Hey guys!

I'm trying to decide on my next strategy game and I'm a bit torn between the three listed in the thread title.

First off I LOVED Civ 5, it was addictive and fun and had a lot of variety and cool technologies to research and a lot of variety as you progressed through each of the time periods. Looking at Beyond Earth I cant help but feel like its just a re-skin of Civ 5 with a sci-fi theme; I dont think this would be a bad thing, quite the opposite really, but is there enough there to set it a part from Civ 5 or am I better off taking a gamble on something new and fresh like Endless Legend and Age of Wonders III? - both of which were just released and seem to be very good if completely different.

Have any of your played Endless Legend or Age of Wonders III and are willing to offer some selling points for me?

I do love empire management games such as the Civ series, but I also like the tactical combat and adventuring that AoWIII seems to be catering too, so I am quite torn!

Thanks for your time!

Junk

I love Age of Wonders III, but I wouldn't really put it in the same category as Endless Legend or Beyond Earth. It has some of the trappings of a 4X game, but it's much more of a war game in the vein of a Heroes of Might and Magic or Advance Wars. It has some really good tactical combat, a lot of opportunities for player customization and still has an active community if you want to get into multiplayer. Just don't come in expecting a lot of management or diplomacy.

Haven't played Endless Legend but I've heard it is a more interesting, less dry game than Endless Space and has some crazy faction variety.

Yeah, Beyond Earth does seem like a reskin of Civ 5 where Barbarians play a bigger part, and they reworked the tech tree and social policy tree in some ways. I'm kind of OK with that! It seems cool.

I don't know enough about the others.

@arbitrarywater: I want to like Endless Space so bad, but yeah, it gets kinda dry. Also managing ship upgrades is kind of a chore. I guess I kinda prefer 4X games with more fixed units, instead of just a basic chassis and then "hey man, fill this shit with weapons and countermeasures and whatever, that you have to recheck every 10-40 turns when you get new ship tech".

I'm actually really keen on Beyond Earth, precisely because it does seem to be a reskinned Civ V. After all the expansions it finally became a fairly engaging, mostly competent game, but only because of all the extra scaffolding that had to be put up to support the original game structure. If Firaxis has integrated all of the things they learned throughout the entire Civ V game cycle and built something that's balanced from top to bottom with those features in mind from the beginning, then I know I'll get hella playing time out of it.

Haven't played the others, so I can't help you there.

I really enjoyed Endless Legend. I bought Civ: BE a long time ago and I'm looking forward to playing it next week. Endless Legend is a lot of fun. It combines Endless Space with Civ 5 and slams that concept into a hard fantasy setting. I've really enjoyed it as a change of pace from Civ. I did a sort of "Quick Look" for Endless Space over on my Twitch channel (MMegashark). Check it out if you want to see some more of the game before you think about buying.

I think Beyond Earth has enough gameplay mechanic changes to really differentiate it from vanilla Civ. The way the units evolve depending on the affinity you've researched. The non-linear tech tree. How the espionage system can completely switch your tech over to the other side of the web. How you adapt to miasma and the aliens. I think these things will make the experience unique enough to set it apart.

fuck beyond earth is almost out. what the hell happened to this year??

Endless Legend is really, really good, and the ways it operates differently than Civ make it rewarding and you make your own discoveries and realizations constantly. I'll also back up the guy who said the faction diversity is impressive; I played my first game as the Cultists, who can only build a single city (which I named NACHRAM) but you gain bonuses for subjugating creeps and it drastically changes how you play.

I hope Beyond Earth plays a little less like Civ5 than it looks. I felt a little let down by the visuals; instead of green forests and blue rivers you get purple forests and green rivers..! Oooooh...!

I loooovd AOW2 and Shadow Magic back in the day, and was super bummed that AOW3 didnt scratch that itch for whatever reason. I mean its ok, and not needing a hero to form a group takes a lot of tedium out of similar games to AOW. I still think its leagues better than HOMM but AOW2 is better. Endless Legend I haven't dived into too much yet but I think it looks really cool with the depth of field thing, and its made by the people who did Endless Space, and truthfully the way they progressed in that game didnt feel super balanced. Maybe EL doesnt have that problem but I think Beyond Earth is the safer bet. But you should eventually support them all cus they're not big studios.