Shame on you Firaxis….

I am a big fan of Civ since first playing it at my brothers many, many years ago. Thank you to him for sharing that with me.

I gave 3 stars because I can see the potential and the, "Shame on you Firaxis”, comment comes from the disappointment I felt after playing the game. Firaxis should be putting out a polished Civ game but instead made me feel like they are getting their formula together and are new at this. What I mean by that is this, why oh why is there a time’s/turns up factor in this new game that we should be allowed to explore and accomplish something in before the time’s up? Winning and Loosing don’t feel like they have a meaning when time is up and you won or lost based on that. Civ 5 was almost perfect, thus I expected the new game (Beyond Earth) to be just that only in space on other planets. Instead I feel like this game was released with planned bugs and limitations so that the next DLC can unlock those issues for you and make it better but wait, give it a few more years and wham we may have a Civ 5 feel and flow to this game. Is that necessary?

With the 500 turns in play, it really makes this system broken since you don’t have a true victory goal. You can go immediately for the victory goal and still win or you can just go for all quests and keep on building etc. until 500 turns are up and based on the randon number generator the game favors you or the A.I. Mostly you depending on your ease of level. I don’t like the cosmetic feel when you are in the build screen and your mouse goes over things as you look to pick your next build. The information gets in the way of seeing what you want to pick. That’s a little thing and it is annoying just the same. Understanding that you have 500 turns has you picking things that are immediately usable in relation to how many turns you have left. Knowing how to skew the game kinda breaks it.

Why not concentrate on new maps, new alien leaders with better expiditions and quests and fixing the time/turns constraint that makes you feel like you aren’t sure what just happened? Be a truly Universal game and allow the planets to be inhabited by aliens that are not prehistoric like and instead perhaps they show us how things are done. Give us alien trading posts. Let my leader/sponsor come from Jupiter or Saturn. Give me some sic-fi fun in this. Just imagine a Civ Star Wars. Think about it. Love the easier way to buy land around your city by the by.

I purchased this game when it came out and have taken this long to explore it based on the funky feel and awkward flow it has. I will continue to explore and test things out just because I love Civ and Civ-like games. If something comes along to change my mind I will update this review. I have found myself going back to Civ 5 now and then. There is potential here and I am waiting for it to manifest. Come on Firaxis, make me want that “One more turn”.

*Note: I have never experienced this game crashing on me nor have I had slowness issues and my iMac is from 2011. After playing for a long time I do get the black map slowness as it adjusts graphics but that is it and I don’t always see that. ****Update: So I noticed that you get 500 turns no matter what. Ok unless you turn on turns which kills the victories.

La-Di M about Civilization: Beyond Earth