@monkeyking1969: it's not that complicated man. Ubisoft are worried that if they make a game like this where you can't just mow everyone down all the time then they won't sell as many copies. And they're probably right. Although I think this sold terribly anyway because they shat the bed with the first one.
I'm really gonna miss Warhammer Fantasy. I have loved that setting for 20 years or more. Never got into the wargaming but I played a lot of the RPG and bought a fair few models. I recently started painting them again. Now that I have more patience they won't look quite so shit :) Also, Shadow the Horned Rat was fucking great strategy game on the Playstation. I always wanted Total War to do something similar and they did!
I'll never forgive FW for squatting the setting. The sales were bad so I complete understand the shit to a simplified skirmish game but the only reason to destroy the setting was to be enable them to license the race names. And that is not cool.
Edit: And that was a really good article :) I got so carried away with irrational geeky anger that I forgot to say.
@mechanized: I just did the same thing :D It's fucking hilarious! We were thinking of doing something new but instead decided to give you something so similar that the main protagonist is the son of the previous protagonist! Genius!!
Round dice have been a thing for about 25 or 30 years. They're just weighted so that they stop on one of the six 'sides'. And domestic pigs do grow more hair and become much more dangerous when they go feral. Epigenetics and increased testosterone production when released into the wild.
@clush: There is an unequip all trinkets button. it's been in for a good while. On the trinkets menu it's beside the sort options I think. The buttons are small so it's pretty easy to miss.
@dasakamov: Well I paid 60 Euros for the game when it was released and this expansion is listed as another 40 so that's 100 Euros for me. And having played both Alpha Centauri and Beyond Earth I would say that in addition to SMAC having personality it is also a more challenging game. Beyond Earth falls into the same problem that Civ V did, the AI is really passive. When you combine this with the fact that it doesn't understand how to fight (sending lone ranged units against you etc) any attacks the AI makes fail within a few turns. Stacking units was cheap but at least it worked sometimes.
Don't get me wrong man, I really wanted this game to be good. I've been a huge Civ fan since 92 or 93 and maybe that style of game is just not doing it for me. But it feels like they made Beyond Earth in a bubble without looking at what other 4X games have done in the past.
But you know what, if you love it, good for you man. Have a blast :) It's just not for me and I think this style has been done better in the past.
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