![]() But while the new earths we were presented with were suitably strange - with floating rocks, blue soil, and roving bands of aliens - its humans were still humans, and Civilization was still Civilization. I’ll hold off making any sweeping judgments until we’ve had hands-on time with the game-something I’d expect to happen during E3 at the latest-but I’m at least interested in checking out what the expansion has on offer.To distance itself from the well-worn roads of venerable strategy series Civilization, Sid Meier's Beyond Earth blasted clear of our planet, setting players down on a brand new alien world and asking them to colonize it. If history’s anything to go by, Rising Tide will be a worthwhile investment for those who felt something was missing with Beyond Earth. He also says they’re rebalancing the entire tech tree to make sure hybrid players are not at a disadvantage to those who drill down the tree towards a specific affinity. McDonough also promises the new affinities take the science fiction aspect even further, calling them “a lot stranger” than the three in the base game. Rising Tide allows you to mix and match affinity technologies, with even more unique hybrid units and modifiers. For instance, the Harmony affinity eventually leads to your faction mind-melding with the entire planet, becoming “more than human.” ![]() One of Beyond Earth‘s biggest additions was affinities-a system that encouraged your faction to go down a specific technology path to unlock unique units and win conditions. Last but not least, 2K is adding hybrid affinities. In other words, how much it feels like “a new diplomacy system” the way 2K claims instead of “tacked on to the old system.” Definitely something I’ll be exploring when we get hands-on time with the expansion. It’s an interesting twist on the classic Civilization diplomacy, though I’m still curious how extensive the system is in practice. Conversely if they see that I’m not trading, they’re not going to respect me.” That’s going to open up newer or better options with that leader. “If I’m interacting with a leader that has a trait that favors people that engage in trading, and they see me trading, their respect for me is going to grow. “It’s a combination of determining what the leader’s character is in an AI sense, what they’re actively going to do with their own Civ, and what their entry points are for you to make deals with them from your own side.”Įach character will have a unique trait, but over the course of the game will acquire traits that affect the way they run their faction and interact with others. Frederiksen gives me a quick example. “ CK2 is one influence but we didn’t take perhaps the direction they did,” Frederiksen continues. I remark that it sounds like Crusader Kings II, which also revolves around leader traits. Every leader is going to have a small set of traits and these traits can both evolve or be changed throughout the course of an individual game,” says Frederiksen. “This a new diplomacy system, not just a couple of new options. Which brings us to Rising Tide‘s overhauled diplomacy. “As a result, they don’t identify, they don’t invest emotionally in their own civilization the way they did in, say, Alpha Centauri where those leaders were painted in much brighter colors.” “We have a rich sci-fi setting, we have a rich fiction that we authored, but there’s very little avenue for players to absorb and appreciate it,” said McDonough when I asked about it. Along with these new capabilities comes new naval military units, amphibious units, and aquatic alien life. ![]() It sounds like you could even have an entire faction with only naval cities. Oceans are now fully open to colonization, with cities and territories able to extend into the seas. “We’re really trying to redefine what Beyond Earth is and ground it in what it ought to be, which isn’t just ‘ Civ in space’ but ‘ Civilization of the future.'”Ĭentral to that is naval gameplay. “Sort of across the board with the expansion we’re specifically making plays from the position ‘Never been done in Civ before,'” said McDonough when I spoke to him last week. With Rising Tide, McDonough thinks they’re rectifying some of those issues. ![]() It wasn’t quite the bold Alpha Centauri successor everyone expected. Discussing the game in March, Beyond Earth‘s co-lead designer David McDonough admitted “a little bit of lack of ambition” with Beyond Earth‘s base game. The complaint was so pervasive, it even came up during a GDC postmortem on the game. But one of the first things I asked was “What makes Rising Tide different from ‘More Civilization‘?” It was one of the most pervasive complaints about Beyond Earth, and rightfully so-in many ways, it felt like a reskinned version of Civilization V. To be clear, I haven’t seen Rising Tide in action yet.
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