Sid Meier's: Civilization Beyond Earth

bloodyroarxx

-You'll go beyond earth as the title implies, making it more like Alpha Centauri.
- Out this Autumn
- You start on an alien world
- There are three types of worlds: Lush, Airy and Fungal
- You'll still be building cities like in CIv V but to expand to other planets you'll use outposts.
- You can be the first to explore a new planet and you may find some neutral creatures/races on those worlds. You can either destroy them or leave them be.
- Relics are still in.
- You can win the game by returning to earth. To do that you'll need to put a satellite in orbit around the earth and you can either return to earth to win or you can bring the refugees of earth to your home world.
- You can use diplomacy with other players right from the start.
- Fog of War is still present
- There are now orbital units that you can command like satellites.

Suriko

Holy shit, want.

I am dubious about comparisons to Alpha Centauri, though. It nailed the writing and factions so well that I doubt this will live up to it in that sense. Future tech Civ is still nice, though.

aerynkelly

Firaxis is (likely) announcing it in about 3 hours at PAX East. (They are confirmed announcing a new game.) From what I've heard, they're saying it's more Civ V than Alpha Centauri. I'm ok with that too. Can't wait for the announcement.

Shadowfire

I'm assuming that Pegi-18 is a placeholder.

wilting

Oh wow, just as I'm playing civ 5 again.

Shadowfire wrote: »

I'm assuming that Pegi-18 is a placeholder.

PROVISOIRE

Shogun

I'm in.

lowlylowlycook

FUCK YEAH!

"Human Behavior is economic behavior."

or to put it another way: "Take my money Firaxis, take it now."

RoyceSraphim

So its like Alpha Centauri but a completely different game with its own arcs and goals.

While I'm sad we won't have interactions with PLANET, I'm still happy that they are going this way. Plus ugggghhhh, multiple planets to explore....that sounds fun.

Shogun

I hope this does not man no more Civ 5 expansions.

WotanAnubis

I can only assume Firaxis is going to this way because the license situation for Alpha Centauri is a tangled mess.

I just want factions that lead to endless philosophical arguments on the internet. I also want the Fungal planets to be covered in red.

Do this and I'll be happy.

Don't do this and I'll probably still buy this anyway because my love for Alpha Centauri clouds any judgement I might still have.

Absalon

Shogun wrote: »

I hope this does not man no more Civ 5 expansions.

Almost surely means that, I am afraid. This is to Civ V what Colonization was Civ IV, I suspect.

On the Civilization front, they are developing something called Civilization Online, which doesn't look like it will be an evolution of Civ V+expansions.

caligynefob

I got over 180 hours in CIV 5 - day 1 purchase for me.

Jealous Deva

I feel good enough about civ5 to call it complete at this point. I really think adding more would over complicate it, other than maybe a new faction or two.

Absalon

This guy is at the panel/unveiling, but won't be tweeting details.

https://twitter.com/FXS_MisterKevin

TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2grKk4Fv0k

aerynkelly

Firaxis has indeed announced this at PAX East. Wooo!

Absalon

Marketing blurbs:

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth will propel the development of human civilization beyond the traditional timeline of a Civilization game, by exploring humanity’s future on an alien world. For the first time, players will lead factions divided by contrasting cultures and evolve their new civilizations to reflect their chosen destiny. Players will experience an array of new gameplay possibilities, including nonlinear technological progression, deeper customization of chosen factions, and an entire alien world that will change the very identity of each faction based on their choices.

• Seed the Adventure: Players will establish a cultural identity, select a leader and sponsor an expedition by assembling the spacecraft, cargo and colonists through a series of choices that directly impact starting conditions when arriving on the new alien planet.

• Alien World: Exploring the benefits and dangers of a new planet filled with dangerous terrain, mystical resources and hostile lifeforms unlike those of Earth, players will build outposts, unearth ancient alien relics, tame new forms of life, develop flourishing cities and establish trade routes to create prosperity for their people.

• New Technology Web: Reflecting forward progress in an uncertain future, technology advancement will occur through a series of nonlinear choices that affect the development of mankind. The tech web is organized around three broad themes, each with a distinct victory condition.

• New Quest System: Quests are infused with fiction about the planet, and will help guide players through a series of side missions that will aid in the collection of resources, upgrading units, and advancing through the game.

• New Orbital Layer: Players will build and deploy advanced military, economic and scientific satellites that provide strategic offensive, defensive and support capabilities from orbit.

“Having celebrated its 23rd anniversary last year, Civilization has cemented its reputation as one of the greatest and longest running franchises in video game history,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth builds upon that success by pushing the series in new directions with players exploring an unknown future on an alien planet.”

“The Civ team was excited about the opportunity to continue the story of Civilization into the future, because it allows the team to break free of historical context,” said Sid Meier, director of creative development at Firaxis Games. “We’ve always let our fans create the history of mankind, and Civilization: Beyond Earth will now let them create the future.”
In addition to its use of DirectX 11, Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth will be among the first wave of products optimized for the latest in AMD graphics technologies, including: the new Mantle graphics API, for enhanced graphics performance; AMD CrossFire™, for UltraHD resolutions and extreme image quality; and AMD Eyefinity, which allows for a panoramic gameplay experience on up to six different HD displays off of a single graphics card.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth is not yet rated by the ESRB, and will be available for Windows PC, Mac and Linux in North America this fall for $49.99. Take a look at some of the debut screen shots below. If you're interested in finding out more, you can head over to its official Civilization website right here.

TychoCelchuuu

Interesting!

Absalon

Gamespot preview:

Before you land on a new planet and start shaping humanity’s destiny, you must first equip your expedition. Referred to as "the seeding," this is an expanded version of your civilization selection in previous games. In Beyond Earth, not only do you choose which faction (read: civilization) to play, but also which spacecraft to take, what cargo to carry, who to bring, and the type of planet you want to inhabit. Each selection you make will greatly impact the start of your game: you could carry high-quality cargo that grants additional funds up-front, for instance, or hard-working, production-oriented colonists who build structures faster. The Civilization series has always been about defining a strategy early on, and then adapting that strategy to accommodate whatever curveballs the game throws your way. These choices should give you greater control over how you define your opening gambit.

After the seeding, you make planetfall and establish your first human colony. It is also the only human colony. The next human player won’t arrive until much later. In the beginning, you are completely alone amid the wilderness. "What’s neat about it is the feeling you get from coming into this new place," said lead producer Dennis Shirk. "It’s not the same as in other Civilization games where you already know you’re on Earth, the only threat is the occasional barbarian, and you’re going to run into other civilizations--and if one of those is Genghis Khan or Montezuma you know what your game is going to be like! With Beyond Earth, it’s basically you versus the environment in the beginning."

And by "environment," Shirk of course means alien lifeforms. Depending on the planet, these lifeforms may be indifferent to your arrival, or hostile. You must decide how to deal with them, and in doing so the development team hopes the experience will feel more isolated, more alien, than in previous games. You are setting forth into the unknown reaches of space, after all. It could be 20 turns or more before you see another player make planetfall and introduce themselves, and another 15 turns after that until the next. And if you think these newcomers are going to be easy pickings just because they were late to the party, think again. Those who arrive after you receive an extra boost to help them catch up to your civilization.

vegeta_666

I am very much on board with this. This is fantastic news.

I wonder if they could tie it into Civ 5 some how, or if modders could do that. If you get a Space victory, continue your game in Beyond Earth. Though with so many Civs in Civ 5, that might be a bit too ambitious unless they found their way into the factions that the blurb above talks about.

aerynkelly

Just take my money now Firaxis, please! Is it fall yet?

Absalon

IGN Preview: http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/12/firaxis-revisits-alpha-centauri-territory-with-civilization-beyond-earth?utm_campaign=ign+main+twitter&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

“We’re huge fans of sci-fi from every part of pop culture and history, so we went to that and imagined a web where you start in the middle, surrounded by techs that are relatively recognizable based on conventional technology, and you go outward into any frontier you can imagine,”

So, no linear tech-tree, different victory conditions, an orbital layer with different satellites, the ability to muck about with your mans' genetics so they fit the world more, the possibility of reaching singularity and hopefully a bunch of nice mechanics that replace the faith/culture/tourism/influence mechanics and metrics now that they are presumably gone (perhaps not culture).

Furthering the differences that will develop between future humanity’s factions are several philosophical “Affinities” (Supremacy, Wealth, Purity, and Harmony). They’ll allow you to determine how humanity evolves on this new world and unlock Affinity-exclusive units, while other competing colonies might go in another direction entirely.

So it's like ideologies but about more than just choosing between different perks? Balla'.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

It sounds like they are revisiting a few of the mechanics from alpha centauri, which is pretty neat because that game did some cool stuff that wouldn't really have made sense plugged into a earth-historical-civ game.

LadyDustBunny

YES! Oh, I am sooooo excited about this!

I am sort of obsessed with Civ V so this is right up my alley. This cannot come out soon enough.

WotanAnubis

Absalon wrote: »

Marketing blurbs:

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth will propel the development of human civilization beyond the traditional timeline of a Civilization game, by exploring humanity’s future on an alien world. For the first time, players will lead factions divided by contrasting cultures and evolve their new civilizations to reflect their chosen destiny. Players will experience an array of new gameplay possibilities, including nonlinear technological progression, deeper customization of chosen factions, and an entire alien world that will change the very identity of each faction based on their choices.

• Seed the Adventure: Players will establish a cultural identity, select a leader and sponsor an expedition by assembling the spacecraft, cargo and colonists through a series of choices that directly impact starting conditions when arriving on the new alien planet.

• Alien World: Exploring the benefits and dangers of a new planet filled with dangerous terrain, mystical resources and hostile lifeforms unlike those of Earth, players will build outposts, unearth ancient alien relics, tame new forms of life, develop flourishing cities and establish trade routes to create prosperity for their people.

• New Technology Web: Reflecting forward progress in an uncertain future, technology advancement will occur through a series of nonlinear choices that affect the development of mankind. The tech web is organized around three broad themes, each with a distinct victory condition.

• New Quest System: Quests are infused with fiction about the planet, and will help guide players through a series of side missions that will aid in the collection of resources, upgrading units, and advancing through the game.

• New Orbital Layer: Players will build and deploy advanced military, economic and scientific satellites that provide strategic offensive, defensive and support capabilities from orbit.

“Having celebrated its 23rd anniversary last year, Civilization has cemented its reputation as one of the greatest and longest running franchises in video game history,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth builds upon that success by pushing the series in new directions with players exploring an unknown future on an alien planet.”

“The Civ team was excited about the opportunity to continue the story of Civilization into the future, because it allows the team to break free of historical context,” said Sid Meier, director of creative development at Firaxis Games. “We’ve always let our fans create the history of mankind, and Civilization: Beyond Earth will now let them create the future.”
In addition to its use of DirectX 11, Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth will be among the first wave of products optimized for the latest in AMD graphics technologies, including: the new Mantle graphics API, for enhanced graphics performance; AMD CrossFire™, for UltraHD resolutions and extreme image quality; and AMD Eyefinity, which allows for a panoramic gameplay experience on up to six different HD displays off of a single graphics card.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth is not yet rated by the ESRB, and will be available for Windows PC, Mac and Linux in North America this fall for $49.99. Take a look at some of the debut screen shots below. If you're interested in finding out more, you can head over to its official Civilization website right here.

So basically it's just Alpha Centauri 2 with the serial numbers filed off.

Good.

DevilGuy

WotanAnubis wrote: »

Absalon wrote: »

Marketing blurbs:

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth will propel the development of human civilization beyond the traditional timeline of a Civilization game, by exploring humanity’s future on an alien world. For the first time, players will lead factions divided by contrasting cultures and evolve their new civilizations to reflect their chosen destiny. Players will experience an array of new gameplay possibilities, including nonlinear technological progression, deeper customization of chosen factions, and an entire alien world that will change the very identity of each faction based on their choices.

• Seed the Adventure: Players will establish a cultural identity, select a leader and sponsor an expedition by assembling the spacecraft, cargo and colonists through a series of choices that directly impact starting conditions when arriving on the new alien planet.

• Alien World: Exploring the benefits and dangers of a new planet filled with dangerous terrain, mystical resources and hostile lifeforms unlike those of Earth, players will build outposts, unearth ancient alien relics, tame new forms of life, develop flourishing cities and establish trade routes to create prosperity for their people.

• New Technology Web: Reflecting forward progress in an uncertain future, technology advancement will occur through a series of nonlinear choices that affect the development of mankind. The tech web is organized around three broad themes, each with a distinct victory condition.

• New Quest System: Quests are infused with fiction about the planet, and will help guide players through a series of side missions that will aid in the collection of resources, upgrading units, and advancing through the game.

• New Orbital Layer: Players will build and deploy advanced military, economic and scientific satellites that provide strategic offensive, defensive and support capabilities from orbit.

“Having celebrated its 23rd anniversary last year, Civilization has cemented its reputation as one of the greatest and longest running franchises in video game history,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth builds upon that success by pushing the series in new directions with players exploring an unknown future on an alien planet.”

“The Civ team was excited about the opportunity to continue the story of Civilization into the future, because it allows the team to break free of historical context,” said Sid Meier, director of creative development at Firaxis Games. “We’ve always let our fans create the history of mankind, and Civilization: Beyond Earth will now let them create the future.”
In addition to its use of DirectX 11, Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth will be among the first wave of products optimized for the latest in AMD graphics technologies, including: the new Mantle graphics API, for enhanced graphics performance; AMD CrossFire™, for UltraHD resolutions and extreme image quality; and AMD Eyefinity, which allows for a panoramic gameplay experience on up to six different HD displays off of a single graphics card.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth is not yet rated by the ESRB, and will be available for Windows PC, Mac and Linux in North America this fall for $49.99. Take a look at some of the debut screen shots below. If you're interested in finding out more, you can head over to its official Civilization website right here.

So basically it's just Alpha Centauri 2 with the serial numbers filed off.

Good.

maybe, hopefully. I got pandora cause that's what it looked like, but without SMAC's datalogs and dark philosophical underpinnings it feels flat in comparioson.

WotanAnubis

PCGamer interview that goes a little more in depth on some stuff.

Buttcleft

Want this, but Civ 5 burned me hard so I'll wait until the super uber gold edition that has all the crap dlc for cheaper than you'll end up buying the base game for.

DarkMecha

Huge Civ V fan, huge sci-fi fan, day one buy. Cannot wait!!!

Raslin

This sounds pretty baller. They better let me name my faction/leader though. I need to be Academician Prokhor Zakharov.

M-Vickers

caligynefob wrote: »

I got over 180 hours in CIV 5 - day 1 purchase for me.

201 hours for me.

I'm ready for something new - on a new alien planet, destroying the space French.

Dirtyboy

448 hours in Civ V. So, so, so bought.

Commander Zoom

augh. my resolve, it weakens.

I must not Civ. Civ is the time-killer. Civ is the one-more-turn that brings on lost weekends.

Dedwrekka

Shadowfire wrote: »

I'm assuming that Pegi-18 is a placeholder.

I actually really hope not. Part of what made AC so great was that it wasn't super concerned about being less violent or showing the warfare, socities, or technologies as being less horrendous.

I'm thinking along the lines of things like these will get an 18 rating in some countries:
(some potentially disturbing content)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lva8L-J8x04

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY57ErBkFFE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L5JgTkxAkg

Look, as long as they add teraforming and unit customization, I'm happy.


Edit:
Also, compare the AC intro and Beyond Earth trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=035cpHEowS4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2grKk4Fv0k

Zxerol

Dedwrekka wrote: »

Shadowfire wrote: »

I'm assuming that Pegi-18 is a placeholder.

I actually really hope not. Part of what made AC so great was that it wasn't super concerned about being less violent or showing the warfare, socities, or technologies as being less horrendous.

I'm thinking along the lines of things like these will get an 18 rating in some countries:
(some potentially disturbing content)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lva8L-J8x04

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY57ErBkFFE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L5JgTkxAkg

Look, as long as they add terraforming and unit customization, I'm happy.

Considering Alpha Centauri is PEGI-7, I seriously doubt it.

a5ehren

Yessssssssssssssssssss

Ardent

Do want.

Drake

I think hoping for stuff like SMAC's terraforming and unit customization is going to lead to a lot of disappointment. That stuff was cool and all but it's also messy in a lot of ways. The philosophy in Civ these days seems to run in a different direction. Personally I think that it's probably for the better. As well, I think it's probably for the better that Firaxis is making this game without the SMAC name. It allows the game to be its own thing, while letting Firaxis revisit the concepts from SMAC that they want to expand and develop further.

Regardless of all of that though, this is the announcement I've been longing for from Firaxis. Another sci fi 4X from Firaxis is enough for me. Enough to make my head explode Scanners style.

The Ender

...Why are we trying to leave the Earth in LEO shuttles?

I am excite! Between this and AoW, it'll be a good year for 4X fans.


I hope it keeps the theme & stylings of Alpha Centauri. I'd love for a whole new cast of political leaders & new quotable monologues.

...I also wonder if we're going to see some of the XCOM IP creep in here (I hope not. I really didn't like the XCOM soldiers making an appearance in the last Civ expansion).

The Ender

WotanAnubis wrote: »

I can only assume Firaxis is going to this way because the license situation for Alpha Centauri is a tangled mess.

I just want factions that lead to endless philosophical arguments on the internet. I also want the Fungal planets to be covered in red.

Do this and I'll be happy.

Don't do this and I'll probably still buy this anyway because my love for Alpha Centauri clouds any judgement I might still have.

It's not really a tangled mess - it's actually pretty simple: EA has the rights to the IP and are sitting on them, waiting for someone to buy them and/or the correct market conditions to churn out some shitty mobile shovelware with the IP stamped on it.

So, Firaxis could - in theory - use the IP, if they wanted to pay whatever retarded licensing penalty for doing so.


IP: why we can't have nice things.

HallowedFaith

Space Gandhi!

anoffday

aerynkelly wrote: »

Just take my money now Firaxis, please! Is it fall yet?

This. Really looking forward to it. That trailer is awesome.