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Civilization: Beyond Earth-Robots versus Kaiju versus Battleships

Robots versus Kaiju versus Battleships: WHO WINS?

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As I said over at Spacebattles, I'm convinced that Supremacy is the evil affinity. I just can't walk away from the Supremacy ending without viewing Supremacists as villains.

I also think that the Purists are the good affinity, and will tentatively describe the Harmonists as the neutral affinity.
 
ForeverShogo said:
As I said over at Spacebattles, I'm convinced that Supremacy is the evil affinity. I just can't walk away from the Supremacy ending without viewing Supremacists as villains.

I also think that the Purists are the good affinity, and will tentatively describe the Harmonists as the neutral affinity.
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It's alright to have an opinion. Even if it's a wrong one.
 
ForeverShogo said:
As I said over at Spacebattles, I'm convinced that Supremacy is the evil affinity. I just can't walk away from the Supremacy ending without viewing Supremacists as villains.

I also think that the Purists are the good affinity, and will tentatively describe the Harmonists as the neutral affinity.
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Ecocide is sooo heroic right man?
 
I'm still inclined to Harmony. But only because of the aesthetics. I've always loved Biopunk.
 
It is the most heroic. Why, I would even describe it as super-heroic.

If Purity involved making the planet into a lifeless husk for the lulz, rather than moving to terraform it, I could almost see your point. Doesn't change the fact that Purity opens the way forward for a significantly easier colonization of the new world by those still living on Earth. (And they do it without killing or forcibly converting the Earth's population.)

Because that's the metric by which I'm judging the affinities. (I have Harmony as neutral simply because they're neither helping or harming the people still on Earth.)
 
ForeverShogo said:
It is the most heroic. Why, I would even describe it as super-heroic.

If Purity involved making the planet into a lifeless husk for the lulz, rather than moving to terraform it, I could almost see your point. Doesn't change the fact that Purity opens the way forward for a significantly easier colonization of the new world by those still living on Earth. (And they do it without killing or forcibly converting the Earth's population.)

Because that's the metric by which I'm judging the affinities. (I have Harmony as neutral simply because they're neither helping or harming the people still on Earth.)
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If they even need help. >.>
Earth was in a bad way when the Seeding missions left but there was still an aura of hopefulness and the nations of the world seem dedicated to trying to fix their shit.
The lore reveals that Earth and it's nations have been colonizing and trying to terraform the rest of the Solar System from everywhere from Venus to Jupiter BEFORE the Seeding missions started.

This isn't to say that by the time of BE's endgame that Earths been fixed and Terrans had tech and a standard of living like those of the colonies.
But I doubt it's dystopian.
 
Currently I'm playing Harmony Slavic Federation, so that I might one day construct glorious orbital octopus. Trying for a Contact victory this time, because Transcendence victory can go die in a fire for all I care. Manage to avoid war so far but Kavitha Thakur is getting close to my borders and she keeps mocking me for not being Supremacy. Of course little does she know that I have enough points in Supremacy to construct Cyborg Alien Swarms.

Harmony units are pretty awesome is what I'm trying to say.
 
ForeverShogo said:
It is the most heroic. Why, I would even describe it as super-heroic.

If Purity involved making the planet into a lifeless husk for the lulz, rather than moving to terraform it, I could almost see your point. Doesn't change the fact that Purity opens the way forward for a significantly easier colonization of the new world by those still living on Earth. (And they do it without killing or forcibly converting the Earth's population.)

Because that's the metric by which I'm judging the affinities. (I have Harmony as neutral simply because they're neither helping or harming the people still on Earth.)
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You do realize that Supremacy is about helping the people still on Earth, right? They explicitly say that many people (presumably a significant chunk of your founding nation) accept the ideals of moving beyond flesh, yet some don't, which is why you're sending the military force, to guarantee your faction's dominance.

Fundamentally, the Civilopedia doesn't imply the Supremacy victory is anything more than R2P writ large ("it's our responsibility to help the people of Earth")-and this is written from a historical perspective.

WireWolf said:
If they even need help. >.>
Earth was in a bad way when the Seeding missions left but there was still an aura of hopefulness and the nations of the world seem dedicated to trying to fix their shit.
The lore reveals that Earth and it's nations have been colonizing and trying to terraform the rest of the Solar System from everywhere from Venus to Jupiter BEFORE the Seeding missions started.

This isn't to say that by the time of BE's endgame that Earths been fixed and Terrans had tech and a standard of living like those of the colonies.
But I doubt it's dystopian.
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You have this bad habit of being completely incapable of reading between the lines. Beyond Earth is hopeful not because everything is shiny and happy but because you can fix things and grow beyond your mistakes. For example, when you recontact Earth it talks about the millions of people still living there, and it mentions how the Seeding missions basically made everything worse by impoverishing every nation.

Furthermore, the Emancipation and Promised Land victories do not work without Earth being basically totally doomed.
 
Point to me where any of that is explicitly stated MJ. -_-
Much of the lore was left incredibly vague and open ended for a reason. Though admittedly the status of earth is much more vague then even the great mistake.

And you completely fucking misunderstand why I think the fate of earth after the seeding is optimistic you pompous dick.
its not because everything's 'bright and shiny' its because humanity seems determined to fix their mistakes and has been colonizing and terraforming the solar system BEFORE the seeding missions.
The setting was written intentionally to where it could be as optimistic and hopeful or as grim and pessimistic as anyone wants.

So if I want to read the setting as being hopeful and where humans get their shit in line for once and fix their mistakes then thats my prerogative. None of the endings invalidate it.
 
Anyone want to get a game toghther later today? Hoping to get five people or so.
 
I do want to say this much . . . My Ideal Affinity would be a mix of Purity and Supremacy.

Just toss them into a good, solid blender and enjoy the results.

My talk of "good" or "evil" or "neutral" is, as stated, primarily how I view them in the context of their unique victory conditions.
 
WireWolf said:
Point to me where any of that is explicitly stated MJ. -_-
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The inflection points thing was explicitly stated-the 2200 era society was at its peak and there was nowhere to go but down.

Much of the lore was left incredibly vague and open ended for a reason. Though admittedly the status of earth is much more vague then even the great mistake.
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The lore is incredibly vague and open ended, but it is undeniable that Earth was basically fucked and not going to get any better than it was in 2200. It's why you can choose Refugees as a possible colonist choice, and why the Seeding occurred-the Inflection Point was approaching and the choice was either send guys out now or never send guys out ever. It's why civilizations were willing to bankrupt themselves to do this shit, up to and including profit-focused corporations. The Seeding is the last gasp of human society to become starfaring. The idea that Earth fixed itself and has tons of extrasolar companies flies in the face of what we already know, and is confirmed canon, from the Great Mistake.

And you completely fucking misunderstand why I think the fate of earth after the seeding is optimistic you pompous dick.
its not because everything's 'bright and shiny' its because humanity seems determined to fix their mistakes and has been colonizing and terraforming the solar system BEFORE the seeding missions.
The setting was written intentionally to where it could be as optimistic and hopeful or as grim and pessimistic as anyone wants.

So if I want to read the setting as being hopeful and where humans get their shit in line for once and fix their mistakes then thats my prerogative. None of the endings invalidate it.
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Yes, humanity has been doing things to prepare for the Seeding, because they know they have one shot at it. Read between the lines, Wirewolf. It is possible for a bunch of raggedy refugees who spent 400+ years doing absolutely nothing to suddenly massively outtech and outcompete Earth-based society with hundreds of times the starting population and, according to you, "fixing their mistakes." If your theory was even remotely possible, the Supremacy victory would make no sense, and neither would the Purity victory because Earth would have the military force to trivially counter a Supremacist military detachment, and nobody would want to leave the solar system they've terraformed into habitability.

This is especially because at least several of the early Wonders mention that they're just retreading things that were done on Old Earth because they finally have the infrastructure to support them.

The setting is hopeful because of the Seeding. Earth is doomed as a habitat for humanity, which is why your choices are either to save it via becoming posthuman (Emancipation) or to abandon it (Promised Land).
 
Yeah that's the thing, for however much Purity loves to glorify "Old Earth", it's ending is an evacuation, implying pretty heavily that the Earth is so far gone that the only way people can keep living on it is through massive cybernatization.
 
Teen Spirit said:
Currently I'm playing Harmony Slavic Federation, so that I might one day construct glorious orbital octopus. Trying for a Contact victory this time, because Transcendence victory can go die in a fire for all I care. Manage to avoid war so far but Kavitha Thakur is getting close to my borders and she keeps mocking me for not being Supremacy. Of course little does she know that I have enough points in Supremacy to construct Cyborg Alien Swarms.

Harmony units are pretty awesome is what I'm trying to say.
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What's so bad? I think it is not in the Alpha Centauri huh? I'm not afraid of spoilers if that.
 
I have problems stomaching all three Affinities honestly. Especially the closer you get to maxing them out. They start off reasonable - Supremacy wants to transcend organic limitations, Harmony wants to adapt to suit their environment, Purity wants to keep Earth alive - but then they just take hard right turns into extremist-land.

Suddenly Purity is based around eradicating Planet's biosphere and slaughtering its wildlife because they want Earth 2.0 and want it now so let's all just move to Earth 2.0 and get right back to doing what we were doing and we see absolutely no problems with that plan nope history has never repeated itself. Because hyoomans are top-tier and have indomitable wills and shit and oh those silly people who give up their blessed 'humanity' for gains if only they would let us shoulder the burden of our grand purpose for them.

Suddenly Supremacy turns into the Borg in the space of a single fucking Affinity level up. Suddenly they're worshipping robots and binary of all things, saying that if your first reaction to biological processes like aging and death aren't revulsion there's something wrong with you, saying that binary is the source code of the universe because 'there is only life, death, sickness, senescence, or not' like get your fucking hand off it Geth Platform 5927 you're not as deep as you think you are. And then they go back to Earth to 'emancipate' it because oh these poor weak fleshlings who know not the gifts we could give them we will take their simple-minded burden upon ourselves for their own good.

Suddenly Harmony turns into all the things I fucking despised about the Na'vi. Suddenly they're downright psychotically obsessed with Planet and their place in it. Rambling on and on about how they're the foreign invaders with their own agenda so of course the planet doesn't take kindly to them at first but if they can only look out the window and see nature and appreciate its beauty and perfection and majesty they can finally understand that the planet is simply a great mother wanting to take them into its arms and make them a part of its grand design so hey let's build a giant fucking flower and stick its tendrils in our brain stems and become one identity-less mass of brain because trees are just so fucking fantastic I want to stick my dick in one.

At this rate the Contact ending is going to be Firaxis coming down from on high to goatse at me.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
The inflection points thing was explicitly stated-the 2200 era society was at its peak and there was nowhere to go but down.



The lore is incredibly vague and open ended, but it is undeniable that Earth was basically fucked and not going to get any better than it was in 2200. It's why you can choose Refugees as a possible colonist choice, and why the Seeding occurred-the Inflection Point was approaching and the choice was either send guys out now or never send guys out ever. It's why civilizations were willing to bankrupt themselves to do this shit, up to and including profit-focused corporations. The Seeding is the last gasp of human society to become starfaring. The idea that Earth fixed itself and has tons of extrasolar companies flies in the face of what we already know, and is confirmed canon, from the Great Mistake.



Yes, humanity has been doing things to prepare for the Seeding, because they know they have one shot at it. Read between the lines, Wirewolf. It is possible for a bunch of raggedy refugees who spent 400+ years doing absolutely nothing to suddenly massively outtech and outcompete Earth-based society with hundreds of times the starting population and, according to you, "fixing their mistakes." If your theory was even remotely possible, the Supremacy victory would make no sense, and neither would the Purity victory because Earth would have the military force to trivially counter a Supremacist military detachment, and nobody would want to leave the solar system they've terraformed into habitability.

This is especially because at least several of the early Wonders mention that they're just retreading things that were done on Old Earth because they finally have the infrastructure to support them.

The setting is hopeful because of the Seeding. Earth is doomed as a habitat for humanity, which is why your choices are either to save it via becoming posthuman (Emancipation) or to abandon it (Promised Land).
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1. The inflection point was the point that EARTH would be unable to support the seeding efforts. Thing is humans had reached beyond earth by this point and was settling the rest of the solar system.
Which means that earth can begin pulling supplies in from the rest of the solar system.
I took the inflection point as a sort of safety line where the seeding was going to work and after that point things would be up in the air.

2.You misunderstand me. I don't think that by the time the colonies try and make their return to earth everythings fine. I do however think that humanity is on the right track. Slowly repairing the biosphere and ecosystem while using off-earth resources and settlements to take the pressure off of earth. Life is probably hard and harsh but its not terrible and humans are slowly making inroads to fixing everything.
The emancipation and promised land victories just accelerating the situation and providing the resources, land and tools to to do it even faster.
That's what I think. Your free to think otherwise, but I don't appreciate your snotty attitude in telling me I'm wrong for my interpretation of the fluff.

3. They also have resources that massivily aid in this. I mean hell did you read the fluff on floatstone, firaxite and xenomass? No wonder they could steam ahead like they did. They also had some of humanities best and brightest tagging along and some of the technology they developed (quantum computers being one example.) Coming from plans and prototypes they lugged with them on the trip.
The planet is also stated as being younger and more geologically active. So resource collection is easier.
 
ZerbanDaGreat said:
I have problems stomaching all three Affinities honestly. Especially the closer you get to maxing them out. They start off reasonable - Supremacy wants to transcend organic limitations, Harmony wants to adapt to suit their environment, Purity wants to keep Earth alive - but then they just take hard right turns into extremist-land.
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Hah! I mentioned this possibility and interpretation in the other thread about the game before it was released and people just said that 'I was being too negative, surely the affinities can be identified in many ways'. :D

Oh well. Taking several ranks in some other affinity besides your main one to diversify allowed me to imagine myself as a news anchor, talking about how "those crazy fundamentalists keeping it on fundamentaling, news at eleven."
 
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So I played through the demo and have to say it is very enjoyable. Though I was at first confused by the new mechanics I quickly adapted.
The aliens were a bitch to go against as I had lost my first soldier to three roaming aliens in three turns and my city had to pick up the slack.

The science was touch and go for me, but I prefer Purist or Supremacy as I like the aesthetics and the upgrades. And the upgrade to add 50 HP to a unit was a godsend when I was about to lose my Marines.

I like this game and will plan to but it soon. Maybe will get lucky and it will go on sale during Black Friday or Cyber Monday next month.

My rating: 8.7/10 Would buy and recommend.
 
So, that was an odd game...
Played as the African Union, on a massive map. Mercury-level, admittedly.
I initially intended to go Harmony, and got up to harmony-4 before I realized that I had, like, over 15 firaxite in and near my borders. So, fuck harmony, supremacy is the way to go! Although, to be fair, I wound up at 9/7/15 (though before the last few turns, it was more like 7/3/14 - high research output and having a good deal of low-hanging fruit left made it pretty easy to get up there at the end)... and with, like, almost all the resources. Only relative gaps were geothermal and floatstone, neither of which were necessary.
Being as I'm playing on a massive map, there's enough room for me to expand without stepping on people's toes... so this was another game that I won without fighting a single war. Hell, I never even managed to kill any siege worms! I maintained relatively decent relations with the neighboring Pan-Asians and Protectorate ... up until they both went strongly for Harmony. And even then, I kept up rather lucrative trade with them... and with the Franco-Iberians, my fellow cyborg friends. My fellow cyborg friends ... who actually beat me to completing the 'emancipation' gate by five turns. I'm not sure how I managed it ... but I wound up beating her anyways, though. Probably helped that I could build Xeno Swarms and Xeno Cavalry, both of which are far cheaper than the fully-upgraded contemporary units; almost half the 'peacekeeping forces' that got sent off to Earth were Xeno Swarms and Xeno Cav. I'd've started to shift to sending off Battlesuits, too, if I'd planned out a bit better and picked up the relevant tech soon enough.

Actually, wait, I think I can sorta reconstruct what I sent: 3 ANGELs (unique robot mecha), one Evolved SABR (unique robot artillery), 2 True CNDR (unique robot infantry), an Ambassador (artillery), 2 Apostles (infantry) ... and the balance would've been Xeno units - at least two Xeno Cav and at least two Xeno Swarms.
 
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hmm the article on Xenomalleum adds another cause for the Great Mistake, an Oil eating bacterium.
 
You know some of the Affinities go rather strange with a few civilizations. I mean most of them do seem to be set up to handle all three pretty well but could you imagine what a Harmony ARC would be like, from an in-universe cultural view, not gameplay.
 
"The end goal of the ARC has always been to reclaim a liveable world. A world without sea level rise, a world where the land is rich and provides to all of the people a high standard of living.

This world is now within our grasp. We find ourselves on a world of incalculable natural bounty. We simply have to alter ourselves to make this bounty suitable for us and it will all be ours for the taking."

I'll admit it's a stretch.
 
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