Civilization isn't the first strategy series in video gaming, but it is probably the most enduring. Since the series' introduction in 1991, countless players have been stormed by barbarians, built the pyramids, and been nuked into oblivion (because of a coding bug) by the Indians. This year, the Firaxis-developed series launched a sequel to both
Civilization V and the well-regarded
Alpha Centauri in the form of
Civilization: Beyond Earth available on
OS X,
Windows, and Linux. How many hours of your life will this one take?
Civilization: Beyond Earth could take place after the end-game of a regular
Civilization game, where the nations of the world sent envoys to other planets. An world-ending disaster, the "Great Mistake," forced the exodus -- with the remaining civilizations landing on an alien planet and trying to carve out a future, both on the surface and on an orbital layer.
Like in its predecessor, the landscape is literally alien to the colonists. Native species are fatal, to a point, and the only way to survive is technological advancement. Advancing technologies not only makes the local flora and fauna less deadly, but can also be used to either defend against or launch assaults on neighboring human colonies. The environment itself is an issue, as a gaseous miasma blankets the planet and damages most units wading through it.
Previous
Civilization titles had a technology tree, which may as well have been a line. Depending on the generation, there was an ideal path through the tree to give maximum advantage to the society that gets there first.
Civilization: Beyond Earth spreads this out into a tech web. There is no constant upward motion in the new system -- instead, progress varies with multiple ways to get to a technology. Firaxis does an excellent job of balancing the pros and cons of each technological advantage, giving the game more varied gameplay.
Beyond the mass renovation of the technological advancement system, the next largest game change over from previous titles is the affinity and virtue system. Societies follow one of three affinities: Supremacy, Harmony, and Purity. The Supremacy path modifies humanity into more of a robotic than human society over time. Harmony adapts humanity to the alien world, making the miasma heal, rather than hurt, in addition to other bonuses with native life. Purity takes neither path, and attempts to keep humanity on the straight and level with overwhelming military force.
Four Virtue paths add additional focus, and benefits to societies. These are similar to social policy trees in
Civilization V, but offer a bit more flexibility to players. Often, it is advantageous to expand two Virtue trees simultaneously for synergistic bonuses. Rather than culture being an end in itself, the stat is used in conjunction with Virtue to enhance offerings. The modifications don't seem to be changes in themselves, or things being changed for the sake of it -- the alterations in game mechanics bring enjoyment to the title.
We said before that
Civilization itself is an aged franchise. Our reviewer is a veteran, dating all the way back to the two-floppy original
Civilization in black and white. Some games in the series have narratives, and some do not. Quizzically, at least how it stands now, the new game suffers from Bungie's
Destiny syndrome. It's clear that there's a rich backstory beyond that spelled out through multiple play-throughs with each affinity, but its not that apparent during gameplay. This is odd to us, as the entire panoply of
Alpha Centauri's story 15 years ago played out over the course of a few play-throughs.
There are some steps backward. The diplomacy system is either not complete, or unnecessarily simplified. The artificial intelligence of the game seems to struggle with it a bit as well, in one case, declaring war over eight turns consecutively, then attempting to march across a large expanse of miasma with a small handful of units only to meet death on the way to try and attack. Furthermore, there are ways to get cultures to do the player's bidding, but what is asked for the favor seems extortionate and not practical, effectively eliminating it as a valid tactic.
With the bare-bones diplomacy system comes a boost in military conquest. In previous titles, the end-game was often interconnected in agreements, peace treaties, and cease-fires, making the last two hours of a game a race for culture, or to reach space. Nearly every time, seeking the five victory conditions, the game ends in all-out war.
Speaking of victory conditions, one option for the Supremacy affinity is for humanity can build a warp gate similar to
Master of Orion II, but to annihilate all humanity left on Earth -- this is an Emancipation victory. A Contact victory is accomplished when a signal from alien life is decoded, which attracts the alien life to the planet. Transcendence is the victory condition for followers of Harmony -- the player unifies with the global hive mind of the planet.
Purity-driven players build a portal as well, but rather than exterminate the remainders, new colonists are imported to the player's planet -- the "Promised Land." Available to all is the Domination victory, where players have to conquer all capital cities. In the course of 15 games, most of our victories are affinity-driven, rather than Conquest or Contact.
Our test platform is a 2012 MacBook Pro Retina Display with 16GB of RAM and a 2.3GHz i7 processor. We had no issues or slowdowns beyond what you'd expect of a
Civilization game in the last phases. Generally speaking, if your hardware drove
Civilization V, then it can play
Civilization: Beyond Earth fairly well. More onerous is the OS requirement on the Mac. OS X 10.9.5 or later (including Yosemite) is mandatory. This is likely graphical core-related, as the development history has been rough on this title.
For as much love as there is for
Civilization: Beyond Earth, it isn't complete. While we have some minor issues with storytelling, we expect downloadable content to bring more factions, an expansion to diplomacy, and other enhancements, like
Civilization V had over two years to flesh out the game.
Civilization: Beyond Earth is not a mobile title. It is not a "20 minutes at a time" game. As with its predecessors, it is a
"one more turn" game that will drain time, sleep, and make players eat bad food as anything better will take too much time to make.
Who would like Civilization: Beyond Earth:
Turn-based strategy gamers with more time than tasks to complete in a day in real life.
Who would not like Civilization: Beyond Earth:
If you have less than four hours to play out a game or a short attention span, don't bother.
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