It’s difficult to imagine what could be added to Civilization V for the next instalment. Especially after the massive amount of content added with ‘Gods and Kings’ and ‘Brave New World’. In fact there’s so much stuff in Civ V that I still play even now. So the obvious choice I guess is to change the period and beyond Earth does just that. Rather than starting without even basic tools Beyond Earth will see players start in a modern era and expand far into the future.
The gameplay I saw was around turn 250 which is just about long enough to establish a solid empire and have plenty of technology researched. Visually a lot has changed. Farms are now vibrant, angular shapes randomly scattered across the map. Walkers and vertical tanks have replaced conventional units. It all looks refreshingly new but it’s still very clear this is Civ.
The infamous hexagonal tiles are still at the foundations of the map although now they’re much more angular than before. Combat is handled much the same, aside from the very different units. Almost everything is comfortingly ‘Civ-ey’. However, one of the biggest changes to Beyond Earth is research. Instead of Civ V’s research tree which basically saw every nation needing all researches by the endgame we’re going to have to choose. It is apparently “almost impossible to acquire all research in a single game”. Unfortunately I didn’t get intimate with the tech tree but I was able to see the size and scale of it. And it was massive. It’s going to add a great new layer of tactics to Civ and make research far more meaningful rather than just a case of getting as many research points as possible to ‘win the race’.
The maps are mimicking the tech tree too and have got even bigger. I never particularly felt the need for bigger maps in Civ but hey it’s certainly not going to hurt. Especially given the different victory conditions. For instance if you play as humans one of your victory conditions will/can be to help the survivors of earth find a new home. Or to make contact with an alien race. The new victory conditions should really change things up and of course domination is still an option for the warmongers among us.
Improved AI will supposedly make diplomacy more important. I wasn’t given too much detail but there’s a favour system that allows you to do a kind deed for another player and then cash in the favour at a later date. Hopefully there will be an actual sense of friends and enemies rather than people throwing around denouncements just because they feel like it.
Beyond Earth looks like it won’t disappoint Civ fans. A few new features, some improvements and bigger maps and tech trees should really breath new life into Civ. Civilization: Beyond Earth is due for worldwide release on October 24th.
