The tide has risen

[Proteus_MST]

Well, after playing Rising tide for a short while I have to say that it is a nice revamp of the Civ: BE system.

Especially the new diplomacy/trait system ...
now you earn diplomacy points each turn ... every time you do an agreement with another faction, you have to pay diplomacy points per turn to uphold the agreement ... also in reverse, for every diplomatic agreement other factions want to close with you, they have to pay you diplomatic points for upkeep.
Aside from diplomacy, the diplomacy points are also used to buy attributes for your leader/faction (you can have 4 of them, each in a different category) ... which give additional boni of which some are dependant on the number of active agreements you have closed with other factions (giving you an incentive to be diplomatically active)

Also you now have synergies between different affinities ... now, having levels in more than one affinity unlocks different perks, that give you boni, but also special unit upgrades.

And not to forget the new artifact system (which means that expeditions gain artifacts which either can be used immediately for a short term increase in science and energy, or collected and then used together, to unlock certain wonders) and the fleshing out of the naval system (with the ability to found marine cities, that don´t increase their territory by culture, but rather can increase their territory by moving around on the ocean)

All in all, the DLC changes Civ: BE considerably (and IMHO is worth its money)

[Adagio]

Looking forward to playing it, but will probably take some time as I'm too busy at the moment. The videos I have seen looks promising.

But I just looked through the new achievements and can see they have many references to Indiana Jones

[self biased]

i'll be picking it up on friday, though i won't have any time to play it right away.

[self biased]

so, i did the thing today! i like the new diplomacy system.

[self biased]

[Proteus_MST]

Doing lots of diplomacy is a very good thing however, when you are germany INTEGR.
Angela Merkel Lena Ebner has a nice advantage with regards to her running costs for diplomatic agreements being halved

[Proteus_MST]

Seems to me however like the AI currently doesn´t take alliances into account when declaring war:

I was allied with Elodie and Kavitha and was drawn into a war with the russians (who had just 4 cities) when they attacked Kavitha.
After I conquered one of the 4 cities, the russians offered me a separate peace, giving me one of their remaining 3 cities as a bribe (I couldn´t say no, as it was a city with lots of stgrategic resources in its territory and vicinity )

Then, everything went peacefully ... at least foir a while ... russians continued to wage war against Kavitha and Elodie with their remaining 2 cities and I still had my (mostly naval) forces stationed around the 2 former russian cities in case enything would happen.
Which was a good thing, because somethign happened:
Russians finally made peace with Kavitha and Elodie (letting me, for a moment, believe that everything was OK now) but immediately the next turn after that, they declared war on me again. (Which, of course, also led to Kavitha and Elodie redeclaring war on the russians ... after all they were still allied with me )

Which lets me believe that the AI "assumed" that now, after having peace with Kavitha and Elodie, it could fight a separate war with me (foolish enough, as my military is stornger than Kavithas and Elodies) and didn´t include in its calculatgion, that Eldie and Kavitha also would get involved in the war again, thanks to me being allied to them.
(well, it already cost them dearly ... after prolonged bombardement from sea and air, my Autosled special forces were able to take over the russian capital ... and no pleading for peace will dissuade me from taking their last city as well )

[Lambiorix_be]

I also think this expansion pack is a good improvement. Brings a lot of new stuff. Like the artifacts, capital, more units, aquatic cities....
The only thing I seem to notice is that my Ultrasonic Fence does not seem to keep the aliens away. I intented to be peaceful with the alien population but they always came on the tiles next to my cities, sometimes destroying my workers even when I had my fence. In order not to hold back my early growth I had to destroy them...which seemed to piss them off.

All in all very much value for money

[ImmortalTech]

[gdijedi7]

Actually, diplomacy is what I dislike the most about Rising Tide. It was actually better before, when you could offer anything for anything, and they could decide whether they liked the deal or not. Current diplomacy is restricted to these diplomatic point policies. And if you're low on points, you can't even get the new equivalent of a cooperation agreement. It no longer matters what you're actually doing or which affinity you choose, it only matters how many diplomatic points you have.

With that said, aside from the new diplomacy (which I hate more than I can tell you), I really love Rising Tide. More factions is awesome. More units rocks hard (yay, subs). The new biomes are very cool (Hoth with oceans!). Even the intro video is great.

They did fail with one thing, though. They said they didn't want ocean to become alternative land. Well, it did. You can't build terrascapes or roads at sea, but that's about it. And since almost all of the floatstone seems to have moved out to sea, Purity Civs can get by nicely without ever building a city on land. Which is actually sort of sad.

[self biased]

new patch is out. looks like they've fixed some of the more head-scratchy things. takin' her for a spin now.