Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

 PC
User Score
5.5

Mixed or average reviews- based on 1084 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 343 out of 1084
  2. Mixed: 374 out of 1084
  3. Negative: 367 out of 1084
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  1. redbeerd
    Oct 27, 2014
    4
    This mod for Civilization 5 might have been entitled: Civilization: Space Caravan Management before it was given to a group of energetic marketing people to hype up before release. It features the following astounding features:

    - Complete sci-fi reskins for all your favorite civilization units and concepts. Meet the warrior… in a spacesuit! Start the game by building a “monument”,    This mod for Civilization 5 might have been entitled: Civilization: Space Caravan Management before it was given to a group of energetic marketing people to hype up before release. It features the following astounding features:

    - Complete sci-fi reskins for all your favorite civilization units and concepts. Meet the warrior… in a spacesuit! Start the game by building a “monument”, a.k.a. “old earth relic”, and monitor your empire’s happiness… err… “health”. It’s all the concepts from 4000 BC you love, taken straight into the 23rd century!

    - Take your suspension of disbelief to new heights as colonists from earth land on a new planet and have no map of the surface, even after launching satellites. Watch in amazement as the borders of your space colony expand due to cultural influence, probably as the hostile insectoid aliens start wearing blue jeans and listening to pop music. Conduct sci-fi trade by caravan!

    - Which brings us to the best feature: spend 50% (literally: half) of your game time managing space caravans, of which there will be dozens and which have to be manually re-assigned every couple of turns! Yay! 3 caravans per city! EPIC FUN on large maps.

    - Watch real f_AI_l brought out of the AI, which will not attack you once during a full game at the hardest difficulty setting, but which will proceed to launch waves of suicide air strikes against an alien worm sitting in a harmless spot and doing nothing.

    - If you should divert from caravan management to anything else, like achieving victory conditions, you will be punished! Feel victory turn to ash in your mouth as, after 50+ turns of building wonders to communicate with the ancient alien race you get a popup saying “Congrats! You’ve communicated with the ancient alien race! Game over.”

    Seriously?    … Expand
  2. Sturmir
    Oct 25, 2014
    4
    Is this game bad? No.

    Does this game disappoint? Certainly. I've been playing Civilization games since the second game came out, and I've played pretty much every strategy game that has been released for English and German. I think I have a pretty good background in the field of strategy games. First: I won't be repeating a lot of what's being said. Second: I actually like this    Is this game bad? No.

    Does this game disappoint? Certainly.

    I've been playing Civilization games since the second game came out, and I've played pretty much every strategy game that has been released for English and German. I think I have a pretty good background in the field of strategy games.

    First: I won't be repeating a lot of what's being said.
    Second: I actually like this game.

    Now, if Civilization Beyond Earth was released without any Hype or expectations I had for it, this game would have been scored higher. It however, has the unfortunate pleasure of being compared to Alpha Centauri and it's expansion pack Alien Crossfire. As the developers noted several times, it was suppose to be a spiritual successor to the game, and repeated the mantra: "We made this for you" (Alpha Centauri fans)

    Unfortunately, with such a huge monolith in the field the game cannot stand a chance.

    The first thing I notice is the technically inferior selection of "sponsors" (factions.) that you have available to you (Compared to the base game of Civilization 5 of 16) - While this may be in more aligned with Alpha Centauri's faction selection and yet further expanded on by minor bonuses you can select upon planetfall, it fails to really touch 1 major problem:

    The fact is that the factions in Alpha Centauri were massively developed. They had unique story elements, unique faction dialogue and communications and a plot. The figurehead in Civilization Beyond Earth have snippets of information included in the loading screen showing the leaders outlook of the pre-planetfall situation which can be summed to the same 2 sentences about how all hope was lost, or that they are more ambitious than the rest and going to claim the galaxy for themselves. The ruler themselves and the faction they represent aren't unique in the slightest. They feel exactly the same, look exactly the same, and do everything exactly the same
    . At the moment of writing this I have 30 hours into this game and have played four games (all massive, all standard) which I purposely chose a new path each time. They were the same exercises in the limitations of terrain and the reduction of strategy.

    Which leads me to this point: I created an account here on metacritic, because I am fed up with this simplification mantra and the dumbing down of strategy games.

    Just a few things that this game is lacking from it's precursor:

    Weather effects
    Alterable terrain (raising and lowering it.)
    Water Cities
    Customizable units (and selecting units in a tier does not count as customization any more than selecting two different pieces of bread counts as making a new sandwich.)
    Interesting story elements (while I admit the quest system has a lot going for it, its exactly the same copy/paste material for each faction sprinkled oh-so-lightly with flavour.)
    Mindworms, Oh god the mindworms. - Aliens are about as much of a threat on frenzied aliens as the faction AI. That isn't a compliment.
    Effective strategy elements - 1UP Tile thing, Okay I get it, but Alpha Centauri solved the massive wave of death via Collateral damage. Should take a lesson.
    Massive map and strategy - I hate the fact that if I spend 18 hours on a game, and finally take the entire continent, my continent has about 30 cities. That may seem like a lot, and if you go by the tedious ****ing micromanagement of continually selecting the same traderoutes again and re-agreeing to deals that should just auto-continue indefinitely unless interrupted (or give me a prompt: "Do you wish to continue doing the same thing?") A hint to the developers - Shrink the cities, make them a bit more dynamic and interesting, increase the map size by about half again. Your 1UP Tile system might actually work then.
    Multiplayer that worked - At the time of writing this my friends and I have experienced 18 disconnects, over 8 crashes (seemingly at random.) and ungodly amounts of out of sync issues when doing things like launching a satellite.

    Now, there is a lot of things I do enjoy with this game. I enjoy the satellites, I enjoy the covert op (which is currently broken for it's ability to capture 6 cities at once, every 30~ odd turns if you focus it, and the AI functions like the lemming it seems to wish to represent.) I enjoy the purity/harmony/supremacy hooks. I enjoy this game.

    I do not enjoy what they squandered with the chance to deliver a real strategy game, with depth and choice.

    I'm sure after they've released 8 DLC sponsor packs, and 2 more expansions, this game might be worth buying. I know you will buy it but if you can, wait until it goes on sale. If you can't wait you know it'll be a long term investment towards a game; the real content will be released for the low-low price of 90$ over a period of 3 years. Sit back and wait for the next round of content.

    Thanks for reading this, and if you don't agree with this, well... there isn't accounting for taste.

    Final Verdict: Go play Alpha Centauri and wait for the DLCs.    … Expand
  3. Varyag
    Oct 24, 2014
    6
    I was very much looking forward to this game, seeing as how Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is one of my favorite games of all time. As more of Beyond Earth was revealed however, it seemed that the ideas featured in SMAC are no more than window dressing for another Civ V game. This is more significant than it seems at first glance. SMAC was, mechanically, Civ II. But the story, setting,I was very much looking forward to this game, seeing as how Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is one of my favorite games of all time. As more of Beyond Earth was revealed however, it seemed that the ideas featured in SMAC are no more than window dressing for another Civ V game. This is more significant than it seems at first glance. SMAC was, mechanically, Civ II. But the story, setting, semi-plausible technology, secret projects, quotes, factions and the overall cornucopia of ideas, went so far beyond any Civ game that Alpha Centauri ended up being unique.
    Beyond Earth is superficially the same thing, but look closer and the technologies are more akin to techno babble, the factions are merely the nations of Civ, without character or a recognizable ideology that drove the ones in SMAC, the resources border on epic fantasy (firaxite? floatstone? really?), the victory conditions specific to this game are all variations of Civ's "man in space". There is no back story, the quests are repetitive and fail to feel relevant (more on them later). There is no soul to this game, for the lack of a better term, nothing to set it apart - its Civ V in space in a SMAC costume that's falling apart at the seams and Chairman Yang is not amused.
    Failing to innovate while being bad at imitation is a sin but the real problem is the fundamental issues that Civ V has. The maps are small, curtailing expansion, the research is slow, you're not likely to have more than a few cities at any time unless you take more by conquest, the troops need constant shuffling around the tight maps, city management is trivial, social engineering is non existent (present only in constant buffs that you can buy with culture - there is no give and take) and that leaves a vacuum where the player simply has nothing to do from turn to turn. They tried to fill this void with quests that the game gives you but they're repetitive and there's little motivation to do them. At most they lead to a little blurb about some changes in your civilization and a small permanent bonus.
    Its shallow and plodding, and probably the worst overall game design in the Civ series. The addictive flow of a slow start but rapid expansion, of large scale warfare, of massive civilizations clashing for supremacy - there's none of it here. There was none of it in Civ V, but here things feel even more constrained, smaller scale and meaningless.
    This is the Civ equivalent of Diet Coke with Colonel Santiago on the label. Civ V fans will gobble it up, claiming its the next best thing since pre sliced bread... and for them, it might be. For me, its merely an above average 4x game that will fade from memory in a month or so with none of the genius one has come to expect from the Civ series.    … Expand
  4. Yesname
    Oct 25, 2014
    6
    Almost nothing new. Worse than any predecessor almost in every aspect. Factions and aliens have no personality. Awkward UI. Dumb, illogical AI. It is just a scam. A DLC, a reskinned Civilization 5. Not worth more than $10. I am very disappointed.
  5. timeknight
    Oct 24, 2014
    4
    This game is nothing close to what Alpha Centauri was. The diplomacy, for one, is absolutely terrible. It's worse than Civ 5. You can get allies easily, but you can't do anything with them. There are no trade or research agreements. There's no planetary council. Diplomacy is just bad.

    This game does not bring anything new to the table except for a new skin for Civilization 5. It feels    This game is nothing close to what Alpha Centauri was. The diplomacy, for one, is absolutely terrible. It's worse than Civ 5. You can get allies easily, but you can't do anything with them. There are no trade or research agreements. There's no planetary council. Diplomacy is just bad.

    This game does not bring anything new to the table except for a new skin for Civilization 5. It feels more like a Civ 5 mod. Is it a spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri? No. Not even close.    … Expand
  6. MogRules
    Oct 26, 2014
    4
    This ladies and gentleman is another reason why we should not be pre-ordering or paying for games until they are released. I really had high hopes for this as I loved Civ 5 and didn't even get into the franchise until just before the last Civ 5 expansion.

    I wanted to like this, I really did despite early doomsday predictions saying that this was just a reskin of Civ 5 and it was going    This ladies and gentleman is another reason why we should not be pre-ordering or paying for games until they are released. I really had high hopes for this as I loved Civ 5 and didn't even get into the franchise until just before the last Civ 5 expansion.

    I wanted to like this, I really did despite early doomsday predictions saying that this was just a reskin of Civ 5 and it was going to be horrible. Does anyone remember the fallout from Battlefield 4? and all the people calling it Batlefield 3.5? Well apparently Firaxis and 2k didn't see any of that because they have gloriously recreated all of that here.

    Where do we start? Well the game is marketed as a new Civ game at the full $50 price tag for us here in Canada and as such you would expect just that....a new game, not a game that looks visually worse and uses most of the same concepts and ideas from Civ 5 and simply calls them something else...such as the health system.

    The first thing I noticed when I loaded up my first game was even the loading screen looks terrible...you are greeted to a galactic background with some horrible looking text that looks like it was thrown together in notepad at the last second. There is no voice overs, nothing to welcome you to your civilization and nothing that gets you excited. This isn't the only thing that they have eliminated the voices from, they also all but axed the voices when you completed a tech. Instead of a nice detail and quite following the tech you completed you get a generic "you completed X" and that's it.....

    The new research "web" is cumbersome and hard to navigate and generally a step back IMO. Yes, it does offer you some customization not available in Civ 5 but it looks terrible.

    The Graphics in BE are quite honestly just bad compared to the way things looked in Civ 5, and everything looks like an older game, not something new. Most of the terrains blend together and the gas is hard to see so you better hope you can notice your units taking damage and not rely on being able to see the gas on the map.

    All in all this is Civ, but it is NOT a new game in any way shape of form and you are basically paying a new game price for a re-skin or DLC pack for Civ 5 with less units and the same AI from the previous iteration. Even the text the AI uses is copy pasted from Civ 5 into BE when your talking to them...like how lazy do you need to be.

    Basically DON'T BUY THIS GAME. If we continue to support this crap then game companies will just keep trying to hawk it on us.    … Expand
  7. Ahkhsteamuun
    Oct 24, 2014
    5
    I was never particularly excited for Beyond Earth, I set my expectations lower than I usually would for a Civ series. I watched a lot of lets plays before the game came out as well, so I knew what to expect. Even so, I'm still left disappointed. The game isn't awful by any means, but it's certainly not deserving of some of the high scores I've seen.

    The game is just... boring.    I was never particularly excited for Beyond Earth, I set my expectations lower than I usually would for a Civ series. I watched a lot of lets plays before the game came out as well, so I knew what to expect. Even so, I'm still left disappointed. The game isn't awful by any means, but it's certainly not deserving of some of the high scores I've seen.

    The game is just... boring. Progression feels extremely slow and doesn't have the same energy as advancing through the eras in Civ V. The tech web is okay, but it's still quite linear since you have to specialize. Affinities give a sense of progression, but it isn't as rewarding as going from warriors to mechanized infantry in traditional Civ. You start with slightly futuristic looking units and cities... And you end with slightly more futuristic looking units and cities. The new victory types are almost all passive, and this encourages the AI to be more passive, and this makes the game feel a lot less eventful than it should. The UI also needs work. It's unnecessarily time consuming to set up a queue, it's hard to pick out where the wonders are on the tech web, you can't lock tiles without disabling the AI governors, and frankly it just looks bland.

    But by far my biggest complaint is the AI. Others have said it here, but it's even worse than Civ V AI. Civ V's AI was pretty stupid, but it could at least settle cities somewhat decently with the BNW expansion. I've seen maybe a few AI cities in BE not 3 tiles away from another city. It's infuriating to look at the AI just spam useless cities all over the place and then ruining the landscape with generator spam. Aren't you glad generators always have the exact same model? It's as if they designed the AI to troll you. The military AI is just as bad as in Civ V, but I don't think many people were expecting an improvement there.

    Diplomacy feels a lot less interesting in BE, since the AI rarely seems to have anything useful to offer you. The favor system is somewhat interesting, but with diplomacy this weak it doesn't come into play often. Right now the whole game just has a lot of problems, including balance issues I didn't really go into. It adds a lot of interesting features like satellites, quests, and aliens, but these don't really make BE better than Civ V or even its equal.    … Expand
  8. Escherichia
    Oct 24, 2014
    6
    Beyond Earth constantly forces you to continually pick between small numbers and fixed percentages, I did not like to be spammed by all these constant, meaningless decisions that do not seem to affect the gameplay at all. The factions are bland and soulless, and the tech quotes make me cringe.
    The only thing this game has that reminds me of Alpha Centauri is the inconsistency in its    Beyond Earth constantly forces you to continually pick between small numbers and fixed percentages, I did not like to be spammed by all these constant, meaningless decisions that do not seem to affect the gameplay at all. The factions are bland and soulless, and the tech quotes make me cringe.
    The only thing this game has that reminds me of Alpha Centauri is the inconsistency in its leader's motivations: In my first game, 3 different factions kept praising me for not engaging in combat with the aliens. Suddenly, 2 of them declared war to me for no reason. Not that it matters, the combat AI is as dumb as ever. Enemy units will just go back and forth, struggle with the terrain and camp on damaging miasma hexes, just to beg for peace a few turns later and start praising you all over again. Somehow, enemy factions are dumber than in the previous civ games.
    The new tech web is a nice addition, altough I dont think it will help newcomers find their way, and the affinity system is alright, but it does take ages to truly kick in.
    All in all, It still is a Sid Meier's game, a 6 is as low as it gets.    … Expand
  9. Mittsies
    Feb 18, 2015
    0
    Are you new to the Civilization franchise? Play Civ V instead - it's a more complete game that outshines Beyond Earth in almost every single aspect. Are you already a Civ fan? Steer clear. Beyond Earth adds nothing new to the franchise and has no style. It feels like a total conversion mod of Civ V, but with extremely limited features. I guess you can wait for 2K games to pump out a bunchAre you new to the Civilization franchise? Play Civ V instead - it's a more complete game that outshines Beyond Earth in almost every single aspect. Are you already a Civ fan? Steer clear. Beyond Earth adds nothing new to the franchise and has no style. It feels like a total conversion mod of Civ V, but with extremely limited features. I guess you can wait for 2K games to pump out a bunch of costly DLC and then maybe the game will be playable once you've bought it 3 times over, but even then I have major doubts.

    Bottom line: an extreme disappointment. Don't be fooled by paid reviews and hype.    … Expand
  10. GwionBach
    Oct 26, 2014
    3
    There are a handful of things I can sincerely praise about this game - the affinity system, the game setup screen, and the revamped tech tree.

    90% of the time, though, you're dealing with a horrifically broken and lazily-designed Civ V clone that's so achingly transparent in its crass and slapdash assembly that you wonder how a company like Firaxis could release such an insult to their    There are a handful of things I can sincerely praise about this game - the affinity system, the game setup screen, and the revamped tech tree.

    90% of the time, though, you're dealing with a horrifically broken and lazily-designed Civ V clone that's so achingly transparent in its crass and slapdash assembly that you wonder how a company like Firaxis could release such an insult to their own customers. Everywhere you look, you see a place where they:
    -Took an existing feature from Civ 5,
    -Hurriedly slapped a hopelessly generic name on it,
    -Added some lousy and nonsensical fiction on top of it,
    -Either kept the underlying game mechanics the same, or actually made them worse.

    Here and there, you see a few individual token efforts to really think about "hey, what would it be like to colonize an alien planet?" The affinity system, the game setup screen, and the miasma all fall into this category, and they all more or less work. If Firaxis had applied this kind of thinking to the entire game, we would have had something that felt fresh -- but alas, it's like tossing a bucket of sand on a dead dog and calling it a sand castle. There's too much of the old ugliness sticking out underneath that needed to be scraped away completely.    … Expand
  11. tobas1
    Oct 26, 2014
    4
    First of all this game have absolutely nothing in common with Alpha Centauri ... except one - both taking place in future. And really thats all!!!
    Alpha Centauri had unique ecosystem that felt alive and could really mess you up sometimes. Fungus was spreading and spamming mindworms and those could really do a lot of harm even lategame when apear in big stacks. Here alien life forms are    First of all this game have absolutely nothing in common with Alpha Centauri ... except one - both taking place in future. And really thats all!!!
    Alpha Centauri had unique ecosystem that felt alive and could really mess you up sometimes. Fungus was spreading and spamming mindworms and those could really do a lot of harm even lategame when apear in big stacks. Here alien life forms are normal barbarians from other Civ games - nothing to worry about. The only problem is siege worm that even dont do much damage if youre carefull arround him but when you take him down with your city's or mobile artilery there is absolutly no thread from alians any more! And if aliens really have some mechanics to promote 'green' thinking and not attacking, than i missed that totaly. They attack you even without doing them any harm at all, and when you killing them right from a start they attack you even less coz have less units. So green thinking here is dead - and Gaians were my favorite fraction in AC!
    Ah yes - fractions - except 1 small bonus that every one of them has they are all totaly the same! I cannot even name those that i played or played against coz they were to borring and uninteresting to even remember their names. And i can name EVERY Alpha Centauri fraction even now - and didn't play that game for years!

    What ele made AC great game for me? Terraforming - there you could drill rivers, buld improvements changing climate or even terraform up your land and flood other players with global warming. Here you can do **** You can cut trees and build improvements and thats basicly it. So your terraforming abilities are simmilar to Egiptian pessant with copper axe.

    Next is upgraing units - in AC you could take any unit and select what type of researched already wepon or armor or skill put in it and if you had enough money upgrade your units to this newer model. So for me it was brilliant. I needed fast artilery rover with no armor? or good armored garnison supressing riots with poor wepon? or mindworm catching unit? or maybe few types of terraformers to clean fungus faster or to move twice as much hexes? You could do EVERYTHING... if you could afford upgrating and first created prototype unit that costs twice as much as regular one. Here you can -again- do **** Through some strange God intervention every unit is upgrated without costs to new model after gaining point of whatever that was. Especialy strange coz newer model in production costs like 20% more so why the hell its free?

    And last thing is trade routes. In AC you could boost your production by sending suply crawlers to collect resources from not ocupied by your city hexes and this could significantly boost your production. Here you can do trade routs between your, neutral or other players cities. But those trade routs are ridiculusly good! Its not like 3 additional energy or production that you got from suply cravler, here from one trade route 2 cities will get for example 5 food+production each!! If you select your boosts wisely, you can just buy trade route building, teleport to that city 2 trade convoys (wtf is that anyway?) and send them to your cities (coz no point to send to other civs boosting their production) and from this your production in that city is 500% better - its crazy! and game killing coz the only limit for your expansion from now on is helth ... until you figure out that there is one terrain upgraide giving 1 helth each and you just build them all over your land. plus green upgraids giving you boost to trade routes and helth (why the hell its in the same branch if they are most important ones?) and in 100 turns in my playing for 2nd day i had colonised everything that i could being bigger than all other players combined. and it was supposed to be hard dificulity?

    Overall Alpha Centauri and this dumbed down thing that was supposed to be spiritual succeser have totaly nothing in common. And for me saddest part is that there is not even one thing that Beyound Earth did better than it was in AC - quite contrary! and Alpha Centauri is 15 years old! So really? people are getting so braindead that it's enough for them to be enterteined? Or just game developers are getting so lazy?    … Expand
  12. Boxtears
    Oct 26, 2014
    0
    I defended this game against the naysayers for so long but now I have to face facts and eat my own words. While BE isn't necessarily a bad game, it makes abundantly clear why there should have been an open beta. There's a thread on reddit right now that explains pretty succinctly what's missing or needs to be fixed, but suffice to say that there are a lot of amateurish missteps that neverI defended this game against the naysayers for so long but now I have to face facts and eat my own words. While BE isn't necessarily a bad game, it makes abundantly clear why there should have been an open beta. There's a thread on reddit right now that explains pretty succinctly what's missing or needs to be fixed, but suffice to say that there are a lot of amateurish missteps that never should've been allowed. This game is missing a lot of key UI features and shortcuts that were already in Civ 5. Why are we never told what a city JUST finished producing? Why do I need to refresh a gajillion trade routes without ever being reminded what they previously connected, or better yet why don't I have the option to leave them to continue until canceled? Why are victories completions even more lackluster than in Civ 5? Why am I never even told what victory condition another civ beat me with or keep track of their progress beyond vague quarterly updates? Why am I not able to see who is at war with whom? Why Why, Why, WHY?… Expand
  13. TUHD
    Oct 24, 2014
    5
    What. The. Hell.
    - Majorly imbalanced. Some of those victory conditions are idiotic (like, really. Play ARC and you'll be able to pretty fast snatch up all the cap cities without even having a wardec, making it an domination victory. While other victories take a long time).
    - Normal is way too easy - only thing the AI is good at is throwing out a lot of military and somehow never    What. The. Hell.
    - Majorly imbalanced. Some of those victory conditions are idiotic (like, really. Play ARC and you'll be able to pretty fast snatch up all the cap cities without even having a wardec, making it an domination victory. While other victories take a long time).
    - Normal is way too easy - only thing the AI is good at is throwing out a lot of military and somehow never suffering health problems. If you want a real challenge as even just an mediocre Civ/player, start at Hard or higher.
    - The techweb is interesting, but headache worthy when it comes to searching for what´s recommendable.
    - Try to understand the numbers vs %, and you´ll get an guaranteed headache. The overview is bad and not really intuitive.
    - Etc. It could be a good game. But due to cheap reskinning, wrong setup of new stuff and really bad balancing - it´s just not worth the money atm.    … Expand
  14. Verdan
    Oct 24, 2014
    6
    All i can say is that Sid Meier set new record for an expansion. Making a new skin for an all ready working game is pretty bad and i personally was expecting bit more than new theme.
    Game looks good but then again. I just played this game for a lot of hours under different title.

    9 points for the CIV V
    - 3 points for going for "shake my money makers" strategy
  15. chakane048
    Oct 27, 2014
    0
    The quality of this game is a direct insult to Sid Meier. Beyond Exasperation. I might give this game a 1/10 score if they didn't slap my face by updating Civ5 today.
  16. ninepax
    Oct 25, 2014
    4
    Only 8 civilizations, same engine, same diplomacy, same interface and less options.
    Civ 5 with less options=Beyond Earth.
    I have played Civ 4,Civ 4 BTS and Civ 5. This Civ Beyond Earth is the worst of all.
  17. Kokoloris
    Oct 26, 2014
    0
    AI is completely terrible and passive. First game I played was on the middle difficulty and I got attacked ONCE. So the second game I went for the hardest difficulty and they didn't even attack me. Such an easy and boring game. I didn't know the mechanics and I won on hardest difficulty on my second game. No campaign to make up for it. And all in all, the mechanics are too similiar toAI is completely terrible and passive. First game I played was on the middle difficulty and I got attacked ONCE. So the second game I went for the hardest difficulty and they didn't even attack me. Such an easy and boring game. I didn't know the mechanics and I won on hardest difficulty on my second game. No campaign to make up for it. And all in all, the mechanics are too similiar to Civ(and where they differ the game is just worse than Civ5). If this where an addon it wouldnt even be worse 10€. I regret buying this game more than any other game.… Expand
  18. Ghostrider
    Oct 24, 2014
    3
    If you didn't like Civ5 (but liked Civ4 and older versions), then you are unlikely to enjoy Civ:BE. It has all of the problems of Civ5 and then some. Most game mechanics are Civ5, reskinned. Very boring. Most of the time you have nothing to do but click "Next turn" and wait for the really slow AI to do his turn.

    In Civilopedia list of units fits on a single screen. Techology tree    If you didn't like Civ5 (but liked Civ4 and older versions), then you are unlikely to enjoy Civ:BE. It has all of the problems of Civ5 and then some. Most game mechanics are Civ5, reskinned. Very boring. Most of the time you have nothing to do but click "Next turn" and wait for the really slow AI to do his turn.

    In Civilopedia list of units fits on a single screen. Techology tree unintuitive and confusing.

    Civ:BE continues the pacifist trend of Civ5. There is no one to fight with, there is no point in fighting and you hardly have any units to fight with. So why bother?

    It doesn't seem that despite buying the "deluxe version" (out of fond memories of Civ4 and the games before) I would bother to complete even one playthrough.

    The game is an utter disappointment.    … Expand
  19. BarimLee
    Oct 25, 2014
    0
    It ruined critical system of civilization. Each civilization has no characteristic ability like unit, construction, etc but small benefits. They should named it as "Tactical" not "Civilization". There is no pleasure to develop my civilization. Just dull and tactics remained
  20. Calendyr
    Oct 24, 2014
    5
    I am writting this rewiew after 5 hours of play.

    Been awaiting this game for months now. I am a Civ 5 veteran with over 1000 hours of play. My first impression of Beyond Earth is one of deep disapointment, I will cover my major issues with the game if I don't mention something it's either because I like it or don't find anything wrong with it. Tech Web: I like the idea of a web    I am writting this rewiew after 5 hours of play.

    Been awaiting this game for months now. I am a Civ 5 veteran with over 1000 hours of play.

    My first impression of Beyond Earth is one of deep disapointment, I will cover my major issues with the game if I don't mention something it's either because I like it or don't find anything wrong with it.

    Tech Web: I like the idea of a web instead of a tree. What I don't like is that you are completelly lost when you look at it. It's hard to try to make a plan when nothing stands out. Would it have been so hard to color code the items of put the category icons in there? You look at the icons and you can't tell what is a Wonder or what does what unless you read every single description. I am sure with time it will be ok because I will learn what everything does but for my first game it's seriously tedious!

    Alien life: So after watchching countless hours of prelauch videos, I know I should not attack the aliens. Here is ny issue: While I can't attack them, they sure don't have any reservation about attacking me, I have lost 2 explorers and 2 drone units in the past hour and I never made any agressive move towards the aliens. I am exploring and BAM! 4 of them jump on my unit and kill it. So Firaxis tie both my arms behind my back by sayong that if I attack the aliens siege worms will come kill my cities and other nations will go to war with me and then punch me in the face repetedly when I cannot defend myself... just great!

    Map clarity: When you look at the map I find it really hard to understand what is what, Very unclear what is a luxury resource, what is a production bonus. In Civ 5 you could press ALT-R and have all the resources show up with nice Icons, it's not the case in BE, Alsp in CiV5 you could press Y and have all the tiles yields show up,.. yep gone as well... WHY?

    Health: Health basically replaces happiness in BE. With only 2 cities I am at minus 5 health and I see no easy way to fix that, Very frustrating!

    Purchases: In Civ5 you had a production/purchase toggle in the city build window, They removed it. Now you have to go in the city manamenent screen and press the purchase buttin to open the purchase window, Not only is it less conveniant but I have been doing purchases in the build window for years, why are you forcing me to change the way I do things for something that is less intuitive and less efficient?

    Blocking: Tbere are several blocks in the game that are contre-intuitive, For exemple: A trade post appeared close to my city so I researched the trading unit, Try to send it there and I can't because there is Miasma in the way. So I research the miasma removing satellite and try to put it in orbit but again I can;t because there is already a satellite there,,,, so I research the trade vessel so I can go to it by sea.... but it won't let me without giving a reason, I read all I could find in the Civ help menu but could not find any answer, So now I have spent a ton of research on trade and can.t trade, Same with other nations, I normally am a heavy trader in Civ5, but in this game there is nothing to trade, All it shows is you research and production. No resouces strategic or luxury in there, Really annoying and frustrating,

    The last thing is the way I feel when playing, So far it has been boring with nothing to do most of the time and frustrating (with all the issues listed above). I hope with time and experience this will change that but my first impression is very negative.    … Expand
  21. Nikkolette
    Oct 24, 2014
    0
    Game is godawful to say the least.
    1. UI is atrocious. Queuing is so bothersome and that I don't use it - you have to click three times on different menus to put something on queue...only from city queue - no hotkeys, Ctrl or Alt modifiers from main map. In other words - you will waste more time on clicking than if you manually issue orders.
    2. Diplomacy somehow managed to become even    Game is godawful to say the least.
    1. UI is atrocious. Queuing is so bothersome and that I don't use it - you have to click three times on different menus to put something on queue...only from city queue - no hotkeys, Ctrl or Alt modifiers from main map. In other words - you will waste more time on clicking than if you manually issue orders.
    2. Diplomacy somehow managed to become even worse than in CivV, which is achievement on its own. With reduced unity types AI knows only ONE tactic - swarm of suicidal berserking human/tank waves.
    3. Absolutely primitive execution of advertized features. Ie. Alien agressiveness is linked only to alien nest destruction it seems. You can shoot dozens upon dozens of aliens standing outside 2 tile radius from their nest without any fear of counterattack - Ai cannot into attack.
    4. Absolute lack of any automation. If you have 10 cities then you have to manually isue each and every production order.
    5. Leaders lack any personality - they are just animated talking heads.
    6. Once again you are spammed with approvals, denouncations and gazillion other meaningless and useless notification via leader animation screen "we like that you like X", "We do not like that you like Y" etc every turn.
    7. Trade routes - Firaxis showed phenomenal ability to make their own idea as terrible a possible - if with CivV you had to deal with 5 or so TR now you have 3 per city, you have to manually reassign EACH an EVERY of them. I cannot imagine playing with 10 or so cities.

    Game miraculously managed to fall even below my lowest expectations. Firaxis used most primitive approach - dumb down everything, cut loose ends, wrap it up in shiny package and show into custumers' throats. This release shows their inability to solve major broblems - CivV AI was horrible and their put no effort in fixint it. Diplomacy was awful - it still is.
    Beyond Earth serves only one purpose - to show how much Alpha Centauri surpasses it in every aspect except for graphics.    … Expand
  22. ShooP
    Oct 24, 2014
    1
    Too similar to Civ 5 with very few innovation. A shame that AI is even dumber than in Civ 5, offering no challenge at all, even in higher difficulties. Game mechanics forces you to expand slowly and you have very few cities to manage even late in the game.
    Really disappointing.
  23. APCY
    Oct 24, 2014
    3
    I have tried this game and all I have to say is that im disappointed. Firstly nothing has been changed apart from sci-fi theme. Combat system, building, exploring and etc are same. Even materials do the same they just changed their icons so it would look diffrently. I would say brave new world dlc was a way bigger and more interesting, and this game counts as new and for 50 euro... imI have tried this game and all I have to say is that im disappointed. Firstly nothing has been changed apart from sci-fi theme. Combat system, building, exploring and etc are same. Even materials do the same they just changed their icons so it would look diffrently. I would say brave new world dlc was a way bigger and more interesting, and this game counts as new and for 50 euro... im really disappointed, they were very lazy, but ya money is more important for them I suppose.… Expand
  24. Qgal5kap
    Oct 29, 2014
    1
    Bah, this is just a reskinned version of CIV 5 with worse game mechanics. More micro-management, less automation. A total cash grab!! Avoid, avoid!!!!

    In the future, we have the technology to travel to alien planets, but we lack the technology of networking and computing?? We have the power of space flight, but we lack the ability to keep a geostationary satellite in orbit?!?!?! We    Bah, this is just a reskinned version of CIV 5 with worse game mechanics. More micro-management, less automation. A total cash grab!! Avoid, avoid!!!!

    In the future, we have the technology to travel to alien planets, but we lack the technology of networking and computing?? We have the power of space flight, but we lack the ability to keep a geostationary satellite in orbit?!?!?! We have the knowledge to settle on an alien planet, but we don't know how to build a settler???
    There are just so many breaches of logic here! Lazy work by the dev!!!    … Expand
  25. Raf_KR
    Oct 25, 2014
    4
    Graphic 2/5
    There is no info graphic.
    You must read text for getting information.

    Sound 3/5
    Not impressive.

    Gameplay 3/5
    Alien = Kinds of animal.
    limited type of units.
    No different from each civilization.
    Tech tree = sux. confused. meaningless tree.

    Replayable 2/5
    Very little volume.

    Conclusion 2/5
    Don't buy this game.
    Play again Civ5.
  26. ThiagoF
    Oct 24, 2014
    0
    Sry but this is another Scam.... this is not a new game, if you want to play wait for discounts this don't worth the price.
    This is a Failed DLC, they really screwed up this time.
    Really disappointing. So... now come the list os problems 1) The maps are small you can`t customize your planet; 2) The Leaders don`t have any personality, they are just talking heads and there are few;    Sry but this is another Scam.... this is not a new game, if you want to play wait for discounts this don't worth the price.
    This is a Failed DLC, they really screwed up this time.
    Really disappointing.

    So... now come the list os problems

    1) The maps are small you can`t customize your planet;
    2) The Leaders don`t have any personality, they are just talking heads and there are few;
    3) The made the diplomacy even worth then Civ5;
    4) You have to do everything by hand, managing trade routes on many cities its a NIGHTMARE!;
    5) The UI is abysmal, sometimes you need alot of clicks just to Queue stuff;
    6) The tech web is a mess and you don't fell any diferences after you complete stuff;
    7) The aliens are stupid the A.I. make no sense and the creatures at the see they are REALLY unbalanced almost everything can easily kill your ships.
    8) The lack os inovation kills the game;    … Expand
  27. Crimson
    Oct 24, 2014
    1
    This is an extremely simplified re-skinned Civ V, with far worse graphics, and absolutely nothing new that is interesting or worthy of praise. I could pick apart every new system, all of which are extremely flawed and cumbersome but there's almost no point. Its clear this is just nothing more than a money grab, with 2K trying to milk its fan-base. This feels like a 'direct to VHS'This is an extremely simplified re-skinned Civ V, with far worse graphics, and absolutely nothing new that is interesting or worthy of praise. I could pick apart every new system, all of which are extremely flawed and cumbersome but there's almost no point. Its clear this is just nothing more than a money grab, with 2K trying to milk its fan-base. This feels like a 'direct to VHS' sequals of popular a franchise.… Expand
  28. Loki64
    Oct 24, 2014
    0
    Terrible game. In fact mod for civilization 5. With a terrible interface, bad textures.
    Even in alpha Centauri was able terraformable, you could raise mountains, stop the rain, and the enemy had died of starvation. You could build a city on water, under water.
    Sordid AI,the same terrible diplomacy inherited from civilization. The computer is behaving inappropriately. The developers have    Terrible game. In fact mod for civilization 5. With a terrible interface, bad textures.
    Even in alpha Centauri was able terraformable, you could raise mountains, stop the rain, and the enemy had died of starvation. You could build a city on water, under water.
    Sordid AI,the same terrible diplomacy inherited from civilization. The computer is behaving inappropriately. The developers have promised the ability to customize the space Shuttle before launch.
    In the end, we have a couple of paragraphs the settings and all...
    The creators were too lazy to do a proper icons for buildings.
    Also, the developers promised the possibility of fine adjustment of units-in the end, we have three options for the development of the unit without the ability to change weapons,armor. In alpha Centauri it was all you can do... what can we say about the alpha Centauri,low-budget Studio made the game Endless legends,where there is an interesting battle system, the ability to customize units and just very beautiful graphics! What have you spent money these developers I personally don't know.    … Expand
  29. Harold_Lanchest
    Oct 24, 2014
    4
    The developers got away with Civ 5. Huge slap in the face, which made me abandon the Civ franchise entirely in favor of far better strategy turn based games. I have no idea how they're getting away with Civ 5: the addon standalone.
  30. Garet1218
    Oct 24, 2014
    10
    A great throwback for Alpha Centauri fans!
    The new mechanics and atmosphere really separate it from other Civ titles, and really the themes remind me a lot more of Alpha centauri. I feel like if this had come out and Civ 5 was not a thing, it would had been held as revolutionary. I think far too many will group it with Civ 5 for using the same engine. They are two quite different games    A great throwback for Alpha Centauri fans!
    The new mechanics and atmosphere really separate it from other Civ titles, and really the themes remind me a lot more of Alpha centauri. I feel like if this had come out and Civ 5 was not a thing, it would had been held as revolutionary. I think far too many will group it with Civ 5 for using the same engine. They are two quite different games though. I say this as a long time fan.
    I for one love that they made culture more useful in a game play sense, they made espionage what it use to be back in the old days... Awesome..

    The tech web is probably my favorites system, I have always been a large science player.. The web and technologies they have change everything. I find myself conflicted far more often than in civ, not to mention it can be very situation based. The affinity system is awesome, and I like how it mixes.

    Here is my wishlish for the G&K sized expansion that should be coming

    -More mixed affinity unit upgrades or units, more units for pure routes to compensate.
    additional Planet ecosystem types.
    -A couple more sponsors
    -A scenario with a sentient planet.
    -A few more wonders    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

57
#57 Best PC Game of 2014
21
#21 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014
4
#4 Most Shared PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 78 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 65 out of 78
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 78
  3. Negative: 1 out of 78
  1. CD-Action
    Jan 9, 2015
    90
    Cancel all your plans and fill up the fridge, because once you launch Beyond Earth you will not want to leave your home. [13/2014, p.46]
  2. Worth Playing
    Dec 23, 2014
    85
    Passive AI and lackluster online support from the community isn't enough to make Civilization: Beyond Earth a total wash. If you've enjoyed the series over the years, you'll likely spend many hours with this entry as well.
    Read full review
  3. Games Master UK
    Dec 21, 2014
    80
    Prepare for tech tree troubles, but the amount to discover and overall quality wins out. [Christmas 2014, p.64]
See all critic reviews »