Sid Meyer's Beyond Earth...is no-one playing?

[jomni]

My game so far as the Slavic...

Cornered the PAC from the start so they can't develop.
Friends with Africans, Brazilians, Indians, Polystralia constantly maintain alliance.
Friends go to war against Europeans and I help wipe them out.
I also wipe out the Asians.
Africa and India became guarded after my conquest of last European city.
Africa is one objective away from victory so I eliminate them. That's nasty but it has to be done. 
I am one objective away from victory but find out I have the wrong affinity. So have to do the others from scratch.
ARC, never been friends and they are huge. They are also working towards victory so I need to slow them down. They have better combat units in some aspects so it will be tough. Planning to attack their capital head-on and burn it to the ground since they have the capability to recapture it.

My health is -80! I have a lot of client cities. Don't think I can effectively bring that down with my expansionist policy.  Maybe it's a balancing factor to prevent large empires developing too fast.  That means smaller factions can still win if they are in good health with efficient research an production of wonders.

[Gusington]

I didn't like Civ III or IV much, but I really liked Civ II and Civ V. Diff'rent strokes.

[Bison]

I think I've got a plan to handle health issues, so I've started a new game to test out my theory.  Right now I'm 109 turns into the game and I've got my health at +12.  I am 3 turns out from producing my 1st settler, which I'm looking to plant right in the middle of several late game required resources.  This game punishes rapid expansion due to the increasing penalties for your civ's out of control health penalties.  I think the factors that cause health penalties might need to be looked at to be toned down a hair or two.

[jomni]

It's hard to control. The growth of population outpaces the health giving buildings and tech. You need to expand to be able to build more health buildings because a city can have just a few. But I have learned to face it and my -80 health is not really doing much to stop me from dominating the world. It's just slowing me down.

[jomni]

So something fell out of the sky and destroyed several hexes in my territory. Doesn't seem to be a weapon. Is this a meteor? Fallen satellite?

[Bison]

Well the prosperity cultural line gives some good health bonuses to the point that it's almost a necessary line of development.  I've also found that the harmony line also has health benefits. 

I have not seen anything like that yet.  I have had the artifact sites turn into resources, which in my game is going to lead to the first war.  The Corporation and I started out right on top of each other so I can see a border dispute ramping up in the near future.  Also the French-Spain culture is spamming a bunch of little city around my mega city eating up a bunch of nearby resources.  I'll be going to war with them too! 

[jomni]

Annexing and creating puppets give big health penalties.
In first run through I was able to keep them green and it was a lot of research without focus and I lost. Now I am more goal driven with focused research, I have forgone health research especially in the beginning. I am now capturing my way to victory but that no good for health. What I like is that you can't have it all in this game. Need to think things through.

[Bison]

I've cannot remember playing a game of CIV where I wasn't hell bent on spamming settlers to claim resources in the early game.  That is not the case here.  Mostly because I'm trying to keep my health positive.  I know that the last game I was getting iirc 10% negative bonuses to everything science, production, food, etc...at the -20 health marker.  Maybe that just isn't as big of an issue it you have many cities producing for your civ.  That'll be the experiment in the next game.  This one I'm fight off a freaking alien horde surrounding the hex I want to settle.  I'm HARMONY you little bug bastards!

[tgb]

100 turns into my first 'real" game and I'm digging it a lot.

I think where the game really shines is in the "interesting decisions", whether is practicality vs. Affinity progress in the research bush and quest decisions, or whether to go wide vs. deep in the Virtue tree.  It seems as though I have to agonize over them more than in any 4X game I can recall.  I don't have the issue some do with having to reset trade routes, since needs change and the number of routes per city is pretty limited.

Oh, and I found that turning off AA fixed the black screen/crashing issue I was having.

[Bison]

People are having an issue with resetting trade routes?  I actually like that I have the opportunity to reconsider every 20 turns or so.

I do feel that the UI is one of the least intuitive of all of the CIV series of games.  I know that the information screens aren't hidden, but it did take me awhile to find some of the information I wanted too.  Perhaps I could have read the manual, but who the hell reads a CIV manual?  The one traditional CIV screen that I cannot find is the Advisor screen.  Is it gone?

[BanzaiCat]

I really enjoy that there are quest lines and that they have far-reaching consequences.

I was told in my last game that a group of slaves escaped from an outpost (one of those one-hex indy cities) and begged me to free their brothers and sisters, so I attacked and destroyed the outpost. Later I got an update and another quest choice (can't recall what it was offhand).

Health was a big issue in my first game but I expanded to four cities and just balanced it by building health structures whenever possible. Also chose that option in game setup and whenever a benefit appears that gives you a choice between two options and one is health related, I grab it. So far I've managed to keep my health in the 9-12 range.

[Bison]

I've got my CIV's health under control and am getting ready to create another settler for my 3erd city.  I'm finding the exploration, expansion and exploitation of this game to be significantly slower, which I like.  I haven't even fought a battle against another civ yet.  Frankly I'm hesitant to initiate a war, because I feel so underpowered militarily.  Good stuffs.

[BanzaiCat]

The Africans declared war on me, which surprised the hell out of me. But I did get denounced by three powers just before that happened (including by them). They were pissed that I was killing aliens, but I didn't have a choice as their damn nest was right next to my territory and I wanted to drop a city in the area. Aliens might not attack your military or explorer units, but they DO attack Settler units if left undefended.

[Bison]

Those little alien bastards are always attacking my explorers.

[BanzaiCat]

I think there's an Affinity (Purity, I think) that, at Level 1, makes your Explorers immune to attacks.

Though honestly I haven't had an issue with them attacking. I had an Explorer next to three Aliens in this current game of mine and they ignored him.