Alpha Centauri vs Beyond Earth

[Mr. Hubble]

I remember the early promotional videos touting Beyond Earth as the replacement for Alpha Centauri, and then being completely let down when I went to play the game. "They lied to me!" was my initial reaction when I played Beyond Earth, and that's still pretty much how I feel to this day. If they had simply upgraded the graphics and improved the diologue between the factions I would have been more than happy but nooo! They had to come out with a completely new game that lost all the elements that made Alpha Centauri such a great game. So I'm just currious how many Alpha Centaurians feel the same way as I do.

[Ryika]

As far as I know, the closest they ever came to associating this game with SMAC, was when they said they were inspired by SMAC, but want Beyond Earth to be its own thing.

There have been a few people who claimed that Beyond Earth was marketed as a new version/replacement of Alpha Centauri, but when they're told to show the promotional material that they're talking about, so far, none of them could deliver anything.

[Alvarez Player]

I never saw anything that tried to sell the game as a SMAC replacement. But I do agree it would have been a very nice idea to bring SMAC back to an update (NOT a completely different game with the same themes). I still think the Civilization series should have incorporated a LOT MORE of SMAC ideas on their games.

[Mr. Hubble]

Originally posted by Alvarez BR:

I never saw anything that tried to sell the game as a SMAC replacement. But I do agree it would have been a very nice idea to bring SMAC back to an update (NOT a completely different game with the same themes). I still think the Civilization series should have incorporated a LOT MORE of SMAC ideas on their games.

Agreed, especially the auto patrol feature for military units. ^^

[pfcole]

Beyond Earth was a flop... it even failed to properly fail and not go to publication. NIce graphics (sort of) but everything else is pretty much a miserable flop. The tech tree is stupid, with few exceptions a tech "breakthrough: does exactly... NOTHING... the big ones let you mine natural resources and build better roads, and a smattering of military advances that sort of work. Their tech tree (circular) is a great concept, the individual techs are a fail mostly.

And while we're on the subject...why does there have to be an epic crisis on earth that drives us to another planet? Could not humanity be driven by curiousity, the natural human drive to explore to see what is over the other hill (so to speak)?

[Alvarez Player]

Originally posted by pfcole:

Their tech tree (circular) is a great concept, the individual techs are a fail mostly.

That's an interesting topic. I think the circular concept has a great potential, and unfortunately it seems that it'll become stuck with BE poor design. I compare it a lot with the circular tech tree shown on Endless Space - but where that game would just show progressive multilinear tech trees arranged on a visual circle, BE actually crossed requisites trhoughout the circle, adding on top of that a layer of tech specialization, That's something that I admire on BE.

Originally posted by pfcole:

And while we're on the subject...why does there have to be an epic crisis on earth that drives us to another planet? Could not humanity be driven by curiousity, the natural human drive to explore to see what is over the other hill (so to speak)?

Well, that's just fictional choice, that sure has to do with contemporary feelings of social and environmental crisis. But I do like it, because it makes a more convinceable argument about space colonization and the drastical cultural and political changes they were willing to do on their new home (and reinforcing this idea of a new home). SMAC also had that driving argument on it's fictional basis.

[pfcole]

We currently have three large organizations actively building infrastructure to colonize Mars, and not because earth is in crisis but because they want to start the colonization process, to be the "first" to grab the title and long term fame for being the people who started a colony on Mars.

I think the most likely colonization will be through the company "Plantary Resources" starting with robotic miners on astroids, eventually followed by humans mining larger astroids. PR has actually got on the drawing board plans for essentially putting filling stations in space where you can fill up with oxygen, hydrogen fuel, and drinking water on your way to Mars.

The most likely condition for colonization off world is the "profit motive" that's what created the colonies in America, and is almost assured reason why we will go to Mars to STAY.... sorry off subject here.

[Diemex]

I'm happy with this game and prefer it over SMAC. I loved SMAC when it was new... but its just a bit too dated for me now.

I also enjoyed a rather rare product they did :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_II:_Test_of_Time

Civ2 ToT. I seldom see this gem mentioned. It had a great extended game where you played the map and launched to alpha centauri and then colonized it and played both maps concurrently. Then there was the sci-fi mode where you had I think 4 maps that you played on concurrently. For its time it was pretty amazing. I'd love to see a fresh remake on that.

[Mr. Hubble]

Originally posted by Diemex:

I'm happy with this game and prefer it over SMAC. I loved SMAC when it was new... but its just a bit too dated for me now.

I also enjoyed a rather rare product they did :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_II:_Test_of_Time

Civ2 ToT. I seldom see this gem mentioned. It had a great extended game where you played the map and launched to alpha centauri and then colonized it and played both maps concurrently. Then there was the sci-fi mode where you had I think 4 maps that you played on concurrently. For its time it was pretty amazing. I'd love to see a fresh remake on that.

Thanks for the info, I'll check it out sometime.

[Heat Guard]

Still have the disc for ToT, and it was a great game, man imagining what a remake of that game could be like, specially if Sid himself got involved and allowed it to be a combo-pseudo remake of SMAC for after the launch (or straigh off if you don't want to wait obviously) has me drooling over here

[Mikessnow]

It wasn't supposed to be anything related to Alpha Centauri, they even said that in there devs videos.

[Mikessnow]

I never saw anything saying it was supposed to be, many videos were released of what it was about and none of it came close to being related to Alpha Centauri.

[Chameleon_Silk]

Originally posted by pfcole:

Beyond Earth was a flop... it even failed to properly fail and not go to publication. NIce graphics (sort of) but everything else is pretty much a miserable flop. The tech tree is stupid, with few exceptions a tech "breakthrough: does exactly... NOTHING... the big ones let you mine natural resources and build better roads, and a smattering of military advances that sort of work. Their tech tree (circular) is a great concept, the individual techs are a fail mostly.

And while we're on the subject...why does there have to be an epic crisis on earth that drives us to another planet? Could not humanity be driven by curiousity, the natural human drive to explore to see what is over the other hill (so to speak)?

Probably because we live in times were an epic crisis looms on the horizon.

[pfcole]

Originally posted by Chameleon_Silk:

Originally posted by pfcole:

Beyond Earth was a flop... it even failed to properly fail and not go to publication. NIce graphics (sort of) but everything else is pretty much a miserable flop. The tech tree is stupid, with few exceptions a tech "breakthrough: does exactly... NOTHING... the big ones let you mine natural resources and build better roads, and a smattering of military advances that sort of work. Their tech tree (circular) is a great concept, the individual techs are a fail mostly.

And while we're on the subject...why does there have to be an epic crisis on earth that drives us to another planet? Could not humanity be driven by curiousity, the natural human drive to explore to see what is over the other hill (so to speak)?

Probably because we live in times were an epic crisis looms on the horizon.

Right... there is NO epic crisis looming?! Humanity is in a better place than they have even been in human history... but I digress!

[pfcole]

Originally posted by Heat Guard:

Still have the disc for ToT, and it was a great game, man imagining what a remake of that game could be like, specially if Sid himself got involved and allowed it to be a combo-pseudo remake of SMAC for after the launch (or straigh off if you don't want to wait obviously) has me drooling over here

Alias... I don't think the developers actually listen to us... I'd pay $60 for a download of such a game. I am with you... if only!

[pfcole]

Originally posted by Mikessnow:

I never saw anything saying it was supposed to be, many videos were released of what it was about and none of it came close to being related to Alpha Centauri.

The mechanics NO, the general concept YES... Oh well.