14 DAY TRIAL // Civilization: Beyond Earth is part of the classic turn-based strategy series, but the developers working on it at Firaxis are saying that they will take some of the more classic elements of the gameplay and introduce some interesting twists, with diplomacy one of the targeted areas.
Speaking to GamePlanet, the two leading co-developers, Will Miller and David McDonough, are saying that the title will be familiar to those who have played Civilization V and that they will be surprised by some elements.
They state, “the covert ops system has been expanded beyond any preceding idea. There’s a lot more ‘under the table’ interaction you can have between civilisations. We have technology you can use to spy on other factions, you can smuggle wealth and goods from their lands, you can sabotage and even plan coup attempts in their cities to take control of them.”
Civilization: Beyond Earth will also make it easier to conduct covert operations without basically inviting the other factions to quickly start a war because of it.
The turn-based strategy title also introduces an entire new mechanic called Favors, which are designed to make it easy to quantify how much influence the player has over Artificial Intelligence-controlled civilizations.
When the gamer does something for another faction, he gets a Favor, which he can store in order to basically compel the rival to do something at a later date, even if that action might go against his core interest.
Firaxis adds, “You can set up factions to be your allies in a predictable way, you can also set them up to fight each other. You can use it to distract by getting AI leaders to squabble with each other when you need them to be looking the other way as you make a victory attempt, or you can get them to pay you back important resources at a very critical moment when you’re about to make war with somebody else.”
Civilization: Beyond Earth will also feature an entirely new take on the technology progression system, based on a web rather than on the classic tree that the series has used until now.
Players will also need to decide which Affinity they want to focus on, which in turn influences the capabilities of their faction and the victory condition that they will try and achieve in order to dominate their rivals.
Civilization: Beyond Earth will be launched on the PC on October 24.