14 DAY TRIAL // When the first incarnation of Civilization V was launched, many fans of the turn-based strategy title appreciated the core mechanics changes, including the one military unit per hex rule, but they were unable to enjoy the experience because the Artificial Intelligence was actually unable to use them in any clever way, regardless of the pre-launch talk from Firaxis.
Now, as the new Beyond Earth is reaching its own launch day, the two leading developers working on the project are promising that the AI understands all the new elements of the game and can be a solid challenger for players.
David McDonough and Will Miller, co-lead designers of Civilization: Beyond Earth, state on Reddit that “The AI has to handle tech and military progression differently due to the tech web and Affinity system, so a lot went into overhauling and improving the AI's grand strategy and long-term planning. Two, the Aliens have a whole set of AI to themselves, and the human-civ AI was deepened to take a more nuanced approach to this third-party player.”
The Artificial Intelligence is also able to handle the new Favors system for diplomacy and tries to counter any direct manipulation that gamers are attempting to execute.
The two game makers are also saying that “The AI gets mechanical benefits similar to the higher levels in Civ 5, including accelerated resource gain.”
A lot of veterans of the franchise start playing on a harder difficulty in order to experience a tougher game, even if it feels a little unfair.
Civilization: Beyond Earth reaches for the stars
The new title from Firaxis is an ambitious attempt to keep many of the core ideas of Civilization while also innovating in interesting and surprising ways.
The technology choices are laid out in a web for the first time and there’s a clearer connection between them and the ideology that each faction adopts.
The game also has small quests for gamers to experience and there are layers which expand the military side of the turn-based world and allow gamers to execute unorthodox moves.
Firaxis has made it clear that it is not aiming to simply create a spiritual successor for Alpha Centauri, but the game has been used as inspiration, as have been a range of classic science fiction books and moves.
Beyond Earth will probably get at least one expansion to expand mechanics and add more factions at some point in 2015.