Civ: Beyond Earth

BUY.

So, I've never played a Civ game before. To people who know me, this came as a pretty big shock, because strategy games are my bread and butter. If you show me a strategy RPG, I'll show you a timesink for the next several weeks of my life.

I've been meaning to pick up a Civ game since Civ V, because I've never had a computer that could actually run the games; however was going to, Civ: Beyond Earth was announced, and so I decided to just wait for it to come out.

This is probably one of the greatest strategy games I've ever played. 

I'll start with the tutorial, because Firaxis did it RIGHT. When I booted the game initially, I obviously had no idea what was going on, or how I was going to progress. I went into the game blind, and was willing to accept the most egregious of handholding in tutorials I've ever experienced in order to fully grasp the depth and systems at play.

Do you know what they did, though, dear readers? They told me what things did, and how things worked, and then RECOMMENDED moves for me to make and buildings for me to establish, while not FORCING me to. They chose to GUIDE me, not put on a rail and force me to do something I didn't want to do. That ended up with me gaining a much deeper understanding of how the systems actually work in play, instead of the raw mechanics of the system in a vertical slice. It is the perfect example of how a tutorial SHOULD be, and I applaud Firaxis for it.

Going into the game I had a few friends complaining to me about how unorganized the Tech tree was, and when I finally looked at it for myself, I was shown that there was not a tech tree, it was a web. It was initially difficult to navigate and figure out where the upgrades I wanted were, but the game allows you to select a far off upgrade that you choose, and starts unlocking the path along the way for you, so you don't have to sit there and attempt to navigate it constantly, trying to remember where that one upgrade was. I also enjoy it because a tech TREE is typically very straight forward; you move down the line. A tech web is almost 3D, in that you can approach upgrades from almost any direction. Another FANTASTIC element.

Touching on the combat, the game takes a "Fire Emblem" approach, in which before you actually EXECUTE your attack, it will show you "this is how much damage you will take, how much damage they will take, and whether or not they will kill you / you will kill them." It's a very smart way to approach things in a turn-based system, because there were many times where I was sure one of my soldier units would've easily mopped the floor with some aliens, but I would've actually LOST the fight, or only just barely survived. This game gives you all the information you need to succeed. 

Oh, and the aliens themselves. They play a very interesting role in the game, in that they constantly antagonize you AND the AI. You can't simply gather resources and constantly expand your home cities, because of the very real threat of being attacked early on by the aliens. There are several measures you can take to protect your cities, like clearing the aliens nests, and upgrading to a electric fence that will repel them (and if you choose the upgrade, protect your trade vehicles as they cross) but they also prevent a very real and dangerous threat while you're trying to cross the terrain to move your units into a tactical position to engage the AI. 

I was attempting to set up a small militia in a tiny city I had been given as part of a peace treaty; the city was of course across the ocean from me, but we were so late in the game, I hadn't given the aliens a second thought. As my ground units embarked and were sailing across the sea, we were attacked by a Hydra, and it utterly devastated us. The ground units had no means of combating it, and it took me getting my hover tanks to escort my units in order to assure their safety.. which left my home base unprotected when an AI declared war on me. It was an interesting give/take system, and I really admire Firaxis for adding this element to the game; it gives you something to constantly keep an eye out for, when things are too peaceful and you feel as if you're an unstoppable beast.

That also taps into the "health" system the game has, in which you have to perform a careful balancing act to make sure your health doesn't fall too low or you'll suffer in your production and overall gains. When  you conquer a city, if you choose to annex it or puppet it, you'll take a significant hit to your "health"; so while it's smart to expand your territory, it does come at a great cost, and getting your health into the positives is no easy task. It requires you to make sure you build things other than just powerplants and weapons; if you don't want to have citizens (which is your effective level, as far as I know) die, you need to ensure you have plenty of food being produced, if you want to ensure that you won't spent 20 turns building something that should only take you 5? You better get that health as high as possible.

There's also a very interesting QUEST system in the game, which gives you even more goals to pursue. It asks you to build certain buildings, kill certain aliens, and perform specific tasks, and often rewards you with unique upgrades (+5% production for a specific building, +10% energy gained from specific sources, your electric fence is now portable and shields your trade route from aliens, things of that ilk) which I LOVE. This game has so much going on in it, that it constantly keeps you on your toes. There should never be a turn where you're not actively working towards SOMETHING in this game. 

Which leads me finally to the "Purity", "Harmony", and "Supremacy" system. As you progress your tech tree, there are times where you can select a specific upgrade that will give you a boost towards your "Purity" "Harmony" or "Supremacy", which allows you to build specific upgrades for your units, allows you access to new more powerful units, AND also provides unique passive bonuses (for Purity, my first upgrade was that my explorer would no longer be attacked by aliens. VERY useful!) and you'll get this reputation for simply doing quests and playing the game normally!

And yet, I haven't even touched on the Virtue system in the game yet. In the game, you build up "culture", which allows you to access a "virtue" tree. Virtues are a 3 skill trees, full of passive bonuses and upgrades. There are things like, "killing aliens grants you science", "+25% production to all buildings", "+1 spy available to you", as well as bonuses for acquiring a specific amount of skills in one tree, or a specific amount of skills per TIER. It's INSANE.

This game gives you so much to manage and so much to work for, it's just ridiculous. I can't believe I missed this franchise for this long, but let me say, holy shit, this game is DEEP. If you're looking for a deep strategy game to sink several weeks of your life in to, buy this game. I've played a LOT of strategy games, folks. I'd argue I've played every console strategy game on the market, but Civ? It takes the cake. This is one of the best, most in-depth strategy games I've ever played, and it is worth every penny.