Beyond Earth Screenshots

[Aeson]

Some of the official screenshots that have been released for Civilization: Beyond Earth so far.

[Lorizael]

I know they want these worlds to be science fictiony, but geologically active planets shouldn't really have a lot of craters on them. And planets habitable to (baseline) humans are likely to be geologically active.

[onodera]

Yeah, the craters look too neat. We have only one such crater on Earth, and I doubt they can overlap so neatly, without destroying other parts of the older crater.

[Lorizael]

Pretty beautiful stuff, though.

[self biased]

two more pieces of concept art:

[Lorizael]

This might be extrapolating a little much from some concept art, but I wonder if the planet you land on really is habitable for humans. Those marines certainly look like they're wearing the equivalent of spacesuits. Then there's this:



This is supposedly a colony, which is either a proto-city in BE or the city equivalent. The text reads (in part):

-Photosynthesis, air, food, water, wind, sun light, energy, ?electricity?

-A self-sustaining eco system

Again, this would seem to suggest that the surface of the planet is not suitable for humans. I wonder if that has any effect on gameplay (what sort of resources you're extracting?), and I wonder if you can terraform the planet, and if so, I wonder what effects that would have on gameplay.

[OzzyKP]

Or maybe they just wanted things to look cool and science-fictiony.

[Lorizael]

Hence...

This might be extrapolating a little much from some concept art...

But at this stage, what are we to do but speculate?

[Aeson]

The Affinity icons from the panel video ...

[self biased]

invalid attachment.

womp womp.

[Aeson]

The attachment system needs a major upgrade

[self biased]

man, if only the owner wasn't such a layabout. i'm pretty sure that was what directly contributed to 'poly's marginalization among the modding community.

[AAAAAAAAH!]

The affinity icons are ugly. Can you play the game without picking an affinity?

[Lorizael]

I don't think they're ugly so much as uninspired. I don't see the connection between the icon and affinity.

As far as whether you have to pick an affinity, we can't know for sure at this point but my guess would be no. You gain points in each affinity by doing certain things (researching particular techs, completing certain quests) and eventually, with enough points, you take on a particular affinity. So theoretically you could try to keep your tech progression and quest completion relatively even amongst the three affinities, and that might mean you never fully commit to one. Whether that's optimal... who knows.

There are 2 (out of 5) victory conditions that aren't specific to an affinity, so that does suggest you don't need an affinity. You can win by eliminating your opponents or by making first contact with sentient aliens.

[AAAAAAAAH!]

Why does contacting aliens mean victory?