The fourth non-military, non-time victory is Affinity-ambiguous, if you just want to experiment. 2) You need to hit level 13 in one of these Affinities in order to unlock three of the win conditions. 1) The high-level units and unique units are incredibly powerful. You’re better off focusing on one Affinity from the start, however, for two reasons. You could pursue Harmony for half the game in order to get the alien mobs off your back, then switch to Purity because you want to destroy said aliens. Each Affinity is pursued through the tech web, and they’re not mutually exclusive. (See the screenshot below for basic descriptions of each.) Whichever you’re most adept in is reflected in the design of your units and city. You now follow one of three Affinities: Supremacy, Harmony, or Purity. Brave New World‘s Archaeologist is now an Explorer, with the same purpose-to dig up artifacts for your colony.īeyond Earth still lets you wipe your opponents out with a military victory or run the clock out, but the other win conditions change up Civilization completely. Trade is carried out by Convoys, not Caravans. Instead of the ancient world’s Warrior, now your initial melee unit is called a Soldier. You’re still hastening to construct a city or a range of cities faster than your opponents, in pursuit of ever-improving technologies and a host of stat-boosting, one-per-world Wonders.

Perhaps it speaks to the quality and the inventiveness of Civilization: Beyond Earth, then, that this is the first Civilization game I’ve been hooked on in years. We’ve now had more than two decades of Sid Meier-branded 4X games (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) and while the production value has inevitably gone up through the years, it’s fundamentally the same game every time. Whether you refer to Civilization: Beyond Earth as “ Civilization V in space” or “ The Sequel to Alpha Centauri We Never Got,” the fact remains that it feels very familiar. After all, any veteran Civilization player knows it’s right when things seem perfect that it’s all about to fall apart.

Everything is going exactly as planned, which is why I’m a nervous wreck.

Civilization beyond earth review