Is this game abandoned?

[systumseng]

Keep trying to enjoy this game, keep running into the same, old, uncorrected issues.
While nobody can expect their every critique to be handled by devs, there are some long-term exisiting issues that are continually ignored.

-Units "parked" on a square will sit there and decay from miasma damage without any type of notification to player. WIll stay there, taking damage, until they are gone. DUMB. At the least, they should go active at 25% health so players can see that they need attention.

-No unit scaling with alien life forms. In first 10 game turns you can meet exceptionally powerful aliens, or large gangs of lesser strength aliens that completely wipe out you initial game units. Simply not fun. Aliens should start weak (and not many at once) and scale up as player units get stronger.

-The "tech web" sucks. Terrible, lazy concept. "We're making a game in space, so let's make the tech tree a web so it looks futuristic!" Nevermind that it's confusing and meaningless. The skill don't logically follow from one to the next, and their naming conventions don't help anything. If the devs love the concept too much to let go, the least they could do is offer a user setting in Options as to the format of the tech TREE.

-AI leader cutscenes. PLEASE. MAKE. IT. STOP!
Don't need to be greeted by every single leader. Don't need to be asked to team up with every single leader. Please give players an option to say "I don't want to talk to any other opponent" so their cutscenese stop popping up and annoying the player, ruining the game flow.

Those are the worst issues.

Other things that are NOT enjoyable are the way they make every Quest Decision a moral dilema, the lack of build up/explanation of the "Affinity" system, and the utter uselessness of the in-game Info/help menus. TERRRIBLE!

For all of my complaints, I really wish they'd get their act together and fix things. This game could be SO much better. No wonder Sid simply loaned them his name and wasn't a major part of the design.

Dead game, sad player.

[Darviathar]

It certainly seems so, which is sad. I'm afraid it will kill the notion of a Civilization game that extends beyond modern day. For all the bad press it got upon release, the expansion was a solid one and fixed a lot of the issues I had.

[Num7]

The closest you'll get to a second DLC would be the CODEX mods. It really brings the game to new heights.

I'm still in my first game, but I feel it's way better than the original Rising Tide gameplay. It adds a ton of features, and rebalances the game big time.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=780912351

[Darviathar]

Thanks, I'll give that a look next time I get back into this game. Does it interfere with achievements or the hall of fame in any way?

[NyMpHoBoNsAi]

The aliens being stronger then you at first makes sense within the context of the game, you are after all just starting out on a new world and are adjusting to the new dangers theres. one way to go about this is try and get the sonic fence asap then get the trader unit reward from the quest. also not rushing to clear hives and actively hunting the native fauna as it ramps up their aggression, they will often leave your territory if ya damage them without killing them outright.

that said it can be hard to do based on your starting position. unit management in the begining should not be hard so i dont know what your doing with your units park in miasma.

the web can be tricky to get used to as it is not a liniar progression based on understood technological experience, its ment to be abit messy as its all ment to be new and uncharted territory.

yep the cutscenes can be annoying..

Actualy if ya read up on what each affinities goals are and also look at what each level of affinities grant as boons you get a pretty clear picture of how each one works out. same with the ingame wiki.

in vanilla i tend to go for supremacy mixed with harmony then shifting the purity for the air unit upgrade for bonus vs air and ground units. roughly the same idea with rising tide but alil more towards hybrid units like the autosled.

but ya the game is pretty much abandoned. codex can be fun though ive been crashing alot lately but thats likely to the large maps and max number of enemy civs i use.

mods that let ya blob more then one unit in a hex help with the early alien threat also. theres also a mod that expands the promotions from exp nicely that also works with codex.

[Atomicbean]

Miasma damage - Your fault. This is civilization. Going along with your later leader complaint, turns aren't meant to be super fast. Don't leave a unit sitting in miasma, and you won't die from sitting in miasma. I mean, you literally have to actively tell them to sit in the miasma to not get alerts. Like seriously, to not get an auto-alert on any unit you have to specifically tell them to: Fortify, Fortify until healed, Move more than one turn's movement range, or sleep (or auto worker/excavation). Miasma doesn't really just "pop up" on a already fortified unit unless late-game (through harmony tech). It's also why one of the first goals is generally to rush the harmony techs for clearing ability and worker immunity, so nearby miasma becomes a non-threat.

Alien Scaling: It works perfectly fine. Siege worms and krakens usually won't touch you if you aren't aggressive early game, and even then, siege worms are incredibly easy to deal with via ranged units. Don't treat this like vanilla civ barbarians. Early-game, alien life is THE dominant force. Treat them like they are. (or just get better. My current playthrough I'm going full-aggressive with everything and have only lost 1 unit accidentally to a off-screen kraken attacking an explorer who was doing an excavation.)

Tech web: It's incredibly simple once you learn it, and everything DOES actually make sense.
Generally speaking, the tech web is seperated into 3 categories, for purity, harmony and supremacy. Between each of these, is a fusion category. Pretty much exactly like the affinity web itself. Regardless of what each thing in particular gives you affinity-wise, each branch is specifically geared towards that particular style of play. Miasma immunity, alien leashing, etc. being in the harmony branch. Tech improvements, computing, etc. being in the supremacy branch and military and more "traditional" stuff being in the purity branch. As is normal in civilization: Regardless of how you're planning to play, there's usually certain techs you priotize regardless. Such as the miasma immunity here, or water traversal in a normal continent map in normal civ.

Leader scenes: Do you just NOT play civ? This has been part of the series for as long as I can remember. Just close out of it and ignore them. The AI leaders always constantly spam you with notifications.... just like IRL leaders. In Civ 5 I would get the same trade agreement almost every turn. It's just part of the series.

Quest system: It's literally a simple option 1 or option 2 choice. "Do you want this resource bonus or this resource bonus?" "Do you want to focus on this affinity or this affinity?" Everything else is flavor text. It works. It's fine. It's significantly better than them not existing at all, ala most/all other civ games. Don't expect an endless legends, etc. type of in-depth quest system. That's not what civ gives you.

Affinity system is tied directly to 3 victory conditions, as well as specific units and passive traits. It's essentially BE's ideology system. Do you want to focus on military might, science, culture, diplomacy, etc.? Pick the affinity that ties into that. Harmony is co-existance with aliens. Purity is Human Genetic Purity and Supremacy: AKA, Not changing how we've been despite everything. Supremacy is Pure Human Supremacy, regardless of what it is. Genetic and cybernetic enhancements and augmentations, etc. - Purity and Supremacy are essentially 2 sides of the same coin, while harmony is essentially completely the opposite. (Opening a gate to save humanity or enslave it, vs becoming a new species entirely, cutting off all contact with earth and becoming part of this new planet.)

info/help systems.... work as intended?
There's really not much that isn't explained through the tutorial systems, UI and help systems that needs to be common knowledge or easily known. Pay more attention and use your brain. ...which can honestly sum up just about every issue you have, tbh. Don't leave units on a space that deals damage every turn, use critical thinking and basic game design knowledge to understand how the quest/affinity/tech systems actually work, etc. - None of these are major issues, and almost all of them are things that the series itself has in practically every game. It's just presented in a different format is all. ...one that I much prefer, in many cases. Tech web allows you to skip early-game tech that doesn't interest you, but still get late-game tech that does. Aliens not scaling means you can't just abuse them for free points as easily as you could in say, Civ 5 as germany or the aztecs. Affinity system is much easier to utilize multiple parts of than say, Civ 5's ideology system, allowing you to actually focus on different paths depending on what part of the game you're in. (harmony early-game, purity/supremacy late-game, stuff like that.)

[Problem Solver]

As long as people play the game and enjoy it then the game will never be dead. Instead of finding fault in the game; look for the good things that make you want to play it. Every so often i pull out the old PS3 and play a game from years ago. Take Red Dead Redemption for example. There is no more support for it, but people still have fun playing it. Enjoy what you have and stop looking for faults in everything

[inthedark]

I hate the no miasma warning on workers or when excavating sites, even early game it's too much micro managing. While rising tide gave me some hope the game has so many problems I rarely play it. Sad--because the potential is there.