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[Majestic7]

Well, the game treats everything in it as just...not being a big deal at all. Like encountering alien ruins for the first time, finding the remains of a failed colony or humanity being at war again on a planet that was supposed to be a new start. Shouldn't things like that deserve a special event of its own or something? In AC there was a feeling of wonder regarding the alien world and its happenings, in this one it is just "meh, alien ruins, it happens." This kind of generic blandness is present everywhere in the game. It feels like laziness from the makers of the game, as making it otherwise hadn't been that hard.

[Shadowlord]

I think a problem with the whole "bland leaders and uninspired quotes" is that the game is trying really hard to capture the uniqueness of Alpha Centauri, but you can't just recreate inspiration on demand.

I keep seeing this notion brought up, and I keep having to wonder if that's actually what they were going for, or if people are just seeing enough similarity to hope followed by enough difference to despair. I mean, nobody calls out post-AC Civ games for "trying to differentiate factions AC-style and failing." Is that because they weren't but BE is, or because BE looks close enough to AC to disappoint people hoping for a direct sequel?

Firaxis put so much work into the quotes in SMAC's tech tree, having the quotes in it add to the character of the faction leaders, that for me at least, it did make the Civ games pale in comparison. I just didn't figure it was fair to expect them to do the same thing for historical leaders with historical technologies. It seems like it would require considerably more effort to do all that historical digging to find appropriate quotes for the technologies and so forth by the actual historical leaders, as opposed to just making stuff up. Civ BE, on the other hand, doesn't have historical leaders or historical technologies.

I'd also compare how there were a variety of different policy choices on which the factions could differ in SMAC, as well as motivations for the leaders. Not having played CivBE I don't know how this works out in it, but in Civ V with both expansions you no longer had policy choices which you could change, just perk trees, religion, and a simplified ideology choice (Freedom, order, or autocracy), which determined which ideology perk tree you used (and divided the world into nations which followed the same idology and liked you for it, and nations which didn't and disliked you for it).

If you look here, for instance: http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Gaia%E2%80%99s_Stepdaughters
You see that leaders have a personality / willingness to use force (Deidre is Pacifist), interests which determines what area of research they prefer to focus on (Explore), a particular social value that they try to maximize (Planet), an ideology / preferred social choice (Green), anti-ideology which they cannot take (and get upset if others take) (Free Market), which all combines to contribute to their personalities.

The leaders in SMAC all felt like they had their own personalities and I'd wager that this as well as the quotes from them both played large parts in it.

[Sharp]

I liked the diplomacy in SMAC

Deidre: "Give me 100 credits to help sustain life of Planet"
Reply 1: "Sure I love me some Planet"
Reply 2: "Fuck off you plant loving hippie"

And other stuff as well like plotting combined attacks on another faction (which almost never worked out)

Civ2/AC have more fluff then the rest of the Civ games, they don't change much for gameplay but they improve the quality greatly. I was sorely disappointed by the Civ4/5 Wonder "Videos" and Civilopedia

[Sartain]

I think a problem with the whole "bland leaders and uninspired quotes" is that the game is trying really hard to capture the uniqueness of Alpha Centauri, but you can't just recreate inspiration on demand.

I keep seeing this notion brought up, and I keep having to wonder if that's actually what they were going for, or if people are just seeing enough similarity to hope followed by enough difference to despair. I mean, nobody calls out post-AC Civ games for "trying to differentiate factions AC-style and failing." Is that because they weren't but BE is, or because BE looks close enough to AC to disappoint people hoping for a direct sequel?

I don't know, I was pretty stoked for Beyond Earth but also acutely aware that it wasn't going to be another Alpha Centauri (because you can't just recreate brilliance 100%) but the quotes were still sort of a letdown, mostly because a lot of it sounds a bit too obviously like technobabble and out-of-context meta-philosophical mumbo jumbo. In Alpha Centauri, I believed the quote, they seemed real, like stuff people like that would actually say and think. In Beyond Earth, it feels like a cheap imitation. Not necessarily a bad imitation, but still nowhere near the too-obvious source of inspiration.

I agree that it could be around, it just seemed a bit too much exactly like the issues we face today to be particularly science fiction.

I assume it's trying to be "looks like the future" rather than "completely different" science fiction. Similar to why not all combat is undertaken by killbots or in digital terms- it's just not as comparable to the current world, and potentially less interesting.

I suppose that's true. Still, it feels a bit cheap that cloning ethics and fossile fuels are still the hot potatoes of society 600-700 years from now, on an alien planet. Kinda sad, really.

[Jelle]

Is anyone else finding the floatstone resource lackluster compared to its firaxite and xenomass counterparts?
Its quarry improvement doesn't have maintenance so it has that going for it, although energy isn't an as valuable yield as science or food but fair enough it gives 3 energy whereas firaxite and xenomass give 3 science for 2 energy and 3 food for 2 energy respectively. But then there's no building to further upgrade floatstone quarries, while firaxite mines have 2 such buildings and xenomass 3. Also the floatstone consuming buildings are not as good as the other 2 resource options and are harder to reach in the tech tree.
I don't know, it doesn't have much going for it. Feels like it could use some improving?

And what about farms? To me it seems they're hugely powerful with the right techs, giving an impressive 2 food, 1 energy, 1 production, 1 science and another 1 food if you can manage to get ectogenesis pod. I don't know, vertical farming seems way strong a tech, especially when compared to the similar industrial ecology which only gives 1 production for almost three times  the tech cost of the former. Farm spam is just so strong if you're teching up for it, and very robust since you can basically plop down farms almost anywhere.

[Sartain]

Is anyone else finding the floatstone resource lackluster compared to its firaxite and xenomass counterparts?
Its quarry improvement doesn't have maintenance so it has that going for it, although energy isn't an as valuable yield as science or food but fair enough it gives 3 energy whereas firaxite and xenomass give 3 science for 2 energy and 3 food for 2 energy respectively. But then there's no building to further upgrade floatstone quarries, while firaxite mines have 2 such buildings and xenomass 3. Also the floatstone consuming buildings are not as good as the other 2 resource options and are harder to reach in the tech tree.
I don't know, it doesn't have much going for it. Feels like it could use some improving?

And what about farms? To me it seems they're hugely powerful with the right techs, giving an impressive 2 food, 1 energy, 1 production, 1 science and another 1 food if you can manage to get ectogenesis pod. I don't know, vertical farming seems way strong a tech, especially when compared to the similar industrial ecology which only gives 1 production for almost three times  the tech cost of the former. Farm spam is just so strong if you're teching up for it, and very robust since you can basically plop down farms almost anywhere.

I suppose the two things you bring up may be related. Floatstone, after all, is a Purity resource and Vertical Farming is a Purity Affinity tech. Maybe Vertical Farming is supposed to offset the less-stellar Floatstone?

[Jelle]

I suppose the two things you bring up may be related. Floatstone, after all, is a Purity resource and Vertical Farming is a Purity Affinity tech. Maybe Vertical Farming is supposed to offset the less-stellar Floatstone?

Problem is there's no affinity requirement on getting those incredibly powerful farms, so you could grab those techs anyway even if you're investing primarily in another affinity, nevermind that there's other benefits to grabbing some affinity beyond your specialization. That extra purity is nice for gene gardens, for example.

[Lucidvizion]

Is anyone else finding the floatstone resource lackluster compared to its firaxite and xenomass counterparts?
Its quarry improvement doesn't have maintenance so it has that going for it, although energy isn't an as valuable yield as science or food but fair enough it gives 3 energy whereas firaxite and xenomass give 3 science for 2 energy and 3 food for 2 energy respectively. But then there's no building to further upgrade floatstone quarries, while firaxite mines have 2 such buildings and xenomass 3. Also the floatstone consuming buildings are not as good as the other 2 resource options and are harder to reach in the tech tree.
I don't know, it doesn't have much going for it. Feels like it could use some improving?

Floatstone has the Lev Plant (+prod) building.  Edit: woops I misunderstood what you meant by no buildings.  I've only played through once as Purity, didn't see much use for firaxite or xenomass as of yet.

[Lucidvizion]

I'm really disappointed with the endgame. 

You're given pretty much no indication that another civ is working on a win condition project, and when one is completed you just a get a game over screen.  The first time it happened to me I thought the game was bugged... I reloaded an old autosave and the second time around I noticed you get a very brief message in the corner of the screen "So-and-so has won the game!".  Yeah... how???  Tell me or show me what they did!

[GiglameshDespair]

Really? It warned me when other civs researched end-game technologies.

[Puzzlemaker]

I had an interesting game when someone won through the flower, literally 7 turns before I would have won using the flower.  I save-scummed and declared war, managing to destroy his flower just in time.

I also had to fight off my neighbors declaring war and trying to destroy my flower as well.  Twas hectic and fun.

Also:  I love the african dude's voice actor.  He sounds so chill.  "No village was ever ruined by trade!"

[Sartain]

I'm encountering this "interesting" bug where if I try to build-queue my Emancipation Gate, the city-workforce just screws up and it doesn't actually queue... 

[Ultimuh]

Also:  I love the african dude's voice actor.  He sounds so chill.  "No village was ever ruined by trade!"

That guy is one of my favorite leaders to ally with.

[Rakonas]

Also:  I love the african dude's voice actor.  He sounds so chill.  "No village was ever ruined by trade!"

There shoulda been  a native american faction that hates him.

[umiman]

I like the Australian guy myself. The way he constantly rolls his eyes at me.