I've played well over 1500 turns at this point and still haven't had what I would call a "fun" game. The UI is pretty miserable when compared to Civ 5. The tech tree, for instance, doesn't really *pop* out anything except the affinities. You get to search and hover over everything to figure out where the wonders are.

    And on the topic of wonders...why don't many of them build anything    I've played well over 1500 turns at this point and still haven't had what I would call a "fun" game. The UI is pretty miserable when compared to Civ 5. The tech tree, for instance, doesn't really *pop* out anything except the affinities. You get to search and hover over everything to figure out where the wonders are.

    And on the topic of wonders...why don't many of them build anything at all? The feel very uninspiring and not very wonderful at all. I built 3 or 4 last game and not a single one of them had a building on the landscape.

    The aliens are annoying. You go from barbarians that can be turned off or at their worst can be defeated in a 100 turns or so to aliens that are never ending, respawn nests, and harass your units ceaselessly. Or, you can build your tech tree to focus on being friendly and adapting to them. Who cares though? That isn't really very interesting, and again, the lack of anything physical from this (other than alien units) is very bland.

    As for the AI, it is downright annoying. Diplomacy is one thing. Being spammed by the competition every single turn with the exact same boring audio and requests is awful. It doesn't take very long for their voices (especially the Asian lady) to grind on your ears like nails on a chalkboard.

    Speaking of annoying, the trading is just awful. Every 20 - 30 turns you have to reassign your traders. They should adjust this to only needing interaction if they are attacked, the city is attacked/under siege, or if something changes with your relations with the other faction. If you have 10 - 20 trade convoys or vessels running, you can easily expect to spend 50% of your interactions in the game just managing them.

    Oh, another UI problem....the victory types aren't explained. You can hover over most things in the setup of the game and get some information, but the victory types just say Domination (ok, duh), Contact, Promised Land, Emancipation and Transcendence. I had to look them up to figure out what some of them were.

    The game **could** be fun, but it really is just a slightly different take on past Civ games with less of a physical presence in the world. Most of the things you do augment what you've already built, not build anything new. It is very common to have the territory and your units looking bland and similar at turn 1 and turn 200.

    As it currently stands, I would not recommend this game. Civilization 5 was so well done, has so many mods, and the expansions are actually most of what this game contains. There is no reason to upgrade, and it is arguable that this is not an upgrade at all.    … Expand
  48. MagpieX
    Oct 25, 2014
    6
    There are a few times when you believe that a new game is going to be that successor to your favourite game of the past indeed. Then after it is released you are happy to see your anticipations and expectations being justified. This is not one of those times however and Civilization:Beyond Earth is not going to pick up where Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) left off nor does it try toThere are a few times when you believe that a new game is going to be that successor to your favourite game of the past indeed. Then after it is released you are happy to see your anticipations and expectations being justified. This is not one of those times however and Civilization:Beyond Earth is not going to pick up where Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) left off nor does it try to provide the same feel and diversion from its roots as SMAC did with Civilization 2 and make a different game based on its Civilization 5 engine.
    Whilst you can see that positive enhancements on the technical side have been made the core of the gameplay feels very similar to if not a step backward from Civilization 5. This is especially true on UI side which lacks key aspects people being used to such as strategic view, or its hidden and generally not very ergonomic. Ignoring that one aspect however for now there is a feeling that they could have done more and did not even try. Beneath the futuristic outlook lies a very vanilla game which essentially is more stable and robust than Civilization 5 was at its release but it is very conservative in approach. It tries to please many appetites but leaves one hungry still. The initial customization of the game is nice but it is ultimately not played out well throughout the game. The factions seem more or less be just dressed up buffbots accompanied by leaders whith a charisma of a city administration official. There are no unique units, truly unique faction aspects, and leaders don't even get to speak their own speeches once a tech has been researched which sets aside an aspect of SMAC where pieces of ideologies and technologies resulting from these were incorporated into the young society of the planet. This ultimately turns your leaders into more or less the same kind of person differentiated only through miniscule differences in diplomacy - let's not even mention it because it has little redemption value to how factions are handled.
    The technology model including affinities feel like a solid change but there is still a feeling they could have done more with it. In general when it comes to gameplay then if you are familiar with Civilization 5 you will quickly become accustomed to the game however on the other hand people hoping for a new game with new rules will be very disappointed. This is especially not helping to dismiss claims of being a Civilization 5 mod - in fact you are more inclined to agree with people claiming so and thus reinforcing them. It is obvious that Firaxis' developers seem to put too much emphasis on streamlining and don't seem to trust gamers enough anymore to allow expanding their formula a little more and make it a little bit more complex and foremostly: a bit more different which was the key difference between Civilization 2 and SMAC. It's probably a good start for a game series spinoff if it's going to get iterated on and shaped into its own distinctive game such as Civilization 5 got however it's not a good entry to a scene which has been bating its breath for a true SMAC spiritual successor which really may be based on over-expectations but then it is more often than not that expectations have to be put high in order to drive innovations. Being forced to constantly lower the bars cannot be healthy for the industry in long term and neither for Firaxis reputation either. Come on, guys, you can do it! Trust us more, we can handle a complex game with a lot of new features, we are big boys and girls, really. A lot of us have been playing since the original Civilization game! As such I am forced to say that whilst it's a decent game per se it is not one to be recommend at this current stage for the advertised price. There is a lot of potential there we still can't see it yet.    … Expand
  49. ducksaws
    Nov 2, 2014
    5
    There's so little interaction between you and the computer players, it's boring.

    There's no culture interaction between civs. All you have are a few culture buildings that are a counter towards a perk tree, similar to Civ 5, but there are only 4 trees and they're all accessible from the beginning. Doesn't feel like progression. So no tourism, no culture victory. no great people either.    There's so little interaction between you and the computer players, it's boring.

    There's no culture interaction between civs. All you have are a few culture buildings that are a counter towards a perk tree, similar to Civ 5, but there are only 4 trees and they're all accessible from the beginning. Doesn't feel like progression. So no tourism, no culture victory. no great people either.

    No religion. No influencing your opponents through borders or trade or missionaries. I didn't expect every feature to cross over into the new game, but since there's not really any culture either, I expected there to be SOMETHING to pressure your opponents with besides military strength.

    No luxury resources. But there's still happiness (only it's called health). If your health is negative, all you can do is build more buildings or try get culture perks. Luxury resources were really fun in Civ 5. They were a great thing to expand towards or trade for because happiness was so important. And having extra luxury resources to trade was like 75% of the trading that happened.

    No city states. There are stations, which are basically a tile you can trade with. They don't provide any resources. You don't have influence with them. They don't go to war. They don't have units or territory. All they really do is take up space you probably wanted to settle on.

    Did I expect every good feature from Civ 5 to make it to this game? No. Did I expect there to be any interaction between Civilizations besides declaring war on them when you get bored? Yes.

    Because the lack of culture, religion, or world congress means that they had to come up with new victory conditions. The new victory conditions are terrible. They basically include researching a certain thing, building a wonder, and then waiting a certain number of turns until the wonder wins the game for you.

    This is a huge difference between the other conditions in Civ 5. In a culture victory you constantly try to boost your culture not because it's a winning condition but because having lots of culture gets you lots of perks and having cultural influence over other civs is strategically useful. In a diplomacy victory getting more votes means that you have a better chance at getting your way with international policy. A science victory comes with having the best and most technology.

    Here the winning conditions are so aimless. You can go on playing the game for hours with no idea what the winning conditions are and not doing anything towards them because they're so far removed from the core gameplay mechanics. You might as well be playing the game against a timer rather than other civs who are competing to have a stronger culture or diplomatic presence than you.    … Expand
  50. Eysteinh
    Nov 4, 2014
    5
    I wish BE was a good civ5 mod. Sadly the MP code of the game is terrible broken in vanilla release. Out of synchs happen very frequently and in over 150 hours of games I have only finished a single MP game without any serious out of synch problems causing disconnects or even worse when rehosting causing one or several players to have lost technologies or buildings built during theyreI wish BE was a good civ5 mod. Sadly the MP code of the game is terrible broken in vanilla release. Out of synchs happen very frequently and in over 150 hours of games I have only finished a single MP game without any serious out of synch problems causing disconnects or even worse when rehosting causing one or several players to have lost technologies or buildings built during theyre turns. In its core gameplay civ BE has some interesting elements, but sadly it is a step back from civ5 mp and even that is a step back from civ4 MP. I wish Firaxis would start to take the MP community serious again. I have bought and played every civ game since civ1 on amiga and I am now for the first time in my life seriously considering not buying the next civ game as enough is enough.… Expand
  51. EffigyX
    Oct 26, 2014
    6
    Not a BAD game, but not distinct enough from Civ V, and matches up poorly against the added depth and complexity added by the latter game's expansions.

    And unfortunately, Beyond Earth is also no Alpha Centauri, with bland factions and a background narrative that failed to engage me. It has nothing like the sense of SMAC's bitter ideological conflict between extremist factions led by    Not a BAD game, but not distinct enough from Civ V, and matches up poorly against the added depth and complexity added by the latter game's expansions.

    And unfortunately, Beyond Earth is also no Alpha Centauri, with bland factions and a background narrative that failed to engage me. It has nothing like the sense of SMAC's bitter ideological conflict between extremist factions led by mad geniuses.

    Unless you MUST play it, I'd recommend waiting a few years for more content to be added.    … Expand
  52. Ayreos
    Oct 25, 2014
    5
    The opening cinematic was amazing. The game itself wasn't. Why? Because it is a camouflaged older game, Civilization V. A game the developers seems convinced was successful. And maybe it was, but not with the historical Civ fandom. With this iteration the Civ series has finally shed all pretense to reveal the publisher's true motivation: to copy and profit on Starcraft's popularity. Civ'sThe opening cinematic was amazing. The game itself wasn't. Why? Because it is a camouflaged older game, Civilization V. A game the developers seems convinced was successful. And maybe it was, but not with the historical Civ fandom. With this iteration the Civ series has finally shed all pretense to reveal the publisher's true motivation: to copy and profit on Starcraft's popularity. Civ's old and appassionate fandom was clearly too tight for their income aspirations, yet not tight enough to spare them from slapping the beloved "Civilization" trademark on a Starcraft 2 clone.
    That said, the problems i find with this game are the same i found with Civ5. And they all stem from limitation. There is a new quest system. But these quests cannot be actively pursued and are limited in number and type. There is Civ5's innovative hexagon movement style. However the map is full of miasma (obstacles) and ranged units from the very beginning, making positioning either irrelevant or downright frustrating.
    Map size can be chosen up to "massive", however most unit movement is tailored for the ridiculously small, Starcraft-like maps, which ends up distorting gameplay, as technology and productions goes at one speed, while the units at another. This happens even in slower progression settings.
    Research, virtues and affinity systems of progress are all interesting and apparently versatile, but they end up constraining each other, destroying all emergent gameplay in the process and forcing the player in a narrow corridor of choices. That's because achieving a victory type is not up to strategy, but picking the pre-determined corridor.
    These limitations show how the developer attempted to create a fast, competitive, and perfectly balanced multiplayer experience, by disregarding the singleplayer greatness that made the franchise so popular and beloved in the first place. The result is that instead of a wide breadth intersecting and unforeseen choices and strategies, players are constrained into becoming akin the poor AI they have to combat. Limited in movement, unit stacking, AI depth, progress types and immediate choices, this game punishes what it should by nature reward: experimentation, creativity and ambition. I guess it's back to Civ2 and AC for me. Once again this industry has taught me that my habit of trying games before purchasing them or, god forbid, pre-purchasing them, is the only way to avoid supporting such rotten practices as game-cloning and rehashing. I applaud the developers for having no qualms in receiving paychecks for such behaviors. I wouldn't be able to come to terms with knowing i trick my fans for a wage.    … Expand
  53. Jayschwa
    Nov 1, 2014
    6
    The game feels like it needed another 6 months of play-testing and polish. After playing a few games, I think I'll probably go back to Civ 5: BNW until BE gets some patch love. I do still have some faith that after some patches and maybe an expansion, it can be a great game. Firaxis is usually good about that (e.g. Civ 5 sucked at launch too).

    My biggest problems with the game right now    The game feels like it needed another 6 months of play-testing and polish. After playing a few games, I think I'll probably go back to Civ 5: BNW until BE gets some patch love. I do still have some faith that after some patches and maybe an expansion, it can be a great game. Firaxis is usually good about that (e.g. Civ 5 sucked at launch too).

    My biggest problems with the game right now are:

    1) There are 5 advertised victory conditions, but it's realistically more like 2 *types* of victory conditions. Classic domination (i.e. defeat all your enemies and capture their capitals) and building a planetary wonder. Each affinity has its own planetary wonder victory, plus a generic Contact one. They're all essentially the same - research some stuff, build a thing, wait for thing to countdown, win. It doesn't feel very interesting, nor does it involve interaction with other civs like the tourism or world leader victories in BNW.

    2) The UI feels like several steps backwards from Civ 5, both in terms of functionality and aesthetics. City screens require extra clicks to show what is being built or to change production. Trade route screens no longer have the ability to sort by different resources. The monotone color scheme makes it hard to identify stuff.

    3) AI is dumb, repetitive, and more or less unnecessary to interact with unless you're going for a Domination victory. The American CEO quotes Adam Smith. The African guy talks about a village. Every god damn time. It's both extremely repetitive and extremely cliche. How hard would it have been to book the voice actors for a couple more hours and record a larger variety of lines? I also think there was wasted potential with the visual changes to the leaders as they go down an affinity. Most changes are just a change in clothes color, and maybe there's a wire on their forehead. The African leader actually looks pretty cool for the Supremacy (cyborg) affinity. It makes me think maybe they just ran out of time to be detailed on the rest of the leaders.

    4) Game balance is broken. In Civ 5, I used to enjoy playing with just a handful of super-cities (playing tall?). Thus far, it seems that dropping cities on every available space is the way to go since trade routes are capped per city and not per civ. Trade routes get spammed between cities, and then you end up in trade route micromanagement hell in late game as you have to keep reassigning them.    … Expand
  54. nebulousfury
    Oct 27, 2014
    7
    Overall this is a quality game with hours upon hours of game play which will suck you in for quite a while. However there is a certain "empty" feeling in the game at times. What they have added I think should certainly be kept for future games... however what they have taken away should probably be added back. This game has more potential than Civ 5 - however it falls slightly short ofOverall this is a quality game with hours upon hours of game play which will suck you in for quite a while. However there is a certain "empty" feeling in the game at times. What they have added I think should certainly be kept for future games... however what they have taken away should probably be added back. This game has more potential than Civ 5 - however it falls slightly short of Civ 5 in a few aspects.… Expand
  55. DarkCenturion
    Oct 31, 2014
    5
    Overall, very disappointed in this game. I have been waiting for Firaxis Games to bring out a sequel to SMAC for years. I pray this is not it. Take Civilization V and put it in space, you have Beyond Earth,. Its in a different party dress, but it is the same game more or less. For shame Firaxis!
  56. FlamingGamer
    Oct 26, 2014
    5
    Disappointed is a light word here, disgusted is more appropriate. Here's a perfect example of spending more on marketing than on the game itself. Really, I mean, this is just lazy, flat, cardboard and embarrassing. More work went into some mods for Civ 5 than went into this game. Speaking of which, that's what this should have been, a mod. It makes me sick that I've waited so long forDisappointed is a light word here, disgusted is more appropriate. Here's a perfect example of spending more on marketing than on the game itself. Really, I mean, this is just lazy, flat, cardboard and embarrassing. More work went into some mods for Civ 5 than went into this game. Speaking of which, that's what this should have been, a mod. It makes me sick that I've waited so long for this and now I just want to go back to playing Endless Legend.

    That being said (or ranted), it's Civilization. After 600+ hours on Civ 5 it's probably safe to assume I'll be giving Civ BE multiple chances to redeem itself with updates, patches, DLC, and of course microtransactions. I feel screwed though, ripped off. This won't be forgotten 2K, you gave us a $60 mod for Civ 5 and hyped the hell out of it. That's just insulting.    … Expand
  57. navlasop
    Oct 27, 2014
    5
    Okay, finished the game three times now.

    TL;DR It's okay, but it's lacking...polish and soul. If you got cash around, sure buy it. If not you can wait for a sale in a couple of months, no sweat. Long version: The game and the mechanics are solid. The quests are a nice addition, as well as the way you can customize your buildings. tech and "race". As for the aliens they're scary    Okay, finished the game three times now.

    TL;DR It's okay, but it's lacking...polish and soul. If you got cash around, sure buy it. If not you can wait for a sale in a couple of months, no sweat.

    Long version:
    The game and the mechanics are solid.
    The quests are a nice addition, as well as the way you can customize your buildings. tech and "race".
    As for the aliens they're scary first game or two, then you just leave em alone. Wish they could have done it better.

    Tech tree will be confusing first couple games until you learn it.
    Combat is decent enough.

    Max map size seems to be way smaller then huge maps in CIV 5. Tough you can forget about more then 4 cities unless you go all in biowell.

    Diplomacy...feels like it's just tacked on. None of the other races/AI players feel like they have a personality.

    Finished the game through harmony and purity...all you get is a grey popup saying some stuff, then two seconds later, the same but with some colors and voice.
    Come on! At least give us a small in game cinematic for a win... First time i won i was like...was that it??? And there's no statistics on your victory screen as in previous CIV games, just quit to menu or "one more turn". Very un epic.    … Expand
  58. TheVJ
    Oct 27, 2014
    5
    I'm giving this a 5/10 for now because it just does too many things wrong. Actually, the only positive change is the tech web - that is interesting and works well. But everything else is such a mess, from the civs barely being any different (tiny bonuses are all the variation you'll get), to leaders having no personalities to there being no victory/loss screen and many other issues, thisI'm giving this a 5/10 for now because it just does too many things wrong. Actually, the only positive change is the tech web - that is interesting and works well. But everything else is such a mess, from the civs barely being any different (tiny bonuses are all the variation you'll get), to leaders having no personalities to there being no victory/loss screen and many other issues, this game is just not good right now and I'd strongly suggest playing a modded Civ V with both DLCs over this for now.… Expand
  59. Perun
    Oct 25, 2014
    6
    Its solid TBS as it is, but when you look at it closely, its retextured civ 5
    Races are bland, have no advantages, research is bland, unit upgrades are bland, have no soul, you never feel like you really colonizing alien planet, they done A LOT better job with their game "colonization" than with game about colonizing alien planet, where imagination is limitless
    Dumbed down bland Alpha    Its solid TBS as it is, but when you look at it closely, its retextured civ 5
    Races are bland, have no advantages, research is bland, unit upgrades are bland, have no soul, you never feel like you really colonizing alien planet, they done A LOT better job with their game "colonization" than with game about colonizing alien planet, where imagination is limitless
    Dumbed down bland Alpha Centauri clone made from existing game
    And 50 euro for civ 5 expansion? Are they crazy? Without huge paid marketing advertisment all around gaming sites that game should cost 25-30 euro max
    But hey, dumb person (like myself), will buy this game without checking it

    So game is good, buy it on -50% sale and enjoy civ5 space expansion pack, but definitely not worth 50 euro    … Expand
  60. hipster
    Oct 25, 2014
    6
    Rating it a 6 because it was marketed as a full game, but is clearly a reskinned version of the base game with the exception of the tech tree, starting materials, and a slightly reorganized civics tree.

    Tactically, the game plays the same but I think the strategies are very different. Instead of several big decisions made over the game, you make very many small decisions that add up and    Rating it a 6 because it was marketed as a full game, but is clearly a reskinned version of the base game with the exception of the tech tree, starting materials, and a slightly reorganized civics tree.

    Tactically, the game plays the same but I think the strategies are very different. Instead of several big decisions made over the game, you make very many small decisions that add up and can really provide synergy depending on your playstyle. This means that there are probably millions of combinations--every building seems to have two functional options, which might seem insignificant at first, but remember that in Civ 5, some civs had ONE unique building and others didn't even have one, here every building is potentially unique.

    Not worth the $37 (yes, it's already on sale), so I'd wait to buy it. This really feels like it should have been an expansion to Civ5.    … Expand
  61. ecoagg11
    Oct 25, 2014
    6
    Nice visuals and such, but core mechanic is no different. UI is much clunkier and harder to manage than previous titles, and being able to gleam any information from the screen is much more difficult. No single player campaigns any more, and the few advancements are just poorly executed versions of Endless Space/Legend series
  62. bthomas
    Oct 26, 2014
    6
    Beyond Earth brings a few nice additions to the franchise. The new branch-leaf concept for the Tech Web makes for a more versatile playthrough, and the new Affinities and their related unit upgrading system is really interesting.

    UI and overall graphic experience is reasonable. The filter on the Tech Web is really handy and in my opinion is one of the best UI improvements in the    Beyond Earth brings a few nice additions to the franchise. The new branch-leaf concept for the Tech Web makes for a more versatile playthrough, and the new Affinities and their related unit upgrading system is really interesting.

    UI and overall graphic experience is reasonable. The filter on the Tech Web is really handy and in my opinion is one of the best UI improvements in the franchise.

    AI problems still persist, though. Workers have no sense of opportunity, and AI civilizations have no sense of measure when deciding what to offer or demand in a peace deal.

    It is a good game, but I expected more.    … Expand
  63. AngryRoach
    Oct 24, 2014
    5
    I'm very dissapointed by the game, it plays like Civilization 5, but without the huge tech tree and advancing through the ages. Tech tree in this game is awfully small, and the UI looks ugly. Aliens are cool yes, but after a while they just feel like reskinned barbarians. Factions are boring, and there is only total 8 of them, and the number of players in game is also limited compared toI'm very dissapointed by the game, it plays like Civilization 5, but without the huge tech tree and advancing through the ages. Tech tree in this game is awfully small, and the UI looks ugly. Aliens are cool yes, but after a while they just feel like reskinned barbarians. Factions are boring, and there is only total 8 of them, and the number of players in game is also limited compared to CIV 5. Beyond earth just feels really lifeless compared to CIV 5. If you really do want to buy this game, I would wait until price drop.

    Also, there are almost next to no units in-game, and all faction units look basically the same.    … Expand
  64. idea
    Oct 29, 2014
    7
    This game is a decent successor to the series, it doesn't introduce anything incredibly exciting and has lost some of the charm of it's predecessors. Sadly there is an incredible disparity between what the 'professional' critics thought of the game, and the gamer's themselves. at the time of writing this 87% of the critic reviews are 'positive' while only 36 of the user reviews areThis game is a decent successor to the series, it doesn't introduce anything incredibly exciting and has lost some of the charm of it's predecessors. Sadly there is an incredible disparity between what the 'professional' critics thought of the game, and the gamer's themselves. at the time of writing this 87% of the critic reviews are 'positive' while only 36 of the user reviews are positive. Metacritic may want to investigate the cause of this disparity because it is causing my friends and myself to lose faith in this site for critical reviews, instead turning to guys like angry joe and the escapist who are often more honest and accurate.… Expand
  65. ReYnevan
    Oct 26, 2014
    6
    Greatest DLC for Civilization V ever:) and...highest prize ever for DLC;) THIS IS NOT A NEW GAME:) Civilization V was for me greatest game ever so i expect new, fine game NOT DLC:) Beyond Earth is fine, playing well, but is too short for me. Disappointment for now. Almost 40 Euro for dlc is a joke:)
  66. derbyherb
    Oct 24, 2014
    6
    -To start off, I'm disappointed
    -In case you were wondering, the AI King of Derptopia still overextends himself founding an obscene number of settlements all over the map and then gets self-righteous about what everyone else does near him when he's taking up the whole screen.
    -Diplomacy feels a straight port from Civ 5. -Virtues are social policies given a new name. Many of them are    -To start off, I'm disappointed
    -In case you were wondering, the AI King of Derptopia still overextends himself founding an obscene number of settlements all over the map and then gets self-righteous about what everyone else does near him when he's taking up the whole screen.
    -Diplomacy feels a straight port from Civ 5.
    -Virtues are social policies given a new name. Many of them are taken directly from Civ 5.
    -Don't accept at face value reviews trying to convince you that "aliens are not Civ 5 barbs." They perform the same functional purpose in the game, but require a more complicated foreign policy. So you can't just kill them all. Even though you want to.
    -Miasma... My personal opinion is that it wasn't a good call to cover 50%ish of the maps tiles with what is basically lava. Stand in lava, unit loses HP. Moving units around is a drag because you're constantly healing from and trying to get around miasma. Yes you can evolve science to deal with it or benefit from it.. but it's another annoying obstacle. Can I just turn it off?
    -I played the hell out of Civ 5. Lots of PC gamers did. We know the game inside and out. But like all games it got old after a while... Civ 5 had nothing left to offer. I think 2K took the lazy route developing this game by basically porting Civ 5 into space. Even though it's packaged as a new game it feels like I'm playing Civ 5. So I'm kind of bored of the core gameplay and lack incentive to really get into the game.    … Expand
  67. terminxman
    Nov 3, 2014
    5
    This game is nowhere near what we were promised. The Aliens really have no effect other than annoyance. You can choose to coexist with them, or just kill them. Either way you really get no benefits from coexisting with them. There is no endgame with the aliens, they are simply there to kill or leave alone. You can either get "Purity, Supremacy, or Harmony" points, which allow you toThis game is nowhere near what we were promised. The Aliens really have no effect other than annoyance. You can choose to coexist with them, or just kill them. Either way you really get no benefits from coexisting with them. There is no endgame with the aliens, they are simply there to kill or leave alone. You can either get "Purity, Supremacy, or Harmony" points, which allow you to upgrade to different units depending on how many point of it you have. Other than that there are some very minor effects from it.

    We were promised "unit customization" which was a complete lie (Although there will probably be a **** DLC for it). There is no customization, other than the fact that you can upgrade to different units (with very minor differences) depending on what your affinity is (to purity, supremacy, harmony). You can't even so much as change the color of your units. You literally start with a Soldier for example, which you can upgrade to a marine. Then there are three different "options." They aren't really options because if your affinity is towards Purity, then you can only select the next unit in the tree. The tree of units basically looks like this:

    Soldier
    ^
    Marine
    ^ ^ ^
    | | |
    | | |
    | | |

    The interface is almost exactly the same as civ 5, and all of the gameplay is exactly the same. There are no other planets to explore, the randomly generated planets basically consist of three different types (hot, mild, cold). The appearance is always exactly the same except the terrain will range from blueish to reddish depending on the temperature.

    A big point they made when presenting the game initially was that "OH, THERE ARE MULTIPLE LAYERS TO THE WORLD, YOU CAN GO TO OTHER PLANETS AND **** In reality all this meant was that you could launch satellites which have some benefits. That's about it.

    I almost forgot about the different "Sponsors," which are basically Beyond Earth's version of your Ruler in past civs. Except there are only 5 or 6. It really doesn't matter, and you won't give a **** once you make it further in the game. They consist of: Some French, African, Russian (typical sterotypical communist looking leader), Brazil, etc. Pretty much the most basic, unimaginative leaders that a teenager could come up with. Also, why are there still Africans, South Americans, etc in the year what? 2600? I thought Earth was destroyed or something, why are there still different countries and races? Wouldn't we all just be brownish people with no nationality since nations are no more?

    And the horrible tech web. Yes, to further "improve" the tech upgrade tree, they just made it a massive web of techs with 3 techs in each tree. Also, it's hundreds of years into the future and I'm having to research **** technology to make a **** boat? Or Aircraft with a range of like 3 tiles? What the **** How did we get to this planet in the first place? It takes halfway through a game to even start getting to futuristic tech. The more I write on this review, the more I remember about how disappointing this game is.

    There is really no upgrade to diplomacy. It's still very basic and unless you are playing multiplayer with friends, then there is pretty much no interaction or indication of how the AI feels about you. Other than "Friendly, neutral, hostile." There isn't an obvious way to improve your relations manually. It just happens abstractly until you can form a "cooperation agreement."

    Basically, this isn't a bad game. If you have never played Civ 5, then it is a good game. If you have played Civ 5 and expected a new game with a bunch of new features, and some Alpha Centauri elements, then you will be extremely dissapointed. I'm not sure why all of the major gaming publications are harping it as the second coming of Alpha Centauri, because it isn't even close.

    At least Paradox is still making serious strategy games, because the Civ series is pretty much dead to me.    … Expand
  68. tomasdee
    Oct 29, 2014
    5
    I really looked fwd to playing this game and shelled out the premium to do so on release day (i normally avoid that now days). Not sure what i was expecting but in the end Beyond Earth feels the same as Civ 5, its just one big endless grind..... It feels like whether you win or lose comes down to luck - whether you get a good start point, whether the other civs are aggressive to you orI really looked fwd to playing this game and shelled out the premium to do so on release day (i normally avoid that now days). Not sure what i was expecting but in the end Beyond Earth feels the same as Civ 5, its just one big endless grind..... It feels like whether you win or lose comes down to luck - whether you get a good start point, whether the other civs are aggressive to you or not, whether the aliens hate you or ignore you. For me, i think beyond earth will suffer the same fate as Civ 5 - 'are you sure you wish to uninstall this program?' 'yes'.… Expand
  69. Surg3on
    Oct 26, 2014
    6
    Generally a disappointing reskin of Civ5 with what looks like very little work put into it (seriously, Firaxis either didn't spend much money or the employees spent a lot of time watching cat videos on YouTube). Luckily the core game is OK and looks nice. I would recommend waiting until the first expansion pack to fix the multitude of terrible UI decisions, useless diplomacy, trade routesGenerally a disappointing reskin of Civ5 with what looks like very little work put into it (seriously, Firaxis either didn't spend much money or the employees spent a lot of time watching cat videos on YouTube). Luckily the core game is OK and looks nice. I would recommend waiting until the first expansion pack to fix the multitude of terrible UI decisions, useless diplomacy, trade routes mess, missing win screes, slapped together wonder screens.

    I do like the new style of military upgrades and the tech tree is a good idea (if very difficult to learn). The aliens will be good after some patching.    … Expand
  70. Mikimax
    Nov 2, 2014
    6
    I'm pretty disappointing with this game. This is basically a CIV 5 total conversion mod with optimized engine and nice graphics. The strongest area of the game is in the beginning when you are fighting for survival against aliens. Game feels unfinished and shallow. Huge opportunity wasted.
  71. TFORPULLONE
    Nov 17, 2014
    6
    Firaxis Games got a great change to bring up the Civilization's franchises excellent turn-based strategy
    to bigger audiences with new environment, enemies and totally with experience on another
    planet. But the great opportunity for this massive game was wasted by just using the same figures which were in the last game Civilization 5. The differences from Civilization 5 to Beyond Earth    Firaxis Games got a great change to bring up the Civilization's franchises excellent turn-based strategy
    to bigger audiences with new environment, enemies and totally with experience on another
    planet. But the great opportunity for this massive game was wasted by just using the same
    figures which were in the last game Civilization 5.
    The differences from Civilization 5 to Beyond Earth are nonexistent. Barbarian rebels are
    replaced with aliens. Science progression tree is replaced with progression web. Communicating
    with civilizations in the game is still as poor as it was in the earlier Civilization game. The multiplayer
    suffers from connection problems and lack of active servers as well public ones.These problems
    with game and lack of new gameplay aren't acceptable.
    The game doesn't really give new figures to the game. But the new players can think that the game kicks
    ass and it's cool what it is now. But the older players like me doesn't feel like this game deserves a 9/10 or 10/10. It's a huge disappointment and the game doesn't deserve 50 bucks to spend right now. But when new civilizations and bugs are fixed and price is lower. It's then one of the best strategy games to
    pick up. PS 17.11.2014    … Expand
  72. JugoZille
    Oct 27, 2014
    7
    I love Civilization. I also like Beyond Earth. However, I had more fun with the other Civilization games or Alpha Centauri.

    The gameplay is very close to Civ5, but the SciFi setting is too generic and not used to full extent. I dont really know what to do with the aliens. I tried to be on "harmony" with them, but they kept on destroying my workers and traders, so I eventually had to    I love Civilization. I also like Beyond Earth. However, I had more fun with the other Civilization games or Alpha Centauri.

    The gameplay is very close to Civ5, but the SciFi setting is too generic and not used to full extent. I dont really know what to do with the aliens. I tried to be on "harmony" with them, but they kept on destroying my workers and traders, so I eventually had to kill them.

    It seems for me that the difficulty was lowered, too. Usually I have a tough time when playing Civ games on medium difficulty, but in beyond earth I never had any trouble, I dont even build military units.

    I will continue on playing, but I am not as exicted as with other Civ games.    … Expand
  73. Jingo
    Nov 22, 2014
    6
    I tend to play each Civ game for around 400 hours. Might not with Beyond Earth. It's a downgraded version of Gods and Kings with space flavour added. Nice change at first, but then you realise it's the same game with less content. They'll fix that, I'm sure, but you'll have to pay $50 for each expansion. Overall it's still a playable game, but not quite as good as the most recentI tend to play each Civ game for around 400 hours. Might not with Beyond Earth. It's a downgraded version of Gods and Kings with space flavour added. Nice change at first, but then you realise it's the same game with less content. They'll fix that, I'm sure, but you'll have to pay $50 for each expansion. Overall it's still a playable game, but not quite as good as the most recent predecessor. And unlike those people who gave DA3 a 0 rating because they didn't like one thing, I'm mature enough to understand a 0-10 rating system...… Expand
  74. Kazek7
    Nov 3, 2014
    6
    There isn't much to say about this game. It's Civilization 5 with aliens and more futuristic units. That can be a good thing, or a bad thing depending on your view. I found that there weren't enough leaders, and the leaders we got were boring talking heads. The Computer AI is horrible with combat, They send in their units in to die with no strategy. And if they declare war on you, TheyThere isn't much to say about this game. It's Civilization 5 with aliens and more futuristic units. That can be a good thing, or a bad thing depending on your view. I found that there weren't enough leaders, and the leaders we got were boring talking heads. The Computer AI is horrible with combat, They send in their units in to die with no strategy. And if they declare war on you, They usually beg for peace 5 turns later. There isn't much new in this game, Which is disappointing But it doesn't make it a terrible game.… Expand
  75. Tubey
    Oct 24, 2014
    6
    All the flaws of the original Civ5 game before it was fixed with DLC, with a glossy space finish over the top.

    Not much more to be said. It's an above average strategy game that will enthuse newcomers to the series or those who got their feet wet in Civ5, but underwhelm anyone who played Civ4 due to unwelcome return of streamlined gameplay and fairly linear development paths. If    All the flaws of the original Civ5 game before it was fixed with DLC, with a glossy space finish over the top.

    Not much more to be said. It's an above average strategy game that will enthuse newcomers to the series or those who got their feet wet in Civ5, but underwhelm anyone who played Civ4 due to unwelcome return of streamlined gameplay and fairly linear development paths.

    If you're looking for a truly top class space strategy experience, you'd be better off investigating your hours in Alpha Centauri. Beyond Earth isn't a bad game, but it isn't a classic either, and given that it strives to live in the lofty company of some other titles in the Sid Meier back catalogue, it doesn't reach those heights or even come close.    … Expand
  76. AkitoSilver
    Oct 25, 2014
    5
    Beyond Earh disapointed me,doesn't like Cililiazation V,The map is too small ,I think.What is more,It is a pity that they change the sicence net into sicence map,which I think is not good.
  77. Chaeote
    Oct 25, 2014
    7
    The customization of your Civilization is nice. You're not stuck with just picking a nation, and getting the pros and cons of it. You can actually pick each bonus.

    It's also a bit different to play. Rapid expansion is basically useless from what I can see, it's a lot better to concentrate on 5 or less cities. The problems however, are kinda infuriating. Each Civ starts at a different    The customization of your Civilization is nice. You're not stuck with just picking a nation, and getting the pros and cons of it. You can actually pick each bonus.

    It's also a bit different to play. Rapid expansion is basically useless from what I can see, it's a lot better to concentrate on 5 or less cities.

    The problems however, are kinda infuriating. Each Civ starts at a different point in time, which is kinda cool, but the problem is, the drop-ship locations where they start seem random. Which causes them to sometimes drop in RIGHT next to your borders you've already established as your own, and then they **** at YOU everytime you expand or make a new town, even though you were there first, and they're the invaders.

    Then, there's your early units...they're basically USELESS. The first soldiers can't win a fight toe-to-toe, even against the simplest alien. The scouts die in 2 hits, if you're lucky. The Aliens are completely unpredictable. They aren't suppose to be overtly hostile, but sometimes they just decide "I KILL YOU!" even if you aren't near their nest, which makes exploration impossible without an alien unit of your own.

    Then if you get in a fight with another civ in the early game, you CANNOT take their towns. Yuu just can't.

    I obliterated every military unit the Civ had, surrounded his capital, and just could not do enough damage to the city. Taking losses are fine, but required 30+ units to take one city is ridiculous. In Civ 5 you could manage it with some decent range attackers and a couple siege units.

    But it just comes back to your units being far too weak for combat, even with a few upgrades, they're gonna lose 50% of their health in 1 round.

    There just doesn't seem to be a way to build an army without concentrating on nothing but making one, even as a defensive only military, they just have zero survivability.

    The Tech web, while neat, is a HUGE learning curve, and I think one thing that would be great would be to be able to zoom out on it completely, and still be able to read what each node does, but you can't. It just goes to an Icon-only view-mode, and completely obscures the subsets of each technology.

    The game isn't bad, but, honestly, it's just not worth playing of Civ 5 w/ the expansions.

    Maybe after some time, people cna make some Mods that'll flesh out and fix some things, but until then... Don't expect anything ground breaking.    … Expand
  78. Ferigad
    Oct 27, 2014
    6
    It´s a good game with flaws, that´s why i can´t give it more then a 6 in my opinion. The singelplayer mode is interesting, but still feels a bit unfinished. It has balance issues and the multiplayer experience is spoiled. Any game with more then 4 users will end in a close to guarantee crash/disconnect of some or all players in the first 50 rounds.

    The look of the game is like civ 5,    It´s a good game with flaws, that´s why i can´t give it more then a 6 in my opinion. The singelplayer mode is interesting, but still feels a bit unfinished. It has balance issues and the multiplayer experience is spoiled. Any game with more then 4 users will end in a close to guarantee crash/disconnect of some or all players in the first 50 rounds.

    The look of the game is like civ 5, only with alien planets this time. Many colors, but no real difference between the different tile sets of the planets. Some of the text segments seems to be 1:1 copy from civ 5. That leads to the assumption that at least some parts , like the diplomatic system, was simple copy past over. Even with a moderate or high difficult scale, the AI won´t react very clever or creative, so the singleplayer experience will run dry at some point. Still you get 50-100 game hours out of it, but after that you have done it all and seen it all.

    So in the end, whats left? It´s a good game. And it has still flaws that compromises the game play experience. If i had to put my finger on it, i would say it is a game in mid/late beta. Singleplayer is deffinitly release ready, even if it´s shallow, but multiplayer is still beta. The issues with mutliplayer goes from crashing/disconnects to not calculated bonuses from the start screen, gui freezes and some other minor issues. Games with more then 4 Persons are not possible, and even with a max. of 4 ppl it will sooner or later lead to a crash or disconnect of an player.

    At other circumstances i would give it a 7-8 (more like a 8 because i am a civ fan, but honestly, it would maybe a 78 or 77 because in the end it´s not a new game, it´s civ 5 with a new look, far less content and slightly different systems), but the game is composed out of multiplayer and singleplayer.    … Expand
  79. Spiralus
    Nov 2, 2014
    6
    This one started out really rough for me. After discovering that I had to leave and then re-enter full screen (huge bug?) frame rate and resolution stabilized enough to be playable. I actually wound up liking the U.I. After two play-throughs I can't give the game a lower rating than a five. No game that I willingly play for more than six hours deserves a lower score than that. That beingThis one started out really rough for me. After discovering that I had to leave and then re-enter full screen (huge bug?) frame rate and resolution stabilized enough to be playable. I actually wound up liking the U.I. After two play-throughs I can't give the game a lower rating than a five. No game that I willingly play for more than six hours deserves a lower score than that. That being said - the criticism that keeps coming up here - that the game doesn't do much new is pretty much spot on. That said, there ARE some fresh mechanics that I found interesting. The affinities while awfully named are neat in that they link the tech tree directly to your civ's cultural personality - which makes a lot of real world sense. The other noteworthy criticism is that the game DOES play a lot easier than Civ V. I annihilated both my first two games on normal +1 then normal +2 - which just shouldn't be possible in this type of game. We the players expect to loose our first game when we select anything harder than normal in a strategy game.
    In short: if you loved Civilization V and would like to play it again in space then buy this game. It IS a good turn based civ builder. It's expensive but it's a pretty big budget development for a small target market.    … Expand
  80. Nican
    Nov 1, 2014
    6
    Definitely not one of the better installment of the series.

    The user interface is lacking. The soundtrack mediocre. But most of all, the game is a bit simplistic. The strategic choices you make have significantly less impact then in the previous civ games. Managing the military units in particular has become almost boring. You can safely skip this title to save some money. If you    Definitely not one of the better installment of the series.

    The user interface is lacking. The soundtrack mediocre.

    But most of all, the game is a bit simplistic. The strategic choices you make have significantly less impact then in the previous civ games. Managing the military units in particular has become almost boring.

    You can safely skip this title to save some money. If you want to discover the Civilisation series, go for Civ 5.    … Expand
  81. MarioNvano
    Nov 3, 2014
    5
    Some say this game is not bad. This is not true, it's technically a mess but it plays smoothly enough to keep you going. I don't get why more reviews mention the actual short comings of the game.

    Good: It's a nice refreshing approach for those who are not that familiar with the older Sid Meier's games. The interface is pretty good and the aliens bring a nice challenge to the early game    Some say this game is not bad. This is not true, it's technically a mess but it plays smoothly enough to keep you going. I don't get why more reviews mention the actual short comings of the game.

    Good:
    It's a nice refreshing approach for those who are not that familiar with the older Sid Meier's games. The interface is pretty good and the aliens bring a nice challenge to the early game and have a better role strategy wise than the barbarians of the previous games.
    Later on you pick from three unique directions to grow in which will influence the way your army looks and feels. This is done mainly by researching, so the faction you pick will greatly influence your tech choices. This is way better than the few unique country bonuses from the older games and because of this, the replay ability is way better.

    Bad:
    The game focuses so much on streamlining a lot of features that give a game a nice feel are removed.
    For example if it's becoming a close game between you and an AI. You have a pretty strong army but they researched fast and are close to an alternative win situation. First off you get no notion of them doing this. There is a small tab that shows their progress but it goes in heeps. One turn it's 25% another turn it's 75%. Some Nps's or players jump to 75% instantly or finish the game. Secondly once it's done you get this game over screen and it's basically over. You don't get to see who won. No time line, nothing. You don't see what win ended the game. In mp anyone could have won. You can't know.

    And the game is filled with these things that show a rushed triple A title. Further examples of this are trade and politics screen. You can no longer figure out underlying politics. And you have to refresh every trade route, open borders, alliance every couple turns. Let's say you have 7 cities with each 3 trade routes. You set up trade routes with foreign players and internal cities. But these expire every couple turns. It doesn't give you the option to automatically continue trade route or to keep borders open. No it cancels the route or open borders with all problems that arise from it. This becomes messier and messier as the came continues. As units randomly get rejected from friendly countries, trade routes get reset etc.

    The ai is pretty bad in war scenarios. A couple of times they moved in without any regard on the losses they made. Ships reacting to threats just after every ship arrived ( by this time my navy shot em up nicely).

    Verdict:
    Sadly for all the promise it has it cuts short. It will blow you away with a lot of things if you go in unbiased. But how can you play a game that doesn't let you know who won in mp. You pay a decent amount of cash for something that has a lot going for it but it so rudely cut at some points it kind of ruins the game experience in the long run. I think most review sites went through 2 games and experienced some positive redeeming features to score it high. But if you want to spend more time into this it will cut short on a lot of fronts.    … Expand
  82. MoreBokeh
    Dec 23, 2014
    6
    Although I played Civ 5 to death (have beaten Deity and share strats online), I've always been a larger SMAC fan. However, this game is a disappointment as it's just a Civ5 reskin and not a spiritual successor. It seems most of the budget was spent on 3D artists but even the new assets aren't that great (in terms of style and quality).
  83. Greywolf2001ca
    Feb 10, 2016
    7
    A good game that upgrades the Alpha Centauri and bring it into the 21st century.

    But like all civilization games, it does have a limited replayability albeit a bigger one than the usual crap that has been released since the year 2000. Unlike other civilization games, computer controled factions do not declare war on you for no reason although there is one exception that I have    A good game that upgrades the Alpha Centauri and bring it into the 21st century.

    But like all civilization games, it does have a limited replayability albeit a bigger one than the usual crap that has been released since the year 2000.

    Unlike other civilization games, computer controled factions do not declare war on you for no reason although there is one exception that I have noticed. Sometimes, at average difficulty level, a faction declares war on you for no reason and that faction is like a quarter of your size!!! makes no sense, maybe if he had allies, but he is alone. I had three times the number of cities he had and same for units. Why would the faction declare war on me? No point, he will be obliterated within 25 turns!

    So the AI needs some tweaking still.

    The game is also heavy for no reason. They have spent too much time on graphics and not enough on the game itself, resulting in questionable AI and AI decisions.

    Albeit this, it is still a good game, but try it first, do not buy blind, way too expensive for that. I suggest no paying more than 25$ for everything.    … Expand
  84. dannieeddie2008
    Oct 27, 2014
    7
    First time playing Civilization: Beyond Earth I thought this looks amazing and suc as different game to Civilization V. I got into the game and everything was the same the way the game played is the same, the look of the game is the same, they have also taken out quotes from Civilization V and put it into Civilization: Beyond Earth. The game in it self is a different game, and I love howFirst time playing Civilization: Beyond Earth I thought this looks amazing and suc as different game to Civilization V. I got into the game and everything was the same the way the game played is the same, the look of the game is the same, they have also taken out quotes from Civilization V and put it into Civilization: Beyond Earth. The game in it self is a different game, and I love how you choose your own Civilization to play as. I like the new tech tree and how the aliens are a lot more harder to attack.… Expand
  85. lordythegreat1
    Oct 28, 2014
    7
    Having now played a few games of this, I will say Beyond Earth is good if a bit limited.

    pros: fewer leaders but very customizable, lots of different worker improvements, lots of resources, deep tech tree. cons: due to being so focused on building and tech i never bothered to really try to play as a warmongering player, tech tree is massive and due to not being able to see entire    Having now played a few games of this, I will say Beyond Earth is good if a bit limited.

    pros: fewer leaders but very customizable, lots of different worker improvements, lots of resources, deep tech tree.

    cons: due to being so focused on building and tech i never bothered to really try to play as a warmongering player, tech tree is massive and due to not being able to see entire tree at once I found myself going off in one direction and often forgetting that there were simpler technologies in the other direction that were important, units arent very interesting or useful early game for much more than alien eradication, no more luxury resources or their trading, no religions, no world congress.

    It feels like civ 5 did on first release, good but in need of an expansion or two. lots of sitting around pressing next turn in the mid game (as with civ 5 vanilla). Got lots of neat ideas but not all of it pulls off neatly and not all of it makes for a better game.

    Most important point to make: Ultimately feels like a full price mod. If its on special get it, but I cant yet recommend a full price purchase    … Expand
  86. Hutopu
    Nov 5, 2014
    6
    It's not really a bad game, but still I'm very disappointed. As an old civ veteran (started with civ 2) I was so excited about the announcement, read every article and watched every video out there.
    It looked really good at the beginning, but after eight games (one game with every leader) I realized there is just something missing in this game and it's not what I expected....
    - Leaders    It's not really a bad game, but still I'm very disappointed. As an old civ veteran (started with civ 2) I was so excited about the announcement, read every article and watched every video out there.
    It looked really good at the beginning, but after eight games (one game with every leader) I realized there is just something missing in this game and it's not what I expected....

    - Leaders have no character, no unique units or unique buildings. It doesn't really matter who you pick, basically they all play the same

    - Most wonders are boring like hell and totally useless. I mean WTF? A wonder at the end of the game with just +4 culture for 750 production? Who would ever build this ****?

    - there is no replay after winning the game..... i just don't understand why

    - Even Apollo difficulty is way to easy. You can just rush to important techs, build the few good wonders and choose one of the victory's or just destroy your opponents. Firaxis had four years since the release of Civ 5 to work on the AIs, but they play even worse....

    Still it's not a bad game and I hope they will improve it soon like they did it with Civ 5, but until then I prefer the predecessor!    … Expand
  87. stephale000
    Nov 26, 2014
    5
    I have been a longtime fan of the Civilization series, with Civilization 4 being one of the all time best RTS games I've ever played. That being said, I was hopelessly confused when I started my first game. I selected the New to Beyond Earth option but the tutorial person didn't explain very much of what I needed to do. The map was completely overwhelming with tons of strange new resourcesI have been a longtime fan of the Civilization series, with Civilization 4 being one of the all time best RTS games I've ever played. That being said, I was hopelessly confused when I started my first game. I selected the New to Beyond Earth option but the tutorial person didn't explain very much of what I needed to do. The map was completely overwhelming with tons of strange new resources which weren't explained at all. All of that being said, I'm going to continue to play and try and figure out everything that is going on because the potential for this game is off the charts.… Expand
  88. sherbz
    Oct 25, 2014
    7
    In all, BE is slightly disappointing. It does many things right, but misses out on the golden nougat. It has a very poor UI and there is a distinct lack of narrative. This is important because in a sci fi game, you need one. It didnt matter so much in civ 5, because the Egyptians and romans are familiar entities. You dont have that in BE. So you need a story to fill in the gaps. TheIn all, BE is slightly disappointing. It does many things right, but misses out on the golden nougat. It has a very poor UI and there is a distinct lack of narrative. This is important because in a sci fi game, you need one. It didnt matter so much in civ 5, because the Egyptians and romans are familiar entities. You dont have that in BE. So you need a story to fill in the gaps. The other problem is that the AI has still not been properly sorted out from civ 5. I think 1UPT is a failed experiment. Lets go back to SOD because at least the AI could play better that way. BE is not a terrible game, and as a civ fan, you will like it. But dont expect it to blow your mind.… Expand
  89. genix79
    Oct 27, 2014
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The game is okay. There is certainly enjoyment to be had. It is more than just a reskin of Civ5, but not quite a full title unto itself. The engine evidently had to have some reworking for it to support some of the changes. Some things which stand out for mentioning:
    - Tech web is better than a tree. Its a futuristic game so with little tie-in to present technologies, you will need to learn what the techs grant and what improvements do.
    - Affinities *are* a nice concept, but they do have the unfortunate effect of railroading the player through some of the decisions in the game (since the end game is directly tied to 'finishing' the affinity of choice)
    - There is a fair amount of customization in the pregame menu's with being able to select a sponsor, packing equipment in for planetfall, and other bonuses to begin with. I think this is a major plus. I love it.
    - There are numerous decision points in-game wherein some small customization of one's empire is possible (selecting an additional bonus which applies empire-wide). They *do* make a difference and it is a really nice addition for tweaking ones empire.
    - Unfortunately the AI is still lacklustre in many regards. Not just the other factions (which feel dead in character), but the games general AI such as automated workers travelling dangerous routes, quests being offered which are not reasonable to complete.
    - There are fewer kinds of military unit in the game and I think perhaps too few now.
    - Many improvements seem to be variations on others. One gives +2 Science, another might give +1 Science +1 Health while another +2 Health. They kind of just blend into each other. I was hoping this edition of the Civ series might break that and have improvements giving more utility rather than variations on modifications to base stats.
    - Aliens are superior to Barbarians. I think they do have some character. I have played both as an aggresor toward them and leaving them alone. They add a bit more character to the game but not as much as early talks by the game designers made out.

    All up it is a decent game. I'm teetering on a 6.5/10 if I were to tell you a score which allows halves. I'll push it to a 7. I do wish the game had a bit more distinction in terms of mechanics from Civ5. This *is* future tech afterall! I want to reshape terrain, build cities underwater, change the weather...    … Expand
  90. gaynorvader
    Oct 29, 2014
    7
    Disappointing, but still good.

    I've played a lot of Sid Meier over the years and love 4x games. Recently however, the games have been extremely lackluster before their expansions. First I'd like to address the ridiculous point that it's "just" a Civ 5 expansion. Yes, it uses the same engine, so looks and plays in a fairly similar fashion. The amount of difference in just about every    Disappointing, but still good.

    I've played a lot of Sid Meier over the years and love 4x games. Recently however, the games have been extremely lackluster before their expansions. First I'd like to address the ridiculous point that it's "just" a Civ 5 expansion. Yes, it uses the same engine, so looks and plays in a fairly similar fashion. The amount of difference in just about every concept of the game make it much more than an expansion though. New terrain features, new tech tree, new unit upgrade system, quest system, new barbarian ai, no natural wonders, orbital layer, and so on.

    -The good

    -The new tech web means you can't just dominate scientifically and collect all the wonders, coasting to an easy culture victory.
    -The quest system gives you constant mini-objectives which help new players learn without a long tutorial and provide nice little boosts for more experienced players to take advantage of.
    -Trading is quite a bit more meaningful, particularly between your own and independent cities(stations)
    -Aliens are a serious menace to expansion early on as opposed to the slight irritation barbarians were.
    -Explorers are useful, in place of natural wonders are excavation sites which can yield some great bonuses
    -It's fun. The choices you make are all small at the time, but have a huge effect on your late game. Particularly after building a new building. Some of them are pointless as one is obviously better, but most are well balanced.

    -The bad

    -AI is about the same as Civ 5, no real improvement
    -Units are set, AC fans will be disappointed they can't customise their units the way they wish.
    -Unit upgrades are forced upon you, if you reach level 4 in Unity, but want to give your unit the level 12 supremacy upgrade, you can't, you have to reach level 12 in supremacy first.
    -Lack of diplomacy options. Sometimes you'll be trading with a station and the AI will swoop in and destroy it, harming your economy. There's no way you can tell them to stop, the only solution is to declare war and destroy their units
    -Way too easy. The 3 affinity victory conditions are far to simple to pull off, you just research a small enough amount of tech and build something next to your capital and not lose for a few turns and you'll win. You can disable these, but then you are left with domination as the only recourse (I don't think having all the remaining players as allies even counts as a win).
    -Too much impassible terrain. On every setting, there seems to be a large portion of the map covered in mountains or chasms which are largely impassable.
    -Aliens rule the seas. Your ships always suck at melee battles and the aliens excel in it. They also seem to ignore the AI and focus every alien on the planet on your ships or troop transports.
    -It could have much more character. The techs and factions never seem to be all that different. The changes according to their affinity choices are quite subtle and when ever you research a new tech or build a wonder it doesn't have the little description, quote and/or video that made Alpha Centauri such a rewarding game to play.

    It's a fun game in and of itself, but fails to live up to its predecessors. I've sunk a good few hours into it already and enjoyed them immensely. Though I think it works better on marathon mode as opposed to quick or standard.    … Expand
  91. Spectre486
    Nov 4, 2014
    7
    I'm giving this a 7 because as a stand-alone game, C:BE a good 4X strategy game. But, I'm so used to the masterpiece that is Civilization 5 : Brave New World, that this rendition sadly pales into insignificance. Many of the features that made Civ 5 what it was have either been heavily simplified or removed entirely - good examples being the unit variety and faction identities/bonuses.I'm giving this a 7 because as a stand-alone game, C:BE a good 4X strategy game. But, I'm so used to the masterpiece that is Civilization 5 : Brave New World, that this rendition sadly pales into insignificance. Many of the features that made Civ 5 what it was have either been heavily simplified or removed entirely - good examples being the unit variety and faction identities/bonuses.

    Good/New features :

    I like the addition of the orbital layer - it adds another dynamic to empire building and warfare.
    The new Affinities (Ideologies) are a different spin on Civ 5, and I think do give you a feel of what your Civ represents in terms of values.
    Miasma - it feels like a major pain to start out, and if you play as Harmony, you can turn it to your advantage - a nice touch.
    The Virtues tree (social upgrades) are a nice touch giving you the option to progress either in a single tree or multiple trees - each having bonus boosts (i.e. you get bonuses for spreading across multiple trees - unlike Civ 5).
    The Quests - it adds a nice way to customise buildings to your specific playstyle, and gives nice little boosts to your empire. Ultimately, it's a mechanism to reduce the number of buildings in the game.
    The favour system in diplomacy is a nice touch. If you don't need anything from another faction, they trade you an IOU which can be called in later.
    The visual appeal is a nice change from dull and boring earth :o)

    Things that disappoint me :

    The tech web - although a decent idea, it just seems to be a random collection of upgrades that you stumble into. I never get a feel that I'm progressing towards something meaningful. Example : In Civ 5, acquiring Dynamite was a major boost for your Artillery capabilities, and you would often divert resources to getting it as early as possible if you were planning a war. You don't get that feeling in C:BE.

    The wonders are........Meh. They are small and fairly insignificant boosts that have little synergy with each other. Again, Civ 5 often required you to build/acquire certain wonders to achieve certain victories.

    The lack of "atmosphere". This is a new planet shrouded in mystery! The quest system is good for customisation, but they could have done so much more with it to give you that feeling that this is a weird and wonderful new place that you have to grapple with to get the most out of it. The Aliens are basically the "Barbarians" of Civ 5 - but they seem to flip a coin as to whether or not to attack you. Once you get to mid-game, they are irrelevant as a force - you might as well terminate them on sight, even playing as Harmony! Would have been much better if they made the natural inhabitants an AI-only faction in their own right, and link quests to them depending on your Affinity.

    The "health" system. It's basically "happiness" from Civ 5, but seems to be more forgiving. You can expand very aggressively in C:BE and not suffer too much. If you did that in Civ 5, you'd find life very difficult if your people weren't happy. The "softening" of this expansion bottleneck means that you are engaging far less with your neighbours to acquire happiness or manipulate the game in your favour via a league of nations/UN - oh wait, luxury goods don't exist anymore either. Why do I need to talk to anyone again?

    The NPC stations; the C:BE equivalent of City States. They are a trading option for a single trade route - nothing more. You don't fight over them. They don't fight for you. They don't consume land and foil your best laid expansion plans. You can't take them over. They don't give you a bigger voice at the table of international diplomacy - nope...they just sit there and give you a few extra resource points - and if you're unlucky they appear out of the blue and stop you from planting an outpost where you want it. Meh.

    Economy - I never feel like Energy (Gold) is a bottleneck. If you had an abundance of gold in Civ 5, you could do so much with it. If you weren't a gold friendly faction, you'd often struggle to make ends meet - to field that Dynasty crushing army. So far - Energy is just something I casually look at. It's rarely in the negative per turn. It's just not a resource that needs to be carefully managed.

    Lack of unit diversity - There are not many units at all. Only different ways to customise them via increases in Affinity. It's like the buildings - less of them, but you can customise them.

    All in all I'm disappointed - After Civ 5 and X-COM, Firaxis were the only software house I'd ever pre-order anything from. I'll be thinking twice now.

    That said - this game does have potential for modding and future expansions. My advice is to park it until that happens. Civ 5 only became truly great after the second expansion.    … Expand
  92. Masterhummel
    Oct 24, 2014
    7
    Civ: BE fells most of the time like 'more of the same'. This is not a bad thing, as the game uses a formula that works. So, the setting launches into space, but BE does not manage it to elevate the concept and game mechanics to a new level as well. Most of the time i felt like i'm playing a heavily modded Civ V with BNW. I mostly did stuff that i did in Civ V - just with different names.Civ: BE fells most of the time like 'more of the same'. This is not a bad thing, as the game uses a formula that works. So, the setting launches into space, but BE does not manage it to elevate the concept and game mechanics to a new level as well. Most of the time i felt like i'm playing a heavily modded Civ V with BNW. I mostly did stuff that i did in Civ V - just with different names. Aside from stagnation with it comes to gameplay, the biggest Problem might be the lack of stereotypes and nations. Shaping your own civ and building the eifeltower in Washington was part of the fun in earlier civ games. I feel like BE does not have a good enough replacement. They really tried, and i appriciate that, but the new alliances of nations just feel bland and somewhat uninteresting.

    That all said, Civ: BE is still a lot of fun and if you loved Civ V you will most likely like Civ: BE.    … Expand
  93. Osmanecek
    Oct 25, 2014
    7
    OK. To be perfectly honest - What Civ 5 reached after all expansion packs. No-one really expected, that Beyond Earth will after release. I like where is game heading to, but it is not there just yet. After first or second expansion it will be much more interesting. If you didn´t play Civ 5, than Go for Civ 5 with all expansions - it will take you ages to get bored of it - if ever.. AndOK. To be perfectly honest - What Civ 5 reached after all expansion packs. No-one really expected, that Beyond Earth will after release. I like where is game heading to, but it is not there just yet. After first or second expansion it will be much more interesting. If you didn´t play Civ 5, than Go for Civ 5 with all expansions - it will take you ages to get bored of it - if ever.. And within time this diamond will be polished and waiting for you. For the rest of you, try it - though if you expecting something big - it is not there yet..

    Points I would love to see improved in expansions:
    1) Graphics illustrations!! The man in charge of it should be sacked! :D Everyone in the team did good job and that is why I am so much surprised about one fact - there is so much to discover - yet you can not see what it is looks like, sounds like or taste like.. When you built, discover or whatever something - there should be full screen picture with original sound - and as it is new civ game - I would even like to see some videos - intro is so nice! Same applies to science technology tree and basically everything within game. Even City doesn´t really change a bit after expansion. And guess what, check out the ingame civpedia - there are also no pictures!
    2) Alien civs
    3) I am missing Germany, UK, France, Turkey, Aztecs, Koreans and the others - they should be in this game and with their specific aproach to diplomacy, play style and other things. Currently it doesn´t really matter, for who and against who you will play.    … Expand
  94. Grufton
    Oct 29, 2014
    7
    In all fairness I have been a fan of both the Civ series AND Alpha Centauri. So my review will be colored as such.

    Graphics: A step up from Civ 5 but not completely mind blowing. The graphic serve as a good representation of this game. Typically these kind of turn based strategy games leave something to be desired in the graphic department but this game does a good job of keep the    In all fairness I have been a fan of both the Civ series AND Alpha Centauri. So my review will be colored as such.

    Graphics: A step up from Civ 5 but not completely mind blowing. The graphic serve as a good representation of this game. Typically these kind of turn based strategy games leave something to be desired in the graphic department but this game does a good job of keep the graphics a priority. 8/10

    Gameplay: This is an issue. Having the Civ name gives this game a certain reputation. And while I think it does live up to that reputation, this is more an Alpha Centauri game. It has the hexagon grid, and some other elements of Civ in it but by and large it is NOT Civ. If you like Civ then there is the chance this game is not for you. The elements of this game are all about turn based statagy though. You just cannot take advantage of simiarties between this game and Civ 5. 6/10

    Story: This is always the hardest part to judge on a turn based game. These kind of games tend to rely on gameplay and graphics. This game is kind of an extension of a Civ game but also offers some different elements. I'll give this a 6/10

    With those scores in mind and a round up, that leaves a 7/10. Keep in mind please that I tend to score things a little lower. 7/10 is a good score.This game is worth the money in my mind. If you like Civ, or Alpha Centuari then you will most likely enjoy this game.    … Expand
  95. atomsk1911
    Nov 16, 2014
    6
    this game isn't too bad but it is lacking in content. you have almost no diversity once you start down your path. wait until the expansions come out and buy a bundle pack by then it should be good.
  96. Sawt00th
    Oct 24, 2014
    6
    300+ hrs on Civ 5 and even using the same engine i feel I have been dumped on new planet in space. Very exciting discovering the new resources and units. Think Civ 5 & FTL together. This game incorporates the quest system well into the strategy mix. I greatly enjoy the sense of woven story the narrative quests provide. it allows you to inject life into the early game, where civ has300+ hrs on Civ 5 and even using the same engine i feel I have been dumped on new planet in space. Very exciting discovering the new resources and units. Think Civ 5 & FTL together. This game incorporates the quest system well into the strategy mix. I greatly enjoy the sense of woven story the narrative quests provide. it allows you to inject life into the early game, where civ has sometimes been bland. The Tech Web is still a little confusing, but the mist will settle after a few play throughs. I will admit it has the feel of a re-skin, but there is very little that can be done about it considering the gameplay is within set parameters. Everyone knows this game will be tweaked and patched massively over the coming few months, so don't listein to idiots that complain of broken AI. The game falls within believable science and I think that it is where the game will excel. Not disapointed at all.… Expand
  97. axxiusdecius
    Oct 25, 2014
    6
    I disliked how the Civ 5 „streamlined” (read dumbed-down) the great Civ 4 to appease a broader, less sophisticated audience. Well, Beyond Earth simplifies even further the Civ 5, which is a bad thing and a bad omen for the future of the series. It’s still a good game, with some nice new additions and plenty of „one more turn factor”, but it’s not a great game (or even a game, actually, itI disliked how the Civ 5 „streamlined” (read dumbed-down) the great Civ 4 to appease a broader, less sophisticated audience. Well, Beyond Earth simplifies even further the Civ 5, which is a bad thing and a bad omen for the future of the series. It’s still a good game, with some nice new additions and plenty of „one more turn factor”, but it’s not a great game (or even a game, actually, it just feels like a Civ 5 mod/expansion).Let’s see what i mean (note that my review is the view of a Civ veteran, so most things make no sense for those who haven’t played at least Civ 5).
    The Good:
    - because of the separation of „ways” of development („religions”), civs are building different wonders, so it’s gone the annoyance of working tens of turns on a wonder just for it to be built by the AI 1-2 turns before you finish it;
    - the units also upgrade very differently, and so don’t usually look or feel the same for different civs; they also upgrade on themselves, automatically and with no cost, which feels really good;
    - the non-linear tech-tree provides much more research freedom and control;
    - the workboats are gone, the workers can improve water tiles, too;
    - there are a lot of quests and decisions, so the player feels more involved and responsible;
    - there are also choices like getting augmented or not (hello deus ex reference) which get you the approval or disapproval of the other civs; too bad there’s no other visible difference (like how cities or units look);
    - the aliens are more varied and imply different approaches than the typical Civ barbarians; unfortunately, though, they are all insects (no smart apes here);
    - the covert-ops section is more varied and better thought than the spying in Civ;
    - they kept and improved a little the culture layer (virtues);
    - the UI is well-thought, non-intrusive and easy to use;
    - the exploration of sites provides various results;
    The Bad:
    - in the city screen the buildings have no picture, just an icon, and therefore the satisfaction of producing them is reduced; also, the building/unit being produced no longer shows what it does, so I have to go to civipedia to see that, especially if it’s a wonder; i really think the city screen is a big step back and quite bad right now;
    - the wonders also don’t feel satisfying, lacking a picture or animated pop-up;
    - the air war feels underdeveloped;
    - the over-boasted orbital layer is actually not much yet and rather useless, they probably intend to develop it in dlc’s;
    - everything is too streamlined, lacking in lore, one must look a lot in the civipedia to understand what is what;
    - the player doesn’t get the Civ feeling of evolving historically, since it’s only one era;
    - th city-states (stations) are no longer available for any other diplomacy than trade;
    - the techs in the tech-tree all seem the same, because of the same streamlining (they have icons, not pictures);
    The things i would have wished for (and didn’t get, but weren’t promised either):
    - a darker setting, the planet is too earth-like and green;
    - real aliens (sentient), for example in some of the stations;
    - more civs (but they’ll surely come in dlc’s);
    - a political system like in Galactic Civ;    … Expand
  98. MrSndman
    Oct 24, 2014
    7
    Let me start by saying that I am a huge fan of the Civ series. I've played every iteration since Civ 1...and Alpha Centauri is by far my favorite in the series. If you are looking for a sequel to AC, this ain't it. Civ BE feels like a polished mod for Civ 5 - which isn't a terrible thing. You will immediately feel at home with the interface, the units, the combat system, etc. The onlyLet me start by saying that I am a huge fan of the Civ series. I've played every iteration since Civ 1...and Alpha Centauri is by far my favorite in the series. If you are looking for a sequel to AC, this ain't it. Civ BE feels like a polished mod for Civ 5 - which isn't a terrible thing. You will immediately feel at home with the interface, the units, the combat system, etc. The only noticeable change is the tech tree, which admittedly is a bit wonky. The constant presence of alien life forms is both irritating and unnerving (wait till you see the sandworm aka siege worm) and you can tell the developers want you to make nice with them and find a symbiosis, but they will seemingly randomly attack your units at the most inopportune times.

    Do yourself a favor and lower your expectations a bit...this is not a sequel to AC, and it's not really a sequel to Civ. Think more "Empire of the smoky skies" and less AC2 and you'll be suitably satisfied. If you're a long time Civ fan, you know you're going to buy it anyway!    … Expand
  99. ParagonRenegade
    Oct 25, 2014
    7
    (Site butchered format, sorry. All my neat punctuation and paragraph structure ;-;)

    tl;dr: Civilization: Beyond Earth is a solid addition to the series. Beyond Earth is a spin-off of Civilization 5 set in space on alien planets, with suitably futuristic furnishings. Both games are hex-based and focus on improving tiles, building structures and wonders, and dealing with your    (Site butchered format, sorry. All my neat punctuation and paragraph structure ;-;)

    tl;dr: Civilization: Beyond Earth is a solid addition to the series.

    Beyond Earth is a spin-off of Civilization 5 set in space on alien planets, with suitably futuristic furnishings. Both games are hex-based and focus on improving tiles, building structures and wonders, and dealing with your neighbors. Same old, same old; it's Civ! Thankfully, BE has expanded in several key areas (and scaled back in a few others), here's my observations:
    Pros:
    -The game has a great amount of polish and "fluff" that adds immeasurably to the atmosphere game. This includes the leader diaries, the tech and affinity quotes, and most importantly the Civlopedia. Firaxis' writers put quite some effort into this and it makes the setting feel much more genuine. One thing in particular I like are the unit descriptions for the different affinities, where you can feel the "in-universe" writer's opinion showing through. A supremacist will comment "We are the liberators of mankind" where a purist will say "We are the liberators of mankind" and so on in that vein.

    -Related to the above, the three "affinities" (Supremacy, Purity and Harmony) are interesting and varied choices, and they rely on completely different units sets and use different tactics to win. Purity is the idea that Humans should not modify themselves to adapt to the planet, and glorify Human history. They rely on brute force. Supremacy is the idea that Humans should advance through integration with technology in pursuit of a technological singularity. They rely on tactics, adjacency and AoE effects to be used well. Harmony is the idea that Humans should adapt themselves with genetic modification to fully integrate with their planet, essentially becoming aliens. They rely both on brute force and overwhelming enemies with numbers, as well as using the terrain. I personally use Supremacy, as all those peasants can't ascend themselves.

    -It has a story! Granted, this story is optional and reliant on the player following it, but BE has a story that is actually interesting, that I wanted to see through to the end. The Contact victory condition, where you signal an alien race, is the best in this regard, while the domination victory is the least narrative.

    -The new tech tree isn't linear, instead you start in the middle of a "web" and research out to branching technologies. In both my games so far, I have done completely different things and still been able to hold my own. It's very balanced and thematically interesting, one of the better additions to this game.

    - Covert operations (spies from previous games) are fun and can be devastating, and in one game this one system saved my ass from being overrun. The affinity-specific abilities (like Purity's nuclear bomb or Harmony's biological weapons) in particular are devastating. If you really want to use this to its extent, you need to play as the ARC faction.

    -Orbital units are great fun and a welcome addition to the game. They let you spawn strategic resources, buff tile outputs, buff your units (ala great generals), spread toxic miasma and other things. The Planet Carver (the game's equivalent to nuclear weapons) is the gift that keeps on giving; it's a reusable nuclear bomb that bombards cities and units from orbit. It can often one-shot things and is just... so great.

    -As a matter of personal preference, I greatly prefer BE's setting (the future, on an alien planet) than the old historic one of the rest of the Civilization games (excluding Alpha Centauri). Some will disagree with me, but the various hypothetical and diverging paths of BE are much more engaging than the standard and stale "human history revisited" of each previous game.

    Cons (In short, I'm running out of characters sorry):

    -Game has fewer features than Civ 5 Brave New World, having taken out tourism, religion, diplomatic victory etc. These have been replaced by new systems somewhat, but it's disappointing to have less. I hope they add these back in DLC or in mods, as they are still in the game files and XML.

    -Factions need to be more differentiated than they are currently; the ones we have now are sorta' stock, unless you mull over the Civlopedia and relevant websites to explore their stories. Not everyone wants to do that like me.

    -There needs to be greater diversity in alien life, and more biomes (we have three right now; arid, lush and fungal) would be welcome.

    -Diplomacy is more-or-less identical to Civ 5, and it needs to be upgraded pretty badly. I'd like the Civ 4 diplomacy features like map trading first and foremost.

    -There are identification issues with units and buildings in this game (tech web specifically), as Firaxis did a poor job differentiating with color. On-map units are fine.

    7/10; it's in a better spot than Civ 5 at launch, and is set to be improved radically with mods and DLC. Fans should get it, non-fans should avoid it.    … Expand
  100. Ansatsu83
    Oct 26, 2014
    7
    Game is pretty darn good. There are some really nice features, such as multiple different types of upgrades based on which affinity you are going. The world is nice, the aliens feel more intimidating than barbarians from other civ games. I like the affinity system (harmony, purity, or supremacy), which can give you major variations on how you play. Major complaints are the weapon/unitGame is pretty darn good. There are some really nice features, such as multiple different types of upgrades based on which affinity you are going. The world is nice, the aliens feel more intimidating than barbarians from other civ games. I like the affinity system (harmony, purity, or supremacy), which can give you major variations on how you play. Major complaints are the weapon/unit scaling based on the upgrades you achieve. There is too much of a noticeable upgrade in their damage. I cant create my own nation despite being sci-fi, have to use one of the small amount of premade nations. Most of the benefits of the premade nations are only viable for the first 100 turns of the game, after that they are pointless as research and buildings will give enough benefits to cover everyone they have (speaking of Brasilia and Polystrailia). It also seems that while you can evolve units, there is a significantly less units, overall, since you are forced to choose one affinity evolution, per unit type. There are only 3 or 4 specific units, to each affinity and the rest are evolved from base units. Total base units are 6 to 8, which means you are essentially limited in units you can produce. The ui for the technology trees is really odd, as well. Took me about 5 minutes to figure it out. The problem is the sub trees, which most techs have at least 2 sub trees. Problem is, it doesn't properly clarify the sub tree aspect in the tutorial. The whole city defense system is set up in a weird way, too. You can attack it with only a couple of high tier units, but using low tier is pointless as they will die quickly. This means you cant easily take over nations earlier in the game, unlike civ1-5. Just these little issues that end up causing me to rate it lower than I wish I could. Still a great game, though!… Expand
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Awards & Rankings

59
#59 Best PC Game of 2014
21
#21 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014
4
#4 Most Shared PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 78 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 65 out of 78
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 78
  3. Negative: 1 out of 78
  1. CD-Action
    Jan 9, 2015
    90
    Cancel all your plans and fill up the fridge, because once you launch Beyond Earth you will not want to leave your home. [13/2014, p.46]
  2. Worth Playing
    Dec 23, 2014
    85
    Passive AI and lackluster online support from the community isn't enough to make Civilization: Beyond Earth a total wash. If you've enjoyed the series over the years, you'll likely spend many hours with this entry as well.
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  3. Games Master UK
    Dec 21, 2014
    80
    Prepare for tech tree troubles, but the amount to discover and overall quality wins out. [Christmas 2014, p.64]
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