Random Gaming Thoughts

[MrPopo]

So, seems like my experiment regarding people reading long posts has shown that no one actually reads a long post from start to finish.

Oh, I read your post. But only one of the games that you mentioned you got to experience really interests me, and I have no means by which to capitalize on your generous offer.

You don't have the Steams? Mighty No. 9 is a Steam code.

[Sload Soap]

So, seems like my experiment regarding people reading long posts has shown that no one actually reads a long post from start to finish.

I too read the post and would like to know in more detail how Beyond Earth differs from regular Civ.

[Ack]

So, seems like my experiment regarding people reading long posts has shown that no one actually reads a long post from start to finish.

Oh, I read your post. But only one of the games that you mentioned you got to experience really interests me, and I have no means by which to capitalize on your generous offer.

You don't have the Steams? Mighty No. 9 is a Steam code.

Ah, you just said it was a beta code. I'll take it.

[MrPopo]

So, seems like my experiment regarding people reading long posts has shown that no one actually reads a long post from start to finish.

I too read the post and would like to know in more detail how Beyond Earth differs from regular Civ.

Sure, let me give a full rundown of what they showed.

1. Rather than the tech tree we know there is a tech web. It seems that a node consists of a base tech and then several techs underneath. I think you only need to research the base tech to follow the web (based on how things were colored or not), but the sub-techs would naturally give you very nice bonuses. They said that you can expect to only get through about 60-70% of the web, so that's going to make games turn out differently.

2. There is a layer on top of the faction system where you choose an affinity: Supremacy, Purity, and Harmony. You effectively "gain points" in these affinities based on your actions in the game (it sounded similar to how it works in GalCiv 2), and once you've achieved sufficient points you take on a particular affinity. This will affect your units (every unit now has four versions, a neutral and one for each affinity, with visual and stat changes) and will affect diplomacy. They also mentioned that the AI opponents will choose their affinities based on the rest of the world state, with the goal to be that there is a relatively even mix of affinities across the world. So rather than always facing the same behavior from Montezuma you will now see a faction behaving differently based on actions you and the other factions have taken. These affinities play into the victory conditions; there are six victory conditions and three of them require you to have picked an affinity.

3. Speaking of diplomacy, they've added a feature that I can't believe it's taken them this long to add. There is now a diplomatic currency called favors. Whereas before diplomacy was based on trading resources now you can do things such as giving someone a tech in exchange for some number of favors. At a later point you can use those favors to cash in, such as trading in a bunch of favors to get them to declare war on someone. Since favors are only generated through diplomatic trade it allows them to hold value where things such as gold did not, and the AI can be balanced based on that fact. They did not mention whether or not this would end the "could you give us some resources for free" asks from previous Civs; I'm hoping it does and now you'll get a tangible favor out of those requests rather than the old notion of their disposition rising/not falling.

4. There is a new layer added to the map: the orbital layer. This is where you can put things such as satellites. They showed two at the panel. The first is the solar collector that you place above a particular tile and it will add energy (gold) to every tile in a radius around it. The other was an orbital laser that could hit a target in a radius around a base tile. If I recall right you can't have overlapping areas of effect, so there's a definite trade off in how you position your satellites.

5. Rocktopus

6. Alien life; it's like barbarians but much worse. The alien life scales up pretty high and a lot of it is based on how you treat the other alien life. If you start exterminating the small bugs they will call in a large siege worm to bust through you. They told several anecdotes of bringing in experienced Civ players who tried treating the aliens like Civ V barbarians and getting utterly trashed for doing so.

[Stark]

So, seems like my experiment regarding people reading long posts has shown that no one actually reads a long post from start to finish.

I read it; I don't really post on the weekends. I'm dying for Bloodborne. I should be able to attend PAX next year with you, should be fun.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

That sounds really cool.

I want to actually play a bit of Civ V before I get Beyond Earth though.

[Sload Soap]

Thanks for the post.

Sounds really exciting especially the Affinities and diplomacy side of things. It still irks me we've got to Civ5 and you still have Civ's who you've been friends with for literal millenia get all pissy when you won't loan them a couple of hundred gold. It's good they've thought about that.

The aliens talk reminds me of the Mindworms from Alpha Centauri, except more cunning. Cunning Mindworms. My god.

I'm excited for the game but the orbital layer thing pretty much guarantees my laptop won't be able to run it. It chugs severely with Civ5 on the lowest settings as it is. Fingers crossed for a Wii U release.

It sounds like they've put a lot of thought into making each session play out differently which I can appreciate. I guess they have more freedom since they aren't shackled by national traits and leaders bonuses based on real events? Or more precisely, a fan base that expects certain leaders and nations to have said traits.

Also:

[Exhuminator]

So, seems like my experiment regarding people reading long posts has shown that no one actually reads a long post from start to finish.

There have been studies on this. Most people won't read more than five sentences before tl;dr-ing. That's why I always make my HLTB reviews 5 sentences long. I also try to keep my forum posts within this limit. I'd say more but alas I'm out of sentences.

[Stark]

So, seems like my experiment regarding people reading long posts has shown that no one actually reads a long post from start to finish.

There have been studies on this. Most people won't read more than five sentences before tl;dr-ing. That's why I always make my HLTB reviews 5 sentences long. I also try to keep my forum posts within this limit. I'd say more but alas I'm out of sentences.

That's what run-on sentences are for!

[MrPopo]

I think the factions will still have certain dispositions and advantages and whatnot, but the affinities add another layer.

As for the orbital layer, I wouldn't worry about it. The way it's implemented is you hit a button and transition to the orbital layer, which greys out the hexes to the basic information you need and now you add satellites. All the satellites are geosynchronous (let's ignore the difficulty for non-equatorial satellites) and basically it's like you add an improvement on a hex that can live at the same time as whatever other existing improvements are there. There's a visual kick to make you feel like you're in a layer above, but it's more like the underground layer in SimCity 2000.