Victory of the Extremists?

[gdijedi7]

Greetings!

First off, I was VERY excited to see that Beyond Earth is coming. A Big Woot to Firaxis.

...But...the affinities...I don't like them any better than I liked Alpha Centauri's view of the future.

Purity! Translation: Space Nazis. Obsessed with racial purity above all else. Slay the lesser species!

Superiority! Translation: Humans are inferior, become a Machine. We are the Borg, the Transhumanists win.

Harmony! Translation: Humans are bad. Become the aliens. Oh, and Planet wants you to drop by tomorrow for some transcendental meditation.


Or at least that's how it looks to me, but I always see the worst in things. Does anyone else see them differently? Am I overreacting? If you think these affinities mean other things, please lend me your point of view. I always end up being an ideological player, and I don't expect to enjoy any of these options.

[Aeson]

It does seem to be rather narrowly defined and simplistic.

I liked SMACs take on the factions. They were extreme as well, but it was done in a way that was interesting with how they tied in with victory conditions and tech quotes. Hopefully CivBE will be able to take the faction personalities and the affinity progression and make it as interesting.

I would like to see victory conditions that weren't so closely tied to the affinities. It would help expand the scope of the Affinities and give some variation within them. Say you have a Harmony player that wants to bring more Humans from Earth to meld with the new planet (Purity type victory). Or wants to go back to Earth and spread their new fauna there and convert the humans (Supremacy type victory).

[Lorizael]

They've talked a little bit about the different combinations of virtues and affinities creating different playstyles. My hope is this bleeds over into the kind of civilization you're running.

[gdijedi7]

Me too. Has anyone heard anything about governments, speaking of that?

[Kolbeg]

As far as I understand it "government" is something you create by your virtue choices. They are divided into 4 categories if I remember correctly, Might, Prosperity, Knowledge and Industry.

I have not seen much about this system, if it consists of single choice per category like in SMAC or it its more like Civ5 tree style.

[Kolbeg]

Here I found some more info on the Virtues on Civfanatic´s Civ:BE features thread.

"Virtues
This will be similar to culture from previous Civ Games but with some marked differences

They are an expression of what your civilization cares about "Culture drives the acquisition of items within a virtue table, and those items have a lot of cross-linking benefits in and out of other systems in the game — everything from city progression to tile improvement to military strategies to territorial acquisition and diplomacy" David McDonough

There are also 'Kickers' these are bonuses you get from going deep down one virtue tree or from going wide and picking virtues from many trees. Depending on whether you go wide or tall will change what kickers you get. (Tm)
Might
Prosperity
Knowledge
Industry "

So it seem to be more like the Civ 5 system. I´m really interested to see this system in depth. My favorite feature of SMAC was the Social Engineering feature and how they interacted with the factions, diplomacy and future rivalries.

Ps. the lack of that kind of a system in Pandora (SMAC Clone) made me not want to play or even try it. I felt it was a really shallow game. On the other hand Civ: BE looks like far more deeper, with both cargo, affinities and virtues choices.

[Lorizael]

You could have gotten the same information from the Apolyton wiki.

[Kolbeg]

You could have gotten the same information from the Apolyton wiki.

You are right, its even a better format to read through. I´m sorry, I did not know about it.

[Lorizael]

No problem. Tell your friends!

[N35t0r]

Maybe it would be a good idea to add a forum announcement about the wiki? and link it first think in SB's stickied thread?

[Lorizael]

That's not a bad idea. The wiki is part of the top menu bar, though.

[Aeson]

I'm working on a theme that will integrate the wiki and forums visually. I'm still looking for a way to integrate the userbases.

[N35t0r]

The announcement works wonders