sid meiers civilization beyond earth demo

#Sid meiers civilization beyond earth demo upgrade

There are no Great People in Civilization: Beyond Earth, so you won’t be seeing some futuristic version of Elvis Presley culture-bombing your borders. Technological and Affinity progression will lead to visual and strategic differences between armies over the course of a game of Beyond Earth. At that point it can become advantageous to research the “Restore Miasma” ability for your Workers, which will allow you to begin flooding every spare hex of your territory with the green clouds - toxic to other players, but life-giving to your new human-alien hybrid soldiers. You can work on adapting your people to the new planetary environment to such an extent that the miasma clouds actually provide healing, rather than damage. For players who follow the Harmony Affinity, however, there’s a dramatically different option.

#Sid meiers civilization beyond earth demo upgrade

As you advance through the tech web and upgrade your Workers you’ll have the option to remove the miasma, making your territory a bit more hospitable and Earth-like. The most dramatic of these new terrain features is the glowing green mist known as the “miasma.” In the early game, you’ll mainly be concerned with keeping your forces out of the alien gas, since the miasma will inflict damage to units that end their turn in it. The Beyond Earth world map, rich in green and purple hues, contains some features and resources that players will already know well, such as mountains, deserts, and oil, combined with brand new elements that introduce unexpected ripples into the familiar Civ formula.

With no coastal borders to limit early expansion and exploration, a game on a Vulcan map could offer a very different kind of gameplay experience. One map type, called “Vulcan,” was described as “the opposite of an archipelago,” which means there are no oceans, just lakes and small seas. Though inaccessible polar regions will remain a standard map feature, the designers pushed the boundaries in other ways.

Pete explained that, while some of the map types in Beyond Earth will be familiar to experienced Civ players, leaving Earth behind inspired the designers to introduce some dramatically new options as well. The hex-based map of Beyond Earth combines familiar and brand-new elements. Players can build futuristic wonders with evocative names like “The Gene Vault” and “The Panopticon,” the latter of which is a sort of super-spy system that provides a variety of bonuses. Resource pods sent from Earth serve the function of ruins or “goodie huts” in past Civ titles, and grabbing them can provide an early boost for your civilization. Many features of classic Civ games show up in Beyond Earth in new forms. He was eager to provide all the details he could and to help me navigate through the demo, though he was also careful to stress that what I was playing was a “pre-alpha” build and everything was subject to change.Ĭivilization: Beyond Earth will be immediately accessible to anyone who has played Civ V. The basics of cities, tiles, and units are similar enough to feel familiar while still containing tantalizing glimpses into the changes brought in Beyond Earth. The man guiding me through my first hands-on experience with Civilization: Beyond Earth was Pete Murray of Firaxis, Marketing Manager and a writer for the game. After that announcement I interviewed the game’s developers and squeezed every bit of information out of them that I could, and I couldn’t wait to learn more.Īnd then recently I actually got to go hands-on with the game while I peppered a Firaxis team member with question after question…and I had every one of my questions answered.īuckle up for over 3,000 words of brand new Beyond Earth information (if you’re busy or scared of reading, we’ve put together a quick list of some of the most exciting new Beyond Earth bits, but this article goes into MUCH more detail). I’ve been playing the Civilization series since number two, I played Alpha Centauri when it was new, and I was at the PAX East Beyond Earth announcement cheering along with the crowd. Civilization: Beyond Earth is the game I’m looking forward to more than any other this year.