Make no mistake, Rising Tide vastly improves upon Civ:BE. However, there's only so much you can polish a hexagonally-shaped turd.
From the first boot up, you'll be greeted with a host of new things to try out. The four new sponsors are interesting, and the revamps of the old ones add to the flavour (maybe with the exception of Elodie). The first time you try it, the new diplomaticMake no mistake, Rising Tide vastly improves upon Civ:BE. However, there's only so much you can polish a hexagonally-shaped turd.
From the first boot up, you'll be greeted with a host of new things to try out. The four new sponsors are interesting, and the revamps of the old ones add to the flavour (maybe with the exception of Elodie). The first time you try it, the new diplomatic traits system seems awesome; it's modular, it lets you upgrade certain parts of your civ...
And then the flaws start to overwhelm you by mid-game.
-There's bugs galore; I had water cities not producing on the city hex, another time I couldn't even make planetfall, cities can build any resource-specific building they trade with
-The new war-score is a trainwreck; the moment you start winning, the AI is forced to give you too much -- prepare for an eternal war
-A lot of times, the diplomatic traits feel like a non-choice; there are clear winners and losers
-The late game is still a slog; you may as well rush the new hybrid units and go for a domination victory early
-Artifacts make the game almost as much of an RNG-fest as Hearthstone; ex. I got the faster agent trait from the artifacts on ARC, combined with diplomatic traits, I was stealing science every two turns (on fast); on the other hand I could've gotten something near completely useless, such as 'cities can attack through obstacles'... yay
If you treat this game like an engine-building game, similar to tabletop eurogames, you'll have a fun time. Sometimes you want to hilariously develop new virtues every other turn with Al-Falah, then switch to science spam the next. Or wonder spam as PAC. Or trade so much with yourself you end up more inbred that your sister-wife with 6 fingers as Polystralia -- that's fine.
However, for me, whenever I boot up Civ:BERT, I find myself more enthusiastic going in then coming out. Without a doubt, every time I play it, I'm done by the mid-game and ready to just click next turn until I win; this game has a tendency to way overstay its welcome on your screen. If you're looking for a 4x game with bite, that can hold you for an entire session, I'd suggest you look elsewhere.… Expand